#lefty nation rise

[beautiful-basque-country]

I’ve read your recent post like six times but I still can’t wrap my head around it. There are masses for Franco? MASSES?

I know the Catholic Church can be a real mess, but how on Earth is this allowed? Isn’t there a bishop or someone at the Vatican that can stop this?

How do all the various communities let these gatherings and masses happen?

I’m Italian and Irish, so the lose equivalent of this Franco worship would be gatherings and masses for Mussolini and Cromwell, which I could never see happening. There would be a revolts in the streets! I mean sure, there’s always a handful of fascist ass lickers in every community, but usually it’s not blatant and their actions aren’t accepted let alone celebrated?

What is the general education regarding Franco like in Spain? Is there a lot of revisionist theory trying to paint him out to be something other than a psychopathic murderer?

Sorry if these questions are stupid, I’m just shocked this is like a normal and widespread thing. I’ve been to Spain once, and I guess I missed this aspect of the culture?

Kaixo anon!

They're not stupid questions, and I'll try my best to answer in an understandable way.

I'm sorry you're shocked about the masses thing, but it becomes a bit less weird if you take into account that one of the keys to the success of Franco's regime was Catholicism and the Catholic Church. Not for nothing his political ideas were called "national-Catholicism". The Church gave its full support to Franco and the dictatorship, and worked hard indoctrinating people to first accept and then passionately defend it. We can't understand Francoism without the Catholic religion.

You ask why this is allowed. Easy!! I'm not sure how Christian masses work in other parts of the world, but in Spain and EH, you pay and the church delivers: it can be a mention of the name of a deceased person the family wants to honor on the Sunday mass, or a full mass for said person any day you want. That's why there are masses for Franco eeeeeeeevery Nov 20. Because somebody - Franco Foundation, fascist associations or parties, just somebody - pays for them to exist. Of course the Catholic church defends it's just a mass of remembrance for a deceased person and not a glorification of a fascist dictator. Okay, if they say so.

Just this year there have been 18 masses throughout the Spanish state: in Madrid, Valladolid, Zaragoza, Málaga, Toledo, Alicante, Santander, Granada, Uesca, València, Zamora, Ceuta, Teruel, Sevilla, and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

I'd like to think that Francoism isn't part of the Spanish culture as you mention, but sadly 40 years of a fascist dictatorship do some things to people. 40 years of lefties escaping the country or being executed, 40 years of brainwashing, 40 years of turbo Catholic fascism. You don't leave all that behind just overnight. There are still monuments to the dictator or the coup (Crusade, in fascist language), streets devoted to fascist elite members and criminals, and the f*cking king is the son of the king Franco personally chose for the Spanish state. There are Francoism remnants in every single Spanish institution, from the Congress to the Supreme Court (especially there). Everything is still tainted by Franco, his political ideas, and his corrupt political ways, even now, yes. Franco himself said the infamous words maaaany still remember: everything is tied and tied well. He meant that everything was throughly planned and established to function as he wanted when he passed. And it really was tied well.

So it may be not blatant for anyone visiting, but it's there, and it's definitely apparent. There's this sociological Francoism that was somewhat hidden from the 90s to the 10s, but now with the rise of the far right / neonazi movements has taken the mask off and fascists are calling themselves fascists with pride. There have always been some nostalgic people that were considered fanatic freaks up until now, but now they're more and more since very young men - mainly - are joining them.

[coochiequeens]

A lot of lefties blasting RayGun for taking a spot at the Olympics instead of someone who could actually breakdance didn't say shit when this guy took the spot instead of a WOC and then made cutesy hand signals after bombing out.

Laurel Hubbard has made history by becoming the first openly transgender athlete to compete in an individual event at the Summer Olympics. The New Zealand weightlifter did not make the podium, after failing to advance to the final.

Competing in the 87+kg class on Monday, Hubbard struggled to lift 125 kg (275 pounds), putting her out of the running. Her official result is "did not finish," as she bowed out after failing to record a clean lift in the snatch section of the two-part competition.

Hubbard had seemed to successfully lift the weight in her second of three attempts, but in a split decision, the judges ruled she had not held the bar steady above her head.

Despite not reaching the final round, Hubbard smiled and cupped her hands together in a heart gesture before walking off the stage at the Tokyo International Forum.

"My performance wasn't what I had hoped, but I'm humbled by the support I've received from so many people around New Zealand," she said, adding, "I am aware that my participation has been controversial."

"Thank you to the IOC for living up to the Olympic values and showing that sport is for all and that weightlifting can be done by all types of people," Hubbard said.

In her emotional farewell, Hubbard also thanked Japan for hosting the Games, according to her country's Olympic committee.

Trans athletes have reached new heights in Tokyo

Hubbard joins Canada's Quinn, a midfielder on the country's national soccer team who is transgender and nonbinary, in reaching new heights for trans athletes at the Tokyo Games. Quinn, a veteran of the women's team who came out last year and uses one name, recently became the first openly trans person to compete in an Olympics.

Hubbard made headlines when the International Olympic Committee cleared her to compete — a decision that has sparked both support and criticism. For her part, Hubbard has welcomed the chance to compete on the world stage while also showing her true self.

"I commend the IOC for its commitment to making sport inclusive and accessible," she said on Friday. After Monday's loss, Hubbard also thanked the International Weightlifting Federation.

"They have been extraordinarily supportive," she said. "I think that they, too, have shown that weightlifting is an activity that's open to all the people of the world."

She took 15 years off from lifting

When she was in her 20s, Hubbard was a rising star in men's weightlifting, but she quit the sport, she recently said, after struggling with "the pressure of trying to fit into a world that perhaps wasn't really set up for people like myself."

She began transitioning in 2012 — and after a hiatus of more than 15 years, she started working toward a return to competitive weightlifting.

Hubbard, 43, is 10 years older than any other athlete who was in her Group A heat at Monday's competition.

The gold was won by China's Li Wenwen, the world-record holder in the event. Team USA's Sarah Robles won bronze. It's the second bronze for Robles, who in 2016 broke a long Olympic drought for U.S. weightlifting.

"Samoa Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele's anger was palpable after Hubbard claimed gold at the Pacific Games over Samoa's Feagaiga Stowers, who took home silver.

"This fa'afafine [a Samoan third gender] or man should have never been allowed by the Pacific Games Council president to lift with the women," Mr Tuilaepa told the Samoa Observer."

In case anyone whinesxabout TIMs bring oppressed this Hubbards father, a successful businessman and politian

[mariacallous]

It is a measure of the divisiveness and tolerance for violence in the United States that the possibility of civil war looms so large over the 2024 presidential election—no matter which candidate wins. It is even the subject of a hit dystopian thriller. Though an actual civil war resulting from the election’s outcome remains unlikely, a range of sufficiently alarming politically violent scenarios are nevertheless quite possible.

Former President Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records has sharpened frictions, with threats to the judiciary and his opponents immediately intensifying. “Time to start capping some leftys. This cannot be fixed by voting,” was one typical reaction tracked by Reuters on Gateway Pundit, a right-wing news site. Far-right media personality Stew Peters said on his Telegram channel that “our judicial system has been weaponized against the American people. We are left with NO option but to take matters into our own hands.”

Meanwhile, our assessments suggest that elements on the far left in this country are also escalating militant threats. A call to “Fuck the Fourth” recently appeared on an anarchist website, heralding a day of action on July 4 targeting the ports of Seattle, Oakland, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, New Jersey, and Baltimore. Additional summons to “Flood The Gates: Escalate” over the Gaza War both on college campuses and in communities across the nation this summer and fall are circulating on social media. At a pro-Palestine protest at the White House in June, one protester held up a decapitated likeness of President Joe Biden’s head, while crowds chanted “Revolution.”

