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Republicans are running a skeleton campaign I’m sure many in the media will say this must mean that Joe Biden is in trouble. Isn’t everything? But it just ain’t so. This is not good news for Trump I don’t care what anyone says: Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign called itself a “juggernaut” in May of that year, on par with a planet-destroying Death Star that was “firing on all cylinders.” Trump’s 2024 campaign has traded Star Wars metaphors for talk of a “leaner” and “more efficient” operation, with less real estate, fewer employees and greater dependence on outside groups. “We’re focused on quality over quantity. I mean, how novel a concept,” top strategist Chris LaCivita told the crowd of top donors May 4 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., according to attendees. The shift comes as President Biden’s campaign and its allies, buoyed by incumbency, have been moving in the opposite direction, building a more expansive operation sooner than in 2020.

You may recall that the House Republicans held up aid to Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel (and blew off a very expansive border bill on Trump’s orders) for months. These Republicans attempting to impeach Biden over this issue is mind-boggling. I’ve heard several wingnut commentators compare Biden’s actions to Trump’s when he told Zelensky that he would withhold weapons unless he came up with dirt on Joe Biden. I don’t think I need to point out how ridiculous that comparison is. If they disagree with Biden’s decision that’s completely legitimate. They can try to write some legislation to stop him or someone on their team could file a lawsuit. But there are decades of precedents that say presidents have the authority to make a decision like this on the basis of the national interest (often at the behest of Republican hawks who argue for unlimited presidential power.) Trump, on the other hand, used his authority to advance his personal political interest.

As corporate pharmacy middlemen slash reimbursement fees to independent drugstores, local Illinois pharmacists push for legislative change.

The move comes as Australia, in a significant break from Israeli and US policy, voted yes in the UN General Assembly to upgrading Palestine’s UN membership status. The resolution passed with 143 countries voting in favour, nine voting against, and 25 abstentions. International Court of Justice press release follows. Application of the Convention on the Continue reading »

“For those of you that want to vote because you think he’s an anti-vaxxer, he’s not really an anti-vaxxer. That’s only his political moment. So, RFK, his views on vaccines are fake, as is everything else about his candidacy.” MSNBC: In a striking video on Truth Social, Donald Trump criticizes Robert F. Kennedy Jr., dismissing him as a ‘radical left Democrat’ amid polls indicating Kennedy is siphoning votes from Trump’s campaign. Emphasizing the urgency, Trump states he would prefer Joe Biden over ‘Junior,’ arguing that the country would fare better under Biden’s administration than the ‘immediate collapse’ he predicts with Kennedy. Trump could theoretically put him away quickly if he wanted to: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has challenged Donald Trump to a head-to-head debate for when both address a Libertarian convention later this month, a move that comes as the presumptive GOP nominee has ramped up both criticism of Kennedy’s independent bid and demands that President Joe Biden meet him on a debate stage.

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has labelled prospective action by the International Criminal Court to hold him accountable for the murder of 14,500 children in Gaza as “an unprecedented antisemitic hate crime”. In recent weeks we are suddenly seeing heightened interest in the International Criminal court (ICC). It is necessary to understand just what it is, Continue reading »

This conflict has killed more children in five months than all the conflicts in the world in the past four years. Children have not been killed at this rate in any other time in history: the highest kill rate since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Joy Reid: Joining me now is Her Majesty Queen Rania Continue reading »

In Asian media this week: Government must persuade public on nuclear subs. Plus: Violence against women an Asian tragedy, too; Beijing, Manila clash over shoal agreement; West hastening loss of supremacy; Modi’s attacks show worry about poll; Hong Kong should promote its common law system. Readers of Asian media stand a good chance of understanding Continue reading »

President Biden has, at long last, halted the immediate supply of large bombs and other heavy munitions to Israel and acknowledged that these same munitions have been used in the Israeli attack on Palestine previously. At least one shipment of these munitions was paused last week: 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs ‘that might Continue reading »

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A peek into the Reserve Bank’s fantasy world, a Labor-lite budget on its way, how the Liberal Party has moved to the left of Labor, students in rapturous joy over HECS changes. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. Economics How Continue reading »

While the Senate Subcommittee came out in favour of a much amended Migration Amendment Bill 2024 … it is not too late to reject the premise of the legislation or to create a more coherent Bill, whose wider implications are intentional and more integrated, say advocates. Refugee advocates invite Senators to reject the Bill a Continue reading »

Does David Crowe, a journalist at the Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald and the Age want to be regarded as the instigator of violence against students protesting the Gazan genocide? I read a series of David Crowe’s vituperative articles regarding student protests against the Palestinian genocide occurring right now in Gaza, including the latest Continue reading »

Hong Kong appears to hang on every word from Beijing and eagerly awaits instructions on how to move forward, and therein lies the city’s biggest danger. When Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 under the formula of “one country, two systems”, naivety and over-optimism pervaded the city, the mainland and beyond with the Continue reading »

This text is not about Baby Reindeer, Netflix’s latest hit. It’s about one of the most perverse dimensions of sanism and anti-madness: the exploitation of madness as an edifying aesthetic resource. It is also about the obsolescence of narratives centered on the uncritical perspective of the traditional agent of the banality of evil, the mediocre […]

Four lawsuits alleging Hamas ties against Students for Justice in Palestine, the AP, UNRWA, and a cryptocurrency exchange share many of the same plaintiffs.

The post October 7 Survivors Sue Campus Protesters, Say Students Are “Hamas’s Propaganda Division” appeared first on The Intercept.

A donor to Dexter in the Portland congressional race tells The Intercept: “I give all my contributions through AIPAC.”

The post AIPAC and Republican Donors Raising Big Money for Maxine Dexter Against Susheela Jayapal in Oregon appeared first on The Intercept.

This is how half the country becomes inured to blatant corruption: That is Fox News blithely normalizing Trump’s flagrant corruption. No biggie. Just Trump trying to bribe the oil industry into giving him a billion dollars. What’s the problem? It’s not that this sort of quid pro quo wasn’t implicit in the past. But they used to couch it in the idea that they were ideologically aligned and never made such a blatant pitch for specific “deliverables” in exchange for cash. You have to love the fact that the “oil man” told this reporter that a billion dollars in exchange for destroying regulations isn’t really a good deal. I guess they’re negotiating. But hey, why not? There’s no further need to pretend that the Republican party has any integrity. It’s all for sale and they’re fine with it.