Politics & Stuff

[Fernando 6,464]

22 hours ago, Vesper said:

Tell that to 100 million plus American women if there is a nationwide ban on abortion enacted, or a ban on birth control, or a ban on no fault divorce, etc etc.

Tell that to potentially hundreds of thousands (millions?) of legit US residents who get swept up in Trump's all out deportation war (which he just said would be bloody).

Tell that to tens upon tens of millions of people of colour and queer folk who may well have the clock rolled back decades (the process has already been going on for years, starting with the RW SCOTUS's attacks on much of the post WWII civil rights/voting rights superstructures) to the days where they can legally be denied access to a myriad number of basic rights, up to and including education, housing, banking/credit, employment, and even risk incarceration simply for being and acting on who they are.

I mentioned before and I still believe it could happen with the way the past has been going. 

I mentioned that I believe he would get president but he would not finish it because he would get killed half way. 

And with the recent attempt that is not far fetch from happening in the future. 

[Vesper 28,833]

JD Vance got a former professor to delete a blog post Vance wrote in 2012 attacking GOP over anti-immigrant rhetoric

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/17/politics/jd-vance-delete-2012-blog-post-attacking-gop-anti-immigrant-rhetoric/index.html

A week after President Barack Obama won reelection in November 2012, JD Vance, then a law student at Yale, wrote a scathing rebuke of the Republican Party’s stance on migrants and minorities, criticizing it for being “openly hostile to non-whites” and for alienating “Blacks, Latinos, [and] the youth.”

Four years later, as Vance considered a career in GOP politics, he asked a former college professor to delete the article. That professor, Brad Nelson, taught Vance at Ohio State University while Vance was an undergraduate student. After Vance graduated, Nelson asked him to contribute to a blog he ran for the non-partisan Center for World Conflict and Peace.

Nelson told CNN that during the 2016 Republican primary he agreed to delete the article at Vance’s request, so that Vance might have an easier time getting a job in Republican politics. However, the article, titled “A Blueprint for the GOP,” remains viewable on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

“A significant part of Republican immigration policy centers on the possibility of deporting 12 million people (or ‘self-deporting’ them),” Vance wrote. “Think about it: we conservatives (rightly) mistrust the government to efficiently administer business loans and regulate our food supply, yet we allegedly believe that it can deport millions of unregistered aliens. The notion fails to pass the laugh test. The same can be said for too much of the party’s platform.”

Twelve years later, as former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Vance espouses many of the same anti-immigrant postures that he criticized back in 2012 as a 28-year-old law school student. In recent days, Vance has amplified baseless claims against Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.

But asked on Sunday about his previous criticism of Trump’s immigration posture, Vance argued Trump’s immigration rhetoric was actually the reason he changed from a Trump critic to supporter.

“The reason that I changed my mind on Donald Trump is actually perfectly highlighted by what’s going on in Springfield,” Vance said. “Because the media and the Kamala Harris campaign, they’ve been calling the residents of Springfield racist, they’ve been lying about them. They’ve been saying that they make up these reports of migrants eating geese, and they completely ignore the public health disaster that is unfolding in Springfield at this very minute. You know who hasn’t ignored it? Donald Trump.”

Will Martin, a spokesman for Vance, told CNN that Vance has long supported strong border security measures, including deportations, and now holds one of the most conservative voting records in the Senate. He said his views on deportations had changed since the time of the blog post.

“There is nothing noteworthy about the fact that, like millions of Americans, Senator Vance’s views on certain issues have changed from when he was in his twenties,” Martin told CNN in an email.

Vance’s past anti-Trump rhetoric is well-known, as he was a vocal critic of the former president during much of Trump’s first year in office. And though Vance defended many of his supporters, he wrote on Facebook in 2016, “There are, undoubtedly, vile racists at the core of Trump’s movement.”

Nelson, who spoke highly of Vance in messages with CNN, calling him one of the brightest students he’s taught, said Vance’s post had “ruffled some feathers in some campaigns” that Vance was thinking of working for.

