#assembly election in 5 states

[thenewsfactsnow]

Election Commission of India Declares 2023 Assembly Polls in 5 States; Parties Express Readiness

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has officially unveiled the election schedule for assembly polls in five Indian states, namely Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Mizoram in 2023. Voting starts on Nov 7, counting on Dec 3. The announcement, made earlier today, provided crucial details regarding the electoral process, including nomination filing deadlines, polling…

[newseee]

BJP woke up earlier..! Exercise on five state elections..!!

Bharatiya Janata Party woke up earlier this time. Generally, after receiving the notification of election for any state, the election committee of that party meets and takes decisions. But this time it did not happen. Sharpening strategies regardless of notification. The BJP election committee is reviewing the five state assembly elections to be held later this year. It is interesting to review the elections three months earlier than ever before. Doubts are arising whether it is fear of losing…precaution…

Assembly elections will be held in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram at the end of this year. Rest of Mizoram are key states. Currently BJP is in power only in Madhya Pradesh. In Mizoram it shared power with the Mizo National Front. However, in the background of the developments in Manipur, the relations between the Mizoram National Front and the BJP are at an end. BJP is determined to win all five of these elections. That is why election strategies are being sharpened three months in advance.

[robertreich]

How Trump is Following Hitler's Playbook

You’ve heard Trump’s promise:

TRUMP: I’m going to be a dictator for one day.

History shows there are no “one-day” dictatorships. When democracies fall, they typically fall completely.

In a previous video, I laid out the defining traits of fascism and how MAGA Republicans embody them. But how could Trump — or someone like him — actually turn America into a fascist state? Here’s how in five steps.

Step 1: Use threats of violence to gain power

Hitler and Mussolini relied on their vigilante militias to intimidate voters and local officials. We watched Trump try to do the same in 2020.

TRUMP: Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.

Republican election officials testified to the threats they faced when they refused Trump’s demands to falsify the election results.

RAFFENSPERGER: My email, my cell phone was doxxed.

RUSTY BOWERS: They have had video panel trucks with videos of me proclaiming me to be a pedophile.

GABRIEL STERLING: A 20-something tech in Gwinnett County today has death threats and a noose put out saying he should be hung for treason.

If the next election is close, threats to voters and election officials could be enough to sabotage it.

Step 2: Consolidate power

After taking office, a would-be fascist must turn every arm of government into a tool of the party. One of Hitler’s first steps was to take over the civil service, purging it of non-Nazis.

In October of 2020, Trump issued his own executive order that would have enabled him to fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists. He never got to act on it, but he’s now promising to apply it to the entire civil service.

That’s become the centerpiece of something called Project 2025, a presidential agenda assembled by MAGA Republicans, that would, as the AP put it, “dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision.”

Step 3: Establish a police state

Hitler used the imaginary threat of “the poison of foreign races” to justify taking control of the military and police, placing both under his top general, and granting law-enforcement powers to his civilian militias.

Now Trump is using the same language to claim he needs similar powers to deal with immigrants.

Trump plans to deploy troops within the U.S. to conduct immigration raids and round up what he estimates to be 18 million people who would be placed in mass-detention camps while their fate is decided.

And even though crime is actually down across the nation, Trump is citing an imaginary crime wave to justify sending troops into blue cities and states against the will of governors and mayors.

Trump insiders say he plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to have the military crush civilian protests. We saw a glimpse of that in 2020, when Trump deployed the National Guard against peaceful protesters outside the White House.

And with promises to pardon January 6 criminals and stop prosecutions of right-wing domestic terrorists, Trump would empower groups like the Proud Boys to act as MAGA enforcers.

Step 4: Jail the opposition

In classic dictatorial fashion, Trump is now openly threatening to prosecute his opponents.

TRUMP: if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business.

And he’s looking to remake the Justice Department into a tool for his personal vendettas.

TRUMP: As we completely overhaul the federal Department of Justice and FBI, we will also launch sweeping civil rights investigations into Marxist local district attorneys.

In the model of Hitler and Mussolini, Trump describes his opponents as subhuman.

TRUMP: …the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country…

Step 5: Undermine the free press

As Hitler well understood, a fascist needs to control the flow of information. Trump has been attacking the press for years.

And he’s threatening to punish news outlets whose coverage he dislikes.

He has helped to reduce trust in the media to such a historic low that his supporters now view him as their most trusted source of information.

Within a democracy, we may often have leaders we don’t like. But we have the power to change them — at the ballot box and through public pressure. Once fascism takes hold, those freedoms are gone and can’t easily be won back.

We must recognize the threat of fascism when it appears, and do everything in our power to stop it.

[liminalweirdo]

We are still in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic. New Yorkers are still being hospitalized with COVID and still dying from COVID. People are still getting Long COVID and other serious health issues from COVID.

Everyone is at risk of Long COVID and other serious health issues from COVID.

Masks are a critical public health tool that help protect people from COVID.

Masks also help protect against other contagious diseases, wildfire smoke, pollution, allergens, and other health concerns.

Everyone has a right to wear a mask.

There should not be a mask ban. A mask ban puts the lives and health of all New Yorkers at risk. 

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

This toolkit includes a letter you can send to your reps if you live in, are currently in, and/or travel to New York.

1. Contact Governor Hochul.  Urge her not to ban masks. 

Phone: 518-474-8390 (press 1 to leave a message, press 2 to speak to a person)

Email: https://governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form

Mail: The Honorable Kathy Hochul Governor of New York State NYS State Capitol Building Albany, NY 12224

Twitter/X: @GovKathyHochul

Instagram and Threads: @GovKathyHochul

2. Contact your NYS Senator and Assemblymember. Urge them to speak out against mask bans and not to support mask ban legislation. 

Find your state elected officials and their contact info at: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

Check to see if your NYS Senator or Assemblymember has taken a stance on mask bans on our New York Mask Ban Tracker at: http://bit.ly/NYMaskBanTracker

Please let us know if your NYS Senator or Assemblymember speaks out publicly against mask bans.

