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President Donald Trump’s electoral victory makes him an anomaly in the annals of U.S. history—not only for winning non-consecutive terms, which no one has accomplished since Grover Cleveland over a century ago, but also for surviving multiple assassination attempts and becoming the first elected president convicted of felony crimes.  

Whether or not the convictions are justified, prognosticators have rightly called his win one of the greatest comebacks ever in American politics—greater even than Richard Nixon’s rise from the ashes after losing to John F. Kennedy in 1960.  

Unlike in 2016, when he failed to clinch the popular vote but won the Electoral College, Trump outpaced Kamala Harris by nearly 2.5 million votes, making gains among racial, gender, age, and geographic demographics with whom Democrats typically have excelled, particularly blacks, Latinos, and blue-collar workers.  

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

In a case of tragic coincidence, the place most closely associated with the uplifting story of Jesus Christ, Christmas and the teachings of the Bible is now being subject to some of the most sustained and severe death and destruction that modern society has seen.

Rev. Munther Isaac, the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and the Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour, joins host Chris Hedges on this special episode of The Chris Hedges Report to revisit the story of Christmas and how it relates to Palestine then and now.

Assigned Media interviews journalist and author, Nico Lang.

Vulnerable people include those living below the poverty line, who also have at least one long-term health issue, and/or who are 65 years and older.

Our report finds that vulnerability to heat is unevenly distributed across Australia.

In most states and territories, coastal areas tend to be cooler and have lower concentrations of vulnerable people than inland and rural areas.

This means that extreme heat poses a greater threat to outer-urban and rural areas than inner-urban areas, especially those near the sea.

The states and territories most vulnerable to extreme heat are the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia.

The approvals were made on 19 December, just before Australia shuts down for the Christmas break.

The three mines are already so large that they would almost cover greater Sydney, or most Australian cities.

“Today’s approval is yet another example of the Australian Government deciding to create more climate change rather than less. Another time that Minister Plibersek was on the side of coal companies, not the environment,” said Rod Campbell, Research Director at The Australia Institute.

“Putting this out just before Christmas is a classic ‘taking out the trash’ tactic. While Australians are trying to enjoy the end of the year, the Minister is doing the bidding of multinational coal companies.

“With every heatwave and every bushfire this summer, Australians should remember that their government is making this problem worse, not better.”

The post Minister’s early Christmas gift to coal companies appeared first on The Australia Institute.

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This month, the Australian economic debate was hijacked by a report from the world’s most powerful consulting firm: McKinsey & Co. The consulting firm apparently found that declining living standards represent a “national emergency” – and the care economy, regulations and Australia’s corporate tax rate are to blame for low productivity growth.

The only problem? The report is secret; McKinsey has only shared it with a select group. This is a well-known tactic used by consulting firms to keep their assumptions and conclusions from being scrutinised and criticised.

Not that you would know it from the uncritical reception the report has received from some politicians and journalists, particularly the Australian Financial Review which used the report to attack the government and advocate for its own policy wish list: to cut corporate taxes, encourage industrial relations ‘flexibility’ (in other words, wind back worker and union rights), and cut public spending. The report has been similarly used by the Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor, to criticise the government.

New data from the Office for National Statistics shows that the poorest 10% of households in the UK are still paying a higher proportion of their income in tax than the richest. The UK’s tax system is meant to operate progressively, asking the richest to contribute more in order to tax the middle and poorest […]

The post UK Still Taxes the Poorest More Than the Richest appeared first on Equality Trust.

Her claim that more gas is needed to help with climate change is contradicted by reports from the International Energy Agency, the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator.

Key facts:

• Foreign-owned gas companies export 80% of Australia’s gas
• Nurses and teachers pay more tax than the gas industry
• To date, not a single LNG project has paid a cent in Petroleum Resource Rent Tax

“With Christmas here and a cost-of-living crisis on, Minister King decided to write a piece supporting multinational gas companies,” said Rod Campbell, Research Director at The Australia Institute.