These would-be violent extremists represent a microcosm of a U.S. political landscape that is increasingly willing to tolerate violence. A survey conducted last year found that 23 percent of Americans agreed with the statement that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” Another more recent poll similarly found that 28 percent of Republicans strongly agree or agree that “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track.” Meanwhile, 12 percent of Democrats agreed with the premise.

Among gun owners in the United States, these sentiments are even more prevalent. According to a survey conducted by the University of California, Davis, “About 42% of owners of assault-type rifles said political violence could be justified, rising to 44% of recent gun purchasers, and a staggering 56% of those who always or nearly always carry loaded guns in public

As the United States approaches its November election, the risks of violence will thus rise. This should not be surprising. Historically, violence is actually quite common in the United States, especially during election seasons. During the Reconstruction era, much of white supremacist violence directed against freed Black men and women was intended to intimidate would-be voters, ensuring that segregationist Democrats maintained their grip on power in the Deep South.

More recently, the 2022 midterms saw an assassination attempt target the speaker of the House of Representatives in an attack that seriously wounded her husband. The 2020 election, of course, sparked the Jan. 6, 2021, terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. In the 10 days leading up to the 2018 midterms, there were no fewer than four far-right terrorist attacks, most notably the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. The mail bombs that circulated that same week showed that threats to politicians have in fact been particularly frequent during the Trump era.

Despite that disquieting pattern, 2024 appears to provide even more fertile ground for militant responses to electoral developments. Trump’s court cases, coupled with the insistence from both parties that—in Trump’s words—“If we don’t win this election, I don’t think you’re going to have another election in this country,” have painted the election in existential terms.

As the United Nations Development Program concluded from its research into election violence around the world, “A common cause of election violence is that the stakes of winning and losing valued political posts are in many situations … incredibly high.”

Rendering the threat yet more severe is the range of possible locations and individuals that extremists may target, spanning the duration of election season. But how might violence differ at various stages of the campaign? Before the election, extremists may be more likely to target politicians on the campaign trail, seeking to intimidate them into changing their policies or deter them from running in the first place. Presidential candidate Nikki Haley had, for instance, requested Secret Service protection during her Republican Party primary challenge, while prominent Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher hinted that he was forced into retirement by threats against his family.

Based on experience, the election itself will likely feature armed intimidation at polling places and threats levied against election officials. A database analyzed by scholars Pete Simi, Gina Ligon, Seamus Hughes, and Natalie Standridge found that threats against public officials are likely to hit an all-time high in 2024. The data initially jumped in 2017, the year of Trump’s inauguration.

In the weeks after the forthcoming election, depending on the results, extremists will likely direct their animus toward representatives of the government—especially on one of the many ceremonial dates accompanying the transition of power—such the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, for instance. An exact repeat of that attack is probably less likely; law enforcement agencies will be far better prepared this time, and the groups that led the assault on the Capitol have been effectively dismantled by seditious conspiracy charges targeting their leadership.

Although white supremacist and anti-government extremists will be the likeliest to lash out, in line with trends over the past decade, violence from the far left cannot be discounted. Stabbing attacks have repeatedly targeted right-wing political leaders in Germany, for instance, and the harassment and violence targeting American Jews on U.S. college campuses have highlighted a more militant political left that has historically been quite open to violent action, including in the United States. This violent fringe has frequently deployed armed threats against politicians in particular—never more seriously than the lone gunman who targeted the Republican team practice for the congressional baseball game in 2017, or the far-left extremist from California who brought weapons to the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to threaten him in 2022.

Salafi jihadi actors are also emboldened by recent successes in Afghanistan, Iran, and Moscow, and they may seek to take advantage of this particularly divided moment in the United States to elbow themselves back into the national consciousness. FBI Director Christopher Wray has suggested that his organization is growing increasingly concerned about the “potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, not unlike the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russian concert hall back in March.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has similarly warned that “threat actors” will likely “converge on 2024 election season,” with foreign adversaries using influence operations to further divide the U.S. populace and create new sources of divisiveness and violence.

Is the violence likely to lead to civil war? Trump and many of his allies have repeatedly warned that another election loss—coupled with forthcoming trial verdicts—would trigger one or lead to revolution in the United States. A post on Truth Social shared by Trump, for instance, suggested that 2024 might resemble 1776, “except this time the fight is not against the British, it’s against communist Americans.” The threat doubled down on Trump’s previous warning that his defeat would spark a “bloodbath” in this country.

Punditry, however, is not prophecy. Despite the warnings from scholars, policy wonks, journalists, and others, civil war is in fact unlikely in this country. Geographic distinctions between would-be warring factions today run urban-rural rather than north-south, robbing any potential seditious movement of the geographical safe haven it would need to engage in nationwide conflict. But political rhetoric and the proliferation of threats is almost certain to lead to some level of violence.

Making the threat even more serious is that the Biden administration carries little-to-no legitimacy among most hardcore Trump supporters—who still persist in believing that the 2020 election was stolen. The vice grip that these conspiracy theories hold on many mainstream Republicans means that any response by the Biden administration will be regarded as illegitimate—whether that response is deploying additional law enforcement or even the National Guard to polling places or seeking to educate the public about the veracity and integrity of U.S. elections.

In other words, the United States finds itself in a security dilemma, where any defensive measures designed to safeguard the electoral process will in fact likely be interpreted as an offensive strike—that is, to ensure a repeat electoral fraud. As the aforementioned White House protests have demonstrated, Biden also has little legitimacy in the eyes of the far left, meaning that particular movement would not likely be sated by a Democratic election victory.

Countermeasures will need to focus on education and law enforcement preparation. In particular, the Biden administration should champion education tools that reassure the U.S. public about the resilience of its electoral system from hacking or cheating while also pioneering digital literacy measures that might help protect Americans from disinformation and conspiracy theories shared online, including through artificial intelligence.

In particularly high-risk areas, which might include swing states, the administration should also consider raising the law enforcement presence to deter violent actors from targeting such locations. Successfully stopping violence, however, will require a bipartisan commitment to accept election results and publicly praise the integrity of the election and its many officials—which seems completely unrealistic at this stage.

Americans are therefore left with a political landscape defined by existential rhetoric and violent threats, with very little that the government can do to effectively counter these charges. Accordingly, the threat may be less of another civil war than of the total breakdown of the democratic electoral process that has defined the country since its creation.

[sourcreammachine]

GREEN PARTY MANIFESTO 2024 SUMMARY

tldr: there's a feeling of tension in this manifesto, between youthful zennial climatic ecosocialism and old-guard hippy-liberal environmentalism. this year the greens may well go from 1 MP to the dizzying heights of 2 (there's whispers on the wind that they may even get 3...), and the green council delegation is at 800-odd now, so this could easily be a changing-of-the-guard moment

with the great Berry and the ok Denyer in parliament the party could have more momentum in battling the starmerite government, and with that, it has the ability, the possibility to pick up more momentum. this is a big opportunity in the party's history - over the next five years it can and could be pushed into a holistic ecosocialist movement by the centrally influential mass party membership, and remove the last dregs of its tunnel vision to provide a lefty movement for everyone, green and pink, a Newfoundland coalition. with votes at 16 on the cards and this potential evolution of the party, 2029 could be a big moment for this country's left. whether or not the greens play the role of keystone is up to them

it is also the only manifesto to use the term 'neurodivergent'