3. Contact NYS Senate and Assembly leadership. Urge them to speak out against mask bans and not to support mask ban legislation. 

NYS Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie 

Phone: 518-455-3791

Email: Speaker@nyassembly.gov

Twitter/X: @CarlHeastie

Instagram and Threads: @CHeastie

NYS Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins

Phone: (518) 455-2585

Email: scousins@nysenate.gov 

Twitter/X: @AndreaSCousins

Instagram and Threads: @AndreaStewartCousins

4. Contact NYS Senate and Assembly Health Committee Chairs. Urge them to speak out against mask bans and not to support mask ban legislation.

NYS Senate Health Committee Chair J. Gustavo Rivera

Phone:Albany Office - 518-455-3395

Email: grivera@nysenate.gov

Twitter/X: @NYSenatorRivera

Instagram: @NYSenatorRivera

NYS Assembly Health Committee Chair Amy Paulin 

NOTE: Paulin is a co-sponsor for the mask ban bill A10057A. 

Phone:Albany Office - 518-455-5585

Email: paulina@nyassembly.gov

Twitter/X: @AmyPaulin

Instagram: @AmyPaulin1

5. Contact your local elected officials, including City Council Members and NYC Borough Presidents. Urge them to speak out against mask bans.

Find your city elected officials and their contact info at: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

6. Sign up for an account on the NY Senate webpage and let them know you oppose each of the mask ban bills. There is a question on the right side of the webpage for each bill that asks if you oppose or support the bill. Write that you oppose the bill. In addition, if possible, add a comment expressing opposition to the mask ban bills. 

S09867

A10057A

A10043

S09194

7. Contact NYC Mayor Adams. 

Email: https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/mayor-contact.page

Phone: 311 or 212-NEW-YORK outside NYC 

Twitter: @NYCMayor and @NYCMayorsOffice

Mail: Mayor Eric Adams City Hall New York, NY 10007

Instagram and Threads: @NYCMayor

8. For those not in NY State, you could contact the NY’s Tourism Board and let them know you won’t be traveling to NY State or are canceling your travel plans to NY State due to the proposed mask ban. 

Email: info@iloveny.com

Twitter/X: @I_LOVE_NY

Instagram: @ILoveNY

More info: https://www.iloveny.com/

9. Write a letter to the editor or op-ed. See examples below.

10. Post your opposition to a mask ban on social media and share why you still wear a mask. Use the hashtag #NoNYMaskBan.

11. If you are Jewish, sign on to this sign-on letter to state leaders organized by Jews for Mask Rights. This letter is open to all Jewish people affected by this legislation, whether as New Yorkers, commuters, or tourists.

12. Spread the word! Share a link to this toolkit (http://bit.ly/StopMaskBanNY) and graphics below to encourage other people to take action.

13. Wear a mask! Post a photo of yourself wearing a mask on social media.If you hold a public event, require masks at your event and post photos with everyone wearing a mask.

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - May 15, 2023

🐕 - Now It's a Paw-ty

1. World's oldest ever dog celebrates 31st birthday

Bobi was born on 11 May 1992, making him 31 years old, in human years. A big birthday party is planned for Bobi today, according to Guinness World Records.

It will take place at his home in the rural Portuguese village of Conqueiros in Leiria, western Portugal, where he has lived his entire life.

2. The FDA has officially changed its policy to allow more gay and bisexual men to donate blood

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that they’ve eased restrictions on blood donations by men who have sex with men in an effort to address blood shortages. The new policy recommends a series of individual risk-based questions that will apply to all donors, regardless of their sexual orientation, sex, or gender. Gay or bisexual men in monogamous relationships will now be permitted to donate blood.

3. Illinois passes bill to ensure community college credits transfer to public universities

The Illinois General Assembly has passed a bill that would help community college students transfer to public universities.

It would ensure that certain classes taken at community colleges could be transferred to any higher education institution in the state. Some schools currently only count community college coursework as elective credits.

4. Brazilian President Lula recognizes 6 new indigenous territories stretching 620,000 hectares, banning mining and restricting farming within them

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has decreed six new indigenous reserves, banning mining and restricting commercial farming there. The lands - including a vast area of Amazon rainforest - cover about 620,000 hectares (1.5m acres).

Indigenous leaders welcomed the move, but said more areas needed protection.

5. More than 1,000 trafficking victims rescued in separate operations in Southeast Asia

More than 1,000 trafficking victims were rescued in separate operations in Southeast Asia over the last week, officials in Indonesia and the Philippines said. 

Indonesian officials said Sunday they freed 20 of their nationals who were trafficked to Myanmar as part of a cyber scam, amid an increase in human trafficking cases in Southeast Asia. Fake recruiters had offered the Indonesians high-paying jobs in Thailand but instead trafficked them to Myawaddy, about 567 kilometers (352 miles) south of Naypyidaw, the capital, to perform cyber scams for crypto websites or apps, said Judha Nugraha, an official in Indonesia's Foreign Affairs Ministry.

6. A peanut allergy patch is making headway in trials

An experimental “peanut patch” is showing some promise for toddlers who are highly allergic to peanuts. The patch, called Viaskin, was tested on children ages one to three for a late-stage trial, and the results show that the patch helped children whose bodies could not tolerate even a small piece of peanuts safely eat a few.

After one year, two-thirds of the children who used the patch and one-third of the placebo group met the trial’s primary endpoint. The participants with a less sensitive peanut allergy could safely tolerate the peanut protein equivalent of eating three or four peanuts.

7. Critically endangered lemur born at Calgary Zoo

The Calgary Zoo has released pictures of its newest addition, a baby lemur. The zoo says its four-year-old female black-and-white ruffed lemur, Eny, gave birth on April 7. The pup’s father is eight-year-old Menabe. The gender of the pup has not been confirmed but the Calgary Zoo says the pup appears bright-eyed and active and is on the move.

The black-and-white ruffed lemur is registered among the 25 most endangered primates in the world, due mostly to habitat loss and hunting.