“I was a bit surprised at the blowback he apparently received from the GOP, as I thought his post was fairly innocuous,” Nelson told CNN. “Anyway, I liked JD and wanted to help him out, and so I went ahead and deleted his post.”

“He didn’t suggest that his thinking on the topics he wrote about in his post had changed,” Nelson added in messages to CNN.

CNN found the article through X, where it was mentioned by the think tank in 2012.

Two other blog posts Vance wrote for the website are still active, but CNN noticed the “Blueprint” article had been removed from the website. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, where the post was saved, shows it was deleted sometime between March 2014 and February 2016.

‘Appealing only to White people’

Vance began his article by launching into a blistering critique of the GOP’s strategies and candidates, which he blamed for the party’s failures in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.

“When the 2008 election was called for Obama, I remember thinking: maybe this will teach my party some very important lessons,” Vance wrote. “You can’t nominate people, like Sarah Palin, who scare away swing voters. You can’t actively alienate every growing bloc of the American electorate—Blacks, Latinos, the youth—and you can’t depend solely on the single shrinking bloc of the electorate—Whites. And yet, four years later, I am again forced to reflect on a party that nominated the worst kind of people, like Richard Mourdock, and tried to win an election by appealing only to White people.”

Mourdock’s Senate campaign imploded that year after he said that pregnancies resulting from rape were “something God intended.” During his own Senate run in 2022, Vance made his own controversial comments about rape and pregnancy, which have resurfaced after he secured the Republican nomination for vice president.

In the article he asked Nelson to delete, Vance argued the Republican Party would have problems if it did not adjust for the country’s changing demographics. He criticized the GOP’s adherence to supply-side economics, comparing it to supporting outdated policies like Soviet containment. He said during the Bush years this economic approach led to wage stagnation and concentrated growth, which alienated minority voters who found Democratic policies more relevant and appealing.

“Republicans lose minority voters for simple and obvious reasons: their policy proposals are tired, unoriginal, or openly hostile to non-whites,” Vance wrote.

[Vesper 28,833]

Vance warns calling a candidate a ‘fascist’ can lead to violence but doesn’t mention that’s what Trump calls Harris

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/17/politics/jd-vance-kamala-harris-fascist/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc

In the wake of the apparent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump on Sunday, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, argued in a speech in Georgia on Monday that the two recent attempts to kill Trump are evidence that “the left needs to tone down the rhetoric and needs to cut this crap out; somebody’s going to get hurt by it.”

Moments prior, Vance had criticized a Democratic congressman for saying last year that Trump must be “eliminated.” (The congressman apologized for a “poor choice of words,” saying he had been trying to talk about how Trump must be defeated in the election.) And Vance said: “Look, we can disagree with one another, we can debate one another, but we cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist and if he’s elected it is going to be the end of American democracy.”

What Vance didn’t mention was that Trump has repeatedly told the American people that his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, is a fascist whose election would mean the end of the country itself.

In fact, Trump called Harris a fascist at least twice last week alone.

“She’s a Marxist, communist, fascist, socialist,” Trump said at an Arizona rally on Thursday.

“This is a radical-left, Marxist, communist, fascist,” Trump said while attacking Harris at a news conference on Friday.

This wasn’t new rhetoric. “We have a fascist person running who’s incompetent,” Trump told Virginia residents during a campaign stop in August; at an Arizona rally in August, Trump said the true divide in American politics is between patriots with traditional values and “these far-left fascists led by Harris and her group.”

And Trump has gone beyond saying that electing Harris would mean an end to American democracy. He has said this summer that electing Harris would mean “you’re not going to have a country anymore” and that “we’re not going to have a country left.”

A Vance spokesperson did not immediately respond to CNN’s request on Tuesday to explain whether Vance is calling on Trump to tone down his language, and, if not, what Vance sees as the difference between Trump’s words and the words from “the left” he was denouncing.