💷ECONOMY

wealth tax of 1% on individuals with assets over §10m and 2% for assets over §1b (an extremely humble proposal), reform capital gains and investment dividend taxation to be at the same rates as income taxation, remove the income-based bands on national insurance contributions, ie raising total income taxation by 8% at §50k/a, – altogether raising government revenues by upwards of §70b/a

stratify VAT to reduce it for consumer stuff and hike it for stuff like financial services

permanent windfall tax on banks for whenever they get windfalls

perform a holistic land survey to get the data needed for a new, effective Land Tax

abolish the tax relief on existing freeports and SEZs

heavy carbon tax to raise a boatload of billions, rising progressively over a decade to allow industrial adaptation, for a ~§80b state windfall for five years that'll be for green investment as this windfall starts to recede

renationalise water and energy

§15 minimum wage, 10:1 pay ratio for all organisations public and private (ie §150 sort-of maximum wage, ~§300k/a), mandatory equal pay audits, 'support' lower hours and four-day weeks [clarification needed]

unambiguously define gig workers as workers with contract rights from day one, repeat offenders of gig-slavery will be banned from operating in the country

every City bank required to produce a strategy with a clear pathway to divestment of all fossil fuels "as soon as possible and at least by 2030", every City non-banking organisation simply to be banned from having fossil fuel in their portfolios, credit to be banned for repeat City climate offenders, mandate the BoE to fulfil the funding of the climate transition and climate leadership of the City, FCA to develop measures to ban fossil fuel share trading in the City and immediately prohibit all new shares in fossil fuels

"we will explore legal ways for companies to be transformed into mutual organisations"😈

develop regional cooperative banks to invest in regional SMEs, coops and community enterprises

diversify crop growth, promote local agricultural cooperatives and peripheral urban horticultural farms, give farmers a sort of collective bargain against grocers

aim towards a circular economy: require ten-year warranties on white goods, rollout of right-to-repair

tighten monopoly laws on media with a hard cap preventing >20% of a media market being owned by one individual or company and implement Leveson 2

🏥PUBLIC SERVICES

abolish tuition fees and cancel standing debt

surge nhs funding by §30B, triple labour's spending plans for everything, the entire budget, the entire state, everything

free personal care, with occupational therapy being part of this

35h/w free child care (eg seven hours over five days, or seven days of five hours)

renationalise many academies under local authorities, abolish the "charity" status of private schools and charge VAT

surge funding for smoking-cessation, addiction support and sexual health service

surge funding for public dentistry with free care for children and low-earners

free school breakfasts in primary school and free school lunches for all schools

one-month guarantee of access to mental health therapies

online access to PrEP

let school playing fields be used in the evenings by local sports clubs

greater funding for civic sports facilities and pools

🏠HOUSING

unambiguously-under-the-law nationalise the crown estate for an absolute fuckton of land and assets for housing and for green energy and rewilding for FREE

rent control for local authorities, ban no-fault evictions and introduce long-term leases, create private tenancy boards of tenants

local authorities to have right of first refusal on the purchase of certain properties at aggressive rates, such as unoccupied or uninsulated buildings

all new homes to be Passivhaus standard with mandatory solar panels and heat pumps

§30B across five years to insulate homes, §12B of which is for social homes, and §9B more for heat pumps, and §7B more for summer cooling

planning law reform: council planning mechanisms to priorities little developments all over the place rather than sprawling blobs, demolitions to require as thorough a planning application as erections, new developments required to not be car dependent

planning laws to require large-scale developments feature access to key community infrastructures such as transport, health and education, often mandating the construction of new key infrastructures, support nightlife and local culture in planning regulations

exempt pubs and local cultural events from VAT

building materials to be reusable, builders' waste rates to be surged to encourage use of reuse

750k new social homes in five years

🚄TRANSPORT

'a bus service to every village', restore local authority control and/or ownership of their busses

renationalise rail via franchise-concession lapsing, slowly assume ownership of the rolling stock (currently leased, and would continue to be so under labour's implementation of renationalisation) by buying a new train when the stock needs to be replaced

electrification agenda across the rail network, strategic approach to rail line and station reopenings

bring forward (sorta, the tories suspended it but labour says they'll reinstate it) the new petrol car ban from 2030 to 2027, existing petrol cars targeted to be off the road by 2034, investigate road-price charges as a replacement for petrol tax, hike road tax proportionally to vehicle weight, drop urban speed limits from 50kph to 30kph (or from 30mph to 20mph if you only speak Wrong), mass funding for freightrail and support logistics firms transitioning away from lorries

§2.5b/a for footpaths and cycleways, target of 50% of urban journeys to be extravehicular by 2030

frequent-flyer levy, ban on domestic flights within three-hour rail distance, remove the exemption of airline fuel from fuel tax, prioritise training of airline workers into other transportational jobs

👮FORCE

abolish the home office, transfer its police/security portfolio to the justice ministry and its citizenship/migration portfolio to a new migration ministry separate from the criminal justice system

abolish the kill the bill bill and restore the right to protest

recognise palestine, push for immediate ceasefire and prosecution of war crimes, back the south africa case, "[support] an urgent international effort to end the illegal occupation of palestinian land"

grant asylum-seekers the right to work before their application is granted

end the hostile environment

abolish Prevent

end routine stop-and-search and facial recognition

commission to reform 'counterproductive' drug regime, decriminalise personal possession

amend the Online Safety Act to "[protect] political debate from being manipulated by falsehoods, fakes and half-truths", ie actually protecting 'fReE sPeEcH' and not everything that rightists imply by that phrase

decriminalise sex work

reform laws to give artists IP protections against ai

cancel trident and disarm

push for nato reforms (in its and our interest, they're not russophiles, they're not galloway, it's ok): get it to adopt a no-first-use nuclear policy, get it to prioritise diplomatic action first rather than military reaction, get it to adopt a stronger line on only acting for the defence of its member states

right to roam🚶‍♂️

🌱CLIMATE

zero-carbon by 2040, rather than the ephemeral ostensible government target of 2050

stop all new oil/gas licenses, end all subsidy for oil/gas industries, regulate biofuels to end greenwashing, end subsidies for biomass

decarbonise energy by 2030, minimum threshold of energy infrastructures to be community owned, "end the de facto ban on onshore wind" with planning reform

massively expand the connections between the insular grid and the UCTE continental grid to increase electricity import and export and prevent the need for energy autarky

more targeted bans on single-use plastics

"give nature a legal personhood" ok grandma let’s get you to bed

§2b/a to local authorities for local small-business decarbonisation

"cease development of new nuclear power stations, as nuclear energy is much more expensive and slower to develop than renewables. we are clear that nuclear is a distraction from developing renewable energy and the risk to nuclear power stations from extreme climate events is rising fast. nuclear power stations carry an unacceptable risk for the communities living close to facilities and create unmanageable quantities of radioactive waste. they are also inextricably linked with the production of nuclear weapons. green MPs will campaign to phase out existing nuclear power stations." because some people just can't let go of the seventies. nuclear is good. nuclear is our friend

invest in r&d to find solutions to decarbonise 'residual' carbon in the economy, such as HGVs or mobile machinery

increase unharvested woodland by 50% (no time frame given), grants to farmers for scrub rewilding, rewet Pete Boggs, make 30% of the EEZ protected waters and ban bottom trawling

§4b/a in skills training to stop gas communities getting Thatchered, prioritising shifting these workers into offshore wind

a.. licensing scheme for all pet animals? you guys sure about that one

regulate animal farming with a goal of banning factory farms, ban mass routine antibiotics, ban cages/close confinement and animal mutilation

ban all hunting including coursing and "game", ban snaring, ban hunt-landscaping such as grouse moors, end the badger cull, mandate licensing of all animal workers with lifetime striking off for cruelty convictions, compulsory hedgehog holes in new fencing, 'push' for 'ending' horse and dog racing [clarification needed], new criminal offences for stealing and harming pets, 'work towards' banning animal testing

🗳️DEMOCRACY

proportional representation for parliament and all councils

abolish voter ID

votes at sixteen

votes for all visa'd migrants

restore the electoral commission's prosecutory powers and remove the cap on fines it can impose on parties

increase Short Money, especially for smaller parties

create a manifest legal category of organisation for think tanks, to allow better enforcement of lobbying and funding restrictions

consider fun new measures for political accessibility such as MP jobsharing and allowing public provision of offices for all parliamentary candidates

🎲OTHER STUFF

Self-ID including nonbinary recognition, including with an X passport marker

"work towards rejoining the eu as soon as the domestic political situation is favourable", join the eea now (with restored free movement)

let local authorities invest shares in sports teams, including professional ones, dividends ringfenced for public sports facilities and coaching

right to die

[eretzyisrael]

“It was a deal that Israel accepted and the world was behind. Hamas could have answered with a single word: ‘Yes,’” Secretary of State Antony Blinken fumed to reporters in Doha last week — exposing himself as either an utter cynic or a total fool.

