Playing the hand you are dealt Jonathan Last throws water on the magical thinking about skittish Democrats replacing Joe Biden on their presidential ticket. (Really? Are we still talking about this?) Scary New York Times polls? How about scarier polls? Virtually all the also-mentions poll worse than Biden against Trump: Harris, Newsome, Whitmer and Shapiro. Ten days ago already, Lawrence O’Donnell’s “the governing will not be televised” monologue refuted Ezra Klein’s speculation about Democrats replacing Biden. If that was not sufficient to dispel the notion that the DNC is going to rub a monkey’s paw and produce a younger presidential candidate, Last provides bullets on why it won’t (The Atlantic): Democrats may have a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but not since 2018. Unless the carnage abates in Gaza soon, there will exist the potential for protests in Chicago that (for those of a certain age) will evoke bad memories from 1968. Even the rowdies of The Big Tent Party will want to avoid that kind of bad press.
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Blitzer edited two magazines run by AIPAC’s founder that took hard-line pro-Israel stances like supporting Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
The post Wolf Blitzer Cut His Teeth Doing Journalism for AIPAC-Linked Propaganda Outlets appeared first on The Intercept.
“Our Palestine Question,” an explosive new book by Geoffrey Levin, delves into American Jewish McCarthyism from the 1950s through late 1970s.
The post How Israel Quietly Crushed Early American Jewish Dissent on Palestine appeared first on The Intercept.
From Ivy League tax dodges to Elon Musk’s cushy new court system, here’s all the news from The Lever this week.
Ending the Gaza carnage Yes, our outrage is selective. In a world of double standards, Nicholas Kristof reminds readers how much we have one toward Israel (New York Times): Rabbi Marvin Hier in The Jerusalem Post condemned “an unprecedented double standard” that relentlessly criticizes Israel’s bombing of Gaza but is unbothered by the Allied bombing of civilians in Germany and Japan in World War II. And the World Jewish Congress cites “criticizing Israeli defensive operations, but not those of other Western democracies” as an example of antisemitism. A fair criticism, Kristof writes, and a false one. In 2023, for example, the United Nations General Assembly adopted 15 resolutions critical of Israel, and only seven resolutions critical of all other countries in the world together, by the count of one pro-Israel group. Does anyone think that represents even-handedness?
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Ms. Marvel's Iman Vellani, Wytches, Doctor Who/Elsbeth, Superman, TWD: The Ones Who Live, SNL, and more!
Winning isn’t everything. Consider tonight’s Top 10 list, compiled in honor (or in spite) of the upcoming Oscars (March 10th). Each of these films was up for Best Picture, but “lost”. So here’s a bunch of losers (in alphabetical order) that will always be winners in my book: Apocalypse Now– “Are you an assassin, Willard?” This nightmarish walking tour through the darkest labyrinths of the human soul (disguised as a Vietnam War film) remains director Francis Ford Coppola’s most polarizing work. Adapted from Joseph Conrad’s classic novel Heart of Darkness by Coppola and John Milius, it’s an unqualified masterpiece to some; bloated, self-important nonsense to others. I kind of like it. In the course of the grueling shoot, Coppola had a nervous breakdown, and star Martin Sheen had a heart attack. Now that’s what I call “suffering for your art”. And always remember-never get outta the boat. Year nominated: 1979 Lost to: Kramer vs. Kramer Chinatown–There are many Deep Thoughts that I have gleaned over the years via repeated viewings of Roman Polanski’s 1974 “sunshine noir”.
MSNBC’s data guy Steve Kornacki took a look at the polling a few days ago that I think addresses some of the weirdness we’re seeing with the national polls and the election results. Donald Trump is winning his primaries handily and has a virtual lock on the Republican presidential nomination — but a common interpretation of the results says that he is also exhibiting profound weaknesses among independents that portend dire general election consequences. But there’s a hitch. A look at general election polling reveals a completely different story among independent voters — and a dive into all the other data we have on the 2024 presidential race shows why Trump’s poor independent numbers in the primary and better performance in general election polls are completely consistent with each other. The short answer: These are two very different groups of voters. First, the evidence for Trump’s weakness among independents voting in this year’s GOP primaries is straightforward. Despite the widely acknowledged — even by his critics — inevitability of his nomination, Trump is still losing around 40% of the vote in Republican contests.
CBS's Elsbeth is a fun new spinoff from "The Good Fight," but it feels more like if Jodie Whittaker's Doctor Who was more of a detective show.
