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Reality TV juggernauts (sic), Dancing With The Stars and I’m A Celeb are locked in to a do or die battle over securing the signature of internet sensation, the Hawk Tuah girl to appear on their shows this year while... Read More ›

How a Conservative campaign line became the weaponised mantra of the Daily Mail – and infected the entire general election campaign

Media Matters has this: Right-wing commentators are praising former President Donald Trump for managing to “keep his mouth shut” and “remaining completely silent” after President Joe Biden’s June 27 debate performance, which triggered widespread concern about Biden’s fitness for office and ability to win reelection. “Donald Trump has run the most disciplined campaign, maybe, over the last 25 years,” Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade said on July 3. “The fact that he is laying out during this whole news cycle shows a discipline at a whole new level.” That strategically silent, disciplined Trump does not exist. Since the debate, the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee has repeatedly promoted calls from his supporters to jail his perceived political enemies for “treason” and other purported crimes. On Sunday, Trump “ReTruthed” a post calling for former Rep.

China Matters has gone, and that is a tragedy. Australia lost a valuable think tank that could provide policy advice at a critical juncture of Australia-China relations. The implementation of the government hatchet job is set out in detail in Margaret Simon’s extended article, Red Flags, in the latest Monthly, and in Hamish McDonald’s article Continue reading »

Instead of concern about continuing slaughter in Gaza and the West Bank, the major controversy surrounding Senator Payman’s support for a Palestinian state and for Palestinians’ lives has focused on her non-compliance with rules and discipline in the Labor caucus. That seems astounding. When observing end of time massacres by the Israeli state, why does Continue reading »

New modern coal and gas generation might be the best options if the main aim of policy was containing the cost of energy. However, even an expensive means of reducing greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions should be acceptable if we have an obligation to benefit future generations. We are the ‘pivotal generation’ according to Henry Shue, Continue reading »

China claims sovereignty over roughly 62% of the South China Sea (SCS) as delineated by a nine-dash line first published on a Chinese map in 1947. Taiwan makes the same claim which was reiterated by its former leader Chiang Kai-shek in 1943 when he governed China as a whole. China says that its maritime activity Continue reading »

Australia’s public hospitals cost too much and achieve too little. Soaring costs threaten to drown state finances while abandoning patients. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In Victoria and Tasmania, hospital managers are cutting jobs. At the Alfred in Melbourne, staff are told to turn the lights out. Costs are increasing exponentially because Continue reading »

Last month New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks interviewed self-described MAGA (Make America Great Again) War Room street fighter Steve Bannon about the rise of right-wing populism. Among the takeaways were Bannon’s view that the MAGA movement is moving further and faster to the right than Donald Trump, that the battles they’re fighting are Continue reading »

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. So is a graph or chart. All provoke questions and new ideas. The above chart clearly portrays China’s economic rise as seen by it winning over and hosting top companies in competition with the United States. It also conjures up some interesting questions… Item Continue reading »

When does politically-motivated violence, or terrorism if you prefer the bastardised term, become legitimate resistance to oppression, occupation and savagery? It’s an unavoidable question because with the exception of pacifists, everyone justifies the use of violence for some political cause – normally because they cast their advocacy as “defensive” and therefore legitimate. Even if your Continue reading »

UK news reporter Jonathan Pie pulls no punches as he gives a brutally honest view of the UK Conservative party as the UK rolls into election day on Thursday 4 July.   Republished from youtube.com/@JonathanPie Continue reading »

Julian Assange’s case shows the danger of journalists being ensnared in legal entanglements when they do not play the power game. For many of us diehard journalists, Julian Assange’s release from jail this week might have reawakened the journalistic fire in our bellies. The WikiLeaks founder spent the last 12 years holed up in an embassy and a maximum-security Continue reading »

One disenfranchised voter told Byline Times that it represented the 'utter clusterf**k that is the sum of 14 years' of Conservative rule

