The U.S. has announced an agreement with the Iraqi government to wrap up the military mission in Iraq of an American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group by next year.
>WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. announced an agreement with the Iraqi government Friday to wrap up the military mission in Iraq of an American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group by next year, with U.S. troops departing some bases that they have long occupied during a two-decade-long military presence in the country.
>But the Biden administration refused to provide details on how many of the approximately 2,500 U.S. troops still serving in Iraq will remain there or acknowledge it will mark a full withdrawal from the country.
>“I think it’s fair to say that, you know, our footprint is going to be changing within the country,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Friday without providing specifics.
>The announcement comes at a particularly contentious time for the Middle East, with escalating conflict between Israel and two Iranian-backed militant groups — Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza — threatening a broader regional war. Bases housing U.S. forces and contractors have been regularly targeted by Iran-backed militias over the last several years, and those attacks intensified late last year and early this spring after the Israel-Hamas war broke out nearly a year ago
Yeah, yeah, we've heard your garbage takes before.
Surprised he didn't call them uppity. Racist pos.
Donald Trump this week claimed without evidence that anyone living overseas can get a ballot mailed to them, even if they are not eligible to vote, falsely accusing Democrats of subverting a 1986 law to win in November.
I'll leave you to your less than mediocre whatever.
Ironic. And the third-party candidates aren't?
They disrespect the office.
An endorsement disrespects the office, but Trump shitting all over the office, and every citizen isn't. Yeah you can fuck right off with your disingenuous bullshit.
Yet 4 former presidents endorsed Harris. So what are you on about?
If you have issues with the article, you can take it up with the people who wrote it. Thanks, friend!
I've had many altercations with anticolonialist. He states that he's been fighting on the streets for communism his whole life. (Highly doubt)
What a fucking stupid take. Not surprised that it's you posting this comment. Seems you're getting your feelings hurt by being constantly shitted on.
Kentucky's governor has signed an executive order banning the use of "conversion therapy" on minors. The widely discredited practice tries to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through counseling.
>FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear banned the use of “conversion therapy” on minors in Kentucky on Wednesday, calling his executive order a necessary step to protect children from a widely discredited practice that tries to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through counseling.
>The governor took action using his executive powers after efforts to enact a law banning the practice repeatedly failed in the state’s Republican-dominated legislature. Beshear signed the executive order during a statehouse ceremony attended by activists for LGBTQ+ rights.
>“Let’s be clear: conversion therapy has no basis in medicine or science, and it has been shown to increase rates of suicide and depression,” Beshear said in a statement. “This is about doing what is right and protecting our children. Hate is not who we are as Kentuckians.”
>The executive order signed by Beshear bans the practice and makes it illegal to use state or federal funds to provide the therapy on minors. It also gives the state’s board of licensure the authority to take action against anyone found to have practiced conversion therapy on minors and gives the board the authority to bring disciplinary action against anyone found in violation of the order.
We all know you make shit up for attention, Jimmy. Go fuck yourself.
This is absolutely hilarious.
I'm pretty sure the mutilation of an animal, whether dead or alive, that isn't a game animal or livestock is illegal.
Beheads a whale, ate roadkill, and has a brain worm. True presidential material right here.
Oh, I almost forgot. He was a drug dealer, too!
Yup. She knew exactly what she was doing.
This is the type of smooth brain thinking that really gets under my skin.
"So what if he accepted 10 million dollars from Egypt while he was president. What does Egypt have to gain?"
"So what if he sold state secrets"
"So what if he tried to overthrow the government."
You can find @setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world post here
Ten former top military chiefs publish letter calling the vice-president the only candidate ‘fit to serve’ in the country’s highest office
>Retired military generals have described Donald Trump as a “danger” to America’s security as they endorsed Kamala Harris.
>On the eve of a critical debate between Ms Harris and her Republican rival, 10 former top US military chiefs released a letter calling the vice-president the only candidate “who is fit to serve” in the country’s highest office.
>While Ms Harris had “demonstrated her ability to take on the most difficult national security challenges in the Situation Room and on the international stage”, they wrote, Trump posed “a danger to our national security and democracy”.
>The letter, signed by retired General Larry Ellis and retired Rear Admiral Michael Smith, among others, accused Trump of disparaging service members and putting them in “harm’s way”, including with his deal to free 5,000 Taliban fighters.
>It coincided with a new Harris campaign advert placed in Palm Beach featuring Trump’s most senior former officials warning of the risks of his White House return.
>The attack advert shows a montage of scathing comments about the Republican ex-president by some of his most senior former cabinet officials in what appears to be an effort to goad him ahead of their televised live showdown on Tuesday night.
>“In 2016, Donald Trump said he would choose only the best people to work in his White House,” the attack advert’s narrator said. “Now those people have a warning for America: Trump is not fit to be president again.”
