#Election mandates

[signode-blog]

The Indian Stock Markets and General Elections: Analyzing the Reactions in 2004, 2009, 2014, and 2019

The Indian stock markets, like their counterparts around the globe, are significantly influenced by political events, with elections being one of the most critical. The general elections in India not only determine the political leadership but also set the tone for economic policies and reforms that can impact investor sentiment and market performance. This article delves into the reactions of…

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Shuham at HuffPost:

Donald Trump sweet-talked Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. with anti-vaccine talking points Sunday after surviving an assassination attempt the day prior, according to a leaked video posted on social media Tuesday. He also revealed details of the “very nice” call he got from President Joe Biden after the shooting. The video shows Kennedy on the call with Trump, whose voice is heard over speakerphone. It appears to have been published without permission by Kennedy’s son, who said the conversation took place Sunday. In the clip, Trump takes a friendly tone with Kennedy — who as an independent candidate for the White House is currently Trump’s opponent — and discusses false anti-vaccine views that they have both expressed publicly.

“When you feed a baby, Bobby, a vaccination that is like 38 different vaccines, and it looks like it’s fit for a horse, not a 10-pound or 20-pound baby, it looks like you should be giving a horse this thing,” Trump tells Kennedy during the call, as heard in the video. “You ever see the size of it, it’s this massive– and then you see the baby all of the sudden starting to change radically. I’ve seen it too many times,” he goes on, wildly exaggerating a typical childhood vaccine schedule. “And then you hear that it doesn’t have an impact. Right? And you and I talked about that a long time ago.” “Yep,” Kennedy responds. Trump, like Kennedy, has made his anti-vaccine views a part of his public image, vowing to cut federal funds to schools that have vaccine mandates if he’s elected — despite every state in the country having laws that, with rare exceptions, mandate vaccines for students. (Trump’s campaign has occasionally said he’s only talking about COVID-19 vaccine requirements, not all vaccines.) Kennedy and Trump’s anti-vaccine talking points have been disproven over and over again; decades of medical studies have supported the current recommended vaccine schedule for infants.

[...] Kennedy’s son, Bobby Kennedy III, appears to have posted and then deleted the video clip of Kennedy and Trump’s call, in a tweet captured by Mediaite and by NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny. “I am a firm believer that these sorts of conversations should be had in public,” he wrote in the tweet. “Here’s Trump giving his real opinion to my dad about vaccinating kids — this was the day after the assassination attempt.” Neither Kennedy’s nor Trump’s campaign immediately responded to HuffPost’s questions about the call. But Kennedy appeared to confirm the authenticity of the clip on Tuesday morning.

RFK Jr. and Trump are two MAGA anti-vaxxer peas in a pod, as a leaked call between the two revealed.

They both pushed the insane myth that “vaccines cause autism.”

See Also:

NCRM: ‘Mortified’ RFK Jr. Apologizes for Leaked Video of Trump Spinning Vaccine Conspiracies

The Guardian: RFK Jr apologises after leaked phone call in which Trump seems to offer deal

[jccheapalier]

Black Men Have Had Enough! Man Goes Scorched Earth On The Democratic Party!

[commonsensecommentary]

Forcing us to wear the face diapers never had a thing to do with science. It was always about spreading fear, exerting control, and justifying election fraud. We were played for suckers by the Deep State Marxists, and we’re now suffering the consequences.

[jackassdemocrats]

Joe "Pinocchio" Biden Is A Legend In His Own Mind.

[jackass-democrats]

The science is up for sale to the highest bidder, to support the next hoax like global warming, covid or vaccines.

As always, never buy anything made in china. Don't ever trust a democrat and NEVER leave your child alone with one.

[crowns-of-violets-and-roses]

Keir Starmer: We clearly on Thursday got a mandate from all four nations. For the first time in 20 plus years, we have a majority in England, in Scotland and in Wales.

It sure is interesting that Starmer claims he has a mandate from all four nations but only mentions getting a majority in England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder how many votes Labour got in Northern Ireland then.

