Just don't micturate on him, he likes that. https://t.co/a811nThVFv
— brothersjudd (@brothersjudd) September 22, 2019
Trump does it every time. He denies and denies, his supporters get out on a shaky limb, and then he saws it off behind them. https://t.co/yv8227qX6A
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 22, 2019
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday assailed the Trump administration's efforts to block a whistleblower complaint involving President Donald Trump's apparent effort to have Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his family.In a letter to colleagues Sunday, Pelosi said the administration "will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation" if acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire fails to provide the complaint when he testifies in front of the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday.
The head of Israel's majority-Arab party tweets the Hebrew Bible as he recommends Benny Gantz as prime minister to oust Netanyahu:
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) September 22, 2019
"The stone that was spurned by the builders became the cornerstone." (Psalms 118)
Amazing. https://t.co/wz95jbomno
A slide in favorable feelings toward U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has accompanied his slide into third place in the latest Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll.The net favorable rating for Sanders -- a combination of likely Democratic caucusgoers who report feeling very or mostly favorable toward the senator from Vermont -- has dropped from a high of 74% last December to 58% in September. His net unfavorable rating, combining those whose feelings are mostly or very unfavorable -- rose nearly as much in that time, going from 22% to 36%.
In June I knew I had one opportunity to drill down on the most important overarching fact in the Mueller Report.
— Carrie Cordero (@carriecordero) September 22, 2019
I chose the Trump campaign's documented openness to receiving foreign govt assistance to win an American election.
The Report was not a conclusion; it was a warning. https://t.co/80NmrKh7CA
The Joint List's platform is anathema to the majority of Jewish Israelis, calling as it does for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, the freeing of all "political prisoners" (presumably including terrorists convicted of cold-blooded murder), and a "just solution" to the predicament of Palestinian refugees that would allow them to return to territories squarely within even the essentially uncontested borders of the State of Israel, posing a demographic threat to Israel's Jewish majority.But this platform, and the unexpectedly high number of 13 members of Knesset who were just elected to uphold it, also constitutes a supreme challenge to Israel's self-definition as a democracy. Being one doesn't mean accepting the validity only of voices similar to your own; it means acknowledging the legitimacy of those who oppose you, even when that opposition is vehement. When Arabs streaming to the polls is perceived as exclusively a danger rather than as an opportunity, questions need to be asked about our commitment to the fundamental values on which this country was established, explicitly enunciated in Israel's declaration of independence.Those who hold by these values - among them "the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants" while ensuring them "complete equality of social and political rights irrespective of religion, race or sex" - would best be served by courting the Arab parties to cooperate in buttressing them. They have every reason to be responsive. It is essential for the minorities in this country - even more so than for the majority - that the cornerstones of democracy not be eroded. The sanctity of the justice system, the freedom of press, the rule of law and order, the restraint of theocratic tendencies and the rejection of religious coercion are all critical to Israel's existence as a Jewish and democratic state - and the fulfillment of the Zionist ideal.In pursuit of that, the leaders of all parties should take this to heart and signal to the Joint List that they are ready for an alliance of one sort or another. The greater the stake and sense of empowerment that all citizens of this country have in any government that might emerge, the greater the chance for positive change in the realm of interfaith and inter-ethnic relations, as well as in our political culture. Should the Arabs agree, then they will indeed have played a central role in saving Israel from itself - and Zionism in the process.
Trump speaks to the press as he departs the White House in Washington, D.C., on September 22, 2019. Photo: Alastair Pike/AFP/Getty ImagesPresident Trump confirmed to reporters on the White House South Lawn Sunday that he discussed Joe Biden and his son during a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25."The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, with largely corruption -- all of the corruption taking place -- largely the fact that we don't want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine and Ukraine has got a lot of problems.
As an academic scientist who researches human evolution, I was surprised to receive an email one day from Patrice Désilets, a top computer game designer responsible for the first two Assassin's Creed games. He was working on a new game based on our early evolution in Africa, he said, and was using my book The Cradle of Humanity as one of the key reference texts. Would I like to be involved?Patrice invited my family to Montreal in early 2018 to play and comment on an early beta version. He was greatly amused that my youngest daughter is a true gamer while I always toggle the wrong way (I'm sorry but ... up should mean up). But despite my dodgy controlling, I enjoyed a stunning game with a unique subject matter, and one which I believe offers some key insights into human evolution.The newly released Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is an open world survival game where you control a group of "hominins" - our first ancestors - and explore, expand, and lock in new knowledge so your "clan" can evolve. It takes the players from 10m years ago, and the common ancestor of both chimpanzee and hominins, to 2m years ago, when you can play as an early version of Homo erectus. The aim of the game is ultimately to evolve to the point when humans began to leave Africa.
