SINCERETALK

Hundreds of Sassa grant recipients are being duped into signing funeral policies under false pretences – and no one is stepping up to help them, writes Maya Fisher-French. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/36RB1uO via sinceretalk

Tonight, Trump is throwing an 80th birthday bash for himself (he says it’s in honor of the 250th birthday of the United States) with a “Freedom250” Ultimate Fighting Championship cage match on the South Lawn of the White House at 8 p.m. ET. It will be a bloody gladiator fight taking place inside a 600-ton, 154-feet-tall skeletal structure called “the Claw,” painted red, white and blue. Opponents will punch, kick, wrestle, choke, and use jiu-jitsu on each other until one of them is unconscious or verbally concedes, or a referee stops the fight because one is judged too damaged to absorb any more violence. This is a money-making operation for the UFC (which is offering special-access VIP packages for $1.5 million), for Trump buddy David Ellison’s Paramount (which will livestream it to you if you buy a subscription for $8.99 a month — see here ), for Crypto.com and Ram (which are sponsoring it), and for Trump (who’s deciding which of his billionaire friends and CEO buddies will be invit...

I just toured the opulent Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. I love beautiful homes as much as anyone, but this tour didn’t land as intended. To me, America’s largest private residence, one that took 1,000 laborers six years to build, is a testament to inherited wealth and inequality . The lavish indoor swimming pool was built at a time when most homes didn’t have plumbing. As I walked through the gardens and imported Italian tapestries, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the laborers who built the estates of Gilded Age scions lived in squalor themselves, and could barely afford to eat. The warning was also deafening: Trump and his corporate backers, pushing an economic regression most supporters can’t even recognize, are taking us back to that era. MAGA keeps buying the same robber-baron con job the working-class finally defeated over a century ago , even as they bear the brunt of it . Fast foward only a hundred years and we are watching the same well-planned, deliberate, and coor...

The Oranjezicht City Farm Market in Cape Town has grown from a small vegetable farm on abandoned bowling greens to one of the leading farmers’ markets on the continent. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/na6SsTU via sinceretalk

Sometimes I provide you with information that I hope you’ll find helpful in making arguments with others. I don’t expect that what I share with you will change the minds of committed Trumpers, but the facts and the evidence may have some sway with Republicans and independents who are wavering about whom to support in the midterms. One of the main reasons Trump was elected was his pledge to keep the United States out of wars, especially the kind of “endless” wars America has fought in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan. Obviously, he broke that pledge. We’re now well into the fourth month of a war he said would be four or five weeks at most. In addition, the war he initiated in Iran was a war of choice — Iran did not attack the United States, and most specialists in foreign policy say Iran was not close to devising a nuclear weapon at that time. (It’s likely to be closer now, or at least more committed to making one.) Yet in a lengthy interview with Kristen Welker , the host of NBC’s...

Politico Sr. Legal Affairs Reporter Josh Gerstein reports US District Judge Angel Kelley has blocked Interior Secy. Doug Burgum's "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" order affecting national parks. Kelley’s decision, in favor of plaintiffs National Parks Conservation Association and others, means the administration of President Donald Trump must restore race, climate and LGBT mentions that it whisked away from park signs , brochures and literature in the name of “ American dignity .” The judge was particularly brutal in her pronouncement. “The beauty of history is the unvarnished storytelling of a time gone by and the delivery of undeniable truths. The Government’s stewardship of these park sites thus carries a responsibility to present history in full rather than in favored fragments,” Kelly said . “Unfortunately, the Government has disregarded these principles.” “Under the guise of promoting American dignity, this Administration seeks to share a limited h...