#florida palestinian network

[transfloridaresources]

December 30, 2023, 1PM Kissimmee, FL

[Photo ID: Color graphic of the Palestinian flag above a group of pro-Palestine protestors. Text reads: 'Osceola Protest for Palestine! Join us as we march and demand for a permanent ceasefire! Date: Saturday, December 30th. Time: 1PM. Location: 201 Lakeview Dr, Kissimmee, FL 34741. Come wearing any or all colors from the Palestinian flag! Florida Palestinian Network.' /End ID]

Source

[thethief1996]

Israel has cut water, electricity and food to Palestinians in Gaza. They are buying 10.000 M16 rifles and plan to distribute to civilian settlers in the West Bank to hunt down Palestinians. They're bombing the only way out of Gaza through Egypt, after telling refugees to flee through it, and have threatened the Egyptian government in case they let aid trucks pass through. Entire families, generations, are being wiped out and left to wander the streets hoping they don't get bombed.

Palestinians are using their last minutes of battery to let the world know about their genocide and are being met with a wall of "What about Hamas? What about the beheaded babies? Killing children on either side is bad!" even though the propaganda claims have been debunked over and over again. How cruel is it to ask somebody to condemn themselves before their last words? Or before grieving the loss of their entire families? When there's no such disclaimer to Israelis even though their government has shown over and over genocidal intent? Like who are you even trying to appease? What will your wishy washy statement do against decades of zionist thought infiltrating evangelical and Jewish stablishmemts?

Take action. Israel will fall back if public opinion turns its tide. The UK fell back on its bloody decision to cut aid to Palestine under public scrutiny. The USAmerican empire spends $3.8 billion dollars annually solely on this proxy war while its people suffer under a progressively military regime as well. News outlets are canceling last minute on Palestinian speakers while letting Israelis tell lies unchecked. Palestinian refugees are being targeted in ICE establishments and mosques are already being hounded by the FBI. France and Germany have banned pro-Palestine protests, while Netherlands and the UK have placed restrictions . You have the chance to stop this from turning into repeat of the Iraq war.

I want to do something but there's hardly anything for me to do from Brasil besides spreading the word and not letting these testimonies fall on deaf ears. I'm asking you to do this same ant work from wherever you are.

Follow:

Eye On Palestine (instagram / twitter)

Mohammed El-Kurd (instagram / twitter)

Decolonize Palestine (website with a chronological explanation of the occupation and debunking myths)

Muhammad Shehada (twitter)

Plestia Alaqad (directly from Gaza. Many of her videos are interrupted by bombs)

If there's a protest in your city, please attend. Here's an international calendar of events:

Friday, October 13

ALBUQUERQUE, NM (US) – Fri Oct. 13, 3 pm, UNM Bookstore, University of New Mexico. Organized by Southwest Coalition for Palestine.

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA (US) – Fri Oct 13, 6 pm, Sproul Hall (Vigil), University of California Berkeley. Organized by Bears for Palestine.

DOUAIS, FRANCE – Fri Oct 13, 6:30 pm, Place de’Armes.

GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN – Fri Oct 13, 5:30 pm, Brunnsparken. Organized by Palestinska samordningsgruppen Gothenburg.

GREENSBORO, NC (US) – Fri Oct. 13, 4 pm, Wendover Village, 4203 W Wendover Ave, Greensboro, NC. Organized by Muslims for a Better NC.

LONDON, ENGLAND – Fri Oct 13, 5 pm, Keir Starmer’s Office, Crowndale Center, 218 Eversholt St, London. Organized by IJAN UK.

MEANJIN/BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA – Fri Oct 13, 6 pm, King George Square.

MIAMI, FL (US) – Fri Oct 13, 4:30 pm, Bayfront Park. Organized by Troika Kollectiv.

NAPOLI, ITALY – Fri Oct 13, 4:30 pm, Piazza Garibaldi, Napoli. Organized by GPI and Centro Culturale Handala Ali.

NGUNNAWAL/CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA – Fri Oct 13, 5:30 pm, Carema Place.

PERTH/BOORLOO, AUSTRALIA – Fri Oct. 13, 5:30 pm, Murray Street Hall, Boorloo/Perth. Organized by Friends of Palestine WA.

PORTLAND, OREGON (US) – Fri Oct 13, 3 pm, 1200-1220 SW 5th Ave, Portland.

PORT RICHEY, FL (US) – Fri Oct 13, 7:30 am, Route 19 and Ridge Road, Port Richey. Sponsored by: Florida Peace Action Network; Partners for Palestine; CADSI

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA – Friday, Oct. 13, 7 pm, UP Main Campus, DSA Building opposite Thuto. Organized by PSC UP.

WITSWATERSRAND UNIVERSITY (SOUTH AFRICA) – Fri Oct 13, 1 pm, Great Hall Piazza, Flag demonstration. Organized by Wits PSC.

Saturday, October 14

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND – Sat, Oct. 14, 2 pm, St. Nichlas Square. Organized by Scottish PSC.

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – Sat Oct 14, 2 pm, Aotea Square, Queens St, 291-2997 Queen St. Organized by PSN Aotearoa.

DETROIT/DEARBORN, MICHIGAN (US) – Sat Oct 14, 2 pm, Ford Woods Park, 5700 Greenfield Road. Organized by SAFE, PYM, SJP, Handala Coalition, more.

DUNDEE, SCOTLAND – Sat, Oct. 14, 2 pm, Place TBA. Organized by Scottish PSC.

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND – Sat, Oct 14, 2 pm, Princes Street at Foot of the Mound. Organized by Scottish PSC.

FRANKFURT, GERMANY – Sat Oct 14, 3 pm Hauptwache, Frankfurt am Main. Sponsored by Palestina eV, Migrantifa Rhein-Main and more.

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND – Sat. Oct 14, 2 pm, Buchanan Steps. Organized by Scottish PSC.

HOUSTON, TEXAS (US) – Sat Oct 14, 2 pm, City Hall, 901 Bagby St. Organizd by PYM, PAC, USPCN, SJP and more.

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – Sat Oc 14, 12 pm, Church St. Organized by FRFI.

LONDON, ENGLAND – Sat Oct 14, 12 pm, BBC Portland Place, London. Organized by a broad coalition.

MILANO, ITALY – Sat. Oct 14, 3:30 pm, Piazza San Babila. Organized by Young Palestinians of Italy, UDAP, Palestinian Community, Association of Palestinians.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA – Sat Oct 14, 3 pm, Lake Eola at Robinson and Eola, Orland. Organized by Florida Palestine Network.

TORINO, ITALY – Sat. Oct. 14, 3 pm, Piazza Crispi. Organized by Progetto Palestina.

VALPARAISO, CHILE – Sat Oct 14, 6 pm, Plaza Victoria, Valparaiso. Organized by Comite Chileno de Solidaridad con Palestina.

WASHINGTON, DC (US) – Sat Oct 14, 1 pm, Lafayette Square. Organized by AMP.

Sunday, October 15

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS – Sun Oct 15, 2 pm, March from Dam Square to Jonas Daniel Meijer plein.

NAARM/MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – Sun Oct 15, State Library Victoria.

TARDANYA/ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA – Sun Oct 15, 2 pm, Parliament House.

