Politics & Stuff

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The Politics of Kamala-nomics

Today on TAP: To win the blue-wall states, Harris needs to drive home the progressive populist planks she unveiled yesterday.

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-09-26-politics-of-kamala-nomics/

My colleague David Dayen has provided us with a deep and thorough unpacking of Kamala Harris’s economic platform, which she unveiled yesterday in a speech in Pittsburgh, in a fact sheet, and in an 82-page booklet. The paradox here is that the progressive populist red meat, as David noted, was much more apparent in the fact sheet and booklet than in the speech itself.

Those progressive particulars include such “worker-centered industrial policies,” as David termed them, as extending tax credits not just to domestic manufacturing but to manufacturing in Rust Belt factory towns and to manufacturing companies that actually empower workers. Her proposed tax credits would be “linked to the treatment of workers, ensuring the right to organize, and supporting investments in longstanding manufacturing, energy, and agricultural communities.” With the future of U.S. Steel’s aging factories in the Mon Valley (like the future of aging factories everywhere) very much in question, the Harris booklet states that her proposed tax credits

will provide significant additional benefits to investments made in longstanding manufacturing, farming, and energy communities, especially to those who commit to retool or rebuild an existing facility. These new tax credits will also reward companies that engage with industry, workers, unions, and communities to protect jobs, including in light of increasing automation, as well as companies that develop plans to hire existing workers at comparable wages. There will be a special focus on rewarding reinvestment, retooling, and rehiring in longstanding steel and iron communities like those in Pennsylvania’s Mon Valley.

The linkage of support for industrial revitalization to support for workers’ right to join a union would be groundbreaking. A less explicit form of that linkage was initially part of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, but it didn’t pass muster with Joe Manchin. Should Harris not only win but be blessed with a Democratic Congress, minus Manchin (and Kyrsten Sinema), she could well be able to enact such tax credit criteria in a reconciliation bill. (As long as we’re talking pro-worker tax policy, there’s always my personal hobbyhorse, linking corporate tax rates to the ratio between CEO pay and median worker pay: the higher the ratio, the higher the tax.)

Combine Harris’s industrial policies with her commitment to provide tax credits to build new and affordable housing, and her commitment to fund expansions of apprenticeship and retraining programs, and she has what I’ve previously characterized as something of a “guy” policy to complement her family policies—a larger Child Tax Credit, an affordable child care program, and paid family leave—that probably have greater appeal among women than men (single young men particularly).

As David noted, Harris’s speech was devoted at least as much to affirming her pro-business and capitalist cred as it was to her seriously pro-worker proposals. Given the degree to which she’s still undefined to millions of prospective voters, and given the Trump campaign’s efforts to define her as a committed commie and malevolent Marxist, such affirmations of economic normality are understandably in order.

But her messaging on the stump, on the airwaves, and in social media would do well to stress the more explicitly pro-worker planks of her platform. If she’s to carry the blue-wall trio, the place-based investment and the preference for decent-paying jobs with benefits should resound as loudly as her Child Tax Credit. And if she’s elected and able to enact the key elements of her platform, she’ll be remembered not primarily for being a capitalist, since there’s nothing remarkable in that: Every president in our history has been a capitalist. She’ll be remembered for enacting the kinds of social democratic reforms to capitalism that create a more vibrant and egalitarian America.

Edited 6 hours ago by Vesper

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more Adams hype bollocks from the past

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Canary takes legal advice over Labour Together and Morgan McSweeney’s antisemitism smears

https://www.thecanary.co/editorial/2024/09/25/canary-legal-action/

The Canary is consulting libel lawyers over think tank Labour Together and its offshoot Stop Funding Fake News’s 2018-19 campaign against it. Specifically, we are looking into whether the groups’ actions constitute defamation. Moreover, the main protagonist in both those groups is Keir Starmer’s senior policy advisor in Downing Street – and we’ll be coming for him, too.

As the Canary previously reported, the Guardian/Observer recently revealed that Labour Party PM Keir Starmer’s top Downing Street aide Morgan McSweeney plotted to ‘destroy the Canary‘ – before ‘we destroyed the Labour right’.

It shows not only how him and his closest cronies tried to kill us – but also how they brought about Jeremy Corbyn’s downfall. The intention all along? To install Starmer as Labour leader, and eventually PM.

Morgan McSweeney: creating fake antisemitism crises

You can read the Observer piece here. It is extracts from Taken as Red: How Labour Won Big and the Tories Crashed the Party by Anushka Asthana. In it, she describes how McSweeney – he of Liz Kendall failed leadership bid campaign fame – rose up the ranks in Labour. He got to the point where, after 2017’s near-election victory for Corbyn, McSweeney was determined to finish Corbyn off. So, he began rallying his troops.

