The job of journalism is not to reinforce a pre-existing bias, writes Nafeez Ahmed
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An analysis compares the level of unauthorized border crossing attempts by different source nations before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump’s brazen climate denialism is being ignored or downplayed — have news outlets given up on even pretending they care about climate chaos?
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December 4th, 2023: And that's all I have to say about books! EXCEPT THIS: they're okay I guess – Ryan | ||
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Journalist, author and antiwar organizer Norman Solomon presented the second annual Ellsberg Lecture, titled “The Madness of Militarism: Nothing can be Changed Until it is Faced,” on Nov. 15 in the Integrative Learning Center, room N151 and via Zoom.
On November 27, 2023, the Economic Affairs Committee of the British House of Lords completed their inquiry into the question – Bank of England: how is independence working? – by releasing their 1st Report after taking evidence for several months – Making an independent Bank of England work better. The report is interesting because it…
I saw a man on the street interview this week in which an RFK Jr fan was going on about the “Kennedy legacy.” RFK Jr is a certified nut who was pulled into the race by ratfucker Steve Bannon. Let’s just hope he doesn’t get on the ballot anywhere important.
Heidi Przbyla at Politico reports on yet more degradation of the Supreme Court: Princeton Professor Robert P. George, a leader of the conservative legal movement and confidant of the judicial activist and Donald Trump ally Leonard Leo, made the case for overturning Roe v. Wade in an amicus brief a year before the Supreme Court issued its watershed ruling. Roe, George claimed, had been decided based on “plain historical falsehoods.” For instance, for centuries dating to English common law, he asserted, abortion has been considered a crime or “a kind of inchoate felony for felony-murder purposes.” The argument was echoed in dozens of amicus briefs supporting Mississippi’s restrictive abortion law in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court case that struck down the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Seven months before the decision, the argument was featured in an article on the web page of the conservative legal network, the Federalist Society, where Leo is co-chair.
In 1981, India’s post office issued a stamp showing the flags of India and occupied Palestine flying side by side above the phrase “Solidarity with the Palestinian people.” That now seems like ancient history. Today, Hindu nationalists are flying the flags of India and Israel side by side as a demonstration of their support for that country’s catastrophic war on Gaza. It’s a match made in heaven (or do we mean hell?), because the two nations have similar “problems” they’re trying to “solve.” Israel has long been engaged in the violent suppression of Palestinians whose lands they occupy (including the current devastation of Gaza, an assault that 34 U.N. experts have labeled a “genocide in the making”). Meanwhile, India’s Hindu... Read more
Source: The Israel-India-U.S. Triangle appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
Russell T. Davies discussed Disney+'s "soft push" for the Doctor Who 60th anniversary episodes and the "big push" planned for Ncuti Gatwa.
If you are a person who understands the trauma that October 7th caused to Israelis and Jews around the world, you should see the reality here. The ongoing carnage in Gaza cannot be defended and Israel is very close to losing the support of the rest of the world that currently supports it: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Israel risked “strategic defeat” in its war with Hamas if it fails to heed warnings about the mounting civilian death toll. “I have personally pushed Israeli leaders to avoid civilian casualties, and to shun irresponsible rhetoric, and to prevent violence by settlers in the West Bank,” Austin said in a speech to the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, on Saturday. Austin’s comments come as top US officials have grown increasingly vocal in their warnings to Israel about the death toll in the Gaza Strip. Those warnings, previously confined to closed-door meetings, have been thrust into the open by mounting pressure from Israel’s Arab neighbors, human-rights activists and opinion at home — including the left of President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party.
DeSantis tries to ape Trump again, in the stupidest way possible: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he would replace Obamacare with a “better plan” — part of an interview in which he criticized former President Donald Trump for failing to deliver on numerous policy promises during his term in the White House, including frequent pledges to replace the health care law. “Obamacare hasn’t worked,” DeSantis said in the interview with moderator Kristen Welker, which aired Sunday morning. “We are going to replace and supersede with a better plan.” He declined to provide details about how his plan would “supersede” Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act, adding that his campaign would most likely roll out a proposal in the spring. I can’t wait. I think this is good. With all the Republicans now falling in line to repeal Obamacare and kill Social Security and Medicare, in addition to their hostility to abortion rights, I think we have the makings of a good domestic argument about the future. And they are on the wrong side of it.
The White House requested billions to support refugee resettlement from Ukraine and Gaza in October.
The post Netanyahu’s Goal for Gaza: “Thin” Population “to a Minimum” appeared first on The Intercept.
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – December 3, 2023
by Tony Wikrent
Gaza / Palestine / Israel
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 12-01-2023]
Trump has always been a sloppy speaker. But he’s not the same person he was, that’s clear. Someone pointed out the other day that the past and the present seem to be merging in his mind at times. The stuff where he’s talking about golden showers and how his wife took it and constantly saying that Obama is president are tells that something is off in his sense of time and place. Here are a couple more excerpts from speeches he gave this weekend. They are bizarrely disjointed even for him. Some are just the usual misspeaking but he doesn’t seem to realize he’s done it. In the past he would do some verbal gyration to cover it (of course, he would never say “excuse me” and correct himself as normal people do) but he just sails past this stuff now. This is just delusional: This is a massive Freudian slip: Of course, he’s also the same jackass he always was: The Flock of Seagulls hairdo gets more elaborate by the day. Can he not see it?
For the sake of Australia’s national interest, and for journalistic integrity that will be judged by history, can mainstream media maintain independence from short-term, vulgar political and geopolitical influence and interference, especially with regard to reporting about China? At last, the relationship between Australia and China has been stabilised. One indicator is the welcome home Continue reading »
America’s huge role in international affairs is undisputed but one aspect that tends to get overlooked is the way its support of local actors tends to inflame the situation. Indigenous political forces, be they governments or regimes in power, or movements or individuals seeking power, have their own agendas and motivations. If these objectives are Continue reading »
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy says Australia is not worsening the arms race and gives assurance about the submarines’ nuclear reactors. The deal could still spark a defence build-up in Asia-Pacific while Australia lacks the facilities to deal with nuclear waste, analysts say. Australia may have asserted that its acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS Continue reading »