What a week! - snippets and gleanings

One big unholy mess
As the US Congress finally (and narrowly) passes Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill into law Archbishop Timothy P Broglio (no, really), president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, lamented "the great harm the bill will cause to many of the most vulnerable in society, making steeper cuts to Medicaid and clean energy tax credits, and adding more to the deficit". He might have gone on to quote Mark 10:25. You know, the one that goes "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle..." etc, etc.

Palestine Faction
If Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, gets her way, today might be the last chance you get to wear your Palestine Action t-shirt without being picked up by the fuzz - as it were. She wants to proscribe the movement as a terrorist organisation and, although the high court is hearing a case today brought by co-founder, Huda Ammori, seeking a temporary block on the order, she will probably get her way. Time to put on that Palsofmine Action tee I think - "it's a pensioners' hiking club, officer".

Happy birthday to who?
Let joy be unconfined! Today marks the first anniversary of the new Labour government 🥳🍾🎊🎈🎁🎂 (all right, calm down, it's not that big a deal). Choosing her moment at the end of a bruising week in parliament, suspended Labour MP, Zarah Sultana, has cancelled her party membership and announced she will be co-founding a new socialist party with Jeremy Corbyn. One is bound to ask what took them so long but I guess it's never too late to piss on Keir Starmer's chips.

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