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Georgia Republicans are already bracing for their bruising Senate primary to continue past Tuesday night.

Once viewed as a clear GOP pickup opportunity, the contest to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff has remained largely static for months — with no candidate fully separating from the field and President Donald Trump yet to get involved.

Many expect the contest to go to a runoff, interviews with more than half a dozen GOP strategists and campaign officials reveal. Rep. Mike Collins, the front-runner, is likely to make the cut, but it’s unclear whether he’ll face fellow Rep. Buddy Carter or former football coach Derek Dooley, who’s had a late rise in the polls.

That means while the candidates are poised to duke it out until June 16 for the GOP nomination, Ossoff has free rein to shore up his cash advantage and attack lines ahead of November. The Democrat, Republicans say, is beatable — but the path to unseating him gets more difficult if their own primary drags on.

“The longer the party stays fractured … that harms the chances in the general election,” said Jason Shepherd, the former Cobb County GOP chair. “The beneficiary of all this is Jon Ossoff. All he has to do right now is continue to raise money.”

Cole Muzio, a conservative activist and president of the Frontline Policy Council who voted for Collins, said the nearly large faction of undecided voters “is wild for what was initially supposed to be the most competitive race in the country…. It is not a good scenario.”

With Trump still on the sidelines, the candidates have been largely left to battle it out on their own, exposing fault lines over MAGA loyalty. Collins and Carter, both allies of the president, have mostly aimed their fire at one another as they work to win over the far-right base.

Collins, who has the backing of the Club for Growth PAC, a major conservative super PAC, appeared at a campaign rally with Trump earlier this year, while Carter has presented himself as a “trusted MAGA warrior.” Carter has ramped up his spending in the contest’s closing weeks, but recent polling shows Dooley beating him in second place.

And that’s exactly where Dooley’s campaign says they want him to be.

Dooley jumped into the race with Gov. Brian Kemp’s backing — and he’s gained momentum in the final stretch by leaning on his status as a political outsider and emphasizing his ties to a popular governor whose approval rating is nearly 20 points higher than Trump’s in Georgia.

His rise is emerging as yet another test of Kemp’s political muscle against the party’s more hardline MAGA wing. The governor has joined Dooley at dozens of campaign stops. And Hardworking Americans, a Kemp-aligned PAC, is up on the air on Dooley’s behalf.

“I’m totally fine with the timing of where we are, because really all we lost is the D.C. chattering class thinking that Derek didn’t have a chance. I’m more than happy to overperform expectations,” said one senior Dooley adviser, who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Traditionally, you want to be spending your money and peaking when people are voting or right before they’re voting, and that’s what we’ve been able to do.”

Dooley’s campaign declined to comment.

Collins spokesperson Corbin Keown said in a statement that “despite the field outspending Mike Collins 15-to-1 in advertising, Georgians have consistently shown that they want [his] conservative record.” Carter, in a statement, expressed confidence in his standing with voters and said “Ossoff is desperate to face one of my primary opponents because he knows their baggage would distract from his terrible record.”

Republicans are hopeful that Tuesday night’s outcome — especially if it’s a runoff — will finally force Trump’s hand on an endorsement, putting the national political spotlight back on the Georgia Senate race.

The Collins campaign is already looking to make a pitch for Trump’s backing after the results come in.

“We are definitely going to make the case starting Wednesday that it’s clear he’s the best candidate for the general,” said one Republican strategist close to Collins’ campaign.

Trump’s endorsement has already proven to have significant sway in Republican primaries. His efforts to run challengers against several state GOP senators in Indiana and against Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana paid off. His endorsement of Barry Moore in Alabama’s Senate race helped him become the new front-runner. And he’s fronting a challenger to Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie in what has turned into a very tight — and incredibly expensive — contest.

But even though all three leading GOP candidates for Georgia Senate have had meetings at the White House, they’ve had little luck getting Trump to weigh in publicly. That has meant that other party operations, such as the National Republican Senatorial Committee — which typically follow the president’s lead or wait until a nominee emerges from the primary — have also stayed on the sidelines.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some Republicans argue that outside funding will ramp up significantly once the primary concludes.

“Every race in Georgia will tighten between now and Sept. 1, and when it comes time to put resources together, Georgia will be in the fold,” said one Georgia-based GOP strategist close to Kemp. The Senate Leadership Fund, the top Senate GOP super PAC, has committed an initial $44 million in Georgia.

But in the meantime, the fractured primary field has started Republicans on their back foot while Ossoff continues to raise money. The Democrat ended the first quarter of the year with $31 million in the bank, according to federal campaign finance reports, and has largely allowed his trio of challengers to battle themselves rather than taking direct aim across the aisle.

“[The race] will tighten, I think, but right now, it’s looking a little gloomier than what it normally would just because Ossoff is building a war chest and we’re infighting and all these things,” said another Georgia-based Republican strategist, who is unaffiliated with a Senate campaign.

