Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

The George Santos Saga, Kevin McCarthy Implosion and Marjorie Taylor Greene Circus

Unprecedented times in Congress abounded in 2023, from booting a speaker for the first time in history to near fist fights in the Capitol halls to senior lawmakers’ personal health issues becoming incredibly public.

The House GOP had a particularly wild year. It wasn’t just the ousting of a speaker; don’t forget the expulsion of now-former Rep. George Santos from Congress — the sixth member to ever earn that black mark. Democrats had their own fair share of memorable moments, too, including a certain congressman pulling the Cannon House Office Building fire alarm.

Imprisoned Russian Opposition Leader Navalny Located In Penal Colony 3 Weeks After Contact Lost

MOSCOW (AP) — Associates of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Monday that he has been located at a prison colony above the Arctic Circle nearly three weeks after contact with him was lost.

Navalny, the most prominent foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism. He had been imprisoned in the Vladimir region of central Russia, about 230 kilometers (140 miles) east of Moscow, but his lawyers said they had not been able to reach him since Dec. 6.

Monday, September 16, 2024

Central Gaza Airstrike Kills At Least 68, Adding To Weekend's Bloodshed

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — At least 68 people were killed by an Israeli strike in central Gaza, health officials said Sunday, while the number of Israeli soldiers killed in combat over the weekend rose to 15.

Associated Press journalists at a nearby hospital watched frantic Palestinians carry the dead, including a baby, and wounded following the strike on the Maghazi refugee camp east of Deir al-Balah. One bloodied young girl looked stunned while her body was checked for broken bones.

Israel strikes 2 homes, killing more than 90 Palestinians; Biden says he didn’t request a cease-fire

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — More than 90 Palestinians, including dozens from an extended family, were killed in Israeli airstrikes on two homes in Gaza, rescuers and hospital officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned that nowhere is safe in the territory and that Israel’s offensive creates “massive obstacles” to distribution of humanitarian aid.

President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, calling it a long and private conversation a day after the Biden administration again shielded Israel in the diplomatic arena. On Friday, the U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution that calls for immediately speeding up aid deliveries to desperate civilians in Gaza, but not for a cease-fire.

With The Supreme Court On Sideline For Now, Trump's Lawyers Press Immunity Claims Before Lower Court

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump was acting within his role as president when he pressed claims about “alleged fraud and irregularity” in the 2020 election, his lawyers told a federal appeals court in arguing that he is immune from prosecution.

The attorneys also asserted in a filing late Saturday night that the “historical fallout is tremendous” from the four-count indictment charging Trump with plotting to overturn the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

The Future of Speech on Campus

In the recent congressional hearings about anti-Semitism on campus, Republican Representative Elise Stefanik of New York asked the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania whether calling for “the genocide of Jews” violates their university’s rules or code of conduct with respect to bullying and harassment. The underlying assumption that there have, in fact, been recent calls for genocide on these campuses struck many as resting on an overly broad interpretation. Indeed, Stefanik’s questioning revealed that she seemed to count any use of the Arabic word intifada or the slogan “from the river to the sea” as tantamount to a call for genocide. These are phrases deployed in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—a setting in which both sides have invoked the rhetoric of genocide, but where the meaning of such talk is highly contested.

Israel-Gaza war: Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel paying 'heavy price'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Gaza war has come at a "very heavy price" for his side.

The military says more than a dozen soldiers have been killed in the territory since Friday, bringing the total of the ground assault to 154.

Saturday was one of its deadliest days - but the Israeli PM there was "no choice" but to keep fighting.

The anatomy of Zionist genocide

On October 7, Hamas fighters breached the Gaza prison fence, launching a coordinated attack on at least seven Israeli military installations and more than 20 surrounding residential communities. Over 1000 Israeli citizens, both civilian and military, as well as dozens of foreign nationals, were killed in the attack. Some 240 others were taken captive. Caught off guard and in disarray, the Israeli military responded to the attack in a frenzy, firing indiscriminately on breached localities, slaying Israeli captives alongside Hamas fighters in the process. It took the Israeli forces nearly a day to recapture all lost territory and secure the Gaza perimeter.

Israeli Airstrikes Flatten 2 Gaza Homes, Killing Over 90 Palestinians

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than 90 Palestinians, including dozens from an extended family, were killed in Israeli airstrikes on two homes in Gaza, rescuers and hospital officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned that nowhere is safe in the territory and that Israel’s offensive creates “massive obstacles” to distribution of humanitarian aid.

