Volo and Bibi score heavy coin, Americans left holding an empty bag [TDT: 02.07]

Also: Thieving 'girlfriends,' Assange's last stand, plus much more!

Data, data, everywhere - only problem is, YOU cannot access it...

Welcome to this edition of the Three-Dot Tablet [TDT], a weekly news-digest where I seek out the headlines others may not be covering (or not covering well), and - with healthy doses of passion, common sense, and brevity - discuss them with raw, unfiltered commentary.

Let's get to it…

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US Capitol, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Prime Cut

Senate's $95bn for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan faces uphill battle in House
BBC

In this week’s reminder of, ‘They don’t really care about us,” Edition No. Infinity…

The US Senate has approved a $95bn (£75bn) foreign aid package after months of political wrangling, but it faces an uphill battle in the House.

The package, which was passed by a vote of 70-29 (literally in the dark of night), includes…
- $60 billion for Ukraine
- $14 billion for Israel
- $8 billion for Taiwan
- $10 billion for ‘humanitarian aid’ in conflict zones
- $0 for the American people.

That’s right, despite unrelenting crime waves and a porous southern border, middle-class depletion and rampant homelessness?

We. Get. Zero.

Oh, and in case you didn’t hear? Twenty-two so-called ‘Republicans’ joined with Democrats to pass this monstrosity. But I am sure no one ‘paying attention’ is at all surprised by this.

The bill heads to the House of Representatives this week, where Speaker Mike Johnson seems to be suggesting they will block it. To quote…

"House Republicans were crystal clear from the very beginning of discussions that any so-called national security supplemental legislation must recognise that national security begins at our own border."

While I would like to think the House would finally grow a spine and stand up to this sinister Globalism, that they might step up and represent the people who elected them? I’m not holding my breath.

They’ll pass it, with very few changes, because evidently Ukraine and Israel are more important to them than us lowly American commoners.

Never, ever forget that…

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Assange Watch

Julian Assange to find out next week if he can appeal against extradition to US
The Guardian [UK]

Despite pleas from Australian politicians, the clock is ticking for the heroic purveyor of truth; it is not looking good…

In a matter of days Julian Assange will find out if he has exhausted all potential challenges through the British courts to being extradited to the US, where he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

His wife, Stella, is convinced that if he is extradited to U.S. soil he will die in jail; I am not in any way convinced she is wrong in her assessment.

For a reputedly ‘first-world’ country, we have one of the most horrific prison systems on the planet. A majority of our ‘inmates’ are treated only marginally better than animals, and since Assange is not exactly a hardened criminal? Throw in the fact he is virulently hated by the very system which will be incarcerating him?

Furthermore, even if he somehow survives the environment within, when convicted - and he will be - he will get a life sentence. So… any way it plays out?

He is not getting out alive.

But there are much larger implications, as Kristinn Hrafnsson, the editor-in-chief of Assange’s WikiLeaks, pointed out…

“It cannot be underestimated, the effect that it will have… [I]f an Australian citizen publishing in Europe can face prison time in the United States, that means no journalists anywhere are safe in the future.”

The Julian Assange case is about much more than one man, or the thirst for vengeance coming from one nation’s power ‘elite;’ the entirety of the first amendment is hanging in the balance.

If they can imprison for life a foreigner for telling the truth online, what do you think they can - and will - do to people like you and me? Anyone who speaks any information which they do not like - be it regarding politics, business, health… anything which counters the narrative. Literally no one is safe if Assange is tried and convicted.

Ultimately, Liberty is on trial here; I am not confident She can win this one…