Beyond contending with Ossoff’s warchest, the Senate GOP candidates continue to face another hurdle: Breaking through with voters at the same time as the Republican gubernatorial race is sucking up all the political — and advertising — oxygen.

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and billionaire Rick Jackson, who are locked in their own monstrously expensive primary, have spent a combined $94 million in that race so far. Their television and digital ads, paired with an overwhelming amount of physical mailers, has made it harder for candidates in other races to attract Georgians’ attention.

“The challenge for the Senate race is you’re not going to see a slowdown in spending in the governor’s race come the runoff,” Muzio said. “Can any of these guys really elevate above the noise to make a clear message?”

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Shockingly, Reform UK is running away from democracy. Again. The shadowy party machine has ordered its councillors to ignore local independent journalists, telling them to only speak to the right-wing propaganda-pedaller GB News. This desperate media blackout shows a toxic, US-style assault on grassroots and public accountability. They really are afraid of us, aren’t they?

Reform tout Poundland Trump

Nigel Farage is directly importing Donald Trump’s authoritarian media playbook. And he’s bringing it directly into our communities. This strategy treats independent local reporters as the enemy, whilst building an impenetrable wall around local Reform politicians.

In Ipswich, Reform UK party chairman Shayne Pooley told newly elected councillors to completely boycott independent media. Let’s be honest, why would they speak to indie journalists who are absolutely killing their reputation when they can happily broadcast their bullshit through GB News?

And at a time when Reform councillors are dropping like flies, it’s a transparent and sinister effort to try avoid further political calamities. Independent, local journalists ask tough and essential questions about council budgets, housing, and local services. How can the right-wing studios of GB News, who are based in London, provide answers about vital local issues?

The party is abandoning ordinary voters and their local issues to protect its own branding. The hostility towards the press comes from the very top of Reform. Just recently Farage doxed a journalist by posting the name and photograph of a photographer on X. This is fucking dangerous. It mirrors the aggressive rhetoric used by right-wing politicians in the US in this push of ‘fake news’.

My security team just found this journalist from The Guardian at my property.

This is exactly why I need security.

Completely unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/pKkZ9agjqi

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— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) May 14, 2026

Farage’s personal propaganda machine

The reason for all of this is simple. GB News isn’t a fucking news channel. It says it is, it operates like it is, but it just isn’t. And yet it operates as an unchallenged propaganda outlet for the far-right, being beamed directly into the living rooms of millions of viewers all over the UK. And people eat it up, simply because they have the word ‘news’ in their name.

The channel broadcasts unchecked information constantly. On Monday 11 May 2026, Ofcom finally launched a major investigation into a GB News interview with Trump over “material misleadingness” and total failure of impartiality. The broadcast included Trump spouting bollocks conspiracy theories about climate change and immigration. And of course GB News offered no journalistic pushback.

GB News even defended its lack of objectivity in court in March 2025. Mrs Justice Collins Rice dismissed Ofcom sanctions, ruling certain political broadcasts were “current affairs” shows and not actual “news programmes”. I mean, come on. And they keep breaking the fucking rules over and over because they’re not a real news channel.

Our broadcast bulletin is out today, including a new investigation into:

Headliners, GB News, 22 Jan – comments made by the presenter related to the LGBTQ+ community.

See the bulletin in full at https://t.co/6dxZBhAyg9 pic.twitter.com/8b8PIIM6R4

— Ofcom (@Ofcom) March 17, 2025

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So by forcing its councillors onto this ridiculous platform, Reform UK is putting them through a scripted, corporate PR department. The councillors simply will not face any kind of scrutiny at all. And this is beamed directly into the living rooms of millions of people in the UK.

Controlling the lackies

This media blackout is authoritarian as fuck, designed to crush local voices. National leadership doesn’t give a shit about out communities.

This rigid control is actually tearing Reform UK apart under the surface. Over 60 councillors have left the party in the last year alone. Loads have quit because national officials actually blocked them from acting in the best interests of their residents. The residents who fucking elected them under the impression they would enact change. Silly. Defectors have revealed Reform headquarters routinely order them to vote down local green initiatives and diversity policies. They’re completely ignoring what local people are actually screaming out for.

More than 60 councillors have left Reform over the past year. They tell us whyhttps://t.co/hTNvY7U1PQ

— Reform Party UK Exposed (@reformexposed) May 7, 2026

Nick Brown, former Durham councillor, admitted he originally joined Reform because he actually believed the party stood for change. Instead, national handlers ordered Brown to tow the party line and not to bring press attention to Durham council. Brown rightly resigned before a key meeting. He was ordered by figures at the national level to vote for a shitty budget that forced a 3.1% council tax rise. Wait… by doing that, didn’t Reform break one of its key promises to voters? I think they did. National office is converting locals reps into nothing but yes-men drones.

