Reading

Created
Fri, 07/02/2025 - 11:57
It’s not the first time the Trump administration has imposed sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC). Independent journalist Richard Medhurst has been detained by Austrian police and intelligence services. The late John Pilger reminds us what Julian Assange uncovered about media, while Juice Media pulls the rug from under Dutton’s nuclear plans. Another week Continue reading »
Created
Fri, 07/02/2025 - 11:30

It is with a heavy heart that we admit Spines for Senators (S4S) has failed in its mission to provide invertebrate lawmakers with the transformational surgeries they so desperately need. To be blunt, we weren’t fully prepared for the challenges presented by these feckless losers. We thought some of them (one of them?) wanted to be better. How wrong we were.

They voted unanimously to install Marco Rubio (one of our organization’s many lost causes) as secretary of state. They passed the Laken Riley Act. Amy Klobuchar is still—still!—talking about finding common ground and working together with the party that plunged our country into a constitutional crisis.

Created
Fri, 07/02/2025 - 11:30
The Dems are getting focused: Armed with new polling showing Musk’s popularity in the toilet, key Democratic leaders are going after the top adviser to President Donald Trump who is dismantling the federal government. They are attempting to subpoena him and introducing legislation to block him from receiving federal contracts while he holds a “special” role leading Trump’s cost-cutting crusade… “If you oppose Donald Trump, making Elon Musk the face of his administration is the smart way to go,” said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. “Where the rubber really hits the road on all of this is for people who are inclined to be supportive of Donald Trump and they, for whatever reason, think Donald Trump is on their side. But many of them have a different view of Elon Musk.” […] New internal polling, conducted on behalf of House Majority Forward, a nonprofit aligned with House Democratic leadership, found Musk is viewed negatively among 1,000 registered voters in battleground districts. Just 43 percent approve of him and 51 percent view him unfavorably.
Created
Fri, 07/02/2025 - 10:55
My Call Of Half A Million Gaza Deaths Appears Close + Trump’s Gaza Policy

Trump has repeatedly said that he wants to move Palestinians out of Gaza and that there are about 1.7 to 1.8 million people to move. The pre-war population of Gaza was 2.3 million. About 100,000 Gazans managed to flee to the Sinai in Egypt (presumably a combination of bribes and sympathetic border guards who disagree with Sisi’s “let them die” policy.

So we’re looking at 400,000 to 500,000 deaths if Trumps figures are accurate. Yes, I know, Trump: but he’s been briefed and why use those numbers?

I wrote:

Created
Fri, 07/02/2025 - 10:00
Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast: "The water comes down from the northwest parts of Canada, I guess, but the Pacific Northwest. And it comes down by millions and millions of barrels a day and uh, I opened it up. It wasn't that easy to do. But I opened it up and it's pouring… pic.twitter.com/UcHiv8uZRe — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2025 Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast: “The water comes down from the northwest parts of Canada, I guess, but the Pacific Northwest. And it comes down by millions and millions of barrels a day and uh, I opened it up. It wasn’t that easy to do. But I opened it up and it’s pouring down.” It’s actually raining right now so I guess he’s turned the valve on and pointed it up at the sky? Where are the farmers whose water has been wasted and which they’ll need next summer? Well… Agriculture is a form of legalized gambling here in California, our land is prone to deluge or drought. Our farmers, relentlessly adapting, are as innovative as any set of suits in Silicon Valley, learning new ways to grow more food with less water.
Created
Fri, 07/02/2025 - 08:30
The blackmail is though The addled, dementia patient in the White House is misinformed, as usual, Nieman Lab unpacked the “scandal.” Is your brain hurting, just from reading that? If Politico was, in fact, being bribed in exchange for slanted coverage, that would be noteworthy. It is, of course, not. Some of MAGA’s biggest brains seem to have noticed that several million federal dollars went to Politico and assumed that they came from a “Bribery—Media Fellow Travelers” line item in the budget. Instead, the money comes from federal offices buying subscriptions to Politico’s bureaucracy-focused Pro products. Government offices (and even Republican political campaigns!) have paid for news subscriptions for literal centuries. By the Trumpist line of logic, whenever a government department buys some desks or office chairs, it’s actually bribing Ikea to twist its Lagkapten and Grönfjäll into supporting DEI.
Created
Fri, 07/02/2025 - 07:00
He could go down in history as one of the worst Elon Musk’s entrepreneurial philosophy when he acquires a company is to immediately shut down everything and then restore a few once they get the lay of the land and determine what he thinks is necessary. We saw that at Twitter when he came in and fired everyone, determined that any kind of moderation was unnecessary and it’s now overrun with bots, disinformation, foreign propaganda and Nazis. He likes that. He fired the disaster team that made Twitter an important resource during those times, getting out information you could rely on as real. As we found out during the LA fires, it’s completely useless for that purpose now. He thinks the United States federal government is just like twitter. For instance he said this just the other night: “Regulations, basically, should be default gone,” Musk said. “Not default there, default gone. And if it turns out that we missed the mark on a regulation, we can always add it back in.” “These regulations are added willy-nilly all the time.