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Created
Mon, 19/02/2024 - 10:30
Trump has spent the weekend blabbing about his hideous gold tennis shoes and the New York Fraud ruling. He did find time to post one thing about Navalny. Naturally it was an “analysis” from some obscure web site asserting that Donald Trump is the Navalny of the United States, with all the usual lies. But this is the important part. He smeared Navalny: And then he killed him. These wingnuts are very confused. They don’t know if Trump is just like Navalny, being falsely accused of corruption and fraud or if Navalny is actually a criminal who deserved to be treated the way he was treated. Because if they’re saying Navalny was a corrupt fraudster, he’s exactly like Trump. Which is it? I’m surprised Trump hasn’t flogged this right wing meme more than this. It’s all over social media. Maybe his feral instincts tell him that it’s probably not a good place for him to go. Instead he’s just not mentioning it. I certainly hope that the next time a real journalist sits down with him that he’s grilled on this.
Created
Mon, 19/02/2024 - 09:28

We live in a world of dangerous, deadly extremes. Record-breaking heat waves, intense drought, stronger hurricanes, unprecedented flash flooding. No corner of the planet will be spared the wrath of human-caused climate change and the earth’s fresh water is already feeling the heat of this new reality. More than half of the world’s lakes and two-thirds of its rivers are drying up, threatening ecosystems, farmland, and drinking water supplies. Such diminishing resources are also likely to lead to conflict and even, potentially, all-out war. “Competition over limited water resources is one of the main concerns for the coming decades,” warned a study published in Global Environmental Change in 2018. “Although water issues alone have not been the sole trigger for... Read more

Source: Dam, Dam, Dam! appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Created
Mon, 19/02/2024 - 07:30
I doubt it Charlie Kirk is a major influencer on the right and his Turning Point organization is the MAGA CPAC. I doubt very seriously that Trump will dump him because he’s a racist. That’s a feature not a bug. But this story does show more of the fault lines in the GOP and that’s always good news: For more than a year, Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and MAGA influencer, was aimed like a heat-seeking missile toward one goal — ousting Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. It’s a battle he won. Just this week, former President Donald Trump endorsed a new slate of leaders to head the party apparatus and signaled that McDaniel’s four terms would soon come to an end. Few Republican groups have had as meteoric a rise as Kirk’s Turning Point USA, which launched in 2012. It sought to activate young conservatives and saw its fortunes grow as it attached itself to the Trump movement in 2016. The organization has raised roughly a quarter-billion dollars since, as The Associated Press reported last fall, with its fundraising exploding during the Covid pandemic.
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Mon, 19/02/2024 - 06:34
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 18, 2024

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 18, 2024

by Tony Wikrent

 

Who will guard the guardians? 

U.S. Government Is Hiding Documents That Incriminate Intelligence Community For Illegal Spying And Election Interference, Say Sources 

Public, via Naked Capitalism 02-15-2024]

“Former CIA Director Gina Haspel blocked the release of ‘binder’ with evidence that may identify her role in the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.”

Created
Mon, 19/02/2024 - 05:38
Why would anyone want to live in a place with the name of a fascist moron emblazoned on the front? Would you buy a condo in Hitler Tower? “My client is worth hundreds and hundreds of millions,” said one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Alina Habba, during closing arguments at the trial, adding, “let alone the brand, which is worth billions.” But up and down the spine of Manhattan, condominiums in high-rise buildings emblazoned with Mr. Trump’s name have underperformed, according to sales data from two real estate tracking firms, and an analysis of the data by the Columbia University economist Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh. The line in the sand is the year 2016, when Mr. Trump was elected president. In 2016, condominiums in Trump’s buildings in New York began to decline, underperforming compared to the Manhattan condominium market. In a one-year window, condos in buildings that had the Trump logo went from selling at a 1 percent premium compared with similar units, to selling for 4 percent less, meaning that Trump condos became a “bargain” among the city’s luxury units, said Mr. Van Nieuwerburgh, a professor of real estate.
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Mon, 19/02/2024 - 04:58
In terms of significant dates and milestones in the long running pursuit by the US of publisher and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, this coming week ranks highly. On Tuesday and Wednesday this week a hearing before two judges in the UK’s High Court will hear Assange’s final bid to appeal against extradition to the United Continue reading »
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Mon, 19/02/2024 - 04:55
The idea of a Western garden under threat from the unruly jungles of the rest of the world is at the heart of today’s global rifts. The Ukraine conflict basically pushed Russia out of the Western garden, just as the Gaza conflict revealed that Israel, as a Western outpost, can commit atrocities with impunity. Travelling Continue reading »
Created
Mon, 19/02/2024 - 04:54
Australian aviation is in the news again. Having ripped off passengers, illegally sacked workers, and impacted the health of residents under airport flight paths, the industry has now received $30m from taxpayers to manufacture “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF). And investors and airlines are clamouring for more. Having “committed to net zero emissions by 2050”, or Continue reading »
Created
Mon, 19/02/2024 - 04:53
Back in the 1960s and 70s, the media was referred to as ‘The Fourth Estate’. The media played a role as a check and balance against government abuse of power, corruption, and overreach. The media was an integral part of any healthy democracy. The old mass media companies prior to the information age, now referred Continue reading »
Created
Mon, 19/02/2024 - 04:52
Australia is no longer competitive in the nickel market, largely due to Indonesia’s recent domination in the sector. This domination strategy has been carefully planned by Indonesia as it looks to boost its downstream industrial policy in critical minerals processing with the backing of Chinese investments. Since 2014, there has been strategic planning by Jakarta Continue reading »
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Mon, 19/02/2024 - 02:30
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