The New York Times reported Friday that European regulators are considering sanctions against Twitter because it suspended the accounts of three establishment journalists.  

[Early Saturday morning Musk tweeted that he was lifting the ban after the results of a poll he ran.]

President Biden received much credit this week for signing the bipartisan ”Respect for Marriage Act,” granting new federal protections for same-sex and interracial couples. But, as USC professor and LGBTQ rights activist Larry Gross suggests in this week’s Scheer Intelligence interview with host Robert Scheer, was Biden just jumping in front of the brave activists who changed the consciousness of the nation?

“There’s a way in which political figures like to step to the front of a parade,” Gross said. “Once the parade is already underway and the changes happen, they would like to step in front and take credit. This happened with Biden.” The new law voids the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which then Sen. Biden signed, and which defined marriage exclusively as a union between a man and a woman.

At least four major suppliers of Hyundai and sister company Kia have employed child labour at factories in the US state of Alabama in recent years, a Reuters investigation found.

The Belgian police has conducted a sweeping operation to probe into allegations of corruption in the European Parliament implicating Qatar. On Friday, 7 December, 16 police searches were carried out in Brussels and Italy.

Greek Socialist MEP and European Parliament vice-president Eva Kaili (photo) was arrested in flagrant offence for corruption and money laundering, Her father was caught red-handed with bags of cash. The overall amount seized adds up to 600,000 euros. Her partner and former Italian MEP Antonio Panzeri, plus her parliamentary assistant, Belgian national Marie Arena, were also placed in police custody.

The Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament immediately announced they had suspended their membership.

Last Tuesday, I was released on bail pending appeal in March. While my sentence is outrageous – as are the anti-democratic laws that allowed it to happen – I urge you not to lose sight of the reason I was jailed. Our way of life is under threat from the greatest, most dangerous crisis humanity has ever seen. Each of you must act now.

Dear wonderful supporters, It’s Violet here! In case you didn’t hear, I made it out on bail last Tuesday pending my appeal in March. The fight against this oppressive sentence is not yet over, but I am thankful to be able to spend Christmas with my family, and I’m so excited to have the opportunity to speak with you all at some upcoming events that I’d like to tell you about.

By Guest author Violet Coco

Germany, Italy, Austria and Japan were among the 50 members of the UN General Assembly who voted against the Russian resolution to condemn glorification of Nazism, joining the annual opposition by the US and Ukraine. 

The final vote on Thursday afternoon was 120 in favor, 50 opposed and ten abstaining. In addition to the former Axis powers, other notable “no” votes included Canada, the UK, France, Spain, Poland, Czechia, Poland, Hungary, and the three Baltic states. Switzerland, South Korea, and Türkiye were among the notable abstentions.

Moscow proposes the resolution every year, urging the UN to combat the “glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to the escalation of contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”

The United States does not need it. No air force does. But the lesson of the dazzle from the B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber is that what the US develops and acquires Australia must have. Such a lesson ought to be unlearned as quickly as possible, but there is little chance of it with individuals such as Richard Marles in the defence portfolio.

The fantasy of having a deterrent effect to be projected over thousands of miles is found in a few documents that deserve to gather dust, most notably the 2020 defence strategic update which proved alarmist about Australia having a ten-year threat “window”.

IF YOU’RE LIKE ME AND DON’T MIND GETTING 10 YEARS OF BAD LUCK FOR NOT SUBSCRIBING TO THE MILLION VIDEOS OF THE 42.5 MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENTS OF STUPID PEOPLE DOING SOME STUPID THINGS, YOU WOULD KNOW THERE ARE STUPID PEOPLE IN RUSSIA. WE KNOW. 

AND THERE ARE STUPID PEOPLE IN THE USA, AND IN EUROPE, AND IN CHINA AND IN AUSTRALIA AS WELL… BUT THERE ARE FEW (NONE SO FAR TO BE SEEN) STUPID PEOPLE VIDEO IN UKRAINE…

CONCLUSION: EITHER THE UKRAINIANS ARE SMARTER THAN THE AVERAGE BEAR — OR SECUNDO, THEY DIE BEFORE THEY CAN UPLOAD THEIR STUPID VIDEOS. IT’S ALSO THOUGHT THAT PUTIN IS BOMBING THE SHIT OUT OF THE UKRAINIAN ELECTRICITY GRID TO PREVENT UKRAINIANS MAKE ASSES OF THEMSELVES ON YOUTUBE.

Rail passengers have felt the brunt of transport disruption so far this week - but today they'll be joined by travellers on roads and buses. 

‘This is not how you treat allies’ was, as various media reports in the US and Europe show, the message that the French leader gave to the US President Joe Biden during the former’s recent visit to the US.

THINK-TANKS ARE PESTS — TOO OFTEN LIKE COCKROACHES, FLIES, LEECHES AND/OR MOSQUITOES. THEY SWARM OR SLIME WITH THE INTENT OF DISRUPTING THE NICE STATUS QUO. THE MAIN INTENT OF A MODERN THINK-TANK IS TO SUCK THE BLOOD OUT OF DEMOCRACY TO PROFIT ONE PARTICULAR GROUP (NOTHING NEW SINCE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION).

A THINK-TANK CAN TOO OFTEN BE A WARMONGERING ORGANISATION DISGUISED AS A PEACEFUL WOLF.

WE’VE SEEN THE PNAC AND SUCH…

ALAIN DE BOTTON GETS IT WRONG ONCE MORE, AS ALWAYS, EVERY TIME, AGAIN, AS USUAL:

Abstract. The paper investigates basic images that were applied to Edward Snowden in American caricature. We also give examples of transferred meanings, pun, decomposition of set-expressions and analyze images that are deeply rooted in culture. All these form the basis for satire and irony in political cartoons.

E. V. Shustrova

Ekaterinburg, Russia 10.02.20 

It would not be an exaggeration to say that one of the most striking and scandalous political events of the summer of 2013 was the escape of former US intelligence agent Edward Snowden, his long stay in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and his permission to stay in Russia for the next year.

Neuralink, a startup co-founded by Musk in 2016, aims to develop a brain chip implant that it claims could one day help paralyzed people walk and blind people see. But to do that, the company has first been testing its technology on animals, killing some 1,500 since 2018 — and employee whistleblowers recently told Reuters the experiments are going horribly wrong.

Criminal investigators have raided the Paris offices of French President Emmanuel Macron and US consulting firm McKinsey & Company, Le Parisien reported on Wednesday. Authorities suspect that McKinsey illegally funded Macron’s 2017 and 2022 campaigns.

The raids, which targeted the headquarters of Macron’s Renaissance party, its funding association, and Mckinsey’s French headquarters, took place on Tuesday morning, the newspaper wrote. 

Renaissance officials confirmed that a search had taken place at the party’s headquarters, but said that it focused solely “on the campaign side” of the office. McKinsey also confirmed that its premises had been searched, adding that it would “cooperate fully with the public authorities.”

Former prime minister Scott Morrison says he was focused on tackling welfare fraud and not privy to departmental discussions over the legality of the disastrous robodebt scheme.

At several points while giving evidence to a royal commission into the scheme on Wednesday, Mr Morrison had to be told to stay on topic and listen to questions.

Robodebt involved using individuals’ annual tax information provided by the ATO to determine average fortnightly earnings and automatically establish welfare debts, an approach ruled unlawful by the Federal Court in 2019.

Mr Morrison was grilled over why the changes to welfare debt protocols were adopted despite concerns about their legality when he was social services minister in 2015.