The group (now known as supposed think tank Labour Together) included Trevor Chinn (executive committee member of pro-Israel lobbying group the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) and hedge fund manager Martin Taylor. Labour Together was born – and MPs on its side included Jon Cruddas and Steve Reed.

As Asthana wrote:

One of McSweeney’s obsessions was the Canary, an alt-left website that had seemed to appear from nowhere and grown to a peak of 8.5m hits a month. Moreover, Corbyn supporters trusted the site equally to the Guardian, their other favourite source of information.

And so McSweeney had an aim – to schmooze the Guardian and kill the Canary.

“Destroy the Canary or the Canary destroys us,” he told the Labour Together MPs.

So, the antisemitism ‘crisis’ was created – but how did this impact the Canary?

Stop funding the Canary

As Asthana wrote:

As part of a “Stop funding fake news” campaign, they took screenshots of articles they felt had either racist or fake content, then posted messages on Twitter aimed at brands that were advertising on the websites’ pages. Unquestionably, the readership of the Canary took a hit.

That part is incorrect. It wasn’t our readership that took a hit. That had already happened due to (oddly) Facebook changing its algorithms to de-prioritise news and groups on people’s feeds. A coincidence? Maybe.

What McSweeney did hit was the Canary’s advertising revenue. However, at the time support for us surged and we had more financial supporters than ever before. Yet it wasn’t enough to stop a round of redundancies and a reduction in workers’ hours at the Canary.

What McSweeney also achieved was to tarnish the Canary’s reputation. Of course, he also achieved his ultimate goal of destroying Corbyn’s leadership and getting Keir Starmer into power. Now, McSweeney sits at the top of 10 Downing Street as head of political strategy.

It goes without saying none of our content was racist or fake. An independent investigation by government-approved media regulator IMPRESS found nothing the Canary published was antisemitic.

But mud sticks – as did the financial consequences of McSweeney, Labour Together, and Stop Funding Fake News’s malicious smear campaign against us.

Taking legal action for everyone who was smeared

John Ranson was previously an editor at the Canary, until the previous owners made him redundant after the Stop Funding Fake News campaign. He said:

We were used to being attacked, and we’d already seen a big drop in readership due to social media algorithm changes. But the Stop Funding Fake News tirade was just bizarre.

By this time we were well aware that our editorial standards were among the most rigorous in UK journalism. We were under a proper regulator in IMPRESS. We weren’t ‘fake news’; we were just news that McSweeney etc either didn’t like or couldn’t understand.

So yes, it felt personal and any threat to our ability to carry on was a worry. But it was also pathetic, laughable and sad to see how afraid some people were of Corbyn’s brand of common sense decency.

So, the Canary is looking into whether or not we have a civil case for defamation. Obviously, there has been a passage of time relating to this. However, it was only after the Guardian article that the main instigator, McSweeney, was positively identified. Before this, the Canary only had a hunch.

We will not stand by while the people who nearly destroyed us don’t face justice.

Moreover, we will not stand by while the same people also defamed and smeared countless innocent socialists with false antisemitism claims. McSweeney and his cronies targeted members of the public with these smears – often putting people under huge amounts of stress and distress.

Starmer’s Labour – filled with toxic individuals and careerists – are already targeting some of the most vulnerable people in the UK, while being complicit in Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and now Lebanon.

Now the Canary knows that senior individuals in that government have potentially committed defamation – we will not stand idly by and do nothing.

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https://kamalaharris.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Policy_Book_Economic-Opportunity.pdf

Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are charting a New Way Forward—to a future where everyone has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead. They grew up in middle-class families and believe that when the middle class is strong, America is strong. That’s why building up the middle class will be a defining goal of their Administration. They know that prices are still too high for middle-class families, which is why their top economic priorities will be lowering the costs of everyday needs like health care, housing and groceries and cutting taxes for more than 100 million working and middle-class Americans. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will create an Opportunity Economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed—from buying a home to starting a business and building wealth.

They will bring together workers, community leaders, unions, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and great American companies to remove barriers to opportunity, revitalize communities, create jobs, grow our economy, and propel our industries into the future—in rural areas, small towns, suburbs, and big cities. In an Opportunity Economy, more Americans can experience the pride of homeownership. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz have a plan to end the housing shortage and lower prices, partnering with the private sector to build 3 million additional homes. As these new homes are built, the Harris-Walz Administration will also give a historic $25,000 in down-payment assistance to help more Americans buy their first home and provide shelter, opportunity, and security for their loved ones.

Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know that small businesses—neighborhood shops, high-tech startups, small manufacturers, and more—are the engines of our economy. As part of their agenda, they have put forward a plan to help small businesses and entrepreneurs innovate and grow, which the Vice President aims to have spur the creation of 25 million new business applications. Their plan includes expanding the start-up expense tax deduction for new businesses tenfold and taking on the everyday obstacles and red tape that make it harder to grow a small business.

They will invest in the competitive advantages that make America the strongest nation on Earth—our workers, innovation, and industry—so that America remains a leader in the industries of the future. They will revitalize American manufacturing, strengthen our industrial base, and invest in cutting-edge technologies. They will create workforce programs that work for all Americans and strengthen the care economy, opening pathways to the middle class for more Americans that don’t require a college degree. And they will protect Social Security and Medicare against relentless attacks from Donald Trump and his extreme allies and will strengthen these programs for the long haul so that Americans can count on retiring with dignity and getting the benefits they earned.

It’s time to finally turn the page on Trump and chart a New Way Forward—one in which Americans have the opportunity to create a better life and future for themselves and their families. Vice President Harris will be a president for all Americans, a president who unites us around our highest aspirations, and a president who always fights for the American people. As a prosecutor, Attorney General, Senator, and now Vice President of the United States, that has always been her life’s work.

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27 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

Lindsey has also got the benefit of living at least a decade longer than Roy Cohn ever did. We dont know if Roy could have got an idea later in life if HIV didnt end him at a relatively young age.

Bully, coward, victim? Inside the sinister world of Trump mentor Roy Cohn

In a new documentary, film-maker Ivy Meeropol discusses the dark legacy of Roy Cohn and how his nefarious work affected her family

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jun/17/roy-cohn-film-ivy-meeropol-hbo

Back in 2004, with the documentary Heir to an Execution, Ivy Meeropol began the decades-spanning project of exorcising the demon haunting her family. The Academy-shortlisted film sheds some light on the dark heritage of the Meeropol kids, descended as they are from Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the couple executed by the United States government in 1953 having been convicted of sharing military secrets with the Soviet Union. When not teaching as an economics professor, Ivy’s father Michael spent most of his adult life on a crusade to restore and advocate for the reputation of his late parents, after years of defamation from the sinister prosecutor in the case Roy Cohn. Ivy’s film-making brought some elusive semblance of closure to this process – until, that is, early November 2016.

“At first, I really didn’t want to make a film about Roy Cohn, because I felt like I’d delved into my family’s story enough, and I didn’t really relish returning to that topic,” Meeropol tells the Guardian over the phone from her home quarantine.

“That made me resistant to tackling his story, even though I was fascinated and compelled by him and I certainly had this unique perspective. But once I did decide to embark on this project, which was a result of Trump’s election – that’s what made me decide to do this – then I did start to feel like this might be an extension of my earlier work.”

Meeropol’s latest feature, HBO’s boldly titled Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn, returns her to the grimmest chapter of her personal history. But she revisits the topic with fresh perspective to illuminate the other side of her life’s defining conflict, with focus placed less on her family’s struggle than on Cohn himself, a significant yet little-seen character in the previous film. It plays like a timely companion piece to Meeropol’s early work, enriching and recontextualizing her ideas instead of simply restating them. “I made it clear I didn’t want this to be Heir to an Execution Part II,” she says. “I wanted it to be something new.”

She began by decentering herself, the implicit protagonist of Heir to an Execution. She knew she’d have to provide what she refers to as a “synopsis” of how she and her relatives fit into the material, but she wanted that to serve as the gate through which she could venture into new territory. “What was gratifying was how I was able to build on Heir to an Execution, expanding on the period of time when my father and uncle were trying to reopen the case. All that new material, which tied back to Cohn, was a revelation.”

The film functions in part as critical biography, comparing conflicting sides of a personality more complicated than evil. While she refrained from playing armchair psychologist and digging into his childhood, Meeropol examined Cohn as an avowed social conservative who lived an open-secret second life as a gay bon vivant. (John Waters provides color commentary on Cohn’s years in the queer hotspot Provincetown. A rare interview, he only agreed to sit down after Meeropol explained her stake in Cohn’s world. She laughs when she recalls him conceding: “For you? I’ll do it!”)

He shared a house with Norman Mailer and counted Andy Warhol as a friend, yet demonized “deviants” of all stripes in public statements clashing harshly with the company he kept. Recreational assholery seemed to be his greatest hobby, as the millions in deliberately unpaid bills from hotels and dry cleaners still attest, but Meeropol looked for a more circumspect view all the same.

