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The big day is almost here! I’m so excited to see all of you. I know some of you have RSVP’d with a plus one, which is great. Can’t wait to meet them. But please, do me a favor and check to see that your guest is really who they claim to be and not a spy, saboteur, or rogue agent from a special mission force using an alias while attempting to clear their name.

To be specific: your spouse, your significant other, your college friend visiting from out of town who was kind of a mess back then, so you’re really hoping they’ve pulled it together—all okay. A freelance operative selling their services to the highest bidder who is the best there is at what they do? Not okay.

Parking is limited, so please carpool or use rideshare if you can. Yes, I do have a massive, multilevel garage bigger than most mansions, but it’s completely full of Bentleys, Bugattis, and Maseratis, and it’s strictly off-limits, but not for any secret reason or anything.

I can usually suss out what they’re talking about but in this case I just don’t get it. Why is this going to win him the election? E. Jean Carroll going shopping with the 83 million in damages she won from Trump defaming her? That she offered to take Rachel Maddow with her? So what? How is that the political death blow to Biden? Whatever. I guess I shouldn’t question the logic of people who think Taylor Swift is a Pentagon Psy-op to sabotage Trump’s election. There’s no point.

A party of frauds E. Jean Carroll’s attorney Shawn Crowley last week rebutted Donald Trump lawyers’ argument to the jury in his $83.3 million defamation case. She distilled Trump and Trumpism to his/its essence (CNN): Crowley concluded her rebuttal by saying essentially that Trump believes he is above the law. Trump believes that “He gets to lie. He gets to threaten. He gets to ignore a jury verdict. He gets to defy the law and the rules of this courtroom,” Crowley said. “You saw how he behaved through this trial. Rules don’t apply to Donald Trump.” “Ladies and gentleman, this isn’t a campaign rally. It’s not a press event. It’s a court of law and Miss Carroll’s life,” Crowley said. “Donald Trump sexually assaulted her. He defamed her. He is not the victim.” But MAGA Republicans are MAGA Republicans because they believe, as Trump believes of himself, that they are victims. Trump portrays himself as the patron saint of victims, and their avatar. Trump is special. Oh so special.

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On this week’s bonus episode of Lever Time, David Sirota explores how Meta is trying to protect the money it makes from harvesting children’s user data.

Several serving MPs work for oil and gas firms, while many more accept gifts or take jobs for big-polluting sectors after leaving Parliament

Sunlight to a vampire Formerly Twitter observed that there are more images and video of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce hugging and kissing after Sunday’s AFC Championship Game than of the JFK assassination. It’s been nagging at me in a good way. David Letterman called it “a lovely thing.” He calls Swift “a glowing, bright light of goodness in the world,” and sorely needed. Fans began calculating travel time, and whether Swift will be able to fly back from her Tokyo show in time to make the Super Bowl. Others noted that during the celebration on the field that Swift stepped aside so Travis Kelce could share a moment alone with his brother Jason. Swift shared warm hugs with Travis’ mother and father and sister. It’s an entire glowing, bright light of family values goodness. Naturally, the right web is seething and losing what’s left of its mind. The right’s lunatic fringe is floating insane consipracy theories about the left using Swift to rig the Super Bowl, and Swift planning to endorse Joe Biden at halftime, etc. The entire relationship is fabricated for ratings and political advantage, dontcha know?

Joining MintCast to discuss the blockade and Yemen’s escalating tensions with the United States is Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a senior political official and spokesperson for Yemen’s Ansar Allah.

The post Yemen’s Houthis Speak to MintPress About US Attacks, Their Blockade of Israel appeared first on MintPress News.

In war, people die for absurd reasons or often no reason at all. They die due to accidents of birth, the misfortune of being born in the wrong place — Cambodia or Gaza, Afghanistan or Ukraine — at the wrong time. They die due to happenstance, choosing to shelter indoors when they should have taken cover outside or because they ventured out into a hell-storm of destruction when they should have stayed put. They die in the most gruesome ways — shot in the street, obliterated by artillery, eviscerated by air strikes. Their bodies are torn apart, burned, or vaporized by weapons designed to destroy people. Their deaths are chalked up to misfortune, mistake, or military necessity. Since September 2001,... Read more

Source: Remote Warfare and Expendable People appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

(With apologies to Mr. Yeats.)

I’m doing grand, thanks. Yes, Mr. Yeats, I did get your email. I replied, actually, and explained that before we assign someone to get this issue sorted out, you will need to open up a support ticket.

Right, I hear you. I do want to help you solve this, but our department has a workflow, you understand?

Well, mostly we just tackle things in the order they come in, but having the documentation is really important, just for our own internal purposes. It’s how we keep our digital infrastructure healthy.

Yes, it can sometimes seem like things just keep getting more complicated. But we’re working pretty hard to streamline the way we address technology issues here.

Right—right—

No, I hear you, things sound pretty stressful over there. How about this, I’ll open the support ticket on my end, and you can talk me through the issue over the phone, okay? Great.

A prominent lawyer, hacking victim and an ex-police officer are joining Prince Harry in demanding police action into Mirror Group crimes and alleged lies to the Leveson Inquiry

During his son Ed’s prime-ministerial campaign, British sociologist Ralph Miliband was labelled ‘the man who hated Britain’ by the tabloid press, with one newspaper accusing him of drunkenly murdering a kitten named Winston. Decades before, in his book The State in Capitalist Society, he had put forward an analysis of how and why the media […]

The move comes amid harrowing personal accounts from healthcare workers who say they’ve suffered “devastating” injuries caused by preventable exposure to COVID-19 at work

An adverse ICJ ruling on Nicaragua in 1984 shows how the U.S. subverts international law when it chooses.

The post Will the U.S. Block the ICJ on Gaza? It’s Thwarted the Court Before. appeared first on The Intercept.

How a single, unglamorous, workaday merchant vessel tells the history of the 19th-century world in many violent chapters

- by Boyd Cothran & Adrian Shubert

Read at Aeon

As we share and like and post, have our notions of restraint transformed so profoundly that all dignity becomes abandoned?

- by Lutif Ali Halo

Read at Psyche

Deepfakes depicting Taylor Swift being assaulted in the stands at a NFL game demands a debate about regulating artificial intelligence, writes Patsy Stevenson

ROTARY Youth Exchange student Madeleine ‘Maddy’ Hardaker flew off on a great adventure to hosts in France on Sunday 21 January. Maddy, from Korora, was selected by Rotary’s District 9660 committee and is one of sixteen students going overseas for the organisation’s 2024 Youth Exchange program. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth...

The post Coffs City Rotary Youth Exchange student jets off to France appeared first on News Of The Area.