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Created
Sun, 09/06/2024 - 04:17
A catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza right now – with terrible ramifications for Australia. It’s an issue no citizen of this country can ignore. Book tickets here It’s a conversation we urgently need to have. We’re all aware of the indescribable suffering of the Palestinian people, politics at its lowest ebb inside Israel, the anxieties Continue reading »
Created
Sun, 09/06/2024 - 03:30
As I’ve been watching the D-Day commemorations the last few days it’s obviously brought up thoughts about the history of our alliances in Europe and why they have been so important. The idea that the United States can withdraw behind its borders and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist has been proven wrong over and over again. We may not want to participate with the rest of the world but it certainly wants to participate with us, one way or the other. The first half of the last century was cataclysmic and the relative peace of the second half was largely achieved by recognizing the fact that closing your eyes to everything but your own domestic concerns never works. Being the world’s only superpower certainly makes that impossible. Allowing ignoramuses like Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene to be in charge of such an awesome responsibility is one of the most reckless acts in human history.
Created
Sun, 09/06/2024 - 00:30
Onward radical constitutionalists In his early years in stand-up comedy, the late George Carlin played more with observational humor, mocking, for example, the internal contradiction in the term “jumbo shrimp.” What to make now of “radical constitutionalism” (Washington Post): A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’sbudget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.” He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office. And they called 1960s yippies radicals for having long hair, beards, and for wearing the American flag. Guess they won that culture war. Vought seemingly hasn’t noticed.
Created
Sat, 08/06/2024 - 23:00
Revenge is mine The Republican Party might actually draft a platform in 2024 for the first time in eight years. And a “Stop the Steal” election denier will lead them (The New Republic): On May 15, Ed Martin, a former chair of the Missouri Republican Party, was hired to serve as the ​​deputy policy director of the platform committee, reported NBC News. Martin is well known for supporting Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, even giving a speech in Washington, D.C., the day before the January 6 Capitol riots in 2021 to rally Trump’s supporters. “No matter what happens tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after, we still need to be in the fight. There’s no summer soldiers and springtime patriots here. There’s the die-hard true Americans,” Martin said in that speech. “We start today, go through tomorrow and every day till we have a last breath and go home to the Lord because we will stop the steal.” Well. Echoes of Gone with the Wind.
Created
Sat, 08/06/2024 - 20:48

The Japanese term for survivors of the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 is hibakusha. This community of people — their ranks now thinning as the average age of a survivor reaches eighty-five — has remained bonded for nearly eight decades now by common experience of the urbicidal American attacks and their […]

Created
Sat, 08/06/2024 - 10:58
What Is Israel’s Goal In the Gaza War?

I think it’s worth emphasizing that based on actions—priority targeting of hospitals, health workers, journalists and civilians;  and cutting off food and water while not accepting ceasefires agreements which would have returned the hostages, that the Israel’s goal is genocide.

There are no significant signs that they are defeating Hamas, and their actions, as opposed to their words, don’t indicate that was ever the intention.

I think they’d accept ethnic cleansing if they could find someone to take the Palestinians, but since they can’t, mass murder is the goal.

This is consistent with Israel’s history: it’s a colonial settler project where the goals has always been to remove Palestinians and occupy their land and, if not ruined, even their homes.

Created
Sat, 08/06/2024 - 09:30
Lion Cubs! London Zoo’s three Asiatic lion cubs have been pictured taking their first steps outside with mother Arya. The 8-week-old cubs appeared tentative at first, looking to mum for reassurance, but were soon spotted skipping around their Indian-inspired habitat, chasing each other and playing with mum’s tail. The cubs, born on 13 March 2024, have so far spent their time cosied up in their special indoor cub dens with mum. The trio are yet to be sexed, and this will happen during their first health check later this month. From their first moments of nursing to their playful antics inside the den, every development has been closely monitored by zookeepers and captured on the zoo’s hidden “cubcam”. The three cubs are an important addition to the conservation breeding programme, which safeguards a healthy population of the Critically Endangered species. Surviving only in the Gir Forest in Gujarat, India, the wild population is particularly vulnerable to disease or natural disaster. Recent population estimates suggest that only 600 to 700 individuals remain in the wild.
Created
Sat, 08/06/2024 - 08:00
Trump vs Biden on D-Day I actually had this thought myself yesterday as I was watching Trump’s rally following Biden’s speech in Normandy. Dana Milbank: President Biden went to Normandy and spoke about American greatness. Donald Trump went to Phoenix and called the United States a “failed nation” and a “very sick country.” In France, Biden rhapsodized about “the story of America” told by the rows of graves at the Normandy America Cemetery: “Nearly 10,000 heroes buried side by side, officers and enlisted, immigrants and native-born, different races, different faiths, but all Americans.” In Phoenix, Trump, invoked the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, saying Biden had orchestrated an “invasion” at the border as part of “a deliberate demolition of our sovereignty” because “they probably think these people are going to be voting.” Biden hailed NATO, the “greatest military alliance in the history of the world,” and vowed to defend Ukraine: “To bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable.
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Sat, 08/06/2024 - 06:30
You knew that, of course. She’s managed to delay the stolen classified documents trial so long that it’s almost impossible for it to be tried before the election. It’s obvious that she has a bias for the defense, which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise since Trump appointed her and many of the judges he appointed were highly partisan and chosen for that reason. She’s also extremely inexperienced and possibly a little bit weird on top of it. CNN took an in depth look at her work and it’s very interesting: Several attorneys who have practiced in front of Cannon – and who spoke to CNN for this story – pointed to her isolation as one explanation for her conduct. Cannon’s solitary post in the Fort Pierce courthouse, one that rarely sees high-profile action, deprives her of the informal, day-to-day interactions with more seasoned judges who sit at the other courthouses and could offer her advice, the lawyers told CNN. They also said Cannon’s lack of trial experience, both as a lawyer and a judge, is apparent.
Created
Sat, 08/06/2024 - 05:00
Convicted criminal Donald Trump wanted to jail his predecessor It’s important that people understand just what crock this new line about Trump never calling for the prosecution of his political enemies is. He’s a liar, of course. But there’s more to this than just Trump’s usual mendacity, which Aaron Rupar ably covers in this free article from his newsletter, which you can subscribe to here. It’s tough to remember now as Donald Trump regularly wails about the need for total presidential immunity, but four years ago, the then-president was a huge proponent of prosecuting presidents. In the spring and summer of 2020, Trump desperately tried to make a big scandal out of “Obamagate” — the idea that President Obama had done, uh, something or other worthy of serious investigation and possible prosecution. (Trump at one point called the non-scandal the “biggest political crime in American history, by far!”) We won’t get too into the details, because Trump certainly didn’t.