The idea of the unaccountable criminal president began that day. Look where it brought us.
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A sad Shire magpie who simply wants a friend is unable to comprehend why everyone he swoops down on to give a hug to runs away in terror. “I’m so alone all day on top of this telegraph pole and... Read More ›
In 2019, a group of homeless folks were living on a deserted piece of land along the Chehalis River, a drainage basin that empties into Grays Harbor, an estuary of the Pacific Ocean, on the coast of the state of Washington. When the city of Aberdeen ordered the homeless encampment cleared out, some of those unhoused residents took the city to court, because they had nowhere else to go. Aberdeen finally settled the case by agreeing to provide alternative shelter for the residents since, the year before, a U.S. court of appeals had ruled in the case of Martin v. Boise that a city without sufficient shelter beds to accommodate homeless people encamped in their area couldn’t close the encampment.... Read more
Source: Where Can We Live? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
I’m sure you’ve heard Trump bellowing his fatuous nonsense about how everyone always wanted Roe overturned so it could go back to the states where people can vote on it and “it’s a beautiful thing.” I’ll admit that I was derelict in seeing where this was going. Leave it to Ron DeSantis to show the way: Florida voters who signed a petition to place a pro-choice abortion referendum on the ballot this November say they have been visited by police who are investigating claims of fraud at the behest of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, the Tampa Bay Times reported Saturday. Last year, DeSantis, a Republican, signed into a law a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. In response, pro-choice campaigners gathered and submitted nearly one million signatures to place on the ballot Amendment 4, a referendum that would overturn the ban and restore reproductive rights in the state. Now Florida’s Department of State is claiming it suspects fraud in the signature-gathering process.
Trump excited the crowd yesterday with promises of bloodshed with his mass deportation policy. They wouldn’t have it any other way. Just as a reminder: Two former officials who handled immigration issues for then-President Donald Trump say that a “whole of government” approach costing billions would be needed to mount the “largest deportation effort in American history” promised in the Republican convention platform if Trump is re-elected. The exact number of people who would be deported in a second Trump administration is hard to pin down. During the June 29 presidential debate, Trump claimed there were 18 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. One of the two former Trump officials said it could be as high as 30 million. The last official estimate in 2022 was under 11 million, but when you count the American children and other Americans caught up in the raids by mistake, they can probably get to 20 million or so.
Our World gets worse and worse, reflected in inhumane, racist, behaviour. And what for us – Australians – is really bad is that we, as represented by our political leaders, and our media, are totally complicit in genocide. We can start with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and its advisory opinion of 19 July. Continue reading »
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 8 2024
by Tony Wikrent
Strategic Political Economy
Justice Alito reports German princess gave him $900 concert tickets
Associated Press, September 06, 2024 [via DailyKos]
Justice Samuel Alito reported Friday that he accepted $900 worth of concert tickets from a German princess, but disclosed no trips paid for by other people, according to a new financial disclosure form.
The required annual filing, for which Alito has often sought an extension, doesn’t include details of the event tickets gifted by socialite Gloria von Thurn und Taxis of Germany….
Not that it matters. The “vibe” remains horrifically negative and the economy is what people point to to explain it. The reality is that for half of America, the world is going to shit because Donald Trump is telling them to believe his lies instead of their lyin’ eyes, and they love him so much that they’re happy to do it. For the rest of us, the world is going to shit because the other half worships that orange imbecile and it simply defies all sense and logic leading to a sense of dread about the future that is beyond disorienting. How can it be that half the country has succumbed to this addled demagogue? I don’t know, but it does help explain how some very bad things happened in the 20th century. It’s got something to do with mass communications, propaganda and groupthink and it’s terrifying.
From polling expert Larry Sabatp: The oracle of Delphi NY Times poll dropped today and that is what it showed. Ok. That’s that. The race, as I’ve been saying all year, is about two coalitions: the fascists vs the anti-fascists. And it’s a shockingly, disturbingly tight race.
Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter, described by some in Congress as a “warlord,” is seeking to expand cooperation with the U.S.
The post Top U.S. General Meets With Alleged War Criminal in Libya appeared first on The Intercept.