----

That's it for this week :)

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[mydaddywiki]

Tommy Thompson

Physique: Average Build Height: 5′ 8″ (1.73 m)

Tommy George Thompson (born November 19, 1941) is an American Republican politician from Juneau County, Wisconsin. He served as the 19th United States secretary of Health and Human Services from 2001 to 2005 in the cabinet of President George W. Bush. Before that, he was the 42nd governor of Wisconsin (1987–2001) and Republican floor leader in the Wisconsin State Assembly (1981–1987). He is the longest-serving governor in Wisconsin history, holding office from January 1987 until February 2001, and is the only person to be elected to the office four times.

Whilst he didn't quite do it for me when he was at the height of his fame. Not that I didn't find him attractive, because I did. Its just that there were a lot politicians back then that was ahead of him. But I could tell that he was going to still be very fuckable when he got older. He dresses nice, has great hair(now gray) and one of the nicest set of lips I have ever seen. Man, I'd love to do things to him that would make him blush.

Born in Elroy, WI, Thompson graduated from the local high school in 1959. In 1963 he received a bachelors degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin. He entered the law school at Wisconsin that same year, completing his J.D. degree in 1966. He plunged into politics in the summer after he finished law school, first elected to public office in 1966 when, at the age of 24, he won election to the State Assembly.

Of course he's married, to Sue Ann Mashak in 1968, and together three children and five grandchildren. Thompson has dedicated his life and career to public service, but now is more or less a farmer working on his family farm in Elroy. So since he's a farmer now, he wouldn't mind taking me around the farm. If you know what I mean.

[enriquemzn262]

Next week in Venezuela presidential elections will be held, in which the future of the country is at stake, as the current socialist asshole that has completely ruined the country, Nicolas Maduro, has for once a united opposition party going against him, lead by a woman named Maria Corina Machado, herself a former member of the National Assembly, until she was illegally removed from her position, and former presidential candidate, until she was also illegally removed from that, forcing her to nominate her deputy, Edmundo Gonzalez, as the main opposition candidate.

Currently the Venezuelan regime claims the elections will be fair, yet they have engaged in a massive intimidation campaign against supporters of Corina, closing roads for her caravans, many times actually destroying them all together, while fining and even closing down businesses like restaurants and hotels that gave their services to her and her supporters.

But so far those campaigns don’t seem to be working, and instead have galvanized support for her even more, all the while Maduro and his cronies have to literally force state employees to attend his rallies or be fired, and even with that public support has been at best pathetic.

I guess we will see if this will or won’t be a repeat of the fraudulent 2018 elections, in which now disgraced opposition candidate, Juan Guadió, “lost” the election, triggering a worse emigration crisis that continues to this day, with some 5 million Venezuelans already leaving the country as of 2024.

[thecurrentevents]

the United States vetoed a United Nations’ calling for cease-fire in Gaza

this is not the first time — in fact, it is the third time — the United States have vetoed a resolution for an end, however temporary it is, to the Israel-Hamas war.

on February 20, 2024, the United States has used its veto to block a cease-fire in Gaza during a United Nations Security Council.

the UN Security Council is a council made up of 15 countries: 5 permanent countries with veto power (the US, United Kingdom, China, Russia, and France) and 10 temporary countries that are elected by the General Assembly for a 2-year term.

13 countries voted in favor, while Britain abstained and the United States straight out rejected the proposal.

the US’ reasoning? the cease-fire would “jeopardize Washington’s negotiation efforts with Qatar and Egypt” (NYT) for a deal that would release hostages to bring forth a temporary cease-fire. this deal have not reached a consensus at all between Israel and Hamas. this is an external, third-party deal done outside of the United Nations Security Council.

the United States was never in favor of the war in Gaza ending.

months before, it had vetoed a resolution that would provide supplies to the civilians of Gaza, put forth by Brazil. the thing is, the resolution condemned Hamas’ attacks on Israel and demanded release of Israeli hostages (Israel is an ally of the US, and the US had long called for a hostage exchange) but the US still vetoed. ironic, hmm?

sources under the cut:

US vetoes security council cease-fire resolution - New York Times article quoted

the US vetoes a security council resolution on the Israel-Hamas conflict - October resolution veto ; New York Times article

[1americanconservative]

A good friend, who is a seasoned Supreme Court litigator and all-around outstanding attorney, urges Republican state attorneys general to sue the state of New York for its lawfare against President Trump (I have written about and discussed that President Trump’s lawyers should consider seeking common law writs for reasons I won’t restate here), which would create a second and wholly independent basis for paving a path to the Supreme Court via original jurisdiction. Obviously, one cannot predict what the Supreme Court would do, but they provide the justices with the ability to decide whether to act, which they surely should. These are extraordinarily dangerous times for our republic, which requires smart and experienced appellate lawyers to seek legitimate avenues to the Supreme Court, however rare but nonetheless appropriate and serious, to help protect the Constitution and the Republic. Here is what my friend wrote:

THE STATE OF NEW YORK SHOULD BE SUED IN THE SUPREME COURT

New York prosecutors have sought and obtained civil and criminal judgments under unique New York laws against Donald Trump in New York courts before New York judges shortly before the Presidential election. Their purpose and the necessary effect of what they have done is to interfere in the forthcoming federal election by persuading voters in “swing states” not to cast ballots for “electors” who would choose Trump to be President. The legal validity of these New York judgments has been challenged, but cannot be determined before the election.

“Electors” are the individuals whose commitment and vote under the Constitution’s Twelfth Amendment will determine whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump will be our President from January 2025 until January 2029. They will be selected in all States by the voters’ choice for Biden or Trump in the election to be held on November 5, and will formally cast their votes in the “Electoral College” that will assemble on January 6, 2025.

The Supreme Court said in Burroughs v. United States, 290 U.S. 534, (1934) that even though presidential electors are not “officers or agents of the federal government,” they “exercise federal functions under, and discharge duties in virtue of authority conferred by, the Constitution of the United States.” A single State may not deliberately utilize its local laws, invoked by prosecutors, and implemented by judges who affiliate with one national party, to tilt the voting for electors in other States. Because of instant communication attributable to modern technology New York State can deliberately interfere with voting across the country. The Supreme Court in Burroughs quoted with approval the decision in Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651, 657 (1884), that it is proper “to secure this election [of electors] from the influence of violence, of corruption, and of fraud.”

