#that said the number should still be higher but this is just presidents who have gotten caught

[chongoblog]

“average u.s president is indicted for 2 felonies" factoid actualy just statistical error. average president indicted for 0 felonies. Crimes Donal, who consistently and obviously breaks the law and has been indicted for 91 felonies, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

A recent study (sorry, some stuff I can only find in Hebrew, this is one of those articles) shows 83% of Israeli kids are experiencing psychological distress since Oct 7. Among the kids of the south, (the area which was hit the worst, and where even communities that were not massacred by Hamas, were evacuated following this massive invasion), the percentage is even higher, 93%. An important note is that the study sampled both Jewish and Arab kids based on the size of these populations (Arabs make up 21% of Israeli citizens).

The IDF published aerial footage of Hamas stealing humanitarian aid from regular Gazans, and beating them up. If there's a blog that claims to be sharing pro-Palestinian info, but doesn't share this kind of news, they're not really pro-Palestinian, they're just exploiting Palestinians as an excuse to be anti-Israel.

The leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is believed to have escaped from the northern Gaza City to the south, to Khan Younis, in a medical convoy. Just take in the cynical use of medical and humanitarian protections, to do anything which would prolong the fighting, no matter how many Palestinian lives it would cost. I'm trying hard to remember any other (real) liberation movement that was directly responsible for the deaths of so many of the people it seeked to liberate...

Five Israeli soldiers were pronounced dead yesterday, four were killed in Gaza, while one was badly wounded on Oct 7, and after over two months in hospital, passed away. The number of Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting in Gaza so far is 97. Up until number, the bloodiest battle Israel has had to wage in Gaza since withdrawing from it, was operation Protective Edge in 2014, with 70 Israeli soldiers killed.

The Palestinian Authority's Prime Minister said, when discussing plans for Gaza after the end of the war, that Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian mosaic, and that dismantling Hamas is unacceptable to the Palestinian Authority.

Yesterday, an American base in Iraq was attacked by Hezbollah forces. You absolutely should ask yourself why the terrorist organization calling itself the "defender of Lebanon" has units in Iraq, and how is attacking American forces there helping Lebanon. Just a side note, Iran funds Hezbollah.

Also yesterday, the Yemenite terrorist group known as the Houthis announced that instead of going after Israeli ships only, they will target any ship that is headed for Israel through one of the most important naval routes in the world, and which is Israel's only connection to the far east. Essentially, it means they're placing Israel under a naval blockade. I'm looking forward to people condemning Yemen for occupying Israel. Just a side note, Iran funds the Houthis.

Today, it was published that in Cyprus, two Iranian political refugees, who entered the country with a fake passport, were arrested for collecting intel to carry out a terrorist attack against Israelis there. Just a side note, these refugees were in touch with Iran's political militarized force, IRGC. Stop me when you notice a theme here...

On the first even of Hanukkah, 138 hanukkiot were lit at the Kotel (the Western wall), one for each hostage. Since then, two of the hostages have been confirmed as murdered.

Following the Congress hearing where three presidents of prestigious universities couldn't explicitly say that a call for the genocide of the Jewish people constitutes bullying and harassment, UPenn's president resigned. That's good, but I wanna point out that, as their answers were obviously coordinated, down to repeating the exact same terms, there is no difference between UPenn's president and the ones of Harvard and MIT. They all need to go home. And the universities still have the burden of proof that this will be more than a cosmetic change in leadership.

I watched a TV interview with two married Israeli Harvard professors, who recounted how they went out and celebrated when Claudine Gay was elected as their university's president, and now they've chosen to leave Harvard and the US, to return to Israel, because the campus has become an environment that's just too toxic. I think if the amount of Jews who are moving to Israel, while the country is in a state of war, isn't a wake up call for the west, then nothing will be.

On the left is 25 years old Gal Eizenkott, the son of Israel's former Chief of Staff, and current minister, who is a part of the war cabinet, Gadi Eizenkott. I wrote about Gal in previous daily updates. Something I can add is that his father happened to be in an IDF command center, when they got the news of the incident in which Gal was killed. It took several minutes for the info to arrive at the command center, that one of those soldiers injured mortally was Gadi's son.

On the right is 19 years old Maor Cohen Eizenkott. Maor is Gal's cousin, and was a soccer player. He was killed a day after Gal, when an explosive device planted in a Gaza mosque blew up. Maor was buried today. May his memory be a blessing.

This is 53 years old Eitan Levi.

He was a taxi driver, who on Oct 7 took a lady to one of the kibbutzim on the border of Gaza. On his way back, he called his sister, telling her about the rocket barrages into Israel, and that he was scared. She stayed with him on the line as he was driving back from the south of Israel, but then he was stopped, his sister heard Arabic, shouts of "Allahu Akbar" and shots. Later, his phone was detected in Gaza, and he was considered kidnapped. Then Hamas released a video of its terrorists abusing a body. It was beyond recognition, but based on some accessories, the army finally determined it was Eitan, that he had been murdered on Oct 7, and it was his body that was kidnapped to Gaza. His sister watched the vid, but as the body is unrecognizable, she said in an interview, "He's the only family I have in this world. We don't even have a body to sit Shiva for. Until such time, I'm going to keep hoping he's alive, kidnapped and just injured."

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[notsocheezy]

Brain Curd #185

Brain Curds are lightly edited flash fiction - practically first drafts - posted daily (haven't missed one yet!) and sometimes written with the express intention of being terrible… but, you know, in an endearing way. Please like and reblog if you enjoy - the notes keep me going!

He's gonna be Frank with you. Read the rest of The Frank Program here on Tumblr!

“Ladies and gentlemen…” Frank took a puff from his cigarette and exhaled. “This is The Frank Program. Today we have some returning faces - will you two please introduce yourselves?”

“I’m Chuck Tangent. Billionaire, genius, CEO of four or five companies… I’m sure you’ve all heard of me.”

“I’m Big Mike from Morning Thunder, or, uh, well I used to be. On that note, uh…” Mike rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d like to apologize for my behavior last time I was on this program. It was inappropriate of me to drink and hit on the female guest. I’m very sorry for my actions - sorry to Ms. Pope, sorry to the listeners, and most importantly, sorry to my wife. Babe, I still think we can make this work. Please don’t give up on me.”

There was an awkward silence. Frank cleared his throat. “Uh huh. Well, anyway, Chuck, how is your presidential campaign coming along?”

“Hm?”

“You’re running for President, last we chatted.”

Tangent leaned back in his chair. “Oh, yes, of course. I got bored of that.”

“Bored?”

“It no longer interested me. But I’ve found someone even better to take my place.”

“Who’s that?”

“The child I never had, Frank: Hailey Two-Point-Oh.”

Mike sobbed quietly. “We never got to have any children…”

Chuck ignored him. “Hailey is not only taking my place in the presidential race, but as CEO of one of my companies - Arx Industries - as well as its flagship product.”

“So you’re sellin’ your daughter, Chuck? I’m not positive that’s legal.”

“She’s an artificial intelligence, Frank. Hailey runs on cloud servers in a data farm somewhere. But don’t let the name fool you - she’s not technically a girl, just a collection of ones and zeroes. Much smarter than any of my real kids, of course.”

“Well’n, how’s that going for you?” Frank took a swig from his flask and another drag from his cigarette.

“It’s going great. In fact, Arx Industries stock has never been higher.” He held up his phone. “I’m tracking it real-time as we speak.”

“Is that, uh…” Frank waved his hand at the camera set up in the corner of the room. “Is that why you’ve got a live broadcast going here?”

“Yes, I have this interview streaming to my social media platform. That way, I can gauge the market’s reaction to my announcements.”

Mike really looked like shit. “Mr. Tangent, sir, do you think my wife might have already seen my apology?”

Chuck leaned over. “Yes,” he said, with a wink.

“What does that wink mean…?”

He whispered. “Most of my eight billion followers are bots. Don’t tell anyone. Shh.”

Mike laid his head back on the table and covered it with his hands.

“Anyway, Frank, it’s time to find out what Hailey’s policy positions will be. Hailey?”

“Yes, Daddy,” replied an uncomfortably sultry voice.

“What is your position on abortion?”

“All women should be forcibly sterilized so that no abortions can ever happen again! Tee-hee!”

“Hm.” Chuck rubbed his chin. “Not what I would have said, but I respect it.”

Frank shrugged. “It’s out of the box, for sure.”

“Let’s see what our stock is looking like… and it’s down twelve points. Frank, can you pull up our polling numbers?”

“Lemme see here…” Frank fiddled with his phone. “What in the blazes…”

“How does it look?”

“Is that even possible?”

“Good?”

“Y’all are pollin’ negative numbers, Chuck. A negative number a’ people said they’re voting for Hailey Tangent. I don’t even know what that means.”

“It’s broken…” Mike wept. “It’s all broken…”

“Mikey…” Frank rubbed his forehead. “Just because I’m lettin’ ya sleep here doesn’t mean you need to be in every episode - unless ya either got somethin’ to say or you can work the computer for me.”

Big Mike crawled under the desk and curled up into a ball.

“Thanks, bud.”

