From the FrameLab Newsletter with Dr. George Lakoff and Gil Duran: “Woke” has quickly become the most ubiquitous weapon word in American politics. Republicans use the term as a pejorative term to describe Democratic or progressive policies in general. Increasingly, everything Republicans don’t like gets described as woke, and wokeness has become the scapegoat for any bad […]
Reading
Tucker Carlson accused the NSA of spying on his personal communications when he tried to schedule an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. I can corroborate his story. On March 10, Fox News host Tucker Carlson told the Full Send podcast that the US government “broke into [his] text messages” in the summer of 2021, just months before the launch of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Carlson claimed the spying occurred as he was planning a trip to Russia, […]
The post I am the “US-based Kremlin intermediary” that tried to help Tucker Carlson book an interview with Putin appeared first on The Grayzone.
~ Today's Water Cooler ~
We are in the midst of an extraordinarily dangerous and destructive hot war in Ukraine, and there is now daily talk about the prospects of a US-China war in Asia, perhaps over Taiwan. We cannot afford a continuation of the current war, and we cannot afford a war between the US and China. That would Continue reading »
It’s Parliament House, Canberra, on a Sunday afternoon. There is a meeting of the national security committee of cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, about a crisis in the Taiwan Strait, where the US and China are in air and naval combat. There’s an inflection point when someone – a minister or the PM Continue reading »
Paul Keating did all Australians, and all the world, an important favour over the past week. That he has significantly enraged some people from his old party may underline the lasting service he has done for the public interest, and, perhaps for peace in our time. It was also a reminder of his capacity for Continue reading »
The International Criminal Court’s conduct in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, characterised by unusual alacrity for an international legal institution, is in stark contrast to the feet dragging on alleged war crimes by Israel against the Palestinians in 2014. The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Karim Khan has injected himself into the Ukraine-Russia conflict Continue reading »
In February 2023, the number of asylum cases in Australia for the first time exceeded 100,000. Despite the intense attention on boat arrivals for the last decade, note that very few of these 100,000 asylum cases are boat arrivals. The bulk arrived during an intense period of labour trafficking of Malaysian and Chinese nationals from Continue reading »
At this stage there is little interest in how to dispose of the high level uranium waste from AUKUS SSNs, let alone put First Nations voices to the fore. This is unlikely to change while the nation’s most prominent journalists see it as their job to promote the dominant military doctrine and boost the demonisation Continue reading »
HERE WE STAND: We are standing here, as people were in Melbourne yesterday, to recall one of Australia’s worst days: the start of our first war of aggression. We joined a small coalition to invade Iraq. We left that country in physical, social, economic and political ruin. No Australian government has inquired into why we Continue reading »
The New York Times report of 8th March that ‘Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say’ elicited two sets of responses. The mainstream US media dutifully replicated the story without curiosity or challenge, carefully sidestepping questions of plausibility or context, and often, as with the Washington Post, managing to avoid mentioning the name Continue reading »
The press got so excited Those who were following politics 20 years ago surely remember how the media reacted to the invasion of Iraq. I’ve never seen them so stimulated. Here’s what I wrote on this day in 2003: Resistance Is Futile The United States knows all and sees all. Schwartzkopf said he’s never seen anything like this “awesome” technology. The BBC said “it’s as if the US has a 3 dimensional picture of every single thing that is happening in Baghdad.” No need to tell the Brits about the strike, though. Gotta move fast. They may represent 70% of the coalition ‘o the willin’, but Blair is still a limey twit, always making Bush sound stupid. Killing Saddam’s like swatting a fly. We have X-Ray vision and he’s probably dead. We think. Like Osama. Oh wait. We got to watch Bush putting on his make-up on the BBC feed for about 5 minutes before the speech. He looked psyched.
The case to invade Iraq on March 19, 2003 was based on an NIE that was prepared not to determine the truth, but rather to “justify” preemptive war, when there was nothing to preempt.
The post Iraq War 20 Years: Ray McGovern—The Uses and Abuses of National Intelligence Estimates appeared first on scheerpost.com.
As long as reading is for us the instigator whose magic keys have opened the door to those dwelling-places deep within us that we would not have known how to enter, its role in our lives is salutary. It becomes dangerous, on the other hand, when, instead of awakening us to the personal life of […]
I. Preamble
In 2022, the vicious cycle of democratic pretensions, dysfunctional politics and a divided society continued in the United States. Problems such as money politics, identity politics, social rifts, and the gulf between the rich and poor worsened. The maladies afflicting American democracy deeply infected the cells of US politics and society, and further revealed US governance failure and institutional defects.
With migrant deaths at record highs, researchers say intensified border militarization is making a deadly problem much worse.
The post Mapping Project Reveals Locations of U.S. Border Surveillance Towers appeared first on The Intercept.
People read much into the implications of currency swaps that is not there. Much ado about nothing. Brian explains why in terms that are simple to understand.
Why swaps?
Currency Swap Facility Comment
Brian Romanchuk
You either have capital controls, or you have central banks acting as swap dealers of the last resort, or you have periodic meltdowns of the currency system. Pick your poison.Bond Economics
Currency Swap Facility Comment
Brian Romanchuk
When my mother was pregnant with my younger brother Pete, my father took her to see West Side Story in New York. My mom said every time the orchestra played, Pete kicked in her womb, keeping perfect time. Some people are born to play the drums. Pete played before he was born. He never stopped. […]
The post Valediction appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design.
At a U.S. base in Syria, some attacks get press while others stay hidden.
The post The Pentagon’s Obsession With Secrecy Protected a Marine Accused of Sexual Assault appeared first on The Intercept.
“Fall in line” seems to be the order of the day Donald Trump announced over the weekend that he was going to be arrested on Tuesday by publishing a series of hysterical posts on his Truth Social media platform exhorting his followers to take to the streets in protest. As it turns out he doesn’t actually know that he’s being arrested on Tuesday but surmised it from the media reports and decided to signal his loyal followers to get organized. As I write this it seems that an indictment is imminent but there is at least one more witness scheduled to testify to the grand jury today (Michael Cohen’s former lawyer), so it’s unclear exactly when it’s coming. Trump isn’t taking it well: Social media set itself on fire over Trump’s announcement and some of Trump’s minions appeared on TV to echo his rage suggesting that the case is being brought to hide the crimes of the “Biden Crime Family” which includes the widow of the late Beau Biden.
Invited to Rwanda by Suella Braverman and backed by wealthy Conservatives, the broadcaster’s ‘anti-establishment’ credentials are waning
This bus transforms into a train