#state of the union speech 2019

[mariacallous]

Elon Musk is a ‘promoter of evil,’ EU rule-of-law chief says

BRUSSELS — Elon Musk, unlike other tech bosses, "is not able to recognize good and evil,” a European Union top official said Wednesday.

The multibillionaire tech mogul and boss of X, Tesla and SpaceX is amplifying hatred, outgoing European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová told POLITICO in an interview, calling him a “promoter of evil.”

Musk has been on a collision course with European officials, fighting regulators and governments on multiple fronts. The tech mogul bought Twitter in April 2022, rebranding it as X shortly after, and he has attracted criticism for his management of the platform, with European politicians and civil society saying he has allowed hate speech to fester on the site.

“We started to relativize evil, and he's helping it proactively. He's the promoter of evil,” Jourová said.

The Czech politician, who was the EU’s justice chief from 2014-2019 and has been in charge of “values and transparency” since 2019, has had regular contact with many of the world’s largest technology companies over the last decade on issues like privacy, disinformation and content moderation. 

Big tech companies have “monstrous power in their hands,” Jourová said. “I'm really scared by digital platforms in bad hands."

X is “the main hub for spreading antisemitism now,” Jourová said, adding that she warned ministers from EU capitals on Tuesday to be vigilant to the possibility of online antisemitism spilling over into the real world. 

“Now we are in the situation where the member states’ law enforcement powers have to protect the people who are under threat, under physical threat,” she said. “This is what I mean ... This new chapter, new intensity of antisemitism, where we don't see sufficient action from the side of the platforms.”

Jourová has never met Musk in person, but said that “even without this personal meeting, I would say that out of all the bosses I met, he is the only one who is not able to recognize good and evil.” 

The EU’s former internal market chief Thierry Breton did meet Musk in California in 2022, and since clashed with him publicly over Musk’s approach to online content moderation. 

X did not respond to a request for comment.

Regulation vs. innovation

Jourová also dismissed the increasingly popular narrative that Brussels' overregulation has stifled tech innovation.

The EU passed a raft of digital legislation over the last five years, leading some of the world’s largest technology companies to argue that they cannot launch AI tools and other innovative products in the bloc because they don’t know how the new laws work together or how they will be enforced. 

But innovation for innovation’s sake is not necessarily desirable, Jourová said: “We have to be sure that the innovations are developed to do good to people.”

She said she wondered why innovation was typically "described as something absolutely good, [and] regulations as something which is bad … It's not black and white."

Big tech companies’ vast profits should not be at the expense of Europeans, Jourová said — even if that means product-launch delays. “Nobody says that Google and others cannot introduce new technologies in Europe. Maybe, one, two months, half a year later than somewhere else, but we want to be sure,” she said. 

Jourová led work on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a landmark privacy regime that went into force in 2018 and remains one of the EU’s most famous — and infamous — laws. 

Though the EU recently passed the Artificial Intelligence Act, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, the GDPR often remains the main target of tech companies' ire, particularly because of how it is interpreted. The question of whether the law will need to be changed in the next five years is a key issue for incoming Commission tech chief Henna Virkkunen, Jourová said. 

“I think in [terms of] GDPR, we will have to look again at how to better enforce under the principle of one continent, one law,” she said. 

Jourová, who is leaving Brussels after 10 years at the Berlaymont, joked that she was returning to Prague as a “dissident,” given she left her own ANO party, which has turned more illiberal under former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. 

The return of the Euroskeptic Babiš, who is currently leading the polls ahead of next year's Czech election, would strengthen the illiberal forces in the EU, given Babiš’ ties to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. 

Jourová dismissed rumors that she would start her own political movement to take on her former boss. Instead, she will return to her alma mater, Charles University in Prague, in a management and teaching role.

[lboogie1906]

James E. Walton (September 13, 1944 - August 15, 2019) longtime professor of English at California State University, Fresno, was born in Bessemer, Alabama to Willie Walton, Sr. and Mary Woods Cutts. His grandmother taught him to read which enabled him to skip the first grade.

In his senior year at McKinley High School, he won the Canton City Championship in the 880-yard run.

The Seventh Day Adventist church was segregated and during Christmas, both the white and Black sects put on separate Nativity plays. While he was performing in the Black play, a local surgeon, impressed by his performance, persuaded him to accompany him to Andrews University.

He transferred to Kent State, majored in English, and upon graduation, taught at McKinley High School. He attained his MA at the University of Akron. For his Master’s thesis, he wrote original criticism of Go Tell It on the Mountain and Another Country; Native Son;’ If He Hollers, Let Him Go, and Invisible Man. His later writings on Black Boy and Chester Himes’ works were published in a wide array of periodicals including the Modern Language Association Journal, Proud Black Images, English Language Arts Bulletin, The Association for the Humanities, and Oxygen. He received a Ph.D. at the University of Akron.

He began his collegiate teaching career at Mount Union College where he became the first Black male instructor. He spent his summers teaching as an Exchange Professor in Tokyo and Osaka and became fluent in Japanese. His exchange experience in Japan led him to publish on the Japanese public education system. Mount Union College honored him with the “Great Teacher Award.”

He began teaching at California State University-Fresno. He was the first Black faculty member in the English Department and served as its chair.

He was at Dr. King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech, the Million Man March, and for the inauguration of Barack Obama.

He was the faculty advisor to the University’s Black Student Union and Uhuru Na Umoja, the Black student newspaper. He served as the Coordinator of the Africana Studies Program. He married Doris Harrington (1974). The couple had two children. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[thoughtlessarse]

On June 6–9, citizens of the 27 member countries of the European Union will vote to elect their representatives to the European Parliament. The 705-member body, based in Brussels, Belgium, and Strasbourg, France, has little real power: it cannot initiate a legislative procedure, nor can it pass the EU’s budget, since these powers rest with the unelected European Commission. It is more of a fig leaf for the EU bureaucracy. As a result, public interest in the elections is modest, and turnout in 2019 was just about 50 percent. In each country, voters choose between different slates of candidates from national political parties, who in turn form European alliances. Over the years, a number of Trotskyists have been elected to Brussels, including Alain Krivine from the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) of France from 1999 to 2004, and Paul Murphy from the Socialist Party of Ireland from 2011 to 2014. Despite the EU’s fundamentally antidemocratic character, the elections offer an important opportunity to voice opposition to capitalist policies, and to spread revolutionary ideas. The CRT slate is headed by Pedro Castilla, a student at the University of Barcelona, and Lucía Nistal, a precariously employed lecturer at the Autonomous University of Madrid. The Revolutionary Workers Current (CRT) is running in the European elections with a program “for an anti-capitalist and socialist solution.” To start off, tell us about the situation in Europe right now. Pablo Castilla: The situation is marked by the genocide against the Palestinian people — a massacre of over 36,000 people — with the complicity of our imperialist governments. All the governments of Europe aligned themselves with Israel from the very first minute. The Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez, which likes to present itself as “the most progressive in history,” has now recognized a Palestinian state — but it hasn’t even considered breaking off diplomatic relations with Israel. Young people around the globe are rising up in solidarity with Palestine. Thousands of young people are joining encampments at universities around the world. We are part of this new youth movement, and attempting to link it up to the working class and to the feminist movement, to say “basta” to capitalist barbarism. Lucía Nistal: The last few years in Europe have been turbulent. We have had more than two years of a major land war in Ukraine, with thousands of people killed and millions displaced. Every day, militaristic speeches tell us to prepare for war. All European states are raising their military budgets, with 33 billion euros of military aid sent to Ukraine. The entire Spanish government supported this policy, including the social democratic PSOE and the supposedly left-wing coalition Unidas Podemos. In 2023, the Spanish military budget was equivalent to all social spending combined. The CRT is running for the first time in European elections. Why did you decide to take this step? PC: Because it’s time to raise our voices. The EU is on an increasingly reactionary path. We want our slate in the European elections to raise an alarm. We want to give a voice to the young people rebelling against genocide, to working-class women, and to immigrants. Our goal is for this candidacy to contribute to the formation of an anti-capitalist and socialist left-wing force defending the idea that another future is possible. LN: On the CRT slate, 60 percent of candidates are under 27. We wanted Pablo, age 24, to be the top candidate because he is part of this new generation fighting on university campuses around the world. This candidacy shows that we are not satisfied with the “lesser evil” — we want a political alternative to the Europe of capital, one that is not only against the Far Right, but also against the center-left alternatives, which are really just more of the same.

continue reading

[tomorrowusa]

« I go into the State of the Union; and in the State of the Union one side stands up and the other side stands up.