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, calling it a long and private conversation a day after the Biden administration again shielded Israel in the diplomatic arena. On Friday, the U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution that calls for immediately speeding up aid deliveries to desperate civilians in Gaza, but not for a cease-fire.

Israeli campaign to kill Hamas leaders likely to backfire, say earlier assassination targets

A worldwide campaign of assassinations of Hamas leaders announced by senior Israel officials is likely to be counterproductive, impractical and ineffective, targets of previous such efforts have suggested.

Benjamin Netanyahu first announced the new strategy two weeks after the 7 October attacks launched by Hamas into southern Israel which killed 1,200 people.

Dump All Your Carbon Emissions in Alberta, Pitches Smith

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has a solution to Canada’s carbon emissions: dump them underground in Alberta.

Smith is a proponent of carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS, where carbon dioxide emissions are captured from large industrial emitters, turned into a fluid and injected underground via pipeline. She is such a booster of the technology that during a Dec. 7 news conference from Dubai, where she was attending the COP28 climate summit, she was irrepressibly positive about CCS’s future.

Russia warns US and Europe over reports Ukraine may get its seized assets

The Kremlin has threatened Europe and the US with “serious consequences”, including tit-for-tat financial seizures or even a break in diplomatic relations, if Russian assets held abroad are given to aid the Ukrainian budget and war effort.

A spokesperson for Vladimir Putin told reporters on Friday that if the Biden administration and European leaders planned to seize Russian central bank assets believed to be in excess of $300bn (£236bn) that were frozen after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, they should “realise that Russia will never leave those who do it alone”.

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Supreme Court Rejects Special Counsel Request To Rule On Trump Immunity Claim Immediately

WASHINGTON ― The Supreme Court on Friday denied a request from special counsel Jack Smith to step in and immediately rule on Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution for his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol because they were “official” acts and part of his job.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan earlier this month ruled that Trump’s attempt to overturn the election and remain in power was not part of his official duties and he would have to stand trial on the charges listed in Smith’s indictment.

Greene Demands Biden Treason Charges After Trump Barred From Colorado Ballot

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, recently decried a ruling from the Colorado State Supreme Court barring Trump from appearing on the ballot for the 2024 presidential election, calling for President Joe Biden to be prosecuted for treason instead.

Such a demand is an extreme reaction, even for the far right lawmaker, given what it entails — the federal crime of treason is defined as “levying war against the United States, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” and can carry a penalty of death. Greene offered no evidence warranting charging Biden with treason, other than the fact that she wants him to enact more xenophobic immigration policies.

Lara Trump Admits She'd Happily Be Her Father-In-Law's Vice President

Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of former president Donald Trump, said on her podcast that she’s open to also being his vice president should he be reelected.

She made the admission on a recent episode of her podcast, “The Right View with Lara Trump,” after a viewer asked her if she would accept the position of being her father-in-law’s running mate, assuming he actually asked her. 

It should be noted that she has no political experience outside of working on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, though she did briefly consider running to be Senator of North Carolina in 2022.

Recording Shows Trump Pressed Michigan Republicans To Not Certify Election Results: Report

Former President Donald Trump was recorded pressing two Wayne County, Michigan, election canvassers to not certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, the Detroit News reported Thursday.

According to four recordings listened to by the Detroit News, which were reportedly made by a person present during the conversation, the then-president and Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, spoke with Monica Palmer and William Hartmann — Republican members of the county’s Board of Canvassers — on Nov. 17, 2020. At the time, Trump was falsely claiming the election had been stolen from him, filing dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits based on unfounded claims of voter fraud.

Kellyanne Conway Asks Gov. Kristi Noem If She Could Bar Biden From South Dakota Ballot

A smirking Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday asked South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) if she could remove President Joe Biden from the ballot in her state. (Watch the video below.)

Subbing for Fox News host Sean Hannity, Conway appeared to wax sarcastic with her guest after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled to omit Republican front-runner Donald Trump from that state’s primary ballot. The court cited a constitutional amendment barring insurrectionists from holding office.

Republican outrage was swift, and Conway, a former adviser in the Trump White House, appeared to pile on with her silly leading question.