It seems like when Reform representatives try to voice community concerns, they face crushing pressure from the central party mechanics. Many have completely abandoned the party, just to win back freedom to speak up for the residents who elected them.

Reform are running scared

Reform tries to dismiss these departures as regular political hiccoughs. However, data reveals a wonderful structural crisis. The party lost a massive 9% of its councillor base was lost in the year leading up to May 2026. That is fucking huge. It’s nearly double the 5% losses seen by both Labour and the Tories during the same time period.

This massive media boycott by Reform is not a sign of strength. It’s a party putting its head in the sand. They’re absolutely petrified. A political party which bans local reps from answering bog-standard questions from a local journalist is a party terrified of the public.

By retreating into its own propaganda studio, Reform UK lets the mask slip and shows its true face. And it’s authoritarian corporate bullshit, masquerading as a grassroots party.

And local democracy suffers as a result.

Featured image via the Canary

By Antifabot

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Bezalel Smotrich has announced the imminent ethnic cleansing of an entire Palestinian Bedouin village in the West Bank. This is in response to the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing a warrant for his arrest.

Smotrich, the Israeli far-right finance minister, said he was informed that the ICC in ⁠The Hague ⁠had ⁠requested a warrant for his arrest.

West Bank retaliation

In 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.

The ICC found that there were:

reasonable grounds to believe that each has committed the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare and crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts, as a direct perpetrator, acting jointly with others.

The Chamber also found reasonable grounds to believe that they are each responsible for the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against civilians as a superior.

Smotrich is the leader of the far-right Religious Zionist party and an illegal settler who lives in the Occupied West Bank.

His Ministry of Finance owns an arms factory in the UK, which has recently been awarded contracts with the UK government.

Smotrich has repeatedly called for Israel to completely ethnically cleanse all 1.8m people from Gaza, so it can ‘be settled’.

Previously, Israeli courts tried Smotrich on charges of ‘Jewish terrorism’. According to The Times Of Israel:

He was arrested by the Shin Bet’s division for suspected Jewish terrorism during the disengagement from Gaza.

Shortly before the August 2005 operation to remove Jewish settlers from 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four more in the West Bank, Smotrich and four other activists were detained and found to be in possession of 700 liters of gasoline and oil.

He is a self-described fascist homophobe, has mocked non-Orthodox jews, discriminated against Arabs, and opposed legislation to combat violence against women. Essentially, he is an egotistical piece of shit.

According to Al Jazeera:

The ICC accusations reportedly centre on Smotrich’s forced displacement orders for Palestinians, his support for moving Israeli settlers into occupied territory, and his claim it may be “justified and moral” to starve Palestinians in Gaza.

Forced displacement

In response to the arrest warrant, Smotrich is once again going on the attack.

He announced that:

the first target that will be attacked: immediately after my remarks, we will sign an order for the evacuation of Khan al-Ahmar.

This will forcibly displace the entire Palestinian community from this occupied West Bank village, which has already endured a years-long legal battle with Israeli authorities for its survival.

Back in 2018, Israel’s supreme court permitted the illegal terrorist state to forcibly transfer the entire Bedouin community from Khan al-Ahmar. At the time, this consisted of 173 people in 32 families. However, the government then delayed the decision.

The community belongs to the Jahalin tribe, which came from the area of Tel Arad in the Negev desert. The IOF originally expelled it in the 1950s. Now, it is the largest refugee tribe in the West Bank.

The members first leased land to live on and to graze their flocks. However, Israel then built the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. The IOF once again forcibly displaced them, and they settled in their current location.

For years, Israel has been attempting to forcibly transfer the community a third time.

The community already suffers constant harassment at the hands of the Israeli authorities, making life there unbearable, with a view to making residents leave.

Israel has also refused to connect the community to the electric grid and roads and has repeatedly demolished structures.

Now, Israel is planning to demolish every single structure in the community and expel the residents. The settler-colonial state will now demolish the local school. It also serves the children of 11 other Palestinian communities.

War crimes

According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), forced displacement is a war crime in international and non-international armed conflicts.

Additionally, when it is committed as part of a “widespread or systematic attack” directed against any civilian population, deportation or forcible transfer of populations in occupied territories are “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions.

They can also be qualified as crimes against humanity under Article 71 of the Rome Statute.

Of course, international law does not seem to apply to Zionists. Moreover, ethnically cleansing a whole village is just another day in the life of Smotrich and the Zionist regime.

It has been 18 months since the ICC issued warrants for the arrests of Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. Since then, multiple countries have allowed them to enter without enforcing the warrants, which does not leave much hope for Smotrich’s arrest. However, it does reaffirm what anyone paying attention already knew – Smotrich and Israel are war criminals.