And I'd just become leader and I'm excited and President Trump's there. And I look over at the Democrats and they stand up. They look like America. We stand up, we look like the most restrictive country club in America. »

— Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-20), former House Speaker, on what he observed at Trump's State of the Union speech in 2019. From the recent New York Times DealBook Summit.

A moment of honesty in an interview filled with lots of self-serving twaddle.

McCarthy brought that up to try to show that House Republicans have become more diverse since he became House GOP leader. Apparently he regards the election of George Santos and Lauren Boebert as helping the GOP look more like America.

Sorry Kevin, we're still a lot more like America than the Trump GOP. 😎

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Stephen Brodner

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 18, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 19, 2024

It seems to me that the news tends to be slow on weekends during the Biden administration, while Mondays are a firehose. (In contrast, Trump’s people tended to dump news in the middle of the night, after Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity’s show was over, which may or may not have been a coincidence.) 

So, lots going on today as the Biden administration continues to make the case that a democratic government can work for ordinary Americans while Trump and his supporters insist that a country run by such an administration is an apocalyptic nightmare. 

First, economic analyst Steven Rattner reported today that according to The Economist, since the end of 2019 the American economy has grown about 8%, while the European Union has grown about 3%, Japan 1%, and Britain not at all. Rattner and economist Brendan Duke reported that entrepreneurship in the U.S. is booming, with 5.2 million “likely employer” business applications filed between January 2021 and December 2023, more than a 33% increase over those filed between 2017 and 2019. 

Economists Justin Wolfers and Arin Dube noted that, as Wolfers wrote, “[f]or the first time in forever, real wage gains are going to those who need them most.” Wages have gone up for all but the top 20% of Americans, whose wages have fallen, reducing inequality. 

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) head Lina Khan announced that after the FTC challenged a set of AstraZeneca inhaler patents last September as being improperly listed, today AstraZeneca said it would cap patients’ out-of-pocket costs for its inhalers at $35, down from hundreds. Earlier this month, Boehringer Ingelheim did the same.

The Environmental Protection Agency today announced it was banning asbestos, which is linked to more than 40,000 deaths a year in the U.S. and was already partly banned, but which is still used in a few products. More than 50 other countries already ban it. 

Also today, President Joe Biden issued an executive order to advance women’s health research to integrate women’s health into federal research initiatives, strengthening data collection and making funding available for research in a comprehensive effort to equalize attention to men’s and women’s health across their lifespans. The federal government did not require women’s health to be included in federally funded medical research until 1993. In a speech today, First Lady Jill Biden recalled that in the early 1970s, researchers studying estrogen’s effect in preventing heart attacks selected 8,341 people for the study. All of them were men. 

Last month, First Lady Biden announced $100 million in funding for research into women’s health, and last Thursday Vice President Kamala Harris visited a Planned Parenthood clinic that provides abortion care in addition to breast cancer screening, fibroid care, and contraceptive care. She noted that women’s reproductive health has been in crisis since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, with women in some states unable to access the care they need.

Former president Trump, who is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, prompted some of the economic reporting I noted above when he tried to spark attacks on President Joe Biden by asking on social media if people feel better off now than they were four years ago. This was perhaps a mistaken message, since four years ago we were in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Supermarket shelves were empty, toilet paper was hard to find, healthcare professionals were wearing garbage bags and reusing masks because the Trump administration had permitted the strategic stockpile to run low, deaths were mounting, the stock market had crashed, and the economy had ground to a halt. 

On this day four years ago, I recorded that “more than 80 national security professionals broke with their tradition of non-partisanship to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden for president, saying that while they were from all parties and disagreed with each other about pretty much everything else, they had come together to stand against Trump.”

Here in the present, Trump appears to be getting more desperate as his problems, including his apparent growing difficulty speaking and connecting with his audience, mount. Last week, in an interview, he echoed Republican lawmakers and pundits when he suggested he was open to cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, something Republican lawmakers try to avoid saying to general audiences because it is hugely unpopular. Trump has since tried to repair that damage, for example, when he insisted on Saturday that it was he, rather than Biden, who would protect those programs. (In fact, Biden has called for expanding the social safety net, not contracting it, and last year forced Republicans to back off from proposed cuts.)  

Saturday’s speech illustrated the degree to which Trump’s rhetoric has become more profane and apocalyptic as he vows revenge on those he sees as his enemies. Campaigning in Vandalia, Ohio, for his chosen Senate candidate, Trump suggested that certain migrants “are not people.” Then he said he would put tariffs of 100% on cars manufactured in Mexico by Chinese companies for sale in the U.S., “if I get elected. Now, if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole—that's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country.”

By Sunday, Trump’s embrace of the word “bloodbath” had created a firestorm. Surrogates insisted that he was talking about the auto industry alone, but as scholar of rhetoric Jen Mercieca and legal commentator Asha Rangappa note, Trump is a master at giving himself enough plausible deniability for his supporters to claim that, as Rangappa put it, “he wasn’t saying what he was saying. I know what he meant. He knows what he meant. You know what he meant.” In the same speech Saturday, Trump called those convicted of violence on January 6, 2021, “hostages” and “patriots,” and has said he would pardon them, appearing to endorse violence to return him to power.

This morning, Trump’s lawyers told a court that Trump cannot come up with either the money or a bond for the $454 million plus interest he owes in penalties and disgorgement after he and the Trump Organization were found guilty of fraud in a Manhattan court earlier this year. The lawyers say they have approached 30 different companies to back the bond, and they have all declined. They will not issue a bond without cash or stock behind it. Trump's real estate holdings, which are likely highly leveraged, aren’t enough.

Last year, Trump said under oath that he had “substantially in excess of 400 million in cash,” and that amount was “going up very substantially every month.” Apparently, that statement was a lie, or the money has evaporated, or Trump doesn’t want to use it to pay this court-ordered judgment on top of the $91.6 million bond he posted earlier this month in the second E. Jean Carroll case.

Timothy O’Brien of Bloomberg notes that Trump’s desperate need for cash makes him even more of a national security threat than his retention of classified documents made it clear he already was. “[T]he going is likely to get rough for Trump as this plays out,” O’Brien writes, “and he’s likely to become more financially desperate with each passing day,” making him “easy prey for interested lenders—and an easy mark for overseas interests eager to influence US policy.”

This morning, Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post reported that Trump is turning to his 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort to advise him in 2024. Dawsey notes that the campaign’s focus appears to be on the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July, which suggests Trump’s people are concerned that his nomination will be contested. Manafort has been known as a “convention fixer” since 1976.

Manafort is also the key link between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives. Manafort worked for many years for Ukrainian politician Viktor Yanukovich, who was closely tied to Russian president Vladimir Putin. When Ukrainians threw Yanukovich out of office in 2014, Manafort was left with large debts to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. In 2016, Manafort began to work for Trump’s campaign. An investigation by a Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee into the links between Trump’s campaign and Russia determined that Manafort had shared polling data from the Trump camp with his partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, who the senators assessed was a Russian operative.  

In 2018, as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, Manafort was found guilty of hiding millions of dollars he had received for lobbying on behalf of Yanukovych and his pro-Russian political party, then getting loans through false financial records when Yanukovych lost power. A judge sentenced him to more than seven years in prison.

Trump pardoned Manafort in December 2020, shortly after losing the presidential election.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mojave-pete]

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump·19h

Biden’s SOTU Speech was, at 27,000,000, the Lowest Rated such Speech in history. I was close to 50,000,000 people watching. So how did Biden get 81,000,000 in the 2020 Presidential “Election?” I’ll tell you how—It was RIGGED!!!

InteractivePolls

@IAPolls2022

Nielsen: State of Union TV Ratings

President Trump:

2017 — 48 Million

2018 — 45.6 Million

2019 — 46.8 Million

2020 — 37.2 Million

President Biden:

2022 — 38 Million

2023 — 27.3 Million (the lowest SOTU TV audience in 30 years according to Nielsen)

[theshedding]

The Power of Black Dissent

For years I have talked about the “power of dissent” and the act of speaking truth to power. Over the years a large part of my speaking out has specifically been through the lens of religious dissent. For this is an under-appreciated legacy that has animated Civil Rights and social justice movements all over the African Diaspora for generations and (at least) hundreds of years following enslavement of African and indigenous peoples. It is not lost to irony that I write this entry on the day after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s federal holiday; himself an activist who’s greatest known speech was due in large part to the work of A. Phillip Randolph, a Black secularist. For all that Black religion has been said to offer we would likewise be nowhere, if not for the dissenting power of non-religious, Black, secular, doubting people and their activism.