“Sorry, Frank, I really should be going.” Chuck checked his watch. “I have a board meeting in half an hour and I really must work on Hailey’s debate skills before tonight. It was great talking to you.”

“Oh, uh, no problem, Chuck.” He reached out to shake his hand.

Chuck tapped on his smart watch a few times and evaporated into plasma, scorching the seat he was in.

“I hope he’s alright… anyway, this has been The Frank Program.” Frank downed the last of his flask. “Thank you - yes, you! For letting me be Frank with you. I love all of you. Goodnight. Or good morning, or whatever.”

[mariacallous]

The United States is still pushing to seize outright all the frozen Russian Central Bank assets it can to help fund Ukraine, even as broader Ukraine funding remains blocked by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. But it is becoming clearer that in Europe, the only politically realistic approach to using Russian money to fund Ukraine is by tapping a much smaller windfall that amounts to about 1 percent of Moscow’s frozen funds.

The big question is whether that relatively small amount can be squeezed even harder to provide a more substantial and ongoing funding stream for Ukraine, which is now worried less about postwar reconstruction than the grim situation of its ammo-starved army on the battlefield.

“There is a massive financing crisis. Europe and the West are not really addressing it,” said Timothy Ash, a sovereign strategist at RBC Bluebay Asset Management and a fellow at Chatham House, a U.K. think tank. He figures Ukraine needs about 100 billion euros a year to fight off the Russian invasion, and another 50 billion euros a year for reconstruction.

On paper, a big chunk of that money is theoretically available. There don’t appear to be any insurmountable legal obstacles to seizing the entirety of the roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian Central Bank assets held by Europe, the United States, and a handful of other countries since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor two years ago. What’s lacking is political will. Legislation to authorize such a seizure has yet to pass the full U.S. Congress (though a version may get wrapped into the latest congressional effort to fund Ukraine), and Europe, fearing Russian retaliation, has balked at that more aggressive step.

What is gaining momentum in Brussels, however, is a less controversial option that would take the approximately $3 billion a year that accrues from frozen Russian assets and use that money for Ukraine. It’s a fraction of the more ambitious proposals, and faces many of the same legal questions, but seems to have more political backing from key countries such as Belgium (custodian of the lion’s share of frozen Russian assets).

Last month, the European Union formally ordered the accumulating profits from Russian assets to be hived off and kept separate from the underlying balance, with a view to supporting Ukraine at a later date. Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen went further, arguing that the windfall proceeds could be used not just to pay for Ukraine’s eventual reconstruction but also for its present-day arms requirements. On Monday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Belgium is ready to allocate some of the proceeds (held largely in Belgium’s Euroclear financial clearinghouse) to fund Ukraine’s defense needs.

“All the signals suggest the Europeans are prepared to make use of the Euroclear windfall,” said Brad Setser, an expert on capital flows and sovereign debt at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The only questions are how assets outside Euroclear are handled, and whether they are willing to get creative to maximize the income stream.”

Setser, like many other economists, advocates a more aggressive approach to managing the captive Russian Central Bank assets—the 3 billion euros or so a year that accrue currently are a floor, not a ceiling, he said.

“The 3 billion [euros] is the lowest possible number that you can imagine. It should be much bigger,” said Setser, who is also a former U.S. Treasury official. Given that the frozen Russian assets are likely to remain that way for some time, he argued for a more proactive approach—for instance, by investing the proceeds that are piling up in Europe in higher-yielding U.S. dollar deposits or in even higher-yielding sovereign debt from different countries.

It’s a view that is gaining adherents among finance professionals, who make both an economic and a moral case for a more aggressive use of Russian assets. Ash suggested investing those Russian proceeds in emerging market bonds that could fetch returns of up to 10 percent a year; another, more audacious idea is to use the money to purchase Ukrainian government bonds directly, thus using Russia’s frozen treasure to underwrite Ukraine’s survival. Still other suggestions include using the trickle of annual proceeds to service debt on future joint EU bond issues that could be used to finance Ukraine in one big lump sum.

For Ash, finding a way to make better use of the frozen Russian funds is a political imperative; European taxpayers have so far supported Ukraine to the tune of tens of billions of euros, while Russians have not, partly out of lingering concerns about violating the sanctity of the Russian state’s alleged property rights.

“Our taxpayer dollars are subordinate to the Russian taxpayers,” he said. “We are willing to pick up the check for Russia’s aggression, but not prepared to charge Russia for it?”

Since momentum began building last year for the seizure of Russia’s frozen assets, the situation has changed in two related ways.

First, as von der Leyen made clear last week, those funds aren’t just thought of as a down payment on Ukraine’s estimated $400 billion to $500 billion reconstruction tab. The lack of artillery shells, advanced jets, and long-range fire handicapped Ukraine’s long-planned offensive last year and enabled Russian forces to shrug off staggering losses and regain the battlefield initiative earlier this year.

“It seems a little early to be talking about full reconstruction,” Setser said. “Ukraine’s in a fight for survival.” He said that one advantage highlighted by von der Leyen’s proposal would be to provide a recurring, predictable stream of funding for Ukrainian armaments purchases, which could help kick-start so far laggard European production of much-needed munitions.

“What I think is clever about von der Leyen’s proposal is that, if you take my view and invest it in 10-year securities, this is actually a stable future income stream for Ukraine and Ukrainian weapons purchases,” he said. “So you could use it to buy arms this year, and next year, and thereby incentivize increased [arms] production.”

More broadly, Europe’s (and the United States’) struggle to outsource the fight in Ukraine at relatively small levels of expenditure means that, if Russia prevails over Ukraine, other European countries would feel threatened—with a much bigger bill to pay in the future than a few score billion euros of Russia’s money today. European countries have increased their defense spending to record levels but are still largely short of the informal threshold of 2 percent of GDP required of NATO members. If Ukraine loses, Ash suggested, Europe would have to ramp up to closer to 3 percent on defense spending—about 400 billion euros a year, every year.

“Is Ukraine’s security a national security priority? I would say absolutely it is. Then how are we going to fund it?” Ash asked. “In the end, you do whatever you have to do to do that, and the only credible source of funding for Ukraine is from Russian assets.”

[mightyflamethrower]

A poll was released Sunday taken by the New York Times and Siena College. The poll is a disaster for Joe Biden’s re-election hopes. In five out of six of the most important battleground states, Donald Trump is ahead of Biden.

To say that a panic has set in among Democrats is an understatement. David Axelrod, the Democratic strategist credited with Barack Obama’s victory in 2008, suggests that Biden drop out. Axelrod pointed to the NYT/Siena College poll for justification of his opinion. The poll shows that Trump leads Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Biden won all of those states when he ran against Trump in 2020.

Axelrod posted his thoughts on X (formerly Twitter) and acknowledged it would be difficult to “change horses” now. Only Biden can make the decision, he notes, and Biden’s staff say Biden is determined to run.

Age is a big factor in the discontent with Biden. That is something Biden can’t change.

I think it is interesting that Axelrod asks the question of whether it is in his (Biden’s) best interest to run or in the best interest of the country. A majority of Americans do not want another Biden-Trump race in 2024. Joe Biden is not popular, in fact he has historically low polling numbers across the board. We are one year out from the election tomorrow. According to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll, three-quarters of Americans (76%) believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. That is a devastating number for a president up for re-election. Republicans are most negative about the direction of the country, with 95% saying so. 76% of independents and 54% of Democrats think the same.

It’s interesting that Axelrod said that Biden wants to run on his successes. What would those be? Democrats are proud of ramming through the Green New Deal 2.0 with the misleading titled bill, the Inflation Reduction Act. They point to infrastructure bills and the reduction of insulin costs for seniors, but there really is no real record of success for Joe Biden. That is shown in the unhappiness of Americans with his presidency.

The southern border is open, inflation is high, cost of living expenses are up, mortgage rates are high, rent is up, gas prices are still higher than they were during the Trump years, and Biden drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for a momentary reduction in gas prices with little success. Biden’s parade of horribles goes on and on. On top of poor results, Biden looks and sounds feeble and just too old. He is about to turn 81-years-old. He should be permanently at his beach house enjoying time with the grandkids, not trying to run the United States.

That brings us to another thorny aspect of the Biden administration. Barack Obama is running the White House. It is his third term. This is how it was always meant to be. It was reported last week that Obama has been advising the Biden White House on AI for months. Obama has made himself more available to the press lately by releasing his thoughts about the Israel-Hamas war, as wrong-headed as his thoughts are. Obama can’t give up control, as we all knew would happen. Who would think that Biden is calling the shots in the White House? He’s dazed and confused just entering or exiting a room. I think it is Obama and Jill Biden running the place.

The NYT/Siena College poll found that Trump is preferred over Biden on the issues of immigration, national security and on the current war in Israel. Those issues are on everyone’s minds since October 7. Biden is already going wobbly on full-throated support for Israel because he is losing support of Arab and Muslim voters in states like Michigan. He now calls for a “pause” which is a ceasefire. It’s unacceptable.

Biden is losing support of young voters, black voters, and Hispanic voters. Those are all the groups of voters who brought him to victory in 2020.