Vance argued in his Monday speech that there is not a “both-sides problem.” He said that while he acknowledges conservatives do not “always get things exactly right,” he said that the fact that “no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months” demonstrates that the issue of incendiary rhetoric about presidential candidates is a one-side-only concern.

But Harris has faced violent threats for years, including in recent months. In August alone, a Virginia man and a Tennessee man were separately charged with making death threats against her.

[Fulham Broadway 16,856]

Israel blowing up laptops and walkie talkies now in Lebanon and Syria - children maimed and murdered. 

The Israeli regime is a danger to its own people - only time before Israeli civilians will be killed in return

[Fulham Broadway 16,856]

Russian intelligence agencies are contacting criminals directly to target the West amid "the most intense" sabotage campaign since the Second World War, ministers have been warned.

It is using a "gig-economy" style of recruiting people on short contracts to meet "the rapidly increasing demand for sabotage operations".

Hundreds of people mainly criminals have been arrested and detained all across Europe Sweden, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Poland and Czech Republic who had intentions to set fires, sabotage railways and infrastructures. 

At least 24 people have been arrested so far this year in the UK after allegedly being recruited by Russian spy chiefs, according to academics published in the Royal United Services Institute's Journal.

AP News

[Vesper 28,833]

39 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

gig-economy

crim gig

smdh

all part of asymmetrical, non-linear warfare and stochastic (ie having a random probability distribution) terrorism

[Fulham Broadway 16,856]

Just now, Vesper said:

crim gig

smdh

all part of asymmetrical, non-linear warfare and stochastic (ie having a random probability distribution) terrorism

Most people will do anything for right amount of money. From 'influencing' to sabotage. Mercenary fuckers

[Fulham Broadway 16,856]

Israeli Ministers say they want to 'turn Lebanon into a second Gaza'

[Vesper 28,833]

Just now, Fulham Broadway said:

Most people will do anything for right amount of money. From 'influencing' to sabotage. Mercenary fuckers

https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/195099/rp_121.pdf

 

https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1538&context=jss

[Vesper 28,833]

JD Vance says US could drop support for NATO if Europe tries to regulate Elon Musk’s platforms

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jd-vance-elon-musk-x-twitter-donald-trump-b2614525.html

JD Vance has suggested that American support for NATO should be predicated on the European Union not regulating Elon Musk and his X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.

The Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio senator claimed in an interview with YouTuber Shawn Ryan that a top EU official had threatened to arrest the billionaire if he allowed former President Donald Trump back on X.

“The leader, I forget exactly which official it was within the European Union, but sent Elon this threatening letter that basically said, ‘We’re going to arrest you if you platform Donald Trump,’ who, by the way, is the likely next president of the United States,” Vance said in the interview published last week.

Trump’s running mate then suggested that US support for NATO should be used as a cudgel to get the Europeans in line.

“So what America should be saying is, if NATO wants us to continue supporting them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military alliance, why don’t you respect American values and respect free speech?” Vance asked. “It’s insane that we would support a military alliance if that military alliance isn’t going to be pro-free speech. I think we can do both. But we’ve got to say American power comes with certain strings attached. One of those is respect free speech, especially in our European allies.”

Musk has been accused of banning several journalists since taking over Twitter, now X.

“I’m not going to go to some backwoods country and tell them how to live their lives,” Vance added. “But European countries should theoretically share American values, especially about some very basic things like free speech.”

The US ranked 26th in the world when it comes to free speech, with several members of the European Union higher up the list, according to the 2024 Global Expression Report.

Internal market EU Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote on X in July that the platform’s verification system of users using blue checks is deceiving.

“Now X has the right of defence —but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines & require significant changes,” he added.

Musk who responded at the time, saying: “We look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth.”

“The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not,” he added in another post.

X could face disciplinary action under the EU Digital Services Act that was put in place in 2022. The legislation includes a number of regulations stating that platforms have to take responsibility for protecting European users from illegal content and disinformation.

Vance has faced criticism for putting forward, in the same interview, a peace plan for the war in Ukraine that would appear to benefit Russian President Vladimir Putin, who views NATO as a top adversary.