I talk about this in detail on a new podcast and since the 2010′s I have enjoyed a kind of ‘wind at my back’ through Black Nonbelievers, a leading “non-profit” social justice organization that works to reframe culture, identity and Black advocacy through the lens of religious dissent, education and representation. Since 2011 it has been a thrilling ride; one that initially gave me “a place to land” as I transitioned out of a faith tradition that demonstrably caused harm and no longer served me socially, ethically or logically. Later, after years of fellowship and feeling like Black Nonbelievers (BN) was a place of refuge and strength-I sought to lead the local group in Washington, DC with the hopes of amplifying our visibility, legislative advocacy and community outreach. 

I am an activist. And I have worked in Black empowerment spaces, groups and non-profit organizations for most of my life; from being an actor in Black community theater (DC); to being a Treasurer and later President of the Black Student Union at Berklee College of Music in my undergrad years; to working at the “College Path” non-profit org at the YMCA helping Black and Latinx youth prepare for college and professional careers; to being a professional music educator and even  Minister of Music for 20+ years working with-and mentoring young people all over the East Coast...working and “holding space” for community, education, enlightenment and Black uplift has been a lifestyle throughout my life. Therefore, being the Director of Black Nonbelievers of DC was a natural outgrowth of previous work and identity. And it felt authentic...especially as a nonbeliever.

I had heard some “things” here and there; gripes from some people who came and went from the org. Most of those gripes did not check-out and were often framed and viewed as in-fighting by incredible people; other gripes were at worst, unresolved or un-investigable. I focused on my local group and the people within it, and we were good. Overall, I genuinely felt comfortable with the BN landscape and justified my continued work in the org. We did good work I thought; liberation work, Black empowerment work, educational work. That said, I quietly stopped donating to the org around 2019/20-partly because my “donation” was already paid for with my labor (e.g. time, volunteering, attending legislative and interfaith events on Capitol Hill, public organizing, marching in the streets, etc.), but also because deep down inside I started to feel something wasn’t quite right with the management and transparency of the org’s resources. Looking back, that was my mistake. 

Still, I continued to work for my local group. Because I took that work SERIOUSLY. I still enjoy(ed) our fellowship, the “work” and the overall sense of affirmation, belonging and “wind at my back” that came from an established platform like BN. Our work was noble, empowering and it made my own conversations about non-belief with my family and outsiders easier to have than they would have been if I were just a lone Black atheist ranting about atheism and church/state separation. 

So I stayed. 

_____

Given all that, one could understand why after over 10 years of membership and 5 years of being an “Affiliate Director” within this organization, I was devastated to learn that people were in fact, demonstrably being harmed within the fellowship. Black Nonbelievers, it came to my attention this December by Mandisa Thomas herself, was actively being corrupted by its own head of leadership-in a deliberate and unconscionable way-routinely, for personal gain.

As I have learned from December 2022 until (literally) yesterday (1/16/23), the “goings-on” behind the scenes with BN founder and president Mrs. Thomas are of an unacceptable nature and magnitude. They are not merely incidental or “personal”. They are systemic and they are long-standing. 

Excerpted from the preliminary findings of the BNDC Incident Report (Dec 2022):

I attest to the following:

That all six (6) organizers during our initial investigative process agreed Mrs. Mandisa Thomas’s alleged behaviors were credible in their claims, and valid and unacceptable for the organization going forward. To varying degrees, myself along with all six organizers were witnesses-to these behaviors and/or personally informed of them by Mrs. Thomas herself. Furthermore, that following the departure of five (5) organizers, I continued our investigation of Mrs. Mandisa Thomas to verify warrant for our decision(s).

Regarding Black Nonbelievers of DC (BNDC), these and other related claims, the following actions are credible and made demonstrable. That Mrs. Mandisa Thomas:

Routinely blurred personal and professional lines with both organizers and members concerning detailed sexual histories.

Promoted consensual sexual interaction(s) of two or more members at official events (e.g. BNSeaCon).

Misappropriated organizational resources to facilitate or engage in consensual interactions with BN member(s).

Manipulated key narratives to gain loyalties and leverage collegial support for desired personal outcome(s) among members and organizers.

Arbitrarily expelled members from the organization and its events without board or leadership review.

Arbitrarily expelled members from the organization and events without board or leadership review due to private sexual and/or romantic dynamics.

Provided “a safe and nurturing space for Black people without faith and leaving religion” contingent upon adherence to romantic dynamics favorable to Mrs. Thomas.

Neglected to publish or implement quarterly reviews of organizational health and sustainability for BNDC affiliate members and organizers.

Neglected publishing or implementing method(s) of impartial review for grievances among leaders and members.

Neglected publishing or implementing means of financial transparency and review to board or organizers.

Failing to heed advice from organizers regarding public confrontation of BN member(s) and associates on private relationships between Mrs. Thomas and a BN member.

Regarding acts, these conclusions implicate Mrs. Thomas’ indiscretions of a personal or intimate nature with (1) members (2) organizers and (3) associates, regarding (4) multiple incidents of mismanagement. These conclusions also suggest a convergence of these relationships with official BN resources used to facilitate them. In other instances, a separate but not necessarily unrelated pattern of secret expulsion from BN portrays a (5) lack of institutional safeguards and review processes for Black Nonbelievers and by extension, Black Nonbelievers of DC. These incidents-combined with an absence of transparency of resources and financial reporting for the organization and/or its affiliates merit both my departure and this report.

-Danile (”Ro”) // BNDC Affiliate Director 2017-2022 // BN Member 2011-2022

___________

There are receipts. Sadly, they keep coming.

Also excerpted from the BNDC Incident Report (re: “Supporting Documents, Item No.4″)

I will not stand by -nor- stand for an organization with this brand of leadership and abuse of power. And any movement of fellow advocates, personalities and organizations that would platform or, stand-by a leader like this and deliberately choose not to publicly scrutinize these claims with haste is highly suspect of perpetuating the exact same type of malfeasance, hypocrisy and systemic rot that it seeks to publicly oppose in churches, mosques and other problematic institutions.

_________

I like ‘people work’. And as noted, my professional history of working-with and helping people dates back over thirty years. Surely, people will make mistakes; institutions will have to be checked; programs need to be evaluated and systems need regulation. But to write off these claims, as many have done (and others seem to be doing) is more than troubling inside a movement self-identified by “humanism” and higher ethics...which is what the atheist movement at large proudly claims to be doing. Furthermore, shrugging off these accounts in service of ((__insert favorite celebrity here__)) for fear of dissent, cult following and public regard, racial scarcity or “cultural diversity” bona fides is well...gross and disgusting. 

Most importantly, to assemble unassuming people and White allies around you as a defense shield against claims by fellow Black people in a credible, ongoing ethics investigation whilst Black people are left victimized by your trauma is to do the exact opposite of the “Black liberation” and “empowerment” work Black Nonbelievers was founded to perform.

But...it is exactly the reason why I, and nearly all other BN affiliate directors resigned and wrote this incident report(s). Even as atheists. Especially as Black Atheists.

We dissent.

[beardedmrbean]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law a controversial statute expanding the government’s power to regulate media groups and journalists in the country.

Zelensky signed the legislation on Thursday over the objections of media unions and press freedom organizations that warned it will have a chilling effect on free speech.

Under the new law, the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council, whose members are appointed by the president’s administration and by members of parliament, will have broader authority over Ukrainian media organizations and journalists.

The regulatory agency can effectively shut down news sites that aren’t registered, according to The Kyiv Independent.

In a statement last month, the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine said the bill posed a “threat” to press freedom in the country.

“Such powers are clearly excessive,” the organization wrote. “No one has yet managed to tame freedom of speech in Ukraine. It won’t work this time either.”

Zelensky’s administration has been accused of suppressing press freedom. He first ordered the drafting of a new law to boost media regulation in 2019, the year he entered office.

The law was passed along with several other new statutes lawmakers say are required in order to become eligible for European Union membership, which Ukraine applied for last year.

The bill for the legislation, which the Ukrainian parliament passed on Dec. 13, was watered down after mounting criticism.

Previous draft versions handed the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council a greater ability to impose fines on media groups, revoke licenses from printed media and block online outlets from publishing restricted information.

When the draft versions were released, several international media organizations voiced opposition to the law, including the Committee to Protect Journalists and the European Federation of Journalists.

Ricardo Gutiérrez, general secretary of the European Federation of Journalists, told The New York Times the law still contradicted European press freedom standards.

“Ukraine will demonstrate its European commitment by promoting a free and independent media, not by establishing state control of information,” Gutiérrez said.