Less than half of Black people (49%) and Hispanic people (33%) have a favorable impression of Biden. Both of these groups voted overwhelmingly for him in the 2020 presidential election. According to ABC News’ 2020 exit poll, 87% of Black voters supported Biden in 2020 as did 65% of Hispanic voters. If someone other than Trump or Biden is the nominee of their respective party, about three in 10 Americans say they would be more likely to vote for the candidate of that party, but many more say that it would not make a difference in their vote. By a 23-point margin (31% to 8%), Americans would be more likely to vote for the Republican candidate if someone other than Trump is the party’s nominee. That margin is slightly higher among Republicans (37% to 9%) and independents (38% to 9%). Just under half (48%) say someone other than Trump being on the ballot would make no difference in their vote. Similarly, by a 25-point margin (29% to 4%), Americans would be more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate if someone other than Biden is the party’s nominee — with 55% saying it would make no difference. The margin is somewhat higher, 35 points, among both Democrats and independents.

Inflation and the economy are still the most important issues for voters. Voters vote with their pocketbooks and a majority do not feel better off today than they were four years ago. That is to Trump’s advantage. Voters think back to his term in office and how good the economy was and how most aspects of life were better for Americans. Biden, on the other hand, has brought nothing but pain to families as they try to manage their budgets and keep the bills paid. More than 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

Axelrod is right to point out it would be difficult to change candidates at this point. However, what is the point of bringing it up if he doesn’t want to encourage the party to get someone waiting in the wings – like Gavin Newsom? Newsom is chomping at the bit to parachute in and run. If David Axelrod is publicly pushing the panic button, it means that privately Democrats have their hair on fire. You hate to see it happen. Just kidding. Democrats asked for it.

[lethalbutterfly]

Several months before the election, my boss, a Trump supporter, was saying something about how the 2020 election was rigged, Trump only lost because "they" (presumably just a general sense of conspiratorial authoritarian democrats in government?) gave all the mail-in ballots to Biden.

And my response to this was something along the lines of "Even if that were true, what do you propose we do about it? I hate to say it, but if you can't trust the process by which votes are counted, then you don't actually believe in democracy. There's no place to go from there other than having you personally count the votes yourself, or to just not have elections altogether."

My position on this is that the make-or-break issue for me this election was weather or not Democracy should exist. There were plenty of other reasons why I voted for Kamala, but that one was the most important. Trump said during a rally he would "fix it so you don't have to vote anymore" he said during the debate that he still does not accept the results of the previous election. There was one party actively advertising themselves as disestablishing the checks and balances of our government as they have been done 2016, and going on to promise rigged elections, and they've laid plenty of groundwork for it:

Gerrymandering favors the republican party in most places. Statistically, the higher the voter turnout, the greater the margin democrats win by. In the entire >300 year history of our government, there have been only 3 times that the electoral vote has disagreed with the popular vote- ALL THREE times in favor of the republican party (granted their platform was drastically different back in 1876 when it benefited Hayes, they weren't the insane racist maniacs they are today, the fact that the other 2/3rds of this deeply anomalous occurrence happened within the most recent 25 years of our country's existence is another anomaly in and of itself). And last but not least, the same sentiment echoed by my boss in the wake of the 2020 election, the conspiracy that the votes themselves simply cannot be trusted, which is difficult to argue and disprove without intimate specialized knowledge of how votes are counted, and which makes it very easy for someone who lost the vote to forcibly claim the presidency, if there's widespread sentiment that he didn't REALLY lose despite what the numbers say.

What I'm trying to build up to here is that, since I positioned free elections as my #1 issue for this election, I cannot very well go around and claim that the election is wrong, can I? I wish it were a mistake. The world would be better off if it were a mistake, but there's no evidence for that, and trying to delegitimize the election is the strategy used by those who don't want there to be elections at all. Or at least don't want elections to be heeded. Was the election fair? No. There was voter suppression and disenfranchisement just like there always is, but it was out in the open, just like it always is, not in privately stuffed ballots or secretly hacked machines. We can fight against the unfairness of the election by trying to reduce or eliminate gerrymandering and the electoral college in favor of a popular vote, and by supporting ranked choice voting, but fighting for those goals is going to be extremely difficult when the presidency (and the Supreme Court for that matter) is held by the party whose power is cemented by those things.

Maybe it won't be for everyone, but it has been a small solace to me that this is the will of the American people, and not a miscarriage of justice carried out by a fully rigged system. It was not the decision of oligarchs that there should not be a democracy, but democratically elected that there should not be a democracy (ironic).

And before anyone reading this gives into Despair at the way I'm phrasing this, I would like to add something else:

I have several friends who are both more politically minded and just generally more intelligent than I, and they belive that, in spite of Trump's campaign promises to the contrary, there WILL still be an election in 2028. He will, most likely, not be able to get so far as fully abolishing elections in a single term. It will be an election less fair than what we just went through, more people are going to be disenfranchised depending on how much of Project2025/Agenda47 gets passed. And I know that the mere existence of voting in 4 years being considered a victory is setting the bar so low it's a tripping hazard in hell. But it is not unrecoverable. In 2020, we turned Georgia and Nevada blue. Trump voters are going to feel betrayed when their grocery prices are driven further up by deregulation and inflation. This election teaches us that regardless of who is really responsible for the hardships of Americans, most voters will simply blame whatever party is in charge at the time.

It's going to take a lot more work, but it's possible.

(I myself regret not doing more to send out calls and texts for the campaign, speak up against misinformation, and just monetarily donate tbh. I intend to do these things when 2028 rolls around, as well as look for other opportunities along the way.)

If your democrat friends start muttering about stolen election conspiracy theories, the time to have a sit down with them and express your concerns is NOW, while you still have a chance to reach them, not 6 months from now when they're fully conspiracy-pilled.

Here's some of the talking points and why they're bullshit:

'10 million votes don't just disappear!' -> Joe Biden's 81 million votes were a statistical outlier, sparked by the recent experience of the Trump presidency. The democrats failed to maintain that sense of urgency, but Harris still got more votes than Hillary Clinton, more than Obama and more than any previous democratic candidate. These numbers are not weird at all.

'The Republicans tried to infiltrate election- and vote counting organizations!' -> yeah, they did, and yet hundreds of independent legal observers didn't see anything go wrong enough to raise any alarms. Independent exit polls are also very consistently similar to the counted votes. Tons of international organizations specialized in this stuff observed the election and didn't see a reason to raise the alarm.

'But I know a dozen democrats whose mail-in votes were not counted!' -> In any election a certain number of votes are registered as invalid because something was wrong with the ballot. In a country the size of the US, that translates to many thousands of votes. The internet allows these people to find each other, creating the false impression that a suspiciously large group of voted was not valid.

'Musk used Star Link to mess with electronic voting!' -> Electronic voting machines are not connected to the internet and dozens of independent media have already debunked this myth. It is absolutely impossible to use Star Link to fake election results.

'There is voter disenfranchisement!' -> This is true. This has always been true, for every election. It's an issue worth talking about but it's not a special secret conspiracy that's unique to this election.

But just as importantly as the facts: sit down with your friend and talk about the anxiety that's behind their conspiracy leanings. Acknowledge their pain and fear. Help them find ways to feel less powerless and regain their sense of agency. Take them to a mutual aid event, involve them in a fundraising event for a marginalized group, invite them to a local community effort. If they spend more time feeling connection and empowerment and less time doom scrolling online, they're far more likely to stay in reality.

[mswayambhu-blog]

Memoirs of COP29: Baku

It has been an event of sorts, for some it was a beacon of hope, while for some it was an utter failure. While people and representatives are free to make their own opinion, but every coin has two sides. In Jain philosophy there’s a concept of “Syatwad” that advocates that there could be seven different perspectives of looking at anything in this world and all of them could be correct simultaneously. Thus, everyone can have their opinion and in spite of they being ironical or event appearing to be opposite, they all can be correct and we should have the courage to accept and appreciate other’s opinions as well. We also had mixed experience during the event, but compared to COP28: Dubai, this was relatively a low-key affair. Smaller venue, lesser crowd, higher security, high restrictions, much more compact and lesser participation. But we ended up achieving much more. Starting from media interview to presentation in both the zones (Blue & Green), Exploring the third zone (innovation zone), participating in side events, interaction with academia, and corporates as well as country representatives from across the globe.

Day-1

The US elections were on top of the mind for the opening speech, with Trump’s “drill baby drill” phrase being used to create ripples in the Climate Action fraternity.

But, frankly speaking, that’s just politics. The most consistent feature of the president-elect is his unpredictability. If he realises that he’s going wrong, he doesn’t mind taking a U-turn.

Moreover, promising money to COP, and funding two conflicts to create war, is anyways no better for the environment anyways.

So, the hope is still on, rest all is speculation. As we said earlier, COP needs a “path & pace correction”, moving from “emission focus” to “sequestration focus”!

The sooner they realize it, the better it is for the world.

Day -2

I understand that the post is delayed. I’m literally posting on end of Day 3, but as the engagement grows, it’ll be tough to post on the same day. It’s a happening event, the visitors get divided into Blue Zone, Green Zone and side events.

The security arrangements are much tougher than COP28, even for the Green Zone, which is usually open to all public. In Dubai, even with out an invite, you could get the pass right at the gate of Green Zone, but it isn’t the same at Baku. Even if you have the invite and a confirmation number, you can’t enter the green zone, till your passport details are not shared with the registration desk.

