Is this really ok? I guess there’s no law against a private citizen having discussions with foreign leaders. But doing that while he’s running for president, is under indictment, has big financial problems and has proven he’s willing to sell out the country for personal gain (and was impeached for it)… well, it seems just a bit problematic: Former President Donald J. Trump spoke recently with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, their first publicly disclosed conversation since Mr. Trump left office in January 2021, according to two people briefed on the discussion who were not authorized to speak publicly about it. It was unclear what the two men discussed and whether it was their only conversation since Mr. Trump’s departure from the White House. Neither representatives for Mr. Trump nor an official of the Saudi government responded to requests for comment.
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Thesis: in the English-speaking world, the last 50 years has seen a dramatic increase in the quantity *and quality* of text and visual mass media intended for children. Let’s define some terms. I’m talking about books, cartoons, TV, and movies. Music is not included; comics and graphic novels are a special case. When I say […]
How Albanese doesn’t swallow his tongue as he vociferously demands “full accountability” from Israel for the killing of Zomi Frankcom yet remains silent on 32,000 other killings is anybody’s guess. He waved his metaphorical fist at Netanyahu and told of Australia’s “outrage” at Zomi’s death. But Albanese left out the bit about many Australians’ outrage Continue reading »
Yesterday, Part 1 of this article discussed the decline in housing affordability and the consequent increase in wealth inequality. Today, Part 2 will discuss possible policies to restore housing affordability in the interests of a more equal and cohesive society. Policies to improve housing affordability and thus increase home ownership have traditionally focussed on reducing Continue reading »
Samantha Mostyn will become the next Governor General in July, taking over from outgoing former General David Hurley. I am greatly cheered by this news, not simply because she is only the second woman to hold this office but because I believe she has the capacity to heal this nation at a time of its Continue reading »
The world today is disastrously misgoverned by a paranoid generation of ageing political leaders. There’s not a statesman among them, let alone a stateswoman. Meanwhile, the once dominant mainstream political parties are retreating into their bunkers, fearful of the exposure of corruption that has remained hidden in their ranks, terrified of malevolent media moguls, and Continue reading »
The prospects for significant health reform looked good at the end of 2023. A mid-term review of the main Commonwealth-state agreement – the National Health Reform Agreement (NHRA) – had recommended that the focus of a new agreement, due mid-2025, should be broader than public hospital funding. States seemed to be on board and the Continue reading »
In a recent interview on Perth radio, Opposition Spokesman on Immigration, Dan Tehan, asserted: “I’ve been saying now for well over 18 months, it’s [meaning immigration] too high”. I have been unable to find any public statement by Tehan 18 months ago that immigration levels were too high. But his leader, Peter Dutton, publicly said Continue reading »
This week Prabowo Subianto has been in Beijing at the invitation of President Xi Jinping. It’s the Indonesian president-elect’s first major overseas trip after winning the 14 February election. No come-soon card yet from Washington, so China’s getting in first. Should we be worried? Duncan Graham reports: China already has our near neighbour in a Continue reading »
With Japan’s former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, assassinated, Japan’s current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has been saying he wants direct talks with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un -a reversal of Abe’s position. February reports said Kishida was willing for the talks to be without conditions. On this basis, Kim Yo Jong -Kim Jong Un’s Continue reading »
They are not meeting the moment Dan Froomkin is back from vacation and he’s not happy: The nation stands on the edge of a precipice, and our political media is so addicted to neutrality that it is casting both choices — survival or cataclysm — as equally plausible. It’s sickening. We are one election away from becoming a Christian nationalist state, losing our democracy as we know it, and putting the fate of our country in the hands of a corrupt madman filled with fever dreams of retribution. And yet political journalists seem to think this is just fine. Fun, even. I barely surfed the web while I was gone, but I did open a few emails here and there. And there was one I found particularly enlightening – in a very troubling way.
1. Spirit Week continues into perpetuity. No theme will ever be repeated, and your children will need unique costumes every day for the rest of their lives.
2. Out of nowhere, you have another child you have no memory of giving birth to. He’s in third grade, and tomorrow is the first day of Spirit Week. He tells you he needs a toga to wear to school and that you have forgotten to vaccinate or feed him for the past eight years.
3. You are contacted by the middle school you attended. In 1998, you failed to return the Paso a Paso Spanish-language student learning CD-ROM companion set to the library and, therefore, never graduated eighth grade. If you do not redo the semester, it will invalidate all subsequent education you ever received. They are expecting you tomorrow at 8 a.m. It’s Spirit Week, and you have a major project due. You are forty years old, and tomorrow you will give an oral presentation in Spanish in your wackiest pajamas.
A federal appeals court will decide whether Douglass Mackey should go to prison for his posts about Hillary Clinton and the 2016 election.
The post A MAGA Troll’s Memes Were Blatant Disinformation. But Were They a Crime? appeared first on The Intercept.
Thomas Neuberger, one of my favorite bloggers, has an excellent post on the fact that swathes of types of insurance are going to go extinct because of climate change. Property, fire, home (except from theft, though that may get hit during collapse) and so on. It’s worth a read.
This has already started to happen. Insurance companies are refusing to write new fire insurance policies in parts of California, for example, and no one with sense wants to insure buildings against hurricane risk in Florida. But it will spread: rivers will swell during climate change before they shrink, for example. Acts of God will become more and more common everywhere. Crop insurance, for example, is something that will become more expensive.
Universal Music Group CEO and prominent Pro-Israel advocate Lucian Grainge has been labeled a co-defendant in a lawsuit aimed at hip hop mogul P Diddy, alleging the trafficking of children. Meanwhile, A-list actor and Zionist hype man Ashton Kutcher is expecting to be subpoenaed.
The post P Diddy Pedo Party Lawsuit Snags Another Pro-Israel Lobbyist: Music Exec Lucian Grainge appeared first on MintPress News.
These people are just plain nuts SOLAR ECLIPSES, LIKE the upcoming one on April 8, are a well-documented scientific phenomenon. As early as 763 BCE, ancient Assyrians were charting the process by which the path of the moon temporarily obstructs the sun, and astronomers have continued to do so for thousands of years since. Our knowledge of eclipses predates our knowledge of gravity, algebra, and toilet paper. We are well aware of their existence, and we are well aware of what causes them. (I mean, I personally am not, but other people ostensibly are.) What the ancient Assyrians could not have possibly predicted, however, was the singular stupidity of the current incarnation of the American right. Unconvinced by thousands of years of scientific inquiry, as well as driven by a general sense of apocalyptic bloodlust, many on the right are trading conspiracy theories about the upcoming eclipse, ranging from the belief that it signals the End Times to the idea that the Biden administration is using it as an opportunity to shut down cell phone service or bring in the National Guard in an effort to make beautiful blond children who play sports transgender.
