#former potus

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I received instructions from former president Barack Obama to drop a nuclear bomb on my parents' house. I got in the plane that held the bomb but I couldn't figure out how to fly it so I had to call my mom and ask her. After I started flying, she asked where I was flying to and I said, "Your mom-I mean, my mom's house?" and then immediately dropped it way too close to the ground which blew up the plane and killed everyone in the neighborhood.

[hereforalltheblackhilli]

All of these cases against the former Cheeto in chief are interesting to a small degree but all I really care about is what will prevent him from running again. What will make him ineligible to hold office? That's all I care about. The rest of it is noise.

[deadpresidents]

Just after the 2008 election, outgoing President George W. Bush invited all of the living former Presidents to the White House for a private lunch with President-elect Obama. A memorable Oval Office photograph shows the Bushes, Bill Clinton, and Obama chatting like old friends on the left, with Carter standing alone on the right. One of the Presidents confided later that the photo perfectly captured the chemistry of their meeting and lunch that day. The other Presidents gave Obama convivial advice on the peculiarities of the office, while Carter wanted to press his serious policy agenda. Carter later told Brian Williams of NBC News that the body language was deliberate because "I feel that my role as a former President is probably superior to that of other Presidents."

-- Jonathan Alter, writing about a lunch at the White House on January 7, 2009 with all living American Presidents and President-elect Barack Obama which highlighted the often-strained relationships that former President Jimmy Carter had with his successors, His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO).

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Okay, so I'm seeing a lot of rumors in other places of the internet speculating that Charles is hiding a huge medical problem because he's traveling with his own doctors and his own blood supply to Australia and Samoa. I wanted to address this, so:

This is normal, standard operating procedure for the monarch. Travelling with their own blood supply and doctors is more applicable for tours/visits to areas where local hospitals may not be as readily equipped for significant emergencies, which it sounds like the hospitals in Samoa may not be prepared for, just in case.

Here's an article from February 2023, citing a 2016 interview that discusses Queen Elizabeth traveling with her own doctors and blood supply:

And as well, a 2019 article discussing how Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, and Prince William travel with a blood supply:

And it's not just the BRF who does this. The POTUS also does this, according to this 2018 NBC News story:

Now Charles could still have other issues, but the presence of physicians and his own blood supply isn't a harbinger of secret medical concerns or that he's in the middle of a huge health crisis. Everyone is absolutely free to worry if they want to, but please, don't get worked up to the point of sleeplessness and anxiety attacks over something that's standard procedure and perfectly normal for heads of state all over the world.

[gsirvitor]

1. Support our Veterans. 2. Support the politician who dodged draft 5 times and called soldiers killed in action "suckers" and "losers". You can only pick one.

I support our Veterans, I also understand that the statement you're quoting is a lie.

A White House email from a U.S. Marine Corps official proves a “bad weather call” was the reason for President Trump’s canceled visit to Aisne-Marne American cemetery in 2018; further evidence refuting Biden’s claim includes U.S. Navy records obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request — and even John Bolton's book.

Unequivocal denials came from virtually every official on the trip:

Zach Fuentes, former deputy to Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly: “I did not hear POTUS call anyone losers when I told him about the weather. Honestly, do you think General Kelly would have stood by and let ANYONE call fallen Marines losers?” (Breitbart, 9/7/20)

John Bolton, former National Security Advisor: “I didn't hear either of those comments or anything even resembling them. I was there at the point in time that morning when it was decided that he would not go Aisne-Marne cemetery. He decided not to do it because of John Kelly's recommendation. It was entirely a weather-related decision, and I thought the proper thing to do.” (Fox News, 9/4/20)

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former White House press secretary: “The Atlantic story on @realDonaldTrump is total BS. I was actually there and one of the people part of the discussion - this never happened … I am disgusted by this false attack.” (X, 9/3/20)

Hogan Gidley, former White House deputy press secretary: “These are disgusting, grotesque, reprehensible lies. I was there in Paris and the President never said those things … These weak, pathetic, cowardly background ‘sources’ do not have the courage or decency to put their names to these false accusations because they know how completely ludicrous they are. It's sickening that they would hide in the shadows to knowingly try and hurt the morale of our great military simply for an attack on a political opponent.” (X, 9/3/20)