So, what happens to those who are unable to join in? The side events come to rescue their travel. On 12th November, 2024, we’ve had the following side events –

Achieving transformative climate action through gender responsive, rights-based economic approaches

Transition Away from Fossil Fuels: Technology & Market - Based instruments for Net-Zero Actions

Innovations to maximize tropical forests’ contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation

What can Migrants and Displaced Persons bring to the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage?

Decarbonization beyond the value chain: navigating between carbon credits and climate contributions

Climate Science: key take aways in 2024

A message from the Frozen World – the Global Impact of a Changing Cryosphere

Carbon Dioxide Removal: Considerations for Responsible Deployment on Land and Ocean

Towards real, people-led, gender just solutions

Raising the ambition of urban climate action through multilevel governance

Designing for Quality and Equity in Clean Cooking Carbon Projects

Sovereign Wealth Impact: Powering Finance for the SDGs

New Horizons in Methane-Emissions Abatement

Fostering Climate Adaptation and Resilience in Small Island States and Beyond

New Forest Economies: Subnational Government Strategies, REDD+, & Local Engagement

Leveraging blended finance: catalyzing sustainable investments for global impact

Making Climate Finance Work for Climate Action in Agriculture and Food Security

Now tell me, with so many events happenings, you meet hundreds of people, who are all sustainability professionals belonging to the same tribe. So, would you call it day utilized or wasted? So, the bottom line is, when you go with positive bent of mind, you can actually take advantage of the hurdles as well and make it and asset for yourself. That’s a learning from Day-2 of Baku.

Day -3 Very exciting day today, full of meetings, symposiums and focused discussions.

Key reports of the Standing Committee on Finance for COP29

Driving Gender-just Energy Transition through Financing and Capacity Building in the Global South

Trade and investment policies to advance climate ambition and sustainable development

Scaling up Nature Finance and Enterprise in the Amazon Basin and Beyond

Artificial Intelligence solutions to enable rapid scale up of Renewable Energy

Transformational Adaptation

Supporting Indigenous-Peoples led solutions to climate change and loss and damage

Ensuring Integrity in the Voluntary Carbon Market

Open access activity data and digital tools to help countries and other stakeholders meet their ETF

Unlocking the potential for financing methane mitigation from solid waste for the NDCs and beyond

Innovation Ecosystems for Climate Action: Digital Technologies, Industrial Solutions, and Governance

Scaling up climate action in fragile states: what are the hurdles and how to overcome them?

Innovative Pathways for Emission Reduction: Perspectives from NGOs, Government and Private Sector

Tackling Corruption: A Missing Piece in the Climate Finance Agenda

Fully funded, fair, fast, and feminist phase-out of fossil fuels in the United States

Recognizing Net Zero Ambition and Accelerating Progress

The teething troubles have been sorted out. Met some wonderful people doing great work in the environment sector from carbon capture to waste management to governance to finance. This is a platform to showcase the good work, unfortunately all people working on ground are not able to afford taking a stall here, because they’re working for saving the planet, and not making money.

Government and intergovernmental discussions happen in the Blue Zone, at least these people working on ground should get a place in the Green Zone. Or maybe create a White Zone from COP30, so that these wonderful works could be showcased and replicated across the globe. We’ve maximized the foot prints of pollution, now is the time to globalize the footprints of restoration too.

Met some good corporates from Azerbaijan, Saudi ad UAE, all keen to diversify towards NbS, which was a good surprise. In fact, even an industrial training institute was affirmative to add a course on NbS to their curriculum, which was quite unexpected. Met a few Environment Ministers from African Union too, who were keen on restoration of natural resources.

Day -4 A very happening day, full of professional, emotional, physical and mental roller-coaster rides.

The day started with a wonderful session on “Cooling the heat: Enhancing Energy Efficiency of Refrigeration and Cooling Sector”, followed by another session on “Drive climate ambition and finance”, then came a session on "Climate Finance for Fast Action", then came " Climate Technologies: Impact Stories", another on "Invest in Soil Health". Some sessions were happening parallelly too, fortunately we had a team of three. Side-by-side were also reaching out to MoEFCC to help us get through the Blue Zone badge for our session with Towards Healthy, Inclusive and Sustainable Food Systems: Agroecology, Soil Health, and Healthy Diets, organized by Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH), CIFOR-ICRAF, Agroecology Coalition, Youth in Agroecology and Restoration Network (YARN), The Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty (TIP).

Also met a power company from Romania and explained our perspective of green energy, and how to make large scale solar plants and age-old hydro-power dam reservoirs more sustainable. After which we had to rush to Climate Action Innovation Hub for specialized events focused upon —Sustainable Innovation Forum 2024, Hydrogen Transition Summit and Agri-Food Systems Summit at Baku Mariott Boulevard.

The next hop was COP29 Flagship Friday Evening Event - Climate Finance & Innovation: Adaptation & Resilience, held at Ganjlik Plaza, 95 Ataturk Avenue, Baku, which was yet another experience. Wonderful people, great deliberations, interesting discussions and serious business propositions. It was organized by AIM (not Atal Innovation Mission) but Azerbaijan Innovation Markaz, something like Startup India, back home.

Finally, the business day was over after this. Had dinner at Nizami street and concluded the day.

Day -5

The day started with Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) hosted event, the second Edition of CEEW Leaders’ Dialogue, on the sidelines of COP29, held at Hyatt Regency, Baku.

The dialogue hosted thought-provoking conversations with domain experts including Dr Arunabha Ghosh, Founder-CEO, CEEW, who deliberated on Accelerating the low-carbon drive of Bharat towards Viksit Bharat, followed by an elaborate panel discussion on Trillions for billions: Setting financing for development back on track. The second panel discussed upon the subject of “One size does not fit all: Crafting bespoke national energy transition plans”. Later we had deliberation on Water matters: Valuing sustainable and resilient water infrastructure, moderate by Nitin Bassi, Senior Programme Lead – Sustainable Water, CEEW, after which we had to rush back to green zone for a presentation.

At the green zone, we had an opportunity to interact with the teams of “Viveka Company Creation Program”, “Innovation and Digital Development Agency” of Azerbaijan (an initiative of Azerbaijan Innovation Center or the Azerbaijan Innovation Markazi, inaugurated on 2nd October, 2024 to boost up the startup ecosystem in the country) and a lot of sustainability startups being nurtured by Viveka, because “Viveka Company Creation Program” is a unique program for startups that want to advance from the early stage to the MVP, i.e. the minimum viable product stage. These startups were primarily from Azerbaijan, Turkey and Kazakhstan.

The startups included precision agriculture domain to Water treatment, oil sludge treatment, irrigation with AI integration and many other sustainability domain technologies.

[the-firebird69]

We have some people here who have some grudges against her son Dan is one of them and he made the problem himself and do it I was wondering around with a big ax to grind and people can see him and they say don't beat you up and he went close anyways and he's going to end up getting arrested again and worse coming up soon and then he'll be out and we really need it he's a huge huge pain there's a couple other people like him as we mentioned and they are idiots and we'll take actions as appropriate that we post an update so he can run around and lose more of a stuff

-right now in Charlotte county they are laying off the final 1000 workers for the county and it is quite a few people now it's 1,000 people and the city of punta Gorda is laying off 300 more workers out of the remaining 500 city of Port Charlotte is laying off a thousand workers out of the remaining 2000 workers the higher ups in Charlotte county and numbered 3500 last week they're down to 2800 they're going to fire 800 today and they have started on all these. The sheriff was at 350 for a couple weeks if I had 50 this morning. A lot of people it's easier for them to cut loose people.

-as a result of this morning's firings there are 300,000 at the interim and about 2 trillion at the outer ring and it's a very big number and the rest of Florida they are assembling to try and get here to threaten leaders and they're doing it shortly it is a very big crowd of people and the max reminder to take them out as we speak

-and some difficulty this morning and he called to apologize and said he has a brain abnormality and we suggested you repair it but he doesn't feel like he can and we have understanding but we still need us and to have things and others so we're going to start taking over companies. Many of them we've been trying to acquire and stated we were going to and it is still in negotiations we do have controlling share and are making massive changes within those companies regardless of what other chair people want or state and they are no longer president or CEO or chairman of the board and even some of their chairs are not there anymore because they just sit there and say no that's not good and they don't want anything to happen and we can't deal with it anymore they're part retarded people because of the surgeries

-you have several million people in Port Charlotte and punta Gorda who are unruly and call themselves adversaries of just about everybody Dave is one Trump and they're wanted men they're violating the conditions of the indictment and they're wanted for other crimes and it will be arrested today and held and if released they will work on why and it's not going thing it happens every day and they are asking for it as those two are and we'll be severely chastised for

-there's a huge number of people who are asking for it already they're simpletons they need to be stopped and we're sending more in more shortly

Thor Freya

Did you feel for him it is a disgusting atmosphere it's taking them a year and a half to do a simple renovation of a retail store and even my husband will get them done in 4 weeks or less and he's always burdened with tons of stupid things and as it goes it's a very simple renovation now they're going to be pleased with it except for these snowy floor smelly not snowy speaking of which high noon is coming up high tide after noon the tide will be falling around 1:00 p.m. or so give or take half an hour there will be effort coming out of the rivers on the southern Florida peninsula and specifically the Peace River is going to blast out we expect 4 ft of the mark and the harbor 4 ft as well and the canal should pump out 6 in to a foot and some cases it'll be completely clear it is a big occasion

Hera

It's an event but it could become a disaster and we have to monitor it. Repercussions from Tommy F losing a mild by appearance but he is mobilizing below and we have to infiltrate and it is a difficult task we're calling on all of ours to sign on and everyone to go to active duty and if you're an active duty and you're stressed and overworked you need to get your people to sign on

Olympus

[doberbutts]

It's always sat oddly with me whenever I see (frequently fellow POC) making this point of "oh well OUR death counts are higher and no one cares" because. Yes, sometimes our death counts ARE higher- the first one that jumped to mind watching this is the Native American population that even by extremely generous estimations is less than 1/5 of what it was pre-Columbus, though as the guy in the video points out we're talking centuries of extermination efforts and not less than half a decade with a higher population count to begin with so of course the numbers look way different.