[darnellclayton]

A perfect storm could take out Twitter in 2023

The rumors of @apple & @google banning Twitter on the @AppStore & @googleplay, respectively, are growing louder.

Twitter would get crushed if this happens.

Elon is also facing a hostile FTC meeting in January.

“This is one of those cases where, if there’s an additional order, there will be personal responsibility for Musk,” Vladeck says. “His neck may be on the chopping block if there’s another consent decree, and there may be personal responsibility for other significant people within the organization.”

The FTC’s treatment of Facebook helps illustrate the danger to Musk and Twitter. In 2019, following a complaint alleging violation of a 2012 order, the agency hit the company with a record $5 billion in fines, and named CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally responsible for compliance and certification of documents under penalty of perjury. Heavy fines could be a major problem for Twitter, which, as part of Elon Musk’s takeover, was loaded with debt.

Also there is the EU issue as well.

Twitter has disbanded its entire Brussels office, according to media reports, raising questions about the social media company’s compliance with new EU laws to control big tech.

I am trying to do everything in my power to prepare for the worst-case scenario—Twitter being crushed by a perfect storm.

Twitter could barely handle a political/legal war with the United States 🇺🇸 or European Union 🇪🇺. But having to battle both plus Apple & Google will result in Twitter becoming 8chan.

[madamspeaker]

Now that she is no longer Speaker of the House , Nancy Pelosi considers herself "more conciliatory". There is little sign of that when it comes to Trump and the Republicans. "If only they could see he's a weakling."

In the semi-darkness of the restaurant at the Four Seasons hotel in Washington, Nancy Pelosi leans forward to read the menu. She studies it as carefully as a bill. Why is that lemonade in the list with the cocktails? “Because it contains alcohol,” says the waitress. "But I can also make regular ones."

Since her departure as leader of the Democratic group in the House of Representatives last November, Pelosi, 83, has been a backbencher in Congress. Is she used to the difference between being Speaker of the House, one of the most powerful people in American politics, and now simply representing the District of San Francisco?

"It's fantastic," she says. “I have more time to think. I used to always be working. I slept maybe four hours a night. I felt responsible for every word in every law, in every debate. No, I'm really happy."

How do you view the reactions of your Republican colleagues, who did not want to lose Donald Trump after the indictment of taking state secret documents?

“For thirty years I was on the committee on the intelligence services. After a meeting I had to leave my own notes in a safe. You weren't allowed to take it outside. So the Republicans certainly know how to deal with it.

“Our position as a world power is jeopardized by the disclosure of secret services sources and methods. The people in our intelligence services are therefore less safe. That Republicans are defending Trump blindly, as if he is above the law and the Justice Department is being used as a weapon against him, makes me suspect that they may be projecting their own bad intentions against the department onto this case. Why would they question the independence of the judiciary so much?”

Well why do you think?

“Because they are afraid of this man. Afraid for his voters in their districts. I wish they could see that he's a weakling. Our country needs a strong Republican Party. It has played a major role in the history of our country. Take your party back, I'd say to the Republicans. They're behaving like a cad's cult now.

"Don't you notice that the Republican leaders are silent about the danger our country is in because of Trump showing classified documents to others? I find it baffling that none of the prominent Republicans are saying, this is no good. Because they know it's not right."

Chris Christie, one of the Republican presidential candidates for 2024, called the charges "highly incriminating" and Trump's behavior "irresponsible."

“But has he also said that he will not vote for Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee? Well then.”

The regular lemonade is brought, she sucks the straw and rearranges a pin with the American and Ukrainian flags in her lapel. The white pantsuit she wears is the same as at the 2019 State of the Union, when a record number of women took office in the House of Representatives. The Democrats had won the majority and she herself had been elected Speaker of the House for the second time after 2007-2011 . When President Trump said in his speech that he wanted to embrace “the endless power of cooperation” and “the common good,” she stood up and gave him an ostentatious round of applause dripping with sarcasm — one of many theatrical stunts in her long career. career.

You've worked with Republicans often enough. Do they all mean bad for the country?

"They weren't like that before."

You have been in the House since 1987. When do you think it went wrong?"

I think it started a little over twenty years ago. When dark money became an important, divisive influence on our politics. These large donations to parties and politicians, whose origins are not clear, prevent us from doing what is necessary in the field of climate or gun control. The arms industry and the big fossil energy companies are shutting down all legislation to protect their profits. They don't care what the Republicans do as long as they get their tax breaks."

Democrats also benefit from anonymous donations, don't they? The New York Times saw that the Democrats had raised almost twice as much money as the Republicans for the 2020 election.

“Make no mistake, the Republicans are the handmaidens of dark money . We have written legislation to put that money in the spotlight, but they do not want to support it. We have legislation that makes election donations transparent, removes barriers to exercising everyone's right to vote, and ends partisan and unfair drawing of district boundaries before elections. We propose that impartial committees classify the districts. This is a law that strengthens our democracy. And they don't support it."

You think today's Republicans are radical. They have a majority in the House, a very small minority in the Senate. Do you think all their voters are also radical sectarians?

"No, I do not think so. Let me tell you a little bit about the history of the American system. When our ancestors founded a constitution and a nation, they could only do so with a compromise: each state, regardless of its population, got two senators. This is to prevent states with many inhabitants from blowing away the little ones. But then there were less than three million Americans and those entitled to vote all looked alike.

“Now our country is wonderfully diverse, the population has grown enormously and the thirteen states of 1776 have become fifty. In California we have 40 million people, Wyoming has less than 580,000 – and they are both still represented by two senators. So the Senate is not necessarily reflective of the population. We respect that. But the senators of the sparsely populated states are much more likely to be Republican, and they've tightened up the skewed representation by demanding a 60-40 majority on many ballots. In this way they reinforce the dishonesty.”

But they also have a majority in the House, where the reflection is more faithful.

“This is partly due to the unfair division of the districts. Fortunately, the Supreme Court just delivered a major ruling on Alabama's election map.” That map was rejected because the districts were drawn in such a way that the African-American vote was given almost half the weight of the actual population. “This is an important statement. I worked hard on it, along with former Attorney General Eric Holder. We want independent committees to classify the districts. If we lose, at least it's fair."

Do you really think that peace can be restored to the country through such laws?

"Oh yeah. I think they remove a lot of the distrust among voters. Then they know that their voice is worth as much as that of others.”

Why can't you address those skeptical voters as well as Trump?

"Because we don't lie to them. In the 2016 elections, the key question was: 'Do you believe in the future?' Technology, globalization, jobs disappearing abroad - people who face the future with little confidence are frightened by this. And Trump capitalized on that fear.”

That sounds rather condescending. I noticed that Trump voters often said they were old Democrats. I asked: why did you leave the Democratic Party, they said: the Democratic Party has left us.

“Yes, but then you are talking about cultural issues. The three G's: guns, gays and God - where God is very important. The Republicans always pretend that the Democrats don't want to know anything about religion anymore. Nonsense. I am a very religious person. Many of those people who pray in church on Sunday do not celebrate the values ​​of the faith when they step outside. The Gospel of Matthew: 'For I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me drink.' They think: I don't want to help the poor at all.”

In the HBO documentary "Pelosi in the House," you tell campaign volunteers that cultural issues like LGBTIQ rights are in the DNA of the Democratic Party, "but that's not what we're addressing. We only talk about economic issues”. Is your party insecure when it comes to cultural issues?

“That was a few years ago. But: yes, when I enter a company, I don't mention the right of women to choose an abortion. We think this is an important right, but opinions are divided on this. And you don't want people to immediately think, oh, this isn't for me. You want to get them on common ground first. So you talk about education, about healthcare, things like that. After that you can file a divorce again and say: I think the right to abortion is very important. But that doesn't open the conversation.

“Trump has linked cultural issues with false promises about the economy, like a quack with a miracle potion. He says: I'm going to build a factory for you here. And that appeals to people who are afraid of losing their jobs. Of course he never builds that factory, or it will close again very soon.”

He received 75 million votes in 2020.

“If you fear globalization and innovation, your biggest fear is diversity. Newcomers to the country are taking my job away. Women are pushing me out of the job market. LGBTQ people get high positions, and I don't. The press fueled that sentiment in 2016 by repeating that those voters were uneducated. They were. They were trained to fight our wars, to raise our families, to build our country. They may not have had a college degree, but that doesn't mean they are ignorant. It was portrayed as the elite against white, less educated men. And the Hillary Clinton campaign team has not refute that clearly enough.”

How is it then?

