#at Mexico Election Rally

[mworldnews]

At Least 9 Dead Child, at Mexico Election Rally

Maxico Election Rally Among than nine child dead. At least nine people, including a child, have tragically lost their lives, and about 50 others have been injured after a stage partially collapsed during an election rally in Mexico’s northern Nuevo León state. The local governor confirmed these figures, painting a grim picture of the incident’s impact. The collapse occurred as Jorge Alvarez…

[trendynewsnow]

Fear and Uncertainty Among NYC's Undocumented Immigrants After Trump's Election

Concerns Rise Among New York City’s Undocumented Immigrants Following Trump’s Election In the wake of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s recent victory, a wave of fear and uncertainty has swept over New York City’s more than 400,000 undocumented immigrants. Many are now grappling with the implications of one of his key campaign pledges: the implementation of a mass deportation program. City…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Tait at The Guardian:

Republicans are already laying the ground for rejecting the result of next week’s US presidential election in the event Donald Trump loses, with early lawsuits baselessly alleging fraud and polls from right-leaning groups that analysts say may be exaggerating his popularity and could be used by Trump to claim only cheating prevented him from returning to the White House.

The warnings – from Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans – come as Americans prepare to vote on Tuesday in the most consequential presidential contest in generations. Most polls show Trump running neck and neck with Kamala Harris, the vice-president and Democratic nominee, with the two candidates seemingly evenly matched in seven key swing states. But suspicions have been voiced over a spate of recent polls, mostly commissioned in battleground states from groups with Republican links, that mainly show Trump leading. The projection of surging Trump support as election day nears has drawn confident predictions from him and his supporters. “We’re leading big in the polls, all of the polls,” Trump told a rally in New Mexico on Thursday. “I can’t believe it’s a close race,” he told a separate rally in North Carolina, a swing state where polls show he and Harris are in a virtual dead heat.

An internal memo sent to Trump by his chief pollster is confirming that story to him, with Tony Fabrizio declaring the ex-president’s “position nationally and in every single battleground state is SIGNIFICANTLY better today than it was four years ago”. Pro-Trump influencers, too, have strengthened the impression of inevitable victory with social media posts citing anonymous White House officials predicting Harris’s defeat. “Biden is telling advisers the election is ‘dead and buried’ and called Harris an innate sucker,” the conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec posted this week. GOP-aligned polling groups have released 37 polls in the final stretch of the campaign, according to a study by the New York Times, during a period when longstanding pollsters have been curtailing their voter surveys. All but seven showed a lead for Trump, in contrast to the findings of long-established non-partisan pollsters, which have shown a more mixed picture – often with Harris leading, albeit within error margins.

[...] Trump, who falsely claims that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election, is also paving the way for repeating the accusation via legal means. He told a rally in Pennsylvania that Democrats were “cheating” in the state, and on Wednesday his campaign took legal action against election officials in Bucks County, where voters waiting to submit early mail-in ballots were turned away because the deadline had expired. A judge later ordered the county to extend early voting by one day. There is no evidence of widespread cheating in elections in Pennsylvania or any other state, and mail-in ballots are in high demand in part because Trump himself has encouraged early voting. Suing to allege – without evidence – that there has been voting fraud is part of a well-worn pattern of Trump disputing election results that do not go his way. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, his team filed 60 lawsuits disputing the results, all of which were forcefully thrown out in court. Anti-Trump Republicans have expressed similar concerns to Democrats about Trump’s actions. Michael Steele, a former Republican national committee chair and Trump critic, told the New Republic that the GOP-commissioned polls were gamed to favour Trump. “You find different ways to weight the participants, and that changes the results you’re going to get,” he said. “They’re gamed on the back end so Maga can make the claim that the election was stolen.”

[...] Trump-leaning surveys have influenced the polling averages published by sites such as Real Clear Politics, which has incorporated the results into its projected electoral map on election night, forecasting a win for the former president. Elon Musk, Trump’s wealthiest backer and surrogate, posted the map to his 202 million followers on his own X platform, proclaiming: “The trend will continue.” Trump and Musk have also promoted online betting platforms, which have bolstered the impression of a surge for the Republican candidate stemming from hefty bets on him winning. A small number of high-value wagers from four accounts linked to a French national appeared to be responsible for $28m gambled on a Trump victory on the Polymarket platform, the New York Times reported.

Republicans prepping to be sore losers by rejecting the results if Donald Trump loses.

[mariacallous]

Former President Donald Trump participated in a town-hall-style event with undecided Latino voters on Wednesday night, facing a series of tough questions as Americans have begun casting early ballots across the nation.

Ramiro Gonzalez, a Florida Republican, gave Trump a chance to “win back” his vote after he said he was disturbed by the former president’s actions on and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“I am a Republican,” Gonzalez, a construction worker, told Trump during the Univision event. “I want to give you the opportunity to try and win back my vote. Your action, and maybe inaction, during your presidency and the last few years sort of … was a little disturbing to me. What happened during Jan. 6 and the fact that you waited so long to take action while your supporters were attacking the Capitol.”

He went on to voice concerns that some in Trump’s orbit, namely his former vice president, Mike Pence, no longer supported him.

Trump rejected that any notable portion of his supporters had broken with him and then launched into a series of falsehoods surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection while claiming there was “nothing done wrong at all” and “nobody was killed.”

“You had hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn’t come because of me, they came because of the election,” Trump said, discounting his efforts to inflame his supporters after his loss to Joe Biden. “Some of those people went down to the Capitol — I said, ‘peacefully and patriotically.’ Nothing done wrong. At all. Nothing done wrong.”

The former president then criticized Democrats and said they “couldn’t get me,” as he’d done nothing wrong. Trump has, in fact, been indicted twice on felony charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

He said Wednesday night that he believed many people remained tremendously loyal to his presidential bid, including Latinos.

“Maybe we’ll get your vote,” he added to Gonzalez. “Sounds like maybe I won’t, but that’s OK, too.”

The encounter was just one of many tough questions from undecided voters, many of whom stood stone-faced as Trump relied on falsehoods and fear common at rallies he holds before much more vocal supporters. When one voter asked Trump why he ordered Republicans to tank a bipartisan border deal that would have helped shore up funding along the border with Mexico, he refused to answer and instead blamed Democrats for poor management of American cities.

Another person asked Trump if he truly believed the lies that were spread about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating neighbors’ pets.

“This was just reported. I was just saying what was reported,” Trump fired back. “And [they are] eating other things, too, that they’re not supposed to be.”

[11queensupreme11]

You don’t have to answer this question if you’re not comfortable, however I saw you discussing a bit about the election. Based on your response I figured you were anti-Trump. I will admit I am right leaning (not extremely but leaning) and I will agree that I am not pro-Trump. However I am also not pro-Kamala. I wanted to know your view on both candidates, pros and cons if you’re comfortable with that! For me I wasn’t able to vote this year but I will be able to vote next election (my birthday is after November 5th). But coming from a leaning republican here’s my pros and cons

Trump cons

-he’s very extreme in republican beliefs

-doesn’t support the LGBTQ (I am not apart of the community so I don’t know much on this controversy but I have heard from my friends in the community that he’s against it)

-very sensitive about his rally’s

-his multiple charges against him (though it can be noted that the time the charges came out was during a crucial time in his run for presidency so it could have been a plan to try and make him look bad, I’m not sure how many allegations actually were proven true or false)

-foreign involvement (he tends to get involved with other nations)

Trump pros

-very good at fixing the economy (when he was president it was one of the few time my family, a middle class family, actually was making excess money, we actually saved up enough to finally buy a home and my dad didn’t have to work 2 jobs and my mom worked night shifts to make ends meet. A lot more people got employed under his presidency)

-less foreign conflict (when Trump was president last time there was a lot less rumors of wars and wars going on since Trump was very firm with foreign involvement but we already are in some foreign conflict)

-immigration (I am Mexican, my mother was an illegal immigrant, but I do have to slightly agree that we need stricter boarder control. I’ve heard stories about the Cartels and them chasing people from Mexico and into the US and that’s terrifying)

Kamala cons

-controversy (Kamala has also had her share of controversy. She had ads about legalizing weed and showed mainly black people in the ad. Also she may be, I can’t confirm but I’ve heard it from others, that she is related to a past slave owners. Kamala was also voted in my the Democratic Party and not the people. Biden was the candidate that people wanted for the Democratic Party till he dropped out the. The Democratic Party put Kamala Harris as the new candidate. She had run against Biden to be the candidate before he dropped out and lost so she didn’t originally have the people’s support. Ect.)