AUSTIN, TEXAS (US) – Sun Oct 15, 3 pm, Texas Capitol. Organized by PSC ATX.

GADIGAL/SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – Sun Oct 15, 1 pm, Sydney Town Hall.

SANTIAGO, CHILE -Sun Oct 15, 11 am, Plaza Dignidad, Santiago. Organized by Comite Chileno de Solidaridad con Palestina.

[max--phillips]

Anyway I just saw a post saying that the protests here in the US are “taking away attention” from what’s actually happening in Gaza and “LARPing oppression” as if 1) the whole point of the protests is to put attention on Gaza and call for a ceasefire and 1.5) shows they’re exclusively getting their news from mainstream cable networks and 2) it’s not the fuckin media’s own fault they’re more interested in covering protests than the actual genocide, and 3) the students are somehow not facing oppression ???????

For one, what’s the solution here? Tell these students who feel very strongly (and rightfully so!) about this issue to just give up and go home? Who exactly does that benefit? Oh, right, the universities who are benefiting from this genocide, as well as the federal government. Good plan.

For two, I realize that the university at the center of this is an Ivy League school, and that the students who are there are privileged in many ways. However, that does not change the fact they are facing violence from the university and from police. That does not change the fact many of these students are Palestinian, Jewish, or other minorities. Beyond that, Columbia is not the only school where protests are happening. Emerson, USC, Yale, Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Cal Poly Humboldt, NYU, Vanderbilt, Brown, University of Michigan, UC Berkeley, Emory, Indiana University, Purdue, George Washington University, UCLA, Northeastern, Ohio State, UT Austin, Arizona State, Washington University St Louis, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, University of Georgia Athens, Sonoma State, San Francisco State, Sacramento State, University of Washington, Virginia Tech, Princeton, University of Minnesota, UConn, USC, University of Illinois, University of Utah, McGill, Portland State, UNC Chapel Hill, Tulane, University of Florida Gainesville, University of Colorado Denver, Case Western Reserve, City College of New York, Rutgers, Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland College Park, Barnard College, Pomona College, DePaul, Georgetown, University of Delaware, University of Arizona, University of New Mexico, University of Wisconsin, Virginia Commonwealth University, Oberlin, UC San Diego, University of San Diego, and I’m sure many others have or are currently participating in protests. Many of these schools are not elite universities only the best of the best (or the most money) get in. For crying out loud, my ass got into Indiana University.

That begs another question as well. Yes, these students at Ivy League schools have privilege. How else would you prefer they use it? When one has privilege, it is imperative to utilize it for the benefit of those one has privilege over.

Anyway. Free Palestine. Defund the police.

“Taking away attention from what’s actually going on” this is like saying the university protests against the Vietnam War were taking away attention from what’s actually going on in Vietnam. (Which I’m realizing now was probably an actual talking point at the time, but sounds ridiculous now.)

[white-chalk-sapphomet]

For those in or around Florida who'd like to save the date, there's plans to protest Kamala Harris during their campaign for Biden in FL on May 1st in North Florida somewhere in jacksonville, but the time and place hasn't been established yet even though it's just a couple days away. Theres plans for her to campaign on reproductive rights and womens health, despite funding the complete destruction of gaza's healthcare system affecting over a million Palestinian women. There's also a statewide protest in Orlando organized by the Florida palestine network planned for 5/11, time and location also tbd. updates will be posted to local activist orgs respective social media pages

[readingsquotes]

"A prime mover behind the Shirion Collective, a conspiracy-minded, pro-Israel disinformation network seeking to shape public opinion about the Gaza conflict in the US, Australia and the UK, is a tech entrepreneur named Daniel Linden living in Florida who co-wrote a guidebook for OnlyFans users, the Guardian can reveal.

....

Hate and disinformation

Beyond the bounty program, Shirion voices or boosts Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian hate, while celebrating death and destruction in Gaza, and violence against their supporters in the west.

Shirion has repeatedly celebrated the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza, including Palestinian journalists and children.

On 27 April, Shirion responded to a video that included images of destruction in Gaza, posting “Love that gaza looks like That now”, adding “FAFO”, an acronym for “fuck around and find out”.

Shirion has frequently celebrated police violence directed at pro-Palestinian protesters in the United States. It has also celebrated violence against journalists it characterized as “Marxist”.

On 5 May, in a post depicting a vehicular attack on protesters in Denver, Shirion wrote “LIKE & SHARE to make this more common”.

[athena5898]

It's Going Down Article: Attacks on Palestine Solidarity Activists Aim to Silence Anti-War Movement (https://unityoffields.org/?p=1207):

On October 15th, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network was labeled a “terrorist entity” by Canada and subjected to sanctions by the United States (https://truthout.org/articles/palestinian-prisoner-solidarity-activists-face-sanctions-and-deportation/). These designations follow a previous ban in Germany and the labeling of Samidoun as a “terrorist organization” by Israel. The U.S. claims (https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2646) Samidoun is a “sham fundraiser whose efforts have supported terrorism” by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist Palestinian political party also labeled as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” by the U.S. For its part, Samidoun states (https://samidoun.net/2024/10/we-keep-resisting-us-and-canada-sanction-samidoun/) it “does not have any material or organizational ties to entities listed on the terrorist lists of the United States, Canada or the European Union.”

Two days later, Republican Senator Marco Rubio sent (https://www.rubio.senate.gov/rubio-urges-domestic-terrorism-investigation-of-pro-hamas-group/) a letter to the U.S. Attorney General requesting he “immediately open a domestic terrorism investigation” into the popular pro-Palestine website and social media account, Unity of Fields, known for posting anonymous reports of direct actions. In a statement, the group said (https://unityoffields.org/?p=1090) it is “an anti-imperialist propaganda front…we don’t do actions, we only report on them and receive anonymous submissions.”

As the Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC) recently noted, Rubio also pushed the Attorney General to charge four activists in Florida who were arrested for writing pro-choice graffiti following the fall of Roe v Wade for “terrorism.” (https://cldc.org/weaponizing-the-legal-system-the-case-against-the-florida-4/) One activist was sentenced to a year in prison by the Middle District of Florida, the same court that recently awarded only 8 months to a man convicted of literally firebombing a Planned Parenthood clinic…

One may disagree with Samidoun and Unity of Fields on their specific political positions, but the entire movement against the ongoing war and genocide in Gaza should be concerned with the state’s move to target them. In no way can Samidoun be understood as a “sham charity” or “terrorist entity,” nor a media project like Unity of Fields as responsible for “domestic terrorism.” Even if one were to accept the legitimacy of power to deploy a subjective term such as “terrorism,” in reality, the extent of Samidoun’s work is posting statements, organizing public educational and political events, and pushing online action campaigns, while Unity of Fields maintains a counter-info website and social media accounts.

As a member of Samidoun stated in a recent interview (https://truthout.org/articles/palestinian-prisoner-solidarity-activists-face-sanctions-and-deportation/), “They are attacking us on the basis that we were fundraising for other political groups and political parties and they know very well that this is not true. If there was any serious allegation there, many of us would be in prison right now. So there is not any legal grounds or element for any of this. It’s just a bullshit campaign to attack Samidoun and the work that we are doing.”