Dan Scavino, White House deputy chief of staff for communications: “I was with POTUS in France, with Sarah, and have been at his side throughout it all. Complete lies by ‘anonymous sources’ that were ‘dropped’ just as he begins to campaign (and surge). A disgraceful attempt to smear POTUS, 60 days before the Presidential Election! Disgusting!!” (X, 9/3/20)

Jordan Karem, former personal aide to President Trump: “This is not even close to being factually accurate. Plain and simple, it just never happened.” (X, 9/3/20)

Johnny DeStefano, former counselor to President Trump: “I was on this trip. The Atlantic bit is not true. Period.” (X, 9/4/20)

Stephen Miller, former senior advisor to President Trump: “ A despicable lie ... The president deeply wanted to attend the memorial event in question and was deeply displeased by the bad weather call." (Washington Examiner, 9/3/20)

Derek Lyons, former staff secretary and counselor to President Trump: “I was with the President the morning after the scheduled visit. He was extremely disappointed that arrangements could not be made to get him to the site, and that the trip had been cancelled.” (X, 9/4/20)

Dan Walsh, former White House deputy chief of staff: “I can attest to the fact that there was a bad weather call in France, and that the helicopters were unable to safely make the flight.” (White House Press Briefing, 9/4/20)

First Lady Melania Trump: “@TheAtlantic story is not true. It has become a very dangerous time when anonymous sources are believed above all else, & no one knows their motivation. This is not journalism - It is activism. And it is a disservice to the people of our great nation.” (X, 9/4/20)

Jamie McCourt, former U.S. Ambassador to France and Monaco: “In my presence, POTUS has NEVER denigrated any member of the U.S. military or anyone in service to our country. And he certainly did not that day, either. Let me add, he was devastated to not be able to go to the cemetery at Belleau Wood. In fact, the next day, he attended and spoke at the ceremony in Suresnes in the pouring rain.” (Breitbart, 9/7/20)

Mick Mulvaney, former acting White House chief of staff: “These claims are simply outrageous. I never heard the President disparage our war dead or wounded. In fact, the exact opposite is true. I was with him at the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion in Normandy. As we flew over the beaches by helicopter he was outwardly in awe of the accomplishments of the Allied Forces, and the sacrifices they paid.” (X, 9/4/20)

Trump very much respects the armed forces, and those who gave their lives for those who live today, now, this is not a day for politics, this is a day of Remembrance, respect.

Don your poppy and pay your respects to the fallen, and those who serve.

[xhxhxhx]

As I write this, it's Tuesday, November 5, 2024.

Today is Election Day.

I.

By federal law, Election Day is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. 3 U.S.C. §§ 1, 21.

Under the Constitution, the President is elected by presidential electors. Electors are appointed in each State, as directed by the State legislature. Art. II, § 1, cl. 2.

Unlike in elections to the House and Senate, where Congress may preempt State election law, art. I, § 4, cl. 1, Congress has only one power in presidential elections: The Election Day power.

Under the Constitution, "Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their votes." Art. II, § 1, cl. 4.

At first, Congress was lax. In its law of 1792, Congress only required States to appoint presidential electors "within thirty-four days preceding the first Wednesday in December," when the electors would vote. 1 Stat. 239.

Congress ultimately set a national Election Day in 1845. 5 Stat. 721. Their Election Day is our Election Day:

the electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed in each State on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November of the year in which they are to be appointed.

And by the same law, Congress gave the States a fallback option:

when any State shall have held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and shall fail to make a choice on the day aforesaid, then the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such manner as the State shall by law provide.

That language, "fail to make a choice," remained in federal law at the last election. Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 644, § 2, 62 Stat. 672, 672 (previously codified at 3 U.S.C. § 2 (2020)).

The language invited mischief.

II.

At the last election, the sitting President suggested that perhaps the People had "fail[ed] to make a choice" on election day, and the States should appoint electors "on a subsequent day."

"The state legislature can take over the electoral process," the White House Chief of Staff suggested to a State Senator a few days after election day. H.R. Rep. 117-663 at 267.

The former Energy Secretary, noting that State legislatures could "just send their own electors," mused to the Chief of Staff, "I wonder if POTUS knows this." Id.