Maine Secretary Of State Delays Trump Ballot Decision After Colorado Ruling

Maine’s secretary of state has delayed a decision to determine whether former President Donald Trump should appear on next year’s presidential primary ballot, following a decision from the Colorado Supreme Court determining he is ineligible there.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows was expected to make a decision Friday about Trump’s eligibility, but will allow for more time for both sides to make arguments after Colorado’s historic ruling this week, the Portland Press Herald reported. Bellows said she plans to issue a ruling early next week.

Jack Smith To SCOTUS: Yes, There Absolutely Is A Reason To Rush Trump’s Case

WASHINGTON — Responding to Donald Trump’s claim to the Supreme Court that there was no reason to rush the proceedings in the Jan. 6 criminal case against him, special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday told the high court: Oh, yes, there is — the former president’s unprecedented attempt to remain in power despite losing his election.

“The charges here are of the utmost gravity. This case involves ― for the first time in our nation’s history ― criminal charges against a former president based on his actions while in office,” Smith wrote in a 14-page filing. “And not just any actions: alleged acts to perpetuate himself in power by frustrating the constitutionally prescribed process for certifying the lawful winner of an election. The nation has a compelling interest in a decision on respondent’s claim of immunity from these charges ― and if they are to be tried, a resolution by conviction or acquittal, without undue delay.”

Colorado Supreme Court says Trump is ineligible to run again

The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that Donald Trump is disqualified by the Constitution from serving as president again because he stoked an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

The 4-3 ruling, which rests on an interpretation of the 14th Amendment, will almost certainly force the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve whether Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination, is eligible to hold future public office.

Ginni Thomas Is a Victim of Donald Trump’s Alleged Crimes

Consider the following hypothetical: Suppose Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s husband happened to be a well-known crypto advocate and an early investor in Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX. As you may have heard, the exchange collapsed, and SBF was recently convicted of criminal fraud; he intends to appeal. Now suppose that the case ends up before the Supreme Court.

Under those circumstances, is there any question that Justice Jackson would need to recuse herself from the case? After all, her husband could be either a co-conspirator or a victim. Either way, he — and she, by extension — has an interest in the outcome of the prosecution.

Putin ‘has Trump’s number’ and still sees him ‘as an asset’, says Fiona Hill

Vladimir Putin has had Donald Trump’s “number for some time … knows how to manipulate him” and still sees him “as an asset”, the former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill said, discussing the Russian leader and the Republican presidential frontrunner.

“That’s literally [Putin’s] trump card,” Hill told the One Decision Podcast, hosted by Jane Ferguson, a reporter, and Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of MI6, when asked if she thought the Russian president, bogged down in war in Ukraine, was betting on Trump beating Joe Biden next year and returning to power.

US child poverty doubled in 2022, thanks to Joe Manchin. We must reverse course

Legislators are fleeing Washington, DC and heading home for the holidays. They leave behind a dysfunctional Congress with a rookie Speaker, brutal wars ongoing overseas, and a country with 11 million children living in poverty.

Yes, after a brief reprieve, child poverty is once again on the rise in the United States. But Congress can put a stop to that. As members of both houses, and both parties, work together on an end-of-year tax deal, they can re-implement a simple, wildly popular measure that has already proven to dramatically reduce child poverty: the expanded Child Tax Credit.

Elon Musk says letting workers unionize creates ‘lords and peasants’. What?

In case workers need any additional arguments for why labor unions are good for them, a powerful new argument comes from none other than Elon Musk. Last month at the New York Times DealBook Summit, a gathering of lords of finance and industry, Musk said: “I disagree with the idea of unions … I just don’t like anything which creates a lords and peasants sort of thing.”

That the world’s richest human dissed the idea of unions should certainly be seen as a selling point for unionizing. Musk’s statement shows that he realizes that unions can be highly effective in harnessing the collective voice and power of workers, not just to limit the autonomy of power-hungry CEOs like him in managing their companies, but also to counter the capricious and often officious way he runs things. Musk is allergic to the idea of letting workers and their union have a voice in how to run – and improve – things.

Florida Bill Would Ban Communities From Flying LGBTQ Pride Flags

New legislation offered by a Republican lawmaker in Florida could bar local governments and their offices from flying LGBTQ Pride Flags.

House Bill 901, authored by far right Rep. David Borrero (R), does not directly state that it is targeting Pride Flags in particular, but critics have pointed out that Borrero and other GOP lawmakers attempted to pass similar legislation earlier this year, and that his public statements strongly suggest that LGBTQ flags are the likely targets of the bill.

