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As you may or may not know, Trump hates animals, especially dogs. S. Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is so desperate to be his VP pick that she is currying favor with him by telling the tale of how she hated her pet dog and shot her. I’m not kidding. “Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” the South Dakota governor writes in a new book, adding that the dog, a female, had an “aggressive personality” and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant. What unfolds over the next few pages shows how that effort went very wrong indeed – and, remarkably, how Cricket was not the only domestic animal Noem chose to kill one day in hunting season. Noem’s book – No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward – will be published in the US next month. The Guardian obtained a copy. Like other aspirants to be Trump’s second vice-president who have ventured into print, Noem offers readers a mixture of autobiography, policy prescriptions and political invective aimed at Democrats and other enemies, all of it raw material for speeches on the campaign stump.

Claims that industry assistance comes at a cost to other industries and consumers are too often right. Industry policy should therefore be limited to areas of identified market failure and requires tight evaluation of each case and that performance targets are met. Since the Prime Minister’s announcement of A future made in Australia an old Continue reading »

A call to women to put social needs, not just economic needs, back on the political agenda. If we want to fix that most of the world is in politically divisive macho mode, feminist women need to create new and recreate old priorities to create more equitable, survivable worlds. The macho basis of male economic Continue reading »

Strange but true. A reporter from the state-owned broadcaster in Australia was booted out by India, purportedly the biggest democracy in the world, and the Murdoch media in Australia has ignored it in toto. The fact that the ABC’s Avani Dias had been forced to leave the subcontinent was reported in The Age, a newspaper Continue reading »

Hamas is holding 132 hostages: 130 of them were taken captive on October 7 and two were taken hostage before then (one in 2014, the other in 2015). Israel holds thousands of Palestinians as de facto hostages. According to the Israel Prison Service, 3,661 of its 9,312 “security” inmates are held without charge or trial Continue reading »

In this quiet hour, I summon words, a humble man amidst shadows long, To speak of wounds not my own, to voice a plea so loud and strong. For streets that haunt with harried silence, for whispers in the dark, For the women who carry nightmares in the hollows of their hearts, I say, not Continue reading »

The so-called “cost of living” crisis is a low-wage problem of the Coalition’s making, the dangerously simplified world of central bankers, spooks and cops on the threat from social media, democracy becomes collateral damage from fear campaigns. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic Continue reading »

The complex interplay of vision, power, and governance in innovation districts, precincts, and hubs. The 21st century has been characterised by remarkable technological breakthroughs that have fundamentally altered how we interact with each other and the world. With this in mind, countries, regions, and industrial clusters create visions of a technology-driven future. Quite often, they Continue reading »

As tensions flare with Iran, the US continues to provide full support for Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip. The events of early April seem to bear out the first line of T S Eliot’s “The Wasteland”, that “April is the cruellest month”. On 10 April, on Eid al-Fitr, the celebratory end of Ramadan, Israel killed three Continue reading »

I guess the Village 2.0 is circling the wagons round the NY Times and have decided to stick the shiv into Biden just to show the White House who’s boss. They’re going after the age thing again. You may wonder where this is coming from. Here it is in all its glory from Axios: President Biden has introduced a change to his White House departure and return routine. Instead of walking across the South Lawn to and from Marine One by himself, he’s now often surrounded by aides. Why it matters: With aides walking between Biden and journalists’ camera position outside the White House, the visual effect is to draw less attention to the 81-year-old’s halting and stiff gait. Actually, none of it matters. It’s 100% prime bullshit. Some Biden advisers have told Axios they’re concerned that videos of Biden walking and shuffling alone — especially across the grass — have highlighted his age. Weeks ago the president told aides that he’d prefer a less formal approach, a White House official told Axios. He suggested that they walk with him.

Learning to decode complex communication on Earth may give us a leg up if intelligent life from space makes contact.

The post How Whales Could Help Us Speak to Aliens appeared first on Nautilus.