The former Speaker, meeting with the President a week after election day, sent a message to the President, suggesting that friendly "legislatures elect not to send in electors." Id. at 268.

Although the President spoke to a number of State legislators, id., and his campaign reached out to about two hundred of them, id. at 271, no State took him up on it.

Perhaps the President simply lacked the energy for a campaign that, as one of his copartisans suggested, would involve "hundreds of briefings for State lawmakers." Id. at 269.

Perhaps the President was simply too late. The President was only holding private briefings with three hundred State legislators on dates as late as January 2. Id. at 271.

That was weeks after the electors had met, on December 14, "the first Monday after the second Wednesday," § 7, 62 Stat. 673, and federal law had made their choice "conclusive." § 5, id.

Maybe the President just wanted to do something easier.

Like a speech.

III.

In 2022, Congress revised the fallback option.

The old section, 3 U.S.C. § 2, was repealed. Today is governed by 3 U.S.C. § 1, "election day," unqualified by any reservations about States that "fail to make a choice":

The electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed, in each State, on election day, in accordance with the laws of the State enacted prior to election day.

But the fallback option remains, embedded in the words "election day," 3 U.S.C. § 21:

As used in this chapter the term- (1) "election day" means the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, in every fourth year succeeding every election of a President and Vice President held in each State, except,

And then the exception:

except, in the case of a State that appoints electors by popular vote, if the State modifies the period of voting, as necessitated by force majeure events that are extraordinary and catastrophic, as provided under laws of the State enacted prior to such day, "election day" shall include the modified period of voting.

Today is Election Day, and so long as nothing extraordinary and catastrophic happens, only today is Election Day.

Don't fail to make your choice.

[opspro2005]

Love him or hate him, President Trump has been out of office for almost 4 years. Even the most diehard leftists have to admit, at least to themselves, that President Trump is not to blame for our crashing economy. This American decline is 100% at the feet of the kenyan and his puppet, the pedo potus.

[stevetonyweekly]

SteveTony Weekly - September 1 - Week 35

Hello, friends, welcome to September! I’ll share what podfic I listened to last month tomorrow, but for today--here’s my reads from last week. Enjoy and feel free to share with me what you’re reading! 

Overexposure by shetlandowl

A story written in the style of a 'who done it?' - except it's how and not a who, and the it is Steve and Tony's engagement.

(Or is it?)

From the Ground Up by ohjustpeachy 

Tony and Steve broke up years ago and Tony never quite got over it. When they finally see each other again at Pepper's wedding, Rhodey convinces Tony this might just be his second chance.

my thoughts: they’re just so perfect and sweet together, I love them. 

Paint the Town Blue by ohjustpeachy 

Ten years since he’d seen or spoken to Tony Stark, ten years since they’d broken up to go away to school. And now this email. It could be his only chance to see Tony again.

my thoughts: breaking up and getting back together is just so sweet

A Thousand Rainy Days Since We First Met by Carsonian

Following the unfortunate death of her Secretary of State, Peggy Carter, Steve's former mentor and current POTUS, convinces him to accept the role. Five months later, Steve finds himself juggling an already impossible role with newfound feelings for the grumpy, intelligent and impossible White House Chief of Staff, Tony Stark.

(A.K.A. Madam Secretary!AU where Steve's Secretary of State, Tony's White House Chief of Staff, and every time they butt heads, pining!Steve is convinced they're getting closer to kissing.)

my thoughts: i am such a sucker for political aus, and competency kink, and this is kinda the perfect merge of both. 

And Their Hearts Are Guarded By Dragons by runningondreams 

After an ambush by an unknown dragon and rider pair, T’ny searches for his dragon partner, Ferroth. In a desperate flight to prove Ferroth still lives he finds S’teve and Libereth adrift and injured from a battle he can hardly imagine existing: dragons fighting dragons. Together, S’teve and T’ny navigate tangles of time travel, villainy that challenges their most dearly-held truths, and the budding of new love.

A getting-together Marvel 616/Dragonriders of Pern AU (no prior Pern knowledge necessary).

my thoughts: i love dragons and I love Pern AND I love Stevetony so this was just all around delightful. I can’t imagine reading this without knowledge of Pern, but I def think you should try. 