HOWEVER I think also his point that he brings up that this is usually the problem with teaching history as a series of dates, names, and numbers instead of teaching the building blocks that got us to this point are a SIGNIFICANT factor in people both A: not giving nearly enough of a shit about literally any of these genocidal tragedies and B: not understanding the severity or how we got there.

And it does suck. It sucks that the genocide of this country's Native populations continues to be swept under the rug and totally erased by the colonizing society that's still to this day doing its damnedest to kill them. It sucks that we can't get our own politicians to actually discuss the ramifications of transatlantic slavery and Jim Crow on our black populations. It's awful that a precedent started multiple presidents ago of tossing Latinos in cages and mass deporting anyone with too-Spanish of a last name regardless of if they're citizens or not is still occurring today. It's terrible that we encouraged Asian immigrants to come to this country to work for us and then spat on them and tossed them south and into our slums or into camps when the work was finished. It's horrifying that a single act of war that the leader of our country knew about and let happen because it gave him his excuse also made it into hunting season for this country's Arab and Muslim population.

It SHOULD be talked about more. More people SHOULD care.

But saying "well at least they care about the holocaust"? That ain't it. Because usually those people who don't give a shit about any of that last paragraph also DON'T care about the holocaust, not really. If they even think it happened, it's usually the barest amount of lip service "oh yes that was bad I guess" and that's it.

We SHOULD care about the Holocaust. We should care that Hitler effectively built a Jew killing Machine and started feeding said Jew Killing Machine any Jews he could find and catch. If nothing else, to prevent it from happening again. To Jews. To anyone.

But I'm also not sold on the logic of the people like the person he stitched, that we should care less about one tragedy because other tragedies that are "worse" exist. Even if that was the case, I think when we get into the "whose genocide is worse" bickering, everyone has lost. None of these should have happened in the first place. People should know about and care about all of them. Caring about the Holocaust doesn't stop me from caring about black people.

I had a history teacher back in high school that changed the way I thought about history forever. Instead of the usual names and dates, which I can never remember and so have had horrendous grades in history growing up, he taught it like it was a story. From pre-historical Europe all the way to the 9/11 attack, we learned how each of these events stacked on top of each other and how each influenced the next. To this day it's the only A in history I've ever had, because for once I could finally understand how everything hooked together and what was going on. My next and final year of history was with a different teacher who just gave names and dates. My history grade went back to a C.

And I think, if that was my experience, and the experience of the thousands of kids who moved through that school system with me... how many of them didn't get that one history teacher who taught them in a way easier to comprehend? How many barely floated through history with a just-barely "adequate" understanding, and didn't actually absorb any of the information outside of the bare minimum required to pass? How many of them are walking around as adults? How many are teaching the next generation on that incredibly shakey ground? How many are out there directly contributing to this problem?

And how many others went through similar at other schools?

(X)

i’m going to let this video speak for itself. bc i don’t even know what to say anymore. i don’t know how we come back from this level of radicalization among young people to the point where holocaust denial has become the norm.

[atlanticcanada]

Maritime travel experts weigh in on deadly unrest in Mexico

An unsettling situation unfolding in the western part of Mexico has Maritime travel experts weighing in.

“We have certainly seen lots of violence over the years in Mexico and it’s not good,” said CTV Travel Expert, Lorne Christie. “I’m not saying that it’s a good thing, it’s a terrible thing and it’s a thing we should all be well aware of, but it has happened before.”

But with Mexico being one of the top sun destinations for Maritimers, he says he can’t see that changing, even with the current situation.

“It will happen again and people make those risk assessments when they choose their destinations based on what their interested in, which tends to be for Canadians sun, warmth and convenience and a good buck,” he said.

The violence and unrest comes following the arrest of a son of notorious jailed drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

Christie says that over the last few years, areas like Mazatlan and Acapulco have actually come up as places that are a little bit more dangerous to visit.

“When you start looking at some of the numbers per capita the numbers of murders or violent events that happen, Mexico is not actually that far off from some of the other Caribbean Islands,” said Christie. “It’s just that it’s a much bigger country with a lot higher number of Canadian travellers who go there so we hear about it more in the news.”

However, that doesn’t take away from the severity of the situation that’s taking place in the country right now.

“My advice for travellers would be: follow what the government authorities are saying, both in the destination and here in Canada. So look at the department of foreign affairs, follow those travel advisories and just adhere to them,” he said.

As for the Canadians who are stuck right now waiting to get back to Canada, the airline has a responsibility to get passengers home, but other expenses associated with the delay will have to come out of pocket according to Air Passenger Rights president, Gábor Lukács.

“The airline is not responsible for this type of flight cancellation. This is one time where I urge people to show a lot of understanding and patience to the airline themselves,” he said.

Adding, “they are themselves scrambling, they might have crew members for whom they are morally or legally responsible and they want to rescue them or don’t want to put them in harms way. So try to stay safe and unfortunately this is an expense that passengers have to pay for themselves.”

As for passengers who haven’t left yet and are now facing cancellations, Lukács says they are entitled to a refund and he personally would not travel to Mexico right now.

“This is a truly extraordinary situation and this is why I’m encouraging passengers to be understanding,” he said.

Even with closed airports in Mexico, Lukács says larger airlines like Air Canada, West Jet and Swoop still have an obligation to rebook passengers within 48 hours.

“If they cannot rebook within 48 hours, the passenger from their own network, the original itinerary, than they have to rebook the passenger on any airline, including competitors and for any airport that is reasonably distanced from the original airport,” he said.

“So, actually, an airline can be even compelled under law to rebook a passenger from a different airport, if that airport is safe, however, getting to a different airport can itself pose some safety challenges.”

However, as for travellers who are now wary of travelling to the country, there isn’t much they can do unless the airline decides to cancel the flight all together.

“If the passenger chooses not to travel for whatever serious reason that may be, as long as the flight is able to operate, I don’t see much legal recourse,” said Lukács.

“Airlines would be wise in this situation to be flexible with passengers, to allow passengers to back out and maybe give a future credit,” he adds. “This is a time where future credit, if it is the passenger cancelling and not the airline, would be adequate and reasonable in the circumstances.”

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/vOpHLfu

[coldprimavera]

Thread by @wwxwashere on Twitter

⚠️ WHAT IS HAPPENING IN BRAZIL: a thread ⚠️

am i going insane or more of the world should care about a country generating covid variants that could spread internationally? right

spoiler alert: covid is killing us. badly. no, it's not this bad everywhere. yes, you should care.

our government is DELIBERATELY and CLEARLY trying to kill us, not only not doing anything but actually trying to stop any help from getting here, with censorship to go with it.

PLEASE, READ RHIS THREAD

it's NOT this bad everywhere:

"No other nation that experienced such a major outbreak is still grappling with record-setting death tolls and a health care system on the brink of collapse."

yes, you SHOULD care:

"Preliminary studies suggest that the variant that swept through the city of Manaus is not only more contagious, but it also appears able to infect some people who have already recovered from other versions of the virus."

you REALLY should care:

"And the variant has slipped Brazil’s borders, showing up in two dozen other countries and in small numbers in the United States."

1 in every 4 covid deaths WORLDWIDE is happening in brazil, INTERNATIONAL MEDIA ISN'T TALKING ABOUT THIS ENOUGH.

our president?

- calling it "a little flu"

- literally making trying to legally stop states from lockdown

- blocked any attempts to get vaccines here for months

- recommended meds with no scientific proof which caused SEVERAL other deaths for overuse of improper meds

he refuses to wear a mask in public but it's not just the things he isn't doing, it's the deliberate steps he takes to make sure ANYONE who tries to do ANYTHING to help (even the US!!!!!!!! OFFERING US VACCINES FOR MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!) is shut down.

we have no oxygen. no ICU beds. no proper masks. basic food is so expensive here the country is falling back to hunger, so whoever is not dying from covid is dying out of starvation or due to the complete and utter collapse of our healthcare system.

if you read the articles i post here you will know brazil has a RECORD of being GREAT in this type of scenario & getting vaccines to everyone fast as fuck.

this is a DELIBERATE ATTEMPT TO KILL US, i couldn't possibly stress that enough.

who is it killing? take a guess.