…One may not like all that they say, but that is not the point. That they have come for Samidoun and seek to come for Unity of Fields, means that they can come for any pro-Palestine organization.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christopher Mathias at HuffPost:

As Israel’s siege of Gaza raged on in March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made time for a meeting in Jerusalem with a delegation led by Mario Bramnick, a Florida-based pastor with close ties to former President Donald Trump who has become a leading figure in a theocratic movement dedicated to bringing forth the end of the world. Bramnick may not be a household name to many Americans, but he’s an “apostle” in the New Apostolic Reformation — meaning members believe he was anointed by God to lead and receive prophecies and is imbued with spiritual gifts, including the ability to prophesy, heal and speak in tongues. He and the NAR, a burgeoning network of charismatic evangelical churches, believe in the biblical prophecy that the return of Jews to Israel will hasten the return of Christ.

Netanyahu likely knew he was meeting with an End Times evangelical pastor: The prime minister has long been invested in currying favor with such radical American Christians. What’s unclear is if Netanyahu knew just how radical the Christians in this delegation were, and just what their beliefs about Jewish people consisted of. Bramnick is what some scholars call a “Christian supremacist,” owing to his prominent role in the NAR, which believes in the existence of the supernatural, including modern-day prophets and apostles. He sees Trump as prophesied to rule over the U.S., and wants to transform America, and then the world, into a Christian theocracy, all to hasten Christ’s return to Earth and to begin his followers’ rapture to heaven. Part of that project, per the NAR’s interpretation of scripture, is unequivocal support of Israel. While millions of American evangelical Christians have long been fervent supporters of the Jewish state because of End Times prophecies, most have been content to allow Jews to be Jews until Christ’s return, when the Lord would convert them to Christianity and allow their entrance to Heaven. This is a form of end-days theology that scholars call “premillennialism.”

But Bramnick and the wider NAR network represent a major shift in evangelical support for Israel. They are “postmillennialists”: They want Jews to convert now. “They want to turn Jews into Christians, and ever since the Crusades and earlier, that kind of Christian opposition to Judaism, that Christian desire to annihilate Judaism, has been a large part of the antisemitism Jews have faced,” said Ben Lorber, a senior researcher at Political Research Associates and author of the book “Safety Through Solidarity: Fighting Antisemitism and Winning a Just World.” “It’s very kind of unnerving to see Christian Zionist leaders who say they support Israel now, but they hold that kind of intense agenda kind of under wraps,” Lorber said. “But that’s really a large part of what’s motivating them, and it’s very disturbing.”

[...] Israel has now killed over 37,000 Palestinians, 70% of whom are women and children, in a siege that the International Court of Justice has ruled a “plausible” genocide. Netanyahu and others in his far-right government often cast criticism of this mass slaughter as antisemitic. Meanwhile, in America, leading figures in the NAR have held demonstrations at universities leveling the same accusation at pro-Palestinian students.

On May 8, a couple of hundred such Christian nationalists gathered outside the University of Southern California in Los Angeles to declare their love for Jews. It was a sometimes garish display of affection, with people waving Israeli flags and American flags and “Don’t Tread on Me” flags as a plane circled overhead trailing a banner that read: “Israel is Forever, Jewish Lives Matter.us” The always-smiling Sean Feucht, a wealthy MAGA musician and pastor with curly blond locks hanging down over a black leather jacket, looking like the final boss of American youth ministers, had organized this “United For Israel” demonstration. He strummed a guitar as he led the crowd in worship songs like “Our God Is An Awesome God,” interspersed with renditions of the U.S. and Israeli national anthems, plus chants of “U-S-A!” and “Bring them home!” — a reference to the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that on Oct. 7 killed more than 1,100 people in Israel and abducted some 250 others.

Then Feucht took hold of a megaphone to announce the next speaker: his good friend, Ché Ahn, pastor at Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena and one of the most powerful American religious figures you’ve probably never heard of. Also considered a modern-day “apostle,” Ahn heads up the Harvest International Ministry (HIM), a network of more than 25,000 churches and nonprofits in more than 65 countries.

[...] The USC demonstration came as Ahn and Feucht positioned themselves as the vanguard in the fight against antisemitism which, in their worldview, is largely synonymous with criticism of Israel. The alleged antisemites who concerned them were the pro-Palestinian students at USC — many of whom are Jewish — and at campuses across the country, who were setting up encampments to demand their schools divest from Israel over its ongoing bombardment of Gaza. Prior to his rally at USC, Feucht also led a rally against pro-Palestinian students at Columbia University. But there are many reasons to be skeptical of Christian Zionists’ claim that they are good-faith arbiters of what constitutes antisemitism, and to look warily upon their loud professions of love for Jews. After all, if Ahn, the NAR and Feucht really do love Jews, it’s a kind of love that demands that Jews ultimately abandon their faith and traditions — to be everything that they are not. It is, according to some scholars, many of whom are Jewish themselves, fundamentally antisemitic.

[...] He also counts among his friends prominent right-wing influencers with histories of antisemitism. He has called Jack Posobiec, the notorious “pizzagate” conspiracist and neo-Nazi collaborator, a “good friend”; he’s also friendly with Elijah Shaffer, who earlier this year hosted a podcast roundtable with some of America’s most virulent antisemites, laughing along as Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys, called Jews “fucking k***s.” Shaffer allowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes to hold forth, unchallenged, as he falsely claimed Jews used to poison wells in medieval Europe. More recently, Schaffer himself said Jews have “subverted and sort of destroyed our Western civilization.” Feucht doesn’t appear to have spoken out against his friends’ antisemitism, but he’s been eager to speak out against the purported antisemitism of pro-Palestinian college kids. And he seems to be making a buck or two in doing so. [...]

An American Apostle In Jerusalem

Carter, the Fox News contributor who interviewed Feucht, was part of the small delegation that traveled to Israel this past March to meet with Netanyahu. The group, led by Bramnick, also included Tony Perkins, the anti-LGTBQ+ preacher who heads up the Family Research Council; Ellie Cohanim, who served as deputy special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism during the Trump administration; Danielle Mor, the director of global philanthropy for Christian Friends of the Jewish Agency for Israel; and Donna Jollay, the Christian relations director at Israel365, an Orthodox Jewish group that does interfaith work with evangelical Christians. The group arrived in Israel angry that President Joe Biden had started to mildly criticize Israel’s siege of Gaza. In a hot-mic moment, Biden expressed frustration with Netanyahu, saying he and the Israeli prime minister needed to have a “come to Jesus” moment. Biden, while advocating a two-state solution for Palestine and Israel, was still refusing calls from his left to cut military aid to Israel over the staggering death toll in Gaza. But for Bramnick and his delegation, any criticism of Netanyahu amounted to heresy.

[...] The NAR’s zeal for Trump is also tied up in a theology of dominionism, Taylor said. Adherents believe it’s their duty to conquer the “seven mountains” of societal influence — family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government — and reshape them according to a fundamentalist Christian worldview. It’s an anti-democratic theology that was central to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, where many of the rioters, who sought to overturn the results of the election, believed Trump was prophesied to be president. Bramnick served on the Latino advisory board for Trump’s 2020 campaign, and before that was named a special envoy for the Trump White House’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative. In that role, Bramnick claims to have met with eight heads of state to convince them to move their countries’ embassies in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — a move widely regarded as an anti-Palestinian provocation.