[recursive360]

May God Bless Former President Trump

May God Bless President Biden

May God Bless POTUS

May God Bless the U.S. Secret Service

May God Bless America

Amen. 🙏

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I went to a Ghost concert with a few friends and former US President Theodore Roosevelt. He was arguably a bigger fan than the rest of us too, like he had a band shirt and everything and pushed through all the way to the first row.

[neuropsyche]

Can’t be anymore un-American than home depot

'Boycott Home Depot' calls surface online after co-founder Bernie Marcus pledges to support trump even if former POTUS is convicted

https://meaww.com/boycott-home-depot-calls-surface-online-after-co-founder-bernie-marcus-pledges-to-support-trump-even-if-former-potus-is-convicted

[deadpresidents]

"Of course the subject would be relieved of all uncertainty and embarrassment if every President would die at the end of his term."

-- Former President Grover Cleveland, on the uncertain role played by former Presidents in retirement, during remarks to neighbors in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, July 25, 1891.

One year later, Cleveland would seek and win reelection as the only President in American history to serve non-consecutive terms.

[walks-the-ages]

ah, can't find the original post to respond to it, and tumblr was refusing to let me actually post with the usual bullshit of "sorry there was an error processing your post" . anyways.

If you see a post going around about Jewish restaurants being targeted for harassment by pro-palestine protestors "solely for being Jewish", stop what you are doing and actually look up the incident in question, because that is not what happened at Goldie's restaurant!

Full article below for accessiblity, and because we all know Tumblr only looks at headlines and doesn't click links to news articles.

Long post!

Bolding is my own for emphasis.

A protest against a top Israel-born chef was called antisemitic. Staff tell a different story

Wilfred ChanFri 8 Dec 2023 16.55 GMTFirst published on Fri 8 Dec 2023 12.00 GMT

The 21-second clip went viral almost as soon as it was posted early on Sunday evening. It showed hundreds of protesters, some with Palestinian flags, united in a rhyming chant: “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”

They were protesting outside Goldie, a vegan falafel restaurant owned by Michael Solomonov, the Israel-born celebrity chef best known for Zahav, an Israeli-themed restaurant widely considered one of the United States’ finest eateries. It was one brief stop along a march traversing Philadelphia that lasted about three hours.

Many of the protesters hadn’t even returned home from the march when the condemnations began to pour in. The Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, posted on X: “Tonight in Philly, we saw a blatant act of antisemitism – not a peaceful protest. A restaurant was targeted and mobbed because its owner is Jewish and Israeli. This hate and bigotry is reminiscent of a dark time in history.”

Even the White House piled on: it was “antisemitic and completely unjustifiable to target restaurants that serve Israeli food over disagreements with Israeli policy”, said the deputy press secretary, Andrew Bates. Douglas Emhoff, husband of Vice-President Kamala Harris, wrote on X that he had spoken with Solomonov and “told him @POTUS, @VP, and the entire Biden-Harris Administration will continue to have his back”.

It was the apex of a saga that has resulted in at least three workers fired from Solomonov’s restaurants over, as they see it, their pro-Palestine activism coming into conflict with their bosses’ views and policies, and at least one other worker who has resigned in protest – thrusting the renowned Israeli eateries into the thick of bitter US disagreements over the Israel-Hamas war.

The street protest against Goldie has sparked heated debate. As the war on Gaza rages on, with over 17,000 people killed in Gaza since 7 October – 70% of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry – are Israel-linked businesses in the US implicated? Was Solomonov, a chef who has credited Palestinian influences in his cooking, an appropriate target?

Interviews with protesters and current and former employees at Solomonov’s restaurants paint a more complex version of events than what the video clip may have suggested. They reject the notion that Goldie was singled out because of the owners’ ethnicity, arguing that their objections stem from management using the restaurants to fundraise for Israel after 7 October in spite of worker concerns. Activists also say their protest shines a necessary spotlight on the political commitments of one of the highest-profile restaurateurs in the United States.

Tensions at work

There were political tensions simmering at Solomonov’s restaurants before Sunday’s march. The Guardian spoke to three Goldie workers who say they were fired due to their pro-Palestine advocacy: two who wore Palestinian flag pins in violation of a newly announced dress code that forbade non-Goldie branded adornments, and another who tweeted in support of Sunday’s street protest.

