“Joe Biden traveled to Independence Hall in Philadelphia to deliver a speech excoriating Trump supporters as violent threats to the rule of law, democracy and the Constitution. That Biden delivered a speech decrying his detractors as fascists in front of a blood-red backdrop reminiscent of something out of Triumph of the Will was not lost on observers.
Jimmy and America’s comedian Kurt Metzger are joined by The Duran hosts Alexander Mercouris and Alex Christoforou to discuss Biden’s delusional and highly self-unaware takedown of his political opponents.”
“It isn’t easy being Green – and a war hawk, but German Foreign Minister and Green Party member Annalena Baerbock is managing it pretty effectively. Recently she appeared on a staged panel and announced that she would continue supporting the Ukrainian war effort no matter the cost to the German people, which would seem like a stunning admission from any politician, to say nothing of a putatively left-leaning Green Party member.
Jimmy and America’s comedian Kurt Metzger are joined by The Duran hosts Alexander Mercouris and Alex Christoforou to discuss the neoliberal philosophy that has infected high ranking officials across Western Europe regardless of party affiliation.”
“After Sarah Palin lost her bid for a House seat from Alaska this week, Republicans started losing their minds. They claimed that the ranked choice voting system in place in Alaska was a way to “steal elections.” In reality, this system is far more fair for the voters, and Palin just happened to be a hugely unpopular candidate heading into the race. Farron Cousins explains what happened.
*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.
Well folks, one of the biggest news stories of this week, not involving somebody whose last name is Trump is Sarah Palin who lost her election officially this week because of ranked choice voting or that’s at least the way the Republicans are trying to spin it, including Republican Senator Tom cotton, who claims that ranked choice voting is just another scam for Democrats to allegedly steal elections. Sarah Palin of course, was left in a bit of a state of shock after losing this election, that she was so certain she was gonna win, but darn those Democrats and there pesky ranked choice voting, um, here’s the thing the state of Alaska actually passed a voter approved resolution, instituting ranked choice voting in the state. And because Alaska is actually a, a red state, that means that the Republicans are the ones who instituted ranked choice voting. That of course prevented Sarah Palin from becoming a member of the house of representatives being defeated by Democrat Mary PTO.
Now this seat that Palin was fighting for had been held by Republican Don young for many, many years. So flipping it, blue might be one of the only accomplishments that Sarah Palin actually has to her name at this point. And for anybody, by the way, who is not familiar with rank choice voting, because of course it is not something that is very common here in the United States, though. It should be. Here’s basically how it works. In a nutshell, you have all your candidates on the ballot voters go in and instead of picking one person that they wanna vote for, they pick, well, they rank them 1, 2, 3, 4 in that order. So when it comes time to count the votes, cuz this election took place a couple weeks ago, what they do is if no candidate has more than 50% of the vote, they take the person in last place and kick ’em off.
So everybody who voted for that person, they then have their second choice. So their vote goes to the second choice. Once again, if nobody hits the 50% mark, they do the same thing, lowest person out next choice goes to the next person and so on and so forth. If a candidate hits more than 50% in the first election ranks, don’t matter, that person wins. It actually gives everybody a more clear voice in elections by saying, okay, well if my favorite person can’t get it, then maybe my second person can, what it does actually. According to Republican representative, Adam Kininger is it prevents the extremes of the party from taking over elections, which of course is what would’ve happened. Had Sarah Palin been victorious, but as Tom cotton said, quote, 60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted
Process and ballot exhaustion, which disenfranchises voters a Democrat won. Nope. I mean, yes, a Democrat did win obviously, but uh, it didn’t disenfranchise anybody. That is a very stupid statement from a very stupid man, which is what Tom cotton is. As I mentioned, even Adam Kininger a fellow Republican came out and trashed cotton for the remark, but so did Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican party who tweeted out quote wrong again, Tom would love to see your tweet of Palin had won and exactly how does rank choice voting rig elections. Again, typical BS, clap trap and no facts defeat. It’s a real thing, Tom doesn’t get any more sternly worded than that, but here’s the thing. Sarah Palin was a bad candidate. Sarah Palin, believe it or not. According to every poll for several years is actually a very unpopular person in the state of Alaska.
You know, the fact that she even came in second was a bit surprising because multiple polls, again, over the last couple years have shown that her approval rating in Alaska is underwater. Most voters who talk to reporters this year, Republican voters say that yeah, Palin abandoned us. She quit halfway through her only term in office to go host a reality TV show that nobody even watched got canceled after one season. And look, there’s a lot of reality shows out there. And if you can’t hack it on one, I think that says a lot about your popularity.”
“Plot twist! Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power isn’t getting the universal critical praise we were expecting it to. In fact, several prominent media outlets are dunking on the show, while others offer lukewarm praise of the visuals… but not much else. Will normie audiences watch this Tolkien-lite version of Middle-Earth, or just binge House of the Dragon and call it a day?”
“MOSCOW, Sept 1 (Reuters) – Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Russia’s second-largest oil producer Lukoil (LKOH.MM), died on Thursday after falling from a hospital window in Moscow, two sources familiar with the situation said, becoming the latest in a series of businessmen to meet with sudden unexplained deaths.
The sources confirmed reports by several Russian media that the 67-year-old had plunged to his death, but the circumstances surrounding his fall were unclear.
Russian state news agency TASS reported the death as a suicide, citing a law enforcement source. It quoted the source as saying Maganov had been admitted to hospital after suffering a heart attack, and was also taking anti-depressants.
Reuters was unable to confirm those details. Three sources told Reuters that, based on their close acquaintance with Maganov, they did not believe he would have killed himself.
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At least six other Russian businessmen, most with ties to the energy industry, have died suddenly in unclear circumstances in the past few months.
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Unusually among Russian companies, Lukoil took a public stand over Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine. In a March 3 statement, the company’s board of directors expressed its concern over the “tragic events” in Ukraine and called for the “soonest possible end to armed conflict” via negotiations.”
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