What New York has achieved (and what it will accomplish unless the Supreme Court takes prompt remedial action) is to make this and future federal Presidential elections chaotic and unpredictable. It subjects them to aggressive attack on one candidate by a single partisan State choosing to weaponize its local laws and courts.

New York’s effort to prejudice the Presidential election is comparable to Colorado’s determination, unanimously vacated by the Supreme Court in Trump v. Anderson, 601 U.S. 100 (2024), to remove one Presidential candidate from its ballot. Colorado purported to invoke a federal constitutional provision, but it was also a one-State effort to interfere with the Presidential election.

New York’s conduct is more egregious, will cause more lasting damage, and calls more crucially for a Supreme Court remedy than what Florida’s courts did, and the Court reversed, after the 2000 Presidential election was held, but the vote count in Florida was not completed. Because this year’s election process is ongoing, a more extreme perversion of a fair and uncorrupted choice by voters can be perpetrated by New York’s sentencing decision and by enforcement of the civil judgment. Both would be based entirely on New York’s local laws and will be announced by its partisan local judges to be exploited by instant publicity across the country.

States like Texas, Florida, Tennessee, North Dakota, Utah, and others that are strongly Republican could sue New York in an Original Action in the Supreme Court under the provision of federal law that authorizes actions in the Supreme Court of controversies between States (28 U.S.C. 1251(a)). They could seek, as relief, that New York be ordered to vacate the New York judgments against Trump. This relief does not depend on any determination by the Supreme Court that either of the local New York judgments misapplies New York law (which is probable), but because the judgments were designed – and are being invoked – to corrupt the Presidential election in “swing states” like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, among others. If the Court fails to intervene, New York will succeed in unraveling a national electoral process that was set in place with the birth of the Constitution and has peacefully endured through the nation’s most tumultuous and partisan periods.

The Court should also lay down a prophylactic rule to protect future Presidential elections from similar interference. It should declare that a State may not, in the year of a Presidential election, initiate any civil or criminal action that is based entirely on that State’s local law in its State courts against a Presidential candidate. The civil and criminal cases against Trump in the New York courts (or in Georgia’s local court) could be pursued and tried (if the prosecutors were still interested) after the election.

Such a rule would be critical in the 2028 election. Incumbent President Biden has not been sued or prosecuted in the local courts of deeply Republican States because he has presidential immunity. But if the 2028 election involved no incumbent, the Republican States could do what New York has done to Trump and what future Democratic prosecutors are likely to emulate in their States– prosecute and sue the opposing candidate shortly before election before a judge who will probably have similar political views and secure one or more judgments that can be publicized and may have substantial effect in “swing states.”

[mariacallous]

Donald Trump’s joint appearance with Polish President Andrzej Duda in the battleground state of Pennsylvania has been canceled, according to a source familiar with the Republican presidential candidate's plans.

Trump and Duda had been planning to attend the unveiling of a monument at the Roman Catholic National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania on Sunday. The shrine, named after the southern Polish city that is home to a famous Black Madonna painting, is an important site for Polish-Americans. If the event had gone forward, it would have marked a rare instance of a foreign leader appearing alongside a U.S. presidential candidate on the campaign trail. It was not immediately clear why the appearance was canceled or if Trump would meet Duda at another time or place. Voters of Central and Eastern European descent have become highly sought after in the final weeks of the race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. Pennsylvania, in particular, is home to a sizeable Ukrainian-American and Polish-American population. As the state is among the most competitive in the nation, this demographic could help determine the outcome of the election. Harris has said that Trump would fail to stand up to aggression by Russian President Vladimir Putin if he wins the November 5 election, a claim the Trump campaign denies. A Who’s Who of foreign leaders will be arriving in the United States in the coming days for the 79th session of the UN General Assembly. The Polish embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[follow-up-news]

A North Carolina appeals court on Friday ruled that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s name must be taken off state ballots for president, upending plans in the battleground state just as officials were about to begin mailing out the nation’s first absentee ballots for the Nov. 5 presidential election. The intermediate-level Court of Appeals issued an order granting Kennedy’s request to halt the mailing of ballots that included his name. The court also told a trial judge to order the State Board of Elections to distribute ballots without Kennedy’s name on them. No legal explanation was given. State law otherwise required the first absentee ballots to be mailed or transmitted no later than 60 days before the general election, making Friday the deadline. The process of reprinting and assembling ballot packages likely would take more than two weeks, state attorneys have said. The ruling could be appealed. Kennedy, the nominee of the We The People party in North Carolina, had sued last week to get off the state’s ballots after he suspended his campaign and endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump. But the Democratic majority on the State Board of Elections rejected the request, saying it was too late in the process of printing ballots and coding tabulation machines. Kennedy then sued.

[mikerickson]

8/5/2024 - 8/8/2024

Time for the latest installment of my "Don't post about a vacation until after I'm back home" series:

We were killing time in a mall before leaving for the airport on Friday when I noticed the overhead lights swaying in a store. Felt like a massive train was rolling by just outside, but I knew we weren't close enough to the NJ Transit line to actually feel it. Turns out it was a ⋆⭒˚.⋆4.8 earthquake⋆⭒˚.⋆.

Our flight got delayed for three hours while the runway was inspected for damage. While waiting to get dinner in the terminal, the lights started swaying again and we felt a 3.8 aftershock six hours after the first.

@perilous-pursuit-of-perfection and @humdrumhootenanny picked us up from the airport and let us stay with them and we didn't take a single group photo the entire weekend, but just trust me.

Next day we went to the Ohio statehouse in Columbus for a free tour. Learned that Ohio bounced around three previous capitals before the state legislature passed a law to create a permanent capital. Also Abraham Lincoln was in this building giving a speech to the state assembly when he received a telegram informing him he'd won the 1860 Presidential Election.