Which leads to this excruciating episode of the Remnant where the Senator tries to justify his vote because of the Fentanyl crisis. Jonah is properly ashamed on his behalf:https://t.co/EigdNVux2P https://t.co/UWjBKoRcUh
— brothersjudd (@brothersjudd) September 22, 2019
In a first-of-its-kind experiment, an MIT political scientist tested whether informing people about potential job loss from automation would change their minds about immigration and trade.In three studies, MIT's Baobao Zhang got the same result -- people didn't shift their beliefs. Even when presented with evidence that automation was by far the more salient risk to jobs, people continued to hold anti-immigration, anti-trade views.These findings suggest that support for populist Trumpian policies may not be as closely linked to economic anxiety as is often argued.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld (R), who is challenging President Trump for the GOP presidential nomination, said Friday that lawmakers should let the market decide when it comes to regulation on climate change.Though Weld didn't mention anyone by name, he criticized climate change proposals put forth by 2020 Democratic presidential contenders, arguing that a carbon tax is a much more feasible and economic alternative to address the the crisis.He told Hill.TV that his proposal would not tell people what to do, which was an advantage to the other proposals. "They make their own decisions," he said."That's letting the market decide about carbon -- that's a much more powerful engine than just saying I'm going to spend $10 trillion dollars to promote clean energy," he added. "You don't know if you're going to get there."A number of Republicans and Democrats in Congress have supported putting a tax on carbon.Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.), Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.) and Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) all introduced carbon tax bills in July.
The case federal prosecutors reportedly are preparing to bring against former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for lying to his colleagues at the FBI is weak and likely to fail at trial. And if it does, the Department of Justice will be embarrassed--again--and struggling to answer why it brought the case in the first place. [...]Perhaps the DOJ's strongest evidence was a later interview by investigators that was recorded. In that interview, McCabe denied authorizing his aide to leak the story and denied being in contact with her during that time. These denials are provably false but once again the evidence is weakened by mitigating facts. In this case, McCabe called the inspector general four days after the interview, said he had been thinking about the questions, and corrected the record. That strongly undercuts a conclusion that he knowingly and willfully lied, and it will be hard for a jury to send him to prison for a false statement that he promptly corrected without being asked.
The Joint List alliance of Arab-majority parties will reportedly on Sunday present a list of demands to the Blue and White party as conditions for recommending Benny Gantz as the next prime minister, although, despite talks, the centrist party has not yet made any commitments in return. [...]Senior party members were quoted Sunday by Hebrew-language media as saying they would present their demands later in the day to Blue and White. These include freezing home demolitions in unrecognized Arab villages, forming a team to examine the issue of those villages, passing a government decision on battling violence within the Arab sector, canceling the controversial nation-state law -- which enshrines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people -- and initiating a peace process with the Palestinian Authority.
For Democrats, the current 2020 election cycle is perhaps the most important in modern history. For the party faithful, unseating Trump--a man Democrats consider to be the worst President in modern history--has become the overriding concern, even eclipsing the party's lively policy debate. One rising star, and a politician many considered would give the President a run for his money, is the junior senator from California, Kamala Harris.Superficially, Harris looks like the party's dream candidate. She is a woman--an asset to a party animated by gender politics, concerns about diversity and still reeling from the #MeToo movement. She is also an ethnic minority (her mother is Indian, her father is Jamaican), another box ticked for a party which draws considerable support from non-whites. Her former life as a prosecutor, San Francisco district attorney and California state attorney would be a dangerous match-up for the unscrupulous Trump, who has spent more time than most avoiding a court room. Having been a senator since 2016, she is already a national political figure. She has also proved herself to be a fairly effective debater, being seen to best former Vice President Biden in previous encounters.Despite these apparent pluses, Harris' performance in the contest has so far been lacklustre. A tussle with the frontrunner Joe Biden in the second debate saw her reach 20 percent in one Quinnipiac poll, but the bump was short-lived. At the time of writing, Harris is once again languishing in single digits.Things have only worsened for the Senator in recent days and weeks. Following the recent third round of primary debates, Harris emerged the most damaged of all of those on stage; decreasing her pool of potential voters more than any other of the candidates, particularly among voters who prize electability. Contrary to many post-debate takes, this is not necessarily down to nascent sexism among viewers, as Elizabeth Warren managed to improve her standing among those voters at the same time.
Vice President Biden remains the solid favorite among older voters, African-Americans and moderate to conservative Democrats. Sen. Bernie Sanders is still the leading candidate among younger voters. Since August, Warren has made some small inroads into those demographic groups, according to CNN polling. For example, Warren gained 9 points among those over 45-years-old, while both Biden and Sanders lost ground (Biden lost four points, Sanders lost three). But, among non-white voters (Biden's core), Warren slipped two points and among 18-49-year-olds (Sanders voters), she gained just one point.
"We declare ceasing to target the Saudi Arabian territory with military drones, ballistic missiles and all other forms of weapons, and we wait for a reciprocal move from them," Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi's supreme political council, said on the Houthi-run Al Masirah TV."We reserve the right to respond if they fail to reciprocate positively to this initiative," he said, adding that the continuation of the Yemen war "will not benefit any side".He also called on all parties in the conflict to "engage in serious negotiations".The announcement was a sharp reversal from previous statements from the Houthis, who earlier on Friday had accused Saudi Arabia and its allies of endangering a fragile truce around the port city of Hodeidah with raids on rebel targets.Griffiths hailed the Houthis' proposal, stressing the "importance of taking advantage of this opportunity and moving forward with all necessary steps to reduce violence, military escalation and unhelpful rhetoric".
US President Donald Trump, a self-described deal-maker, is saddled with a long list of unresolved foreign policy deals he has yet to close heading into his UN visit this week.There are challenges with Iran, North Korea, the Afghan Taliban, Israel and the Palestinians - not to mention a number of trade pacts. Some are inching forward. Some have stalled. [...]Nicholas Burns, a former undersecretary of state who has worked for Republican and Democratic presidents says he doesn't have a single major foreign policy achievement in more than two-and-a-half years in office."