NC | The goal of the political leadership in the US, the EU, the UK, and
other ostensibly liberal democracies is simple: to gain much greater,
more granular control over the information being shared on the internet.
As Matt Taibbi told Russell Brand in an interview last year, both the EUรงs Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Biden Administration’s proposed RESTRICT Act (which Yves dissected
in April, 2023) are essentially a “wish list that has been passed
around” by the transatlantic elite “for some time,” including at a 2021
gathering at the Aspen Institute.
The same goes for the UK’s Online Safety Bill, which Kier Starmer would like nothing better than to beef up.
Likewise, Canada has introduced sweeping new internet regulation
through its Online News Act, which includes, among other things, a link tax, and Online Streaming Act. So, too, has Australia through a censorship bill that
is strikingly similar to the EU’s DSA and even includes a punitive fine
of up to 2% of global profits for social media companies that do not
comply.
It’s not hard to see why. With economic conditions deteriorating
rapidly across the West, after decades of rampant financialisation,
kakistocracy, and corporatisation, to the extent that even the United
Nations is now one giant private-public partnership, the social contract is, to all intents and purposes, worthless. Even the WEF admits
that corporations, its main constituency, have turbocharged inequality.
Populism is on the rise just about everywhere and angry and fragmented
protest movements have been growing since at least 2019.
Thanks largely to the countervailing information still available on
the internet, governments are rapidly losing control of the narrative on
key issues, including the war in Ukraine and Israel’s ongoing genocide
in Gaza. Their stock response has been to clamp down on the ability of
citizens to use the internet to generate, consume and share important
news, dissenting views and uncomfortable truths.
theatlantic |strange thing
has happened on the path to marijuana legalization. Users across all
ages and experience levels are noticing that a drug they once turned to
for fun and relaxation now triggers existential dread and paranoia. “The
density of the nugs is crazy, they’re so sticky,” a friend from college
texted me recently. “I solo’d a joint from the dispensary recently and
was tweaking just walking around.” (Translation for the non-pot-savvy:
This strain of marijuana is not for amateurs.)
In 2022, the federal government reported
that, in samples seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration, average
levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC—the psychoactive compound in
weed that makes you feel high—had more than tripled compared with 25
years earlier, from 5 to 16 percent. That may understate how strong weed
has gotten. Walk into any dispensary in the country, legal or not, and
you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single product advertising such a low
THC level. Most strains claim to be at least 20 to 30 percent THC by
weight; concentrated weed products designed for vaping can be labeled as
up to 90 percent.
For
the average weed smoker who wants to take a few hits without getting
absolutely blitzed, this is frustrating. For some, it can be dangerous.
In the past few years, reports have swelled of people, especially teens,
experiencing short- and long-term “marijuana-induced psychosis,” with
consequences including hospitalizations for chronic vomiting and auditory hallucinations of talking birds.
Multiple studies have drawn a link between heavy use of high-potency
marijuana, in particular, and the development of psychological
disorders, including schizophrenia, although a causal connection hasn’t been proved.
“It’s
entirely possible that this new kind of cannabis—very strong, used in
these very intensive patterns—could do permanent brain damage to
teenagers because that’s when the brain is developing a lot,” Keith
Humphreys, a Stanford psychiatry professor and a former drug-policy
adviser to the Obama administration, told me. Humphreys stressed that
the share of people who have isolated psychotic episodes on weed will be
“much larger” than the number of people who end up permanently altered.
But even a temporary bout of psychosis is pretty bad.
One
of the basic premises of the legalization movement is that marijuana,
if not harmless, is pretty close to it—arguably much less dangerous than
alcohol. But much of the weed being sold today is not the same stuff
that people were getting locked up for selling in the 1990s and 2000s.
You don’t have to be a War on Drugs apologist to be worried about the
consequences of unleashing so much super-high-potency weed into the
world.
The
high that most adult weed smokers remember from their teenage years is
most likely one produced by “mids,” as in, middle-tier weed. In the
pre-legalization era, unless you had a connection with access to
top-shelf strains such as Purple Haze and Sour Diesel, you probably had
to settle for mids (or, one step down, “reggie,” as in regular weed)
most of the time. Today, mids are hard to come by.
The
simplest explanation for this is that the casual smokers who pine for
the mids and reggies of their youth aren’t the industry’s top customers.
Serious stoners are. According to research by Jonathan P. Caulkins, a
public-policy professor at Carnegie Mellon, people who report smoking
more than 25 times a month make up about a third of marijuana users but
account for about two-thirds of all marijuana consumption. Such regular
users tend to develop a high tolerance, and their tastes drive the
industry’s cultivation decisions.
The
industry is not shy about this fact. In May, I attended the National
Cannabis Investment Summit in Washington D.C., where investors used the
terms high-quality and potent almost interchangeably.
They told me that high THC percentages do well with heavy users—the
dedicated wake-and-bakers and the joint-before-bed crowd. “Thirty
percent THC is the new 20 percent,” Ryan Cohen, a Michigan-based
cultivator, told me. “Our target buyer is the guy who just worked 40
hours a week and wants to get high as fuck on a budget.”
Smaller
producers might conceivably carve out a niche catering to those of us
who prefer a milder high. But because of the way the legal weed market
has developed, they’re struggling just to exist. As states have been
left alone to determine what their legal weed markets will look like,
limited licensing has emerged as the favored apparatus. That approach
has led to legal weed markets becoming dominated by large, well-financed
“multistate operators,” in industry jargon.
Across the country, MSOs are buying up licenses, acquiring smaller brands, and lobbying politicians to stick prohibitions
on home-growing into their legalization bills. The result is an
illusion of endless choice and a difficult climate for the little guy.
Minnesota’s 15 medical dispensaries
are owned by two MSOs. All 23 of Virginia’s are owned by three
different MSOs. Some states have tried to lower barriers to entry, but
the big chains still tend to overpower the market. (Notable exceptions
are California and Colorado, which have a longer history with legal
marijuana licensing, and where the markets are less dominated by
mega-chains.) Despite the profusion of stores in some states and the
apparent variety of strains on the shelf, most people who walk into a
dispensary will choose from a limited number of suppliers that maximize
for THC percentage.
LATimes | Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, continuing his rush to hand out patronage jobs while he retains his powerful post, has given high-paying appointments to his former law associate and a former Alameda County prosecutor who is Brown’s frequent companion.
Brown, exercising his power even as his speakership seems near an end, named attorney Kamala Harris to the California Medical Assistance Commission, a job that pays $72,000 a year.
Harris, a former deputy district attorney in Alameda County, was described by several people at the Capitol as Brown’s girlfriend. In March, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen called her “the Speaker’s new steady.” Harris declined to be interviewed Monday and Brown’s spokeswoman did not return phone calls.
Harris accepted the appointment last week after serving six months as Brown’s appointee to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, which pays $97,088 a year. After Harris resigned from the unemployment board last week, Brown replaced her with Philip S. Ryan, a lawyer and longtime friend and business associate.
Last week, Brown also appointed Janet Gotch, wife of retiring Assemblyman Mike Gotch of San Diego, to the $95,000-a-year Integrated Waste Management Board, which oversees garbage disposal in California.
“It’s politics as usual,” said Robert M. Stern, co-director of the Center for Governmental Studies, a nonprofit group in Los Angeles. “Governors have done this in the past. This is a tradition the Speaker is carrying on. There are always outcries. People say it is wrong, and when they get in power they do the same thing.”
Brown is making the appointments at a time when his 14-year hold on the speakership is tenuous at best. The Assembly will reconvene Monday with Republicans holding 41 seats to the Democrats’ 39, making it likely the GOP will oust Democrat Brown as Speaker and replace him with a Republican.
“It’s safe to say that these are not appointments we would necessarily make,” said Phil Perry, spokesman for Assembly Republican Leader Jim Brulte, the front-runner to replace Brown as Speaker.
Assembly Republicans were muted in their criticism of Brown--perhaps because Assemblyman Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside) acknowledged Monday that he hired Faye Hill, wife of imprisoned former state Sen. Frank Hill, as a $60,000-a-year aide.
Hill, a longtime lawmaker from Whittier, resigned from the Senate earlier this year after being convicted of taking a $2,500 payoff from an undercover FBI agent.
Morrow hired Faye Hill in October and said she will work in his San Juan Capistrano office as well as in his offices in Oceanside and Sacramento.
“We haven’t been keeping it a secret,” Morrow said, adding that he has received “nothing but complimentary” comments about her work. Morrow called her “amply qualified,” but also said he “can’t divorce the fact that” she gained much of her experience in politics as a result of her marriage to Hill.
The Brown appointments of Harris and Ryan fill vacant slots once held by other Brown appointees, whose terms have not expired.
Harris’ term on the medical board continues until Jan. 1, 1998.
Salary for the California Medical Assistance Commission is tied to legislators’ pay. A government commission earlier this year voted to grant legislators a 37% pay increase, from the current $52,500 a year, to $72,000, effective when the new Legislature takes office Monday.
anti-spiegel |The
Russian Defense Ministry has again released a statement on the US
biological weapons programs, reporting on the US attempts to better
conceal the programs and relocate them from Ukraine to Moldova and
Romania.
I
have been covering the Russian Defense Ministry's publications on the
Pentagon's bioweapons programs in Ukraine since the beginning of the
Russian military operation, and translating all Russian statements on
the subject. For the average reader, this may be very dry and
uninteresting reading, but for experts, this is important information,
which is why I take the trouble to translate it all.
Even
if the German media ignore these Russian statements or try to ridicule
them as crazy conspiracy theories and Russian propaganda, they are being
followed very closely by international (mostly non-Western) experts.
Here I translate the new statement
from the Russian Ministry of Defense, the slides are taken from the
original. After the translation you will find a chronology of the
publications.
Start of translation:
The
Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation continues to analyze the
activities of the United States and Ukraine in connection with
violations of international treaties prohibiting chemical and biological
weapons.
We
have repeatedly noted that Washington has a significant interest in
obtaining biomaterials from citizens of Russia, Ukraine and other
post-Soviet states.
The
Russian Ministry of Defense has already published information
confirming the large-scale collection and transportation of
biomaterials. Before the start of the military operation, the United
States and its allies managed to remove at least 16,000 biosamples from
Ukraine. Within the framework of the UP-8 project alone, blood samples
were taken from 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Dangerous pathogens and their
vectors were exported, more than 10,000 samples.
The
biological material was transported directly, without the involvement
of shell companies and intermediaries. Human blood and tissue samples
were sent from the Ukrainian Public Health Center to Western research
laboratories with links to the Pentagon. They were then used for
military biological research, including the selection of biological
agents dangerous to the population of a particular region.
According
to reports, the United States is continuing to develop biological
warfare agents that can specifically target different ethnic
populations.
According
to available information, the United States has begun to actively
involve Moldova and Romania in logistical plans for the transportation
of biomaterials, using organizations under its control.
This
tactic helps to obscure the ultimate recipient and divert suspicion
from U.S. authorities and the U.S. biological warfare program.
Note
the movement pattern of the biomaterial. It has been established that
the export of dangerous goods to Moldova from the Ukrainian side is
carried out through the company "Biopartners", which is a subsidiary of
an American company of the same name.
The
company Q2 Solution, a subsidiary of one of the Pentagon's largest
suppliers, is also involved in the logistics processes. We have
information confirming the implementation of contracts by this company
under the US Department of Defense Threat Reduction (DITRA) programs
worth more than $22 million.
I
would like to draw your attention to the fact that the escort of
biological cargoes coming from Ukraine is carried out by the logistics
companies Gamma Logistics and AeroTransCargo, controlled by Moldovan
President Maia Sandu, as well as by medical institutions in Chisinau and
Western intermediary organizations.
In
the period from August 2022 to May 2024, more than 2,000
transportations of biomaterial samples were officially carried out
through the territory of the Republic of Moldova.
theatlantic |Americans maintain a favorable opinion of Jews.
The community remains prosperous and politically powerful. But the
memory of how quickly the best of times can turn dark has infused the
Jewish reactions to events of the past decade. “When lights start
flashing red, the Jewish impulse is to flee,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the
head of the Anti-Defamation League, told me.
Back
in 2016, many liberals blustered about leaving the country if Donald
Trump was elected president; after he won, many Jews actually hatched
contingency plans. My mother tried, in vain, to get a passport from
Poland, the country of her birth. An immigration lawyer I know in
Cleveland told me that he had obtained a German passport, and suggested
that I call the German embassy in Washington to learn how many other
American Jews had done the same.
The
German government, for understandable reasons, doesn’t count Jews. But
the embassy sent me a tally of passport applications submitted under
laws that apply to victims of Nazi persecution and their descendants. In
2017, after Trump’s election, the number of applications nearly doubled
from the year before, to 1,685, and then kept growing. In 2022, it was
2,500. These aren’t large numbers in absolute terms; still, it’s
extraordinary that so many American Jews, whose applications required
documenting that their families once fled Germany, now consider the
country a safer haven than the United States.
I also saw signs of flight in Oakland, where at least 30 Jewish families have been approved to transfer their children to neighboring school districts—and
I heard similar stories in the surrounding area. Initial data collected
by an organization representing Jewish day schools, which have long
struggled for enrollment, show a spike in the number of admission inquiries from families contemplating pulling their kids from public school.
After
1967, the previous moment of profound political abandonment, the
American Jewish community began to entertain thoughts of its own radical
reinvention. A coterie of disillusioned intellectuals, clustered around
a handful of small-circulation journals and think tanks, turned sharply
rightward, creating the neoconservative movement. Among activists, the
energy that had once been directed toward Freedom Rides was plowed into
the cause of Soviet Jewry, which became a defining political obsession
of many synagogues in the 1970s and ’80s. Meanwhile, Jewish hippies
turned inward, creating new spiritual movements centered on prayer and
ritual.
Although
not all of these movements proved equally fruitful, this history, in a
way, is cause for optimism, an example of how conflict might provide the
path to religious renewal and a fresh sense of solidarity. It’s also a
reminder that the Golden Age was not an uninterrupted rise.
The
case for pessimism, however, is more convincing. The forces arrayed
against Jews, on the right and the left, are far more powerful than they
were 50 years ago. The surge of anti-Semitism is a symptom of the decay
of democratic habits, a leading indicator of rising authoritarianism.
When anti-Semitism takes hold, conspiracy theory hardens into
conventional wisdom, embedding violence in thought and then in deadly
action. A society that holds its Jews at arm’s length is likely to be
more intent on hunting down scapegoats than addressing underlying
defects. Although it is hardly an iron law of history, such societies
are prone to decline. England entered a long dark age after expelling
its Jews in 1290. Czarist Russia limped toward revolution after the
pogroms of the 1880s. If America persists on its current course, it
would be the end of the Golden Age not just for the Jews, but for the
country that nurtured them.
sentinalcolorado | The city’s heightened alert comes after 3,000 to 4,000 Venezuelan migrants and their sympathizers met up in the parking lot of the Gardens on Havana shopping center on July 28
to await election results. Most in the crowd expected the ouster of
incumbent strongman Nicolรกs Maduro, who later declared himself the
winner of another six-year term.
Aurora police acknowledge they were not prepared for the convergence
of so many people crammed at the southern end of the strip center in
front of the Target store where witnesses reported shots fired into the
air. Traffic was snarled because of all the parked cars. Some stores,
whose customers said they were rattled by the noise of Venezuelans
honking horns and banging on pots, chose to close early. The lot was
strewn with beer bottles and trash.
Police say no injuries were reported, no arrests were made and nobody was ticketed or summoned.
Still, some anti-immigrant members of the community seized the
opportunity to post on social media that the gathering was a riot and
that it was organized by the Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua (TDA).
Police disputed those claims. They also debunked a Facebook post by
Aurora Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky that “Thousands of these folks
took over and completely shut down a part of our city. The police were
totally overrun, and were forced to get out of the area for their
safety.”
City officials have repeatedly disputed that account.
“Police did not leave, and were there for the entire event,” Aurora spokesperson Ryan Luby said in a statement.
Meanwhile, in Venezuela, Maduro’s claim to victory over opposition
candidate Edmundo Gonzรกlez remains contested, and his government has
arrested thousands of protestors and otherwise cracked down on dissent.
Several Latin American countries, as well as the United States and
European Union have held off on recognizing election results and
demanded detailed data from Venezuelan polling stations to analyze the
outcome.
By Thursday afternoon, leaders of Brazil and Colombia were calling
for a new election with safeguards against ballot tampering and
miscounts. In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden expressed support for
new elections in comments to reporters that the White House later
appeared to back away from.
Another convergence of Venezuelans is expected this Saturday now that
opposition leader Marรญa Corina Machado has called for her supporters to
“take to the streets” worldwide to rally in support of her party’s
claim that Gonzรกlez beat Maduro in a landslide.
“Let’s shout together for the world to support our victory and recognize truth and popular sovereignty,” she has said.
Venezuelans are still weighing where to gather Saturday in metro
Denver, which has seen an influx of about 40,000 migrants in the last
few years.
Some solo and others with young children have wound their way to
North American and Colorado to flee poverty and violence back home. Most
don’t have immigration papers, and several have told the Sentinel they’re
torn between a desire to rally against what they see as a tyrant’s
stolen election and their fear of being arrested here for protesting,
then deported at a time of extreme upheaval back home.
Aurora’s Global Fest, the city’s biggest annual festival,
will take place this weekend on the Aurora Municipal Center’s Great
Lawn, the site of many political demonstrations in the last several
years.
The city’s police posted on social media earlier this week that it is
“actively monitoring the situation due to recent events” and “will
provide communication and updates to our community if we learn of any
large gatherings planned for or taking place in Aurora.”
But that was the lowest point ever recorded. It was a really, I mean,
I was very proud of those numbers. And then you see what happened with
these people, Kamala and Joe, you see what happened. They just let it
go. I remain in Mexico policies. I had all these different policies that
were so good. Guys like Tom Holman and Brandon Judd from Border Patrol.
These are all people that they’ve been on television. They say it’s the
best numbers we’ve ever had. We had so many different checks, catch and
release in Mexico, not the United, we had catch and release in the
United States. We had it in Mexico. We had so many things.
