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.
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“Raising loved children is the only consistent and lasting healing some will know.”
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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...
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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 »
Our censors, as the record shows again and again, have no special concern about acting in a serious manner. Power has no such obligation. Is there some connection — not quite official but it may as well be — between censorship and presidential politics? I pose the question as a survivor of the Russiagate years, Continue reading »
FROM food resiliency to eating homegrown veggies, gardening advocate Peter Lewis is on a mission to get everyone growing their own. The hands-on veggie producer from Park Beach has developed a free urban gardening course that encourages and educates beginners. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your business. Message us....
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“Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement, and territorial expansion,” said United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese. An independent United Nations expert has warned that “Israel’s genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole” as Western Continue reading »
Dangerous tipping points threaten the stability of several of Earth’s natural climate-controlling systems. Conclusion: warming of 1.5oC is not safe. Possible to protect humans from dangerous animals without killing them. Tanzania accused of apartheid by its own people. Tips on tipping points Those who say, ‘Humans have always polluted their environment, there’s nothing new in Continue reading »
Dave Kellaway reports from Italy, and reflects on the media coverage of the sinking of the luxury yacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily compared to the way the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean are usually reported. The recent tragic sinking of tech magnate Mike Lynch’s yacht has been front page news in the Continue reading »
"Since it was impossible to change the politics of the system, it became necessary to change the type – or stereotype – of the person in charge of carrying out the policy." Fidel Castro, in Obama and the Empire, 2012. Continue reading »
Hold on to your mobile phones, civilians, this is gonna get rough. If you thought the Sopranos and Corleones were intimidating, check this out. ASML, a Dutch firm that currently is the world’s only manufacturer of the extreme ultraviolet lithography machines that produce the most advanced chips, is repeatedly getting stiff-armed by the US – Continue reading »
It’s hard to imagine how the government could have made a bigger mess of questions about gender identity and sexual orientation for the 2026 Census. Last year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) expressed regret that its framing of a relevant question in the 2021 Census left some with feelings of exclusion and discrimination and Continue reading »
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