Reading

For no particular reason.

They lose even when they cheat The Prince William County Office of Elections in northern Virginia has confessed to an underreporting error in the 2020 presidential election results on Thursday, January 11. The error resulted in a margin of victory for President Joe Biden over Donald Trump that was 4,000 votes lower than reported. This admission comes after the discovery of discrepancies in vote counts as part of a criminal case in 2022. Eric Olsen, the current registrar of the county, has clarified that the errors did not significantly impact the outcome of any race, according to WTOP News. Although the counts were also off for the US Senate and US House of Representatives races, the discrepancies in these cases were less significant. Mistakes do happen and that’s probably all this was. But imagine if the discrepancy had favored Biden. It would be screaming headlines on right wing media. Trump would never shut up about it.

A rise in the polls for Opposition leader Peter Dutton has forced the country to rethink what it would be like should the member for Dixon were to become Prime Minister. For his colleague, the former deputy Prime Minister Barnaby... Read More ›

Take this little tidbit for example from the new NBC-Des Moines Register poll: In case you didn’t watch the whole thing, he reveals that a quarter of voters told the pollster that they would vote for Joe Biden over Donald Trump in the general election. Wow. Meanwhile, the new CBS poll shows this: Republican voters continue to believe Trump is their best bet to beat Joe Biden in November, even as Nikki Haley leads Joe Biden by a wider margin in a general election match-up than either Trump or Ron DeSantis. We show why in this analysis. They are wrong. Trump is less likely to beat Biden. There are other ideas and statements from the frontrunner that have brought criticism from Trump’s political opponents. On immigrants: One of those is his use of the phrase “poisoning the blood of the country” when describing immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally. While most voters overall disagree with this language, eight in 10 Republican primary voters say they agree with it — and that includes majorities of both MAGA voters (97%) and non-MAGA voters (65%) in the GOP electorate.

Among the superstitious political elites in Japan, recent events like the earthquake, the plane collision at Haneda and the arrest of a lawmaker in a major political slush fund do not bode well for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, already unpopular. AUKUS can be another nightmare for Fumio Kishida, albeit external in nature. The decision for Continue reading »

Western nations are always ready to proclaim their system of governance as superior, particularly in regards to China, dismissed as being authoritarian. Increasingly however, ‘western liberal democracy’ finds itself under scrutiny with trust in government falling. Growing numbers feel alienated, believing that the democratic system has been taken over by elites with little or no Continue reading »

Josh Burns, Labor MP for Macnamara, in Victoria, has been visiting Israel. During this visit he did not even follow his own party’s weak calls for a ceasefire. He said there must not be a ceasefire in Gaza. We live in Macnamara and  the following poster appeared at the Sunday rally protesting the obscenity of Continue reading »

Continue reading »

Australia has just completed major reviews of two of its largest public expenditures – the NDIS and Employment Services. Each program manifests problems predicted by two lesser-known economic theories: the Jevons Paradox in the case of the NDIS and Goodhart’s Law in the case of employment services. Neither were mentioned in either review. Today I Continue reading »

Climate experts have issued a grim warning for Australians this summer, predicting that 2023 will be the hottest year on record. While the Australian government has recognised the threat of climate change and has committed billions of dollars in disaster relief and the energy transition, the challenges and opportunities they present are unlikely to be Continue reading »

In all our lives we get to a point where we have to draw lines in the sand. Sometimes those lines are in the relationships we forge, and sometimes they are in the movements we occupy. Many criminalised people struggle with drawing those lines. For many of us, our boundaries and lines haven’t been respected Continue reading »

The outcome of US-led conflicts in Ukraine and West Asia will have a profound impact on the developing world order. Washington has already lost the former, and its major adversaries are vested in making sure it loses the latter too. Republished from The Cradle, 2 January 2024 Geopolitical analysts broadly agree that the war in Continue reading »

But there are moments when you realize it is setting:

The people of the mountain have checkmated the people of the sea. As commenter VietnamVet wrote:

THE COFFS Coast Ocean Swims have been scheduled to take place on Sunday 7 April at the Jetty in Coffs Harbour. “In setting the date there were a number of things to consider,” Race Director Kerry Bayliss from Sawtell Surf Lifesaving Club told News Of The Area. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s...

The post Date set for Coffs Coast Ocean Swims appeared first on News Of The Area.

THE Coffs Harbour Branch of the Australian Native Bee Association (ANBA) has installed a native beehive at the Coffs Coast Wildlife Sanctuary (CCWS) as part of its Host a Hive program. This is the second hive installed by the Branch, the first being located in the North Coast Regional Botanic Garden in Coffs Harbour. Advertise...