-extremely left (I see being extremely left and extremely right as big problems)

-“middle class” (a lot of Kamala’s speeches were about helping the middle class yet in her actual speeches the middle class she described was the lower-upper class, not the true middle class)

-economic growth (currently under democratic leadership the economy hasn’t been good)

Kamala pros

-she’s very pro-environment and that’s a problem that has needed fixing for a while

-she isn’t against the LGBTQ

I’m curious to hear your response since it’s by hearing and talking to others without hate or prejudice that we can expand our own thinking and see things from new perspectives. I always wonder how media can manipulate perception so much, how two people can consume similar media from different sources but form 2 different opinions. I love your works and thanks for reading this!

Sincerely, me, a Mexican-Hawaiian girl

everything you put under trump's pros is completely false and further proof as to why misinformation is such a huge problem so lemme address your points one by one

"very good at fixing the economy"

firstly, when trump reigned it was under obama's economy. this is actually a pretty common thing for new presidents to inherit the economy of the previous administration (obama was president and had bush's economy, trump was president and had obama's economy, and etc.). their job is to either continue building that economy (if it was a good one) or rebuild it if it sucked.

when a president is elected, the economy doesn't just restart to zero and the new guy has to begin a new economy. no, they inherit it from the previous administration and they either inherit successes or deficits and they get to continue building it or destroying it

(the "president" being mentioned is trump btw)

source: here. other sources if you wanna check out: 1

and speaking of economy, here's what things are gonna look like once trump goes back into office with his stupid tariffs idea that people stupidly thought was a GOOD thing:

(also, i love how they CONVENIENTLY decided to publish this AFTER the elections...)

"less foreign conflict"

💀💀💀

idek HOW you got that info and i'm even more confused as to why you put "foreign involvement" in the cons above that, and yet switched up to say this.... but anyway there are SOOOO MANY sources from articles, interviews, videos, HIS OWN TWEETS, that clearly prove otherwise but here's a nice lil tiktok that managed to compile a good bunch of it:

"immigration"

this part killed me especially since you also mentioned that your mom wasn't here legally BUT i noticed that you said "was" as in past tense, so i'm hoping she somehow found a way to fix that

you want strict immigration control because you heard stories about the cartel chasing people here... but i don't see why you have an issue with that? the cartel is dangerous af, OF COURSE people would want to flee to protect themselves and their families? but you say you want stricter immigration and border control??? are you worried about the cartel coming here or are you saying you think the ones fleeing are dangerous?

kinda confused ^ but regardless, trump doesn't want "stricter" border control for the safety of the people, he just wants you all gone cuz he's racist af and so are his rabid worshippers 💀

also, did you forget he had kids in cages, forcefully separated from their families with no way to get back to them and had those kids FORCED TO GO TO COURT? (sources: 1, 2, 3, 4) or the time his insanely strict immigration restrictions caused the amount of drowning migrants to increase (source: 1)

he and his team are working their asses off to get started on their little denaturalization project (forcefully revoking US citizenship) 💀

from the loving words of michael davis, trump's chief legal defender:

"We're gonna deport a lot of people, 10 million people and growing - anchor babies [that's YOU anon, since you said your mom was an illegal immigrant], their parents, their grandparents. We're gonna put kids in cages. It's gonna be glorious."

ALSO!!!

for list of cons for trump you forgot to add:

has 34 felonies

is a rapist

incited an insurrection

shrugged off the possible lynching of his vice president (mike pence) during said insurrection

his abortion ban led to the preventable deaths of thousands of women and now that he's back, the numbers will increase

got impeached twice

got thousands killed because of how he didn't even bother to handle the COVID pandemic

also caused a lot of asian americans to be harmed because of his racist comments about them during said pandemic

caused haitian immigrants to be harmed because of his stupid "they're eating the cats! they're eating the dogs!" comments

he's a racist, a rapist, a misogynist, a sexist, a narcissist, a habitual liar, and has no idea on how to actually run a presidency

and many many more

since we're on the topic of misinformation, here's this:

this here shows how powerful misinformation is for the trump administration. a lot of the people who voted for him did it solely to be cruel yes, but there's also some people who just genuinely didn't do ANY research and foolishly voted against everyone's interests including their own

the people who believed the misinformation voted for trump, the people who knew the truth voted for kamala, and some of the misinformation is actually VERY similar to the things you just mentioned

"violent crime rates are at a near all-time highs in most major american cities" FALSE, but trump voters thought it was true

"inflation in the US has declined over the last year and is near historic averages" TRUE, but trump voters thought it was false (this says "last year", implying under biden's rule, so trump voters believe that inflation did not decline under biden's economy when it actually did)

"the US stock market is at or near all-time highs" TRUE, but trump voters thought it was false

"over the last few months, unauthorized border crossings at the US-Mexico border are at or near the lowest level in the last few years" TRUE, but trump voters believed it to be false.

[detroitpedxing]

(Archived News, Sept. 17. 2024) Second Apparent Assassination Attempt on Trump Prompts Alarm Abroad

There is widespread concern that the November election will not end well and that American democracy has frayed to the breaking point.

In the nine years since Donald J. Trump entered American politics, the global perception of the United States has been shaken by the image of a fractured, unpredictable nation. First one, then a second apparent attempt on the former president’s life have accentuated international concerns, raising fears of violent turmoil spiraling toward civil war.

Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, has said he is “very worried” and “deeply troubled” by what the F.B.I. said was an attempt to kill Mr. Trump at his Florida golf course, fewer than 50 days before the presidential election and two months after a bullet bloodied the ear of Mr. Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

“Violence has no part to play at all in any political process,” Mr. Starmer said.

Yet, violence has played a core part in this stormy, lurching American political campaign, and not only in the two apparent assassination attempts. There is now widespread concern across the globe that the November election will not end well and that American democracy, once a beacon to the world, has frayed to the breaking point.

In Mexico, where elections this year were the most violent in the country’s recent history, with 41 candidates and aspirants for public office assassinated, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “Even though what happened is still unclear, we regret the violence against former President Donald Trump. The path is democracy and peace.”

At a time of wars in Europe and the Middle East and widespread global insecurity as China and Russia assert the superiority of their autocratic models, American precariousness weighs heavily.

Corentin Sellin, a French history professor, said the “brutalization of American politics” had left France “wondering whether the presidential campaign will finish peacefully.”

France was stunned, he said, by the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, and “there is this notion that the story that started with that insurrection has not yet ended,” and that the Nov. 5 election will determine how it does.

The threat of violence — at times, even the need for it — has been a core part of Mr. Trump’s message.