“However we proceed from here, we must try to forge a unity. That too is part of the luxury of no longer being a Speaker : I can adopt a much more conciliatory attitude. What I say should come across as patriotic, with respect for differences of opinion.

“Nothing is more important than making laws that benefit Americans, such as President Biden's infrastructure bill . Some delegates care more about their re-election. No, we were chosen to do our job, not keep our job.

“The care bill, the Affordable Care Act, is perhaps the most important thing I've done in this regard. Millions of people benefit from this every day. When it passed, President Obama called me and said, "I'm happier tonight than I was the night of my election victory."

In the book Dying of Whiteness, an uninsured Tennessee man with a deadly liver disease says he would rather die than sign up for Obamacare.

“Funny you mention Tennessee. In neighboring Kentucky, Obamacare was a great success. They didn't call it Obamacare, they called it KentuckyCare and everyone signed up. This is typical of the Republican trinity: they don't believe in government, they don't believe in science and they certainly didn't believe in Barack Obama – with everything that goes with it.”

What are you implying?

Barack Obama was not a very political president. That was a plus, but the Republicans portrayed him very differently: as a seasoned party man. He wasn't that biased at all – I sometimes regretted that. They have made everything suspicious, his background, his wife, his parentage, his birth certificate, unheard of.”

If you want to win back voters from the Republicans by saying they need to change, then I think you can wait a long time.

“As long as our differences move within the boundaries of the rule of law, I have no problem with it. But now there are politicians who do not believe in public administration. I respect differences of opinion, they are essential in a democracy, but I cannot respect people who endanger our rule of law.”

Republicans say: If conservatives storm the Capitol, it's called a coup. When protesters set fire to police stations after the death of George Floyd, it is called 'the good kind of trouble', a winged expression from the civil rights struggle.

That is absolutely not comparable. The storming of the Capitol by people carrying guns, spearheaded by the President of the United States. And on the other hand, setting fire to police stations or overturning patrol cars. People have raised their voices against it. Many of the demonstrations that got out of hand were hijacked by anarchists, such as in Portland, Oregon. Terrible. And it hurt us in the elections.”

What do you think, were the Capitol stormers dissatisfied or desperate?

"I think you must be pretty desperate to storm the Capitol."

Some people actually seemed hopeful.

“The people at the Capitol? Sorry, those were […].” Pelosi uses a word that she immediately says should be cut. And then she uses it again. “Those were disruptive […], they shit on the floor in the building. You cannot call such people hopeful.”

From time to time, diners from other tables glance furtively at Pelosi, who underscores her words with sharp gestures. And then they look at the three big men sitting on the benches next to us: bodyguards. A man with a white shirt over his trousers and a baseball cap on his head shuffles uncertainly to a table. Pelosi looks up and smiles. He looks a bit like her husband, Paul Pelosi.

On October 28, 2022, a man broke into the Pelosi's San Francisco home. Only Paul was home. "Where is Nancy?" demanded the intruder. Paul kept him talking and managed to call the police. When it arrived, the assailant hit Paul on the head with a hammer. Pelosi spent six days in the hospital and weeks of rehab.

Their daughter Alexandra had previously said that the attack also had one happy consequence for her father. “Half his life he walks beside her as the man of. Now there is applause when he enters a restaurant.”

How is your husband?

“He is moving forward. But it will certainly take months, a blow to the head does a lot to you. It was close enough or it would have been fatal.”

There was a stir in the Netherlands when Minister Kaag was confronted with the concerns of her children about her safety. They were afraid that she would suffer the fate of her distant predecessor, Els Borst, who was murdered by a deranged man who opposed her euthanasia law. Have your children also been concerned?

“Did that happen in the Netherlands? Unacceptable! This happens when women are effective. If that first woman had not been so decisive in making the euthanasia law, she would not have been attacked. And that current minister also sounds like an effective politician.

“My family has generously supported me in what I wanted to do. When people ask me how I feel about the danger, I say that I am obviously a masterful legislator and, above all, a masterful fundraiser—otherwise they wouldn't want to mess with me. I try to shrug it off, but I can't be indifferent about its effect on other women.

“When I first entered the House, there were 13 female Democrats. Now there are more than ninety . I always encourage women to run for office. Some say, I can't bear to see my kids coming out of school crying because they've heard bad things about me. But then I answer: we need you. The more women in politics, the more normal it is considered. Aggression and violence are the ways the system tries to discourage women from participating in politics.

“On January 6, our Capitol was stormed. They wanted to shoot me and hang the vice president. And the president did not lift a finger to prevent that. I don't worry so much for myself, but I do worry about my family, my children and grandchildren. They targeted me and got my husband. That has had a crushing effect on our family. Paul isn't political at all, and then they try to kill him. Yes, of course you think: how necessary is it that I continue to play this role in politics? In an NRC profile about her mother, Alexandra Pelosi said that after the attack on her father, there was no longer any doubt: her mother would resign.

After the conversation, Pelosi quickly walks to a side room where the photographer is waiting. “I hate posing. And the worst part is that I have to do it every day.”

What did you actually think of the documentary your daughter Alexandra made about you?

“She showed everything. I was in the picture without make-up, in my pajamas. Beforehand she let me have a look. Then I said: that, that and that, you can still get that out of it, don't you? She said: Mom, that's the trailer already, the movie is finished, nothing can be changed. No, I had nothing to say at all.”

[mariacallous]

India is in the middle of a 44-day exercise to elect its next government, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi tipped to return his Bharatiya Janata Party to power for a third consecutive term. Modi, who aims to win nearly three-quarters of the country’s 543 parliamentary seats, has surprised many observers by using dehumanizing anti-Muslim language on the campaign trail—rhetoric that is more direct than that of his past speeches.

So far, the BJP campaign has focused on creating an irrational fear among India’s Hindu majority that if Modi doesn’t return as prime minister, a share of their private wealth and affirmative action job quotas will be given to Indian Muslims. Modi and his party have doubled down on this narrative at a moment when reports suggest that their quest for a supermajority is unlikely to succeed. The brazen continuation of such anti-Muslim rhetoric differentiates this campaign from the two others that have put Modi in the prime minister’s office.

Hate speech is a criminal offense in India, and it is specifically barred during an election campaign. However, Modi chose the three leaders of India’s Election Commission, the agency charged with conducting free and fair polls, and it has ignored his flagrant violations of the election code. As a result, as the campaign continues through the end of May, so too will Modi’s anti-Muslim tirades. India is expected to announce its election results on June 4.

If the BJP wins and Modi is once again crowned prime minister, his Islamophobic rhetoric will not simply disappear. Many political leaders campaign in poetry and govern in prose, but hateful rhetoric has real-life consequences. Modi’s campaign speeches have put a target on Indian Muslims’ backs, redirecting the anger of poor and marginalized Hindu communities away from crony capitalists and the privileged upper castes. It underscores an attempt to make members of the Muslim minority second-class citizens in a de facto Hindu Rashtra, or state.

These social schisms need only a small spark to burst into communal violence, which would damage India’s global status and growth. Furthermore, Modi’s campaign rhetoric is matched by the BJP’s choice to not put up candidates in Muslim-majority Kashmir, reducing its stake in ensuring robust democracy in a region that New Delhi has ruled directly since 2019. His language will also have a direct bearing on India’s fraught ties with its neighbor Pakistan. Finally, the state-backed ill treatment will likely not be limited to Indian Muslims—meaning that other religious minorities, such as Christians and Sikhs, will also be affected.

Around 200 million Muslims live in India—the second-largest Muslim population in the world, after that of Indonesia. Few mainstream Indian political leaders have plummeted to such depths in castigating these citizens. Modi’s campaign rhetoric makes clear that if he is elected to a third consecutive term, the nation’s Muslims will stand politically disempowered, economically marginalized, and deprived of their constitutional rights.

Modi’s political rise came in the wake of significant violence against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, when he was the state’s chief minister. Due to his role in the violence, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States all temporarily barred his entry. Leading the party’s campaign to victory in the state assembly in the same year, his campaign speeches were full of crude language against Muslims. But the BJP’s electoral success in Gujarat—winning the next two assembly elections before the launch of Modi’s national campaign—ultimately gave Modi political credibility within an extreme fringe of the party.

By 2011, Modi had started reinventing himself as a business-friendly leader with an eye on a national role. By the time he became prime minister three years later, the narrative of a so-called Gujarat model of economic development concealed his anti-Muslim ideological moorings. Modi’s mask slipped occasionally, but he often spoke with a dog whistle. Mostly, the prime minister reiterated an imagination of India as a Hindu nation. In a post-9/11 world, Modi presented an alternative model of battling Islamic terrorism and consolidated a Hindu majoritarian voter base—delivering a stunning election victory in 2019 after an attempted airstrike against an alleged terrorist training camp inside Pakistan.