(19:16)
We had things where if many people come in there, they have contagious
diseases. We had everything passed. If you have a contagious disease,
I’m sorry, but we cannot allow you into the country. So we were setting
literally records. And all I was doing is showing that. And I used it
sometimes. And in this case, I’m glad I used it. I can tell you that.
But there were fantastic numbers. But I’m going to sleep with that chart
always. I’ll be sleeping with that chart. That chart was very
important, very important for a lot of reasons.
Would it be accurate to say that you’re supportive of legal
immigration, but we obviously need to shut down illegal immigration, and
especially unvetted illegal immigration?
And that’s not the same as saying that everyone who’s an illegal
immigrant is bad. In fact, I think most people who are illegal
immigrants are actually good. But you can’t tell a difference unless
there’s a solid vetting of who comes across the border.
Because look, Kamala was the Border Czar. Now she’s denying it.
Everything that I do, she’s saying she was strong on the border, we’re
going to be strong. Well, she doesn’t have to say it. She could close it
up right now. They could do things right now. It is horrible. No tax on
tips. And all of a sudden she’s making a speech, she’s saying, “There
will be no tax on tips.” I said that months ago. And by the way, they
had just the opposite. They had not only tax on tips, but they hired
88,000 IRS agents. And many of them were assigned to go get waitresses
and caddies and all of this on tips. They have a policy. They had a
policy, they were really going to go after you and we’re really
harassing people horribly. And then all of a sudden for politics, she
comes out with what I said, which I think is terrible.
(21:14)
And I think it’s also hitting them very hard. These people are fake. Now
they’re also saying they did a good job in the border. We had the worst
numbers in the history of the world, not of our country. There’s never
been a country in history that has had a catastrophe like this. We’ve
had, I believe, and I think you believe this too, you hear 12 million,
13, I believe it’s over 20 million people came into our country. Many
coming from jails, from prisons, from mental institutions, or a bigger
version of that is insane asylums. And many are terrorists. And I’ll
tell you what, they’re coming not just from South America, they’re
coming from Africa. They’re coming from all over the world. They’re
coming from Asia. They’re coming from the Middle East. They’re coming
from countries that are stupidly and horribly bombing Israel, October
7th. They’re coming from all over the world. And you look at, it’s so
sad, October 7th, because it should have never happened.
Slate | Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is reportedly under serious consideration to become vice president and presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ running mate. And, in a certain sense, there are good reasons for this: Democrats badly want (some would argue need) to win Pennsylvania. Shapiro is, by all accounts, quite popular in the state he runs. He won the governorship handily in 2022 against Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, proponent of Christian nationalist ideas—which Shapiro proved unafraid to tackle head-on.
Shapiro is Jewish and has spoken strongly about and against antisemitism, which will surely be a theme in the 2024 presidential election. Republican candidate Donald Trump wonders aloud how any Jew could vote for a Democrat even as his son hosts a fundraiser with pundit Tucker Carlson, promoter of antisemitic conspiracy theories. Republicans reportedly see Shapiro as a threat, while progressive Pennsylvania state Sen. Nikil Saval touted his “strong willingness to build coalitions with people that he also disagrees with, and to change his views and policies through that act of coalition-building.”
And yet, for all of this, there are demerits to Shapiro, too. In the New Republic, the leftist Jewish writer David Klion made the case that Shapiro could threaten Democratic unity. Some of this is for domestic reasons. (More than two dozen public education advocacy groups wrote a letter asking Harris not to select Shapiro over his support for private school vouchers.) And some of this is because of Shapiro’s stance on Israel: As Klion notes, Shapiro, when attorney general, backed the state’s anti–boycott, divestment, and sanctions law, describing BDS as “rooted in antisemitism.”
The Forward described Shapiro as having been “been a fixture at local rallies supporting Israel during its repeated wars in Gaza.” And his support has remained constant in this war, too: During a radio show on Oct. 11, Shapiro said, “We need to gird ourselves for what appears to be, you know, going to be a long war and we need to remain on the side of Israel.” Since then, as the Philadelphia Inquirer put it, he has “resisted” calls for a cease-fire. This past spring, as pro-Palestinian protests took place on campuses across the United States, the governor called on the University of Pennsylvania to “disband the encampment and to restore order and safety on campus” and implied a parallel between white supremacists and students protesting their university’s policies vis-ร -vis Israel and the war in Gaza.
All of this could very well hurt Democratic unity and suppress voter turnout on the political left. Nominating Shapiro would also signify an embrace of an understanding of antisemitism that some American Jews contest, issuing a ruling on American Jewish political identity that many would chafe against (though so too could the selection of another rumored veep contender, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who signed into law a bill that includes in its definition of antisemitism “the denial of Jewish people’s right to self-determination and applying double standards to Israel’s actions”). But this policy or way of thinking, if embraced by the Harris campaign—regardless of who her running mate is—could do something else, too: It could undercut the core of Harris’ very compelling argument, which is that her campaign is standing up for American freedoms.