Hoookay…. I don’t know the story here, but anyone who would do this, even as a joke, is seriously messed up. It may be a cult but this is something even more disturbing. Chauncy deVega at Salon has an interesting compendium of commentary by various experts in Christian nationalism today that’s well worth reading. Here’s one excerpt from Katherine Stewart the author of “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism.” There’s a disconnect between the reality and the narrative framing that sticks to everything. For example, we continue to get horse race coverage that tells us about Trump’s “big win” in South Carolina as if this were just another normal election cycle. On the other hand, the combination of Trump’s legal jeopardy and his increasingly unhinged, overtly fascist rhetoric is indisputable evidence that what we are facing is anything but normal. As for Trump’s claims about being a prophet or some type of messiah, I think we have here a convergence between what appears to be Trump’s mental disorder and the needs of a base that has been primed for fascism.
Marge Greene has been fighting funding Ukraine from the get and now she has the power to stop it altogether. And she’s using it. Speaker Mike Johnson, and everyone else in the House GOP caucus, is scared to death of this woman. She is the defacto Speaker of the House because any speaker knows that she will trip that motion to vacate without a second thought and that will be the end of their speakership. McCarthy managed to co-opt her early because he knew how dangerous she was but she’s not going to make that mistake again. She knows her power lies in being the most vicious, ruthless person in the US Congress and she won’t give it away again. If Johnson crosses her, he’s done and he knows it. Among the loudest voices taking Johnson to task is Greene, who has threatened to file a motion to vacate his office if he does not meet the demands of herself and other hardline conservative House GOP members, particularly on opposition to providing more aid to Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia.
He’s still at it: Former President Donald Trump was accused in a lawsuit Wednesday of trying to “drastically dilute” the value of stock shares in his social media company held by the firm’s co-founders, potentially depriving themof hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. The partnership, United Atlantic Ventures alleges that Trump Media & Technology Group engaged in “wrongful 11th hour … maneuvering” to dilute UAV″s minority stake in the media company, a court filing says. The Delaware Chancery Court lawsuit comes in advance of the planned merger of TMTG with a shell company called Digital World Acquisition Corp., which would result in the shares of the combined entity being publicly traded. If DWAC shareholder approve the merger next month, Trump’s 90% stake in TMTG could be valued at more than $3 billion, given DWAC’s current share price.
Economic theory supports a price on carbon but implemented schemes struggle to deliver emissions reductions. China firmly in the EV driving seat. Climate action is failing to meet its targets globally. Do carbon pricing mechanisms work? Almost every economist agrees (see Michael Keating and St Ross) that the most efficient, most effective, lowest cost, most Continue reading »
The Republic of Nicaragua yesterday instituted proceedings against the Federal Republic of Germany in the International Court of Justice for “facilitating the commission of genocide and… [failing] in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide” by providing political, financial and military support to Israel and by defunding the UNRWA. International Continue reading »
The APS Commissioner, Gordon de Brouwer, included some surprising comments when speaking at The Mandarin’s ‘Rebuilding Trust and Integrity in the APS’ conference last week. His call for a debate about the effectiveness of FoI law and whether the way it has been operating is counterproductive to the Parliament’s intent was not in itself inappropriate. Continue reading »
Canberra-based Piume Kaneshan, a 19-year-old Tamil from Sri Lanka, is the youngest of 39 refugees who walked and cycled thousands of kilometres across Australia last year. She explains what prompted her 640km trek from Melbourne to Canberra with 21 other women. Like 10,000 other refugees who have lived in Australia for over a decade, Piume faces ongoing Continue reading »
The multi-billion dollar expenditure on nuclear powered submarines as part of the AUKUS pact has attracted some attention. Perhaps it helps to provide historical context if it is remembered that Australia’s first submarines were of limited use in the defence of our shorelines. My four times great grandfather William Eckford from North Ayrshire was a Continue reading »
Responses to the report of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (‘Holding up a Mirror to Cricket’) commissioned by the England and Wales Cricket Board, continue to reverberate months after its release in mid-2023. Based upon evidence given by thousands of cricketers, many of whom claimed to have experienced discrimination in the game, the Continue reading »
Several veterinary staff recently quit the notorious oceanarium in protest of an environment they say is unfit for animal care.
The post Federal Probes, Sick Animals, and Fed-Up Vets: The Miami Seaquarium Is on the Brink of Collapse appeared first on The Intercept.
That applies to clickbait polls like today’s NYT poll that has everyone spinning out. No, women are not suddenly voting for Trump. And this too: