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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – July 06, 2025
by Tony Wikrent
Trump not violating any law
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
Diogo Jota was a footballer who sashayed like a slalom skier. He bundled past defenders, picked their pockets, smashed the ball home from every conceivable angle. He was an imp. He played with a smile on his face. He wound his opponents up. A Portuguese international forward who won the Premier League and a brace […]
The colossal structures, built by hunter-gatherers, are way older than archaeologists had thought possible
The post Monumental Burial Mounds Rewrite Ancient History appeared first on Nautilus.
One presumably unintended consequence of the Labour government’s decision to label the activist group Palestine Action a ‘terrorist organisation’ has been a revival of community film screenings. Across the last fortnight, hastily arranged presentations of To Kill A War Machine — Hannan Majid and Richard York’s 2025 feature length documentary following five months of Palestine […]
Obviously this is a pile of steaming garbage. Four trillion of tax cuts, paid for by cutting Medicaid (11.8 million people will lose health care according to the CBO) and perhaps 8 million people will lose food benefits under SNAP. Green energy subsidies are cut (no, shut up, there are tons of dirty energy subsidies) and there’s a huge budget increase for ICE (including more prison camps), America’s Gestapo.
And, of course, there’s all sorts of nasty in the details, like, for example, a ban on States regulating AI, cuts to Planned Parenthood (which does far more than abortions), and so on.
A lot of Americans are going to be hurt by this. I’d go so far as to say it might be the worst American federal budget I’ve seen in my life, though Obama and the Fed’s giveaways to the rich were worse.
Oh, and politicians like Josh Hawley who pretend to care about ordinary people? Yeah, fake. He voted for the bill.
Only one of the eight immigrants set to be expelled to South Sudan is from that nation.
The post Supreme Court Lets Trump Banish Immigrants to South Sudan appeared first on The Intercept.
In this episode of State of Play, Greg Stoker and Robert Inlakesh examine how a Delaware-based NGO with ties to Israel and the Trump administration is using American mercenaries to control, and possibly depopulate, Gaza.
The post Gaza Aid or Cover for War? US Mercenaries Accused of Firing on Civilians appeared first on MintPress News.

Chinese and American flags flying together
When I originally formulated this article it was just “Why does the CCP accomplish its goals?”
Here at PepsiCo, we take pride in our family of beloved brands, which are enjoyed by billions of consumers all over the world. As evidenced by our numerous corporate-responsibility initiatives, we take our obligations to society seriously, which is why we are writing today to apologize for inadvertently contributing to the crisis of American democracy through our popular Mountain Dew soft-drink brand.
A fast-growing pan-African media outlet was erased in a coordinated takedown, accused without evidence, censored without process, and punished for challenging Washington and Silicon Valley.
The post Blinken Ordered the Hit. Big Tech Carried It Out. African Stream Is Dead. appeared first on MintPress News.
The BIG Idea: Open, Safe AI for Everyone
At its core, the Drupal AI Initiative is about helping organisations adopt AI responsibly. As Paul Johnson put it:
“We’re looking to tell the amazing story of how Drupal AI can help organisations that want to adopt AI that is safe and in a way where freedom remains to make their own choices.” - Paul Johnson
The group shared updates on work happening in AI Core, including modules for agents, logging, testing, and a new Experience Builder that aims to make page creation smarter without compromising on security or trust.
Sure, our health care, environment, and economy all hang in the balance of some two hundred mostly unpopular, mostly white men. And yeah, by Friday, it might be too late to reverse this last push to plunge our country into darkness. But we’re the news, baby, and that shit’s way too depressing.
Pay no attention to the millions of people who will lose their health care in the next decade because of this. You didn’t tune into our round-the-clock newsgasm to hear about big, sad numbers or whatever the “nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office” says. You came here to be entertained! Now watch this commercial with an original song about a weight-loss pill that’ll kill you and maybe, in a few days, bankrupt you.