Featured image via Amir Levy / Stringer/Getty Images

By HG

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On 14 May, King’s College London (KCL) and Cranfield University announced that the two institutions planned to merge following August 2027. However, student-led activist coalition KCL Stands for Justice (KCL SfJ) has spoken out against the merger, due to Cranfield’s deep links to the arms industry.

In a statement on social media, KCL SfJ wrote that:

Cranfield reported an £8.2m deficit for 2024-25, and KCL is stepping in to absorb all of its debt and financial obligations.

How does KCL justify taking on millions in debt while its own staff are forced to work multiple jobs and live outside London because their pay rises don’t even meet inflation?

Simple, management is sacrificing staff livelihoods to directly benefit from and integrate with the military-industrial complex.

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*Oh, and don’t forget Vice-Chancellor Shitij Kapoor earns over £300k a year.

Over the 2023-24 financial year, Cranfield actually made a £29m surplus. However, its fortunes suddenly plummeted in 2024/25, which the university blamed on a drop in international student recruitment.

The universities insist that the merger will not necessitate job losses. However, KCL stated that:

In merging with Cranfield, King’s, as the larger partner, will take on Cranfield’s assets and liabilities, including borrowing commitments

In return, KCL hopes to benefit from Cranfield’s “longstanding partnerships with industry and government”.

KCL and ‘Longstanding partnerships’

So, what do those “longstanding partnerships” look like exactly? Cranfield began life in 1946 as the College of Aeronautics, specialising in aircraft research and design. It’s now a predominantly postgraduate institution specialising in technology, management and applied research.

Part of that ‘applied research‘ includes COTEC, the Cranfield Ordnance Test and Evaluation Centre. KCL SfJ claimed that:

– COTEC built a dedicated arena to physically test the fragmentation and velocity of 155mm high-explosive shells for Rheinmetall Italia.
– In January 2024, Rheinmetall delivered 10,000 rounds of precision tank ammunition to Israel.
– Rheinmetall partnered with the Israeli genocide manufacturer, Elbit Systems, to co-develop a fully-automated wheeled 155mm self-propelled howitzer – the type of artillery weapon used to fire 155mm shells.

Likewise, Cranfield has also boasted of its:

enduring partnerships with organisations such as Airbus, Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems

Airbus subsidiary Airbus DS Airborne Solutions has a long-running partnership with the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries.

Rolls-Royce is a major supplier for the Israeli military (IOF). In particular, the company signed a $180m dollar contract to supply diesel engines for the IOF’s Eitan APC.

Likewise, BAE Systems has held four military export licences to Israel since 2021. This includes the company’s role as the main UK company involved in the production of F-35 aircraft, which is also used by the IOF.

Israeli military links

KCL SfJ also highlighted Cranfield’s role in founding the ‘Technology and Growth Alliance’, stating that:

Cranfield is the only university to be a founding partner in a new defence alliance, which brings together defence firms, academics, investors, accelerators and organisations from across the defence industry.

Other founding members include BAE Systems, Thales, Leonardo, Helsing and ADS.

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Much like Rolls-Royce and BAE, Thales, Leonardo, and ADS have links to the Israeli military. Helsing insists that it has no weapons deployed in theatres other than Ukraine; however, it has direct contracts with several other companies which do.

Beyond its links to the arms trade, Cranfield also has form for suppressing pro-Palestinian protest. FOI requests have revealed that the university has admitted to sharing students’ personal data with the police over their support of the Palestine movement, and even referred up to four students to Prevent.

‘Completely shut out’

Obviously, KCL SfJ are deeply unhappy that their university is being merged with an institution with so many links to the armourers of Israel’s genocide.

Adding insult to injury, the activist group also stated that students and staff weren’t consulted on the merger:

The decision to merge with a highly militarised university was allegedly made at a private dinner between the two vice-chancellors, Shitij Kapur and Karen Holford.

Both students and staff were completely shut out of the decision-making process. Instead of being given a voice on whether our university should absorb a failing defence hub, we were simply told via national news.

Management’s only real communication to students dismissively claims the merger will have “no impact” on their day-to-day experience.

In response, KCL SfJ wrote:

We demand a voice.
Say NO the the Cranfield merger!
Say NO TO GENOCIDE!

Tag @lifeatkings and let them know we will not let this go by quietly!

As more and more universities across the UK are facing dire financial straits, many are reaching for desperate solutions like cutting courses and jobs to the bone.

In the KCL/Cranfield merger, we’re instead seeing an appeal to the seemingly-infinite pockets of weapons manufacturers. However, as KCL SfJ have demonstrated, the student body won’t let themselves be dragged into complicity with Israel’s genocide without a fight.

Featured image via Getty/Dan Kitwood

By The Canary

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The post Why does the first lady of Sierra Leone have a council flat in London? appeared first on spiked.

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