He has already cast doubt on the credibility of the coming November election results. He has persistently laced his language with calls to “fight” and used incendiary terms to insult immigrants. Just before the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, he urged followers to “fight like hell” or they would not “have a country any more.” In general, he has shown an ironclad incapacity to accept many truths, including the result of the 2020 election.

Democrats have responded by depicting Mr. Trump as a direct menace to American democracy, a “weird” would-be autocrat of fascist tendencies and a “threat to our freedoms,” in the words of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. The left-leaning New Republic magazine portrayed Mr. Trump as Hitler on a recent cover, expressing the view that a second Trump term is likely to lead to some form of American tyranny.

Some Europeans see things in a very different light.

“They tried to do everything,” said Andrea Di Giuseppe, a lawmaker with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party. “They tried to bring Trump down with trials, they tried to bring him down with insinuations, they tried to bring him down by scaring people that ‘if Trump arrives democracy ends.’ Then, since all these attempts did not work, they tried to kill him.”

The authorities have identified a suspect in the Florida episode, Ryan W. Routh, a 58-year-old building contractor with a criminal history and a passionate embrace of the Ukrainian cause. He was charged in federal court with two firearms counts. More charges may follow.

Responding to the apparent assassination attempt, Carsten Luther, an online editor for international affairs, gave voice to deep concerns about the survival of American democracy in the respected German weekly Die Zeit. “The warnings of a civil war can be heard and no longer sound completely unrealistic,” he wrote. “It seems almost banal, as if it was bound to happen at some point.”

Of course, other Western societies, including France and Germany, are also viscerally divided and have seen the rise of xenophobic, far-right parties with many of the same messages as Mr. Trump. In May, an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia left him critically injured.

But a far more restrictive European gun culture has curbed the extent of political violence while leaving Europeans alarmed and incredulous at the ease with which Americans are able to obtain weapons.

Félix Maradiaga, a former Nicaraguan presidential candidate and political prisoner who is now a fellow at the University of Virginia, said that polarization, intolerance and the widespread availability of high-caliber weapons in the United States had led to a “perfect storm.”

“The world is watching, and the stakes could not be higher,” he added. “Russia and China are undoubtedly taking satisfaction in this deterioration of democracy.”

Lebohang Pheko, a senior research fellow at South Africa’s Trade Collective, an economics research institute, said that she perceived “a militarization of everyday life in the United States, and this essentially seems to be spilling into these elections.”

Mr. Trump has often appeared to seek this very militarization of which he has narrowly escaped being a victim. The multimillionaire son of a real-estate developer from Queens, he has positioned himself as the defender of the gun-toting, God-fearing American frontier against what he portrays as the Democrats’ politically correct socialist takeover.

Alluding to his Democratic opponents, he has blamed “the things that they say about me” for the first assassination attempt and the second episode, not the easy access to guns that he defends.

The question now is how violent will this political confrontation in America prove. For many around the world, it seems to contain the seeds of rampant conflict.

“There is a sort of reciprocal delegitimization, where the political opponent is no longer a normal political competitor, but also an existential enemy,” said Mario Del Pero, a professor of United States and International History at Sciences Po University in Paris. He called this process “a degradation of political and public discourse.”

In the United States, this has been a degradation compounded by guns, as much of the world sees it.

“Style over substance. Image over issues. Lies over facts. Distractions over policy. Repeated violence,” said Tomasz Płudowski, the deputy dean of the School of Social Science, AEH, in Warsaw. “That seems to be the contemporary American reality.”

The core confrontation in Western societies is no longer over internal issues. It is global vs. national, the connected living in the “somewhere” of the knowledge economy vs. the forgotten living “nowhere” in industrial wastelands and rural areas.

There lies the frustration, even fury, on which a Trump or a Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right French National Rally, or Ms. Meloni in Italy have been able to build.

The perceived vulnerability of American democracy has already provoked many reactions around the world, from Russian gloating and interference to European anxiety about its security. Few countries in the developing world want American lessons in how to run their societies these days.

Yet, a fascination with the United States endures, and the checks and balances of its institutions have proved resilient, including through the first Trump term.

Mr. Trump often cites the template of Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary: neutralizing an independent judiciary, subjugating much of the media, demonizing migrants and creating loyal new elites through crony capitalism. But it would not be easy to impose in America.

Still, the world is anxious. The 48 days to the election feel like a long time.

“In the end, the only real final word is for the American people,” said Mr. Di Giuseppe, the Italian lawmaker. “And if you want to defeat a person whom you think is not fit to govern the United States of America, you have to defeat him in a democratic system with elections, not with justice or Kalashnikovs.”

[black-fist-order]

Just be honest about why you support Trump.

It's not inflation, since inflation would soar under him.

If it's immigration, a mass deportation would collapse the economy.

Again, be honest. You know what he is. You know he's only running to stay out of prison. You know he plans to fight a fair election. You know he incited an insurrection in an effort to claim an election that he knew he lost. You know he and Epstein were best friends. You know he outsourced coding for Truth Social to Mexico. You know he had his Bibles printed in China. You saw his rally in Madison Square Garden, full of hate, racism, misogyny and foul language.

I understand it's hard to be honest about something that puts your moral character into question, but if you're supporting the guy, you really have no choice...

[skellybonesandtrees]

As Donald Trump recovers from an assassination attempt and Republicans head to Milwaukee for his coronation this week, the GOP elite has rallied around a new messaging strategy: emotionally blackmailing Democratic politicians, journalists, Hollywood celebs, and numerous other Trump critics into shutting up about the former president’s openly authoritarian vows and his extreme policy agenda.

Since the deadly shooting at a Pennsylvania rally Saturday, prominent conservatives have been working to blame the incident on Trump’s enemies for labeling him a “fascist” and for fanning heated “rhetoric” that, in their telling, caused the would-be assassin to shoot at the former and perhaps future American president. “When the message goes out constantly that the election of Donald Trump would be a threat to democracy and that the Republic would end, it heats up the environment,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Sunday, adding: “It’s simply not true. Everyone needs to turn the rhetoric down.”

Two of the finalists on Trump’s vice presidential shortlist quickly blamed the assassination attempt on talk about his authoritarian plans. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) wrote Saturday night. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said the attack on Trump was “aided and abetted by the radical Left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse.”

Top Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday he had been “worried about this for a very, very long time,” adding: “You know, if he wins, democracy is not going to end. He’s not a fascist. He represents a point of view that millions share. The rhetoric is way too hot.”

These messages are all part of a deliberate strategy. Within the first three hours following the failed assassination of the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee, three sources close to Trump were already feverishly detailing to Rolling Stone how Republicans could use the shooting to their political advantage — whether for potentially mammoth fundraising, propaganda about Trump being “tough” and a “fighter,” or attacks on Democrats as belonging to the actually violent party every time they bring up things like the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot that Trump instigated.

Such plans were hatched hours before it became public that the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was a registered Republican; his motive has continued to elude law enforcement and even his own neighbors. The lack of clarity has done little to deter MAGA and conservative leaders from scapegoating their preferred enemies list. 

The attempt on Trump’s life does nothing to change the reality that he is — in fact — running on an openly authoritarian platform. Trump and his closest allies are pledging to punish President Joe Biden and other top Democrats and jail his political opponents; unleash the National Guard and active-duty troops on Democratic-controlled cities whenever he wishes; end the Justice Department’s independence so he can use it to crush his foes, shut down his criminal cases, and erase any hope of accountability for his alleged crimes; retaliate against media outlets that cover him negatively; deport pro-Palestine protesters; oversee an unprecedented crackdown on immigrants, potentially erecting a vast network of camps on U.S. soil; further institutionalize his anti-democratic lies and conspiracy theories that led directly to the Jan. 6 attack; and even invade and bomb Mexico if he feels like it.