Next day went to the Columbus Art Museum and I was trying to get that picture of Morning Sun by Edward Hopper but this hipster couple stood in front of it chatting for honestly more than 10 minutes so I left and came back later. Also there was a cool exhibit from 2023 about "Final Girls" in horror slasher movies. Slumber Party Martyrs by Robin F. Williams was my favorite.

We also went to a Field of Corn, except the corn was made out of concrete. Andrew climbed and stood on top of one without killing himself and it was very impressive.

Day of the eclipse we left for the National Museum of the US Air Force super early and hit no traffic, and were directed to park surprisingly close to the exit. Got to see literally dozens of planes from pre-WWI up through current models (was not expecting to see an actual F-22 on display). Also the B2 stealth bomber is enormous in person and really does look otherworldly compared to "normal" planes.

The sunlight started getting noticeably dimmer about a quarter to 3 PM, and the rate of dimming felt exponential. Things started getting dark very quickly in the last minute. The museum was having a huge event for the day so there were maybe a few thousand people there with us. I thought that would take away from the experience and be distracting, but it kinda made the whole thing even more thrilling to hear a massive crowd around us cheer and shout when the sun disappeared. Totality honestly looked fake. It looked like a hole was punched in an old CRT computer monitor. The air got noticeably colder and you could see stars in the sky. The entire horizon looked like a sunset in every direction at the same time. Honestly got emotional and lost my breath in a physiological reaction; it felt like I got punched in the gut without the pain. About 2 1/2 minutes later a very bright pinpoint appeared in the bottom right quadrant and the sun started coming back. A few minutes after that, looking to the northeast where the shadow continued it just looked like a massive thunderstorm without any clouds.

Managed to beat the crowd out of the museum parking grounds and hit zero traffic on the 1-hour drive back to Columbus. The eclipse was even still happening when we got back to the house.

Other than the earthquake (which, who the fuck saw that coming), this trip went exactly as I planned for, which is such a relief considering how much I was stressing myself out over the weather in the week beforehand.

[soon-palestine]

The Ecologists, La France Insoumise, the French Communist Party, and the Socialist Party unveiled, at a joint press conference, the programme of the left-wing alliance to the legislative elections. He condemned the "terrorist massacre of Hamas".

A programme in "20 measures of rupture", during the "first 15 days", to "reply to the emergency that damage the life and confidence of the French people". Wage indexation on inflation, rise of Smic, repeal of unemployment and pension insurance reforms… At a press conference held on Friday 14 June, the leaders of the left-wing parties behind the "New Popular Front" unveiled their legislature contract.

Decreeing the social emergency

-Block the prices of basic necessities (food, energy, fuels)

-Repealing pension and unemployment insurance reform

-Inflation of wages

-Fixing the SMIC and the minimum pension at EUR 1600 net

-Remove the minimum old-age age at the poverty line (60% of the SMIC)

-Restoring the wealth tax, "reinforced with a climate component"

Declaring an immediate ceasefire in Gaza

-Breaks with the support of the French government to Benjamin Netanyahu, and enforce the order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which evokes a risk of genocide

-Action for the release of hostages detained since the Hamas terrorist massacres and for the release of Palestinian political prisoners

-Subsistent International Criminal Court (ICC) in its prosecution of Hamas leaders and the Israeli government

-Immediate recognition of the State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel on the basis of UN resolutions

-Alspering the organisation of free elections in Palestine under international control

Defending Ukraine

Defending the sovereignty of the Ukrainian people and their territory through the delivery of the necessary weapons

Seity of oligarch assets in banks

-Sending of blue helmets, in particular to secure nuclear power plants Addressing the climate challenge

-Adoption of a climate plan for carbon neutrality in 2050, and the principle of the green rule

-Adopting an "energy-climate" law, the beginnings of ecological planning

-Decree a moratorium on motorway infrastructure projects (A69…), and mega-bassines

-Adopting a water-sharing plan at the national level Is it a 6th Republic

-Rebrogate article 49, paragraph 3

-Election of the National Assembly and the Senate by proportional representation

-Introduce the Citizens' Initiative Referendum (RIC)

To convene a constituent assembly to draft a new Constitution Guaranteeing the right to housing

Build 1 million "green" housing units over 5 years

Repeal the Kasbarian Act, and abolish evictions

-Ammguring rent in tense areas

-Maintenate the SRU Act (20 or 25 per minimum of social housing per commune) Reshaping Europe

-Generating super-profit taxation at European level

-Finance of free trade agreements (CETA, Mercosur, etc.)

-Refusing the Fiscal Stability Pact

-Reforming the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)

[warningsine]

Season 5 of “The Good Wife” was a fantastic, thrilling season of television. Yes, “The Good Wife” is primarily about a clutch of well-heeled attorneys in a few Chicago law firms, which doesn’t quite sound like edge-of-your-seat suspense, and yes, it required four years of back story to fully understand, which is a lot of commitment for new viewers. But “The Good Wife” is a prestige drama built on the network model, meaning that its 22-episode seasons offered plenty of entry points to drop into the world of the characters, whether that was through ongoing fourth-year-associate drama or a tech-oriented case of the week. One of the reasons the season was so appealing was because it contained its own arc, too—the long-awaited denouement of Will and Alicia’s smoldering romance, precipitated in large part by actor Josh Charles’ decision to leave the show. The fifth season told the story of Alicia attempting to establish independence, and some of that meant hurting the people closest to her. When Will died suddenly partway through the season, Alicia was forced to deal with how much she’d hurt him—and ultimately found a path to making a mark without either him or her husband, Peter, when she decided to run for Illinois state’s attorney.

This season has not felt nearly as rewarding. Now, the question I get from fellow fans of “The Good Wife,” over and over again, is simply: What happened? The tightest network drama on television fell apart, seemingly overnight. On the eve of the finale, it’s hard to tell what this season has been about: We watched an election, a stint in prison, an investigation of a drug dealer, and the aftereffects of voter fraud, but it has been difficult to assemble the events into a cohesive narrative, and harder still to surmise why any of that narrative matters to us, the viewers. The upcoming seventh season is widely believed to be the show’s last, which somehow makes the missteps more poignant. Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Was it all downhill after Charles left the show? What went wrong? Here are at least some of the things that made Season 6 a strange, unfulfilling disappointment.