Trump Lashes Out At Conservative Republican, Calls Him 'RINO' For Backing Ron DeSantis

Former President Donald Trump is calling for a primary challenge against Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) because Roy backs Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, for president.

Roy appeared alongside DeSantis in Iowa for a Fox News interview that caught Trump’s attention on Monday evening. 

“Has any smart and energetic Republican in the Great State of Texas decided to run in the Primary against RINO Congressman Chip Roy,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, using an acronym for “Republican in name only.” “For the right person, he is very beatable. If interested, let me know!!!”

Trump Ruled Ineligible For Presidency By Colorado Supreme Court, Disqualified From State Ballot

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump is disqualified from being president under the 14th Amendment and may not appear on the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot.

In a 4-3 vote, the court made the shocking and unprecedented ruling that Trump is ineligible to be president again because of a clause in the 14th Amendment barring from state or federal office anyone who took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution but then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against it, or gave “aid or comfort to [its] enemies.”

The U.S. Is About To Make A Decision At The U.N. That Could Change Gaza's Fate

The best chance right now to improve the desperate situation in Gaza ― where millions of people are under bombardment while on the brink of starvation amid a U.S.-backed Israeli military operation ― hinges on America’s choices at the United Nations.

The U.N. Security Council will vote Tuesday on a resolution proposed by the United Arab Emirates, a close U.S. partner, on behalf of Arab and Muslim states that calls for limiting the fighting and dramatically increasing humanitarian aid for Gazans, two diplomats told HuffPost on Monday. It’s a major moment for besieged Palestinians and their supporters, and for the Biden administration, which is struggling to balance its support for Israel with international criticism of the devastating offensive and deep concerns among American officials about the consequences of largely unchecked support for Israel.

Thursday, September 12, 2024

Hannah Arendt would not qualify for the Hannah Arendt prize in Germany today

This past weekend the prominent Russian-American journalist and writer Masha Gessen was awarded the prestigious Hannah Arendt prize for political thought under police protection in Germany. But the event, which was to be a grand ceremony hosted by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in the city hall of Bremen in north-west Germany, almost did not happen at all after Gessen published an essay in the New Yorker comparing Gaza before 7 October to the Jewish ghettoes of Nazi-occupied Europe.

Trump’s ‘dehumanising and fascist rhetoric’ denounced by top progressive

A leading American progressive said Donald Trump was using “horrific … dehumanising and fascist rhetoric”, after the former president told supporters immigrants were invading the US and “poisoning the blood of our country”.

“This is horrific,” said Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on Monday.

“Donald Trump’s description of immigrants who are coming to the southern border is dehumanising and fascist rhetoric. These are dangerous lies, designed to villainise immigrants and make horrific policy seem somehow acceptable.

Trump tells rally immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’

Donald Trump, just weeks after using the fascist terminology “vermin” to describe sections of American society he dislikes, again declared at a New Hampshire rally that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”.

Condemned for his previous remarks at the last rally he held in New Hampshire – where he threatened to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections” – Trump appeared to double down in Durham on Saturday.

'Israel only responds to force’: support for Hamas soars in West Bank after October attack

Fluffy pink slippers on her feet and scarves thrown over her hair and pyjamas, Amal Abu Ghazi, 39, leaned against a wall as she watched her family clear out the rubble from their ruined house in the Jenin refugee camp, in the north of the occupied West Bank.

Her husband used a stick to smash the remaining shards of glass out of the window frames of their two-storey home and her brothers-in-law hauled out the remains of sofas and tables; somehow, a laptop had managed to survive intact. Israeli soldiers had burst in two nights ago, Abu Ghazi said, arresting her sons, 20 and 18, and ordering the rest of the family to wait outside before troops used explosives to demolish the building.

‘I’m not sure I fully trust anyone who stayed’: Ukrainian city split by suspicion a year after Russian retreat

Often, when Kostiantyn Grygorenko walks the streets of Izium, he spots people he suspects collaborated with the Russians during the five-month occupation of his home town last year.

He used to feel an overwhelming rush of emotions when he saw them. Now, he tries to conserve his energy and nerves and ignore them. But still, it gets to him.

“These people are walking around the town, living among us, and they think they’re not guilty of anything. But I think they’re criminals and should go to jail,” said Grygorenko, editor-in-chief of the local weekly newspaper Izium Horizons.