[tomorrowusa]

A MAGA think tank (sort of an oxymoron) published a document with the official title Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise but is widely known as Project 2025 after the name of the group inside the Heritage Foundation which compiled it. Whatever you call it, it is a bloodcurdling blueprint of the shape a second Trump administration would take.

Carlos Lozada of the New York Times read 887 pages of it so we don't have to.

[W]hat is most striking about the book is not the specific policy agenda it outlines but how far the authors are willing to go in pursuit of that agenda and how reckless their assumptions are about law, power and public service. “Mandate for Leadership,” which was edited by Paul Dans and Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation, is not about anything as simplistic as being dictator for a day but about consolidating authority and eroding accountability for the long haul. It calls for a relentless politicizing of the federal government, with presidential appointees overpowering career officials at every turn and agencies and offices abolished on overtly ideological grounds. Though it assures readers that the president and his or her subordinates “must be committed to the Constitution and the rule of law,” it portrays the president as the personal embodiment of popular will and treats the law as an impediment to conservative governance. It elevates the role of religious beliefs in government affairs and regards the powers of Congress and the judiciary with dismissiveness. And for all the book’s rhetoric about the need to “dismantle the administrative state,” it soon becomes clear that vanquishing the federal bureaucracy is not the document’s animating ambition. There may be plenty worth jettisoning from the executive branch, but “Mandate for Leadership” is about capturing the administrative state, not unmaking it. The main conservative promise here is to wield the state as a tool for concentrating power and entrenching ideology.

We hear a lot of far right rhetoric about destroying "the deep state" or "the administrative state" – particularly from the odious Steve Bannon. But what's clear from Project 2025 is that what MAGA really intends is an unfriendly takeover of "the administrative state".

Executing a conservative president’s agenda “requires a well-conceived, coordinated, unified plan and a trained and committed cadre of personnel to implement it,” the document says on its opening page. The phrasing quickly grows militaristic: The authors wish to “assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day 1 to deconstruct the administrative state.” That deconstruction can be blunt. Portions of “Mandate for Leadership” read as though the authors did a Control-F search of the executive branch for any terms they deemed suspect and then deleted the offending programs or offices. The White House’s Gender Policy Council must go, along with its Office of Domestic Climate Policy. The Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations is a no-no. The E.P.A. can do without its Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. And the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration should be dismantled because it constitutes “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”

Making the US safe for fossil fuel companies is a HŪGE Trump priority which gets too little attention. Remember "drill drill drill" from Trump's dictator interview? If there's any hope of reversing climate change, you can kiss it goodbye if Republicans win in November.

Of course abortion is a target of Project 2025. Christian nationalism would become the semi-official ideology.

If “Mandate for Leadership” has its way, the next conservative administration will also target the data gathering and analysis that undergirds public policy. Every U.S. state should be required by Health and Human Services to report “exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence and by what method.” By contrast, the government should prohibit the collection of employment statistics based on race or ethnicity, and the Centers for Disease Control should discontinue gathering data on gender identity, on the grounds that such collection “encourages the phenomenon of ever-multiplying subjective identities.” (Why the executive branch might concern itself with the subjective identities of American citizens becomes clearer some 25 pages later, when the document affirms that the government should “maintain a biblically based, social-science-reinforced definition of marriage and family.”)

A far right army of ideological zealots is to be recruited to replace anybody in the federal government not sufficiently pro-Trump.

One of the “pillars” of Project 2025 is the creation of a personnel database — a sort of “right-wing LinkedIn,” The Times has reported, seeking to attract some 20,000 potential administration officials. “Mandate for Leadership” maintains that “empowering political appointees across the administration is crucial to a president’s success,” and virtually every chapter calls for additional appointees to wrest power from longtime career staff members in their respective departments.

In short... (emphasis added)

This book does not call for an effort to depoliticize the administrative state. It simply wishes to politicize it in favor of a new side. Everybody does it; now it’s our turn. Get over it.

The book is hardly a secret. The far right is quite open about its intent.