“Oddly for a Christmas piece, Minister King makes no mention of the gift that Australians give to gas companies, year in, year out – free gas.

“Australia got literally nothing for the gas that companies like Chevron, Exxon and Inpex sold for $149 billion over the last four years.

“Gas companies have tripled prices for Australians in recent years, by exporting the majority of the country’s gas. This has contributed directly to the tough Christmas many Australians are about to have.

“It is strange that while Australians are paying more money for their own gas, the Minister wants to write about gas somehow being good for the climate.

“More gas is bad for the climate. More gas exports are bad for Australian gas prices. Australians are being ripped off by the gas industry and they know it.

The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Unidentified Federal Operations | The Roundtable Ep. 248

The Wrap with Amy Remeikis

We have made it to the time of year when we all think that if we can just get to the end, that things are going to be better.

It makes sense – we turn over calendars, set resolutions and embrace the potential of a new year.

It’s almost like an extreme, universal experience of the doorway effect, the psychological phenomenon of short term memory loss while crossing from one boundary to another (if you have ever walked into a room to get something and then immediately forgotten why you were there, you have experienced the doorway effect).

But just as we eventually remember what we wanted from the other room, so too do we remember the unfinished business of the year before.

Opening up a new calendar is just the turning of a page. Nothing has fundamentally changed before or after that moment beyond being faced with a blank sheet. And no matter how much we may wish it, the turning of one year to another does not put a full stop on the issues we experienced in the year before.

The world is going to continue to be a complicated, sometimes horrifying, often confounding place. But with that comes the beauty and the simple moments of joy and delight, pleasant surprises and everything in between. Changing the calendar doesn’t change the world. But you, working to bring about change, does.

And so why this time of year would often mean we reflect on the wins – and there have been those – it can be more productive to look at what still needs to be done.

It’s official: the Reserve Bank of Australia will have its board split in two, and two new appointees will join the reconfigured monetary policy board, whose job it is to make decisions on interest rates. The move was recommended by an independent review panel in 2023. The new members of the monetary policy board, one a former top banker and the other a senior academic economist, were chosen after bipartisan consultation.

In making his announcement, the treasurer Jim Chalmers said that Marnie Baker and Renee Fry-McKibbin would balance the experience of existing members with “fresh perspectives”. That the RBA needs fresh perspectives is surely not in doubt.

Expect conflict when President-elect Donald Trump revokes, as planned, the “Temporary Protected Status (TPS)” program that President Joe Biden massively expanded to shield almost one million immigrants from deportation. Biden did so on grounds that these illegally present immigrants cannot be returned to, as the New York Times recently put it, “dangerous and deeply troubled countries.”

After acknowledging that economic growth is at its lowest level since the 1990s, the RBA chose not to cut rates in December, leaving Australians to wait months for a potential rate cut.

“Economic management is a full-time job yet the RBA is taking a two-month summer holiday,” said Greg Jericho, The Australia Institute’s Chief Economist.

“Michele Bullock and Jim Chalmers constantly tell us they’re ‘fine tuning’ the economy. That can’t be done with the RBA board all at the cricket.

“With so many Australians suffering, the RBA should cut short its holiday and come back to work in January.”

“The board is currently scheduled to meet on February 17 and 18. It should meet on January 20 and 21,” said Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist at The Australia Institute.

“If it’s good enough for most Australians to be back at work by then, it’s good enough for the RBA.

“Christmas is a busy time for the economy. Its certainly a difficult, expensive time for consumers. There would be plenty to discuss in January.

“Mortgage holders shouldn’t have to wait one day longer than necessary for an interest rate cut which, let’s face it, is already long overdue.”

The post Rate cut already overdue: RBA should meet in January appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Join me tonight on my YouTube channel for a live Q&A at 4pm PT / 7pm ET. I will pull questions from the comments of this post, my X, and live on YouTube. We will discuss the future of The Middle East. To post your questions here, you must be a paid subscriber to my Substack. Please attempt to keep your questions direct and relatively brief, as I cannot read entire paragraphs during the show.