[...] “Their basic view of Palestinians is that they don’t have a view of Palestinians,” Lorber said. “Their view is very much in line with the settler colonial idea that animated Zionism — not to mention the settler colonial idea that animated the U.S. — where they see the indigenous population of the land as basically an impediment and obstacle, you know, to the fulfillment of their desire to support the settlement of the land.” Taylor agrees. He argued the evangelical vision for Palestinians is either a greater Israel in which they have no rights, or one in which they’re altogether expelled, ethnically cleansed from the land their families have lived on for generations. “Because it’s not about the people and their rights,” he told HuffPost. “It’s about fulfilling prophecy … And who cares about human rights if you’re trying to fulfill prophecy? Who cares about rights if you see Israel as a linchpin in inaugurating a global revival?” For some Christian Zionists, Israel’s siege of Gaza is a sign that the End Times might come sooner than later.

HuffPost’s Christopher Mathias takes a deep dive on Evangelical Christianity’s support for Israel based on Christian Zionist principles and End Times prophecies.

The NAR subset of Evangelical Christianity has a very aggressive postmillenialist worldview of wanting to convert Jews immediately, in contrast to the premillenialist worldview of converting Jews to Christians at the point of Christ’s arrival.

Read the full article at HuffPost.

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

How a cargo ship took down Baltimore’s Key Bridge (Washington Post) To bridge experts, the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge after being hit by a heavy cargo ship was as inevitable as it was devastating. When a vessel as heavy as the Singapore-flagged Dali collides with such force against one of the span’s supercolumns, or piers, the result is the type of catastrophic, and heartbreaking, chain reaction that took place early Tuesday. “If the column is destroyed, basically the structure will fall down,” said Dan Frangopol, a bridge engineering and risk professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who is president of the International Association for Bridge Maintenance and Safety. “It’s not possible to redistribute the loads. It was not designed for these things.” No bridge pier could withstand being hit by a ship the size of the Dali, said Benjamin W. Schafer, a professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University. In video imagery, the ship can be seen losing electrical power, then briefly regaining it before going completely dark. The ship issued a mayday call shortly before striking the bridge, giving officials time to stop traffic and try to evacuate it before it fell into the river.

DeSantis Signs Social Media Bill Barring Accounts for Children Under 14 (NYT) Florida on Monday became the first state to effectively bar residents under the age of 14 from holding accounts on services like TikTok and Instagram, enacting a strict social media bill that is likely to upend the lives of many young people. The landmark law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is one of the more restrictive measures that a state has enacted so far in an escalating nationwide push to insulate young people from potential mental health and safety risks on social media platforms. The statute both prohibits certain social networks from giving accounts to children under 14 and requires the services to terminate accounts that a platform knew or believed belonged to underage users. It also requires the platforms to obtain a parent’s permission before giving accounts to 14- and 15-year-olds. In a press conference on Monday, Mr. DeSantis said it will help parents navigate “difficult terrain” online. He added that “being buried” in devices all day long was not the best way to grow up. The new Florida measure is almost certain to face constitutional challenges over young people’s rights to freely seek information and companies’ rights to distribute information.

Joe Biden’s Political Origin Story Is Almost Certainly Bogus (Politico/Washington Free Beacon) A new investigation from The Washington Free Beacon’s Joseph Simonson and Andrew Kerr raises major questions about a story President Joe Biden has long told: when he successfully defended a construction company as a young lawyer from an injured welder’s lawsuit. Biden said feeling guilty over his role pushed him to switch to public defense and politics. But the Free Beacon finds that “this story is almost certainly a complete work of fiction”—that the case in question seems to have happened while Biden was still in law school, and the welder actually won.

U.S. allows U.N. ceasefire vote, but it’s too late for many in Gaza (Washington Post) In a surprise move Monday, the United States abstained during a United Nations Security Council vote calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. For many people in Gaza, the passage of the Security Council comes far too late. The Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, including many women and children, forced the overwhelming majority of people in Gaza to flee their homes and plunged more than half of Gaza’s population into a de facto famine. Small children are dying of malnutrition in what U.N. officials describe to be the broadest and most severe food crisis in the world. On Monday, Israeli forces continued their week-long raid of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City amid Israeli claims of a Hamas presence in the facility. Israel also said it would cease cooperation with UNRWA, the U.N. agency that distributes most aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and what U.N. Secretary General António Guterres describes as “the one ray of light for millions of people” subsisting of its support. Through all this, the United States has operated hand-in-glove with Israel, greenlighting a surge in arms transfers to reinforce the Israeli military’s relentless bombing campaigns.

Forest fires burn in nearly half of Mexico’s drought-stricken states, fueled by strong winds (AP) Forest fires were burning in nearly half of Mexico’s drought-stricken states Monday fueled by strong winds. The National Forestry Commission reported 58 active fires in 15 states, including in protected nature reserves in Morelos, Veracruz and Mexico states. A preliminary estimate of the affected area reached more than 3,500 acres (1,421 hectares).

Venezuela’s main opposition coalition unable to register a presidential candidate (AP) The main Venezuelan opposition coalition said early Tuesday that electoral authorities didn’t let it register its presidential candidate as the deadline ended, in what it called the latest violation to the citizens’ right to vote for change in the South American country. Hours before the opposition coalition couldn’t register Yoris, President Nicolás Maduro made official his candidacy for a third term that would last until 2031. Polls show the unpopular Maduro would be trounced by a landslide if Venezuelan voters were given half a chance.

Brazil Police to Probe Bolsonaro’s Stay at Hungary Embassy (Bloomberg) Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court on Monday gave former President Jair Bolsonaro 48 hours to explain why he stayed at the Hungarian Embassy in Brasília for two days in February. According to security footage obtained by the New York Times, Bolsonaro appeared to seek political asylum from Budapest mere days after federal authorities confiscated his passport as part of a criminal investigation into whether he tried to incite an insurrection and purposefully spread voting disinformation, among other charges. On Monday, Brazil’s federal police launched an investigation into the far-right leader’s movements. Bolsonaro confirmed that he stayed at the embassy beginning Feb. 12 but only said, “I have a circle of friends with some world leaders. They’re worried,” when asked why. His lawyers added that Bolsonaro’s visit was to discuss political matters. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry refused to comment.

Moscow rampage reveals ambition, deadly reach of ISIS successor groups (Washington Post) A few months before being killed in a U.S. Special Forces raid, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released a final video message that symbolically passed the torch to far-flung followers in distant lands. His self-declared caliphate had been defeated, he acknowledged, and it was now up to the terrorist group’s regional chapters to carry out “revenge operations” around the world. “Our battle today is one of attrition and stretching the enemy,” Baghdadi said in the April 2019 video, released just after the fall of the Islamic State’s last stronghold in Syria. “They should know that jihad is ongoing until the Day of Judgment.” Friday’s bloodbath at a suburban Moscow concert hall is but the latest reminder of how effectively Baghdadi’s brutal vision is being carried out. While his self-proclaimed Middle East “caliphate” is in ruins, a constellation of Islamic State regional affiliates is gaining strength in many parts of the globe, fueled by a mix of traditional grievances as well as new ones, including the war in Gaza, counterterrorism officials and experts say.

Japan approves plan to sell fighter jets to other nations in latest break from pacifist principles (AP) Japan’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it’s developing with Britain and Italy to other countries, in the latest move away from the country’s postwar pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project and part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to countries other than the partners. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said the changes are necessary given Japan’s security environment, but stressed that Japan’s pacifist principles remain unchanged.

Israeli Soldier’s Video Undercuts Medic’s Account of Sexual Assault (NYT) New video has surfaced that undercuts the account of an Israeli military paramedic who said two teenagers killed in the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7 were sexually assaulted. The unnamed paramedic, from an Israeli commando unit, was among dozens of people interviewed for a Dec. 28 article by The New York Times that examined sexual violence on Oct. 7. He said he discovered the bodies of two partially clothed teenage girls in a home in Kibbutz Be’eri that bore signs of sexual violence. The Associated Press, CNN and The Washington Post reported similar accounts from a military paramedic who spoke on condition of anonymity. Nili Bar Sinai, a member of a group from the kibbutz that looked into claims of sexual assault at the house, said, “This story is false.”

Israeli settlers eye Gaza beachfront (BBC) Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in 2005, but some in the Israeli settler movement still hope to go back, one day. Daniella Weiss, who heads a radical settler organisation called Nachala, or homeland, says she already has a list of 500 families ready to move to Gaza immediately. We meet Daniella at her home in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, where red-roofed houses are spread over hilltops and valleys. Her vision for the future of Gaza—now home to 2.3 million Palestinians, many of them starving—is that it will be Jewish. “Gaza Arabs will not stay in the Gaza Strip,” she says. “Who will stay? Jews.” She claims that Palestinians want to leave Gaza and that other countries should take them in. “Africa is big. Canada is big. The world will absorb the people of Gaza. How we do it? We encourage it. Palestinians in Gaza, the good ones, will be enabled. I’m not saying forced, I say enabled because they want to go,” she says. There is no evidence that Palestinians want to leave their homeland—although many may now dream of escaping temporarily, to save their lives. I put it to her that her comments sound like a plan for ethnic cleansing. She does not deny it.

Young Opposition Candidate Set to Become Senegal’s President (NYT) With the concession of his main rival, a young political outsider backed by a powerful opposition figure has won a surprise outright victory in Senegal’s presidential election only 10 days after being released from jail. Bassirou Diomaye Faye is the anointed candidate of Senegal’s popular and controversial opposition politician Ousmane Sonko. Mr. Faye’s main rival, the governing party candidate Amadou Ba, conceded in a statement congratulating his rival on Monday for winning in the first round. Mr. Faye, who celebrated his 44th birthday on Monday, will become the West African country’s youngest ever president, and the youngest elected president currently serving in Africa. (There are younger leaders, but they came to power by force.) He had been jailed on charges of defamation and contempt of court, and was awaiting trial. Mr. Faye and Mr. Sonko have captivated young people by excoriating political elites, pledging to renegotiate contracts with oil and gas companies, and promising “monetary sovereignty”—Senegal is one of 14 countries that use the CFA, a currency pegged to the euro and backed by France.

Puppets (Los Angeles Times) The Los Angeles Puppetry Guild represents a diverse bunch, from amateurs to industry professionals, and judging by member rolls puppetry is having a real moment right now. The L.A. guild is up to 200 members, and the Puppeteers of America now recognizes it as the largest such regional body in the country. The surge is mostly people in their 20s and 30s. One theory is that CGI becoming firmly mainstream when it comes to film effects has provoked some yearning for the more tactile medium of puppets.

[graymanbriefing]

Civil Unrest / Societal Collapse / Citizen Actions Brief: National Summary 》In Springfield, MO; LGBT activists disrupted a pro-women's sports event hosted by Riley Gaines (professional swimmer) and Bethany Ha...(CLASSIFIED) 》In Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington D.C. and select school districts nationwide on Feb 4-9; public schools participated in the Black Lives Matter School's Week of Action that included scheduled singing of the "Black Panther Children’s Song", lessons on queer affirming ideals, social justice theories, and other edicts of the "13 Guidelines" taught by the BLM action group. The group teaches students concepts such as "fostering a queer-affirming network", "disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure" and counter Zionism by suppo...(CLASSIFIED) 》In Minneapolis, MN; three conservative  organizations housed in the same building were set on fire. Upper Midwest Law Center (UMLC), TakeCharge, and Center of the American Experiment (CAE) were the only offices with fire damage. Leaders of the separate groups called the alleged attack "domestic terrorism" and said the "fires were obviously set by someone. They targeted conservative organizations. They didn’t firebomb the chiropractors or psychologists or Manufacturers Alliance. We are working with authorities to try to identify the perpetrators." Law enforcement is investig...(CLASSIFIED) 》White House officials reportedly invited Osama Siblani to a meeting to discuss the Israel/Palestine conflict. Siblani is a known terrorist sympathizer who supports Hezbollah a...(CLASSIFIED) 》In FL; LGBT activists staged a "die-in" to protest Florida's Division of Motor Vehicle (DMV) requiring biological sexes be printed on identification cards and driver's licenses. Transgender protestors pretended they were dead and la...(CLASSIFIED) 》In Brooklyn, NY on February 10th; pro-Palestinian rioted dueing the "Flood Brooklyn for Gaza" event. Rioters assau...(CLASSIFIED) 》In Conway, SC; 15,000 Trump supporters rallied at a campaign event. Intersectio...(CLASSIFIED, get briefs in real-time unredacted by joining at www.graymanbriefing.com) 》Poll: More or less coverage of protests and civil unrest?

[anarchotahdigism]

i'm still pissed about this The last president got away with an attempted massacre of Congress and a coup and is still a free man, able to exist safely and without fear in public. Large swathes of the military and police were supportive of the coup, were involved in it, and still remain supportive of Trump, as are numerous governors, mayors, state legislators, and practically every white suburbanite it seems. Still, Trump's COVID response was light-years better than Biden's. Cops continue to kill people of color, especially Black people, at increasing rates every year, while receiving more funding Voter repression continues to worsen as concentration camps continue to expand and Biden promises absolutely no limit to the support he'll offer for genocide. Prisons are ever more overcrowded, with officials intentionally maximizing conditions to spread COVID & various towns are experimenting with concentration camps for the homeless. Over a million are dead from COVID with thousands dying every week but the true count may never be known as Biden has ended all COVID mitigation, testing, tracking efforts explicitly at the behest of the rich Having successfully ignored the mass murder of disabled people, America continues to look away as Florida prepares to legalize executing people for being trans in public as other states continue to drop protections for trans people or outright segregate us. Schools are locking down over the most milquetoast campus protests beginning at long fucking last a mere 8 months into a horrific genocide explicitly and personally fueled by Joe Biden and his white supremacy and thousands of people of color have lost their jobs & homes & support networks for speaking out against this genocide. All to say nothing of the tens of thousands of Palestinians massacred, the thousands of Palestinians kidnapped as hostages, and the million or more Palestinians forcibly concentrated in Rafah facing an imminent ground invasion that would be an apocalyptic calamity, as if the past 8 months of daily massacres weren't evil enough. The Zionist occupation, meanwhile, takes swipes daily at other countries and people daring to resist its massacre of the indigenous Palestinians because it is insatiably bloodthirsty & the American response was to tell one of those countries to please just let the occupation attack it so it can politically save face. Unions meanwhile have completely abandoned protecting their workers from COVID & continue to settle for meager crumbs as they outright endorse Biden & the Zionist occupation and genocide of Palestinians. Wage inequality & corporate price gouging is blamed on the supply chain collapse under the weight of unmitigated COVID spread but even that doesn't account for foods increasing to unaffordable levels while food waste continues in stores and restaurants---where the line cook is now one of the deadliest professions in the US due to COVID. Rent continues to balloon and homelessness commensurately rises & evictions resume with absolute fervor, things which Trump's meager COVID policies managed to mitigate. AI is destroying whole sectors as a get-rich-quick scheme using vast databases of stolen content and slave labor, absolutely polluting search engines with completely false information to the point of rendering them nearly useless. Meanwhile, corporations plunder indigenous lands for fossil fuels and heavy metals. As an immunocompromised multiply disabled queer person of color, I have been stuck inside my home relying on my abusers for years now explicitly because of Biden's normalization of fascism and any time I leave for supplies is a potential death sentence because most people are so ardently in favor of eugenics that not only do they refuse to mask but masking has become illegal in some areas and people masking are at risk of assault. But of course, somehow, none of this is "fascism" to a certain type of comfortable leftist. If you can't admit that this is fascism, then you are the enemy of everyone who can and does.

"America isn't fascist! Fascism has a very narrow set of definitions I personally use because a slaving empire built on centuries of genocide which has for almost five years been overtly purging disabled people from society doesn't meet my definition of fascism as I don't give a fuck about eugenics! I'm a very serious radical leftist you should listen to" fuck y'all

[transfloridaresources]

January 07, 2024. 4pm-7pm Lake Eola Park Orlando, FL

[Photo ID: Red watercolor flowers amongst gradient colors of red, green, black, and white. The shape of Palestine in faded white is in the middle. Text reads: 'Florida Palestinian Network. Candlelit vigil & prayer circle. Sunday, January 7th. Lake Eola Park 4pm to 7pm.' /End ID]

[Photo ID: Red watercolor flowers amongst gradient colors of red, green, black, and white. The shape of Palestine in faded white is in the middle. Text reads: 'Florida Palestinian Network. Wear all white or all black. Wear keffiyehs. Bring flowers. Bring flags. Sunday, January 7th. Lake Eola Park 4pm to 7pm.' /End ID]

Source

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.1 (after 1950)

1953 – Andhra State is formed, consisting of a Telugu-speaking area carved out of India's Madras State. 1953 – A United States-South Korea mutual defense treaty is concluded in Washington, D.C. 1955 – The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is established. 1957 – The motto In God We Trust first appears on U.S. paper currency. 1958 – The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics is replaced by NASA. 1960 – Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1961 – The United States Defense Intelligence Agency is formed, becoming the country's first centralized military intelligence organization. 1961 – East and West Cameroon merge to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. 1961 – The CTV Television Network, Canada's first private television network, is launched. 1962 – James Meredith enters the University of Mississippi, defying racial segregation rules. 1964 – The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. 1964 – Japanese Shinkansen ("bullet trains") begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka. 1966 – West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with no survivors in Oregon. This accident marks the first loss of a DC-9. 1968 – Guyana nationalizes the British Guiana Broadcasting Service, which would eventually become part of the National Communications Network, Guyana. 1969 – Concorde breaks the sound barrier for the first time. 1971 – Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida. 1971 – The first practical CT scanner is used to diagnose a patient. 1975 – Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines. 1978 – Tuvalu gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1979 – Pope John Paul II begins his first pastoral visit to the United States. 1979 – The MTR, Hong Kong's rapid transit railway system, opens. 1982 – Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany through a constructive vote of no confidence. 1982 – EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) opens at Walt Disney World in Florida. 1982 – Sony and Phillips launch the compact disc in Japan; on the same day, Sony releases the model CDP-101 compact disc player, the first player of its kind. 1985 – Israel-Palestinian conflict: Israel attacks the Palestine Liberation Organization's Tunisia headquarters during Operation Wooden Leg. 1987 – The 5.9 Mw  Whittier Narrows earthquake shakes the San Gabriel Valley with a Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), killing eight and injuring 200. 1989 – Denmark introduces the world's first legal same-sex registered partnerships. 1991 – Croatian War of Independence: The Siege of Dubrovnik begins. 1994 – Palau enters a Compact of Free Association with the United States. 2000 – Israel-Palestinian conflict: Palestinians protest the murder of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah by Israeli police in northern Israel, beginning the "October 2000 events". 2001 – Militants attack the state legislature building in Kashmir, killing 38. 2009 – The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom takes over the judicial functions of the House of Lords. 2012 – A ferry collision off the coast of Hong Kong kills 38 people and injures 102 others. 2014 – A series of explosions at a gunpowder plant in Bulgaria completely destroys the factory, killing 15 people. 2014 – A double bombing of an elementary school in Homs, Syria kills over 50 people. 2015 – A gunman kills nine people at a community college in Oregon. 2015 – Heavy rains trigger a major landslide in Guatemala, killing 280 people. 2015 – The American cargo vessel SS El Faro sinks with all of its 33 crew after steaming into the eyewall of Hurricane Joaquin 2017 – An independence referendum, later declared illegal by the Constitutional Court of Spain, takes place in Catalonia. 2017 – Fifty-eight people are killed and 869 others injured in a mass shooting at a country music festival at the Las Vegas Strip in the United States; the gunman, Stephen Paddock, later commits suicide. 2018 – The International Court of Justice rules that Chile is not obliged to negotiate access to the Pacific Ocean with Bolivia.

[swldx]

BBC 0443 28 Feb 2023

9915Khz 0358 28 FEB 2023 - BBC (UNITED KINGDOM) in ENGLISH from TALATA VOLONONDRY. SINPO = 55323. English, dead carrier s/on @0358z then ID@0359z pips and Newsroom preview. QSB=rapid rate somewhat shallow fading affecting modulation. @0401z World News anchored by Danielle Jalowiecka. U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday the new deal between British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the European Union on post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland is an "essential step" to ensuring peace from the Good Friday Agreement is preserved. The Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh, used to prosecute "terrorism" cases in Saudi Arabia, has charged six former prominent SCC judges and four former judges of the High Court, the country's supreme court, with "high treason", a crime punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, in its first secret hearing of the case on February 16. The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo agreed on Monday to a Western-backed deal to normalise relations but more talks are needed on the implementation of the pact, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. Speaking after hosting talks in Brussels between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, Borrell said the leaders agreed "no further discussions" are needed on the deal between the former wartime foes. Over 1000 people in a demonstration against the violent rampage by Israeli settlers in the West Bank town of Hawara, which resulted in extensive damage and the death of one Palestinian man, is taking place in central Tel Aviv. 'The pogrom in Hawara is directly encouraged by the government,' organizers say. Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire owner of Fox News, has acknowledged some of the network's stars endorsed false claims the 2020 election was stolen. Dominion is suing Fox News for $1.6bn (£1.3bn), arguing the conservative outlet broadcast false and malicious rumours about voter fraud that harmed its business. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warned people to "buckle up" as he signed a bill giving the state control over Disney's sprawling Orlando theme parks. The bill strips power uniquely held by Disney for over 50 years and enables more oversight by Mr DeSantis' Republican-led legislature. The move is seen as retaliation after Disney opposed state laws curtailing gender and sexuality education. Hong Kong will drop its COVID-19 mask mandate, chief executive John Lee said on Tuesday, in a move to lure back visitors and business and restore normal life more than three years after stringent rules were first imposed in the financial hub. @0406z "The Newsroom" begins. Backyard fence antenna, Etón e1XM. 250kW, beamAz 315°, bearing 63°. Received at Plymouth, United States, 15359KM from transmitter at Talata Volonondry. Local time: 2158.

[mariacallous]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The lawmakers thanked the representatives from the social networks giants for attending the Capitol Hill hearing on antisemitism — after all, it was not an official congressional hearing and no one was obliged to turn up.

But then, after some tense exchanges last Friday, things got acrimonious quickly: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Jewish Florida Democrat who convened the hearing, said that the tech reps’ stonewalling on whether and how antisemitism would be treated will lead to congressional action.

“We’re all starting to see — anyone watching this — why we’re eventually going to have to regulate the way that this content is handled, as opposed to just leaving it to you, the companies, to comply, to make sure you’re complying with standards that really aren’t very transparent,” she said.

The panel, the Interparliamentary Anti-Semitism Task Force, is comprised of lawmakers from diverse countries, including the United States, Canada, South Africa, Israel, Sweden and New Zealand, and it has no real powers. But some of the individual lawmakers are members of governing parties and are able to take legislative action at home.

Wasserman Schultz, for instance, is a past chairwoman of the Democratic Party and is currently on two of the House of Representatives’ most powerful committees, Appropriations and Oversight. Likewise, Anthony Housefather, a Jewish member of parliament from Montreal, who is a member of Canada’s governing Liberal Party, has senior oversight roles.

Wasserman Schultz’s frustration came after Housefather was unable to elicit a commitment that the social media companies would label antisemitism as hate speech and take action to remove the phrase “Jews are all white nationalists who support Apartheid” from posts on their platforms.

Kevin Kane, the director of government affairs for YouTube said “that’s definitely something we’d want to look at,” but “it’s difficult to say in the abstract.” Representatives from TikTok, Twitter and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, gave similarly noncommittal answers.

Housefather said the answers were “pretty disturbing.” Much of the first part of the panel had focused on the degree to which anti-Israel or Israel-critical comment is antisemitic, and the lawmakers and a group of experts enthusiastically promoted the definition of antisemitism advanced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which some liberal groups see as too broad. Housefather said he was substituting “Jews” for “Zionists” in his hypothetical as a means of addressing concerns about whether attacking “Zionism” is antisemitic.

Housefather’s hypothetical was also an allusion to the difficulties Canadian Jewish advocates had in getting Twitter to ban Laith Marouf, a Canadian pro-Palestinian advocate whose tweets included “You know all those loud mouthed bags of human feces, a.k.a. the Jewish White Supremacists; when we liberate Palestine and they have to go back to where they come from, they will return to being low voiced bitches of Christian/Secular White Supremacist Masters” and “I have a motto: Life’s too short for shoes with laces or entertaining Jewish white supremacists with anything but a bullet to the head.”

Michele Austin, Twitter’s director of public policy for the United States and Canada, was unable to explain why Marouf was allowed to return to Twitter with a different handle after having been banned from the platform in August. (Marouf was at the center of a controversy when it was revealed last month that an ostensibly antiracism organization he works for was receiving Canadian government money; the government eventually withdrew the funds.)

Another tense exchange between Austin and Michal Cotler-Wunsh, a former Israeli parliament member, had to do with the tweets of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who routinely tweets antisemitic content and calls for Israel’s destruction. Cotler-Wunsh asked why Khamenei’s tweets remain up.

“What you are referring to is the world leaders policy, and I was very happy to hear a number of the comments from the envoys and the ambassadors with regard to this issue,” Austin said, without elaborating what Twitter’s “world leaders policy” was.

Wasserman Schultz was similarly frustrated when the social media representatives would not answer with specifics about what causes delays in the removal of hateful content.

The degree of frustration among the lawmakers was most evident at the end of the panel, when Wasserman Schultz scolded the companies for offering panaceas about promoting Holocaust remembrance. Eric Ebenstein, the director of public policy at TikTok, had listed a number of Holocaust commemorations the platform had promoted.

“Each of you in some way mentioned your pride in acknowledging Yom Hashoah and other specific Jewish holidays,” Wasserman Schultz said, referencing Israel’s Holocaust remembrance day. “Antisemitism is a viral toxic infection that drives real-world violence. And for you to only scratch the surface or to pander and use examples of, you know, like ‘some of your best friends are Jews’ is insulting and frustrating. So I would just suggest in the future when you’re testifying on this topic that perhaps you might not want to use those kinds of examples.”

[creepingsharia]

Joe Biden’s Biggest Fundraisers are Tied to Islamic Terrorists

The Iran Lobby, the Pakistan Lobby, and the Muslim Brotherhood are funding Biden.

by Daniel Greenfield

Joe Biden had spent the entire election hiding the names of his bundlers, the big money fundraisers who fueled his campaign, until releasing them right before Election Day.

What did he have to hide?

The list of bundlers who managed to raise at least $100,000 for Biden includes some of the usual Democrat politicians and big party donors, along with some other names.

Like that of Jamal Abdi.

Abdi is the executive director of NIAC Action and the former policy director of the National Iranian American Council, often referred to as the Iran Lobby.

NIAC Action is the lobbying arm of NIAC and despite claiming to represent the Persian diaspora in America, Iranian-Americans have accused it of echoing the talking points of Iran’s regime. Members of the democratic opposition to the Islamist regime have even helped spread the #niaclobbies4mullahs hashtag across Twitter which was tweeted as much as 300,000 times.

“The NIAC pretends to support the interests of Iranians who reside in the US but, in practice, it aims to protect the interests of the Islamic Republic,” Shervan Fashandi, a member of the opposition to the regime, has said.

Earlier this year, Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Tom Cotton had sent a letter to the Justice Department urging an investigation of NIAC and NIAC Action for violating FARA by lobbying for a foreign country without officially registering as foreign agents. The letter noted that "NIAC's relationship with the Iranian regime and its role amplifying regime propaganda in the United States have been the subject of discussion in Washington D.C. for years."

Iran is an Islamic terror state responsible for the murder of Americans around the world.

Joe Biden is no stranger to the Iran Lobby. He had celebrated the Islamic takeover of Iran. During the Iran Hostage Crisis, opposed the rescue of American hostages, and called for an end to pro-democracy broadcasts into Iran and for admitting the terror state into the WTO.

Early in the century, he had also raised sizable amounts of money and headlined an event for the American Iranian Council whose founder had run for the presidency of Iran.

After September 11, Biden suggested, “this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran.”

In 2007, Biden warned that if President Bush took action to stop Iran, he would impeach him.

A year later, he told Israelis that they would have to accept Iran’s nuclear program.

A spokesman for the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran warned that Biden's campaigns "have been financed by Islamic charities of the Iranian regime based in California."