"The study also found that Black Brazilians were likelier to lose their jobs or face pay cuts than white people during the pandemic. The death rate in poorer cities has been substantially higher than in rich ones."

BY JANUARY OF THIS YEAR the ny times was reporting "The country has not yet approved any of the vaccines on the market."

NOT EVEN APPROVED. ANY. OF THE VACCINES.

this isn't a tragedy, this is our government's plan.

again, why are people not helping? i have no clue.

"On Friday, officials at the World Health Organization called the surge of cases in Brazil deeply troubling and warned that it could wreak havoc well beyond the country’s borders."

censorship? oh yeah, the president's son is trying to silence a guy who made a TWEET calling the president out. & that was only news not a shady unexplainable death bc the guy is famous and rich in the first place.

this is not the only threat he has made, btw. during his CAMPAIGN he said he'd kill people who opposed his government. that is how low we are.

10,3MI brazilians might starve to death and things are only getting worse:

have i proven my point? cuz honestly there is no lack of evidence, but i can go graphic if you need to hear what happens when a patient needs oxygen or an ambulance and our hospitals can't provide it.

no? yeah. better not.

"ok but what can we do"

TALK. ABOUT. THIS.

WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT THIS.

WHY IS THIS NOT EVERYWHERE.

WHY IS NOBODY HELPING.

i literally feel crazy, as if this is only happening in my head. every brazilian i know is desperate and nobody cares.

"ok but what else"

we need donations, badly. money for food, masks, literally all supplies. if you are a single person guess what THERE ARE NO ORGANISED WAY TO HELP YET you literally need to find a brazilian or learn portuguese to be able to get to local donations centres.

have i mentioned nobody cares? how is a country going through this massive of a crisis with a government trying to kill and silence us yet there people barely heard about this???? given IT IS CREATING DEADLY VARIANTS THAT ARE SPREADING BEYOND BORDERS

oh my god i feel insane

special call-out for portugal & also the US for fucking us up historically

https://t.co/JQ9LBkfSIV

per request i will make an english speaking video about brazil's covid situation to be posted @ youtube.com/c/AndressaBuss later this week

🌟DONATIONS LINKS🌟

update: if you want to place a donation to @CUFA_Brasil or @maesdafavela i will offer free portuguese-english translations to help with the process.

email me @ thatkindofblue@gmail.com (i can't keep up with DMs here)

You can also try to finda artists or writers or professionals in brazil and hire them! or tip them a kofi! Or simply search for "brazil" in the search and help out by sending one dollar or two in kofi or gofundmes that will also help brazilians staying safe

i will keep linking more as i find it. donation centre to get basic food to people who need it: https://t.co/gFZdskBE6G

Update: finally managed to get an extensive list of options for donations after over 24hrs trying, from jun last year so some campaigns have ended but there's still plenty to choose from

(again: im available for free translations & help in your donation process if you need it)

just assisted in a R$740 donation process to the above donation centre & i am working on putting together a list of various options for donations as well as brazilian artists who are making emergency commissions :)

im mostly trying to assist people place the donations themselves & when i have to place the donation i offer vast proof (of whatever kind you need) of each transaction

im not a random account with no face behind it, im a broke history teacher who has covid, im trying to help

Thread by @wwxwashere on Twitter

And before i forget:

BOLSONARO GENOCIDA!

[reasoningdaily]

The violent clashes in Charlottesville last week put front and center a much needed conversation about race. But let’s not forget there’s an ugly economic side to bigotry.

There has been and still is profit in racism. In my column this week I addressed how racism has suppressed the economic mobility of people of color.

As I wrote, it was because of racist policies that my grandmother Big Mama, who raised me, was scared to change jobs, invest her savings or seek out opportunities that might bring a higher standard of living. Big Mama worried constantly that whites would take away her home.

As I expected, there are still some who refuse to accept the legacy of slavery and racism in America.

“No white man was going to take her property unless she didn’t pay her mortgage,” wrote Mark from Alexandria, Va. “Can you show me a single case of a person whose home was ‘taken’ from them by a white person just because they chose to abuse a black person? It simply doesn’t happen.”

Right there. This is why bigotry is so hard to stamp out. Racism lives because people don’t want to accept the truth that discrimination happens.

There are examples of homes and land being taken away from African Americans and other people of color by individuals and government. History has shown that my grandmother was not being paranoid. We only need to look to the recent Great Recession for examples of predatory lending practices that resulted in a disproportionate number of black homes being lost to foreclosure.

Here’s some proof for Mark:

“Some of the land taken from black families has become a country club in Virginia, oil fields in Mississippi, a baseball spring training facility in Florida,” the AP found.

Although “poor white landowners, too, were sometimes treated unfairly, pressured to sell at rock-bottom prices by railroads and mining companies. The fate of black landowners has been an overlooked part of this story,” according to the AP investigation.

This article profiles some of the cases from the AP investigation, which included land lost by the 18 Ocoee, Fla., families, not including buildings now on it, assessed in 2001 by tax officials at more than $4.2 million.

And let’s not forget the discriminatory policies that helped put us in a recession.

The Washington Post’s Heather Long looked at racism from the perspective of jobs.

“President Trump believes he has the cure for America’s racial tensions: more jobs,” Long wrote. “In Trump’s view, everyone will be happy once they are working. ‘They will be making a lot of money, much more than they ever thought possible,’ the president said. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Jobs are not magic fairy dust that can cure everything. Racism is a deeper problem than just economics. Even in periods of strong employment and economic growth, the United States and other nations have still experienced ugly flare ups of hate crimes and riots.”

But jobs won’t stamp out racism.

“Just look at what’s happening right now,” Long says. “The economy is in pretty good shape. Unemployment is a mere 4.3 percent, the lowest level since 2001. Job openings in the United States are at record highs, yet people still walked through the streets of Charlottesville carrying Nazi flags and telling nonwhites and Jews that they should burn in ovens. They did this even though working-class whites still have a large advantage over blacks and Hispanics in getting jobs, earning higher wages and owning homes. Jobs are not enough to bridge the deep racial divide.”

We can’t talk about how to address racism if we’re still fighting the notion that it doesn’t exist and that it doesn’t have a real economic impact on victims.

Color of Money question of the week Have you experienced economic loss due to racism? Send your comments to colorofmoney@washpost.com. Please include your name, city and state. In the subject line put “The Cost of Racism” in the subject line.

PayPal steps up efforts to prevent racist users from using its platform 

The Post’s Tracy Jan reported that the online payment platform announced this week after the Charlottesville rallies that it would bar users from accepting donations to promote hate, violence and intolerance. It was discovered that PayPal was used to raise money for a white supremacist rally.

“Corporate watchdogs and civil rights organizations have pressured the company for years to ban such groups — to little avail,” Jan wrote.

Keegan Hankes, an analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Jan: “For the longest time, PayPal has essentially been the banking system for white nationalism.”

Should you use your child to get credit? Last week I asked: Have you had a relative steal your identity and if so what did you do?

It happened to Lorna Gilkey of Alexandria, Va.

“Unfortunately, I had this happen to me from my mother,” she wrote. “She put a checking account, car and a few other bills in my name as I went off to, and returned from, college. She defaulted on almost everything to the point where I practically had my own parking space at the courthouse for 10 years! I also blame the companies who accepted checks with MY printed name but HER signature (she didn’t even try to hide her fraud). It took a DECADE before I could clear HER mess because an attorney I consulted said the only way out of it was to sue her. Not good for family relations so I didn’t do it. Just suffered on my own, paying HER debts. And she had no remorse back then. Twenty years later, though I love her with every fiber of my being, I honestly regret not suing her. That was a horrible thing to do to me, to ruin my credit life before I could create one. I have never, and would never, do that to my own children. It is a crime. Period.”

The economic impact of racism - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2017/08/17/the-economic-impact-of-racism/

[fatehbaz]

At least 216 wolves were killed in less than 60 hours, exceeding the state quota of 119 and prompting Wisconsin to end what was meant to be a one-week hunt four days early, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. [...] Environmentalists, who fought unsuccessfully in state court to stop the hunt, said the killings had occurred during breeding season, when gray wolves are especially vulnerable. [...] “These animals were killed using packs of dogs, snares and leg-hold traps,” Kitty Block, chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, said Tuesday [2 March 2021].

The hunt, reported by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, follows the gray wolf’s January [2021] removal from the Endangered Species Act. In October [2020], the Tr*mp administration announced that the species, which had been all but exterminated in the lower 48 states by the mid-20th century, had rebounded enough that it no longer needed federal shielding. [...]

-------

Wisconsin is the only U.S. state that requires a yearly wolf-hunting season if the animal is not protected under the Endangered Species Act, according to Nicholas Arrivo, a lawyer for the Humane Society. The [...] decision meant the state would have to hold one hunting season a year, which under Wisconsin law starts in early November and ends Feb. 28.