Hamas doesn’t want a deal, except one where Israel just gives up.

Two days before Blinken chastised Hamas, The Wall Street Journal revealed private correspondence of the terror group’s military chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.

Sinwar admits openly that he wants more Palestinian casualties. They are “necessary sacrifices” that will “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.”

More, more, more deaths mean that Sinwar and his genocidal crew “have the Israelis right where we want them.”

Nor are the Hamas political chiefs, ensconced in their four-star lodgings in Qatar, in any position to disagree with him, since he’s simply applying the terror outfit’s long-held principles.

US spy agencies are supposed to be awesome at “signals intelligence,” intercepting communications; did they somehow fail to get this stuff, or did someone decide to keep it from Blinken and the entire US high command?

Or is he just pretending not to know, because publicly chasing a cease-fire deal that he knows will never come is that important to President Biden?

Heck, we’re not sure Biden got this info (or, sigh, remembered it if he did).

Making this all the worse is that Sinwar’s horrific strategy only works because of outside enablers. 

Like the high EU and UN officials who sputter with outrage when Israel rescues hostages.

And the International Criminal Court, seeking arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. 

And all the media that play along, as well as the Hamas sympathizers menacing Jews around the nation. 

But Blinken and Biden bear the chief blame, for doing everything in their power to hinder Israel’s humane and justified counterattack against Hamas almost from the start.

Biden’s doing this — and pushing peace plan after peace plan — to win votes from the lefty segment of his base.

Sacrificing Israel to the genocidaires, in other words, to win in November. 

The Sinwar revelations show the world his plan will be an utter bust: Hamas ain’t interested. 

All this demands immediate action in Congress: Did the intel community fail to get the goods here, or fail to share them?

Have Biden, Blinken and/or National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan simply decided to ignore them?  548

What do you think? Post a comment.

The Republicans who run the House should be all over this, but so should Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’s always claimed to be Israel’s No. 1 defender.

If Chuck doesn’t raise holy hell over this, he goes down in history along with Joe, Tony and Jake as Israel’s greatest betrayer.

[discolesbo]

Political nicknames and such in Finnish

Kokkari = a member of the National Coalition Party

Demari = a member of the Social Democratic Party

Persu = a member of the Finns Party

Kepu = the Central Party (short of "Keskustapuolue")

Kepulainen = a member of the Central Party

Vihervassari = a green-leftist

Suvakki = from "suvaitsevainen" (tolerant) and "vajakki" (dimwit), an insult aimed at people who are pro-immigration

Rajakki = from "raja" (border) and "vajakki" (dimwit), an insult aimed at people who are anti-immigration, as they often say "rajat kiinni" (close the borders)

Perskeko = persut, keskusta, kokoomus (Finns Party, Central Party, National Coalition Party). Also means "ass pile".

Vassari = a leftie, also a member of the Left Alliance

Kommari = a commie

Stallari = a Stalinist

Porvari = a bourgeois, usually a National Coalition Party member/supporter

Femakko = from "feministi" and "emakko" (female pig), an insult against feminists

Öyhöttäjä = an insult against right-wing conservatives who get outraged about stuff all the time and whine about it on social media

Tolkun ihminen = basically like "common sense person". Someone who is calm and has a moderate approach on many things, doesn't get radical or heated up about stuff. Sets themself between the extremes. To some, tolkun ihminen is the ideal. To others, tolkun ihminen is an idiot who won't rise against injustice. What tolkun ihminen believes in depends on who you ask. The term was coined by Jyri Paretskoi specifically about the issue of immigration

Homorummutus = "gay drumming", a thing which homophobes complain about when they have to see Pride stuff or like, acknowledge the existence of queer people

Woke = with deep regret I must inform you, right-wing conservatives in Finland use this term too. With other dumb shit like "LGBT-ideologia"

[mitigatedchaos]

[ tumblr user ]

It's also a funny criticism. Like yeah, marxism has actual substance and can't be boiled down to a quick soundbyte or a handful of phrases. I'm sorry that y'all can't fucking read.

Leftist wall-of-text meme discourse is circulating.

We could talk about substantive problems with Communism. The labor theory of value and the economic calculation problem would be two key subjects. Either could be handled at great length, or boiled down into a pithy right-wing meme.

But I think it'd be more novel to discuss the mechanics at play for art and the meme game.

I'll discuss several of my own images below, and considerations, including this Tumblr favorite below. I'll also take a longer lefty meme and fix it up. The post is a bit rambly, but not too bad (~2,300 words).

My art hasn't traveled that far, but I do post images that have a lot of text in the images sometimes, and I've never caught flak for it. In fact, I accidentally did "left-wing memes vs. right-wing memes" as a comic back in 2017, and it got reblogged by Argumate, who is not known for making long posts. It wasn't super popular, but the third panel is a personal favorite of mine.

The benign violation theory of humor seems to have pretty good explanatory power. The first panel does contain a wall of text. That it's a wall of text is part of the joke, but you can't have the joke always be that it's a wall of text - it then stops being a violation, because it's expected. The more important part is that if you read it carefully, it's clearly describing a market-based system, which Comrade A here catches on to after a moment.

If we wanted to boil down the long text here, it could be summarized with something more like, "Money can be exchanged for goods and services."

The second panel is the unmasking. If we had the right character, we could end it here. A highly-recognizable, prominent economist or capitalist-aligned politician would be appropriate, but we could also replace the head with a book such as The Wealth of Nations, which would certainly be unexpected, but consistent with market-based position advocated in the first panel.

However, the character used is actually the avatar of the blog Mitigated Chaos, which most outside readers would not be familiar with, so we need a third panel to explain.

In retrospect, only showing half the head here is unfortunate; comics are a visual medium, and if it were done again, there might be another way to arrange it.

While left-wing memes are often described as too long, right-wing memes are often described as quite a bit shorter. The irony is that fully explaining this panel would take quite a bit longer than the first one!

This panel is a reference to the immense productive capacity, largely through technology, that humanity has gained under capitalism, which simulates evolution-like dynamics at the firm level.

Rather than Adam Smith's more benign "invisible hand," this panel treats the competition under capitalism as fierce, not market aid, but market discipline - an invisible fist. At the same, "The Way of the Invisible Fist" suggests that it's like a martial art, and can be taught and learned. This is not an attack, but an invitation ("Can you feel it, brother?") to learn.

"I can feel all the old limitations starting to fall away, now," refers partly to the immense rise in production capacity changing the nature of humanity's environment, such as reducing the burden of infectious disease and famine, which had been with humanity essentially for as long as we've been humanity (more so under early agriculturalism).

...but, along with the computer chip integrated into the forehead, it also refers to the likely condition of capital being directly integrated into or influencing the human body sometime later this century.

However, it also refers to the way that humanity have now tightly integrated capital into our lives, living in such a way that our very survival depends on the capital system within which we live, and which surrounds us at all times. It is very far away from the jungles or even the low-energy farming of the medieval era.