1. Kalinda, part one: The character

It’s kind of impossible to discuss “The Good Wife’s" trajectory so far without acknowledging the increasingly different role of Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi), the impossibly badass legal investigator who was very important in the first few seasons and then the center of a rather unsatisfying plot with her estranged husband, Nick, in Season 4. (Indeed, the plot was so unpopular with fans that the drama’s showrunners, Robert and Michelle King, wrote Nick out of the story a whole half-season early.) As revolting as Nick and Kalinda’s adventures with soft serve were, Nick was only a symptom of the bigger problem: The Kings had no idea what to do with Kalinda. The character was a creative darling they couldn’t bring themselves to kill—made harder, I imagine, by Panjabi herself, who is admittedly fantastic in the limited role.

Kalinda’s raison d’être in Seasons 1 and 2 was her friendship with the main character and titular good wife of the show, Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies). She wasn’t just Alicia’s closest friend in those first few years at the law firm, she was her only friend. Then at the end of Season 2, Alicia discovers that well before they were friends, Kalinda slept with her husband, Peter (Chris Noth). Both are devastated, and their relationship never heals. The show turned its attention to different things, partly because that’s the type of avoidance people pursue on a regular basis in order to get around awkward, intimate conversations.

It was a beautiful, sad breakup, all the more so for being a friend-breakup instead of a romantic one. Alicia threw herself into an affair with Will (Charles), driven, clearly, by a need to one-up both her husband and her best friend. Kalinda carried a torch, of sorts: She saw Alicia as an innocent she’d managed to hurt with her carelessness, so she became fiercely protective of her. It became melodramatic—Alicia’s daughter disappeared, and Kalinda found her; Alicia talked to the wrong criminal, and Kalinda went to the mattresses, with a baseball bat at the ready.

And without Alicia’s friendship to humanize her, Kalinda became a caricature. Her authenticity with Alicia couldn’t really be replicated with anyone else without betraying the essential nature of the character’s closed-off reluctance to connect with other people, so she became a tight-lipped, leather-clad robot, more an embodiment of tortured “cool” than a relatable character. What the character needed was to mend fences with Alicia and resume her role as mysterious but loyal sidekick.

By sometime in Season 4, it seemed like it was on the horizon. They’d both made some efforts toward reconciliation (the chair-turning was a big step), and every other character relationship involving Alicia was explored in great detail: She reckoned managers, co-workers, extended family and political rivals. Kalinda brought Alicia some stuff when Alicia was working on a case in Minnesota, and they hung out in a hotel room, kind of just like old times.

And then it just… never… happened.

That moment in the hotel was the last time they spoke. In 2014, BuzzFeed reported that Margulies and Panjabi had not been in the same scene for 30 episodes—when they had to speak, it was merely on the phone. Then Panjabi announced she was leaving at the end of the sixth season. But that deadline did not change her on-screen dynamic with Margulies. At this point, the two have not been in the same scene for more than 50 episodes—an insane factoid, considering both actresses won Emmys for playing their roles opposite each other in the first few seasons of the show. As of right now—one episode away from the end of Panjabi’s tenure on the show—the most closure we’ve gotten on this friendship is a flashback and a handwritten note conveyed through a third party.

As a viewer who is invested in the relationship between these two characters, it has not been satisfying in the least—and worse, seems manufactured to manage some off-screen drama. The general consensus is that the two actresses had a falling out, but how that could affect their shared scene-time in a business where ex-romantic partners routinely act opposite each other is anyone’s guess. But the shift left Kalinda at loose ends, arrested partway between a reconciliation with Alicia and increasing narrative irrelevancy. Josh Charles’ off-screen decision ended up being a limitation that worked in the Kings’ favor; for some reason, Panjabi’s situation wasn’t as manageable.

The result is that the sixth season is a slog of missed opportunities and unfulfilled desire—platonic desire, sure, but desire nonetheless. Will’s absence has left a void in the show’s character-driven storytelling that Kalinda simply could not fill. There is no analogue to Season 5's scintillating “A Few Words,” but for Alicia’s friendship with Kalinda; there is not even “Yet Another Ham Sandwich,” to round out the first two stories of grand jury indictments that both centered on Kalinda and Alicia.

Which leads me to my next point:

3. Anticlimax

Almost every major story line in this season of “The Good Wife” has fizzled out. (The only one that didn’t was the one about Kalinda, and as I just attempted to explain, nothing with Kalinda felt like it was working.) Every story line—every exhaustively plotted story line—took its characters to a place that looked and felt an awful lot like the beginning, but seemingly without the intention of commenting on that strange déjà vu. Like:

a) Firm musical chairs. So it’s Florrick & Agos, but then Florrick, Agos, & Lockhart, and then Lockhart, Agos, & Lee. Got all that? There’s some reasoning for why all these lawyers keep switching places, but the main reason is that “The Good Wife” didn’t want to write out either Diane (Christine Baranski) or David Lee (Zach Grenier) as regular cast members. But in order to justify that, the story has to undergo a Byzantine rearrangement of names and partnerships—and goes one step further, into the almost unthinkably convenient: It moves the new firms back into the old offices of Lockhart/Gardner, just a few months after Alicia and Cary so dramatically took their leave.

b) Election drama. Alicia runs for SA, wins, but then gets embroiled in an internal Democratic Party scandal and is forced to withdraw. It’s devastating, but it renders most of the season’s storytelling meaningless—what was the point, Alicia seems to be saying to herself, as she furiously sands down a salvaged wooden door in last week’s “Don’t Fail.” At least she has the door. The rest of us have no such comforts. Almost 20 episodes of storytelling, including famous guest stars, charged conversations with Peter, and Alicia having to campaign for something with her complete lack of poker face—and yet the show never truly explained why the hell Alicia wanted to run for office, or what she thinks is “good,” or “right,” or “necessary.” So much of the show leading up to this season has indicated that Alicia is a character driven by ambition and self-interest. It’s only occasionally that the characters have had a moment to pause and ask themselves—am I doing the right thing? Do I care about what I’m accomplishing? Alicia’s campaigning did not bring her closer to at-need populations in a significant way, or reveal to her the rich rewards of power. Instead it just seemed to be a thing she did because she was tired of lawyering, which struck me as phony in the extreme: Anyone who watched Alicia defend a case would know that she lived for her moments in the courtroom.