In debates, Harris put Mike Pence in his place and even eviscerated Joe Biden. Trump's antics won't work against her.
>What a difference two-and-a-half months make.
>It was just late June when Donald Trump and Joe Biden faced off in the first presidential debate of the season. As it turns out, thanks to his disastrous performance, it was Biden’s last presidential debate ever.
>Tomorrow is the second presidential debate, but it might as well be the first. Kamala Harris will be making her debate debut as a presidential candidate. She and Trump have never faced off before. Indeed, the two have never even met because Trump skipped the 2021 inauguration festivities after his failed coup attempt.
>Debates are all about expectations and spin. The expectation for the June debate was that Biden would show Trump up for the blowhard he is, which is why the Biden campaign pushed for a debate so early in the election cycle. We all know how that worked out.
>However, it’s hard to imagine that Harris isn’t in a much better position going into the debate than Trump is. For one thing, Trump can’t stop himself from vomiting his inner dialogue, which rightly disgusts a lot of voters. He digresses, he rambles, he struggles to put a coherent thought together. Biden’s poor performance was the spectacle at the last debate. This time out Trump won’t have that foil.
>At the same time, Harris is used to arguing her case. After all, she was a prosecutor, where her job was to convince a jury. She knows how to lay out her argument and draw people into it. She knows that this time the voting public is her jury, and she will argue accordingly.
Kamala Harris put out a statement with Vance’s comments and called for “action to keep our children safe."
>Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, said in the wake of the deadly school shooting in Georgia that the massacres are sadly a “fact of life” and offered ways to fortify schools to make them safer against gun violence.
>Kamala Harris put out a statement with Vance’s comments and called for “action to keep our children safe and keep guns out of the hands of criminals.”
>And it appeared to strike a nerve with team Trump that she used Vance’s comments against them.
>“Kamala’s interns just released a statement pushing FAKE NEWS,” Trump War Room posted to X with its more than 2 million followers. “Watch the full video and you’ll clearly see that JD Vance does not say what they claim he said. These morons do nothing but lie every single day.”
>Except Harris’ campaign shared the same video.
>Here’s what Vance had to say:
>“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” he said. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”
>Vance said he doesn’t like the idea of his own kids going to a school with hardened security, “but that’s increasingly the reality that we live in.”
>All of that was in what Harris’ campaign shared with her joint statement on the shooting with running mate Tim Walz. Vance said what team Trump said Vance didn’t say and accused the Harris campaign of distorting.
The U.S. government has charged a Russian-born U.S. citizen and former adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign with working for a sanctioned Russian state television network and laundering the proceeds.
>WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has charged a Russian-born U.S. citizen and former adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign with working for a sanctioned Russian state television network and laundering the proceeds.
>Indictments announced Thursday by the Department of Justice allege that Dimitri Simes and his wife received over $1 million dollars and a personal car and driver in exchange for work they did for Russia’s Channel One since June 2022. The network was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022 over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
>Simes, 76, and his wife, Anastasia Simes, have a home in Virginia and are believed to be in Russia.
>“These defendants allegedly violated sanctions that were put in place in response to Russia’s illegal aggression in Ukraine,” U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves said in a statement announcing the indictments. “Such violations harm our national security interests — a fact that Dimitri Simes, with the deep experience he gained in national affairs after fleeing the Soviet Union and becoming a U.S. citizen, should have uniquely appreciated.”
>The indictments come at a time of renewed concern about Russian efforts to meddle with the upcoming U.S. election using online disinformation and propaganda. On Wednesday federal authorities charged two employees of the Russian media organization RT with covertly funding a Tennessee company that produced pro-Russian content.
>Simes, who led a Washington think tank called the Center for the National Interest, figured prominently in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and potential ties to the Trump campaign.
Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, and Benny Johnson have all worked with Tenet Media.
>A federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday alleges that a Tennessee-based media company which played home to several prominent right-leaning online commentators was secretly a Russian government-backed influence operation. The company is accused of receiving nearly $10 million from employees of Russia Today (RT), a Russian state-backed media company, as part of “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” according to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
>Tenet Media worked with American conservative or heterodox media figures, including Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, and Lauren Southern, who variously present themselves as independent journalists, documentarians, and political commentators. Not all of them immediately commented on having been publicly linked to a foreign propaganda site, but Johnson soon tweeted that he and other influencers had been “victims in this alleged scheme.” In his own tweet, Pool echoed that line, writing, in part, “Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims.” Rubin, too, described himself as a victim, adding, “I knew absolutely nothing about any of this fraudulent activity. Period.”