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (PDF)*

As with Mein Kampf, we know ahead of time what the bad guys will do if they hold power. We need to take the danger more seriously than Germany of the early 1930s.

What's needed to defeat Trump is a pro-democracy mobilization of the United States. That means putting aside ideological quibbles with other anti-Trump groupings and becoming more politically active in real life.

EDIT*: Tumblr is telling me that the link to Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise isn't working and refuses to let me post it. But I just checked it twice and it's fine. Until this peculiar glitch gets fixed, go to this Substack article and click "Mandate for Leadership" in the middle of the first paragraph.

[decolonize-the-everything]

I wanna show the "no" people who the authors are and where they come from. Cuz this isn't all of them but it enough to maybe help you understand the level of experience, organization, and knowledge these people have about the intimate workings of our government. Most of them have already Been in our government which I think is worse.

Enough to maybe help you realize that "oh shit these people know what they're talking about and they aren't powerless and they know powerful people" and get seriously educated on everything this document contains.

Cuz I frfr can't keep making these posts by myself, imma need y'all to boost how much you talk about this or Start talking about it to help out

[azeutreciathewicked]

Tell your future self to vote

Hey you, American voter.

You're probably feeling pretty excited right now, huh? Things look cool and shiny and hopeful.

That's great - it's great to feel happy and excited and to ride the wave of crowd enthusiasm. It's infectious.

But it's not going to last forever. There are going to be down days, hard days, frustrating days. Maybe you struggle with mental illness like a lot of us, so some days will just be shit days because.

Do yourself a favor: write a letter to future you. Write the letter for the day you will vote. Maybe you get to do early voting, or mail-in voting. Or you'll go in person (you have a plan to get to the polls, right? And to bring some friends and family along to vote too? Good). In that letter, write down how great you feel now. How hopeful. How excited. How great it feels to see so many people across the country coming together. How it feels like we can and will win this, and win with a mandate. Maybe you're old enough to have been excited about Barack Obama -- remind your future self of that. Of the mandate that was delivered.

And then, when a down day comes, especially if it's closer to the election, to the day when you need to fill in that bubble (those bubbles - vote the whole ballot!), pull the lever, or do whatever it is to do your civic duty, read that letter. Remind yourself of how you felt when things were looking good.

Because feelings are contagious. And it's so very easy to get sucked into emotional spirals by others around you, by people on social media.

We have to safeguard against that. We have to make a plan to help us fight the next wave of despair - because it's coming. We can't stop the next wave of negative feelings, but we can take steps to protect ourselves against it.

We HAVE to keep doing the work, no matter how we feel. We can let ourselves get complacent in a sea of good feelings and forget about doing the work. And we can't succumb to despair and give up on doing the work. The work needs to get done regardless of how we feel or how happy the people around us are.

Please. I'm so happy for all the people around me who are happy, truly (as happy as Spock when Kirk and McCoy are happy). But I've also been watching a lot of friends spiral into extremely dangerous levels of despair over other difficult things lately. And the emotional contagion is so very very dangerous.

So use it while we have it - use that good energy to make a plan, to set up protections for the difficult days that are ahead. As of this writing, we have 87 days until the election. A lot can happen in that time. We have to stay the course to win.

Let's do this.

[royalteachitchat]

🙈🙉🙊 Selected for a reason!

How many voters do you think Taylor can persuade to cross over? How many fresh new voters will follow her lead? Same goes for the jab.

I can't IMAGINE how much they are getting paid for this... 💰

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

The Proud Boys are back: How the far-right domestic terrorist group is rebuilding to rally behind Trump

Aram Roston at Reuters:

A dark SUV cruised past former President Donald Trump’s supporters near his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey on a windy April afternoon. Billowing from the vehicle were three flags: one for the Trump campaign, two others with the initials “PB” – the insignia of the far-right Proud Boys movement. Through the open windows, three Proud Boys flashed the “OK” sign with their hands, a gesture often associated with white supremacy and the far right. Trump’s fans cheered. Four men dressed in the signature black-and-yellow shirts of the Proud Boys spilled out of the SUV and began glad-handing the crowd like homecoming heroes. The Proud Boys are back. Four years after the failed effort to overturn Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat, the violent all-male extremist group that led the storming of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, is rebuilding and regaining strength as Trump campaigns to return to the White House, according to interviews with eight Proud Boys, two U.S. law enforcement officials and four experts who track the group’s online activity.