Wisconsin wildlife officials had scheduled the start of the hunting season for this November, citing the need for time to develop a “science-based” harvest quota and work closely with the public and Native American tribes to create a plan. But Hunter Nation, a hunters group led by [LH] of Wisconsin, accused state officials of “intentionally delaying the wolf harvest to [...] block the delisting and stop a hunt altogether.” The group filed a lawsuit Feb. 2 in which it argued that under state law, the hunt should be scheduled immediately since the wolf was taken off the list Jan. 4.

-------

On Feb. 12, a Jefferson County circuit court judge ruled in favor of the hunters, ordering the state to start the season that month.

Before the hunt, state officials estimated there were about 1,200 gray wolves in the state. [...] Arrivo said it was possible that many of the wolves killed last week were pregnant or might have been mothers with new pups that were still dependent on them and might now die of starvation. “I think the actual death toll is considerably higher because of the rippling effects through the wolf family structure,” Arrivo said. [...]

-------

The last time wolves were hunted in Wisconsin was 2014, after President B*rack Ob*ma said the wolf could be removed from federal protection. A federal judge later rejected the Ob*ma administration’s efforts to keep the wolf off the list. [...]

Hunter Nation [...] said that in 2014, it took two months for hunters to kill about 100 wolves. “This season it took just three days!” the organization said in a statement, describing the hunt as a success. [...]

-------

The state had set a quota of 200 wolves, with 119 for hunters who applied for permits with the department and 81 set aside to the Ojibwe Tribes under their treaty rights. [...]

But the tribes consider wolves to be sacred and made a deliberate decision not to hunt them, said Dylan Jennings, a spokesman for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, which represents the tribes.

The tribes saw their allocation as a way to conserve a large number of the wolves — not to give hunters more animals to kill, he said.

The losses are “appalling,” Jennings said. “There are a lot of people upset about it.”

-------

Headline and text published by: Maria Cramer. “Wisconsin hunters kill over 200 wolves in less than 3 days after removal from Endangered Species Act.” The New York Times, as reprinted in Chicago Tribune. 3 March 2021.

[duskthevampqueen]

Blooming High

Hello Hello! I present to you, a Blooming Panic fanfic. Honestly, I only got this idea from the discord server and its army of AU providers. So in thanks, I am posting the first part of it! I gotta feed them a little bit after they spilled all their AUs like that. I like to think about it as a... introduction to how the server members would fit into one high school together. Not all the characters have gotten their moment yet, but all the LIs(and onion, you onion simps) have their introductions in here!

Without further ado! Welcome to Blooming High

The student body council couldn’t exactly figure out how they got into this current situation, but they certainly were having a fun time watching the argument going on between their president and vice president.

“What? How on god’s green earth do you think the art club needs more funding than the robotics club?” The president’s tone was curt, sharp, glaring at the shorter boy. Said shorter man knew the president as Onion over his real name, especially when his attitude started to stink like one.

“Robotics always gets funding for their parts and competitions, but art has barely gotten anything in quite a while. Our fundraiser should go to them instead.” Onion rolled his eyes, his more STEM-loving side showing.

“Is your lack of sleep at night starting to affect your thinking skills? The whole point of the fundraiser is so then robotics can go to a new competition this year. We don't get to decide that the fundraiser for them suddenly needs to go to another club.”

Nightowl always disliked the way Onion would hold that over his head, as if being the thing of his username was to be looked down upon. Plenty of highschoolers were night owls, he could list a dozen of people who hadn't slept more than 2 hours the night before off the top of his head.

“Why do they even need to go to a new competition? And they get plenty of funding, shouldn’t that money cover it already?” Nightowl glanced at the treasurer, expecting back up on that front, but his nose scrunched up at seeing no backup given as the treasurer slowly slinked behind the secretary to avoid getting involved.

“Why not just make a second fundraiser for the art club?” Both the president and the vice whip their heads around at the sound of a familiar voice, to be met with their more sensible friend.

Quest seemed to have this knack of finding the arguing duo mid-argument every time, or at least, that's what the duo thought it was. In reality, it was that everyone in the student council had his number for this exact reason: to break up fights. Most of the time it was fights like these, arguments that clearly had two passionate sides with no intention of ending. Everyone hated when they would have to get him to break up a physical one, after what happened a couple years ago.

“Big Q!” Nightowl immediately jumped at the chance to get out of this argument, deciding to leave it be for when he could actually get a look at the fundings the robotics would need vs the art club. “I thought you were helping out the librarians with filing and organizing?”

“I still am, actually. I have a big stack of papers and old files for you guys.” Quest couldn’t help a wince as the entire council became a chorus of groans. He disappeared into the hall for a moment only to come in with a rusting cart full of paper and binders, and Onion was surprised none of them heard him coming with how squeaky it was. “Just some of this is yours, don’t worry. The library filing room can’t hold these anymore so I was tasked with giving them to the proper clubs.”

He crouched down low beside the cart, having to adjust his glasses as he looked over the stacks before pulling a higher pile off the cart, setting it on a nearby desk. The secretary, a shorter girl who adored her job, for once looked a little nervous about files when seeing the pile was taller than her on the desk. The other council members immediately started volunteering to help her out, much to Quest’s relief. He would be scolding them if they didn’t.

Once making sure his friends were actually helping her, he tried to as quietly as possible pull the cart out of the council room, headed back down the hall. He had to think for a moment on what would be the closest club that had files to be delivered. If he was remembering correctly, it would be the debate club.

As Quest approached the debate club classroom, he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at there being a crowd surrounding it, enraptured by whatever was going on inside. When he made his way closer, he sighed at realizing he recognized the cocky voice that made the crowd snicker. Sure enough, he was right when he saw Xyx leaned on one of the debate club’s podiums, a Cheshire grin wide on his face.

“It’s not like I’m wrong, teach. Isn’t that the point of debate club? That there’s no wrong side until there's a winner?” Xyx tilted his head in curiosity to how the teacher would answer, before looking to his opponent with side eyes, his cheshire grinning to a smug smirk. “Although, I gotta say, you’re not exactly the most attractive side of this debate. Both in words and physical appearance.”

Quest didn’t see the opponent for a moment before leaning further in, only to feel a bit of satisfaction to see it was who the four of them eventually found out Societyboy was. He definitely couldn’t blame his friend for jumping back into the club he left just to get a shot at messing with the asshole more, although he still knew it wasn’t the best idea.

Just as Societybastard was about to open his big mouth, Quest forced his squeaky cart through the crowd, a big smile on his face as he entered the clubroom. “Sorry to interrupt,” He wasn’t sorry, “but I have some files for this club. It's mainly transcripts from winning debates.”

The teacher seemed to be surprised at seeing his entrance, but immediately got up with a seemingly relieved expression. He could only imagine how long this ‘debate’ would go on before she would be forced to separate them or kick one of them out for the day. Quest went through the same process as before, looking for the proper stack, pulling up one that was much smaller than the council’s, but included a couple VHS tapes.

Xyx took the chance to stop talking to Societybozo as he straightened and came up beside his friend, shoving his hands into the pockets of his uniform’s pants. “How old are these things? Lookin’ like they came outta the stone age with those tapes.”

“Ha, Mr. Salo said that he recorded them. Apparently it was the first and last time he was the one assigned to record the debates, five years ago. You know how he is with technology.” Quest explained, getting a snort from the other. “He says that he couldn’t figure out the camera the photography club gave him, so just used his old one instead.”

“Of course the old man would do that. I bet he was smiling while telling the story, yeah?” Quest nodded to the question as he started pushing the cart out the door, now followed by his smartass friend, despite the protests of Societybrat behind them. “One of these days, you really should distract him by teaching him something modern. Anything, really, it would get you outta library chores.”

“I like the library tasks, X.” Blue eyes gave him a look, only to be given a shrug in return. “It was much better than detention, and now I like being a part of the library team. A much better team.”

Xyx couldn’t argue with that, tilting his head to and fro as he hummed, thinking. “That is true…” His grin returned suddenly. “I always took ya as a nerd, Quest. Rugby was too rough for your sappy, poetry-loving heart.”

“While there is nothing to be ashamed of about loving poetry, I don’t want to hear a word from the guy who’s been sneaking cat food in his school bag to feed the stray in the courtyard. Just take it home already man, it's clearly bonded to you now. Haven’t you already name–”

Xyx harshly shushed him, pressing a finger to his friend’s lips to shut him up from speaking more. “Hey, didn’t I say to never mention it ever again, man? Especially at such a loud volume, jeez! Ruin a guy’s reputation while ya at it, why dontcha?”

Quest gave him a glare before smacking his hand away, sighing. “Fine. But next time I see you feeding it, I'm going to force you to take it home, whether you like it or not. So do it already.” He raised an eyebrow after a moment of realization. “Now that I think about it, aren’t you supposed to be helping in the theater production? Why were you in debate?”

“Oh, look at the time, looks like I need to go check on Toast’s practice, bye Quest!” Before he could let the other man get any more word in, Xyx headed jogging down the hall, hoping the metal cart would stop the other from following. He was right, it did, letting him easily slip down into a separate hallway.

Xyx kept his semi-quick pace as he headed down the stairs, it being regular practice for him to skip as many steps as possible, or jump the staircase completely. He decided not to jump down it today, as he knew Toast would notice the post-adrenaline small tremble he got in his hands.