If you learn economics and make projections of the future, you can see "forever," which is clearly exaggerated both to accentuate the frightening nature of this apparently Nick-Land-like view, but also describes the elements of current society that might not be visible to Comrade A due to their lack of knowledge of this system.

However, ending it on the third panel would have looked a little too, "I'm cool; you're not," so on the fourth panel we zoom out, which reduces the resolution of the more "serious" style from panel three, and provides some contrast with Comrade A.

Here, Comrade A is presented as lacking the advanced techniques our Invisible Fist practitioner has, but as overall more reasonable than we might expect.

There's a sort of natural tension between the economic optimization in third panel, and the needs of humanity more broadly. Comrade A's plan is less efficient, but lacks that terrifying edge.

His last statement is his personal opinion, but it's left to the reader whether they agree with it - though it is clearly communist.

Tumblr user oligo* once reblogged a fantastic meme regarding Landian Acceleration. I went looking for it, and as it happens, I found it.

Is this a leftist meme? I think it is! It also appears to be a reference to this much more common meme image, but much less annoying.

Let's talk about it for a little bit!

There are two key things to understand about this, mechanically. First, the thing about internet memes in this sense is that they're significantly a visual art form. Second, they're not supposed to appear to be high-effort.

This meme uses screenshots from the very popular and well-known 1999 movie The Matrix, which provides it appropriate visuals while, because it's so well-known, establishing that the author didn't put in the effort to draw this all themself.

You could draw something like this scene, but then you would need to aim for a different format.

In the second frame, we then get the "crudely"-photoshopped Nick Land head as a visual part of the punchline. (In fact, the author has been careful in trimming it, but simply hasn't integrated the head back into the scene at all.)

Spider-robot-Land doesn't even say the criticism is bad, per se, he just says it's "ironic" - which it is. Nature is brutal, and yet humanity evolved from within nature until we were able to establish civilization.

Also note that you're unlikely to see a lot of criticism for the amount of text here. It's more than a typical image macro, but it's appropriate, so it gets a pass.

Let's try something of mine that's a little more popular.

The Rock Island Willerbean post has 5,600 notes. As some of you are probably guessing, yes, it's about the illegal trafficking of slow lorises, which apparently have venom glands in their armpits removed by smugglers. (Supposedly, when they raise their arms, it means they're terrified.)

As you can see, almost half the image is a textbox!

The use of text in internet memes or images generally very much depends on the context. Here, the image presents itself as a picture from a book. The text works due to presenting itself as a something like a wildlife narrator, but is clearly absurd by referring to a non-existent animal.

The content is both political and ideological - it's in favor, although it doesn't state this directly, of animal conservation.

But this particular approach isn't something you can do very often. You might be able to frame, e.g., a particular variety of car as a wild animal in order to express car opinions about it. But this would fall flat for most political attacks.

Let's talk about a leftist wall-of-text meme flop. Bing has helpfully provided me with an example, which I assume is real because it hits just the right range.

This is less text than is used in the Rock Island Willerbean example above.

The problem is not the number of words, but the combination of this number of words with this particular template. When Rick is showing us the torn hole in the wall, the contents should be direct and immediate, as this is what the visual language of the template is about.

Obviously, a lot of political conflict involves shaping the social terrain in order to determine what counts as "obvious" and what needs 500 words of explanation, giving relative advantage to different factions in on-the-ground social encounters. We aren't going to cover all that here.

This appears to be an argument about the Chromanticore vending machine and advertisements from Cyberpunk 2077. If you've played Cyberpunk 2077, you know the one I'm talking about. (It's a bit lewd.)

Cyberpunk 2077 is about a high-energy society with a breakdown of societal norms. As such, hyperstimulus that previously would not have been possible is made possible by technology, and active state intervention to regulate it does not occur. It's filled with lurid advertisements that are basically soft core, substituting the simulation of what people crave for the substance, a splitting of human desires from an evolutionarily more cohesive whole.

A lot of it's also about somatic capital technology and the increasing changeability of the body under transhumanism. I could really go on all day about this.

But basically, the chromanticore ad is shocking to contemporary viewers, but in Cyberpunk 2077's society, it's just mildly unusual - that particular body configuration would be uncommon, but Night City's residents wouldn't see it as unheard-of, and would instead have rather different gender war opinions about it than we would. Presumably you can just buy a ---- from a megacorp if you want one. (It seems the player can.)

The game's developers arbitrage this to create an environment that has a high hit or impact and feels very different or alien, providing the player with a unique experience.

Let's redo Raider's meme above to fit the template better.

It's tempting to jam preloaded counter-arguments into the image macro, but that isn't really the right place for them. The Internet is loaded with text, and most of it isn't of much interest to most people. The image macro is the hook. You want to get your central idea across, while convincing potential readers that it's worth listening to the rest of your ideas.

Thus in the updated version, we move text out of the image, and into the surrounding posts.

I get the motivation - the image is seen as a complete unit, so therefore, if the reader has seen the image, they've read the argument. And well, if they've read the argument, then they don't have the excuse of not having read the argument, so they know they're wrong, and should just shut up and do what they're told.

Problem is, you can't jam enough text into an image macro to cover all the counter-arguments. The position of the people who don't think the Chromanticore ad is a big deal is generally that they don't think it has all that much of an effect. The initial image macro does nothing to address this.

They might be persuaded if Cyberpunk 2077 depicted transgender people as uniquely evil, or if it presented someone who is transgender because they are evil, but instead the two most prominent transgender characters in the game are one character that briefly whines about the effort put in to pass, and a bartender... who joins the main character in an illegal underground street race, which is roughly the normal level of criminal activity for Cyberpunk 2077.

We could also talk about coalition membership where the goal of Raider's original post is to communicate to swarm CDPR by signalling to like-minded members of their coalition about what they're 'supposed' to do, using that kind of language to establish group membership. But that's a bit beyond the scope of this post.

Anyhow.

Another use for image macros is in an attempt to pithily shut down arguments. These tend to get pretty annoying, and a lot of times it means that the poster is trying to pretend that the debate is over and lay still and be slippery like a dead fish, to deny leverage and show coalitional loyalty. (They'd rather be thought an idiot than be thought disloyal.) I'll discuss the dead fish tactic some other time, probably. (Already wrote a big draft on it.)

The following is not exactly that kind of image macro.

A communist tumblr user misremembered a stat about container shipping, and made this post:

If you extoll the virtues of modern shipping logistics and think the only problem with it is that it isn’t used to distribute things fairly, you’re an idiot. This isn’t even an anti-civ or pro-civ primmie discourse thing. Just 15 freight ships produce more CO2 than the entirety of the world’s automobiles, and there are thousands of them in service. The efficiency you fetishize has a horrible environmental cost, and the best thing I can assume about you when you act like everything will be solved once it’s The People’s Railway is that you just don’t know what you’re talking about.

Usually this kind of person doesn't have good math and production sense. To grab the first link off the shelf,

Maritime shipping causes about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions – even more than airplanes.

Ocean-bound freight is extremely cheap on an energy per unit weight basis, even cheaper than rail freight. So it was more fun to respond with a little art as bait, even though of course we know that tumblr user isn't going to take it.

This is not a conventional finisher-dunk.

However, for reasons I'm not going to go into, finisher dunks should not be much longer than this.

[bulletin-sejourne-attal]

20241105 Attal Ascendant

Bonsoir from the heart of the Palais-Bourbon, where the political drama never seems to cease! Tonight, we have updates on Gabriel Attal, the rising star of the “common ground” coalition and quite possibly the “guarantor of the unity of his political family.” Only time would tell if these compliments could survive...