Harris is using Beyoncรฉ’s song “Freedom” as her campaign anthem. In her first campaign ad, one can hear the song in the background as Harris speaks about the various freedoms she’s aiming to protect and expand on: “The freedom not just to get by, but to get ahead. The freedom to be safe from gun violence. The freedom to make decisions about your own body.”
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If this list of freedoms is to mean anything, it has to include the freedom to speak out and protest against the United States and its foreign policy, including with respect to Israel. It’s fundamental to the very concept of American liberty.
I do not mean to pit Jewish candidates reportedly under consideration to be Harris’ running mate against each other, nor do I want to suggest that all Jews should take the same position. (As you may have heard, we’re not a monolith.)
But this is a needle that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has managed to thread. Back in May, he said that he supported Jewish organizations, but he also said, with respect to calls to oust university administrators, “I’m not about calling for people to step down.” Some protesters were anti-war, he said, and some were anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian, and, yes, some were antisemitic. But, he stressed, “What I support is the fact that we need to protect not just Jewish students but all students on campuses where there are protests.” That’s how it should be in America: We all have a right to speak out, and we all have a right to be safe.
jewishinsider | The decision by Vice President Kamala Harris to choose Minnesota Gov.
Tim Walz as her running mate is raising questions among some Jewish
leaders about whether a pressure campaign led by anti-Israel activists
to thwart Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s nomination ultimately played a
part in influencing the selection process.
Harris formally announced her pick in a text message
to supporters of her campaign on Tuesday morning. “Tim is a
battle-tested leader who has an incredible track record of getting
things done for Minnesota families,” she said. “I know that he will
bring that same principled leadership to our campaign, and to the office
of the vice president.”
The selection comes amid Democratic concerns over anti-Israel
protests at the party’s convention in Chicago this month. Harris will
appear with Walz at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening.
In recent weeks, Shapiro had faced mounting resistance from an
outspoken coalition of far-left organizers who expressed vehement
opposition to Shapiro over his staunch support for Israel and his
criticism of extreme anti-Israel campus protesters, among other issues.
The campaign drew allegations of antisemitism
for targeting Shapiro, an observant Jew whose positions on Israel were
largely aligned with other contenders who emerged on the vice
presidential short list, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Walz, the latter of whom had been favored by progressives. The rhetoric used by the left-wing campaign, including tagging Shapiro as “Genocide Josh,” also faced criticism for singling out the only Jewish candidate under serious consideration.
For some observers who had been cautiously excited by the possibility
of a Jewish running mate — the first since 2000 — the organized
campaign was a dismaying confirmation of concerns that Shapiro’s rise
as a vice presidential prospect could be derailed amid a recent surge
of antisemitism in the wake of Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the
subsequent war in Gaza.
“There are all kinds of legitimate factors that go into a
vice-presidential pick, but there was an obvious and concerted
anti-Shapiro effort that tapped into the antisemitic fervor coursing
through our country,” said Nathan Diament, the executive director of
public policy for the Orthodox Union. “Irrespective of the reasons Ms.
Harris had,” he told Jewish Insider, Shapiro’s far-left opponents “will surely declare victory.”
With that in mind, Diament cautioned that Harris “will have to take
other steps to undermine those extremists to show their claims are
false.”
Brett Goldman, a founder of Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania
and a political consultant in Philadelphia, said in an interview with JI
that he viewed the Shapiro snub as a sign that Harris “is succumbing to
pressure from the left” — whose relative electoral power, he suggested, has been overstated.
But despite his disappointment, Goldman clarified that his group
would still back Harris’ campaign. “It’s unfortunate, and it sucks that
it’s not Josh,” he said, describing the effort to block Shapiro as
“based in” antisemitism and anti-Zionism. “But we still have an election
to win.”
Jared Solomon, a Jewish state representative in Philadelphia now running
for attorney general, a role previously held by Shapiro, said he
regarded the popular Pennsylvania governor as “by far the best pick” for
vice president, citing how he “brings faith into the conversation in an
approachable, inclusive way.”
“I would say to the critics, specifically on his position regarding
Israel, I would be hard-pressed to see much daylight between Josh and
the other contenders,” he told JI. “I believe that he, like the others,
thinks the United States is a friend of Israel” and “like the others,
believes in a two-state solution.”
The anti-Shapiro campaign, Solomon added, “begs the question: Why is he, unlike the other candidates, facing so much pushback?”