After all of that—all of that—to have her lose the seat in what is both hurriedly explained and a little too pat (Wouldn’t there be a recount? Red tape? Technicalities?)… well, it’s enough to make even the most loyal of fans a little batty.

c) That whole plot that was lifted from “The Wire,” or something. When it started, the subplot that dealt with the firm’s dealings with drug kingpin Lemond Bishop (Mike Colter) seemed like one of the rare moments where “The Good Wife” would take note of the almost shocking amorality of its protagonists, these assembled lawyers who use the terminology of truth and justice almost exclusively to get paid a great deal of cash. Bishop has hovered in the series’ periphery from the start; in Season 6, he becomes markedly more dangerous, to the point that he gets Cary in jail and facing six years of prison, forces Kalinda to run errands for him, and uses his lawyers as a fence to avoid prosecution.

All season, this plot seemed like it was poised to blow; all season, it doesn’t. Things happen, yes. But the impact of the story never sinks in. Alicia has to fend off some questions about Bishop during her election, but otherwise, it’s a nearly isolated suspense plot—one that culminates in Kalinda sacrificing her life in Chicago in order to protect the people she cares about and put Bishop behind bars. She’s disappeared before, as we’ve been told. But the audience already knew she was leaving the show, meaning that as soon as Kalinda started tangling with Bishop, it was not hard to guess that he would be responsible for how she was going to get written off the show.

In short, we got a lot of stories that ended approximately nowhere—while taking the most predictable routes to get to the aforesaid nowhere. Not even Sarah Steele as Marissa Gold, mining comedy out of every moment she’s on-screen, can make that better.

4. Where's Eli? 

Alan Cumming’s Eli Gold—joined this year by his daughter Marissa (Steele)—is one of the show’s real treasures, a Rahm Emanuel type with an irrepressible personality and more heart than he’d like to admit. An election plot seemed to guarantee time with him—I mean, that is what happened in Season 2, when he was brought on full-time—but instead the election plot was dominated by performances by David Hyde Pierce, David Krumholtz, Steven Pasquale and Oliver Platt. That’s a lot of new faces in a show that was already struggling to tell character stories without Will Gardner; Eli would have been, at least, a familiar presence. Instead, part of the reason the election story line felt interminable was that it was really hard to care for all these new characters, though they’re all capable actors. Margulies always makes the most of things, and it was fine, but it just didn’t feel compelling or fantastic, which I’ve come to expect from this show. Plus, there was that whole thing with Alicia hooking up with Pasquale’s Johnny, which was just weird, because:

5. Just kiss already!

The best thing about Season 6 was the introduction of Matthew Goode’s Finn Polmar, the extraordinarily handsome not-so-subtle Will replacement who eventually moved into the old Lockhart/Gardner offices. Any time Alicia needs a lawyer, she doesn’t call Diane or Cary, she calls Finn; midseason, they approach a perilous near-kiss, before Alicia demurely backs off. I get it: The Kings probably want to build up that relationship in the seventh season, both so that they can impose a reasonable amount of time between Will’s death and Alicia’s next relationship and so that they have something to do in the seventh season. But it has been so boring watching them delicately maneuver around each other. I know it’s common practice to do the big romantic twists in the season finale, but this season could have used an injection of good ol’-fashioned banging to keep things interesting. (Lest you call me uncouth: “The Good Wife” has lust baked into its premise, and in Season 3 featured some of the hottest sex ever seen on network. This is a show whose energy feeds on libido.)

--

Let me be clear: “The Good Wife” has surprised me in the past, and it might manage to again. Last week’s “Don’t Fail” was one of the first great episodes after a stretch of middling ones, and the show has surprised me both in season finales (like the one coming up next week) and in its ability to make a whole season pivot on a dime, from mediocre to brilliant. Everything could change Sunday night, and I would be so happy to see it. But if you want to know what went wrong up till now, unfortunately, the reasons are all too clear.

[kp777]

By Brett Wilkins

Common Dreams

Feb. 5, 2024

"Forty-seven percent of the voters are poor or low-wage," said one activist. "Getting that vote in is very important."

The Poor People's Campaign on Monday launched a 42-week nationwide mobilization of poor and low-income Americans to "wake the sleeping giant" of a voting bloc with the potential to determine the outcome of the 2024 elections.

"It is time for a resurrection and not an insurrection," Poor People's Campaign co-chair Rev. Dr. William Barber II said during a press conference in Washington, D.C. "We must engage poor and low-wealth people to change the political landscape."

"For far too long extremists have blamed poor people and low-wage people for their plight, while moderates too often have ignored poor people, appealing instead to the so-called middle class," he continued. "Meanwhile, poor and low-income people have become nearly half of this country and we are here today to make one thing clear: Poor and low-wage brothers and sisters have the power to determine and decide the 2024 elections and elections beyond."

"Economic justice and saving this democracy are deeply connected."

Poor People's Campaign co-chair Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis stressed that "economic justice and saving this democracy are deeply connected."

"In this rich nation that has the wherewithal to end poverty tomorrow where there's the political will, we must not overlook the voices and votes of poor and low-income people," she added. "We are mobilizing and organizing, registering and educating people for a movement that votes... for healthcare and debt cancellation. Votes for living wages and strong anti-poverty programs. Votes for fair taxes and demilitarization of our communities and our world. Votes for immigrant rights and more."

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said at the press conference: "In 2024, the election is going to be about mobilization... Democrats have an enthusiasm gap today and the progressive alliance and Democrats have fissures within their constituencies that make getting out the vote even more important."