In the 18 months since I quit Twitter, I can feel the atrophy of my vibe detector. I’m reading more than ever, on Substack and the FT, Discord and group chats — much of the same “content” I would’ve encountered on Twitter, in fact, but without the ever-present spiderweb of the social graph, the network […]

Pro-Publica released its full unedited interview with Joe Biden from September: In the wake of President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance, his opponents and most major media organizations have pointed out that he has done few interviews that give the public an opportunity to hear him speak without a script or teleprompters. Defend the facts. Support independent journalism by donating to ProPublica.Donate Now So much has been made of this limited access that the impressions from Special Counsel Robert K. Hur about his five hours of interviews with the president on Oct. 8 and 9 drove months of coverage. The prosecutor said Biden had “diminished faculties in advancing age” and called him a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Biden angrily dismissed these assertions, which Vice President Kamala Harris called “politically motivated.” House Republicans on Monday sued Attorney General Merrick B. Garland for audio recordings of the interview as the White House asserts executive privilege to deny their release. ProPublica obtained a rare interview with Biden on Sept.

This flower uses sexual deception to spread.

The post March of the Spider Orchids appeared first on Nautilus.

THOMAS JEFFERSON: Pizza’s here!

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: What’s on this? Is this blue cheese?

JOHN ADAMS: Can I have a piece with less blue cheese on it?

JEFFERSON: Just pick it off.

ADAMS: Can someone help me cut my slice into smaller pieces?

JEFFERSON: Sure, John.

ADAMS: It’s so spicy!

JEFFERSON: Don’t be a wimp, John. You said you liked buffalo sauce.

ADAMS: This one just has, like, more buffalo sauce than I normally get.

JEFFERSON: Well, you guys said, “Surprise us!” so there you go. We should have just gotten pepperoni.

FRANKLIN: No, it’s fine. I’m pepperonied out. I ate so much charcuterie in France.

Rupert Murdoch, who has for decades championed Israel’s cause, is now pushing his media empire into overdrive to defend the indefensible. If the pen is indeed mightier than the sword, then Murdoch is one of Israel’s most powerful weapons.

The post Rupert Murdoch: Israel’s Most Powerful Supporter appeared first on MintPress News.

"Sites like Words of Iron are scaring other content creators from posting about Palestine. They’re chilling free speech, and that’s what they aim to do.” -- Rosy Pirani

The post Free Speech Under Fire: How Israel’s Tech Guard Is Killing Free Speech Online appeared first on MintPress News.

With a new invasion of Khan Yunis, the Israeli military's claims of defeating Hamas are called into question, as refugees suffer and fighting continues unabated.

The post Israel Is Set To ReInvade Central Gaza’s Khan Yunis, Exposing Military Failures appeared first on MintPress News.

In 1973 the Senate Watergate Committee uncovered a plan that had been hatched three years earlier by a man named Tom Charles Huston, a White House liaison to the Interagency Committee on Intelligence (ICI), a group chaired FBI Director  J. Edgar Hoover to monitor “left wing radicals.” The Huston Plan, as it was known, laid out detailed operations to burglarize the homes and conduct electronic surveillance of these co-called radicals and even detain anti-war protesters in camps to be created in western states. President Richard Nixon signed off on the plan only to rescind his approval a few days later under objections from Hoover himself. It was one of a number of nefarious plots uncovered during the investigations, including the actual burglarizing of Pentagon Papers whistle blower Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, an order to bomb the Brooking s Institute and the Watergate burglary itself. The Huston Plan was one that was never carried out but went directly to the president who signed the order.

The debate made it clear that Biden is in serious decline. Remember that it’s not just about now, it’s about four years from now. The media has turned on him hard, and so have many in the Democratic party.

My first takeaway from the debate was that Biden if Democrats were honest and honorable, they would have already forced him to step down, using the 25th amendment. Being President is a hard job, and he’s not up to it. The Vice-President exists for a reason.