Day: June 12, 2024

James Comey says a Trump incarceration is ‘obviously doable’  Yahoo News UK

Episode 192 has been uploaded.

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A-Block

• SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has now floated reinstating the Military Draft. He put the words in the mouth of the last of his Secretaries of Defense and that guy — Christopher Miller who sat back and watched January 6th unfold nearly as much as Trump did —  dressed the draft up as “A National Service Requirement.” It seems to be targeted at 18, 19, and 20-year old American boys and girls (and maybe 17-year olds) and it would start with a mandatory military aptitude test administered BY the Pentagon IN your local high school and any kid who refused to take it might be prevented from graduating and any school that hesitated to go along with this would lose ALL federal funding.
• Trump breaking precedent and using the American army domestically to suppress protests and conceivably kill civilians is not the bottom of the plan for the military-dictatorship part of his dictatorship. Those army soldiers, and marines, and whoever else, firing on other Americans — many of them or most of them or maybe all of them, would be draftees.
• And when The Washington Post reported it, and the story got no traction and no pick-up at all, and even though the paper reported Trump had not expressly endorsed the draft, within six hours Trump posted an enraged denial reading, “In fact, I never even thought of that idea” which even for him is a disastrously transparent non-denial denial. Of course HE never thought of that idea: when has Donald Trump ever thought anything about a military draft — except how to dodge it.
• Somebody ELSE thought of that idea. The somebody else is that former Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller. The Post interviewed Miller and he said a national service requirement should be “strongly considered. He described the concept as a common “rite of passage,” one that would create a sense of “shared sacrifice” among America’s youth.”
• The impact this Washington Post story, could have on Trump’s campaign would be nothing short of fatal — if only it were to be handled correctly by BIDEN’S campaign: Trump wants to reinstate the draft. The. DRAFT.
• Is there a more powerful campaign message than “Trump wants to draft your kids”? “Trump Wants To Force Your Kids To Kill Or Be Killed?” Actually there is. Because the voting age is not what it was in the ‘60s. The 18-year olds vote. There IS a more powerful campaign message and it is “Trump wants to draft YOU. Trump Wants To Force YOU to Kill or Be Killed.”

• ALSO: Trump’s felony conviction means he can’t own a gun in Florida. So why has he had one longer than Hunter Biden had his? And what about Washington’s state law allowing any voter to challenge any candidate’s ballot position if he’s been convicted of a felony? And why is Alvin Bragg voluntarily appearing at Jim Jordan’s hearing — the day after Trump will be sentenced?

B-Block

• THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Art Martin, a Twitter follower of mine puts Chris Cillizza and Nate Silver in the same tweet just to mess with me. Jonathan Martin, who has spent a year talking about nothing but Joe Biden’s age, complains that nobody has talked about Joe Biden’s age (and works Aaron Sorkin into it, somehow) and the Republican who wants to be Senator from Minnesota, Royce White, explains the campaign funds may have been spent AT the all-nude strip club but that doesn’t mean they were spent on STRIPPERS since they serve FOOD at all-nude strip clubs.

C-Block

• THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: As I read of Stephen A. Smith demanding that ESPN pay him more than it pays Pat McAfee, I flashed back to the days when the studio-show audiences there were way more profitable than they are now and ESPN was make $60 million a year from SportsCenter and they were paying me $300,000 and I asked for $3,000,000. Oh the look on their faces delights me to this day. How I Quit SportsCenter …

Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.

По «формуле Зеленского» достичь мира невозможно, убежден Андрей Буравов.

В Белгородской области в результате удара Вооруженных сил Украины была разрушена база отдыха «Нежеголь», которую российская армия использовала как командный пункт. Погибли по меньшей мере трое военнослужащих, пишет Astra со ссылкой на источники в экстренных службах. 

Правительства Грузии и России активно работают над восстановлением дипломатических отношений, рассказали грузинскому телеканалу Mtavari Arkhi осведомленные источники.

https://t.co/EusrRD0yJN

— Michael Novakhov (@mikenov) June 12, 2024

This cheap politics of envy distracts from the country’s most pressing issue: inequality. To survive, Tories must face reality

Rishi Sunak looked relieved as he took the final press question from a local reporter after the launch of his Conservative manifesto yesterday. It came after a torrid previous week, which saw the prime minister accused of lying about Labour tax plans and having to apologise for unforgivably missing crucial D-day commemoration services. You might have thought the manifesto would include some surprising, eye-catching policies. But in many respects, it was a more traditional Conservative party manifesto than some had expected – it contained tax cuts, promises to pensioners and the customary pro-business language.

Yet one of the challenges that Sunak’s Conservative party faces is that for the first time in decades, it now finds itself with no clear political territory of its own. For the past several years it has travelled down a political cul-de-sac and is now at a political dead end. In pandering to Ukip, then the Brexit party, and now Reform, it has ceded the political centre ground to the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, alienating millions of voters turned off by the constant culture warring.

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Far-right gains have left liberals and Greens reeling – but despite differences, their interest lies in banding together

For Europe’s centre-left, it was the night from hell. Liberals and Greens took a beating in many countries and lost dozens of seats as nationalist and Eurosceptic parties grabbed nearly a quarter of the seats in the European parliament. The centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) slipped just below their existing total thanks to unexpectedly strong scores in Italy and Spain.

Worse still, France, the EU’s pivotal power, saw the biggest far-right gains. That prompted President Emmanuel Macron to call a high-risk snap election that could clear the way for Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally to sweep into government within a month.

Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre

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