Succession Saga

Tonight from Valeurs Actuelles magazine. Fresh from his stint at Matignon, Attal set his sights on becoming the secretary general of Renaissance. And like a well-rehearsed ballet, Élisabeth Borne gracefully pirouetted out of the race, leaving Attal as the undisputed leading man. Whispers of a backroom “arrangement between ‘friends’” add a certain intrigue to this political pas de deux, wouldn’t you say? Borne’s strategic retreat extended to the presidency of the Ensemble pour la République (EPR) group in the National Assembly. Attal swept into the role with a landslide 80% of the vote – a resounding testament to his unifying charisma, or perhaps the lack of any other willing dancers. The Renaissance party is infamous for its lack of democratic election at the highest level. While a concession must be made in the face of greater turbulence, the (partial) separation of legislative power could perhaps be the start of forming a proper party with checks and balances. More on the distributions of positions on Politico Playbook.

Is the “Common Ground” Cracking?

But wait, a plot twist emerges! A leftie bias perhaps, cuz only as per the leftie newspaper- L'independent and Midi Libre- A chorus of disgruntled EPR deputies has been noticeably absent from the budget debates, leaving the government singing off-key and out of tune on several key amendments. Some say it's a bold protest against a budget deemed "unworthy" and a betrayal of their core values. Others, however, see the hand of Prime Minister Michel Barnier orchestrating this disharmony, allowing the EPR deputies to play the “irresponsible” opposition role, paving the way for the Senate to step in and compose a more harmonious score. A few EPR deputies are rumoured to yearn for a decisive Article 49.3 intervention – a conductor’s baton to bring the unruly orchestra to heel.

While Attal embodies a centrist, liberal ethos, Wauquiez stands firm on authority, conservative values, and a top-down approach to power. This discordant duet has already resulted in the "common ground" coalition losing ground within the Palais-Bourbon, with key positions falling into the hands of the left.

Despite their differing views on security and immigration, both Attal and Wauquiez have joined forces to oppose a government proposal to reduce employer payroll tax relief. Their shared commitment to economic competitiveness, however, appears to be the only point of harmony in their otherwise dissonant duet, as we could see....

Seeking to restore unity, Attal has extended an olive branch – a grand meeting of all “common ground” coalition groups. But like a sour note in a sweet melody, word of this initiative leaked to the press, leaving the MoDem and Horizons groups feeling out of tune. And the DR, under the leadership of Laurent Wauquiez? They’ve flatly refused to join the ensemble, their disinterest as clear as a missed cue.

Meanwhile, within the EPR ranks, Attal has reportedly urged Barnier to offer a small concession, a "victory" to re-energize the disheartened players. Would a 5 million euro reduction in business charges do the trick?

The Ballad of the Bully and the Budget

In a surprising counterpoint to this political manoeuvring, Attal has taken up a noble cause: the fight against school bullying. He's been lauded for his efforts, but Nouvelle Énergie deputy Alexandra Martin has criticized his "great declarations, but nothing concrete." She even submitted a bipartisan bill on the issue, which Renaissance, for reasons unspecified, declined to support. Undeterred, Attal has formed his own association, Faire Face (Please follow its Twitter!) , with ambitions to tackle bullying head-on.

But what truly moves this melody forward is the tragic story of Nicolas, a 15-year-old boy who took his own life after enduring relentless bullying. Interviewed directly by Le Parisien, Attal expressed his deep condolence with Nicolas's mother, Béatrice Le Blay, and her unwavering commitment to fighting this scourge. Together, they’ve formed a poignant duet in their leadership of Faire Face. Since November 4, Gabriel Attal has officially been the only candidate for the presidency of Renaissance. Laurent Wauquiez will take over the leadership of the Republicans in the first quarter of 2025. Both are also leaders of their respective parliamentary groups in the National Assembly. Each aims for the highest office, like uninhibited hussars with steely nerves. The common points end there.

Le Blay, seeking justice for her son and perhaps a measure of solace in her grief, has filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming a failure to protect Nicolas. Attal stands firmly by her side, recognizing the profound importance of this legal battle for Le Blay's healing process.

Encore?

Could this be the beginning of a new chapter for Attal, one where political triumphs are interwoven with personal happiness and a renewed sense of purpose? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain: the encore promises to be captivating.

[oloreandil]

a video from tiktok user Labeauteuniverselle. it is a death note deepfake parody with french politicians. transcript in french and english + explanations under the cut - formatting added by me

@dragonicmoon désoléééé ça a pris plus de temps que prévu ^^' et pour celleux qui verront cette vidéo... enjoy, j'imagine XD macron explosion !!!!! joyeuse journée des travailleur-euses !!! 🔥🔥🔥

transcription en français:

(Emmanuel Macron) Ce pays est complètement pourri de l'intérieur... peuplé de fainéants qui ne veulent pas travailler. Je suis désormais 49.3, le Dieu d'un nouveau monde libéré des acquis sociaux, parce que c'est mon projet !

(Jean-Luc Mélenchon) Ici JLM. Je sais qui tu es, Emmanuel. Ton massacre de la démocratie est terminé.

(François Hollande) JLM, je ne comprends pas ce que vous insinuez... Mon fils ne peut pas être 49.3, c'est un socialiste.

(Emmanuel Macron) On va encore avoir un peu de travail, Eryuk...

(Eric Zemmour) Ben voyons... règle 1939 du Death Note: si l'on écrit en arabe le nom d'une personne, le cahier l'expulse du pays en 40 secondes.

(Marine Le Pen) Emmanuel-kun je vais nous débarasser de ce gauchiste en sacrifiant mon débat du second tour.

(Emmanuel Macron) rire hystérique

english translation:

(Emmanuel Macron) this country is rotten from the inside... populated by lazy people who do not want to work. I am now 49.3, the god of a new world free from social rights, because it is my design !

(Jean-Luc Mélenchon) JLM here. I know who you are, Emmanuel. Your slaughter of democracy is over.

(François Hollande) JLM, I don't understand what you are insinuating... My son cannot be 49.3, he is a socialist.

(Emmanuel Macron) We still have a bit of work left to do, Eryuk...

(Eric Zemmour) Let's see... rule 1939 of the Death Note: if you write down someone's name in Arabic, the note will deport them from the country in 40 seconds.

(Marine Le Pen) Emmanuel-kun I will free us from this leftie by sacrificing my presidential debate before the second vote.

(Emmanuel Macron) unhinged laughter

explanations:

Emmanuel Macron: french president, you may have heard he's doing a pension reform. you possibly heard something about people burning trashcans. or festive gatherings of a musical nature, who knows what acts of violence we're doing next

Jean-Luc Mélenchon: head of the leftist party "France Insoumise" (imo best translated as Indomitable France, yes like in Astérix). he is... an entire character. by his own design. FI is the biggest leftist party we have and he's apparently stepping back a little (🤞)

Eric Zemmour: far right shit. has been a media personality for more than 20 years despite being horrid and recently caused a surge in extremism by creating his own far right party, that got 7% in the 2022 presidential elections despite only existing for a year

Marine Le Pen: head of "Rassemblement National", the new name of the party "Front National" headed by her nazi father. wish i were joking. she famously failed her debates before the second turn of the 2017 AND 2022 elections, leading to a landslide win for Macron. her rise in voters is due both to a shift to the right that Macron worsened and to her "undemonisation" media campaign

François Hollande: former head of the Socialist Party, former president who brought Macron into politics, immense failure, now widely forgotten except when we mock him or angrily remember he is horrible

gauchiste is an "insult" i guess ?? used by right wingers, who have their own little nickname (droitard). you may have seen it in its best iteration on french news: islamo-gauchiste, who are real and roaming the countryside i assume

49.3 is an amendement of the constitution which allows the government to pass a law without the assent of the parliament, or even in spite of its dissent. many have criticised its use and very existence, and Macron recently use it to pass the pension reform without a vote

[darkmaga-returns]

By Dr. Vernon Coleman

There’s a widespread feeling among talking-head commentators that Britain’s Labour Government just made huge mistakes with their new Budget. The immediate response to the Budget seemed scary: the value of the pound went down, the stock market went down and the cost of Government borrowing went up. It seems likely that inflation will rise and interest rates will have to go up not down. The Labour Government has done so much damage to traditional farming that farmers are threatening to go on strike – producing food shortages and price rises. Landlords are giving up and selling up. The result will be a shortage of rental properties and an inevitable rise in the cost of renting. Tax changes mean that entrepreneurs will sell up, and probably leave the country. It will be much harder to start small companies. Britain’s energy industry will in future be pretty well dependent upon imports of oil and gas and bits of tree. As the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East lead a massive rise in the cost of energy, the result in Britain will be thousands more deaths from the cold. The end result of the Budget will be to remove money from the private sector and feed it into the already bloated public sector. Much of the money raised through new taxes has already been handed over to striking public sector workers. `For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle,’ said Winston Churchill. It’s difficult to think of a way in which `Free Suits’ Starmer and his bunch of mad lefties could have done more harm. This was, I believe, a Budget designed to destroy. And it introduced policies which will soon be followed throughout the world.

