Tag Archives: Politics

Trump Bakes A Loaf Of Nonsense With Bizarre Remarks About Grocery Store Purchases

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Former President Donald Trump declared that people need identification to purchase groceries as he repeated a wild claim he’s pushed at past rallies on Friday.

“You have voter ID to buy a loaf of bread, you have ID to buy a loaf of bread,” said Trump as he argued that Democrats are “desperate” to stop his movement in remarks at the Concerned Women for America Summit in Washington, D.C.

The former president also received pushback for another food market claim when he said grocery stores would “work along” with federal employees amid the 2019 partial government shutdown.

“Local people know who they are when they go for groceries and everything else… and that’s what happens in times like this – they know the people, they’ve been dealing with them for years and they work along,” he said at the time.

Social media users mocked the former president’s latest grocery remarks, quipping that they got “carded for pumpernickel” the other day.

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New Footage Shows Just How Disruptive The Republican Lawmake Kicked Out Of ‘Beetlejuice’ Was Being

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It looks like Representative Lauren Boebert (Republican, Colorado) was just blowing smoke when her team denied that she was vaping and being disruptive at a performance of the Beetlejuice musical as new video appears to catch her in the act.

She initially tried to downplay the incident, but the security footage shows what really went down.

Kyle Clark of 9News shared the highlights:

A pregnant woman who said she sat behind Boebert told the Denver Post that she asked the lawmaker ― who she didn’t recognise ― to stop vaping.

She refused, and later called the pregnant woman “a sad and miserable person.”

“These people in front of us were outrageous,” the woman, who was not named, told the newspaper. “I’ve never seen anyone act like that before.”

Boebert’s team earlier this week had claimed that the only thing she did wrong was take a photo during the performance. Boebert herself wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that she was “guilty” only of “laughing and singing too loud.”

9News also has an extended cut of the footage, which shows Boebert being disruptive at multiple points during the performance, raising her hands and being very animated even at points in the performance when everyone else was sitting calmly:

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Another Broken Sunak Pledge As NHS Waiting Lists Hit A New Record High

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Official figures revealed that 7.7 million people are now waiting for NHS treatment in England, up from 7.6 million a month ago.

Sunak is also struggling to keep his other promises to halve inflation, bring down the national debt and stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel in small boats.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: “For millions of patients across England, the NHS is no longer there for them when they need it.

“On the NHS, Rishi Sunak is Inaction Man, refusing to meet with doctors to end NHS strikes and adding to the Conservatives’ NHS backlog, leaving patients waiting for months on end in pain and agony.”

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NHS Strikes: Mishal Husain Roasts Steve Barclay By Noting Obvious Contradiction In Government’s Stance

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BBC Radio 4′s Mishal Husain suggested the government has no choice but to resolve NHS strikes in a tense interview with the health secretary this morning.

The Today programme host pointed out that – just as junior doctors and consultants are about to go on strike simultaneously – the impact on NHS patients is getting worse.

Husain said the latest figures show the waiting lists to be at record levels at 7.6 million people waiting to start routine treatment.

But, she noted that prime minister Rishi Sunak made it one of his five pledges to voters to bring the number down.

The presenter asked: “How can you do that without resolving doctors’ strikes?”

Barclay replied: “There’s no question that the strikes are having an impact in terms of harming patients.

“Now, we have been making progress through our recovery plan, backed with £8 billion of investment.”

He said they had eliminated the two-year wait for treatment, and “virtually” eliminated the 18-month wait.

Husain pointed out: “The overall figure is at a record number!”

Barclay replied: “No, no, I’m accepting that the overall number on the waiting lists has increased.”

He went on to say that the government has boosted the NHS’s capacity with community diagnostic centres.

But Husain just asked again: “What’s your plan to end the doctors’ strike?”

The health secretary insisted that the government has offered a “fair and final” resolution, accepted the pay review bodies’ suggestion for a pay increase and implemented the BMA union’s “number one ask” to change pension and taxation.