This year, Modi has not campaigned on his track record of the past decade or on the party manifesto for the next five years as often as he has attempted to further polarize Hindus and Muslims. In a speech given on April 21, Modi suggested that the opposition Indian National Congress party, if elected, would redistribute property to Muslims. The party would “calculate the gold with [Hindu] mothers and sisters” and transfer it “among those who are infiltrators and have more children,” he said—using terms by which his supporters regularly describe Muslims.

Elsewhere, Modi alleged that Congress was helping Muslims in a plot to take over India: “The opposition is asking Muslims to launch vote jihad,” he said in March. Speaking at a rally in Madhya Pradesh in early May, Modi said that voters would have to choose between “vote jihad” and “Ram Rajya,” the latter being a term referring to a mythical, idealized society that purportedly existed during the rule of Lord Rama, the hero of the famous Hindu epic Ramayana.

The prime minister’s economic advisory council soon released a paper that sought to stoke anxieties about a decline in the proportion of Hindus in India; during the period it covered—1950 to 2015—India’s population actually increased by five Hindus for every one Muslim citizen, but BJP leaders soon deployed the report to further demonize Indian Muslims.

The party’s official messaging has echoed Modi’s rhetoric. A now-deleted video posted on the Instagram account for the BJP’s Karnataka branch this month said, “If you are a non-Muslim, Congress will snatch your wealth and distribute it to Muslims. Narendra Modi knows of this evil plan. Only he has the strength to stop it.” It was followed by an animated clip depicting Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hatching a plan to benefit Muslims at the expense of Hindu groups.

Other Indian democratic institutions have done no better. Despite formal complaints from opposition parties and civil society groups, the election commission has neither punished nor restrained Modi. A petition in the Delhi High Court seeking immediate action against Modi for his “communally divisive speeches” was dismissed, with the judges arguing that it was “without merit” because the commission was already looking into the matter. “We can’t presume that they won’t do anything,” one judge said. But as the elections near the finish line, that is precisely what has happened.

Some observers are likely to dismiss Modi’s recent language as par for the course during an election campaign, when tempers run high. However, most surveys and polls have predicted an easy victory for the prime minister and the BJP; he has no need to resort to pandering to base emotions with toxic rhetoric. In an interview, Modi denied that he had uttered a word against Indian Muslims; he was proved wrong by fact-checkers and video evidence. India’s top political scientist said that through his denials in interviews, Modi is trying to influence the naive chroniclers while he continues with his anti-Muslim speeches for the masses and his supporters. Modi’s No. 2, Amit Shah, insists that the party will continue with this anti-Muslim campaign. By persisting with hateful speech, the BJP leadership is fueling a narrative that is likely to intensify discrimination against Indian Muslims during Modi’s rule.

As prime minister, Modi has spearheaded a project for the political disempowerment of Indian Muslims. For the first time in the history of independent India, the ruling party does not have a single Muslim member of parliament. In the current election, the party has put up just one Muslim candidate—on a list of 440—who is running for an unwinnable seat in Kerala. More broadly, religious polarization has made it difficult for Muslim candidates to win seats in areas without an overwhelming Muslim majority. During recent elections, there have been complaints of authorities barring voters in Muslim-majority localities in BJP-ruled states. Modi’s message to Indian Muslims is unequivocal: You do not matter politically.

India’s Muslims are economically disadvantaged, too. A 2006 committee under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress government found that the Muslim community faced high levels of poverty and poor outcomes on almost all socioeconomic indicators. India’s opposition parties have promised a new socioeconomic survey that could inform future policy without a focus on religion. Modi’s government, by contrast, opted to not conduct even the regular census in 2021—the first such instance in 140 years—due to COVID-19; it has not been conducted since.

Rather than relying on data, Modi and his supporters prefer an emotional response that pitches poor and marginalized Hindus against Muslims. India is a highly unequal country: About 90 percent of the population earns less than the average income of $2,800 per year. This gap has widened under Modi, with the richest 1 percent now owning 40 percent of India’s wealth. By othering Muslims, Modi puts them at risk of becoming the object of other deprived groups’ ire, which could lead to further communal violence. A Muslim man was allegedly lynched in Gujarat during the current election campaign, without making national  headlines.

Islamophobia is at the core of the project to make India a Hindu state. Modi and the BJP frequently weaponize terrorism discourse to delegitimize critics and political opposition. In Kashmir, where the BJP is not running candidates this election, this tactic has fueled anger and hostility. The high turnout in the region seems to be an expression of rage against Modi’s 2019 decision to revoke its semi-autonomous status. When the ruling party leaders conflate Islam with terrorism, there is little chance of extending any hand of peace toward Pakistan, either. Modi and his ministers have vowed to take back Pakistan-administered Kashmir by force if necessary—no matter the grave risk of conflict between two nuclear-armed countries.

Finally, Modi’s rhetoric does not bode well for other religious minorities in India. In the border state of Manipur, the largely Christian Kuki community has suffered state-backed majoritarian violence for more than a year. In Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populated state, Christian priests and worshippers are being jailed, beaten, and threatened by both Hindu majoritarian groups and state police. Meanwhile, the BJP has demonized the Sikh farmers who led protests against agricultural laws in 2020 and 2021, labeling them as separatist Khalistani terrorists. (Last year, Modi’s government was accused of involvement in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada as well as in an attempted assassination in New York.)

Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians are India’s biggest religious minorities; they make up nearly one-fifth of the country’s population. To disempower these groups would spell the end of the historical bond between India and ideas of universal justice, human rights, and democracy. A majoritarian Indian state—a Hindu Rashtra—would instead make a covenant with bigotry, discrimination, and violence. The bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has repeatedly asked Washington to blacklist Modi’s government for its suppression of religious freedom, but the Biden administration has refused to act so far.

However, the evidence is there for all to see—and Modi has further substantiated the charge of bigotry with his campaign speeches targeting Indian Muslims. No matter if the BJP achieves its supermajority, this rhetoric will have significant consequences for India. Modi is serving a warning. The world should take note before it is too late.

[usedtobemygirl]

So what is your evidence that matty is not a bad person?

He’s offended so many marginalized groups and they’re allowed to be upset that a person that they look up to is associating herself with someone who has been so offensive.

He watches porn where the premise is beating black women. He has openly admitted to this. There’s a video of him doing a nazi salute (and even if he was making fun of nazis, he still did an action that’s literally illegal in Germany because of how offensive it is and he’s not Jewish, he doesn’t get to do that). He called ice spice chubby and then made fun of accents.

How do those things not rub you the wrong way? How do you not see that people of color and Jewish people are hurt by this

id say that if you’re upset about him doing a nazi salute during the line in the song that says ‘thank you kanye, very cool’ during the time when kanye west was being antisemetic and he was making a statement against it then you need to get a grip, and you obviously don’t understand the point he was making.

also when matty healy made that joke about porn, the ppl he was with said it wasn’t even real he was doing a bit. (X) obviously it’s a stupid fucking joke but like it’s not real

and yeah it was a shitty think to say to abt ice spice but I’m not sure she cares that much considering she’s collaborating w taylor lol.

it’s ok to be angry or not like him but to try and demand who she dates is weird as hell and it’s odd ? why do you think you can do that lol ?

he’s not a bad person because he’s a feminist (x) he spoke out against the abortion bill and was very vocal against it (x) my favourite quote being ‘you are not men of god, you are simply misogynistic wankers’. in 2019 his Brit awards acceptance speech criticised misogyny within the music industry and quoted the guardian feminist writer Laura Snapes in order to make his point that the music industry is misogynistic (x) in 2020 he stated he would not play another lineup at a festival unless there were as many women as men playing at the said festival (x)

he’s not a bad person because he’s a very vocal advocate for LGBT rights, he has raised thousands for lgbt+ projects (x), he was banned from Dubai from kissing a man on stage in order to protest the anti-lgbt laws they had put in place (x) this act was literally punishable by ten years in prison but he still did it in order to combat homophobia.

he is also very in support of people who strike and unions and has urged his fans to resist to demonise those who strike (x)

he’s also an environmentalist who is extremely in support of Greta thunburg despite the fact all British journalists hate her, yet he still sticks his neck out because he knows it’s important (x) the 1975 also have gigs where they use hybrid power generators in order to reduce their carbon footprint (x)

i just think there are many other things you need to be focusing on currently as the world is a shitshow ! and maybe not obsess who ur fav pop star is fucking right now but maybe that’s just me !