The post Bee educated at Coffs Wildlife Sanctuary appeared first on News Of The Area.

THE private garden of the Coffs and Woolgoolga Garden Clubs’ Vice President Sheena Peden and partner David is the setting for the group’s Friendship Day on Thursday 25 January. The garden, at 208 Heritage Drive, Moonee Beach, welcomes visitors from 10am to 12noon. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your...

The post Coffs and Woolgoolga Garden Club Friendship Day invites you in appeared first on News Of The Area.

A YOUNG man from the Hunter region has tragically died after his vehicle hit a tree in Woolgoolga. At about 5.50pm last Friday, 5 January emergency services responded to reports a vehicle had crashed into a tree along Lakes Road, Woolgoolga. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your business. Message...

The post Investigations continue after fatal crash at Woolgoolga claims young life appeared first on News Of The Area.

Sanity? Will it last? Following up on Tom’s post below about the Haley-Biden voters, check this out from Greg Sargent who is now at the New Republic: Last month, Trump said of the hundreds of people charged or convicted in relation to January 6, “I don’t call them prisoners. I call them hostages.” Then on Meet the Press last Sunday, Stefanik brashly echoed his language: “I have concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages.” The way vulnerable Republicans ran from this is telling. “They’re criminal defendants, not hostages,” said Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

Your polls will blow Don’s mind Donald Trump will take this personally. NBC News: DES MOINES, Iowa — Most likely Republican Iowa caucusgoers say they’ll vote for former President Donald Trump in the general election if he’s the GOP nominee, regardless of the candidate they’re supporting on caucus night. That is, except supporters of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, with nearly half of them — 43% — saying they’d vote for Democratic President Joe Biden over Trump. These new findings from the latest NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of Iowa further illustrate the degree to which Haley is bringing in support from independents, Democrats and Republicans who have been uneasy with Trump’s takeover of the GOP. Fully half of her Iowa caucus supporters are independents or crossover Democrats, according to the survey results. Overall, Haley took 20% for second place in the survey, compared to 48% for Trump. The poll also shows three-quarters of caucusgoers believing Trump can defeat Biden despite the former president’s legal challenges.

I’ve been taking photography seriously for 17 years now. And every year I assemble a 6 x 6 “poster” of my best photos from each year. So that makes 612 photos on those poster. Here’s one of the very first, from January 2007, and taken with a 1 megapixel Fuji point-and-shoot.

This week, The Lever led national coverage of the Boeing debacle and more.

“The only thing we’re not doing is shooting people” “The only thing we’re not doing is shooting people who come across the border, because of course the Biden Administration would charge us with murder,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told Dana Loesch last week. But Texas will let them drown. We’ll come back to that. “The cruelty is the point,” Texas resident Adam Serwer famously wrote. Cruelty is also the policy. Don’t say you weren’t warned or missed the signals. There is already ash settling on your windowsills. First, this reminder: “The leading GOP presidential contender is using an admitted hit man and lifelong criminal as a character reference. Take a second to reflect on that.” — Luis Moreno, former U.S. Ambassador, retired Foreign Service Officer. In case you missed it on Saturday, Donald Trump jumped the loan shark. Trump is not flying solo either (CBS): A woman and two children drowned in the Rio Grande on Friday while trying to enter the U.S.

Netanyahu may continue digging, but history has already been written: the spirit of the Palestinian people has won over Israel’s death machine.

The post 100 Days of War: Palestinian Resistance Will Be Netanyahu’s Downfall appeared first on MintPress News.

Gov. Mike Parson dissolved a panel that was reinvestigating Williams’s case before it could report its findings.

The post Crime Scene DNA Didn’t Match Marcellus Williams. Missouri May Fast-Track His Execution Anyway. appeared first on The Intercept.

I came into this world on April 4, 1956. 12 years later, to the day, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. left it. My intention is not to attach any particular significance to that kismet, apart from the fact that I have since felt somewhat ambiguous about “celebrating” my birthdays (I could push the weird cosmic coincidence factor further by adding Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated 2 months later on June 5th, 1968 – my parents’ wedding anniversary…cue the Twilight Zone theme). But this holiday weekend is about celebrating Dr. King’s birthday; so I have curated 10 songs to honor his legacy: “Abraham, Martin, & John” – Late 50s-early 60s teen idol Dion DiMucci reinvented himself as a socially-conscious folk singer in 1968 with this heartfelt performance of Dick Holler’s beautifully written tribute to JFK, RFK, and MLK. Seems they all die young… “Blues for Martin Luther King” – In 1968, music was our social media. The great Otis Spann gives us the news and preaches the blues. Feel his pain, for it is ours as well. “400 Years” – The struggle began long before Dr.