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The ruling class knows what’s coming: social instability caused by a combination of the climate crisis, banks failing, the soul-killing inequality of late-stage capitalism, and the impending dilution of the petrodollar.

The post How The Rich Are Prepping For End Times, And Why appeared first on MintPress News.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children to a network of camps inside Russia. The warrant was based on a report by the Yale HRL center, which is funded by the US State Department. US journalist Jeremy Loffredo visited one of Russian government-sponsored camps in question. At The Donbas Express, located just outside of Moscow, Loffredo met youth from war-torn regions who were flourishing thanks […]

The post ICC’s Putin arrest warrant based on State Dept-funded report that debunked itself appeared first on The Grayzone.

~ Today's Water Cooler ~

AUKUS: signed and sealed by the Liberal government when it joined the pact in September 2021, the spoils of which have been delivered by the Labor Government in March 2023. The Labor Government and Australia will pay a heavy price for what is being done in our name. We are being humiliated by our own Continue reading »

Who was behind the terrorist attacks on Nord Stream? Half a year after the pipeline explosions, there is growing public interest in finally learning more about the circumstances of the attacks on what is important energy infrastructure for Germany and Europe. This is due to the versions of events published in the New York Times Continue reading »

“NATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence,” Professor Richard Sakwa once wrote in an attempt to articulate the absurdity of the military alliance’s provocative nature on the world stage. At some point Australians must wake up to the fact that this is equally true of AUKUS: we’re told the military alliance exists Continue reading »

If the Australian Public Service and its satellite institutions were to last a thousand years, people will still say “The Robodebt was one of its most dismal hours”. Robodebt was conceived by a government, one of whose operating principles was defined by the despicable distinction made by former Treasurer Joe Hockey between “lifters and leaners”. Continue reading »

Poverty is powerlessness. It is the incapacity to deal with one’s own issues. It is not addressed through charitable acts, but through empowerment. Responding to the presenting signs of poverty only through acts of charity is like dealing with a major physical ailment only with a pain killer. Indeed, addiction to the pain killer can Continue reading »

Portents of another financial crisis; do the Coalition realise they’re in deep trouble?; and why young people should be out on the streets in anger. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. Macro economics – inflation, interest rates and incomes No Continue reading »

Church sources accuse Israeli police of downplaying acts of violence towards them, and attribute Jews’ vandalism to a growing national legitimisation of discrimination. Vandalism and assaults targeting Christians and Christian institutions in Jerusalem have risen sharply since the beginning of the year, something leaders of churches in the city link to the tone of the Continue reading »

Here are the latest updates on the BBC's Doctor Who 60th Anniversary event and Christmas Special (which includes "a guest star from 2005"?).

At least she didn’t call her “horseface.”

Richard Sharp pumped money into a group that funds causes like the TaxPayers' Alliance, Eurosceptics and the BBC-bashing News-Watch. Now the Charity Commission is "engaging" with his foundation

Donald Trump has been indicted for allegedly paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election. To test your knowledge of the case, see if you can guess which sordid details are true and which ones are made up.

1. What happened in 2006?
A. Donald Trump met porn actress Stormy Daniels at a charity golf tournament.

B. Stormy and Trump allegedly had sex in his Lake Tahoe hotel room.

C. Melania Trump gave birth to Barron.

D. During an appearance on the Howard Stern Show, Stern joked that Donald Trump was a sexual predator, and Trump replied, “That’s true.”

E. Trump told the co-hosts of The View, “I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”

F. All of the above, although I wish I were making even one of them up.

In a weakened position due to Brexit, the UK has accepted Malaysia’s demands to reduce import tariffs on palm oil from the current 12% to 0%

If you wondered what that shrill, high-pitched wail you heard late yesterday afternoon was, it was the sound of millions of MAGA Republicans hysterically keening over the news that their Dear Leader, Donald Trump, had been indicted in the New York porn star hush-money case. According to social media and Fox News, this so-called “weaponization” of the government by the Democratic Party spells the end of the Republic as we know it, and “the people” aren’t going to stand for it. Trump released a statement that began: “This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history. From the time I came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower, and even before I was sworn in as your President of the United States, the Radical Left Democrats – the enemy of the hard-working men and women of this Country – have been engaged in a Witch-Hunt to destroy the Make America Great Again movement. Same old, same old.

Witness statements on behalf of the claimants against Associated News plunge us straight back into what Gordon Brown once described as the ‘criminal media nexus’ 

The real congressional battle over Iraq happened in 2007, when Barack Obama and Joe Biden caved to George W. Bush.

The post The Anti-War Vote That Came 20 Years Late appeared first on The Intercept.

First the Trump Organization, now Trump “The new charges against Trump aren’t so much unprecedented, as they simply charge Trump’s biological person with the same crimes for which his corporate persons have already been convicted,” writes Marcy Wheeler: Paying his former sex partners to hide from voters that he cheated on Melania is not, itself, illegal. Having corporations pay sex workers for the purpose of benefitting a political campaign is.  The National Enquirer paid to silence Karen McDougal ahead of the 2016 election; Trump paid off Michael Cohen who paid off Stormy Daniels through the Trump Organization. Trump might have paid off Daniels out of personal funds, but no. Trump’s eponymous corporate persons have already been found guilty of serving as personal slush funds. In 2019, he admitted the Trump Foundation had engaged in self-dealing. And last year, a jury convicted Trump Organization of compensating employees via untaxed benefits rather than salary.

“If this cabal of Manhattan élites think that they’re going to get away with not indicting me, they are gravely mistaken,” Lake said.

for my new shows, for reasons which remain unclear to me. Here’s a brief update on what’s what. A few shows have now sold out: Belfast, Bristol, Corsham, Liverpool (but a new show has now been added), Otley, Painswick, Pocklington. And tickets are disappearing fast for: Banbury, Brighton, Buxton, Colchester, Kendal, London (2 dates), Milton…