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Rupert reads the polls Trump has been improving in the polls in the last few weeks so guess what? Donald Trump’s reported “soft ban” from Fox News is at an end, and he’s getting the band back together for the 2024 Republican presidential primary.  Trump will appear on prime-time host Sean Hannity’s show next Monday, the network announced on Wednesday. The interview will mark Trump’s first Fox appearance since September 2022, according to the Media Matters database. Fox weekend host Mark Levin let slip on his radio show the day before that he will also interview Trump the following Sunday.

It’s well established that people lie to pollsters, or at the very least put their...

Chicago’s mayoral aspirant enriched banks and helped create a financial crisis for the nation’s fourth largest school system.

Social media and independent news sites have had a significant effect on opening up the political debate over the AUKUS deal. read now...

I guess she’s completely given up on getting Democratic votes in Arizona. But I’m afraid she might have a teensy problem with MAGA Republicans too. She’s an openly bisexual, former Green, pro-choice, DREAM act supporter whose main “independent” credibility lies with her fealty to corporate interests. This is not a recipe for electoral success with well … anyone, and certainly not in Arizona where MAGA is very strong. Has she not heard about the culture war? Ever since Sen. Kyrsten Sinema became an independent in December, her Democratic colleagues have been restrained about the shift, careful not to alienate the Arizona lawmaker when they only have a single-seat majority and need her support on legislation and nominees. Hoping to get through this year, and then gain clarity about whether Sinema will even seek reelection in 2024 let alone continue to caucus with her old party, Senate Democrats have dodged questions about the mercurial marathoner who’s still barely in their ranks. “It’s really early,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who chairs the Senate Democratic campaign arm, told me.

An aggressive startup set out to disrupt African education. Now it’s plagued by a sexual abuse investigation.

The post Two Harvard Grads Saw Big Profits in African Education. Children Paid the Price. appeared first on The Intercept.

My son David Syll was elected today as a Swedish Bar Association member. I know your mother Kristina and grandpa Erik — if they had still been with us — would have been so immensely proud of you for keeping up the family tradition. Congratulations David!  

He’s changed his stance on Ukraine without any explanation so now he appears to be confused and weak. TPM had this observation: For big picture purposes, let me just make this clear off the bat: Ron DeSantis’ position on U.S. support for Ukraine is still unclear. But that is largely beside the point.  Over the course of the last week and a half, the Florida governor has been roundly criticized by fellow Republicans for an answer he gave in a Tucker Carlson questionnaire about his stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the U.S.’s support for Ukraine’s military. His response at the time was more telling about his 2024 campaign strategy than his actual beliefs about the war. In remarks to Carlson, DeSantis characterized Russia’s year-long deadly invasion of Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” and argued that supporting Ukraine’s defense was not necessarily in the U.S.’s best interest. Here’s the full quote: The remark confused some Republicans and supporters who have been following DeSantis’ positioning for longer than the past year.

In the following conversation, law and economics expert Walker Todd explains how a financialized system creates havoc and why it’s time to rethink banking

Over the last two weeks, you could hear rumblings under the global financial system as one large, ugly crack appeared after another. Soon everybody was bracing for an earthquake.

We have just witnessed the second and third biggest bank failures in American history, putting the health of the financial system on high alert. Events have sent global markets reeling with fears of fallout not seen since the 2008 financial crisis.

This is an unusual post from me, in that I’m far from unique in making these kind of arguments. Despite what I see as a growing chorus of thoughtful critics advocating for a TikTok ban, no one seriously seems to think it could happen. If TikTok is already un-ban-able, our capacity for democratic control is […]

Courtesy Cambell Soup Company, Fine Arts Meats-Fish-Fowl PAD #26, 1968

~ Today's Water Cooler ~

Alvin Bragg responded to the House Republicans fatuous primal scream earlier today: In a letter to Jordan and others Thursday, Bragg’s office said their request “treads into territory very clearly reserved to the states” — and noted that it had only come after Trump had “created a false expectation that he would be arrested … and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene.” “Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry,” stated the letter from the district attorney’s office, signed by general counsel Leslie Dubeck. Complying with their request would interfere with law enforcement and violate New York’s sovereignty, Dubeck added. The letter also poured cold water on Jordan’s suggestion that Congress needed those documents for a review of federal public safety funds, but said the district attorney’s office would nonetheless submit a letter describing its use of federal funds.

The Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress in October last year may be seen with the efflux of time as a watershed event, not so much for the extension of Xi Ping’s tenure in the job, but for subsequent sharp policy resets. This year began with the shock announcement that China’s zero covid policy, and Continue reading »

AUKUS. This is a horror for which I now fear for the lives of my children and their children. Every time a Labor member of parliament or senator puts foot outside their office to appear in public, turns up at a public meeting, we need to ask them: why have you betrayed us? Why have Continue reading »

The $368 billion AUKUS deal raises many more questions than we have had answered to date. The Labor Government has followed the Morrison Government as if the plan unveiled by Mr Morrison was a fait accompli. On September 15th 2021, following a two hour briefing from the then-government in which no documentation was presented, key Continue reading »

With the publication of the series, “RED ALERT” in the two leading newspapers in Australia, predicting that China will invade Australia in three years, the constant push from the ASPI, and the increasingly strident rhetoric from the China hawks in both major political parties, will the Australian security apparatus be encouraged to re-establish a “Chinese Continue reading »

In NSW, Labor is favoured to end the Coalition’s 12 years in office at the forthcoming election. If it wins it faces a formidable task. The task is not merely what Labor says: review toll roads and buses; rebates for motorists; reconsider a few mega projects; deal out electoral bric a brac. It will need Continue reading »

While voting is considered a universal right in Australia, barriers remain preventing many people exercising the franchise effectively. In the lead-up to the 2023 New South Wales state elections it seems clear that more should be done to enable everyone to vote comfortably. Back in 1990, International Literacy Year I was possibly the only person Continue reading »

The outcome of a massive police-caused tragedy on Indonesia’s Java Island got less media coverage than a silly white woman’s argument with a brown cop in Bali. The ‘lady’ didn’t like being stopped for riding a motorbike bare-headed, though no helmet law is needed for Indonesian traffic – just a want to live. A story Continue reading »

If Thucydides were asked about what’s happening in relations between the US and China today, what would he say? That was the question posed to me at the Davos World Economic Forum in January. I responded that he would say that this is a classic Thucydidean rivalry in which the two parties are right on Continue reading »

If not arrested by Friday, Trump said, “I will perform a citizen’s arrest on myself.”