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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 10:30
And Joe Lieberman is very sad I’m not sure why he felt the need to tease this for the past year but it’s good that he finally pulled the plug on this nonsense. (Actually, I know why he did it. He’s a diva and he loves attention so he always preens and poses before he finally agrees to do the right thing.) Anyway, Manchin’s out: Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced Friday that he is not running for president after spending months mulling a bid that would have shaken up the 2024 campaign. “I will not be seeking a third-party run. I will not be involved in a presidential run,” Manchin said during a speech. “I will be involved in making sure that we secure a president that has the knowledge and has the passion and has the ability to bring this country together.” Manchin said that a third party could be viable down the road, but that a bid this year would have been “very challenging.” He added that he didn’t want to be a “deal-breaker” or a “spoiler.” “I just don’t think it’s the right time,” Manchin said.
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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 10:20
A South African leader welcomed the court’s affirmation that “the perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures” from its earlier ruling. As Israeli forces plan a full-scale assault on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, the International Court of Justice on Friday forcefully reminded Israel that it must comply with a January order to meet its obligations Continue reading »
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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 09:30
A Conman cries. All the judges everywhere hate Donald Trump because he’s trying to save America from all the bad people who want to ruin it. Waaaah. A New York judge called out former President Trump and other Trump Organization executives Friday for their lack of remorse in a civil fraud case over the company’s business dealings. Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay nearly $355 million in penalties following a months-long trial last year. Toward the end of his 92-page ruling, Engoron cited the defendants’ refusal to admit to any error. “The English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) first declared, ‘To err is human, to forgive is divine.’ Defendants apparently are of a different mind,” Engoron wrote. “After some four years of investigation and litigation, the only error (“inadvertent,” of course) that they acknowledge is the tripling of the size of the Trump Tower Penthouse, which cannot be gainsaid. Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” he continued in his decision. “They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money.
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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 08:30
Huge Good luck with this Trumpie. I sure hope someone can persuade the media to hammer him with questions about this over and over again. There has never been a better wedge issue than this one: Former President Donald J. Trump has told advisers and allies that he likes the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother, according to two people with direct knowledge of Mr. Trump’s deliberations. Mr. Trump has studiously avoided taking a clear position on restrictions to abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned in the middle of 2022, galvanizing Democrats ahead of the midterm elections that year. He has said in private that he wants to wait until the Republican presidential primary contest is over to publicly discuss his views, because he doesn’t want to risk alienating social conservatives before he has secured the nomination, the two people said. Mr. Trump has approached abortion transactionally since becoming a candidate in 2015, and his current private discussions reflect that same approach. One thing Mr.
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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 07:00
Disparaging people’s personality and behavior even if they did nothing illegal is now DOJ policy, perfectly fine. The NY Times reports: The White House clashed with the Justice Department in the run-up to the release of a special counsel report last week about President Biden’s handling of classified information, previously undisclosed correspondence shows. The letters, obtained by The New York Times, show that a top Justice Department official rejected complaints from Mr. Biden’s lawyers about disparaging comments in the report regarding the president. The lawyers wrote to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland the day before he released the report by the special counsel, Robert K. Hur. They raised objections to passages in the report in which Mr. Hur suggested that Mr. Biden’s memory was failing and questioned some of his actions, even though the special counsel had found no basis to prosecute the president. The lawyers said Mr. Hur’s comments “openly, obviously and blatantly violate department policy and practice,” the letters show.
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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 05:37

The danger of Washington's attacks on Yemen's mainland lies not only in exposing civilians to danger but has the potential to spark retaliatory measures taken by Ansar Allah should pressure from the public and family members of victims continue to mount.

The post The Threat of All Out War: Yemen Nears the Tipping Point As US Airstrikes Intensify appeared first on MintPress News.

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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 05:30
The Biden Impeachment inquiry seems to attract witnesses who turn out to be con artists and criminals for some reason. The Republican inquisitors get a tip that somebody’s got the goods on “the Biden family” and they fan out to the right wing media to hail the news that they’ve finally nabbed the Big Guy. Then the truth inevitably comes out that they were played for fools. The alleged crime at the center of the impeachment probe is still that ridiculous claim that then Vice President Biden was working on behalf of his son’s business, Burisma, in Ukraine when he pushed the government to fire a prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, whom they claim was investigating the company. The problem is that he wasn’t investigating the company at all and was ousted because he failed to investigate corrupt politicians. (No wonder all these Republicans find him to be such a sympathetic figure.) In fact, the whole international community was agitating to have him fired because he was corrupt and the Ukrainian parliament finally did it.
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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 05:01

Son, what lunatic humors compelled you to cut down the tree? Your mother loved that tree! Seven years I spent nurturing and growing it, yet you obliterated it in a single afternoon.

Did you really think I would not be angry just because you confessed? Truth, George, is a lovely quality in a youth. But do you know what is even lovelier? The capacity not to hack up your parents’ cherry tree for no goddamn reason.

Did the tree offend you in some way? Did it fail to provide sufficient shade? I am simply trying to understand what you were thinking. You see your mother’s most cherished object, a beautiful little cherry tree, and your instinct is to violently destroy it. Are you a budding serial killer, George? Is this how it starts—first you chop up plants, then animals, then finally your fellow man?

I really worry about you, George Washington. I fear for your future.

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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 05:00
“Navalny was an opposition figure, but his investigative journalism exposed the corruption of the ruling elites in Russia,” said Stella Assange. The wife of WikiLeaks founder and imprisoned journalist Julian Assange said Friday that the reported death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is “utterly devastating,” pointing to his work uncovering corruption at the highest levels of Continue reading »
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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 04:59
The debate about climate change is far too often in denial. It needs to change to focus on the positives of how Australia can become a Superpower based on green energy and products that rely on green energy. As in many other developed economies, over the last decade, or more, Australia’s economic growth has stagnated. Continue reading »
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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 04:58
People in the West are Gaza-war weary. You see it in fewer reports, articles and commentary. It is an understandable by-product of the complicity-cum-impotence of Western civilisation in the face of Israeli barbarism. The non-Israeli barbarians of the world are taking note at what they can now get away with. The vile and pointless Hamas Continue reading »
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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 04:57
Swiftie: “A piece of sharp practice; an act of deception; a trick, esp. in the phrase to pull a swiftie”.  The Australian National Dictionary. Whether the phenomenon marketed as a ‘Taylor-Swift’ was human or android, male, female or trans, black or white, took up none of my brain cells until late last year. I still Continue reading »
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Sat, 17/02/2024 - 04:55
In Asian media this week: Imran Khan the ‘winner’ in Pakistan elections. Plus: Prabowo to adopt ‘Indonesia First’ foreign policy; China’s BYD overtaking Tesla; West really thinks it’s a jungle out there; Thai activists arrested for disrupting royal convoy; PLA not able to invade Taiwan; the land where pet strollers outnumber baby buggies. The phrase Continue reading »