Trump has quite literally pledged to be a dictator on “day one.” He later reiterated that he intends “to be a dictator for one day” — arguing such power would be necessary to erect a border wall and “drill, drill, drill.” On the campaign trail, the former president has evoked the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler, accusing immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country.”

Saturday’s assassination attempt also does not change the fact that Trump has repeatedly and very publicly endorsed political violence over the years. Trump is calling now for “peace” and “unity,” but he has a lengthy track record of downplaying or excusing the harm done to the victims of pro-Trump violence — to the point that late last year he was onstage mocking House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s husband after he was brutally attacked by a Trump-supporting conspiracy theorist wielding a hammer.

Trump has frequently promised to pardon the pro-Trump rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. He recently shared a meme demanding a televised military tribunal for former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee.

And though Trump allies are chastising Democrats today for calling Trump a fascist or an authoritarian and claiming that such rhetoric causes violence, Trump has routinely called liberals and his enemies “fascists,” going as far as to trash them as “thugs” and “vermin within the confines of our country” at his 2024 campaign rallies.

Trump has campaigned as a populist strongman — that didn’t change overnight.

Link

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 3, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 04, 2024

The election of 2000 was back in the news this week, when Nate Cohn of the New York Times reminded readers of his newsletter, using a map by data strategist and consultant Matthew C. Isbell, that the unusual butterfly ballot design in Palm Beach County that year siphoned off at least 2,000 votes intended for Democratic candidate Al Gore to far-right candidate Pat Buchanan. 

Those 2,000 votes were enough to decide the election, “all things being equal,” Cohn wrote. But of course, they weren’t equal: in 1998 a purge of the Florida voter rolls had disproportionately disenfranchised Black voters, making them ten times more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected.

That ballot and that purge gave Republican candidate George W. Bush the electoral votes from Florida, putting him into the White House although he had lost the popular vote by more than half a million votes.

Revisiting the 2000 election reminds us that manipulating the vote through voter suppression or the mechanics of an election in even small ways can undermine the will of the people.  

A poll out today from the Associated Press/NORC showed that the vast majority of Americans agree about the importance of the fundamental principles of our democracy. Ninety-eight percent of Americans think the right to vote is extremely important, very important, or somewhat important. Only 2% think it is “not too important.” The split was similar with regard to “the right of everyone to equal protection under the law”: 98% of those polled thought it was extremely, very, or somewhat important, while only 2% thought it was not too important. 

Recent election results suggest that voters don’t support the extremism of the current Republican Party. In local elections in the St. Louis, Missouri, area on Tuesday, voters rejected all 13 right-wing candidates for school boards, and in Enid, Oklahoma, voters recalled a city council member who participated in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and had ties to white supremacist groups. 

Seemingly aware of the growing backlash to their policies, MAGA Republicans are backing away from them, at least in public. Earlier this year, Florida governor Ron DeSantis called for making it harder to ban books after a few activists systematically challenged dozens of books in districts where they had no children in the schools—although he blamed teachers, administrators, and “the news media” for creating a “hoax.” 

Today, lawyers for the state of Texas told a federal appeals court that state legislators might have gone “too far” with their immigration law that made it a state crime to enter Texas illegally and allowed state judges to order immigrants to be deported. (Mexico had flatly refused to accept deported immigrants from other countries under this new law.) Nonetheless, Arizona legislators have passed a similar bill—that Democratic governor Katie Hobbs refuses to sign into law—and are considering another measure that would allow landowners to threaten or shoot people who cross their property to get into the U.S.

Indeed, the extremists who have taken over the Republican Party seem less inclined to moderate their stances than either to pollute popular opinion or to prevent their opponents from voting. 

While Trump is hedging about his stance on abortion—after bragging repeatedly that he was the person responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade—MAGA Republicans have made their unpopular abortion stance even stronger. 

Emily Cochrane of the New York Times reported today that the hospital at the center of the decision by the Alabama state supreme court that embryos used for in vitro fertilization have the same rights and protections as children has ended its IVF services. And on Monday, Florida’s supreme court, which Florida governor Ron DeSantis packed with extremists, upheld a ban on abortion after 15 weeks and allowed a new six-week abortion ban—before most women know they’re pregnant—to go into effect in 30 days. 

In the past, people seeking abortions had gravitated to Florida because its constitution upheld the right to privacy, which protected abortion. But now the Florida Supreme Court has decided the constitution does not protect the right to abortion. Caroline Kitchener explained in the Washington Post that in the past, more than 80,000 women a year accessed abortion services in Florida. This ban will make it nearly impossible to get an abortion in the American South. 

Anya Cook, who in 2022 nearly died after she was denied an abortion under Florida’s 15-week ban, gave Kitchener a message for Florida women experiencing pregnancy complications: “Run,” she said. “Run, because you have no help here.”

Extremist Republicans have managed to put their policies into place not by winning a majority and passing laws through Congress, but by creating cases that they then take to sympathetic judges. This system, known as “judge shopping,” has so perverted lawmaking that on March 12 the Judicial Conference, the body that makes policy for federal courts, announced a new rule that any lawsuit seeking to overturn statewide or national policies would be randomly assigned among a larger pool of judges. 

On March 29, the chief judge of the Northern District of Texas, where many such cases are filed, told Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that he would not adhere to the new rules. 

Rather than moderating their stances, extremist Republicans are doubling down on their attempt to create dirt on the president. With their impeachment effort against President Joe Biden in embarrassing ruins, House Republicans are casting around for another issue to hurt the Democrats before the 2024 election. 

Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico reported today that in the last month, House Republican Committee chairs have sent almost 50 oversight requests to a variety of departments and agencies. Haberkorn noted that there is “significant political pressure on the party to produce results after months of promising it would uncover evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors involving Biden.”

But it is Trump, not Biden, who is in the news for questionable behavior. In The Guardian today, Hugo Lowell reported that Trump’s social media company was kept afloat in 2022 “by emergency loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation.”

There is more trouble for the social media company in the news today, as two of its investors pleaded guilty to being part of an insider-trading scheme involving the company’s stock. They admitted they had secret, inside information about the merger between Trump Media and Digital World Acquisition Corporation and had used that insider information to make profitable trades. 

Meanwhile, Trump is suing Truth Social’s founders to force them out of leadership and make them give up their shares in the company. His is a countersuit to their lawsuit accusing him of trying to dilute the company’s stock. 

Of more immediate concern for Trump, Judge Juan Merchan denied yet another attempt by Trump—his eighth, according to prosecutors—to delay his election interference trial. The trial is scheduled to begin April 15.

Finally, in an illustration of extremists aiming not to moderate their stances but to impose the will of the minority on the majority, Republicans are putting in place rules to make it easier for individuals to challenge voters, removing them from the voter rolls before the 2024 election.

Marc Elias of Democracy Docket noted today that states and local governments have regular programs to keep voter registration accurate, while right-wing activists are operating on a different agenda. In one 70,000-person town in Michigan, a single activist challenged more than a thousand voters, Elias reported, and in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, right-wing activists have already challenged 16,000 voters and intend to challenge another 10,000.

One group boasted that their system “can and will change elections in America forever.” 

Rather like the election of 2000.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[darkmaga-returns]

At a campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina, former President Donald Trump announced his plan to address what he called a failure of Mexico to curb the flow of migrants and drugs into the United States.

Trump proposed a significant 25% tariff on all goods imported from Mexico if the country does not take decisive action to halt the influx.