Soon, he arrived at the music part of the school, slowing to a smooth walk as he made a beeline for the practice room his nerdy friend seemed to always be in after school. He didn’t bother to knock at this point, opening the practice room’s door immediately, earning the sound of a cut-off note and a scalding look.

“Must you interrupt my practice just as I get the hang of a particularly hard measure?” Toast was still posed to play the next note on their cello, bow just barely not touching the strings, their hand at the top not relaxing one bit. It was clear they wanted to be left alone, but Xyx paid no mind as he stepped inside, closed the door behind him, and plopped down backwards in a seat across from them.

“Hm, I don’t remember your voice being this deep yesterday, Toast mboy. What’s up with that, huh?” Toast went stiff at the question, silent for a moment before starting to play again, causing a knowing grin from Mr. Observant. “Ya gettin’ voice cracks again, aren't you?”

The cello stopped for a moment before a sigh came from its owner. “I’d rather not be ridiculed for both my voice and my height, X.” There it was, a voice crack in the word ridiculed, proving that Mr. Observant always quickly turns into Mr. Know-It-all. “I already get all eyes on me whenever I go through the halls, it’d be shit for it to be the same for when I speak in class. I can’t believe it, a senior and still getting voice cracks.”

Green eyes watched him closely, not being the best at comfort, and sure not wanting to crack a joke that Toast very much feared. “Hmmm… well, hey. At least you don’t have to worry about either while you're playing. Sat and lips sealed.”

The dyed-blonde rolled his eyes, setting his bow down and relaxing his cello into him. “Yeah, sure, but how am I supposed to talk to anyone? I’m not exactly the most… outgoing of people, but I’d still be able to talk without my voice sounding like a squeaky toy.”

“I'm sure Owl and Q won't mind. Onion might give ya a hard time, but just remind him how he ran into a wall after losing his glasses and he’ll shut right up.” When he didn’t get an answer, the brunette straightened, starting to realize something when seeing their ears start to turn red and their eyes glance away. “Oh, ho ho! I know that look from anywhere, you didn’t mean just anyone! Who has caught the interest of my nerdy little friend?”

Toast’s face turned more red, flinching slightly at him realizing so soon, hands flying up to try and wave it away. “N-no one! Why in all hell would you th-think that?!” They did wonder the second one, but more in how the hell did he figure it out so quickly. Were they that obvious?

“Oh, c’mon, you’re as obvious and red as a stop sign! Tell me tell me tell me!” That's a yes to that question. After going back and forth on it for a few minutes, Toast finally caved, feeling a headache coming on just from how insistent – and annoying – he could be. “Soooooo, who is it?”

“Well…”

[uboat53]

You know, with the results still being counted it's impossible to know for sure who will control the House or the Senate in two months, but one thing we do know for sure is that they will not feature the large Republican majorities that had been predicted before the election and I think that that should be credited in large part to President Biden, though not for the reasons that he would probably like. You see, it's because he's thoroughly uninspiring.

What do I mean by that? Look, I'm old enough to have voted in every Presidential election since 2004 and to remember elections all the way back to 1996 and one thing that has been fairly consistent in all of them is that the core supporters of the President have been genuinely inspired by them. I don't mean that in the sense of "yeah, he's a cool guy", I mean that in the sense of "I trust this person and think that they're going to make the world better". This was true of Trump, Obama, Bush Jr., and Clinton.

But it's not true of Biden. His core supporters, women, minorities, and young people, don't idolize him. In fact, to some degree they don't even fully trust him. To a much larger degree than any other President in my lifetime, Biden's core supporters do not believe that he alone will fix their problems.

And I remember this problem! I was one of those young people who powered Obama's win in 2008. My friends were enamored with him; several who hadn't really had any interest in voting deliberately got involved in 2008 just to vote for him. But in 2010, when he wasn't on the ballot, they didn't show up. The same thing happened more or less in 2014, to Trump in 2018, to Bush in 2006, and to Clinton in 1994 (1998 and 2002 were weird years with some unusual events going on).

Gen-Z and younger Millennials (those aged 18-29) just did what my generation did not and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Biden doesn't inspire the same kind of adulation and even hero-worship that previous Presidents have. Young people may be among his core supporters but they don't trust that he and he alone will solve all of their problems, especially not after the Dobbs ruling and his inability to stop so many states from instituting harsh abortion bans. And, because Biden didn't or couldn't inspire them to trust that he would do everything for them, they turned out to vote because they felt that they had to do it themselves.

I think it's also important to recognize how rare this kind of youth engagement is. Going back in the data to the early 1970s when 18-20 year olds were first allowed to vote, 2022 has the second highest youth participation rate for a midterm election, second only to 2018. That said, the key battleground states saw even higher youth participation, on par with 2018. In other words, the young people are turning out to vote in even greater numbers when it matters most.

Personally, I think it's great. As an elder/geriatric Millennial, I remember how quickly Obama was kneecapped in his first term because those who had voted for him didn't keep turning out when it was needed. Seeing the younger generation overcome that today is fantastic and I hope it leads to a civically involved generation that keeps this kind of engagement up for their whole lives. Honestly the largest problem with American democracy these days is the amount of people who are unengaged and if a new generation can breathe new life into it I'll celebrate that!

So congratulations to Gen-Z and the younger Millennials for avoiding the trap that my generation fell into. May you continue to choose competent but uninspiring leaders in the future and keep for yourselves the task of preserving democracy.

[beardedmrbean]

EL PASO, Texas Oct 6 (Reuters) - The Democrat-led border city of El Paso, Texas, has sent more migrants on buses to New York City and Chicago than a campaign by Texas' Republican governor, a twist in an ongoing partisan battle over U.S. border security.

El Paso, which sits across the border from Juarez, Mexico, has bused roughly 7,000 migrants to New York City since late August and sent more than 1,800 to Chicago, a city-run effort that far exceeds the more ad-hoc transportation of the past.

The city's busing effort has received less attention than a separate statewide campaign by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who is seeking a third term in Nov. 8 midterm elections. Abbott has bused more than 3,000 migrants to New York City and more than 900 to Chicago as part of a high profile campaign to put a spotlight on the record crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Texas and Arizona combined have also bused over 10,000 migrants to Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis recently flew a group of about 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, but those who boarded the planes have said they were misled.

The Republican initiatives to move migrants, including those seeking asylum, away from the border have called attention to the issue with the election just weeks away. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed U.S. voters prefer them over Democrats for addressing immigration issues. read more

The Democratic administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and Democratic mayors receiving the migrants have criticized the Republican governors for creating confusion with surprise drop-offs and say the busing campaign strains resources.

But El Paso's Democratic leaders say they are coordinating with receiving cities and that migrants take their chartered buses voluntarily. City officials say their buses were needed because up to 2,000 migrants were arriving daily, including impoverished Venezuelans without family in the United States to pay for onward travel.

Coordination between sending and receiving cities is crucial, according to Theresa Cardinal Brown, a managing director with the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank.

"If there's not coordination," she said, "you're basically dropping penniless people who don't speak the language in an unknown city and saying, 'Fend for yourself.'"

Still, El Paso's coordination could be better, said New York City mayoral spokesperson Kate Smart. El Paso informs New York when a bus is traveling to the city, but, she adds, officials from both states should discuss beforehand whether the bus actually needs to go New York and how many migrants are onboard.

Many of those sent to New York are Venezuelans, who have been arrested at the border in higher numbers than ever before. The United States cannot expel them to Mexico under a pandemic-era order as it can other migrants.

El Paso's program is not new: last year, the city hired a handful charter buses to transport migrants to nearby cities, a city official said.

But when overwhelmed U.S. border authorities began releasing hundreds of migrants at a time in El Paso in August and September, the city started busing to New York and Chicago.

'COMPLETELY DIFFERENT'

The buses now depart from a converted warehouse in northeast El Paso that serves as a migrant processing center. On Monday, several hundred migrants waited for buses to New York City and Chicago, among them Frederick Pinango, 28, and his wife and 3-year-old daughter.

The Venezuelan family trekked through the Darien Gap, an often dangerous passage through a jungle separating Colombia and Panama. They worked their way through Central America and Mexico by cleaning bathrooms, emptying trash and begging, according to Pinango.

They took a bus to New York because they had no contacts in the United States and it was free.

"I have faith that they will help us with some shelter, so I can start to work," he said.

Edwin Rico, a 28-year-old Venezuelan who boarded a bus to Chicago on Monday, said the food that El Paso officials provided for the trip was not enough, but he rationed it.

"I don’t have money, so I’m grateful for the help," he said.

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, a Democrat, said the city's program is "completely different" than the other busing efforts and that they seek to "treat people with respect."

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, also a Democrat, has slammed Abbott, the Republican governor, for his refusal to share information about bus arrivals. Adams said in a mid-September press conference that Leeser, unlike Abbott, was willing to meet and "figure out a humane way to coordinate."

New York City officials traveled to El Paso last month to watch the process firsthand. During the visit, they discussed adding drop-off points in cities on the way to New York, Leeser said.

El Paso keeps in contact with the Biden administration and is seeking federal reimbursement for busing costs, Leeser said, and a U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed the coordination.

"This is a federal issue," Leeser said. "They’re not coming to El Paso, they’re coming to the United States."