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Created
Wed, 14/06/2023 - 15:41
Preparation time: 15 min.Chilling time: 1 hr. For busy days, consider this dessert-rum-flavored cream, studded with fruits and nuts, spread with a lavish hand over cake slices. It combines eye appeal with ease of preparation. If preferred, you can use fresh fruit instead of canned, depending on the season. For 4 servings you will need: […]
Created
Wed, 14/06/2023 - 11:00
These cases are not the same If anyone things that Trump is being treated less fairly than Pence and Biden they need to realize that Trump is not being prosecuted for any of the highly sensitive documents he gave back to the government, first on his own and then in response to the subpeona. He is only being charged for the documents they found later when they issued a warrant. Biden and Pence have given back all the documents, no subpoena and no warrant necessary. If they were indicted for retaining those documents they would be being held to a higher standard than Trump. Read this piece by Eric Levitz which shows that the DOJ has actually given Trump an easier time than anyone else who did what he did. He runs down all the reasons the Clinton, Biden and Pence cases and makes the same point I made above. He then cites a particular case of an average citizen: [I]t is helpful to contrast the DOJ’s treatment of Trump with its handling of Asia Janay Lavarello, a former civilian employee of the Defense Department. In 2020, Lavarello was on assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, where she had been researching a classified thesis.
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Wed, 14/06/2023 - 09:30
Yes Donald Trump was arrested and arraigned today. But if you were to watch right wing media you’d think it was Joe Biden who was facing a criminal trial. Don’t kid yourself. That story is happening right alongside Trump’s impending trial. Philip Bump takes you through it just so you know what they’re braying about if you happen to hear it: The news release went out on May 3 from the Republican majority on the House Oversight Committee. “Information provided by a whistleblower raises concerns that then-Vice President Biden allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national,” it alleged, quoting committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.). A letter from Comer and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) to the FBI, seeking the release of documentation of a June 2020 interview, wasn’t similarly hedged. The document, it claimed, “describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.” Over the next month, Republicans pressed the FBI to release the form publicly. Comer threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher A.
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Wed, 14/06/2023 - 06:30
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) pierced the Fox News bubble on Monday, pushing back on host Sean Hannity’s claims about President Joe Biden, mocking House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and ripping Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) over his treatment of migrants. Hannity tried to defend DeSantis, who has been shipping migrants around the country in what critics have ripped as a political stunt done to raise his profile as a 2024 presidential candidate. But Newsom wasn’t having it. “Why do you use people as pawns?” Newsom asked. “What faith tradition teaches you to treat human beings like this ― to belittle them, to demean them?” Hannity suggested a TV debate ― moderated by himself, of course ― between Newsom and DeSantis. “I’m all in, count on it,” Newsom said. “You would do a two-hour debate with Ron DeSantis?” Hannity said. “Make it three,” Newsom said. “Do it with one-day notice with no notes, I look forward to that.
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Wed, 14/06/2023 - 05:00
I think we can almost certainly count on shenanigans from her. She’s obviously MAGA and it’s very bad luck that the case wound up back under her. Charlie Savage at the NY Times breaks down the possibilities: Last year, Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, briefly disrupted the documents investigation by issuing rulings favorable to him when he challenged the F.B.I.’s search of his Florida club and estate, Mar-a-Lago, before a conservative appeals court ruled that she never had legal authority to intervene. It remains to be seen how she will handle her second turn in the spotlight. The scope of her role before the trial also is unclear: She is not presiding over Mr. Trump’s initial hearing on Tuesday, and could refer some pretrial motions to a magistrate judge who works under her. But here is a closer look at how her decisions as the judge presiding over the trial — like on what can be included and excluded — could affect the case. Slowing the Calendar Mr. Trump has long pursued a strategy of trying to delay legal proceedings against him to run out the clock.
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Wed, 14/06/2023 - 04:57
A battle of ideas is being fought in Australia. And the front line is the drive to war and the demonisation of China. There is a battle but it is a one-sided affair. Ranged against those who seek a sane and rational world are powerful voices. The government, of whatever persuasion pays think tanks handsomely Continue reading »
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Wed, 14/06/2023 - 04:56
In 1795, in his Treatise on Perpetual Peace, philosopher Immanuel Kant advocated rationality about peace by repudiating any plans for military domination, by respect for non-violence and by aiming to abolish standing armies. In 2023, Australia signed up to an AUKUS alliance with the UK and US to acquire nuclear submarines in preparation for a Continue reading »
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Wed, 14/06/2023 - 04:55
Misunderstanding China has a long and distinguished history. Much of that misunderstanding has been generated by western media going right back to the Qing dynasty. The Australian ‘Times’ correspondent of the era George Ernest Morrison was unable to speak Chinese and so depended on Sir Edmund Backhouse as a source of primary information. Sir Edmund Continue reading »
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Wed, 14/06/2023 - 04:54
Ten years ago Anthony King and Ivor Crewe published their book – The Blunders of Our Governments. They ranged over the Millennium Dome; the 20 billion pounds wasted on a failed scheme to upgrade London’s Underground; punishing tens of thousands of single mothers into poverty; massive IT disaster’s such as the Blair Governments NHS scheme; Continue reading »
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Wed, 14/06/2023 - 04:53
Now is the time for the Nation State to reassert its control over multinational entities. Multinationals advance an agenda that is self-serving. These agendas may be separate from, and at times, above, a nation’s law. Financial gain is at its heart. Arthur Andersen, a former large international consultancy that collapsed in 2002, “struggled to balance Continue reading »