Reading

With 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in Rafah, a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable says an Israeli offensive would cut off all aid and seize an already collapsed health system.

The post Leaked U.S. Cable: Israeli Invasion of Rafah Would Have “Catastrophic Humanitarian Consequences” appeared first on The Intercept.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

As I write this we’re awaiting the results of the Super Tuesday primary elections and obviously, we’ll be talking about that tomorrow. For now, I thought you might be interested in smart discussion of the presidential polls from Josh Marshall. First of all, he says that the good pollsters have a pretty good way of modeling the electorate and we shouldn’t dismiss the polls just because people don’t answer the phone. Ok. I’m a little bit skeptical that anyone can correctly divine who’s going to turn out in election in these weird times but I’ll take his word for it. Anyway, here are a couple more good insights worth thinking about: You need to believe these polls. But we need to break down what we’re talking about. People often say polling right now isn’t the same as this fall. But it’s not just that the election’s eight months from now and things can change over eight months. Public opinion just functions differently in the weeks before a national election than it does eight months before it. It becomes clearer who is and who isn’t going to vote.

Let ‘er rip: Biden has told friends he thinks Trump is wobbly, both intellectually and emotionally, and will explode if Biden mercilessly gigs and goads him — “go haywire in public,” as one adviser put it. Other sources tell us that Biden is looking for a fight. Biden’s instincts tell him to let it fly when warning about the consequences of Trump winning the presidency again. Biden told The New Yorker that Trump would refuse to admit losing, again. The “trigger Trump” approach would be a departure from a traditional Rose Garden re-election campaign. Instead of focusing on jobs and the economy — areas in which polls suggest Americans aren’t giving Biden much credit — Biden would be making the contest as much about Trump as his own accomplishments. One potential upside: It would help assuage concerns about Biden’s age by showing that at 81, he can still throw a Scranton punch. Some Democrats want to see a return of the Joe Biden who sliced and diced his 2012 opponent, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), in the 2012 vice presidential debate.

In the Alabama Supreme Court’s IVF ruling that sent shockwaves through the country, the word...

The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal interviews Gabriel Shipton, film producer and brother of Julian Assange, during his latest visit to Washington DC, where he was pushing lawmakers to oppose the Biden administration’s prosecution of the jailed Wikileaks publisher.

The post Assange’s brother: “Julian could receive the death penalty” if extradited first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Assange’s brother: “Julian could receive the death penalty” if extradited appeared first on The Grayzone.

Elie Mystal’s latest piece in The Nation is a must read. I agree with his title and his premise: The Supreme Court Must Me Stopped. My question is “So how do we stop them?” There IS a way, and we need to act. Before you go into the, “Yeah, but…” read the whole piece, he lays out several steps to take, starting with changing our attitudes. We have to stop treating them as they want to be treated, as 9 law shamans. We need to treat them as “politicians in robes.” This court has proven with its actions—through one politically motivated decision after another—that it is unfit to wield the power that it does.” The Supreme Court Must Be Stopped, Elie Mystal in the Nation. March 1, 2024 I’m an activist so I know that there are multiple steps to make something happen. Elie starts out with changing how we in the public perceive the court. Mystal, “The first step toward stopping the Supreme Court’s political actions is to treat the justices as political actors and subject them to all of the scrutiny, pressure, and protest normal political actors face every day.

The Florida GOP's so-called trans erasure bill mandates that insurance companies cover widely debunked "conversion therapy."

The post Florida Anti-Trans Bill Could Raise Everyone’s Health Insurance Costs appeared first on The Intercept.

THE Member for Coffs Harbour, Gurmesh Singh, has called on the NSW Government to provide more support to NSW Fire and Rescue (FRNSW) after revelations some of the organisation’s fleet is in disrepair. His call followed a NSW Budget Estimates hearing, which he said showed the Government had cut $9 million from the FRNSW budget,...

The post Coffs Harbour MP calls on Government to support NSW Fire and Rescue appeared first on News Of The Area.

The loss of ice on Kilimanjaro and other peaks will upend ecosystems and livelihoods.

The post African Glaciers Will Vanish In Our Lifetimes appeared first on Nautilus.

And if you think it’s just men who think this sort of thing: That’s MAGA for you.

It doesn’t take much to encourage Penny Wong, sporting her ‘deeply concerned’ frown, to rattle the China can – a can she gave a good shake to yesterday. But before she did the rattling, the resident conjuror, Mike Burgess, who runs ASIO, gave us a week’s worth of spy mysteries – only for us to Continue reading »

“The Australian government and its most senior officials have both failed to prevent or respond to the genocide committed by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza and been complicit in the carrying out of this genocide in a manner which falls squarely within Article 25 (3)(c) and/or (d) of the Rome Statute of the ICC,” state Continue reading »

Like Prometheus, I stole fire from the Gods and gave it to man. For the last eighty years, I have been anguished by this decision. Am I responsible for how the atomic bomb was used? Did I begin a chain reaction that will precipitate Armageddon? Have I become death, destroyer of worlds? These questions weigh on me constantly.

So, come the Academy Awards, I have arrived at the conclusion that I will forget all that nonsense for the night and party my ass off.

My obsession with quantum physics drove me to the brink of madness, but now that I’m a part of “Hollywood’s Biggest Night,” you best believe Oppy is going fully cray-cray. For real. My laboratory assistants and I will be rolling onto the red carpet twenty-physicists deep.

And don’t expect to see my fugly porkpie hat and tan suit. I’m trading those in for tight leather pants and a backless, cherry-red top. (Thank you, Haider Ackermann.)

18% of Republicans are angry or dissatisfied with him. And he’s basically telling them to get lost, he doesn’t need them.

Last Thursday, February 29th. 2024, the Israeli Occupation Forces showed their true brutal inhumanity when they opened fire on desperate, starving Palestinian civilians, surrounding aid convoys coming into Gaza. The Israeli soldiers deliberately attacked and killed 118 Palestinians and injured over 1000. As per usual, Israeli spokes-persons denied that they opened fire. And when eye-witnesses Continue reading »

Some of my best friends are Chinese. This is entirely unsurprising given my frequent visits to the PRC, the Chinese students I have supervised and the colleagues I have collaborated with over the years. I used to think such relationships were unambiguously a good thing and the possible basis for a better understanding between our Continue reading »

AUKUS. The most disastrous defence-policy mistake in our history: In a class of its own as an exemplar of bureaucratic incompetence. In his recent edition of Australian Foreign Affairs, “Dead in the Water, the AUKUS Delusion”, Hugh White argues convincingly that Australia does not need nuclear submarines, and is seeking to acquire them under a Continue reading »