Masha Gessen Kicks the Hornet’s Nest on Israel and the Holocaust

Masha Gessen was heading to Germany to receive a prominent cultural prize when they heard that the ceremony wasn’t going forward. That’s because an essay they had published in The New Yorker had apparently tripped alarms in Germany for its references to ghettos in Europe and Gaza.

Gessen was not entirely surprised by the controversy. When they had reviewed with fact-checkers the passage that appeared to cause offense, they had predicted that this would be “when the reader is going to throw their laptop across the room,” they said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine.

Justice Neil Gorsuch took 10 minutes to approve Dobbs abortion opinion – report

The conservative supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch took just 10 minutes to approve without changes a 98-page draft of the opinion that would remove the federal right to abortion that had been guaranteed for nearly 50 years, the New York Times reported.

According to the paper, Samuel Alito, the author of the opinion in Dobbs v Jackson, the case that struck down Roe v Wade, from 1973, circulated his draft at 11.16am on 10 February 2022.

There’s only one way out of this Gaza war and Netanyahu is blocking it. Joe Biden must force him from power

Joe Biden’s bond with Israel and the Jewish people runs so deep he is said to feel it in his kishkes (that’s “guts”, for the non-Yiddish speakers among you). Biden demonstrated that early in the current crisis by visiting Israel within days of the 7 October massacre, which saw 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians, killed, many tortured and mutilated. He demonstrated it again, just as swiftly, with the dispatch of two US aircraft carriers to the region, aimed at deterring Hezbollah and its Iranian backers from attacking Israel from the north – his one-word message: “Don’t.” And he showed it once more just last week, wielding the US veto at the United Nations – making Washington all but a lone voice against the global chorus demanding that Israel end its offensive in Gaza, which has left so many thousands dead.

Giuliani Won't Testify, Despite Pledge To 'Definitively Clear' His Name By Doing So

Rudy Giuliani on Thursday declined to testify in his defamation case in Washington — signaling an abrupt about-face for the former Donald Trump election lawyer.

As the second half of his trial kicked off this week, Giuliani had told reporters that he would “definitively clear” his name by taking the stand and proving that his lies about two Georgia election workers weren’t lies at all.

Putin Says There Will Be No Peace In Ukraine Until Goals Are Achieved

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed that there would be no peace in Ukraine until his goals are achieved and said those objectives remain unchanged at a year-end news conference.

Offering rare detail on Moscow’s operation, Putin dismissed the need for a second wave of mobilization of reservists, saying there are some 617,000 Russian soldiers currently in Ukraine, including around 244,000 troops who were called up to fight alongside professional Russian military forces.

Republicans Vote To Authorize Impeachment Inquiry Against Joe Biden

WASHINGTON ― Republicans in the House of Representatives voted Wednesday to formally authorize their already ongoing impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden.

The vote was a show of unity for an often-divided Republican conference and a clear step toward eventually impeaching the president, though Republicans swore they would only go where the evidence takes them. The vote on the House floor was 221 to 212.

“We are now at a pivotal moment in our investigation,” House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.), one of the leaders of the impeachment effort, said on the House floor before the vote.

Republicans Will Try For Third Time To Pin Ukraine Corruption On Joe Biden

WASHINGTON — The House will vote Wednesday on whether to formally authorize Republicans’ impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden.

The vote is mostly symbolic, signaling impeachment will remain a top priority for House Republicans in the new year — but Biden’s alleged misdeeds are not new, nor are GOP efforts to litigate them.

Former US ambassador to Israel says Netanyahu is a ‘clear and present danger’ to Israel

Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk slammed Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu as Sunday “clear and present danger” to the country, and called on him to resign “before he does even more damage to Israel.”

“[Netanyahu’s] determination to stay in power no matter the cost is a clear and present danger to Israel. He needs to resign…yesterday!” Indyk wrote in a post on X Sunday morning.

Civil rights lawyer quits X after Alex Jones’ return to platform

Prominent civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill is abandoning X, formerly known as Twitter, following the announcement that Elon Musk would be reinstating conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ X account after a five-year ban.

After encountering a post mentioning the life and memory of Ana Grace Márquez-Greene, a first-grader murdered in the Sandy Hook massacre, Ifill said she took it as a sign to quit the social media platform and post solely on Threads.

Tucker Carlson Launches His Own Network, And It's Gonna Cost Ya

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has branched out again, going live Monday with his Tucker Carlson Network.