[fashionunit2byebs]

I then had to create four mini mood boards which linked t my era which I chose the sixties, I ended up doing five mood boards as I couldn't decide on the topic of the mood boards I liked more therefor incorporated them all into my work. The first mood board I created was art from the sixties specifically pop art from artist such as Roy Liechtenstein and Andy Warhol was my main inspiration for this section they had such a huge influence on the art in the sixties creating so many new and fun art pieces which where so unusual from anything else done before. The link below show where I found all the information resources I looked at when I was decided on my art mini mood board, I chose to uses art pieces from Roy Liechtenstein and Andy Warhol as I feel like these two where so influential at the time and the art they both created was so incredible.

Tate (2017). Roy Lichtenstein 1923-1997 | Tate. [online] Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/roy-lichtenstein-1508. [accessed 6th February 2023]

Revolver Gallery. (n.d.). Andy Warhol 1960s. [online] Available at: https://revolverwarholgallery.com/warhol-originals-andy-warhol-collection/andy-warhol-60s/. [accessed 6th February 2023]

The next mood board I created was all about the Vietnam war and the anti war protest which took place all through the 60s, the war was long and the communist government of North Vietnam was pitted against South Vietnam which had the ally of the United States. whilst all of this was going on in Vietnam back in the US anti war protest where happening which was trying to stop the war happening overseas . The protest began with peace activist and college members, it gained attention in 1965 after the USA had began bombing North Vietnam.

https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-protests

History.com Editors (2010). Vietnam War Protests. [online] HISTORY. Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-protests.

‌History.com Editors (2009). Vietnam War. [online] History. Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history. [accessed 6th February 2023]

Next I did the moon land and the space race which was a huge thing in the 60s. The space race was the competition between the USA and the Soviet Union to be the first to explore space, however the US had beaten them to it and on July 20th 1969 Millions gathered to watch the first two U.S astronauts land on the moon. The Americans effort to send Astronauts to the moon is due to president JFK wanted to be the first two go to space and as president it was his goal to achieve this mission.

https://www.history.com/topics/space-exploration/moon-landing-1969

History.com (2010). The Space Race. [online] HISTORY. Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/space-race.

History (2019). The 1969 Moon Landing. [online] HISTORY. Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/space-exploration/moon-landing-1969.

The civil rights movement was the theme for my next mood board, the civil rights movement was such a monumental part of history the happened in the 1960s. the civil rights moment took place in the 1950s and 1960s for the black Americans to gain equal rights in the US. before this the civil war had abolished slavery however the black community was still not being treated like everyone else in the country as abolishing slavery did not end the discrimination and racism against the black people. key events that took place in this movement was the march on Washington this was the most famous event to take place in the civil rights movement, it was organised by civil rights leader such as A.Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King JR who presented the world most famous speech I had a dream which was a moving speech on equality and ‌freedom

History.com EDITORS (2009). Civil Rights Movement. [online] History.com. Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement.

The final mood board I created was the architecture and furniture from the 60s. The furniture from this era was like no other the shapes and style that was in this era where so unusual and all had a bright and popping colour pallets. The was a lot of curved line I think when looking at all the picture. I really like this as it will give me lots of shapes, texture and silhouettes to use and play around with in the design process.

architecturaldigest.com (n.d.). 1960s Modernism. [online] Architectural Digest. Available at: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/1960s-slideshow-092008.

[newsource21]

The Donald Steals the Closer

Just in time for the weekend before Election Day, Donald Trump’s campaign on Thursday evening released a stirring closer in the media ad wars that, with a soaring voiceover, arresting visuals, and a commanding on-screen script, used the platform of the presidency to take him above the daily campaign fare of political rallies, rope lines, and attack commercials. And yet, the ad also delivers powerful if subliminal campaign messages about a time when the economy was good, the world was safe, the border was secure, schools were sane, and the future was welcoming.

Using the single most unifying moment a president has outside of an inaugural address, the Trump ad employs the political imagery of his State of the Union addresses by displaying the famous House gallery moments that thrilled the public—including a salute to Buzz Aldrin, a soldier returning home to his family, a North Korean defector holding up his crutches, and Nancy Pelosi clapping amidst thunderous applause in the House of Representatives. Moments that came, as the ad notes, in a speech that was “bigger than the Academy Awards” and the “NFL playoffs,” and that “47.7 million watched,” and says that “he can do it again,” and that “we can do it again”—meaning “Make America Great Again.”

While presenting Trump as the candidate of national unity and American pride and employing the presidential  imagery that always works the most powerfully for any candidate, the ad reminds Americans that Trump had arguably the most successful first term of any U.S. president in history—displayed clearly by  his State of the Union addresses, which drew far larger audiences than Obama’s or Biden’s and won much stronger reviews. But most of all, the ad reminds the public that Donald Trump has already done the job—and does so by evoking the single most unifying moment a president has outside of an inaugural address.

The ad works for three particular reasons—first among them is the forgotten eloquence of Trump’s words and his rousing narrative of the American Story.

“What will we do with this moment? How will we be remembered?” Trump says in his 2019 State of the Union remarks, which are featured in the ad. “Look at the opportunities before us.”

“America is a land of heroes,” Trump says. “This is a place where greatness is born… Our ancestors… settled the Wild West; lifted millions from poverty, disease, and hunger; vanquished tyranny and fascism; ushered the world to new heights of science and medicine… and we are making it greater than ever before.”

“The people dreamed this country,” Trump continues. “And it’s the people who are making America great again.”

“No matter the trials… no matter the challenges to come… We must keep freedom alive in our souls… that one nation, under God, must be the hope and the promise, and the light and the glory, among all the nations of the world,” the ad concludes.

Second, the ad features, in a virtuoso display by Trump’s creative team, moving images to tell a narrative. The ad features stirring imagery of cowboys, Americans settling the frontier, arriving on Ellis Island, storming the beaches of Normandy, and carrying American flags on horseback—spliced between footage from Trump’s State of the Union remarks and from his 2024 campaign rallies. This inspiring imagery complements Trump’s soaring rhetoric and cements his distinctive storytelling power.

And third, the ad includes an on-screen script that emphasizes the popularity of Trump’s State of the Union remarks—and reinforces that American greatness is still within reach, with, as mentioned, “Bigger than the Academy Awards,” the ad says on-screen in all-caps, referring to the high viewership of Trump’s State of the Union addresses, and “Bigger than the NFL playoffs.”

“47.7 million watched,” the script reads, in reference to Trump’s 2017 address to a joint session of Congress.

“We remembered what made America great… He brought us together… and we made America great again,” the captions say.

“He can do it again…We can do it again… And together… we can make America great again.”

At the time, even left-wing media pundits praised Trump’s annual State of the Union Addresses. “I think people where I came from will like the speech tonight,” said former MSNBC host Chris Matthews of the 2020 address. “I think regular people will… they’ll see it but they’ll like it. Because it’s all good stuff.”

Left-wing CBS News host Norah O’Donnell agreed: “This was a speech unlike any other I have witnessed from President Donald Trump—the reality TV president took on the state of the union, a master showman at his best,” she wrote on social media.

And The Washington Post’s David Von Drehle praised the remarks as a “lethally effective exploitation of the presidential bully pulpit.” No previous address, he wrote, “so cunningly adapted the ancient ritual of a former speech to the visceral medium of television.”

Ultimately, this ad is a powerful reminder of how much success Trump had in his first term—when the American experience was marked by pride, optimism, and hope. As the 45th President, Trump remade the federal judiciary with hundreds of conservative appointments—including the three Supreme Court justices. His low-tax, low-regulation economic agenda propelled the U.S. economy to unprecedented heights. His border security measures effectuated the most secure southern border in recorded history. And his foreign policy, rooted in the philosophy of “peace through strength,” ensured America stayed out of endless wars overseas and that the world was safe.

Trump’s State of the Union remarks not only reminded Americans of these accomplishments, but also gave them a reason to have hope for their futures and pride for their country after eight years of negativity and dread under the Obama administration.

Given that the overwhelming majority of Americans currently believe that the country is on the wrong track, Kamala Harris cannot be afforded the same opportunity to galvanize voters around a common vision of American greatness grounded in success, optimism, and ambition—making Trump’s closing ad all the more effective.