“I’m going to inform her [Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum] on day one, or sooner, that if they don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I’m going to immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything they send in to the United States of America,” Trump said during the rally.

The rally was Trump’s final North Carolina stop before Election Day and part of a last push through key battleground states.

“You’re the first ones I’ve told that to. Congratulations, North Carolina,” he added. “And it’s only got a 100% chance of working, because if that doesn’t work I’ll make it 50, and if that does work I’ll make it 75 for the tough guys, then I’ll make it 100.”

The proposed tariff marks a bold escalation in Trump’s stance on border policy, tying trade penalties directly to immigration and drug enforcement cooperation with Mexico.

“I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil. And if they come back into our country, it’s an automatic 10 years in jail with no possibility of parole,” he said. “And I’m hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer. And I will immediately ban all sanctuary cities.”

The former president’s comments reflect his campaign’s commitment to tightening immigration policy and addressing issues impacting border security.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Myah Ward at Politico:

Donald Trump vowed to “rescue” the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, from the rapists, “blood thirsty criminals,” and “most violent people on earth” he insists are ruining the “fabric” of the country and its culture: immigrants. Trump’s message in Aurora, a city that has become a central part of his campaign speeches in the final stretch to Election Day, marks another example of how the former president has escalated his xenophobic and racist rhetoric against migrants and minority groups he says are genetically predisposed to commit crimes. The supposed threat migrants pose is the core part of the former president’s closing argument, as he promises his base that he’s the one who can save the country from a group of people he calls “animals,” “stone cold killers,” the “worst people,” and the “enemy from within.” He is no longer just talking about keeping immigrants out of the country, building a wall and banning Muslims from entering the United States. Trump now warns that migrants have already invaded, destroying the country from inside its borders, which he uses as a means to justify a second-term policy agenda that includes building massive detention camps and conducting mass deportations.

In his lengthy speech Friday, Trump delivered a broadside against the thousands of Venezuelan migrants in Aurora. And he declared that he would use the Alien Enemies Act, which allows a president to authorize rounding up or removing people who are from enemy countries in times of war, to pursue migrant gangs and criminal networks. “Kamala [Harris] has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world … from prisons and jails and insane asylums and mental institutions, and she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens,” he said.

His rhetoric has veered more than ever into conspiracy theories and rumors, like when he amplified false claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating pets. And Trump has demonized minority groups and used increasingly dark, graphic imagery to talk about migrants in every one of his speeches since the Sept. 10 presidential debate, according to a POLITICO review of more than 20 campaign events. It’s a stark escalation over the last month of what some experts in political rhetoric, fascism, and immigration say is a strong echo of authoritarians and Nazi ideology. “He’s been taking Americans and his followers on a journey since really 2015 conditioning them … step by step instilling hatred in a group, and then escalating,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University who writes about authoritarianism and fascism and has been outspoken about the dangers of a second Trump administration.

“So immigrants are crime. Immigrants are anarchy. They’re taking their jobs, but now they’re also animals who are going to kill us or eat our pets or eat us,” she continued. “That’s how you get people to feel that whatever is done to them, as in mass deportation, rounding them up, putting them in camps, is OK.” The Trump campaign said while the “media obsesses over rhetoric,” the former president is responding to voters’ concerns. [...]

Trump has long deployed racist attacks for political gain, including spreading conspiracy theories about whether former President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, was born in the United States. And when he launched his first campaign in 2015, Trump said Mexico was “not sending its best,” calling immigrants from the country “rapists” who are bringing in crime and drugs. He also promised that day to build a “great big wall.”

But times have changed, and so has he. The country has moved to the right on immigration — including the Democratic Party and Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants. Trump repeatedly bashed Harris as “dumb,” questioned her racial identity and has called her a “DEI” candidate — perpetuating the idea that women and people of color can only be in positions of power because of quotas and preferential treatment. Harris has touted her record prosecuting transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers and has promised strict enforcement at the Southern border — an effort to appease Americans’ concern about illegal migration. The vice president has vowed to go even further than the Biden administration’s crackdown on asylum. As the political conversation around immigration has shifted, Trump has not only intensified his rhetoric, but his policy plans.

He has increasingly targeted specific communities, including Springfield, Ohio, Charleroi, Pennsylvania and Aurora, arguing that immigrants are destroying American towns and cities across the country and using those examples to call for large-scale federal response. Trump has spent the last month on the trail elevating the claims about those communities — even as local officials have been denying these allegations and asking the Republican nominee to stand down. Trump on Friday used false stories about gang takeovers in Aurora as he announced he would remove migrants connected to gangs under an “Operation Aurora” based on presidential wartime powers under the Alien Enemies Act. (While police in Aurora have encountered some gang activity tied to a Venezuelan group, there has been no gang takeover in Colorado.)

Politico takes a look at how Donald Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant hatred-fueled messaging has gotten more dark, authoritarian, and apocalyptic in tone.

[mariacallous]

Though the Take Our Border Back convoy has largely been a mess so far as the small group makes its way toward the Texas-Mexico border, experts warn that it has acted as a lightning rod for militias, far-right extremists, and even long-dormant vigilante groups. It could reach a tipping point this weekend, as multiple rallies are planned against immigrants and the Biden administration along the border in Texas, as well as Arizona and California.

“Data we collected tells us emphatically that the standoff between Texas and the federal government has become a magnet for far-right vigilantism,” said Devin Burghart, the executive director at the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, during a press briefing on Thursday organized by the immigration reform group America’s Voice. “From the convoy steering committee on down, the protest comprises many of the same dangerous elements as the January 6 insurrection: militia members, election deniers, QAnon conspiracists, Covid deniers, and other hardcore far-righters.”

Those groups include the Proud Boys, neo-Nazi militias, and other vigilante groups. Last week, the Republic of Texas Proud Boys shared a post in its Telegram channel calling immigrants “brown immigrant invaders,” and the South Texas Proud Boys told followers to “grab your guns.” Meanwhile, the neo-Nazi Aryan Network issued a rallying cry in support of the Texas ‘resistance,’ asking for white men to join. In another post, the group added, “to hell with the United States of America.”

“The convoy itself has really inspired some of these more fringe, really extreme sects of the far right to engage in operations down in border states,” said Freddy Cruz, the program manager for monitoring and training at Western States Center, during the briefing. “Discussions around the convoy and just the convoy itself really animate extreme anti-democracy groups to go down to the border.”

The convoy had an inauspicious start; just 19 vehicles set out from Virginia on Monday, and within minutes some were lost. There has been paranoia and infighting within the small group, and a convicted pedophile showed up. But on Thursday night, when the convoy organizers held a rally at the One Shot Distillery and Brewery, owned by former US Army colonel Phil Waldron, who was a key figure in proposing plans that ultimately led to the January 6 insurrection, a different picture emerged.

Hundreds of people gathered at the event, which featured far-right speakers that included Chrisitan nationalist pastors calling for “drawing a blood line around Texas, around America.” Convicted January 6 insurrectionists threatened another insurrection. There were Covid deniers, Pizzagate adherents, and sovereign citizens. Former conservative news presenter turned conspiracy booster Lara Logan was also onstage, talking in graphic detail about child trafficking and the dark web. Michael Yon, one of the convoy promoters, screamed and ranted at the audience about how Jewish people were funding an NGO that works along the Texas border. He also claimed that Hamas and Hezbollah are coming across the border: “Allahu akbar, when you hear that shit, you better get ready, your thumb better be hitting that safety.”

Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and the late senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign running mate, introduced musician Ted Nugent, who called President Biden a “piece of shit.”