Ryan asked Vance what Trump’s plan was to end the war in Ukraine.

The senator said Trump would have a discussion with the Russians, Ukrainians, and Europeans and tell them that they “need to figure out what a peaceful settlement looks like.”

Vance also told Ryan that a possible peace agreement could mean that Russia would hold onto the land they have seized and that a demilitarized zone would be implemented along the current frontlines. Vance added that Ukraine would also give Russia a “guarantee of neutrality.”

“What it probably looks like is something like the current line of demarcation between Russia and Ukraine becomes like a demilitarized zone, heavily fortified [so] the Russians don’t invade again,” he said.

Trump’s running mate also suggested that Europe, specifically Germany, and not Russia, would have to fund the rebuilding of Ukraine.

“Ukraine remains an independent sovereignty. Russia gets the guarantee of neutrality from Ukraine. It does not join NATO and some other allied institutions. Germans and other nations have to fund Ukraine’s reconstruction,” Vance added.

Ukraine has been trying to join NATO and the European Union for years. Already in 2008, then-NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Ukraine would eventually become a member of the military alliance.

Trump has long shared his disdain for NATO – during his first term, he reportedly privately discussed pulling out of the alliance completely.

The former president has also repeatedly indicated that he would refuse to adhere to NATO’s Article 5 collective defense clause, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. Earlier this year, he said he had told a foreign leader that he would urge Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO members who were not spending enough on defense.

Trump has also made a habit of praising dictators and authoritarian leaders, showing a particular affinity for Putin, whom he called “genius” and “savvy” after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The then-president also sided with Putin over the US intelligence community when asked about Russian interference in the 2016 election during a 2018 press conference with the Russian leader in Helsinki, Finland.

[Fulham Broadway 16,856]

1 minute ago, Vesper said:

JD Vance says US could drop support for NATO if Europe tries to regulate Elon Musk’s platforms

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jd-vance-elon-musk-x-twitter-donald-trump-b2614525.html

JD Vance has suggested that American support for NATO should be predicated on the European Union not regulating Elon Musk and his X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.

The Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio senator claimed in an interview with YouTuber Shawn Ryan that a top EU official had threatened to arrest the billionaire if he allowed former President Donald Trump back on X.

“The leader, I forget exactly which official it was within the European Union, but sent Elon this threatening letter that basically said, ‘We’re going to arrest you if you platform Donald Trump,’ who, by the way, is the likely next president of the United States,” Vance said in the interview published last week.

Trump’s running mate then suggested that US support for NATO should be used as a cudgel to get the Europeans in line.

“So what America should be saying is, if NATO wants us to continue supporting them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military alliance, why don’t you respect American values and respect free speech?” Vance asked. “It’s insane that we would support a military alliance if that military alliance isn’t going to be pro-free speech. I think we can do both. But we’ve got to say American power comes with certain strings attached. One of those is respect free speech, especially in our European allies.”

Musk has been accused of banning several journalists since taking over Twitter, now X.

“I’m not going to go to some backwoods country and tell them how to live their lives,” Vance added. “But European countries should theoretically share American values, especially about some very basic things like free speech.”

The US ranked 26th in the world when it comes to free speech, with several members of the European Union higher up the list, according to the 2024 Global Expression Report.

Internal market EU Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote on X in July that the platform’s verification system of users using blue checks is deceiving.

“Now X has the right of defence —but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines & require significant changes,” he added.

Musk who responded at the time, saying: “We look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth.”

“The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not,” he added in another post.

X could face disciplinary action under the EU Digital Services Act that was put in place in 2022. The legislation includes a number of regulations stating that platforms have to take responsibility for protecting European users from illegal content and disinformation.

Vance has faced criticism for putting forward, in the same interview, a peace plan for the war in Ukraine that would appear to benefit Russian President Vladimir Putin, who views NATO as a top adversary.

Ryan asked Vance what Trump’s plan was to end the war in Ukraine.