Since the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, four former Proud Boys leaders have been convicted in federal court of seditious conspiracy, each sentenced to 15 or more years in prison. At least another 70 members were charged with participating in the violence. But that crackdown hasn’t stopped the Proud Boys. Some Proud Boys say they are preparing to emerge once again as a physical force for Trump, drawn to his hardline nationalism and convinced their leaders will be pardoned if he wins. Trump himself promises to pardon convicted Jan. 6 rioters if he’s elected. After last Thursday’s historic guilty verdict against Trump, an Ohio Proud Boys chapter vowed “war” and posted a video of Proud Boy street brawls that ended with the message, “Fighting solves everything.” A Miami chapter said, “Now, more than ever, we are recruiting!” Some posted images of the upside-down American flag symbolizing the “Stop the Steal” movement that falsely claims Trump won the 2020 election. One Proud Boy told Reuters that America is in a period of “calm before the storm.”

The group’s main Telegram channel, however, posted a message urging Proud Boys to stay calm and not get drawn into a trap and risk arrest. “Trump is, of course, getting railroaded but we will not be walking into any honey pots over this.” In recent weeks, the group has become more prominent at pro-Trump events, highlighting the risk of renewed violence in this year’s presidential election. Dozens of Proud Boys – some in body armor and helmets – marked the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection with a show of force at the statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. On April 20, nearly a dozen gathered at a rally for Trump’s Republican campaign in Wilmington, North Carolina.  More recently, groups of Proud Boys from two chapters mixed with tens of thousands of Trump supporters at a campaign rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, in May.

On a boardwalk near the entrance of the Wildwood rally, several Proud Boys identified themselves as members of the “New Jersey State” chapter. One said they were there to provide security and stop agitators from “disrespecting or assaulting everybody.” Inscribed on his wraparound sunglasses were the initials “POYB” – short for “Proud of Your Boy.” He wore a ring with the initials “PB” and a black shirt with the yellow laurel wreath of the Proud Boys. Three men from another chapter greeted them, their faces hidden by gaiter masks. The re-emergence of the Proud Boys at Trump’s political rallies and events coincides with polls showing a majority of Americans fearing political violence will flare around November’s election. It also comes when Trump’s use of incendiary rhetoric is inspiring his supporters to target his opponents – including judges, prosecutors and political rivals – in a wave of threats that’s unprecedented in modern American politics.

Trump himself has not ruled out the possibility of political violence if he loses in November. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he said when asked by Time magazine in April if he expected violence after the election. If he’s jailed or put under house arrest, “I’m not sure the public would stand for it,” he said in a Fox News interview that aired on Sunday. “At a certain point there’s a breaking point.” Before the last election, Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” Three months later, federal prosecutors say, the group’s leaders plotted and led the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol. Trump’s baseless, rigged-election claims inspired the gathering, and Trump himself urged the assembled crowd to march on the Capitol as Congress certified Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.

A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to questions for this story about his rhetoric, Jan. 6 and the Proud Boys. As the Proud Boys regroup, they’ve made changes designed to make them less vulnerable to law enforcement scrutiny, including doing away with layers of top leadership, according to interviews with members. The Proud Boys now operate with self-governing chapters in more than 40 states, with little apparent central coordination, members said. While the group’s structure has changed, its Canadian founder remains an inspirational figure to today’s Proud Boys. Gavin McInnes, a British-born far-right commentator who lives in New York, announced his resignation from the Proud Boys in 2018. But he remains deeply involved with the group, according to interviews with Proud Boys.

[...]