“But the strikes are going on,” Husain cut in. “I think most people would probably look at this and think that your plan is basically based around hoping that the doctors give up. There’s absolutely no sign of that.

“How can you possibly meet your waiting list pledge, the PM’s waiting list pledge, without resolving this strike?”

Barclay said the government had also promised to bring down inflation, and that was another pledge Sunak made in January.

He also claimed that the strikers’ pay rise request was too high, and he had stay fair to other public sector workers.

Husain then tried once more, pointing out: “You’ve got a specific pledge on waiting lists to bring them down – and they’re going up.”

But, the health secretary just suggested once again the pay rise request from junior doctors is not “fair” for others.

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Russian Troops Being ‘Rushed Into Action’ To Help ‘Over-Stretched’ Forces, UK Says

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Russian troops are being “rushed into action” because the country’s military is being “over-stretched” by the Ukrainian counter-offensive, UK officials have said.

Members of Moscow’s 25th Combined Arms Army, known as the 25 CAA, were not due to see combat until December.

But the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said today that they are “highly likely” to have been deployed in Ukraine already.

“It is likely that units have been rushed into action early partly because Russia continues to grapple with an over-stretched force along the front and Ukraine continues its counter-offensive on three different axes,” the MoD’s latest intelligence update said.

They said Russian military chiefs could also use the 25CAA “to regenerate an uncommitted reserve force in the theatre to provide commanders with more operational flexibility”.

The pair greeted each other with a bizarre 40-second handshake at the Vostochny Cosmodrome space base.

It comes amid suggestions Putin wants North Korea to supply him with weapons for the war in Ukraine.

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US News Anchor Gives Trump’s ‘Most Vile Lie’ About 9/11 A Blunt Fact-Check

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“Donald Trump has been lying about 9/11 since 9/11,” O’Donnell said on Monday night. “Here is Donald Trump’s most vile lie about 9/11.”

He played a clip of Trump claiming during a Republican debate that he “lost hundreds of friends” on 9/11.

O’Donnell said it was a lie ― and noted that he called Trump out over it at the time.

Trump during a subsequent appearance altered it to losing “many, many friends,” but O’Donnell said that was a lie too.

“Donald Trump lost zero friends on 9/11,” he said. “Donald Trump attended zero funerals of 9/11 victims. Zero. But Donald Trump tried to steal the grief of all of the families who lost someone on 9/11.”

O’Donnell noted that United Airlines Flight 93 was potentially headed for the U.S. Capitol on that morning, but instead crashed in a Pennsylvania field after the passengers revolted.

Then, he played footage of January 6 attackers breaking into the Capitol just steps away from a plaque honouring those aboard that flight for stopping the attack.

“In the 21st century, only two groups have tried to attack the United States Capitol: al-Qaida, led by Osama bin Laden, and Trump supporters, led by Donald Trump,” he said. “Only the Trump attackers actually did damage to the Capitol.”

See more from his Monday night broadcast:

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The War In Ukraine Is Causing Shortages In Russia’s Workforce, UK Says

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Russia is experiencing shortages in its workforce as a result of the Ukraine war, according to the UK.

However, the MoD said Moscow’s conscription efforts “continue to have negative effects on its industry workforce”.

As an example, the country’s IT sector saw around 100,000 of its workers leave Russia in 2022 – 10% of the total.

That led to Putin increasing the age at which IT workers can be recruited to the army from 27 to 30.

“This shows that mobilisation and conscription within Russia has worsened non-defence workforce shortages,” the MoD said in its latest intelligence update on the war.

“In the run-up to the Russian presidential elections scheduled for March 2024, Russian authorities will likely seek to avoid further unpopular mobilisations.”

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Trump’s ‘Mental Acuity’ Challenge Gets Exactly The Response You’d Expect

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Donald Trump threw another fit on his social media website on Sunday, this time challenging a host of rivals to a “mental acuity test.”

Trump, who is refusing to debate any of his Republican presidential rivals but instead offered to debate Meghan Markle, is demanding that US President Joe Biden, right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch and others take a test of his choosing, at a place of his choosing.

