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Created
Sat, 20/07/2024 - 03:30
I had some hope last night while watching that dumpster fire of a convention speech by Donald Trump that the media was going to finally take a look at his cognitive abilities and give them the same obsessive focus as they have done with Joe Biden. In social media many of them were aghast at what they saw and weren’t being shy about saying it.l So imagine my surprise when I wake up this morning and find that the papers never changed their “unite headlines” in the face of his incoherent, divisive freak show of a speech and the news networks are back to the Biden deathwatch without even a moment’s pause. It’s just hopeless. Joe Alsop at Columbia Journalism review has some thoughts: Last weekend, Salena Zito became the first journalist to interview Donald Trump after a gunman tried to assassinate him at a rally in Pennsylvania, a conversation published in the Washington Examiner under the headline: “Trump rewrites Republican convention speech to focus on unity not Biden.” Trump told Zito that he had been preparing a “humdinger” of a speech, but that he’d ripped it up.
Created
Sat, 20/07/2024 - 03:00

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, it stays with you for the rest of your life. Yet I could not ignore the visions of myself in Los Angeles. They said there was a place called Santa Monica. It called to me.

I have never been drawn to the rugged American West. I prefer Key West, Spain, or Cuba. But I have an innate sense of adventure. This is what drew me to the Pink Pony Club in West Hollywood.

For weeks before the journey, dreams taunted me, insisting that I visit the Pink Pony Club. I knew I could be happy there. I can be happy anywhere there is liquor. I heard this club was a place where boys and girls could both be queens every single day.

I want to be clear: I have never wanted to be a queen. I respect a man’s desire to make himself into whatever he wishes. Anyone who can pull himself up by the bootstraps should be free to do so.

Though the journey itself is important, it is good to work toward an end. I was happy to finish my trek at the doorway of the Pink Pony Club in West Hollywood. When I walked into the club, I said, “God, what have you done?”

Created
Sat, 20/07/2024 - 02:00
They’re going to stop certification of the votes I said a couple of weeks ago that if President Biden decided to withdraw from the race it would awesome if he would do it on the night Donald Trump accepted the GOP nomination. That didn’t come to pass last night but the news media did spend the whole day speculating that it was about to happen which no doubt irritated Trump almost as much since he always wants to be the center of attention even when his opponents are doing his job for him. It’s obviously helpful to him that the Democrats fighting each other over the fate of their candidate just three months from the election but the drama around Biden potentially withdrawing from the race has stepped on Trump’s martyr story line even as he’s ostentatiously sporting a bizarrely large bandage on his right ear and cynically playing the sympathy card. But he made up for it with a smarmy opening to his acceptance speech in which he gave a mournful minute by minute recitation of the assassination attempt.
Created
Sat, 20/07/2024 - 00:30
This is not a drill Republicans and their allies “are engaged in an unprecedented legal campaign targeting the American voting system,” a “wide-ranging and methodical effort … to contest an election that they argue, falsely, is already being rigged against former President Donald J. Trump.” You heard multiple speakers claim that this week in Milwaukee. It’s not just rhetoric (gift article): But unlike the chaotic and improvised challenge four years ago, the new drive includes a systematic search for any vulnerability in the nation’s patchwork election system. Mr. Trump’s allies have followed a two-pronged approach: restricting voting for partisan advantage ahead of Election Day and short-circuiting the process of ratifying the winner afterward, if Mr. Trump loses. The latter strategy involves an ambitious — and legally dubious — attempt to reimagine decades of settled law dictating how results are officially certified in the weeks before the transfer of power. That’s on top of state legal challenges to Democrats changing candidates in midstream if thatn happens.
Created
Sat, 20/07/2024 - 00:29

Lowkey is joined by John McEvoy to discuss his work uncovering Israel’s surprisingly firm grip over the British political system. John McEvoy is an investigative journalist for Declassified UK, a media outlet covering British foreign policy and intelligence agencies’ true role around the world.

The post Israel’s Vice-Like Grip Over British Politics, with John McEvoy appeared first on MintPress News.

Created
Fri, 19/07/2024 - 23:00
AOC lays out the stakes In an hour-long live-stream, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) attempts to lay out the plusses and minuses of Democrats swapping out their presidential candidate (Joe Biden) this late in the election season. The election isn’t in November, she reminds viewers, it’s in September when the first ballots go out. The end of September to early October. She’s not seeing Beltway influencers gaming out the consequences of swapping out a presidential candidate without closely examining their watches and their calendars. Making a radical decision like this based on July polling, she reminds viewers, is unwise. She’s won elections where polling showed her down by double digits. An open convention at this point is convention is “crazy.” People considering one are not gaming out how that would play out. I’ve said repeatedly here to those who say, “Joe needs to go,” get back to me with a candidate and a plan and we’ll talk. AOC is in some of the rooms where these discussions among leading Democrats take place. When she asks the “Joe needs to go” faction for their plan, she gets back blank stares.
Created
Fri, 19/07/2024 - 22:00

The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white.

“They look like white elephants,” said the girl.

“Whatever,” shouted the man, not bothering to look up. “Waitress,” he shouted to the señorita behind the bar, “nueve cervezas.” He thought that “nueve” meant “two” in Spanish.

“Do you think things will be the same when… Sorry. The hills just moved.”

“Don’t be silly. Hills don’t move,” he shouted.

“I know hills don’t move. That’s why I was so surprised. Look for yourself.”

The man turned to face the hills. “Jesus Christ!” he shouted. “Those are elephants!”

“White elephants,” said the girl, vindicated. “That’s what I said.”

“And not just elephants! Elephants the size of hills! God help us all! Also, they’re white.”

“I just said that.”

“Nueve cervezas,” said the waitress. She was carrying a tray full of beers.

“Señorita,” said the girl. She pointed toward the horizon. “Look! Giant elephants!”

The waitress turned her head. “Jesus fucking Christ!” she exclaimed. She dropped the tray on the table and ran back into the bar.

“I’m going to shoot them,” shouted the man.

Created
Fri, 19/07/2024 - 21:42

Modern day Brian Eno is dancing to a Fela Kuti track playing from YouTube at his office desk. The writer Paul Morley is vox-popping members of the 1990s British public about who exactly is Brian Eno. On the cusp of fame, a twentysomething Bono looks up from his long mullet for reassurance from an older […]