The Banter Brief: The C*** Award, Brexit, Bolton Bombshell and Cancer Cure

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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Banter Brief, the best news round up on the internet! We sent out The Brief every Friday, so if you haven’t subscribed yet, drop your email in below so you can read it for free. You can also get a 14 day free trial on a Banter Membership so you can read all our premium articles (there are some excellent ones this week too!):

1. Most Important Story Of The Week

Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

Britain is set to leave the European Union today — a historic moment that will have seismic ramifications for the political union, Britain, and the world.

“This government will unite and level up our country,” said Boris Johnson in a statement. “And as we build a new relationship with the EU, I urge everyone to find closure and let the healing begin.”

Johnson has apparently planned a post Brexit party to be hosted in Downing Street tonight. The mood wasn’t so positive in the nation’s capital though:

“Like so many Londoners, I’m heartbroken that London’s being dragged out of the EU against our will today,” tweeted London Mayor Sadiq Khan. “But we’ll always be a beacon for progressive ideas, liberal values, decency and diversity.”

Runner Up: The release of John Bolton’s bombshell claims that he personally heard Donald Trump asking to withhold military aid in return for Ukraine investigating the Biden family. The claims published by The New York Times are made in an upcoming book by Bolton, and lay waste to Trump’s defense that there were no witnesses who heard Trump asking for a “quid pro quo”. Senate Republicans are busy figuring out how to justify blocking Bolton from testifying today, and will hand Trump a fast acquittal if they win the vote (which it looks like they will).

Banter Members can read more about Bolton’s decimation of Trump’s legal defense and why it is so important here:

John Bolton Has Just Destroyed Trump's Impeachment Defense - by Ben Cohen

The dilemma now facing Trump and the GOP is severe.

2. Poll Analysis

Trump: His numbers have barely from last week and are still in the low 40’s (43.1%).

Impeachment: A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows more than half of American voters believe Trump did something wrong. If the Senate dismisses new witnesses (like Bolton) then expect those numbers to get worse for Trump.

Dems: Bernie Sanders is up in Iowa this week and is now tied with Biden nationally according to a number of polls.

3. Quote Of The Week

“Israel’s defenders like to say that Israel is being singled out, and they are right. Israel is the only state perpetuating a permanent military occupation, with discriminatory laws for separate groups living in the same territory, that self-identified liberals around the world go out of their way to justify, defend and even fund. In the absence of advocating policies with actual teeth, the Democratic critics of the Trump plan are not much better than the president. They are, not in words but in deeds, supporters of annexation and subjugation, too.”

- Nathan Thrall writing in the New York Times about president Trump’s peace plan for the Middle East

4. What to Watch

No need to log into your Netflix or Amazon Prime account to watch this week’s “What to Watch”. Set aside 10 minutes of your day, grab a bag of popcorn, and watch these pranksters invite one of the most vile racists in Britain to a fake award ceremony in Prague. Josh Pieters and Archie Manners went to extraordinary lengths to convince Katie Hopkins, a notorious immigrant hating columnist and friend of Donald Trump’s, to come to Prague in order to receive the Campaign to Unify the Nation Trophy.

One almost feels sorry for Hopkins as she walks unwittingly into the elaborate ruse — that is until she delivers her winning speech.

Sadly, Hopkins was banned from Twitter this week, so we won’t get to see her public reaction to the hilarious humiliation.

5. Good News

A team of scientists at Cardiff University in Wales might have accidentally found a cure for almost all forms of cancer. From Newsweek:

Scientists have discovered a new cell in the immune system that can kill many types of cancer, which they hope could one day be used to create a "one size fits all" treatment for the disease.

In mice experiments and in lab dishes, the team showed that a new type of what are known as T-cells could detect a range of cancerous cells, while differentiating them from healthy cells.

A T-cell is a type of white blood cell in the immune system, which both helps to fight off infections as well as cancers. These new T-cells and their special receptors can home in on and kill lung, skin, leukemia, colon, breast, prostate, bone, kidney, cervical, and ovarian cancers. The researchers published their findings in the journal Nature Immunology.

If the treatment is as promising as it sounds, cancer could soon become an entirely treatable condition, rather than a cruel death sentence for millions of people.

See you next week!

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