[dankusner]

RFK on Dr. Phil

What the Polls Miss About RFK Jr. and Third-Party Candidates

Since polls show the race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is very close, and voters are generally unhappy with both candidates and their parties, non-major-party and independent candidates could play a crucial role in the 2024 presidential election.

Though only 1.9 percent of voters went for a non-major-party presidential aspirant in 2020, there’s every reason to believe that number will rise this year, likely resembling the 5.7 percent who backed an alternate candidate in 2016.

But whether these voters will hurt Biden or Trump remains a mystery.

One thing we know for sure is that it’s tough to win votes unless you’re on the ballot, and non-major-party ballot access will be most crucial in the seven battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Want to guess which non-major party is currently on the ballot in all seven of these states?

It’s not Robert F. Kennedy Jr., by far the highest polling of the minor candidates; so far Michigan is the only battleground where he’s on the ballot.

No, the most successful battleground-state ballot-access warrior is Libertarian Chase Oliver.

If you’re not familiar with his name, it may be because he only won his party’s nomination less than a month ago.

And he owes his omnipresence on ballots (37 at the moment) to state laws that reward past-party success.

That’s also why the Green Party and its likely nominee, Jill Stein, are already on the ballot in four battleground states (Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin).

It’s a tougher slog for true independents like Kennedy and Cornel West (who isn’t on the ballot in any of the battleground states just yet) who have to gather petitions.

The muddled situation involving ballot access for minor-party and independent candidates shows why it’s a bit perilous to put too much reliance on presidential polls.

Some exclude non-major-party candidates altogether (the head-to-head Biden-Trump polls nationally and in various states).

Some are perhaps too selective (including only Kennedy along with Biden and Trump, or excluding Oliver, as all but the most recent national and state polls have typically done).

Plenty of national and state polls, on the other hand, may have been too inclusive by listing West.

(His campaign is struggling financially, but he may get on the ballot in a few states thanks to shadowy Republicans who figure the lefty activist can only hurt Biden.)

The RealClearPolitics national polling averages, in fact, give West 1.6 percent of the vote, which isn’t negligible in a race where Trump’s lead is just 2.2 percent.

And while it’s often assumed that Kennedy will eventually be on the ballot everywhere, his petition-gathering efforts will only go so far as his deep-pocketed running-mate, Nicole Shanahan, will take them.

He’s also encountering hand-to-hand legal combat against his ballot access in multiple states coming from Democratic-affiliated groups who fear he will eventually draw more votes from Biden than from Trump.

One state where Democrats are battling fiercely against Kennedy’s ballot access is Nevada, a state where RCP shows him winning just under 8 percent of the vote. If they succeed, it could affect the race in incalculable ways.

As ballot-access decisions firm up, it may be necessary to take a fresh look at minor-party/independent performance, particularly in the battleground states where the election will actually be decided.

The odds are good that the total vote share of non-major-party options will fade significantly before November.

But where and to what extent that happens could matter most.

[theculturedmarxist]

Yves here. We are overdue on giving a full-bore treatment on Project 2025, but this post will hopefully serve as a starting point. Sadly, ambitious and well-organized right wing campaigns to greatly increase the acceptance of their social and policy agenda have proven to be extremely successful, witness the Powell Memo and the Project for the New American Century. Trump is the explicit target of this Heritage Foundation scheme. Because the first Trump presidency was very much a “dog that caught the car” event, Trump had perilous little in the way of plans, and on top of that, weak cabinet members. For instance, Steve Mnuchin’s tax reform plan was an embarrassment, barely rising to the level of a napkin doddle. So after that misfire, the Administration took up the anti-tax lobby’s plan, include their off-the-shelf language. Trump might be a tad better prepared to be President if he wins again, but that does not make him any less receptive to pre-packaged programs from his fellow travelers. So this initiative very much bears watching.

By Diana Cariboni, who started writing for Tracking the Backlash in 2018 and is now openDemocracy’s Latin America editor. She was previously co-editor-in-chief of the IPS news agency and led its Latin America desk for more than ten years. She wrote the book ‘Guantánamo Entre Nosotros’ (2017) and won Uruguay’s national press award in 2018. Originally published at openDemocracy

Last month, populist leaders from around the world gathered for the Europa Viva 24 summit in Madrid. Headlines from the event were dominated by the big names in attendance – Argentinian president Javier Milei, France’s Marine Le Pen, Chile’s José Antonio Kast, and Italian and Hungarian prime ministers Giorgia Meloni and Viktor Orbán – and the fact it ended in a diplomatic row between Argentina and Spain.

But away from all of this noise and fury was a lesser-known speaker: Roger Severino, a former official in Donald Trump’s administration and the vice-president for domestic policy at influential US think tank The Heritage Foundation.

In a six-minute speech delivered in Spanish, Severino described Trump as a victim of lawfare launched by “the lefties” and said young people are subjected to a “culture and a medical system” that tells them to “explore all sexual appetites at age of 10” and that “abortion is not about destroying babies but about healthcare”.

Adding that young people are also taught “that if you are uncomfortable with your sex you were probably born in the wrong body, and surgeries can fix that mistake”, he said: “I’m here to tell you that God doesn’t make mistakes.

Severino is one of the architects of the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump term, named ‘Project 2025’. This aims to reshape the federal state in 180 days, fire tens of thousands of public servants and replace them with people loyal to the conservative cause, undermine the separation of powers, attack public education, and erase or restrict the rights of women, LGBTQ people, workers, migrants and Black people.

It also seeks to dismantle policies to tackle climate change and push for an energy agenda reliant on fossil fuels.

Its plan for doing so is set out in the ‘Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise’, an 887-page playbook published by the think tank, whose mission is “to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual liberty, traditional American values, and strong national defence”.

It is not absurd to say that some of the Heritage Foundation’s suggestions may well become law if Trump is elected in November. The politically well-connected organisation was founded in 1973 and published its first ‘Mandate for Leadership’ as Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 – later boasting that Reagan had enacted more than 60% of its policy recommendations.

Severino, who was Trump’s director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, wrote Project 25’s section on health. Of the 199 times the word ‘abortion’ is mentioned throughout the document, 149 are in this chapter, which urges the federal government to remove (or restrict as much as possible) any sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights whose oversight it has responsibility for.

Severino suggests eliminating the approval of abortion pills and banning their distribution by mail; barring the use of federal funds to transport people seeking an abortion in a state where it’s illegal to one where it isn’t; cutting federal funding to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers; and removing emergency contraception from workers’ health insurance coverage.