Elected officials were also present: Republican Texas state representative Carrie Isaac repeated the conspiracy about “terrorists at the border.” She was introduced onstage by Chris Burr, a board member of the Texas GOP.

Though tensions surrounding immigration have been simmering for a while, the most recent crisis was sparked earlier this month when the US Supreme Court lifted an order by a lower court and sided with the Biden administration to rule that Border Patrol agents could remove razor wire installed by the Texas National Guard and state troopers. Rather than stand down, Texas governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, replied in a letter that Texas has the right to “defend and protect” itself against an “invasion” of migrants, adding that this “is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.”

The vast majority of the GOP has backed Abbott, including more than two dozen Republican governors, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and former president Donald Trump, who called for National Guard troops from other states to be sent to Texas.

The rhetoric from the right has continued to ratchet up. “This is an invasion from third-world countries,”Texas’ lieutenant governor Dan Patrick told Fox News. “They're coming here with health issues, they're uneducated, unemployed, and all they do is commit crime on the streets.”

Since the standoff began, there has been “an online explosion of invasion and great replacement rhetoric, the idea that white people are somehow being displaced intentionally with immigrants,” said Heidi Beirich, cofounder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “We've seen white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups all taking advantage of the standoff to push their propaganda and recruit new members.”

On Friday, the convoy will reportedly conclude in Quemado, Texas, and the Cornerstone Children’s Ranch, a humanitarian charity which provides food and support for low-income families in the US and across the border in Mexico. “The people that are coming here are doing a religious prayer for the border,” Lori Mercer, the director of the organization tells WIRED, adding: “We have to be peacemakers.”

The location was picked by Pete Chambers, one of the people organizing the convoy, who claims to be a former Green Beret. Last week, Chambers spoke with school-shooting conspiracist Alex Jones about how the convoy planned to travel to the border to hunt migrants in collaboration with sympathetic law enforcement. Other convoy organizers have said that the effort is “peaceful” and that they are not going to the border. But comments made by members of the group on livestreams, online videos, and in Telegram channels indicate that not everyone feels that way.

“We will engage decisively, and if it gets worse, in the infantry we call it ‘fix bayonets,’” Chambers told a pastor in one online video this week, adding: “That’s war, we don’t want to go there, but that’s where we’re at right now.”

On Saturday, the group will take part in a trio of rallies along the border: in San Ysidro, California; Yuma, Arizona; and Eagle Pass, Texas, the epicenter of the current standoff between Abbott and the Biden administration.

“They've discussed calling out militias or posses and needing to ‘show force,’” said Burghart. “One organizer, who is also a militia leader, even threatened, ‘We'll do whatever we got to do to put a stop to it.’ Leading border-conflict figures have also stated that their convoy is meant to pick up where January 6 left off. Moreover, they've amplified the specter of kicking off a second civil war.”

While it’s unclear what is going to happen over the weekend, there are already signs that the convoy and the standoff generally are activating long-dormant vigilante groups.

“Earlier this week, we did see vigilante group Women Fighting for America in Arizona livestreaming the group's expedition to try and track down a migrant camp in Arivaca, Arizona,” Cruz said. “Women Fighting for America have previously been on the border, but they took a two-year hiatus, and all of a sudden they're back on the border because the media is covering the convoy.”

In a video posted in the group’s Telegram channel, Christine Hutcherson, Women Fighting for America’s founder, is seen wearing night-vision goggles, talking about a camp run by a Catholic charity set in a remote part of the Arizona border region. “I’ve been here before a couple of years ago. They are housing migrants, illegals, mostly single adult males of fighting age. And we’re getting ready to go into this camp right now,” she alleged.

Experts are concerned about the impact of this kind of extremist rhetoric long term. “It’s important to keep an eye on how these types of efforts are successful in mainstreaming fringe far-right ideas and far-right groups into a much larger context,” said Burghart.

[learnwithmearticles]

Border Bills, Presidential Race

Kamala Harris is now the Democratic nominee for the 2024 election. Part of her campaign has included leaning into some moderate policies, such as less opposition to fracking and her recent statements about the border.

Harris has stated that she will be harder about the border than Donald Trump, the Republican opponent. At a rally in Georgia, she said she “will bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump killed”.

That Border Bill

Considered bipartisan, the bill Harris referred to was negotiated by Republicans with Democrats, then killed by Republicans after Trump urged them to do so.

By popular account, Trump wanted the bill to tank in order to force reliance on him to handle the ‘crisis’. If he can keep action from happening during the Biden-Harris term, voters might feel forced to vote for him if immigration is one of their concerns.

The proposed bill would provide significant additional funds for surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico border. It aims to increase search and seizure activity from Border Agents. That in itself is violating to individuals, as no warrant or probable cause is necessary for those searches. This allows agents far too much free reign to act as they please towards people regardless of their ‘potential danger’. Numerous videos online document the abuse people face from this.

The bill also calls for expanding the ability to detain people at the border, including funds for expanding custodial detention capacity. Following Trump’s 2016 election, we saw hordes of news about families separated, along with children and parents kept in cages, malnourished, and treated horribly. At least 37,000 people are currently in detention by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). At least 59.5% of those people have no criminal record.

The bill that Harris is announcing support for would worsen border conditions and facilitate Border Agents in keeping even more people wrongfully imprisoned.

Is there any good reason she’s doing this? Is there reason to worry about the border? What does it mean about her if there isn’t?

Immigration and Crime

No, simply. There is no strong evidence that immigration directly causes more crime.

A big concern in this area is drug trafficking. The Department of Homeland Security itself states that most fentanyl stopped at the border is being moved by U.S. citizens.

Additionally, Trump frequently refers to an “immigrant crime wave”. Statistics from places like New York disagree with that concept. While the immigrant population has increased in the city since 2022, the crime rate has overall remained steady, and even decreased for certain violent crimes like rape, murder, and shootings.

Another study found that, in the past 150 years, immigrants have been less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born citizens - 60% less, currently.

Evidence does not support the necessity of stricter border policies - especially ones that will only increase abuse towards those seeking asylum and do nothing to facilitate people becoming documented and successful working citizens.

As stated, Trump caused the bill to fail allegedly because it would force voters to vote for him if they want stricter border policies. Harris supporting such a bill completely weakens that attempt from Trump, making her a viable option for people concerned about immigration.

Again, as discussed, people do not need to be concerned about the border, but too many people still are. Considering the minds of voters, this switch from Harris to a non-progressive stance could be advantageous for her campaign.

(Of course, this is then hoping that she will not follow through, because such a law is unnecessary and harmful to people)

Additional Resources

1. Harris supporting border bill

2. Trump tanking the bill

3. The Bill

4. 90% of fentanyl from U.S. citizens

5. Detainee Statistics

6. Immigration and (Lack of) Crime

7. Incarceration Rates

[newstfionline]

Sunday, June 2, 2024

UN refugee chief says 114 million have fled homes because nations fail to tackle causes of conflict (AP) The number of people fleeing their homes because of war, violence and persecution has reached 114 million and is climbing because nations have failed to tackle the causes and combatants are refusing to comply with international law, the U.N. refugee chief said Thursday. In a hard-hitting speech, Filippo Grandi criticized the U.N. Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, for failing to use its voice to try to resolve conflicts from Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan to Congo, Myanmar and many other places. He also accused unnamed countries of making “short-sighted foreign policy decisions, often founded on double standards, with lip service paid to compliance with the law, but little muscle flexed from the council to actually uphold it and—with it—peace and security.” Grandi said non-compliance with international humanitarian law means that “parties to conflicts—increasingly everywhere, almost all of them—have stopped respecting the laws of war,” though some pretend to do so.