Their discomfort at work began following a fundraiser in October, during which Solomonov and his business partner Steve Cook announced they would donate all of the restaurant group’s profits from one day, over $100,000, to United Hatzalah, an Israeli medical non-profit that has supplied the Israel Defense Forces with protective and medical gear during the current war against Hamas.

And in early November, Solomonov’s Zahav hosted a private fundraiser by a prominent political action committee dedicated to supporting political candidates “who reflect Jewish values”. Attendees at the event, which has not been previously reported, included the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer; and dozens of other pro-Israel officials and lobbyists, according to a current Zahav employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The employee said that in recent weeks, Solomonov had also booked and paid for multiple, lavish private dinners at Zahav for IDF members preparing to deploy to fight for Israel.

“The amount of material support that we’ve lended to pro-Israel causes and Israeli military personnel has been really discomforting,” the Zahav worker told the Guardian.

In an email to workers on Wednesday, Solomonov and Cook apologized for not communicating about their political stances with staff more directly. The pair had sought to “avoid discussing politics at work … to make everyone as comfortable as possible in the restaurant,” the owners wrote. “But perhaps we created a void that had the opposite effect. For that, we are sorry.”

The fraught politics of food

The protest and its fallout have produced the biggest controversy ever faced by Solomonov, one of America’s most prominent Israeli cultural figures and someone who for years has cast himself as a culinary bridge between Israel, Palestine, and the United States.

Solomonov’s brother, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, was killed in 2003 by Hezbollah snipers; Solomonov wrote in his first cookbook, Zahav, that the tragedy made him briefly consider joining Israel’s army. Instead, he decided to channel his emotion into food, something he found allowed him to “expose people to a side of Israel that had nothing to do with politics”. That led him and Cook, an investment banker-turned-restaurateur, to found Zahav in 2008, followed by other prominent Israeli-themed eateries: Dizengoff, Goldie, K’Far, and Laser Wolf, under a restaurant group called CookNSolo. In 2017, Israel’s ministry of tourism named him a culinary ambassador.

The restaurants have never been completely free from controversy. Debates over the origins and ownership of Middle Eastern food have raged for years; many culinary experts have argued that Palestinian contributions to Mediterranean cuisine have been used by Israeli chefs without sufficient respect or acknowledgement. Yet while Solomonov and Cook have always branded their food as Israeli, their menus and cookbooks cite Palestinian influences on many dishes. For years, Solomonov also spoke of his friendship with the Palestinian writer and cookbook author Reem Kassis – though the two are no longer speaking, according to the New York Times.

But the conflicts aren’t just over cultural appropriation. They’re about “the way Israel as a state has weaponized food against the Palestinian people”, says the Palestinian American chef Reem Assil, who owns Reem’s, a Arab street food joint in San Francisco. “Even before these last 60 days, Israel has restricted what Gazans can access in terms of food and water. They target bakeries, they target farms, they target markets. They uproot our olive trees, they make it illegal for us to forge our own ingredients, like za’atar.” The UN warned last month that Israel’s military operations in Gaza had put residents there at “immediate” risk of starvation.

A controversial fundraiser

Since the 7 October attacks, Solomonov has publicly sought to caveat his support for Israel. “I personally believe in the right of Palestinians to have their own state, and the right for self-determination, and I don’t deny those things,” he said at an event last month in New Jersey, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “And I believe the Israeli government oftentimes does things that I would not do at all … and it can be quite damaging.”

But internally, Solomonov and Cook were using their restaurants to steer resources toward Israel.

On 10 October, Solomonov and Cook announced a fundraiser that would donate all the profits across CookNSolo restaurants on 12 October to United Hatzalah. “It is not associated with any military,” the restaurant group assured staff in a Slack message – something that simply wasn’t true, workers soon realized with alarm.

Goldie staff were caught off guard because they considered the restaurant a politically progressive institution. The vegan falafel restaurant proudly displayed an LGBTQ flag and Black Lives Matter flag on its wall. Many of the workers were young and identified as queer. There was a casual dress code: Noah Wood, a 25-year-old who uses they/them pronouns, said they did shifts at Goldie while wearing hats with slogans supporting indigenous rights.

The night before CookNSolo’s fundraiser, Goldie’s store manager at the time, 24-year-old Sophie Hamilton, says she discovered public videos by United Hatzalah about how the non-profit supplied protective gear to IDF soldiers. She rushed off an email to Goldie’s general manager, Emma Richards, saying she felt “deeply betrayed and misled”. “I feel like I’ve been left with no choice but to refuse to come to work tomorrow unless [CookNSolo] commits to also raising donations for a Palestinian humanitarian organization, of course with no connection to any military.”

But Hamilton’s suggestion was ignored, and Richards simply told her someone would cover her shift the next day.

When Hamilton returned to work, she decided to keep working but while wearing a small Palestinian flag pin. “There’s just a point where you can’t leave your humanity at the door,” she said. No customers complained, but two weeks later, management announced a new rule: staff were not to wear stickers, pins, or patches that were not Goldie-branded.

Wood, the other server, started wearing a Palestinian flag pin in open defiance of the new rule. Another worker, June, 24, wore a green shirt, black pants, and a red bandana – a reference to the colors of Palestinian flag.

On 15 November, the restaurant asked Hamilton to send Wood home for violating the dress code. Hamilton refused, and the next day they were both fired, Hamilton for “poor performance for failing to enforce the uniform policy”. Wood was not given any official reason, they say.

In the Wednesday email to staff, the owners wrote: “We recognize that people have different views on the war between Israel and Hamas, and we respect your rights to your own views. Many of our guests have passionate feelings about the current conflict and, knowing that not all of you feel the same way, our approach is to simply avoid discussing politics at work.”

They did not provide details on the firings beyond writing: “It is also important for you to hear directly from us that we have never terminated employees based on their support for Palestine.”

The owners added: “We think it’s important to say that our support of Israel is not unqualified. We have plenty of criticisms, particularly in the way that the government has stymied the prospects for Palestinian statehood in recent years.”

In a statement shared with the Guardian, United Hatzalah’s senior vice-president for international operations, Michael Brown, said that the nonprofit and the IDF “often train together, especially when conducting mass casualty training drills, or search and rescue training drills in order to hone our skills and help the IDF sharpen theirs, as well as to allow for an easier flow of collaborative life saving efforts should the need ever arise in the field, similar to what happened during October 7th.”

The restaurant group declined to respond to a detailed list of questions by the Guardian about the fired workers, but a spokeswoman said in a statement: “CookNSolo exists to create community through food. We are committed to fostering an open, safe, and supportive workplace for all of our employees who have varying backgrounds and political views. Like many hospitality companies, we have standard policies for our employees, which we consistently enforce.” Solomonov declined, through a representative, a direct request for an interview.

Justin Sadowsky, an attorney at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights non-profit, says the firings of Goldie workers are the first time he’s heard of restaurant workers allegedly fired for supporting Palestine since 7 October. “We’ve seen it in hospitals, we’ve seen it at large corporations, we’ve seen it in law firms, but it’s sort of spilling into everywhere,” he said. The organization says it’s received a “staggering” 2,171 requests for help and reports of bias in the 57 days since the Israel-Hamas war began, equalling nearly half of the total complaints it handled in all of 2022.

Call for a boycott

Meanwhile, CookNSolo’s fundraiser for United Hatzalah had caught the attention of local activists in a group called the Philadelphia Free Palestine Coalition. The activists weren’t in touch with the restaurant workers, but drew the same conclusion: by funneling restaurant proceeds toward a group associated with the IDF, CookNSolo was complicit in Israel’s war crimes.

In mid-October, the activists called for a boycott. Natalie Abulhawa, a Palestinian American organizer at the Free Palestine Coalition, helped write an Instagram post for the boycott that named three of Solomonov’s restaurants – Goldie, Zahav, and Laser Wolf – as well as a number of other Middle Eastern restaurants in the city. “Restaurants and businesses claiming to sell ‘Israeli’ food, fruits, vegetables, and products are part of an ongoing colonial campaign of stealing, appropriating, and profiting off of Palestinian food and culture as a means of erasing Palestinian existence,” the call read.