After McInnes stepped down, his successor, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, raised the Proud Boys’ profile, pulling them from the fringe of the far-right toward the center of Trump-era Republican politics. Tarrio, a Floridian of Afro-Cuban descent, was sentenced last September to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy, defined as an effort by two or more people to overthrow the government or use force to hinder its operations, and other charges related to the Capitol riot. He has appealed.

Two criminal defense attorneys for Tarrio did not respond to emailed questions and phone calls. In the past, McInnes, Tarrio and a group of leaders dubbed “Elders” spoke publicly on the group’s behalf, set the agenda and guided its confrontations with left-wing groups around the country. They sat atop a formal structure and could disband Proud Boy chapters or expel members. Now, members say, the chapters are largely independent of each other and ban communications with the media. Most members who spoke to Reuters for this report did so on condition of anonymity. The group’s resilience has surprised some extremism experts. “The amazing thing is that so many people from the Proud Boys can be in jail and yet you have these active chapters,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the nonprofit Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “Traditionally when the head of a neo-Nazi or white supremacist group goes to jail or dies, the organization will collapse, but that does not seem to be happening with the Proud Boys.”

[...]

During the Trump administration, the Proud Boys engaged in large-scale street brawls with antifa – antifascists – and other leftist groups across the country, typically by taunting demonstrators to instigate a fight. They adopted the slogan “Fuck Around And Find Out,” and emblazoned the letters “FAFO” on hats and t-shirts. Some historians compare the Proud Boys to fascist European militias of the 1920s and 1930s such as the Brownshirts, a Nazi paramilitary group that helped bring Hitler to power in Germany. Proud Boys say they’re nothing like the Brownshirts and bear no resemblance to fascists. But street violence and extreme nationalism are features of both groups. In the weeks before the Capitol riots, some wore a patch inscribed with “RWDS,” short for “Right Wing Death Squad,” a term used to describe Central and South American paramilitaries who supported right-wing governments and dictatorships. [...]

After Trump left the White House, the Proud Boys turned to America’s culture wars. They clashed with supporters of abortion rights and vaccine mandates, and harassed organizers of Drag Queen Story Hours, where female impersonators read at libraries or bookstores to children. Fights often ensued. Since the 2021 Capitol attack, Reuters identified 29 incidents of political violence involving the Proud Boys, almost all of them centered around social issues. All but one of the eight cases in 2023 involved clashes between Proud Boys and left-wing activists at demonstrations supporting LGBTQ+ rights. The tally was based largely on news reports and court records of fights, assaults and other physical confrontations. This year, the Proud Boys have returned to politics. In the first three months of 2024, there have been far fewer Proud Boys public events than in the same period last year. But half of them have been pro-Trump and the rest have been political in nature, related to guns or immigration, said Kieran Doyle of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit that monitors political violence.

On April 24, Proud Boys founder McInnes appeared at Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests. He told Reuters that the Proud Boys were not getting involved in the anti-Israel unrest, saying he was there to “ridicule” liberals by pretending to be a left-wing journalist. It didn’t work, he said, because people saw him and posted alerts on social media. “They recognized me and were scared.” There’s no authoritative count of Proud Boy members. McInnes claims there are about 5,000, down from 8,000 during Trump’s presidency but up from lows after the Capitol riot arrests. Official estimates of the Proud Boys’ strength vary widely, from 300 to 3,000 members, said a law enforcement source who has monitored the group. Reuters could not independently corroborate its numbers. Some former Proud Boys have abandoned the group for other, more overtly racist and violent groups, including the neo-Nazi Blood Tribe and the underground “Active Club” scene, a white supremacist male movement, one Proud Boy told Reuters.

Reuters has an informative article about far-right domestic terrorist group Proud Boys is rebuilding to rally behind convicted felon Donald Trump.

After the January 6th Insurrection, the group turned towards right-wing culture war items to launch protests, such as COVID mitigation measures (esp. vaccine mandates), drag story hours, and abortion access.

Read the full article at Reuters.

[ent-is-undecisive]

Ive been at work for half an hour and i'm already down a rabbit hole about the history of mayors

[toffyrats]

it’s finally starting to settle in that christmas is in 3 fucking days