After Trump’s Conviction, a Wary World Waits for the Fallout (NYT) The world does not vote in American presidential elections. Nor do its jurors play a part in the American judicial system. Nevertheless, the conviction of Donald J. Trump on all 34 felony counts in a hush-money trial in a New York court on Thursday has again made clear how consequential what happens in the United States is for the rest of the planet. Many America-watchers are grappling with the same questions posed by people in the United States: Can Mr. Trump still run for president? (Yes.) And if so, will the guilty verdicts cut into the support from his political base? (Unclear.) Foreign observers also began wondering if Mr. Trump, already a volatile force, would become even less likely to stay within the guardrails of normal politics and diplomacy if he won the presidency again in November.

Mexican candidate assassinations hit grim record ahead of Sunday’s election (Reuters) Mexico’s election is now the bloodiest in its modern history after a candidate running for local office in central Puebla state was murdered on Friday at a political rally, taking the number of assassinated candidates to 37 ahead of Sunday’s vote. Jorge Huerta Cabrera, a candidate who was running for a council seat in the town of Izucar de Matamoros, was gunned down in the attack, according to the state prosecutor’s office. The killing takes the number of assassinated candidates in the 2024 election season to 37, one more than during the 2021 midterm election.

Panama prepares to evacuate first island in face of rising sea levels (AP) On a tiny island off Panama’s Caribbean coast, about 300 families are packing their belongings in preparation for a dramatic change. Generations of Gunas who have grown up on Gardi Sugdub in a life dedicated to the sea and tourism will trade that next week for the mainland’s solid ground. The Gunas of Gardi Sugdub are the first of 63 communities along Panama’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts that government officials and scientists expect to be forced to relocate by rising sea levels in the coming decades. Gardi Sugdub is only about 400 yards (366 meters) long and 150 yards (137 meters) wide. Every year, especially when the strong winds whip up the sea in November and December, water fills the streets and enters the homes. The Gunas have tried to reinforce the island’s edge with rocks, pilings and coral, but seawater keeps coming. Residents will move to the new site on the mainland that the government developed at a cost of $12 million. The concrete houses sit on a grid of paved streets carved out of the lush tropical jungle just over a mile from the port, where an eight-minute boat ride carries them to Gardi Sugdub.

Cuba laments collapse of iconic sugar industry (BBC) Cutting cane is all Miguel Guzmán has ever known. He comes from a family of farm hands and started the tough, thankless work as a teenager. For hundreds of years, sugar was the mainstay of the Cuban economy. It was not just the island’s main export but also the cornerstone of another national industry, rum. Older Cubans remember when the island was essentially built on the backs of families like Mr Guzmán’s. Today, though, he readily admits he has never seen the sugar industry as broken and depressed as it is now—not even when the Soviet Union’s lucrative sugar quotas dried up after the Cold War. Spiralling inflation, shortages of basic goods and the decades-long US economic embargo have made for a dire economic outlook across the board in Cuba. But things are particularly bleak in the sugar trade. Last season, Cuba’s production fell to just 350,000 tonnes of raw sugar, an all-time low for the country, and well below the 1.3 million tonnes recorded in 2019. “It’s a disaster. Today the sugar industry in Cuba almost doesn’t exist,” says Juan Triana of the Centre for Studies of the Cuban Economy in Havana. “We’re producing the same quantity of sugar Cuba produced in the middle of the 19th Century.”

NATO ministers meet in Prague as allies ease restrictions on Ukraine’s use of their weapons (AP) NATO foreign ministers were meeting in the Czech capital Friday to prepare for this summer’s leaders’ summit as the alliance boosts support for Ukraine and countries one-by-one remove restrictions on how Kyiv can use western-supplied weaponry to combat Russia’s invasion. A day after U.S. President Joe Biden gave Ukraine the go-ahead to use American munitions to strike inside Russia for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, numerous ministers, including those from the Netherlands, Finland, Poland and Germany, expressed approval of the decision, saying that Ukraine has the absolute right to defend itself from attacks originating on Russian soil.

The Kremlin is all-in on war in Ukraine (CSM) Amid its grinding war of attrition and economic mobilization against Ukraine, Russia is changing fast. As the Defense Ministry spends ever-increasing amounts of money to procure the equipment it needs and to recruit more soldiers, the country’s business environment and economic geography are being reshaped. And the military-industrial complex, which was vastly downsized in post-Soviet years, is reviving quickly. Confounding observers in many ways, Russia’s war economy, despite Western sanctions, is now back at a level that outproduces the entire West in some key military goods. And the Kremlin appears to be committed to a war economy approach for the long haul, as suggested by the recent reshuffling of Defense Ministry leadership. Whether such an economic policy is viable is in debate. Optimists say the rapid economic development is economically positive on balance, or at least that Russia can sustain high levels of military spending for the foreseeable future. Pessimists argue that the Kremlin is building a permanent war economy, much like the one that strangled the Soviet Union, and that hopes of building a prosperous consumer economy are fast vanishing. But for the moment, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears all in.

Voting begins in the last round of India’s election (AP) A six-week-long national election in India that is a referendum on Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade in power neared its end Saturday as the last phase of voting began. The election is considered one of the most consequential in India’s history. If Modi wins, he’ll be only the second Indian leader to retain power for a third term after Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister. The seventh round of polls covers 57 constituencies across seven states and one union territory. It will complete a national election to fill all 543 seats in the powerful lower house of parliament. Nearly 970 million voters—more than 10% of the world’s population—were eligible to elect a new parliament for five years. More than 8,300 candidates ran for the office. Most polls show Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party leading over the broad opposition alliance that’s challenging them, led by the Congress party. The votes will be counted Tuesday, with results expected by the end of the day.

Israeli views of the Israel-Hamas war (Pew Research Center) Some 39% of Israelis say Israel’s military response against Hamas in Gaza has been about right, while 34% say it has not gone far enough and 19% think it has gone too far, according to a survey conducted March 3-April 4. But Israelis see the war in vastly different ways depending on their political ideology, religion and other factors, including stark divides between Jews and Arabs. According to the survey, conducted in March and early April, roughly two-thirds of Israelis are also confident that Israel will either probably (27%) or definitely (40%) achieve its goals in the war against Hamas.

Israel confirms its forces are in central Rafah in expanding offensive in the southern Gaza city (AP) The Israeli military confirmed Friday that its forces are operating in central parts of Rafah in its expanding offensive in the southern Gaza city. Israel launched its ground assault into the city on May 6, triggering an exodus of around 1 million Palestinians out of the city and throwing U.N. humanitarian operations based in the area into turmoil. Still, it has yet to amount to a “major operation” in the eyes of U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, according to the State Department. Up to around 300,000 people are believed to remain in the Rafah area, with an unknown number still in the city itself. Most have flocked to rural areas on the Mediterranean coastline west of the city, said Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian group that operates in the area. That area has seen deadly Israeli strikes the past week. Palestinians who fled the city have scattered around southern and central Gaza, most of them living in squalid tent camps.

Israel maintains a shadowy hospital in the desert for Gaza detainees. Critics allege mistreatment (AP) Patients lying shackled and blindfolded on more than a dozen beds inside a white tent in the desert. Surgeries performed without adequate painkillers. Doctors who remain anonymous. These are some of the conditions at Israel’s only hospital dedicated to treating Palestinians detained by the military in the Gaza Strip, three people who have worked there told The Associated Press, confirming similar accounts from human rights groups. While Israel says it detains only suspected militants, many patients have turned out to be non-combatants taken during raids, held without trial and eventually returned to war-torn Gaza. Eight months into the Israel-Hamas war, accusations of inhumane treatment at the Sde Teiman military field hospital are on the rise, and the Israeli government is under growing pressure to shut it down. Rights groups and other critics say what began as a temporary place to hold and treat militants after Oct. 7 has morphed into a harsh detention center with too little accountability.