In the closing days of the 2024 presidential contest, Trump’s closing ad reminds voters of a leader who, despite the accusations of self-promotion from the left, never loses sight of the people he serves. Trump’s first term in the Oval Office elevated everyday Americans—the unsung heroes who built this country, defended its freedoms, and continue to shape its future. The ad’s tribute to astronaut Buzz Aldrin, for instance, vividly demonstrates Trump’s honoring of an American hero who embodies the ambition and grit of space exploration, a testament to the 45th president’s commitment to those who exemplify the American spirit.

As Election Day approaches, the Trump campaign’s closing ad is a call to voters to remember that with the right leadership, America’s best days are still ahead.

Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.

https://amac.us/newsline/elections/the-donald-steals-the-closer/

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.27 (after 1950)

1954 – Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force. 1958 – Iskander Mirza, the first President of Pakistan, is deposed by General Ayub Khan, who had been appointed the enforcer of martial law by Mirza 20 days earlier. 1961 – NASA tests the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1. 1962 – Major Rudolf Anderson of the United States Air Force becomes the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane is shot down over Cuba by a Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missile. 1962 – By refusing to agree to the firing of a nuclear torpedo at a US warship, Vasily Arkhipov averts nuclear war. 1964 – Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of the Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater. The speech launches his political career and comes to be known as "A Time for Choosing". 1971 – The Democratic Republic of the Congo is renamed Zaire. 1979 – Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gains its independence from the United Kingdom. 1981 – Cold War: The Soviet submarine S-363 runs aground on the east coast of Sweden. 1986 – The British government suddenly deregulates financial markets, leading to a total restructuring of the way in which they operate in the country, in an event now referred to as the Big Bang. 1988 – Cold War: Ronald Reagan suspends construction of the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow due to Soviet listening devices in the building structure. 1991 – Turkmenistan achieves independence from the Soviet Union. 1992 – United States Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. is murdered by shipmate Terry M. Helvey for being gay, precipitating debate about gays in the military that results in the United States' "Don't ask, don't tell" military policy. 1993 – Widerøe Flight 744 crashes near Overhalla, Norway, killing six people. 1994 – Gliese 229B is the first Substellar Mass Object to be unquestionably identified. 1997 – The 1997 Asian financial crisis causes a crash in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. 1999 – Gunmen open fire in the Armenian Parliament, killing the Prime Minister and seven others. 2014 – Britain withdraws from Afghanistan at the end of Operation Herrick, after 12 years four months and seven days. 2017 – Catalonia declares independence from Spain. 2018 – A gunman opens fire on a Pittsburgh synagogue killing eleven and injuring six, including four police officers. 2018 – Leicester City F.C. owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha dies in a helicopter crash along with four others after a Premier League match against West Ham United at the King Power Stadium in Leicester, England. 2019 – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant founder and leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi kills himself and three children by detonating a suicide vest during the U.S. military Barisha raid in northwestern Syria.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[The Daily Don]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 27, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 28, 2023

Catie Edmondson and Carl Hulse in the New York Times yesterday noted that House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) cannot bring his conference together behind a budget plan. He wanted to pass a bill demanding major concessions from President Biden before the Republicans would agree to raise the debt ceiling, both to prove that he could get his colleagues behind a bill and to put pressure on the Biden administration to restore the old Republican idea that the only way to make the economy work is to slash taxes, business regulation, and government spending.

McCarthy was pleased to have passed his measure with not a single vote to spare, but it appears he got the vote because everyone knew it was dead on arrival at the Senate. According to Edmonson and Hulse, McCarthy got the bill through only by begging his colleagues to ignore the provisions of the measure because it would never become law. He urged them to focus on the symbolic victory of showing Biden they could unite behind cuts.

But today at the Brookings Institution, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan outlined a very different vision of the global economy and American economic leadership. First of all, just the fact this happened is significant: Sullivan is a national security advisor, and he was talking about economics. He outlined how Biden’s “core commitment,” “his daily direction” is “to integrate domestic policy and foreign policy.”

Sullivan argued for a new economic approach to the challenges of the twenty-first century. The Biden administration is trying to establish “a fairer, more durable global economic order, for the benefit of ourselves and for people everywhere.”

The U.S. faces economic challenges, he noted, many of which have been created by the economic ideology that has shaped U.S. policy for the past 40 years. The idea that markets would spread capital to where it was most needed to create an efficient and effective economy has been proven wrong, Sullivan said. The U.S. cut taxes and slashed business regulations, privatized public projects, and pushed free trade on principle with the understanding that all growth was good growth and that if we lost infrastructure and manufacturing, we could make up those losses in finance, for example.

As countries lowered their economic barriers and became more closely integrated with each other, they would also become more open and peaceful.

But that’s not how it played out. Privileging finance over fundamental economic growth was a mistake. The U.S. lost supply chains and entire industries as jobs moved overseas, while countries like China discarded markets in favor of artificially subsidizing their economies. Rather than ushering in world peace, the market-based system saw an aggressive China and Russia both expanding their international power. At the same time, climate change accelerated without countries making much effort to address it. And, most of all, the unequal growth of the older system has undermined democracy.

Biden has attempted to counter the weaknesses of the previous economic system by focusing on building capacity to produce and innovate, resilience to withstand natural disasters and geopolitical shocks, and inclusiveness to rebuild the American middle class and greater opportunity for working people around the world.

After two years, the results have been “remarkable.”

Large-scale investment in semiconductor and clean energy production has jumped 20-fold since 2019, with private money following government seed money to mean about $3.5 trillion in public and private investment will flow into the economy in the next decade. Building domestic capacity will bring supply chains home and create jobs.

But this vision is not about isolating the United States from other countries. Indeed, much of the speech reinforced U.S. support for the positions of the European Union.

Instead, the U.S. is encouraging our allies—including developing nations—to build similarly to increase our united economic strengths and to enable the world to address climate change together, a field that offers huge potential for economic growth. The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework with 13 Indo-Pacific nations is designed to create international economic cooperation in that region, and the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, which includes Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay, is designed to do the same here in the Americas. The U.S.-E.U. Trade and Technology Council and our trilateral coordination with Japan and Korea are part of the same economic program.

With this economic approach, the U.S. does not seek to cut ties to China, but rather aims to cut the risks associated with supply chains based in China by investing in our own capacities, and to push for a level playing field for our workers and companies. The U.S. has “a very substantial trade and investment relationship” with China that set a new record last year, and the U.S. is looking not to create conflict but to “manage competition responsibly” and “work together on global challenges like climate, like macroeconomic stability, health security, and food security.” “But,” he said, “China has to be willing to play its part.”

In today’s world, Sullivan said, trade policy is not just about the tariff deals that business leaders have criticized the administration for neglecting. It is about a larger economic strategy both at home and abroad to build economies that offer rising standards of living for working people.

The administration is now focusing on labor rights, climate change, and banking security in this larger picture. Through organizations like the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment the administration hopes to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars in financing in the next seven years to build infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries and to relieve debt there.

“The world needs an international economic system that works for our wage-earners, works for our industries, works for our climate, works for our national security, and works for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries,” Sullivan said. That means replacing the idea of free markets alone with “targeted and necessary investments in places that private markets are ill-suited to address on their own.” Rather than simply adjusting tariff rates, it means international cooperation.

And, Sullivan said, “it means returning to the core belief we first championed 80 years ago: that America should be at the heart of a vibrant, international financial system that enables partners around the world to reduce poverty and enhance shared prosperity. And that a functioning social safety net for the world’s most vulnerable countries is essential to our own core interests.”

This strategy, he said, “is the surest path to restoring the middle class, to producing a just and effective clean-energy transition, to securing critical supply chains, and, through all of this, to repairing faith in democracy itself.” He called for bipartisan support for this approach to the global economy.

Sullivan noted that the phrase “a rising tide lifts all boats” came from President John F. Kennedy, not from later supply-side ideologues who used it to defend their tax cuts and business deregulation. “President Kennedy wasn’t saying what’s good for the wealthy is good for the working class,” Sullivan said, “He was saying we’re all in this together.”

Sullivan quoted Kennedy further: “If one section of the country is standing still, then sooner or later a dropping tide drops all the boats. That’s true for our country. That’s true for our world. [And] economically, over time, we’re going to rise—or fall—together.”

“And that goes for the strength of our democracies as well as for the strength of our economies.”

Foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen noted that David Wessel of Brookings asked Sullivan for a quick summary of this new economic vision. Sullivan answered: “We’re at a moment now where we need to build capacity to build the goods & invent the technologies of [the] future & we’re going to make the investments to do that—us, +everyone who wants to be in on [the] deal. & then we’re going to build the resilience we need…so that no natural disaster or geopolitical shock can stop us from getting things we need when we need them….”

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON