Sarah Palin, the raucous right-winger, former governor of Alaska, has announced she is running for Alaska’s only seat in the US House of Representatives, after the previous incumbent died last month. She was John McCain’s VP running mate in 2008 when the pair lost to Barack Obama and she has since been a vociferous supporter … Read more
Sean Penn, the actor, director, writer with a mercurial personal life, is stomping the boards in support of the Ukrainians threatening to smelt his Oscars if President Zelensky isn’t allowed to speak at the Academy Awards. Luvvies at full trumpet on behalf of humanitarian issues is hardly a surprise but Penn is emerging as … Read more
Ron DeSantis, up for re-election for Florida governor this November, is viewed as a potential GOP 2024 presidential contender instead of Trump. A Tea Party conservative, he has caught the headlines recently for his hands-off approach to the pandemic, despite an infection surge, and more recently for a push to ban students from learning about … Read more
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has finally been let out of an Iranian jail where she had been held for five years on trumped up spying charges and is on a flight back to her husband and young daughter in the UK. The UK government said it had settled a debt owed to Iran from the 1970s, which … Read more
Tucker Carlson, Fox News host, long a promoter of conspiracy theories favouring Trump and the far right, and recently accused of echoing Russian propaganda about the Ukraine invasion, has garnered favour with Putin. Evidently Moscow has instructed friendly media outlets to use clips of Carlson’s show. Late last year Carlson’s three-part series on Fox “Patriot … Read more
Underlying the trans furore of recent years is a mind control battle over language – what is allowed to be said and what will be obliterated under an avalanche of hostility if it deviates from the proscribed party line. Pure George Orwell. He says of the Ministry of Truth in 1984 “‘Don’t you see … Read more
Alexander Dugin dubbed as “Putin’s Brain” and the man who wrote Putin’s playbook is a controversial Russian philosopher, professor, political analyst and strategist. His 1997 book Foundation of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia evidently signalled every significant foreign policy move of the Russian Federation over the following two decades. In order to regain … Read more
Satirist and journalist P.J. O’Rourke, regarded “one of the major voices of his generation”, has died. He was, unusually for a scurrilous wit, right wing but with no compunction about causing offence even to his own side, as he sought out political irony, absurdity and hypocrisy. He was a Republican who mocked Republicans. “The Republicans … Read more
Peter Thiel, a German-American billionaire, co-founder of PayPal and first outside investor in Facebook, is combining his right-wing political activism with his tech talents. He is behind a new conservative ‘Dating app’, about to launch which sounds remarkably like an echo chamber for those who dislike the censorship of politically motivated misinformation. He has … Read more
Joe Biden’s term of office has neither been as explosive as was feared from the challenging Inauguration chart nor as progressive as Democrats would have wished. Errant senators have blocked landmark legislation and the messy Afghanistan withdrawal was damaging to his reputation. But the worst may yet be – almost certainly will be – to … Read more