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Mary Trump Barry died today. She was known as the protective big sister toward Donald but she knew what he was. His niece Mary Trump spoke with her about him for her book and recorded the conversation. It was something: Maryanne Trump Barry was serving as a federal judge when she heard her brother, President Trump, suggest on Fox News, “maybe I’ll have to put her at the border” amid a wave of refugees entering the United States. At the time, children were being separated from their parents and put in cramped quarters while court hearings dragged on. “All he wants to do is appeal to his base,” Barry said in a conversation secretly recorded by her niece, Mary L. Trump. “He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this.” Barry, 83, was aghast at how her 74-year-old brother operated as president. “His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God,” she said. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying.
Nothing else matters Philip Bump takes on the age old question of whether Trump is pushing fascism because he believes it or if he’s just a sadistic narcissist who gravitates to it like a moth to flame without understanding any of it. I vote for the latter: There’s a forgotten moment from Donald Trump’s history that I think about with some regularity. About two decades ago, Trump got into a fight with the town of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., over a flagpole he installed at his golf course there. The pole was installed without a permit and the height violated local codes. This was not the fight he had centered on an oversized flag installed at Mar-a-Lago — a story that became part of the Trump-as-patriot lore of his followers, with details exaggerated in service to the idea that he put the display of the flag above all else.
The federal lawsuit accuses President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin of complicity in genocide.
The post Palestinians Sue Biden for Failing to Prevent Genocide in Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
Following up on the post below, this is fun. I’d love to see the press do more of it: Meanwhile, a little family dissension in MAGAland: I assume Roger is Roger Stone. I’d love to know what turned him away, He was a major MAGA cultist at one time. Here’s a story about Joe in 2022: Joe Flynn was getting animated. Standing in the sanctuary of the Living Hope Church in Englewood, a giant cross hanging on the stone wall behind him, Flynn was telling a crowd of 75 people gathered for the Liberty Tree Patriots meeting about his efforts to overturn one election and influence another. Flynn is the brother of former President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Both now live in Englewood in southern Sarasota County. The brothers helped lead a push to overturn the 2020 election based on unfounded voting fraud claims. Having failed, the Flynns increasingly are turning their attention to influencing elections in 2022 and beyond. They could be a potent force in GOP politics locally, statewide and nationally, one determined to influence public policy.
Double Down I agree whole heartedly with Good. They need to keep pushing a national ban with no exceptions. That’s what the people want and they should be willing to give it to them. Don’t hold back! In all seriousness, I doubt most GOP pols will take this tack. They know they’ve caught the car and it’s dragging them face down through every election where it’s an issue. But any division among the wingnuts with the evangelicals for whom this is their organizing principles is welcome.
For decades, researchers have debated whether brain cells called astrocytes can signal like neurons.
The post These Cells Spark Electricity in the Brain. They’re Not Neurons appeared first on Nautilus.
Americans wondered what sort of adult would deny the outcome of a legitimate election and believe the separation of church and state is a myth.
Australia’s unofficial Government in exile, News Corp, has taken on the task of re-polishing the turd that is Scott Morrison. ”After Albo beat Scott, err, ScoMo, at the last election we thought Dutton was our man,” said a News Corp... Read More ›
Mercedes Biocca’s The Silences of Dispossession: Agrarian Change and Indigenous Politics in Argentina provides excellent accounts of Indigenous participation in and resistance to the dispossession by the capitalist and neoliberal apparatuses of accumulation and elimination.
The post The Silences of Dispossession appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).
Caligula next? I suppose he’ll either have to build a whole lot of mental institutions or send them (us?) to the homeless internment camps where he promises there will be plenty of mental health facilities. So it’s all good.
Nicola Coughlan (Derry Girls, Bridgerton) checked in with The Whoniverse via video while filming the Doctor Who 2024 Christmas Special.
Do you smell that? Maybe I should light some candles real quick. Air freshener would be too obvious. Sorry if I sound a little flustered, but I’ve got like maybe fifteen minutes to clean the house before the cleaners get here.
I thought I’d have enough time, but now that I’m taking stock of the current condition of our home, there are at least two meals worth of dishes in the sink, crumbs all over the dining room floor, and dust on every neglected surface where I rub my finger. I was planning on getting it all under control before school drop-off this morning, but then my youngest started throwing a fit that their favorite shirt was still in the dryer, and it reminded me there was laundry to fold.
Now I’m worried that if I don’t vacuum up all the dog hair lining the hallway baseboards or mop up the traces of mud left behind from the shoes my children refuse to take off after playing in the yard, the cleaners are going to have some great anecdotes about how disgusting our house is. I really don’t want to be the villain in a horror story they share with friends and family.
Doctors, nurses, patients and thousands of internally displaced Palestinians are being bombed, terrorised and held hostage in Al Shifa hospital, one of Gaza biggest hospitals. There is no water, no electricity, no oxygen and 37 pre-term babies are slowly dying due to lack of oxygen. AL Shifa hospital is the Gaza Strip’s major hospital with Continue reading »
In the early hours of that fateful morning, October 7th 2023, the silence was broken by a wake-up call like no other. A group of Palestinian freedom fighters, young men who had never known anything but occupation, siege, and subjugation shook the Israeli Occupation foundations to the core. Like birds of prey, those fighters flew Continue reading »
The recent treaty with Tuvalu opens the way for a more generous treatment of Pacific people. In an interview on Insiders (12/11/23) Foreign Minister, Penny Wong was absolutely right when she said that the recent treaty between Australia and Tuvalu is the most important Pacific decision our nation has made since the independence of Papua-New Continue reading »
It was only in March this year that The Sydney Morning Herald claimed in a series called Red Alert that Australia “faces the real prospect of war with China within three years that could involve a direct attack on our mainland”. There were no grounds to believe this then and even fewer after Anthony Albanese’s Continue reading »
It is, alas, far too early to proclaim the end of Australia’s barbarous and inhumane refugee management system. But a series of recent High Court decisions cutting back, on constitutional grounds, the arbitrary powers of immigration ministers and bureaucrats may well be later seen as the moment that the tide turned on a nightmare that Continue reading »
Primary level asylum applications fell marginally in September 2023 to 2,005 from a post-pandemic peak of 2,164 in August 2023. With the Government having announced a $160 million package to get the asylum system back under some control, can we now expect primary level asylum applications to have peaked? After the labour trafficking scam abusing Continue reading »