From The Chaser:

Dear readers,

America’s 45th president Donald J Trump was indicted just hours ago for taking classified and top secret documents to his residence in Mar-a-Lago, potentially setting an extremely concerning precedent of actually punishing powerful cis-white men for crimes.

Donald Trump was one of the world's best corrupt businessmen and pussy grabbers, people like that are the backbone of the entire political and justice system. If we set the precedent that men like him can be held responsible for their actions, who knows what sort of chaotic world that could cause?

This is the start of a very slippery slope. Indicting former presidents for federal crimes, what next, actually investigating powerful men for tax evasion, sexual assault or war crimes? Where does the madness end?

The US Justice Department claim to have found illegally held documents and recordings of Trump acknowledging that he was committing an alleged crime, but in his defence, who hasn’t stolen stationery supplies or classified information from work?

Here at The Chaser we hope that the system works as it was designed to and justice is served, where the powerful cis-white man gets away with whatever he allegedly did then gets to sue anyone who commented on the allegations, because clearly it is the journalists and random social media users who need to be punished.

https://mailchi.mp/chaser.com.au/trumps-indictment

I've still got Marquee Moon and Adventure on vinyl though I haven't listened to them for ages and don't have a turntable.

RIP Tom

https://twitter.com/i/status/1512370202201460737

After 2 months of SovShits not complying and travelling, not driving in my city, this made me LOLx1000. Absolutely funny stuff...

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Source: New York Times

Novak Djokovic, the world’s No. 1-ranked men’s tennis player, traveled all day Wednesday from Dubai to Australia, a journey that was supposed to begin his defense of the Australian Open singles championship.

On Thursday, he was told he would need to leave the country, following a 10-hour standoff with government officials at a Melbourne airport, where he was held in a room overnight over the validity of his visa and questions about the evidence supporting a medical exemption from a coronavirus vaccine. The exemption was supposed to allow Djokovic, a 20-time Grand Slam tournament champion and one of the biggest stars in sports, to compete in the Australian Open even though he has not been vaccinated.

It was not immediately clear whether Djokovic would appeal the ruling in Australia’s courts. A spokesman for the tennis star did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The chain of events represented a startling turnabout for Djokovic, who in a little more than 24 hours went from receiving special, last-minute permission to enter Australia, to boarding an intercontinental flight, to essentially being told by the prime minister of Australia that he was not welcome in the country.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/sports/tennis/novak-djokovic-australia-visa.html

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Good riddance. Anyone who thinks they're above the law and deserve special treatment don't deserve to come here.

My new Golf GTI with its farting DSG transmission won me over. Lots of hairpin bends and stopping due to rockslides being repaired, but I felt I had a better grip on the road and more control of the GTI than I ever did with my old car with hits manual transmission. Then again, my old car was old and didn't have sports mode, while the GTI has sports mode and has like 8 gears. Plus it looks so cute and sporty! And I can hook my phone up and use Google Assistant to do the voicey thing!

This has two great memories for me:

1. New Order played it back in early March, just before everything shut down (yes, unlike in the US, we locked down and tried to get a control on the virus)

2. Last year of high school and a boyfriend who worshipped Joy Division...

You can't get any more cute and adorable than this. Pudsey's just the added bit of cuteness...



I just delved down into the battlefield of GD-P to bemoan the premature end of a really meaty bit of drama unfolding in one thread with the source of the drama being so cruelly booted with a hidden post. Damn the whole thing about being locked out of a thread before a good plot can develop. I expect my post bemoaning that will end up hidden. Good thing I only turn up here once every few months lately

Sure, you say that you will vote for the nominee, whoever it is, but how can we (we being concerned citizens of DU who demand to know how everyone will vote and warn of the TOS and everything. I'm the night-shift) take you at yr word? How do we know yr not a sleeper agent from the vast army of Bernies clogging up DU announcing every post that they won't vote for Hillary Clinton NO MATTER WHAT?

There's only one solution to this terrible problem. We've compiled a list, and on election day a crack unit of the 15 remaining Hillary Supporters at DU will be squeezing into the voting booth with you and anyone else on our list to find out once and for all what yr intentions are. And once we know, we're coming back here, wresting the nuke button off Skinner, and we're going to set off those nukes and it's going to make Hiroshima look like a tiny firecracker by comparison.

And then in four years time we're going to do it all over again. Be warned, Bernies!

If only there were a group at DU where people could go and start meta threads and be left in peace to complain. But a better version than the Meta forum was. Everyone knew its downfall was that any old riff raff were let in. If only there were a way to put a bouncer on the door to keep the undesirables away from meta threads...