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Sun, 07/04/2024 - 03:30
The Washington Post took a look at what we know about the state of Trump’s health: As former president Donald Trump escalated his attacks on President Biden’s health and mental fitness last fall, Trump released the first updated report on his own condition in more than three years. This assessment, however, stood in stark contrast to the relatively detailed reports released by the White House during his term. Instead of specifics like blood pressure and medications, the letter had just three paragraphswithout specific numbers proclaiming that Trump was in “excellent health” and had “exceptional” cognitive ability. It did not disclose Trump’s weight. And after relying on a longtime personal doctor and then twoWhite House physicians who had attested to his well-being in office, Trump turned to an unknown on the national stage to providethis report: Bruce A. Aronwald, a 64-year-old osteopathic physician from New Jersey — and a longtime member of Trump’s Bedminster golf club.
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Sun, 07/04/2024 - 02:20
Israel’s Gunning To Lose US Support

When you lose Nancy Pelosi:

Israel went too far. Dems love celebrities and the NGO workers they killed were essentially Democratic party affiliated.

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Sun, 07/04/2024 - 02:00
I think Trump’s incoherence has a lot more salience now that the right has been slagging Biden for his alleged dementia. They opened the door to a closer look at how daft he really is and how much worse it’s gotten. As long as people see it. Rachel Leingang writes about this in the Guardian today: Watching a Trump speech in full better shows what it’s like inside his head: a smorgasbord of falsehoods, personal and professional vendettas, frequent comparisons to other famous people, a couple of handfuls of simple policy ideas, and a lot of non sequiturs that veer into barely intelligible stories. Curiously, Trump tucks the most tangible policy implications in at the end. His speeches often finish with a rundown of what his second term in office could bring, in a meditation-like recitation the New York Times recently compared to a sermon. Since these policies could become reality, here’s a few of those ideas: -Instituting the death penalty for drug dealers.
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Sun, 07/04/2024 - 01:30
Netanyahu and bad faith all around It’s a struggle to manage the frustration this week. Yes, the economy (in the aggregate anyway) continues to go gangbusters. Simon Rosenberg continues to push Hopium like a street hustler. Don’t worry. Be hopey. And yet. Beneath it all is the nagging sense that the world is teetering. Gaza is a mess. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu looks more and more like a murderous autocrat with familiar echoes of our bumbling homegrown one. Like Donald Trump, he needs to stay in power to stay out of jail. So far, three years after instigating a violent insurrection, that’s one thing at which Trump seems infuriatinglly adept. Michael Tomasky laments that it’s taken President Biden this long to at least threaten Netanyahu with harsh language: It’s sad that it takes the tragic killing of seven workers for the great global humanitarian José Andrés, as opposed to the piles upon piles of dead Palestinian babies, to spur this change. And, of course, it’s not even really a change yet. It’s a threat of a change down the road if certain behaviors continue.
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Sun, 07/04/2024 - 01:17

The confab put on by real estate site Yad2, a subsidiary of publishing giant Axel Springer, includes numerous companies doing business in the West Bank.

The post Israeli Real Estate Firm Used Genocidal Rhetoric — Then Politico’s Parent Company Put Them in a Trade Fair appeared first on The Intercept.

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Sun, 07/04/2024 - 00:00
But of course they did President Joe Biden on Friday visited the fallen Key Bridge site in Baltimore and pledged to citizens that “your nation has your back.” Politico: “My administration is committed, absolutely committed, to ensuring that parties responsible for this tragedy pay to repair the damage and be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law will allow, but I also want to be clear: We will support Maryland and Baltimore every step of the way to help you rebuild and maintain all the business and commerce that’s here now,” he said at the foot of the downed bridge, with the wind whipping behind him. Well, not the entire nation. While Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young has requested Congress to authorize “a 100 percent Federal cost share for rebuilding the bridge,” unconditional support is out of fashion for the party dominated by a former president whose every decision is transactional (also Politico): The House Freedom Caucus signaled Friday that they’re open to giving federal funds to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, but they have a few significant conditions.
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Sat, 06/04/2024 - 10:30
Pygmy Slow Loris babies! Via Zooborns For the first time, the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) is celebrating the birth of two pygmy slow lorises, an endangered species. Small Mammal House keepers reported for duty the morning of March 21 and observed that 3-year-old mother Naga had given birth overnight and was caring for two infants. She and the babies’ 2-year-old father, Pabu, received a recommendation to breed from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan (SSP). These babies are the first offspring for both parents. Keepers have observed Naga carrying, grooming and nursing the babies, which appear to be healthy and strong. Animal care staff will determine the babies’ sexes at their first vet exam, which will take place in a few months.
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Sat, 06/04/2024 - 09:00
He might be. His fundraising is anemic and he’s acting panicked It’s hard to imagine that he’s not going to be re-elected in Texas but he is the most unlikable official in politics (and that’s saying something) so maybe even the Texans are sick of him: THE WALLS ARE closing in around Ted Cruz, and the Republican senator is lashing out.  Cruz, who has served two terms as Texas junior senator, is facing a tough reelection challenge from former NFL player and current U.S. Rep. ​​Colin Allred (D-Texas), who won Texas’ Democratic Senate primary in a landslide victory last month.  On Wednesday, Cruz begged for donation on Fox News while complaining that Allred is out fundraising his 2018 challenger, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, by leaps and bounds.  “The Democrats are coming after me, they are gonna spend more than $100 million this year, George Soros is already spending millions of dollars in the state of Texas,” Cruz told Sean Hannity. “My opponent a liberal Democrat named Colin Allred, is out raising Beto O’Rourke, my last opponent, 3 to 1.
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Sat, 06/04/2024 - 07:30
It must be bad news for Joe Biden Steve Benen at MSNBC reports: Expectations heading into this morning showed projections of about 200,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in March. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job market managed to do much better than that. CNBC reported: In addition to the top-line data, we also learned that wage growth continued to outpace inflation. As unemployment rate inched lower again, the jobless rate has now been below 4% for 26 consecutive months — a streak unseen in the United States since the 1960s. As for the politics, let’s circle back to previous coverage to put the data in perspective. Over the course of the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency — when the Republican said the United States’ economy was the greatest in the history of the planet — the economy created roughly 6.35 million jobs, spanning all of 2017, 2018 and 2019. According to the latest tally, the U.S.