Now, as America struggled with the pandemic, Biden hurried to propose a plan, not to help Americans, but to help Iran, to “streamline channels for banking” and weaken US sanctions.

NIAC Action endorsed Biden and appears to have raised a lot of money for him. What does NIAC expect in return? In its official endorsement, NIAC claimed that Biden had made an "ironclad commitment" to return to the Iran Deal. That would allow Iran to continue developing its nuclear program and provide it with an ongoing cash flow for international terrorism.

An article co-written by Abdi, one of Biden's biggest fundraisers, warned that "the U.S. has less leverage to secure concessions from Tehran given its own diminished credibility and Iran’s increasing nuclear leverage".

All of this comes as the FBI noted that Iranian hackers were targeting government websites in “an intentional effort to influence and interfere with the 2020 U.S. presidential election.”

Its hackers also sent threatening fake "Pro-Trump" emails to voters in Florida, among other states, warning, "You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you."

The move was transparently meant by the Iranians to aid the Biden-Harris campaign.

Had President Trump been the beneficiary of $100,000 or more in cash, a turnout operation, hacking attacks, and other forms of election interference from the networks around an enemy state, we would be hearing about it. Since all this is benefiting Biden, the story is being buried.

But Abdi isn’t the only troubling name on the list of Biden’s biggest bundlers.

One of them is Ijaz Ahmad.

Ahmad is the head of the American-Pakistani Political Action Committee (APPAC) who had boasted of being recognized by Pakistan's foreign ministry as the "true face of Pakistan".

APPAC is militantly opposed to India's attempts to stop Pakistani terrorism and Biden has been happy to pander to it, attacking India and expressing support for Islamic claims to Kashmir.

“We warmly welcome Mr. Biden’s policy declaration in support of people in occupied Kashmir,” Ahmad declared.

“Never before we have had so many Muslims in a position of influence in a presidential campaign,” Biden said, and quoted a Hadith.

APPAC noted that it had raised $320,000 for Biden, including $120,000 from Ahmad.

Tahir Javed, a candidate endorsed by APPAC, is also listed as a Biden bundler. As is Asif Mahmood, who ran for lieutenant governor in California, raising $1 million for the race, then for state insurance commissioner, before being appointed by Newsom to the Medical Board.

Pakistan is an Islamic terror state and an enemy of the United States, which harbored Osama bin Laden. The Bin Laden raid that Biden opposed targeted a Pakistani military town.

It’s deeply troubling that Biden doesn’t seem to have learned anything from that experience.

Another Islamic lobby member in the six figure Biden fundraiser club is Wa’el Alzayat, the head of Emgage. It’s been noted that Emgage is part of a network of Muslim Brotherhood organizations, and various figures in Emgage have connections to Islamic terrorist groups.

Another Biden bundler is Amed Khan, a member of an advisory council for the International Crisis Group founded by George Soros. In an editorial for the Quincy Institute, an anti-war group funded by Soros, Khan blamed the refugee problem on America's attacks on the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and on sanctions on the narcosocialist Maduro regime in Venezuela.

Another of the bundlers on the list is Hady Amr, Obama's Deputy Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, who has co-authored articles calling for a Hamas deal.

Amr had been the founding director of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. The Islamic terror state of Qatar has dominated Brookings and is a major backer of the Brotherhood and Hamas.

But the most striking bundler on the six figure list may be Mohamed Soltan.

Soltan is the son of Muslim Brotherhood cleric Salah Soltan. Salah had claimed in television appearances that people from all over the world “thirst for the blood of the Jews, and predicted, “One of these days, the U.S. will suffer more deaths than all those killed in this third Gaza holocaust. This will happen soon.”

Mohammed Soltan claimed that he was tortured by Egypt’s new government which had removed the brutal Muslim Brotherhood regime from power. While it's not certain that the Mohammed Soltan on the Biden bundler list is the same man, Soltan lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

While Soltan has denied that he’s affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, he served as president of the Muslim Student Association at Ohio State. The MSA was set up by Muslim Brotherhood members. He was also a speaker at an American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) conference. The AMP has been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, a terror arm of the Brotherhood.

Soltan has posted messages praising the Brotherhood and Hamas, describing the "Ikhwan" or Brotherhood as the "school that breeds amazing freedom fighters" like a Hamas leader.

In a tweet to the IDF spokesperson, Soltan declared that the terrorists were lions that would "annihilate u Zionist pigs".

A video shows him leading the "Khaybar" chant calling for the murder of Jews.

Joe Biden had tweeted support for Soltan by name and the Islamist supporter had thanked him personally after the Obama administration helped him escape Egyptian justice.

It’s understandable why the Biden campaign didn’t want Americans seeing a list of its top bundlers until now. The list contains disturbing names, lobbyists, and figures linked to Islamic terrorist organizations and regimes from Iran to Pakistan to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The presence of so many Islamist bundlers testifies not only to their determination to buy influence in a Biden administration, but Biden’s eagerness to sell out America. These donations are the culmination of decades of Biden’s pandering to Iran, to Pakistan, and to the Muslim Brotherhood. These are the numbers in cold hard cash for which Biden is betraying America.

The bundler list shows that Biden will aid Iran, Pakistan, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamic terrorists will thrive and Americans, and free people around the world, will die at their hands.

The Biden campaign is funded by supporters of Islamic terrorism because it supports terror.

[icymirss]

Rightwing activists are attempting to spread new laws across Republican-controlled states that would ban criticism on public university campuses of Israel and its occupation of Palestinian territory. Pro-Israel and conservative lobbyists are encouraging state lawmakers to outlaw antisemitism in public education, from kindergarten through to graduate universities. But the proposed definition of antisemitism is so wide that, in addition to standard protections against hate speech towards Jews, it would also prohibit debate about the human rights violations of the Israeli government. First amendment advocates see the potential spread of such laws as a major threat to free speech on campuses.... The push began at a conference in August held by the American Legislative Exchange Council, Alec, a conservative network which has a long history of propagating rightwing policies at state level through model bills.... The meeting at Alec is disclosed in emails obtained under a freedom of information request by David Armiak, research director for the watchdog Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and shared with the Guardian. They show that several Republican state lawmakers joined pro-Israeli lobbyists in Austin, Texas, to discuss disseminating new restrictions on speech relating to Israel on campuses across the heartlands. The private meeting was led by Randy Fine, a Republican from Florida who was instrumental in passing in May the first state law.... Also attending the meeting at Alec were lawmakers from South Carolina, North Carolina, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma, as well as representatives of two pro-Israel lobbying groups.... The Florida Republican encouraged peers in other state assemblies to work with one of the lobbying groups, the Israeli-American Coalition for Action, which he said had been "instrumental in providing outside support as I pushed the bill". In a separate email to the group, IAC for Action's Joseph Sabag said that he and his legal team had taken Fine's Florida bill and "refined it into a model that can be brought elsewhere. I urge you to contact me or Rep Alan Clemmons and take advantage of our policy support if you are considering filing a bill."... The emails give a clear indication of the motive behind the push for antisemitism bills -- countering criticism of Israel on campuses. Fine writes that under the new laws "antisemitism (whether acts by students, administrators or faculty, policies and procedures, club organizations etc) [will] be treated identically as how racism is treated. Students for Justice in Palestine is now treated the same way as the Ku Klux Klan..."