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National Review says that Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis “are far and away better on the merits, more likely to win in November, and, if elected, more likely to deliver — free from the wild drama of a second Trump term — conservative results.” I don’t know about Haley and DeSantis but we can certainly agree on the horror of another Trump term. But maybe they could have been consistently critical of the MAGA cult over the past 7 years? I dunno. But they were “Never Trump” in 2016 and they are again, so I guess that’s something. Mediaite reports: The editorial minced no words in prosecuting its case against Trump, bluntly stating that Trump “lost to Joe Biden in 2020″ and “did everything he could to overturn the result, including trying to bully his vice president into violating his oath and preventing and delaying the counting of the electoral vote.” “When a mob, fervently believing Trump’s lies, fought its way into the U.S. Capitol to try to end the count, Trump did little or nothing to try to stop it,”  it added.

The spoilers are still at it Joe Lieberman and company really are determined to screw up this election: A political group intending to support a presidential candidate run by the group No Labels plans to file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, with a handful of Republican and Democratic strategists as advisers. The group, New Leaders ’24 political action committee, expects a No Labels ticket to materialize this year. No Labels has said it would mount a campaign if President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump are their parties’ nominees, in a rematch of the 2020 campaign that is increasingly likely. The group will be advised by Rob Stutzman, a Republican and former deputy chief of staff to Arnold Schwarzenegger during his governorship as well as an adviser for Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign. Kathleen Shanahan, a Republican and former chief of staff to Jeb Bush during his governorship, will be the chief executive, and Andrew Fishman, whom the group identified as a Democrat and who has a business background, will serve as treasurer, Mr. Stutzman said.

Four FBI agents posing as ISIS members began chatting online with Humzah Mashkoor when he was 16 years old. He was arrested on terrorism charges weeks after his 18th birthday.

The post Undercover FBI Agents Helped Autistic Teen Plan Trip to Join ISIS appeared first on The Intercept.

Scientists have released the results of a long range study that has found that the first work week of the year is in fact the longest, no matter if you start the week on a Monday or a Thursday. ”This... Read More ›

What in the world, you wonder? Well… There was a Biden impeachment hearing today at which Hunter himself turned up making himself available to testify publicly again. The Republicans were … upset. Here are the highlights: Then Marge took the mic and Hunter got up and walked out. The hearing is being run by circus clowns so why would anyone expect something other than a circus?

The Biden administration is due in federal court later this month, while Israel faces charges of genocide at The Hague this week.

The post 77 Groups Worldwide Back Genocide Lawsuit Against Biden in U.S. Court appeared first on The Intercept.

Some college educated former Trump voters have had it I keep hearing anecdotal reports of Republicans who are saying they will not vote for Trump this time. I don’t know if they aren’t being represented in the polls or what, but there’s a lot of it and since it’s coming from the GOP primary reporting it’s worth mentioning. This one from Jonathan Martin at Politico who followed the Haley campaign for a while and had this impression: The most memorable feature of Haley’s otherwise forgettable gathering was not what she said but the nature of her audience — and how it explains why Trump is poised to win overwhelmingly in Iowa on Monday but will face the same general election challenges in 2024 he did in 2020. I would have liked to see more discussion of that but this piece was about the GOP voters who are rejecting Trump. But it’s important that someone mention this general election dynamic, even in passing. Maybe he’ll develop that in a later piece. I struggled to find a single attendee in the suburban strip mall tavern who was not a college graduate.

Iron Truth members have flagged thousands of posts for removal, from clearly racist or false content to posts that are merely sympathetic to Palestinians.

The post Israeli Group Claims It’s Working With Big Tech Insiders to Censor “Inflammatory” Wartime Content appeared first on The Intercept.

Just when will the horror that is Gaza today prompt the Albanese Government to acknowledge publicly that the war in the territory is now consumed by Israel’s blood-lust revenge and a hunger for ethnic reconfiguration? Is it too much to hope that the government can find a conscience of its own rather than mimicking the Continue reading »

Our foreign minister’s first and hardest overseas task in 2024 is likely to be her visit to Israel. Penny Wong and other foreigners, apart from aid workers, cannot enter Gaza. This will circumscribe what she sees, whom she meets, and what she achieves. If Anthony Albanese follows her visit to Israel, the Coalition and the Continue reading »

In one of our most macabre and diabolical acts, humans are unburying and reactivating the Earth’s teeming dead from ages long gone by, in a wild act that is sure to haunt every one of us for the remainder of our days. Trillions of organisms that perished over hundreds of millions of years and whose Continue reading »

For the foreseeable future Israel will not commit itself to allowing Palestinian statehood. It will remain in occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. And so long as the occupation continues, there will be no peace to keep. The carnage in Gaza and reactions to it have implications and risks for most countries. Australia is Continue reading »

Australian governments talk a lot about our commitment to the rule of law and human rights. However Australia’s response – at glacial speed with grossly inadequate measures – to the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza following Hamas’s brutal October 7 attacks, are putting that commitment to the test. As a nation that has provided political Continue reading »

The Search for the Palace Letters is a remarkable documentary that follows the story of Professor Jenny Hocking, the historian who took on an epic legal battle against the Australian Government and HM Queen Elizabeth II in a landmark legal battle – and won. Aired on ABC earlier this week, you can view the documentary Continue reading »

The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organisation of some note, recently released a list of companies profiting from Israel’s current campaign in Gaza, including its operations in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria between October and December 2023. The list of nasty participants is impressive and familiar. There is, for instance, the UK company Continue reading »

Since April 2023, in a civil war in Sudan, an estimated 10,000 people have been killed, six million internally displaced, over one million are refugees in neighbouring countries, 18 million people are reported by the UN to be ‘food insecure’; and where fighting has reached the borders of neighbouring countries, food aid has been suspended. Continue reading »

In a speech he made in Sydney in 2011, defending Julian Assange, John Pilger recalled how it was always impressed upon him when he was young that Australia was a brave country: that we stood up to authority, and we stood up for justice. Such national myths were at best half-truths, Pilger said, but in Continue reading »