The boycott made waves in the food world, and Solomonov addressed it at a closed-door event in November at a New Jersey Jewish Community Center. Speaking to the crowd of several hundred, he called the boycott misguided, adding that it wasn’t affecting his sales, according to the Inquirer. While acknowledging that “part of Israeli food is Palestinian influenced”, he argued that any suggestion that Israeli food was stolen from Palestinians was akin to saying Israelis “don’t have a right to be there”. Solomonov added that his restaurants credited Palestinian influences on their menus and claimed Zahav imported more Palestinian wines than any other Philadelphia eatery.

But privately, Solomonov and Cook were using their restaurants to platform Israel’s war effort. On 1 November, Zahav hosted a fundraiser by a major political action committee called Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania, whose guests included Whitmer and as many as 80 other pro-Israel officials and lobbyists, according to the unnamed Zahav employee. “It was an explicitly pro-Israel reception and speeches made were about that support,” the employee said.

The employee said that Whitmer, who delivered a keynote, opened with the Jewish expression of solidarity “Am Yisrael Chai”, or “the people of Israel live”, and called for providing material support to Israel, and that Solomonov, who was in the audience, was afterward “emphatically talking and thanking all of the attendees”.

In the following weeks, the employee became even more disturbed as Solomonov hosted and paid for at least two private dinners at Zahav for small groups of Israelis, including soldiers who were preparing to fly home to fight the Gaza war. Solomonov explained with “a level of reverence” that the restaurant would cover the bill because of the diners’ roles in the Israeli military, the employee says.

These events, in addition to the firings of Goldie staff, have made many of Zahav’s staff deeply uncomfortable. “Most of the employees here are not particularly interested in the support of Israel,” the employee said, but the workers fear retaliation if they speak out. CookNSolo declined to comment on the events at Zahav.

A clip goes viral

Pennsylvania’s Jewish and Muslim communities have been on edge since the Israel-Hamas war began. On Monday, a Jewish daycare in Philadelphia reported that vandals had spray-painted “Free Palestine” and other graffiti on its windows. On Tuesday, a pair of students sued the University of Pennsylvania, claiming it had become an “incubation lab for virulent anti-Jewish hatred”. Last week, a South Philadelphia mosque reported that it had been vandalized by anti-Muslim graffiti. And last month, a man was arrested for pointing a gun and yelling racial slurs against a group of pro-Palestine demonstrators at the state’s capitol.

The Goldie protest also followed a growing number of incidents that have entangled Middle Eastern food businesses. Palestinian restaurants such as New York City’s Ayat have reported being flooded with negative reviews since the war began; last month, an ex-Obama aide was charged with a hate crime for harassing a halal food street vendor.

But Goldie’s attempts to head off pro-Palestinian activism were futile.

On 3 December, the Free Palestine Coalition led hundreds of protesters in an evening of marches around Philadelphia to renew calls for a ceasefire. Starting from Rittenhouse Square in Philly’s Center City neighborhood, the march took a wrong turn, which brought it past Goldie, says Abulhawa. The encounter with the falafel restaurant wasn’t planned, she says, “but we ran with it”.

June, who is Jewish, was one of the employees working inside Goldie that night, and said the protest – which lasted just a few minutes – was completely peaceful: “There was nothing violent, no hint of antisemitism.” The store was devoid of guests when the marchers arrived, though one customer came in partway through to pickup an online order and displayed no reaction. June even thought about going outside to join the protest, but thought better of it and instead quietly chanted along to the slogans from inside the store.

Someone placed two small stickers on Goldie’s door and window. One read, “Free Palestine,” and another contained a statistic about the number of children Israel had killed in Gaza (Abulhawa says that whoever placed the stickers were not asked to do so by protest organizers). One protester briefly posed in front of the door with a Palestine flag. Then the protest shuffled on.

A few minutes later, a user named Jordan Van Glish posted a 21-second clip of the protest to X, where it quickly went viral. Comments flooded in: “Once again proving that this is about hating Jews,” one user wrote. Stop Antisemitism, a prominent pro-Israel group, posted that it was a “failure” that no anti-riot police were dispatched and no protesters were arrested.