Google scales back AI search answers after it told users to eat glue (Washington Post) Google said it was scaling down the use of AI-generated answers in some search results, after the tech made high-profile errors including telling users to put glue on their pizza and saying Barack Obama was Muslim. The change is the latest example of Google launching an AI product with fanfare and then rolling it back after it goes awry. The tech industry is in the throes of an AI revolution, with start-ups and Big Tech giants alike trying to find new ways to put the tech into their products and make money from it. Many of the tools have been launched before they’re ready for prime time, as companies jostle to be the first to market their products and cast themselves as cutting-edge. One answer, which Google has since fixed, told people to drink plenty of urine to help pass a kidney stone. Another said John F. Kennedy graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in six different years, three of which were after his death.

[crystalis]

"China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has released quite the explosive report on the US's National Endowment for Democracy (NED), explaining how under the cover of "promoting democracy", it has "long engaged in subverting state power in other countries, meddling in other countries’ internal affairs, inciting division and confrontation, misleading public opinion, and conducting ideological infiltration".

In short, it's subverting democracy, the exact contrary of what it says it's doing...

This is the link to the report:

The NED has long been infamous for doing this kind of stuff but there are a few things in the report that are really explosive:

1) Meddling on an enormous scale in Ukraine

The report claims that the NED "provided $65 million to the Ukrainian opposition during the 2004 Orange Revolution". They also write that "during the 2013-2014 Euromaidan, NED financed the Mass Media Institute to spread inflammatory information. NED also spent tens of millions of dollars in the use of such social media platforms as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram to spread disinformation, heighten ethnic tensions in Ukraine, and stir up ethnic antagonism in eastern Ukraine."

2) "Taking Mexico as a major target country for infiltration"

As the report details, the NED has financially supported numerous organizations like "Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) and the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), and obstructed the electricity reform in Mexico". They also write that "in 2021, the Mexican government sent a note to the US government condemning NED’s funding of anti-government organizations in Mexico as 'an act of interventionism' 'promoting a coup.'"

3) Interference in Serbia's elections

They write that "in April 2022 and December 2023, Serbia held its presidential, National Assembly and local elections. NED interfered in the entire election process, and went all out to root for pro-US opposition candidates in the run-up to the elections. In May 2023, after two consecutive shooting incidents in Serbia, NED-sponsored human rights groups and pro-US opposition organizations staged mass demonstrations to demand the resignation of the Serbian government."

4) Instigating the recent protests in Georgia against the government for its foreign agents bill

They write that the "NED funded the establishment of three local NGO groupings in Georgia at the beginning of the 21st century to organize demonstrations in capital Tbilisi. In May 2024, NED rallied support for and instigated protests in Georgia against the foreign agents bill."

5) Supporting "Taiwan independence" separatist forces

They write that the NED co-hosted events with Taiwan's separatist Democratic Progressive Party, "tried to mobilize 'democratic forces' to open up the 'frontline of democratic struggle in the East' and hype up the false narrative of 'Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow'".

Needless to say, all of this is a complete violation of the UN Charter: they violate both the principle of sovereign equality that guarantees each state's right to freely choose and develop its own political, social, economic, and cultural systems; as well as the principle of non-intervention in the domestic matters of other states. And I'm not even mentioning the violation of the victim states' domestic jurisdictions..."

[beardedmrbean]

In early May, Claudia Sheinbaum, the favorite to win Mexico's upcoming presidential election next month, suddenly pulled out of a planned visit to Apatzingan, a town in the violent state of Michoacan.

Three sources from her inner circle told Reuters the decision was taken because a drug cartel set fire to several vehicles shortly before the rally, forcing the federal government to call in the military to restore order.

Sheinbaum denied the cancelation was due to the violence, saying only that the Apatzingan event had never been fully confirmed.

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Yet, the episode highlights how Sheinbaum - who has campaigned on the reduction of Mexico City's murder rate during her term as mayor - could face much tougher challenges in repeating this success in places like Michoacan, where criminal groups exert a level of control far beyond what Sheinbaum encountered in the capital.

Sheinbaum's advisors told Reuters that, if elected, she aims to reduce by 2027 Mexico's murder rate from 23.3 homicides for every 100,000 residents to around 19.4 per 100,000 - putting it on par with Brazil.

To achieve this, she will double the number of federal investigators to 8,000, increase the number of National Guard troops to 150,000 from around 120,000, decrease impunity through judicial reform, and create youth education and community programs, her advisors said.

Juan Pablo Morales, an academic who helped develop Sheinbaum's plan, said the team are aware of the differences between Mexico City and the country as a whole but that many lessons from the capital can be applied nationally.

"Claudia (Sheinbaum) helped drive a lot the professional development of the police in Mexico City, giving them new powers, responsibilities," Morales said.

CARTEL WAR

Mexico City's homicide rate fell 50% between December 2018, when Sheinbaum was inaugurated as mayor, and June 2023, when she stepped aside to begin her presidential campaign, a drop she attributes to effective security policies that improved police work and coordination with prosecutors.

She says this experience will allow her to further drive down the high national homicide rate, which has fallen around 20 percent under current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum's close political ally and mentor, according to preliminary data.

Yet, López Obrador's full six-year term is still the bloodiest on record, with over 185,000 murders through April.

Moreover, critics say that López Obrador's less confrontational security policy against organized crime groups would make his successor's job even harder.

"The country's security situation depends on the national war between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel," said David Saucedo, a consultant who works with state governments and companies on national security issues, "the ball is not in her court."

Under López Obrador, this rivalry has expanded to ever more territory, while smaller crime groups have further entrenched their power - including in places like Michoacan, according to security experts.

Six out of 10 Mexicans consider insecurity to be the country's main problem, according to an annual public survey by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).

Crime experts say Sheinbaum's plan lacks details and sources from her close circle say that the 61-year-old scientist has avoided criticizing López Obrador's security failures because she owes her popularity to the president.

"So far Sheinbaum has released relatively little information in terms of concrete details about her security plans," said Nathaniel Parish, a political risk analyst for Latin America. "What we have are signals about what she would like to do but we don't have specific concrete dollar amounts of what she plans to devote to these initiatives."

NUMBER QUESTIONS

Some critics have also raised questions about whether the former Mexico City mayor was as successful as she claims in reducing crime.

They point to the large number of deaths in the capital that are categorized as "events of undetermined intent." These deaths, which include drownings, poisonings and sometimes suspected but unproven homicides, often equal or exceed the number of homicides. Miscategorization of these deaths could explain some of the decrease in the murder rate, critics say.

Another issue is disappearances, which went up in Mexico City under Sheinbaum and could also help explain the significant reduction in official homicide numbers.

"(The figures) confirm suspicions of cover-up of homicides and suicides in some entities, starting with Mexico City," said sociologist Jorge Ramirez. This issue has also been flagged at the federal level.

Sheinbaum's team reject the accusation that murder figures were artificially low.

Jose Merino, an advisor for Sheinbaum, told Reuters it's "absurd" to say homicides are being covered up.

Merino said the number of deaths filed as "events of undetermined intent" and later found to be homicides account for less than 10% of the total.

He also said the rise in disappearances was due to an increase in reporting of these incidents rather than an uptick in their occurrence.