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I am completely at a loss as to why the UK should seek to join in with the US in considering China an enemy, and in looking to build up military forces in the Pacific to oppose China. In what sense are Chinese interests opposed to British interests? I am not sure when I last […]

The post Why Would China Be An Enemy? appeared first on Craig Murray.

No country for Black men (among others) Virginia’s Central State Hospital’s original name (according to its Wikipedia entry) was Central Lunatic Asylum. The Petersburg facility “was the first institution in the country for ‘colored persons of unsound mind’.” On March 6, it was the site of the alleged second-degree murder by asphyxiation of shackled Irvo N. Otieno who is unavailable for comment. The Washington Post reports: As many as10 sheriff’s deputies and medical staff at Virginia’s Central State Hospital can be seen piling on top of a shackled Irvo N. Otieno for approximately 11 minutes until he stops moving, according to new video showing the encounter that led to the 28-year-old Black man’s death. The hospital surveillance video, which has no sound, shows Otieno’s final moments on March 6, from the time Henrico County sheriff’s deputies drag him into a hospital admissions room in handcuffs and leg irons, to the 11 minutes in which they restrain Otieno on the ground, to the moment when they release Otieno’s limp body around 4:40 p.m. Most of those visible in the video appear Black themselves.

An oldie but goodie The conservative columnist best unnamed and cited below went viral last week for being unable to define “woke” after claiming to have devoted an entire chapter to it in her recent book. Matt Binder (better him than me) dredged up a classic tweet by her from 2012. It’s “the conservative mindset perfectly distilled in a single tweet.” Sorry, it’s giants all the way down.

Have they learned anything since then? In a nation that considers itself peaceful and civilized, the case for military action should be overwhelmingly stronger than the case against. It must face, and survive, aggressive questioning. When political leaders are too timid to push back, that responsibility falls entirely to the media. But in 2002 and 2003, covering the run-up to war in Iraq, our nation’s top reporters and editors blew it badly. Their credulous, stenographic spreading of the administration’s deeply deceptive arguments made them de facto accomplices to a war undertaken on false pretenses. I’ve written about this failure countless times, but – believe it or not — the best thing I’ve ever read about it was actually written by Scott McClellan, the former Bush White House press secretary. In an era of almost universally self-congratulatory memoirs from government officials, McClellan’s 2008 book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” was full of confessions and accusations.

Mao’s cultural revolution inspires Trump: Actually, it’s probably more like Pol Pot’s version. He sent all the urban professionals and intellectuals to the country to learn to be good communists. This is something he actually accomplished while in office. Recall that he moved the USDA researchers to Kansas City to be closer to the people. The last I heard a bunch of them quit and the department is now much smaller.

Lol. They should know better than to ask him for a biblical reference by now. “I’m not sure I can hear you, if you’d like to say something, I’d like to hear that.” But don’t ask me for anything specific ok? I don’t have a clue about prayer and the Bible, ok? Lucky for him they don’t care. Remember this? There were a few stumbles during Donald Trump’s sojourn to Liberty University on Monday. He mispronounced a book of the Bible. He cursed — twice. And on Martin Luther King Day, the GOP presidential candidate said he was honoring the slain civil-rights leader by dedicating to him the record crowds he says he drew for the school’s opening convocation. (Students are required to attend.) “We’re going to protect Christianity. I can say that. I don’t have to be politically correct,” he thundered at the beginning of his speech at the conservative evangelical university. Then he moved on to cite “Two Corinthians 3:17, that’s the whole ballgame. … Is that the one you like?” Trump asked.

The party's consultation process for the next manifesto has just closed – as democracy groups call on the Labour Leader to seize the mantle of reform, Josiah Mortimer reports

Though Silicon Valley Bank contributed to its own demise, the root cause of this crisis is the fact that private banks own government bonds. If they didn’t, then SVB would still be solvent. Its bankruptcy was the result of the price of Treasury bonds falling, because The Federal Reserve increased interest rates. As interest rates … Continue reading "A Simple Solution to the Banking Crisis That No Country Will Implement"

A theory I’ve been wondering about this too. It’s rather bizarre. He’s in the midst of what is already a tough primary fight and his twitter game was instrumental in his 2016 campaign. But despite Elon Musk’s entreaties to return he’s not back on the platform for some reason where he still has a massive following.It just seems unlikely that he’s content with Truth Social where his engagement is tiny by comparison. Today in the Bulwark, Kimberley Whele discusses that SEC investigation I mentioned the other day in which Trump may be implicated in a money laundering crime to do with his Trump Media company. In the process she notes that this may be the reason he’s not returning to twitter: Donald Trump is involved in yet another probe that could potentially result in criminal charges against him or his associates, this one a yearslong federal investigation by the SEC and DOJ relating to the creation and funding of his Truth Social platform. A final twist in the criminal probe involving Trump Media involves the former president’s use of social media.

We have some bad news I don’t think this is even hitting the front pages but it should: Scientists have delivered a “final warning” on the climate crisis, as rising greenhouse gas emissions push the world to the brink of irrevocable damage that only swift and drastic action can avert. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of the world’s leading climate scientists, set out the final part of its mammoth sixth assessment report on Monday. The comprehensive review of human knowledge of the climate crisis took hundreds of scientists eight years to compile and runs to thousands of pages, but boiled down to one message: act now, or it will be too late. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said: “This report is a clarion call to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every timeframe. Our world needs climate action on all fronts: everything, everywhere, all at once.” In sober language, the IPCC set out the devastation that has already been inflicted on swathes of the world.