Donald Trump held a little rally at a construction site in New York before his trial commenced on Thursday morning. He glad-handed the workers and passed out some pamphlets saying that he would end Biden’s electric vehicle mandate. They all seemed to like him but then they would: Fox News reported that the attendees were solicited and vetted by the campaign. In fact, one of the “workers” interviewed at the event was actually a notorious former staffer of George Santos: In other words, it was just another example of Trump fake news, which has been revealed in his hush money trial as a specialty of his going back decades. Trump was very upset that he had to attend that proceeding since his Supreme Court immunity case was being argued before the Supreme Court yesterday and he had wanted to attend. Unfortunately he’s a criminal defendant and doesn’t get the privilege of making his own schedule of court appearances around the country as he’s used to doing. Instead, he had to face more testimony from his old friend, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker who took the stand for the second day.

In a landmark lawsuit filed last year by the Federal Trade Commission, the government accuses Amazon of long being engaged in illegal market behavior.

“I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” During MSNBC’s evening coverage of Thursday morning’s arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Trump v. United States case of presidential immunity, Ari Melber summed up his feelings (and mine) with a quote from Zoolander (2001): “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” On Wednesday, the court considered how many organs a pregnant woman, septic and hemorrhaging, must risk losing before a doctor in Idaho could save her life and provide an abortion without risking jail. On Thursday, the Roberts court spun head-of-a-pin hypotheticals about whether a president can assassinate rivals or stage a coup with no consequences if it were alleged to be part of his/her official duties. We are that far down the MAGA rabbit hole. Chris Hayes noted that in real time during oral arguments: Everyone, including the justices who agreed to hear this farcical presidential immunity case, knew Team Trump’s arguments were a joke. At least, that’s what we assumed. Team Trump was not expecting to win. Putting off the start of special prosecutor Jack Smith’s Jan.

If Meir Kahane were still alive, he would have been proud of his followers. The ideology of the once marginalized and loathed extremist rabbi is now the backbone of Israeli politics.

The post How Jewish Extremists Became the New Face of Israel appeared first on MintPress News.

The Conservative candidate for London Mayor has been very vocal about council tax hikes – but in 2023 she voted to raise Harrow’s by more than 5%

He’s exceeded my low expectations Joe Biden was not my first pick for president, but that’s how it goes. Remember: This is politics. If you want a soul mate, try Match dot com. Even then, ever had an argument with your spouse and stayed married? There you go. President Biden has chalked up quite a record going into this November. I hate flying. Hate it. If a desination is within 600 miles or so, I drive. It’s not worth the headache and expense to fly. By the time I drive to the airport (which, depending on the destination, could take 1-1/2 to 2 hours) with enough lead time to park, get cleared through security, and to the gate with time to spare, I’m already partway there if I just drove. The last time I got on a plane, I missed a 1 p.m. connection because of a weather delay, waited hours for the next flight out, then sat on the tarmac for another hour in the late afternoon during another weather delay. By the time I got to my hotel after 11 p.m. it was like 12+ hours from the time I left the house. I could have driven (with gas/food stops) in 10-1/2. For less. Joe Biden’s administration means to address that customer-unfriendly experience.

A veteran Indian political organiser has been banned from entering India and labelled a threat to the state for writing an article for Tribune, it can be revealed. Amrit Wilson, the Indian-born journalist who wrote the groundbreaking Finding A Voice: Asian Women in Britain (1978) and was prominent in the Organisation of Women of Asian […]

“You MUST see The Lion King.”
The last time you were in New York, Michael Bloomberg was mayor and nobody knew what a cronut was.

“Why not try kayaking on the Hudson?”
You do not actually like living in New York City.

“Corner bodega bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.”
You haven’t been north of 23rd Street in seven years.

“Go to a poetry slam in the East Village and then spend a few hours just getting lost in The Strand.”
You do not have, nor have you met, children.

“Try the steak frites au poivre at La Bonne.”
You work in finance. What you know of the world is not applicable to 97 percent of the population.

“Go to Max’s Kansas City and order a beef shish kebab.”
You are Fran Lebowitz in 1978.

“Museum of Ice Cream!”
You have children between the ages of five and nine. The last time you tried to go to The Strand, you forgot the ziplock of Cheerios and had to spend $24.95 on a sticker and jewel mosaic set to avoid a public meltdown.