In contrast, it’s hard to find any proposals to tackle the US’s real public health crises: opioids, falling life expectancyand rising maternal and infant mortality rates. This is perhaps unsurprising; the Heritage Foundation sees the Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1973 Roe decision that protected abortion up to 23 weeks as a victory – but also as “just the beginning”.

In the two years since Roe’s repeal, 21 states have banned or drastically restricted abortion, and legislative and judicial battles are raging in others attempting to follow suit. But the number of abortions carried out annually has actually increased, according to multiple studies – and so grow the dystopian battleplans for the continued war on reproductive autonomy. Several US cities have made it illegal to use their roads to transport people seeking abortions from a state where abortion is prohibited to one where it is permitted.

Project 2025 wants the Department of Health to go further still, urging it to “protect life, conscience and bodily integrity” and place “strong respect for the sacred rights of conscience” at the top of its agenda. Severino’s chapter calls for legislation requiring states to record data on abortions, including the number of terminations carried out, the reasons for them, the method used, the length of the pregnancy, and the state of residence of the person seeking an abortion.

It also suggests that scientific research conducted with public money should focus on “the risks and complications of abortion” and on “correcting and not promoting misinformation about the health and psychological benefits of giving birth compared to the health and psychological risks of intentionally taking a human life through abortion”.

But Project 2025’s focus isn’t only on reproductive health.

The president who takes office in 2025, the foreword says, must “remove from every existing rule, regulatory agency, contract, grant, regulation, and federal law the terms sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity, equity, and inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of First Amendment rights” (which protects freedom of religion, freedom of speech and press, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances).

The future government must also “immediately cease the collection of data on gender identity, because it legitimises the unscientific notion that men can become women (and vice versa) and encourages the phenomenon of the constant multiplication of subjective identities”, Severino adds.

An Anti-Rights Past and Future

The Heritage Foundation is not the only highly influential institute involved in the writing of Project 25. Of the 100 organisations that sit on its advisory board or directly contribute to the playbook, several have been crucial to the advancement of extremist agenda in the US in recent decades and years.

In 2018, four years before Roe was overturned, Mississippi banned abortions after 15 weeks in the state – with legislation modelled on a bill conceived by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as an anti-LGBTQ hate group and which sits on the Project 25 advisory board. The law was challenged and stayed by two courts on the grounds that it was unconstitutional because it violated Roe.

The law’s promoters took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, aiming to challenge and ultimately overturn Roe. Their strategy relied on the court having a right-wing majority, which was ensured by Leonard Leo, a conservative lawyer and activist who has founded a network of groups and funding hubs. Leo, who had already been influential in the appointment of three other justices, successfully lobbied Trump to appoint three anti-abortion members to the court – achieving a conservative supermajority of six out of nine justices. Leo’s network of nonprofits has reportedly donated millions of dollars to organisations that sit on the Project 2025 advisory board since 2021.

The result has been that around a third of women of reproductive age in the US, as well as other people who do not identify as women but can get pregnant, now live in a state where abortion is banned or severely restricted, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The Heritage Foundation, ADF and Leo didn’t answer our requests for comments.

[simply-ivanka]

Kamala Harris’ choice of Tim Walz as her running mate may have taken some by surprise, but not the politically plugged-in Minnesotans who spoke with The Post in the days that followed his rise to the Democratic presidential ticket.

Walz’s Midwestern “aw shucks” persona, they say, is a politically savvy maneuver to mask his true colors as a lefty progressive who won’t be afraid to go on the attack on behalf of Harris.

Walz played well to the western Wisconsin crowd in his first rally in the critical swing state on Wednesday, joking, “Isn’t it nice to have a candidate who knows how to pronounce Eau Claire?”

His Midwestern savvy was in full swing for the mostly middle-aged Wisconsin crowd, a notable shift from his speech in Philadelphia the night before.

But his home state critics say he isn’t your typical “Minnesota Nice” guy.

“Tim Walz is the embodiment of Minnesota passive-aggressive,” Preya Samsundar, a Minnesota Republican strategist told The Post.

“He will smile to your face, then when you turn around he will stab you in the back and drag the blade down.”

Samsundar lived in Minneapolis when it was engulfed in flames from the George Floyd riots.

Walz waited days for the city to burn before calling out the National Guard, the Minnesota native said.

“You could smell smoke everywhere from all the burning,” she said.

“Reporters on newscasts at the time actually said, ‘Where’s the governor? Why isn’t he doing anything?’” 

Walz’s support for Minnesota’s sanctuary state bill and handling of illegal immigration is particularly troubling to Samsundar.

“He got free driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. That’s what you need to vote!” she said, exasperated.

Walz’s list of handouts for illegal immigrants includes state-funded health care and free college tuition.

“We’ve seen businesses shut down and move to other states,” Brink said, “You can’t be pro-business if your [policies] hurt profitability. You can’t pay employees more if you’re not being profitable.”

Under Walz’s leadership Minnesota has become a high tax state.

[eretzyisrael]

“It was a deal that Israel accepted and the world was behind. Hamas could have answered with a single word: ‘Yes,’” Secretary of State Antony Blinken fumed to reporters in Doha last week — exposing himself as either an utter cynic or a total fool.

Hamas doesn’t want a deal, except one where Israel just gives up.

Two days before Blinken chastised Hamas, The Wall Street Journal revealed private correspondence of the terror group’s military chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.

Sinwar admits openly that he wants more Palestinian casualties. They are “necessary sacrifices” that will “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.”

More, more, more deaths mean that Sinwar and his genocidal crew “have the Israelis right where we want them.”

Nor are the Hamas political chiefs, ensconced in their four-star lodgings in Qatar, in any position to disagree with him, since he’s simply applying the terror outfit’s long-held principles.

US spy agencies are supposed to be awesome at “signals intelligence,” intercepting communications; did they somehow fail to get this stuff, or did someone decide to keep it from Blinken and the entire US high command?

Or is he just pretending not to know, because publicly chasing a cease-fire deal that he knows will never come is that important to President Biden?

Heck, we’re not sure Biden got this info (or, sigh, remembered it if he did).

Making this all the worse is that Sinwar’s horrific strategy only works because of outside enablers. 

Like the high EU and UN officials who sputter with outrage when Israel rescues hostages.

And the International Criminal Court, seeking arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. 

And all the media that play along, as well as the Hamas sympathizers menacing Jews around the nation. 

But Blinken and Biden bear the chief blame, for doing everything in their power to hinder Israel’s humane and justified counterattack against Hamas almost from the start.

Biden’s doing this — and pushing peace plan after peace plan — to win votes from the lefty segment of his base. 

Sacrificing Israel to the genocidaires, in other words, to win in November. 

The Sinwar revelations show the world his plan will be an utter bust: Hamas ain’t interested. 

All this demands immediate action in Congress: Did the intel community fail to get the goods here, or fail to share them?

The Republicans who run the House should be all over this, but so should Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’s always claimed to be Israel’s No. 1 defender.

If Chuck doesn’t raise holy hell over this, he goes down in history along with Joe, Tony and Jake as Israel’s greatest betrayer.

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

50 and 51?

thank you so much for the ask 💖💖💖💖

50. left or right handed?

Left handed ✌️✌️✌️

51. are you scared of spiders?

Not particularly tbh.

get to know me uncomfortably well

[dindjarindiaries]

What does the right side signify and why does the signet get placed there? That's also where the child sits in the ship, to Mando's right.

I’ll give out a few reasons why I think it’s the right shoulder (along with yours, because that makes sense, too!):

The child sits at Mando’s right side.

It’s the only piece of his new armor Mando has when he first comes across the child—and when he fights the mudhorn.

He bears the child upon his right shoulder (see the missing pauldron from rocking the child to sleep in Chapter 5).

Sadly, for those of us who are lefties, the right side is usually the one that holds symbols. Plus, it’s Mando’s dominant side, the arm with which he protects his clan.