Reports from the field “The Trump campaign is tasking the far-right Turning Point network with spearheading its ground game despite having no track record of success,” Bill Scher noticed back in June: CNN reported that “Donald Trump’s campaign is taking a vastly different approach to 2024 compared with 2020, with plans for fewer staff and expenses [and instead] relying on wealthy conservative groups for data, infrastructure, and significant bank accounts.” It further noted that one of the most important of these groups is Turning Point Action, part of the Turning Point network that began with Turning Point USA. Turning Point USA is a right-wing student group founded in 2012 by Charlie Kirk, an 18-year-old soon-to-be college dropout, and Bill Montgomery, an elderly Tea Party activist. None of Turning Point’s 2022 efforts in Arizona “had any discernible impact” on Republicans’ fortunes there, Scher wrote.
“Raising loved children is the only consistent and lasting healing some will know.”
The post Broken Blossoms appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
Trump goes all but “Off with their heads!” Heather Cox Richardson is hardly the only one to notice that as the prospect of losing the election (and facing criminal judgment) haunts Donald Trump’s every waking moment, he’s going full apocalyptic. Trump on Saturday warned that not even his rallies are safe spaces in a country “overrun by criminals.” He promised that expelling migrants en masse “will be a bloody story.” But that’s only the beginning. Trump is going full Queen of Hearts: Then, tonight, Trump posted on his social media site a rant asserting that he will win the 2024 election but that he expects Democrats to cheat, and “WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again. We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T! Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials.
[Commercial announcement: My and Abraham Newman’s book, Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy is still available for $2.99 on Amazon Kindle. Also, it is about to come out in paperback in the UK and US. We now return you to your scheduled programming. Also: this post was first published at Programmable Mutter]. After nuzzling up against […]
A “bonkers” political memo, a corporate lunchroom bully, and more from The Lever this week.
I know that this is silly (I’m 68 years old, fergawdsake)- but as soon as retailers start touting their “back to school” sales, I still get that familiar twinge of dread. It’s a vague sensation of social anxiety, coupled with a melancholy resignation to the fact that from now until next June, I’ll have to go to bed early. By the way, now that I’m allowed to stay up with the grownups, why do I drift off in my chair at 8pm every night? It’s another one of life’s cruel ironies. At any rate, here are my Top 10 show-and-tell picks: The Blackboard Jungle– This 1955 social drama is the “anti-Happy Days”. An idealistic English teacher (Glenn Ford) tackles an inner-city classroom full of leather-jacketed malcontents (or as they used to call them – “juvenile delinquents”) who would rather steal hubcaps and rumble than, say, study the construct of iambic pentameter. The film still retains considerable power, despite dated trappings. Vic Morrow and Sidney Poitier are surly and unpredictable as the alpha “toughs” in the classroom.
Public polls and what I have heard of private polls suggest we may be facing a very new political ball game after the next federal election. At the last election, the Albanese Government secured a two-seat majority. The large swing to the ALP in WA was a surprise. And the ‘Chinese vote’ was critical in Continue reading »
Five years ago today He had been very pleased that they called him “your excellency” which he insists they never called any other president because they respected him so much you’ve never seen anything like it. I still remember the shock at learning that Trump had secretly invited the leaders of the Taliban to Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11. It boggled the mind that he could even contemplate such a thing, although he’d been inviting Kim Jong Un and Rodrigo Duterte to the White House for years so why not? But to imagine the Taliban at Camp David on 9/11 was beyond imagination even for him. It turned out that there had been ongoing peace talks that were designed to lead to the American withdrawal but Trump wanted the credit for “making the deal” so he came up with the Camp David proposition. In the end all it did was help destabilize the already fragile Afghan government (a major factor in the chaotic withdrawal in 2021) and Trump ended up releasing 5,000 Taliban fighters and agreeing to a timetable for US withdrawal with only a promise that the Taliban would be good boys in the future.
THE Zonta Club of Coffs Harbour Inc. held a well-attended Awards Dinner in the Rainbow Room at C.ex Coffs last week. Six finalists from the Zonta International Young Women in Public Affairs (YWPA) award program were recognised for their exceptional leadership and active volunteerism in the community. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s...
The post Zonta awards dinner acknowledges young leaders of the future appeared first on News Of The Area.
In creating an integrity commission - the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) - the Albanese government was entrusted to ensure federal integrity. Instead it has wasted a fortune on a body that can’t or won’t do its job. Continue reading »