To hear Eric Weinstein's entire "shut it down, the goyim know" drunken rant, - in which he repudiates everything he's professed about the DISC as well as placing himself squarely in the Epstein psy-op camp - go to the 3 hour 30 minute mark on the spotify podcast with Rogan.
Guardian | A prominent member of the progressive “Squad” in Congress, Cori Bush,
has lost her Democratic primary in St Louis after pro-Israel pressure
groups spent millions of dollars to unseat her over criticisms of Israel’s war in Gaza.
St
Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell defeated Missouri’s first Black female
member of Congress with about 51% of the vote. Bush took about 46%.
Bell’s
win marks a second major victory for the powerful American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) after it played a leading role in unseating
New York congressman Jamaal Bowman, another progressive Democrat who
criticised the scale of Palestinian civilians deaths in Gaza, in a June
primary.
Aipac pumped $8.5m into the race in
Missouri’s first congressional district to support Bell through its
campaign funding arm, the United Democracy Project (UDP), after Bush
angered some pro-Israel groups as one of the first members of Congress
to call for a ceasefire after the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.
Much of the UDP’s money comes from billionaires who fund hardline pro-Israel causes and Republicans in other races, including some who have given to Donald Trump’s campaign.
Bush
condemned Hamas for the killing of 1,139 people, mostly Israelis, and
for abducting hundreds of others in October. But she also infuriated
some Jewish and pro-Israel groups by describing Israel’s subsequent
attack on Gaza and large scale killing of civilians as “collective
punishment against Palestinians” and a war crime.
During
the campaign, the UDP flooded St Louis with advertising hostile to Bush
– although, as in other congressional races targeted by pro-Israel
groups, it rarely mentioned the war in Gaza that has claimed nearly 40,000 Palestinian lives, mostly civilians, or her call for a ceasefire.
Instead, the campaign focused on Bush’s voting record in Congress, particularly her failure to support Joe Biden’s trillion-dollar infrastructure bill in 2021
and her support for the “defund the police” campaign. Bush struggled to
get her message across that the UDP is misrepresenting both situations.
The UDP accounted for more than half of all the money spent on the race outside the campaigns themselves.
Bell
has denied being recruited by pro-Israel groups to run against Bush,
but suspicion lingered after he abandoned a challenge for the US Senate
and entered the congressional race not long after Jewish organisations
in St Louis began to seek a candidate to take on Bush after accusing her of “intentionally fuelling antisemitism”.
Bell is expected to win what is one of the safest Democratic congressional seats in November’s general election.
The wealthy want wage pressure on those below them in society. One way to do this is to import people from different cultures, and replace workers with others. This results in a low trust society: low trust in policing, media coverage, justice, the puppeticians and even the functioning of democracy.
This wage pressure is leading working people to not have children, because children are expensive and hard to combine with one or more precarious jobs. Instead the imported people, who have better family networks, and who have no compunctions in demanding welfare support, produce the next generation of children, making the above 37% estimate an underestimate. Many of these children with foreign born parents are brought up thinking their parents ways are better than their new country’s.
Children with native ancestry find themselves surrounded by children from other countries, and either give up (British White boys have among the lowest educational results), or try to fit in by adopting foreign religions or expressions (e.g. Inshallah is common parlance among young French kids these days). The “DEI History curriculum” doesn’t encourage them to strive either. To quote Battlestar Galactica, “All this has happened before, and will happen again”: the US is not Native American, Australia is not Aborigine, and Israel is not Palestinian.
Pensions are a red-herring, brought out to divide the public and particularly to keep the old (voting) electorate on board. Why? Because Western companies could have been automating since the 1970s, just like the Chinese are doing. Xiaomi is building a factory that requires no people to pump out 60 high end cellphones a minute. Instead our ruling classes decided they could better line their pockets by outsourcing, investing in stock buybacks instead of technology, allowing in many uneducated people to do the “menial labour” & playing financial games.
So I lay the blame for this crisis solely on the ruling classes.
The entire thing is short-termist self-destructive insanity, but I guess that’s what happens when economies contract and the people at the top can’t stop living in the manner to which they have grown accustomed.
theblaze | CNN anchor Michael Smerconish tried on Saturday to explain away black
men openly questioning Vice President Kamala Harris' racial identity.
Harris' racial identity became headline news last week after former
President Donald Trump brought attention to the fact that Harris and the
media have emphasized the different aspects of Harris' familial
background — her mother is Indian and her father is Jamaican — at
different points in her political career.
"She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian
heritage. I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago, when
she happened to turn black, and now she wants to be known as black," Trump said. "So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she black?"
Those comments sent the media and Democrats into an outrage. But how do everyday black Americans feel?
