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Over 25,000 NGOs are active in Georgia, and most rely on funding from Europe and the US. A new bill aiming to reign in Western meddling has sparked furious anti-government protests explicitly encouraged by Washington. A dark political atmosphere is swirling over the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, and grows more ominous by the day. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has been told by an EU commissioner he will suffer the fate of Robert Fico, the Slovakian leader still fighting for his […]
The post US-EU assets pushing color revolution in Georgia first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post US-EU assets pushing color revolution in Georgia appeared first on The Grayzone.
This is a good idea, especially if you live in a swing state. From Simon Rosenberg: The Importance of Voting on Day 1 – Our elections have changed a lot in recent years. Most voters can now vote early in person or with no-excuse mail ballots. This has made it far easier for people to vote which is one reason we’ve seen such a big increase in turnout in recent years. It also has forced our campaigns to move away from Election Day focused get out the vote programs, and begin our work to get our folks to vote much earlier. The recognition that our Election Day is now as Tom Bonier calls it “just the last day of voting” is central to why Team Biden asked to move the debates up this year. People start voting on September 20th, and it was smart to move the debates to before people started voting. This new early vote electoral system is important for Democrats, who traditionally have more episodic and new voters in our coalition. This extra time to do GOTV allows us, if we have the money and the volunteers, to reach down and touch more less likely voters than we could in the past, and this increases our turnout and helps us win.
The Opposition leader (for now), Peter Dutton, has refused to rule out National service in Australia for those aged 40 and under. The move follows UK PM (as of publishing), Rishi Sunak, promising to introduce National service in the UK... Read More ›
Former Washington Post editor Len Downie sounds a warning to the American press: “I say up front, openly and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events,” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social in September in an attack on NBC News. “The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country.” What could Trump do to the news media and their ability to inform the American people? Judging by what he did in his first term, plenty. As president, he habitually attacked the news media and individual journalists as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people,” undermining public trust in the fact-finding press. The irony of him saying that when we now have testimony under oath that he was personally involved in manufacturing dirt on his opponents in collusion with the owner of the National Enquirer is too thick to slice. He literally concocted fake news about Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton.
When asked to compare life in apartheid South Africa with conditions in occupied Palestine, Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s judgement ran counter to prevailing orthodoxy. People make the comparison, said Tutu, but life in Palestine is far more brutal and repressive than in apartheid South Africa. A moral equivalency argument, that one side is no Continue reading »
For Australia, the urgent challenge is when will we act independently and not be associated with war crimes and genocide. With unaccustomed speed, the international courts have risen to the occasion, responding to global outrage at Israel’s devastation of Rafah and its Defence Force’s murderous assaults on Palestinians. But Australia has not. This week, Western Continue reading »
We must make it clear to the current Israeli administration that our nation can no longer accept its actions and certainly do not “share its values “ Since January 26, 2024 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has urged the State of Israel to respond to its responsibilities as a democracy and United Nations member Continue reading »
I can not think of a greater tragedy in existence than to allow the greed of a few to destroy all life on earth. “What is it going to take?” It’s the question I whisper as I do the dishes. It’s the question that ticks along in my mind with the indicator at traffic lights. Continue reading »
The High Court decision in the ASF17 case removed the apparent driver for the government’s sledgehammer immigration removal legislation. There is little evidence that the legislation would work as intended. A sledgehammer is not much use for a problem which is more akin to undoing a couple of tight screws. The government should drop the Continue reading »
Today the International Criminal Court has been officially called to investigate Ursula von der Leyen for complicity. Reasonable grounds exist to believe that the unconditional support of the president of the European Commission to Israel – military, economic, diplomatic and political – has enabled war crimes and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The Hague (The Continue reading »
Words and phrases used to define, classify, and order our world, combine to tell a good story. That story, told often enough, seems normal. But that story can hide, ignore, and distort, reinforcing unhelpful beliefs and stereotypes. This is what’s happening with stories about skills and occupations. Every week multiple reports are published by governments, Continue reading »
The Guardian obituary of John Pilger last year did not mention his views on the war in Ukraine. John Pilger, the renowned Australian journalist who passed away in 2023 at age 84, was a vocal critic of Western foreign policy and media propaganda. As early as 2014, Pilger presciently warned about the dangers of the Continue reading »
China keeps building infrastructure in other countries that is needed by those other countries. Surely this is sinister. But all is not lost. As Joe Biden wonders if cannibals may have eaten his uncle Ambrose during World War II, Washington discovers remarkable new instruments in its geopolitical tool kit. American local and geopolitical behaviour today Continue reading »
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – May 26 2024
by Tony Wikrent
Strategic Political Economy
[Democracy Journal. Spring 2024, No. 72]
He’s the main reason masking turned into a political issue. He didn’t want to mess up his make-up and people died. He just has to lie…
So you think polling skepticism is a fool’s errand? Maybe. But it does pay to remember our most recent election in 2022. Here’s the opening of the NY Times recap of what happened (gift link): Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat, had consistently won re-election by healthy margins in her three decades representing Washington State. This year seemed no different: By midsummer, polls showed her cruising to victory over a Republican newcomer, Tiffany Smiley, by as much as 20 percentage points. So when a survey in late September by the Republican-leaning Trafalgar Group showed Ms. Murray clinging to a lead of just two points, it seemed like an aberration. But in October, two more Republican-leaning polls put Ms. Murray barely ahead, and a third said the race was a dead heat. As the red and blue trend lines of the closely watched RealClearPolitics average for the contest drew closer together, news organizations reported that Ms. Murray was suddenly in a fight for her political survival. Warning lights flashed in Democratic war rooms. If Ms. Murray was in trouble, no Democrat was safe. Ms.
Ken Burns suspends “long-standing attempt at neutrality” This clip is a week old, but it’s flying around the internet this weekend. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns addressed graduates at Brandeis University and warned about the threat to America’s “fragile, 249-year-old experiment.” On our “existential crossroads”: Burns cites Lincoln’s Lyceum speech (Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838) on “the perpetuation of our political institutions.” Lincoln was 28: At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. Lincoln continued: I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; Burns’s point was that while history never repeats, it sometimes rhymes. And the rhymes are unmistakeable now. The speech in its entirety is here and worth your time.
In Doctor Who, we're never told why the old woman in "73 Yards" is terrifying, but we have a theory involving the mystery of Cosmic Horror.
Military contractors are scamming the government and shooting down accountability efforts, and other news from The Lever this week.
Is this what the “pro-life” movement wanted?
The post Sterilization, Murders, Suicides: Bans Haven’t Slowed Abortions, and They’re Costing Lives appeared first on The Intercept.
Taking pandering to new lows First, big props to Dave Weigel (now with Semafor) for covering the messiest. most tedious parts of political conventions for years. How he can stand to live-blog Democratic platform committee meetings is beyond me. This weekend, Dave is covering the Libertarian Party’s national convention in Washington, D.C. Weigel reports: Donald Trump promised members of the Libertarian Party that he would “put a libertarian in my cabinet” and commute the life sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, a top demand of a political movement that intends to run its own candidate against him. “On day one, we will commute the sentence,” Trump said, offering to free the creator of what was once the internet’s most infamous drug clearinghouse. “We will bring him home.” His speeches more typically include a pledge to execute drug dealers, citing China as a model. As anyone might have guessed from the motion made from the floor on Friday that “Donald Trump to go f*ck himself” that drew applause, Trump’s reception was not his warmest.