The streaming platform costs $9 a month or $72 for a year ― all in the name of, ahem, stopping the “propaganda spiral,” the network says on its website.

“News coverage in the West has become a tool of repression and control,” the site says. “Reporters no longer reveal essential information to the public; they work to hide it.”

I Covered Joe Manchin for Years. He Might Not Care If He Sinks Joe Biden.

Since announcing he won’t run again for Senate, Joe Manchin has left open the door to a third-party presidential campaign. Democrats are naturally anxious about the West Virginia senator’s intentions, fearful of the possible effects of an independent bid on Joe Biden’s reelection chances.

They have good cause to worry: A presidential run would be a fitting capstone for Manchin, who’s built a career around putting his own interests ahead of his party. His brand of centrism has helped him survive West Virginia’s rapid transformation from a blue to red state. But it also helped sow the seeds of the Democratic Party’s demise back home.

What price will Rudy Giuliani pay for smearing Georgia election workers?

Rudy Giuliani, the politician who was once lauded as “America’s mayor” but descended into the rabbit hole of Donald Trump’s election denial lies, will face a Washington DC jury on Monday in a landmark case which could see him saddled with millions of dollars in damages.

For the first time at trial, Giuliani will be confronted in a federal district court with the consequences of the conspiracy theories he disseminated as Trump’s 2020 election lawyer. He will come eye-to-eye with the mother and daughter poll workers from Georgia who claim that he destroyed their lives and caused them ongoing emotional distress by maliciously accusing them of election fraud.

Seeing Genocide

December 8, 2023

I.
The pair of images above, Gaza “before and after,” has circulated in Israel as an image of victory over Hamas. If it were perceived by its perpetrators as evidence of a crime, it would have been censored so that it could not be used as proof of the spaciocide waged upon Gaza. Rather, it has been disseminated with pride, announcing that Palestinians can no longer walk along Al-Rashid Street in Gaza City, and more broadly cannot return to the Northern part of Gaza, which became a territory free of Palestinians.

“Ceasefire now,” “lift the siege,” and “stop the killing” are emergency calls to put an immediate end to Israel’s bombardment and destruction in Gaza. They are voiced by millions of people all over the world, in the streets and on social media. And yet, they are being rejected by liberal governments of the West as well as by institutional leaders from academia to the medical organizations. These groups turn these bare minimum demands—stop the killing—into controversial statements. Indeed, in an effort to convince the world that the violence waged upon Gaza is not genocidal, governments and institutions in the West have enacted an ideological campaign of terror, weaponizing accusations of anti-Semitism against those who reject these claims and the conflation of Jews and Israelis.

Instruments of Dehuman­ization

In 1979 Benjamin Netanyahu and his father Benzion—both newly returned to Israel—convened, in Jerusalem, the first-ever conference on “international terrorism.” The event was hosted by the Jonathan Institute, which the Netanyahus had formed in 1976 in the memory of their son and brother Jonathan, an Israeli fighter killed in a raid on Entebbe International Airport in Uganda to rescue passengers on a hijacked plane. The conference brought together Israeli military and political officials (among them current and future prime ministers Menachem Begin and Shimon Peres) with U.S. neoconservative groups and politicians.

Trump defends dictator comments amid NYC soiree filled with MAGA diehards

NEW YORK — The chairman of an Austrian political party founded by ex-Nazis, the conservative Twitter star behind the anti-trans Bud Light backlash and former President Donald Trump all walked into a bar.

Seriously.

On Saturday night in Manhattan, amid butler-delivered bellinis, sequined ball gowns and a five-course French service meal, characters from all corners of the Republican Party’s MAGA faction gathered for “a night of dinner, drinking, and love of country.”

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Former Obama adviser: Don’t let politicians take over Harvard

Amid outrage over comments they made during a hearing on anti semitism on their campuses, presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have faced calls from politicians and donors to resign – and one, Penn President Liz Magill, is already out of the job.

But some, including a former Obama adviser, are defending Harvard President Claudine Gay, and urging the school not to bend to external pressure.

Giuliani spread lies about Georgia election workers. A jury will decide what he owes them.

When Rudy Giuliani steps into federal court on Monday, the only mystery will be how severely he is sanctioned for lies about the 2020 election.

U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell has already found him liable for defaming two Georgia election workers — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss — who faced threats and harassment after Giuliani and Donald Trump falsely accused them of manipulating ballots after the 2020 election. Those lies fueled conspiracy theories that have festered to this day.