>The indictment, filed in the Southern District of New York, alleges that RT and two specific employees, Kostiantyn “Kostya” Kalashnikov and Elena “Lena” Afanasyeva, worked to funnel money to Tenet Media as part of a series of “covert projects” to shape the opinions of Western audiences. RT has faced cancellations and sanctions in the United States, Europe, Canada, and the UK after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; federal authorities allege those travails led the company to instead create more covert means of influencing public perception.
>While Tenet is only referred to in the indictment as “U.S. Company 1,” details made it readily identifiable. The indictment alleges that Tenet’s coverage “contain[ed] commentary on events and issues in the United States, such as immigration, inflation, and other topics…consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions.”
>The indictment also alleges that not everyone affiliated with Tenet was unaware of the scheme, stating that “Founders 1 and 2” of the company knew the source of their funding. The founders of Tenet Media are Lauren Chen and her husband; Chen is a conservative influencer and YouTuber who’s hosted a show on Blaze TV and who’s affiliated with Turning Point USA. Her husband, Liam Donovan, identifies himself on Twitter as the president
Trump and Vance claim that tariffs are paid by foreign companies and that economists are divided on the topic. They're wrong on both counts
>Despite strong evidence that the average voter in the presidential election doesn’t care a hoot about international trade policy, Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance have been promising to step up Trump’s tariff war with China.
>As usual, they’re backing their promise with lies and other humbug.
>“A tariff is a tax on a foreign country,” Trump asserted at an Aug. 19 rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., for example. “That’s the way it is, whether you like it or not. A lot of people like to say it’s a tax on us. No, no, no. It’s a tax on a foreign country.”
>Questioned during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Aug. 25 about the effect of Trump’s tariffs on ordinary households — and economists’ conclusion that consumers pay the price — Vance asserted that “economists really disagree about the effects of tariffs.”
>They’re wrong on both counts.
>In truth, there’s no detectable disagreement among economists. In two polls conducted by the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, panels of economists unanimously agreed that American households would pay the price for Trump’s tariffs.
>Those opinions held in a March 2018 poll and a May 2019 poll of panels of 43 leading academic economists. (The panels weren’t identical but did overlap; three respondents in the first poll didn’t provide answers and 11 didn’t answer or were “uncertain” in the second.)
>The Harris campaign is more forthright about the cost of tariffs to the average consumer, although its specific estimates about the magnitude of the cost of tariffs Trump has proposed for the future — almost $4,000 a year on middle class households — can be questioned.
In a call with donors, First Liberty Institute’s Kelly Shackelford read the supportive email he said came from Thomas. The leader of the religious-rights group also labeled Justice Elena Kagan “treasonous” for backing a stronger ethics code.
>Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, privately heaped praise on a major religious-rights group for fighting efforts to reform the nation’s highest court — efforts sparked, in large part, by her husband’s ethical lapses.
>Thomas expressed her appreciation in an email sent to Kelly Shackelford, an influential litigator whose clients have won cases at the Supreme Court. Shackelford runs the First Liberty Institute, a $25 million-a-year organization that describes itself as “the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious liberty for all Americans.”
>Shackelford read Thomas’ email aloud on a July 31 private call with his group’s top donors.
>Thomas wrote that First Liberty’s opposition to court-reform proposals gave a boost to certain judges. According to Shackelford, Thomas wrote in all caps: “YOU GUYS HAVE FILLED THE SAILS OF MANY JUDGES. CAN I JUST TELL YOU, THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH.”
>Shackelford said he saw Thomas’ support as evidence that judges, who “can’t go out into the political sphere and fight,” were thankful for First Liberty’s work to block Supreme Court reform. “It’s neat that, you know, those of you on the call are a part of protecting the future of our court, and they really appreciate it,” he said.
The vice-presidential candidate previously endorsed a collection of almost 30 essays by ultra-conservative thinkers on restricting reproductive rights and other freedoms.
>Donald Trump’s running mate promoted a radical anti-abortion report from the same conservative think-tank behind Project 2025.
>The controversial Project 2025 report has been otherwise disavowed by the Republican campaign and Trump personally after its sweeping proposals for reforms should the GOP secure victory in the November polls came to the public’s attention.
>Back in 2017, when J.D. Vance was only just getting into politics, the New York Times reports the Ohio senator “championed” a collection of 29 essays compiled by the Heritage Foundation, the conservative organization behind the highly controversial Project 2025 initiative.
>Described as a “wish list” of changes to be enacted by the next conservative U.S. president, Project 2025 contains a number of extreme policies, ranging from massive curtailment of reproductive rights and bans on ‘woke propaganda’ in schools to placing the entirety of the federal bureaucracy under direct presidential control.
>Though the Trump campaign has denied any ties to the initiative, with the Republican candidate himself saying “I have no idea who is behind it,” reports have since revealed how at least 140 former Trump employees were involved in drafting the 900-page document.