"The biggest bloc of potential voters by far is low-income, low-wage voters," Lake noted. "Where the margin of victory is projected to be less than 3% in 2024, 30-45% of the voters are low-wage voters or low-income families... The turnout among low-wage voters and low-income voters today is... 20-22% below the average turnout. This is a huge bloc of voters, and it is a bloc of voters that votes 58-60%—at minimum—progressive, no matter how conservative the state."

"You're talking about a huge number—a game-changing number—of voters," she added.

The campaign's main scheduled events are a Mass Poor People's & Low-Wage Workers' Moral March to State House Assemblies on March 2 and a rally and march in Washington, D.C. on June 15.

"I have been struggling to pay my bills since I've been working at 16 years old. I work full time, 64 hours a week, seven days a week," said Beth Schafer of Raise Up for $15 during a video promoting the new campaign. "I am exhausted."

Crow Roberts, an organizer with the Indiana Poor People's Campaign, said in the video that "our government finds it necessary to ban abortion to say that they are saving our children, but more children die as a result of poverty in this country."

Guadalupe de la Cruz of the Florida Poor People's Campaign asserted that "we should not be cornered and forced to choose between one necessity or another."

Speaking at the press conference, Alabama activist Linda Burns said that "for three years I worked the assembly line at Amazon in Bessemer, Alabama. The work was grueling. We were expected to work like robots, moving like 1,000 pieces per hour."

"I got badly injured. My left arm," she continued. "I had two surgeries. I had to get a third surgery, but I didn't have no more insurance. Amazon, they cut my insurance off a year after. They let me go last October."

"Amazon let me go because I was helping organize the union," said Burns. "We didn't get the union in Alabama but I'm gonna do everything in my power to stand in solidarity. Organizing the union showed me just how many people were in the same situation I was. Not just in Alabama, but all over the world."

"Forty-seven percent of the voters are poor or low-wage. Getting that vote in is very important," she added. "We cannot settle for less, we've got to stand up for our rights. We are forward together—not one step back."

[ausetkmt]

“An Absolute Massacre” – The New Orleans Slaughter of July 30, 1866

Reconstruction Era National Historical Park

Political Cartoonist Thomas Nast drew this political cartoon, "The Massacre at New Orleans," criticizing President Andrew Johnson for his role in permitting the violence to unfold in New Orleans on July 30, 166

The Confederate military and government collapsed in the Spring and Summer of 1865, effectively ending the Civil War with the United States preserved and slavery destroyed. But the violence was far from over. White resistance to Black citizenship during Reconstruction often turned violent – as it did in New Orleans on July 30, 1866. During the war, President Abraham Lincoln had hoped that Louisiana, with a strong US military presence in Louisiana would serve as the model for readmitting states back to the United States. In 1864, the state ratified a new constitution that abolished slavery, but did not grant Black Louisianans the right to vote – something that President Lincoln began to consider as the war ended the next year.

In his last speech, delivered on April 11, 1865, Lincoln openly expressed his desire to enfranchise select freed people and emphasized that “…voters in the heretofore slave-state of Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the Union… held elections, organized a State government, adopted a free-state constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally to black and white, and empowering the Legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the colored man.

Their Legislature has already voted to ratify the constitutional (Thirteenth) amendment recently passed by Congress, abolishing slavery throughout the nation.”1 In the crowd was John Wilkes Booth. Incensed at the thought of Black citizenship and voting, Booth assassinated President Lincoln a few days later. The violence did not stop at Ford’s Theatre.

Harry T. Hays had served as a General in the Confederate Army. But in the Summer of 1866, he was the Sheriff of New Orleans, and deputized a posse of ex-Confederates to confront a citizen's convention in the city.

Gilder Lehrman Institute

This image from Harpers Weekly depicts Confederate veterans opening fire on the crowd in New Orleans. The placement of the US flag in the drawing served as a reminder to readers that some former Confederates had not yet accepted the outcome of the war.

Library of Congress

In a matter of approximately two hours, 34 African American supporters were killed, while the wounded numbered 119. Three of the delegates who had assembled in the Mechanics Institute were killed, while 17 were wounded, and approximately 200 others arrested. When the streets around the Mechanics Institute fell quiet, General Baird ordered martial law, which remained in effect into early August. On August 1, the Cleveland Daily Leader published sentiments that were shared by many other papers across the North: “Remember that this work was done by the constituted authorities of the city of New Orleans, rebels in record and in heart, but placed in power over loyal men by the policy of a renegade President. Remember that these scenes are but a prelude of what is to be… if Mr. Johnson’s policy shall be carried out.”5 Paired with news of the tragedy that occurred in Memphis months before, the New Orleans massacre contributed to major changes in Reconstruction policy. The 1866 elections saw to it that a Radical Republican majority ruled in both the House of Representatives and Senate, and ultimately contributed to the passing of the 14th and 15th Amendments. It could even be said that the violence which transpired on July 30, 1866, in a twist of irony, gave rise to several policies that would be enacted in following years, including Federal military presence in the South, temporary disenfranchisement of former Confederates, and for a population of more than four million freed people - the right to vote. 1 Lincoln, Abraham, and Scott Yenor. “Document 5: Last Public Address.” Reconstruction: Core Documents, Ashbrook Center, Ashland University, 2018, pp. 13–17. 2 O'Donovan, Susan, and Beverly Bond. “‘A History They Can Use’: The Memphis Massacre and Reconstruction's Public History Terrain.” The Journal of the Civil War Era, 10 Jan. 2018, www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2016/08/history-can-use-memphis-massacre-reconstructions-public-history-terrain/. 3Reynolds, Donald E. “The New Orleans Riot of 1866, Reconsidered.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, vol. 5, no. 1, 1964, pp. 5–27. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4230742. Accessed 30 July 2020. 4 The New-Orleans Riot. Its Official History. New York Tribune, 1866. 5 The Louisiana Convention. Cleveland Daily Leader, 1 August, 1866, p. 1. by Park Ranger Rich Condon, Reconstruction Era National Historical Park