Last week, WHP-TV anchor Joel Smith visited a barber shop in
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, to speak with black men about the 2024
election.
One moment from Smith's interview generated significant attention over
the weekend: It happened when Smith invoked Harris. At that moment, one
of the interview participants immediately questioned whether Harris is
black.
"Is Kamala going to make you a little more likely or less likely to vote Democrat?" Smith asked.
"Hold on. Wait. Is Kamala black, yes or no?" one participant interjected, asking the barber shop owner to answer the question.
"I'm going to let her speak on it. But to me, no," the barber shop owner responded.
Another participant said he agreed with the owner's view, while another said he has only "heard" that Harris is black.
What is fascinating about this exchange is that it happened before
Trump's comments about Harris at the National Black Journalists
Association event. This suggests that Harris' racial identity is already
an open question among black voters.
theindependent | A far-right candidate for Missouri’s
Secretary of State posted an ad filmed on the iconic Speaker’s balcony
in the US House of Representatives, where campaign and political
activities are banned.
Valentina Gomez posted the video on Tuesday afternoon, which was filmed on the iconic balcony looking over Washington, DC connected to Speaker Mike Johnson’s office in the US House of Representatives.
“I
am at the Speaker’s Balcony, and they don’t like me here, and neither
in Jefferson City. But I don’t give a f***,” Gomez said in the video. “I speak the truth, catch pedophiles, and I will be Missouri’s 41st Secretary of State.”
However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. For example, a
representative’s scheduler may coordinate with a campaign scheduler. A
representative’s press secretary may also “answer occasional questions
on political matters.”
The Independent has contacted Johnson for comment.
When reached for comment, Gomez told The Independent she wants critics to “stop the hypocrisy” and re-affirmed her support for Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance.
“For
all of those crying about a 15 second video. Be upset about the 20
million illegals the Biden-Harris Administration allowed into the United
States that are raping and killing American women, or the billions sent
to Ukraine’s useless war where brave men and women in uniform are being
killed, or the J6’rs that are being persecuted and prosecuted, or the
grandmas jailed for praying outside of an abortion clinic,” Gomez wrote.
There is no evidence to support the claim that 20 million undocumented immigrants have committed violent crimes. Peer-reviewed studies
also indicate that undocumented immigrants are less likely than people
born in America to commit violent, drug and property crimes.
In
addition, Gomez’s claim that “grandmas” were “jailed” for “praying
outside of an abortion clinic” appears to be a reference to the arrest
of 75-year-old Paulette Harlow, who was convicted of federal civil
rights offenses after she participated in a blockade of an abortion
clinic. Her case has been widely misrepresented online, the Associated Press reports, with many falsely claiming she was arrested for praying.
This isn’t the first time Gomez has come under fire for a campaign video.
Last
month, Gomez posted a video calling Juneteenth, the national holiday
that commemorates the end of slavery in the US following the Civil War,
the “most rachet” of holidays.
“Reparations from slavery and Black
victimization is about to be shoved down our throats for the most
ratchet holiday in America,” she said.
theblaze | On Wednesday, Trump sat for questions at a
National Association of Black Journalists panel in Washington. The
appearance began with immediate contention: Scott didn't say "hello" to
Trump but immediately began to grill him with questions implying that he
is racist.
In true Trump form, the former president condemned Scott for her "nasty" question.
Reflecting on the event during a "Fox & Friends" interview,
Faulkner — who was one of three black journalists to question Trump at
the NABJ event — expressed dismay over how Trump was treated.
Not
only did audio and technical problems snare the event — issues Faulkner
attributed to the NABJ and ABC News — but Faulkner blasted Scott,
though without naming her, for stirring up emotion through "gotcha
moments" that grabbed headlines. She mourned the fact that emotionally
charged moments grabbed headlines instead of the fact that Trump,
according to Faulkner, willingly walked "into a racial storm."
But that's not the only problem with the event, Faulkner went on to say.
Like Trump, Faulkner took significant issue with the fact that Trump was not given a proper welcome.
"He
walks out on stage and not a greeting to acknowledge it's been 18 days
at that point since you survived an assassination attempt. 'We're going
to ask you tough questions, but Mr. President, welcome, and we are glad
you're still here,'" she said.
"I mean, it didn't take much to
show humanity, and in that moment, I was so disappointed that that
didn't happen," she added. "I couldn't control it, but it got things off
to an emotional start, and you and I both know that once that happens
and you are interviewing someone, there is an agenda."
At the end of her reflection, Faulkner made a prediction about the 2024 election: The only color that will matter is green.
"I
don't know that people are going to vote on the color of their skin and
the hair texture this time around," she predicted. "This is about
money, the color is green."
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