The senator said Trump would have a discussion with the Russians, Ukrainians, and Europeans and tell them that they “need to figure out what a peaceful settlement looks like.”

Vance also told Ryan that a possible peace agreement could mean that Russia would hold onto the land they have seized and that a demilitarized zone would be implemented along the current frontlines. Vance added that Ukraine would also give Russia a “guarantee of neutrality.”

“What it probably looks like is something like the current line of demarcation between Russia and Ukraine becomes like a demilitarized zone, heavily fortified [so] the Russians don’t invade again,” he said.

Trump’s running mate also suggested that Europe, specifically Germany, and not Russia, would have to fund the rebuilding of Ukraine.

“Ukraine remains an independent sovereignty. Russia gets the guarantee of neutrality from Ukraine. It does not join NATO and some other allied institutions. Germans and other nations have to fund Ukraine’s reconstruction,” Vance added.

Ukraine has been trying to join NATO and the European Union for years. Already in 2008, then-NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Ukraine would eventually become a member of the military alliance.

Trump has long shared his disdain for NATO – during his first term, he reportedly privately discussed pulling out of the alliance completely.

The former president has also repeatedly indicated that he would refuse to adhere to NATO’s Article 5 collective defense clause, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. Earlier this year, he said he had told a foreign leader that he would urge Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO members who were not spending enough on defense.

Trump has also made a habit of praising dictators and authoritarian leaders, showing a particular affinity for Putin, whom he called “genius” and “savvy” after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The then-president also sided with Putin over the US intelligence community when asked about Russian interference in the 2016 election during a 2018 press conference with the Russian leader in Helsinki, Finland.

Of course. They're Putins mates after all

[Fulham Broadway 16,856]

Gazan children will receive medical care in Ireland within “the coming weeks” under plans set out by the Health Minister.

Stephen Donnelly will seek Government approval for the plans on Wednesday.

Mr Donnelly said Ireland would be providing care for initially 30 “very sick children” who need complex care,  who have been injured by attacks or can no longer be treated in Gaza for underlying health issues as every hospital has been destroyed.

Reuters

[NikkiCFC 7,953]

 

[Fulham Broadway 16,856]

9 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

 

Israel has had more resolutions than every other country put together, all ignored. Pretty meaningless tbh

[cosmicway 1,323]

What countries eat cats and dogs the most ?
Worldpopulationreview tells us:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/what-countries-eat-cats

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/what-countries-eat-dogs

Haiti does n't even feature but China does and some other ountries in the far east.
Why then did n't Trump pick on the Chinese then but picked on the Haitians ?

[Vesper 28,833]

18 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

Why then did n't Trump pick on the Chinese then but picked on the Haitians ?

Because the whole fake story came from white power/Nazi websites that worked their way into the MAGAt ecosphere, and then was spread by MAGA, at which point Trump and Vance picked it up.

The genesis (which I posted on days ago) was two things

1. A pic on Reddit of a  man in a difrent city (Columbus, OH) carrying a dead goose. The pic had nothing to do with Haitians or Springfield.

2. A mentally ill African American (not Haitian) women in a different city (Allexis Ferrell from Canton, OH) killed a cat out in the streat and tried to eat it in front of a bunch of people. She was arrested as soon as the police came.

Neo nazis took those 2 things and ran with it, saying it was Haitians in Springfield, OH, which was a lie.

You had a MAGA Trump supporter post that Haitaians had stolen her pet cat and eaten it, but that was a lie and the cat turned out to have been in her basement the whole time. Vance amplified that as well.

Trump and Vance both use the old 'people are saying' bullshit framing to try and falsely back up their lies.

 

The whole point is simple.

It changed the subject off of Trump being destroyed in the debate

and on a bigger front

it just adds to the whole 'everything is all lies, you can trust no one' framing that Trump uses to create dispair, disillusionment, etc, and then steps into that breach to try and dominate the enire space of discourse. Truth no longers matters, it is all just a power game.

[Vesper 28,833]

[cosmicway 1,323]

Tha pager in Greek is called a bomber !