>Much of Project 2025’s vision for a second Trump presidency is keenly reflected in the 2017 collection of essays previously endorsed by Vance. These included an article suggesting that ideally, abortion would eventually become “unthinkable” in the U.S. amid growing restrictions on access to the procedure, as well as a piece slamming fertility treatments for “luring” women into thinking it was acceptable to have children later in life—a sentiment that particularly resonates with Vance’s much-derided recent characterization of Democrat supporters as “childless cat ladies.”
>The collection is even prefaced with an introduction from Vance himself, in which he described it as an “admirable” volume, representing “an important effort in advancing [a] conversation” about “our country’s most difficult and intractable problems.”
Trump's defense against the "weird" charges is to insist that his running mate is straight.
>Donald Trump appeared to say that his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), isn’t weird because he’s “so straight.”
>Trump was speaking at a town hall event in LaCross, Wisconsin, yesterday with former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii when he discussed how the Harris-Walz campaign has been calling Republicans – and especially Vance – “weird.”
>“They picked this guy,” Trump said, referring to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), who has been vocal about calling Vance and Trump weird. “He is weird! Right? I’m not weird, he’s weird.”
>“No, he’s a weird guy, he’s a weird dude,” Trump continued. “You know, they come up with soundbites, they always have soundbites, and one of the things is that J.D. and I are weird.”
>Then Trump defended himself and Vance from the weird charges, calling Vance “so straight” and a “top student.”
>“This guy is so straight? J.D. is so… He’s doing a great job, smart, top student, great guy, he’s not weird and I’m not weird. I mean, we’re a lot of things, we’re not weird.”
Totally straight and not weird.
When a presidential candidate violates universal and established norms, it’s okay to come out and say it. But the coverage of former president Donald Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery, on August 26, showed the difficulties newsrooms have in covering unprecedented events, especially when i...
>Readers needed to know that, when you visit Arlington, you might not know exactly what you’re supposed to do when confronted by those rows of headstones, but you damn sure know what you’re not supposed to do. But the coverage this week left many readers with the impression that the whole thing might have been a bureaucratic mix-up, or some tedious violation of protocol. It focused on bland horse-race coverage so common during election season, rather than clearly stating what really took place: an egregious and willful violation of long-standing norms. What was missing from the coverage was a willingness to quickly and decisively state what a grievous insult the whole debacle was to the dignity of Arlington. The sacred had been profaned.
Well fucking said.
>The Washington Free Beacon posted a hilarious hitpiece on Vice President Kamala Harris this morning. It’s a three-reporter byline, featured prominently on their website, and heavily promoted by its editors.
>Their big scoop: HARRIS LEFT HER JOB AT McDONALDS OFF HER RESUME. PICS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN!!!
>Yes, for real.
>These dipshits are doing GOTCHAS by digging up Harris’s post-college and law school resumes and pointing out that she left off a few weeks working the deep fryer between her freshman and sophomore years at Howard University. This hard-hitting investigation is just asking questions about why the Vice President didn’t mention the McDonalds gig when she applied to be a summer law clerk at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in 1987. Instead, she included stints at Charles Schwab, the FTC, a senate internship, and clerking at a law firm.
“I don’t know if the president even saw the comment that was on there,” Jason Miller suggested, nonsensically.
>Trump advisor Jason Miller stopped by CNN This Morning on Thursday, and was left squirming when anchor Kasie Hunt confronted him about Donald Trump’s recent Truth Social post that featured a screenshot of an image of younger Kamala Harris smiling next to Hillary Clinton, with a caption underneath that read, “Funny how blowjobs impacted both their careers differently.”
>“What would you say to the vice president of the United States about the comment that [Trump] reposted?” Hunt asked.
>“Well, I saw the social media post,” Miller replied. “I have not discussed that with the president. I don’t know if the president even saw the comment that was on there or simply the picture.”
>Miller then quickly pivoted to accuse Democrats of attacking Trump with even more vitriol, telling Hunt, “The attacks that have been levied by Kamala Harris’ campaign and by Harris’ allies against President Trump — not just recently but over the past year and a half, two years, ever since he came down the escalator, quite frankly—in the case of many leftist-centered people, have been quite horrific.”
>Hunt asked Miller if he thought the criticisms against Trump have been “as horrific” as the image Trump had reposted. Miller replied, “Oh, a hundred times worse.”
>“But they haven’t been sexual in nature in this way,” Hunt pointed out.
>“Again, I haven’t discussed that with the president,” Miller said. “I don’t know if the president even saw the comment that was on there. That’s not something that I have asked.”
@runjun@lemmy.world original post can be found here: One of the only cybertrucks I've ever seen