But Philadelphia’s police force told the Guardian that officers observing the march “did not see, hear, or record any threats to persons inside or outside Goldie”, and the department received “no 911 calls or complaints” during the event.

Some marchers have acknowledged how the clip, taken out of context, could have been misinterpreted. “I’d say in hindsight, maybe [the organizers] should have spent another minute explaining why we were stopping there,” says Joe Piette, a photographer who joined the protest. “It would have been better to explain some of the details of the owner of that restaurant. Our mistake was not explaining it on the spot.”

June felt that frustration when they got home that night and saw the clip gaining traction. “So I felt like I should give the context that was missing from that tweet,” they said. June published a post explaining that the restaurant group had raised money for Israel-linked causes and punished pro-Palestine employees. “If you don’t want to be directly funding genocide, you should probably stay away from Goldie” and other CookNSolo restaurants, they wrote.

On Monday, June got a phone call while on the bus to work: they were fired as well. The manager gave no explanation, but June didn’t need to ask why. “Honestly, I didn’t really feel that bad or surprised,” they said. “I had no pride in this job.”

High-profile officials have continued to argue that the protesters were motivated by antisemitism. Governor Shapiro doubled down on his tweet after visiting Goldie and meeting with Solomonov on Wednesday. “A mob protested a restaurant simply because it’s owned by a Jewish person,” the governor claimed. “That is the kind of antisemitic tropes that we saw in 1930s Germany, and it’s the kind of thing we should not tolerate.” In a statement to the Guardian, his office reiterated: “This was not a peaceful protest”.

Two days after the march, Tess Rauscher, a 25-year-old barista at the CookNSolo-owned Israeli cafe K’Far, resigned, citing the company’s fundraiser and firing of Goldie workers, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It was these actions, not the identity of the owner, that changed the nature of my job,” she said.

This article was amended on 8 December 2023 to delete an incorrect reference to a manager taking down an LGBTQ+ flag. Also references to Governor Josh Shapiro attending an event at Zahav on 1 November were deleted. Governor Shapiro’s office have said he was not at the event.

[end article]

TL;DR:

Goldie's restaurant and 2 other restaurants owned by the same famous Israeli chef were part of a general boycott starting in October.

The famous israeli chef, Michael Solomonov, has been directly funding the Israeli military with fundraisers at his various owned resteraunts (including donating over $100,000 in a single day)

Michael Solomonov has also hosted multiple, lavish "going away parties" free of charge for people deploying to go fight in Gaza (you know, just, going on over to help commit genocide!)

Multiple staff were fired for being pro-palestine, including for wearing pins with the Palestinian flag, or wearing the colors of the palestinian flag to work.

June, A jewish staff member who was working when the protestors arrived outside the restaurant, did not feel threatened in any way, affirmed it was a completely peaceful protest, and actually considered stopping their work to go out and join the march, but ultimately decided to stay for the rest of their shift and quietly chant along with the protestors. They were fired a few days later, and not given any explanation.

[meandmybigmouth]

IT'S JUST ME BUT, I WANT MY GOVERNMENT READING THE ART OF WAR BY SUN TZU THAN THE BIBLE IN A CONFLICT AND I SURE AS HELL DON'T WANT MY POTUS TALKING TO THE ENEMY BEHIND AMERICA'S BACK!

Donald Trump Says He Trusts Putin More Than U.S. Intelligence 'Lowlifes'

WHAT KIND OF F*****G CONFIDENCE DOES HE INSPIRE?

[carsonian]

FINAL chapter of madam secretary fic is OUT. cowabunga hallelujah rejoice & whatnot

we are DONE with this bitch! hello!!!

“A Thousand Rainy Days Since We First Met” | Chapter 7/7 | 5431 words | Rated M

Following the unfortunate death of her Secretary of State, Peggy Carter, Steve’s former mentor and current POTUS, convinces him to accept the role. Five months later, Steve finds himself juggling an already impossible role with newfound feelings for the grumpy, intelligent and impossible White House Chief of Staff, Tony Stark. (A.K.A. Madam Secretary!AU where Steve’s Secretary of State, Tony’s White House Chief of Staff, and every time they butt heads, pining!Steve is convinced they’re getting closer to kissing.)

thank u to the people and i am so so sleepy i'm off to bed