“It will be a tough one,” the former president wrote on Truth Social. “Nobody will come even close to me!”

Trump was triggered by a Wall Street Journal poll in which 49% said he was not mentally up for the job of president. (That number was 60% for Biden.)

“A few years ago I was the only one to agree to a mental acuity test, & ACED IT,” Trump wrote in response to the poll, which he claimed was “probably rigged.”

Trump hasn’t taken a “mental acuity test,” or at least hasn’t publicly revealed the results of such a test if he did. However, in 2020 he took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA, which is used to check for signs of cognitive impairments that could be an indication of dementia.

Trump has often bragged of passing the assessment, and insisted that it was hard.

But it’s not supposed to be.

“It is supposed to be easy for someone who has no cognitive impairment,” Dr Ziad Nasreddine, who invented the test, told MarketWatch in 2020.

It asks the subject to complete tasks like identifying an elephant, or remembering and then repeating five words ― which, in Trump’s case, were infamously “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.”

Now, however, he seems to think passing the MoCA means he can challenge Biden, Murdoch, Murdoch’s sons, and the heads of the Wall Street Journal to the test of his choosing.

Neither Biden nor Murdoch have responded to Trump’s “challenge,” but the former president’s critics had plenty to say:

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Tory Cabinet Splits Erupt As Minister Warns Chancellor Against Cutting Benefits

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A senior Tory minister has warned chancellor Jeremy Hunt not to cut benefits in real terms in order to pay for tax cuts ahead of the next election.

In a sign of cabinet splits over the issue, justice secretary Alex Chalk said the government must “ensure, that we are decent, humane and that we support people”.

Hunt is reportedly looking at ways in which welfare payments can be increased by less than normal in a bid to raise billions of pounds.

At the moment, benefits increase by the rate of inflation – which led to them going up by 10.1% this year.

However, according to Bloomberg, the Treasury is considering putting benefits up by less than inflation next year.

Asked on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky NewsA this morning whether he would support such a move, Chalk made clear he would be opposed.

“We must do everything we can for the most disadvantaged in society,” he said.

“That’s why we put up benefits by 10.1% and universal credit and also the pension as well.

“I will want to ensure, my colleagues will want to ensure, that we are decent, humane and that we support people.”

Phillips said: “I’m taking that as a no.”

Laughing, Chalk replied: “Take it as you like.”

Former prime minister Liz Truss was hit by a furious backlash from Tory MPs – including senior ministers – when she considered increasing benefits by less than inflation.

An ally of the former prime minister said: “This was very much part of Liz’s plan to kick-start economic growth last year: she wanted to raise benefits in line with wages, not inflation – a move that was calculated as likely to cut at least £6 billion off the benefits bill.

“Yet a significant minority of her parliamentary colleagues refused to go along with it, including a number of people holding senior roles in the current cabinet.”

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‘Designed For Disaster’: Justice Secretary Alex Chalk Savaged Over Prison Conditions

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Justice secretary Alex Chalk was told prisons are “designed for a disaster” as he was grilled by Trevor Phillips on Sky News.

The former soldier managed to escape from Wandsworth Prison in London by strapping himself to the bottom of a delivery van.

Ministers have faced intense criticism over the state of security at the jail.

On Sky News this morning, Phillips told Chalk: “We don’t have enough prison staff – you’re trying to recruit more.

“Of the ones that we do have, a lot of them are off sick, with the number of sick days claimed since 2018 annually is up 60%.

“And here is the most concerning thing perhaps. Of those who are on duty, a high proportion are inexperienced. Overall one in six are in their first year in the job.

“Add it up – isn’t this a system designed for a disaster?”

Chalk – who revealed that 40 inmates had been moved from Wandsworth in the wake of Khalife’s escape – insisted the government was determined to make working in the prison service an attractive profession.

He said: “The condition of our prisons is of course very important. This is the government that has done more to put its money where its mouth is to invest very heavily in our prison service.”

Chalk added: “We accept that they are phenomenal people who do an extremely difficult job. We value them hugely and I really want to encourage people into the service.”

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