“If I was going to make this one-note, there’s nowhere to go with that,” Meeropol explains. “He is a complex person. I had to decide to have a little empathy for him. I thought of him as a young man in Washington for the first time, first job with McCarthy, and that that was probably one of the unfriendliest spaces at the time for a gay person. He had to be so careful, but then at the same time, he was laughing and traipsing around with G David Schine.”

The relevance of Cohn and his legacy of dishonest, dirty tricks has been renewed by the ascendancy of Donald Trump, the lawyer’s longtime client and protege. His wobbly-fisted rule has inspired a recent wave of Cohn-related art, including a remounting of the Pulitzer-winning play Angels in America with Nathan Lane as the larger-than-life Cohn and last year’s documentary Where’s My Roy Cohn? Meeropol thinks of that superficially similar production as complement rather than competition, by the way; once she saw how director Matt Tyrnauer’s approach differed from her own, as she says, “I wasn’t worried so much.” He inspected a linear history, while she intends her film as something closer to a timely warning of the psychology Cohn and Trump share. Though at times, she still questions its efficacy. The people who stand to learn the most from her efforts seem the least likely to give them a chance.

“I was thinking about how to get this movie in front of Trump supporters in specific,” she says. “That motivated me in the beginning, the thought that people who support him need to know where he learned his moves, where he got his mob connections … It’s frustrating, though, because I know that I don’t know how to break through to that world. The title alone will probably rule out some people. I hope they’ll be intrigued by the complexity of those three words, not just bully and coward, but victim. But anyone who’s interested in how we got here, whether you’re pro-Trump or not, can get a lot from this movie.”

Whether they like it or not, the film will infiltrate Trump voters’ living rooms when it goes to air on HBO this Thursday. When it does, Meeropol will be ready to close the book on a subject that’s always blurred the lines between the personal and professional. “I’m definitely ready to move on,” she says. “After Heir to an Execution, I thought I’d said what I needed to say and gone through what I needed to go through with regard to my family history. Now I really have, in a different way. I hope that I don’t need to again. Unfortunately, we have to keep talking about my grandparents. I just don’t know if I’ll be the one doing it from now on. I think I’ve said enough on the subject.”

But this conversation never really ends, so long as her family line continues onward. Every new generation of parents will have to make sense of the scar left by Cohn for their children, approximating the difficult process that Ivy Meeropol has completed on a national scale. Though she’s done the more intimate version too; when her son, now 15, turned eight, she did the thing she’s spent most of her adult life doing, and explained the bad thing that happened when Grandpa was little.

“I delayed telling him about this,” she says. “He’s very close with my father, but I just thought about the myriad things that could upset him as a child, so I kind of shielded him. But with my kids, I eventually told them that their great-grandparents believed in changing the world, and that Julius was involved in secret-sharing with the Soviet Union specifically because of what he believed in, which was equality and justice. He had to know, eventually, and I wanted him to hear it from me.”

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Labour quietly discussing plans to replace YOUR NHS GP appointments with ‘self-care’

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2024/09/26/nhs-self-care-gp/

At Labour conference, the governing party held a seminar entitled “How to Save 25 million GP Appointments: The role of self-care in delivering an NHS fit for the future”.

Who needs NHS doctors?

Private consumer health giant Haleon sponsored the session. And Labour has so far failed to commit to the health spending the NHS needs. Funding the NHS’ Long Term Workforce Plan would cost around an extra £20bn more than manifesto commitments from Labour.

To be sure, prevention strategies can ease pressure on the NHS. But starving the NHS of funding while claiming one can replace 25 million GP appointments with ‘self care’ is a concerning combination. France spends £40bn (or 21%) more annually on public healthcare than the UK, when taking into account population size. It has a lower GDP per person.

Labour’s lack of funding, also inherited from the Conservatives, has key material impacts. The UK has a very low number of hospital beds, at 2.43 per 1,000 people. Meanwhile, France has over double with 5.73. And Germany (albeit with a higher GDP per person) has 7.82.

The UK is also low on doctors per 1,000 people, at 3.21. Some of the highest are in Austria at 5.45 and Norway at 5.18.

When it comes to capital investment, the UK further lags behind European countries. If the UK spent the same as the average investment of 14 EU countries in technology and buildings, we’d have spent £33bn more between 2010 and 2019.

Spending less with the same outcomes is of course beneficial: that shows a more efficient use of resources and expertise. But it’s clear from the waiting times, amount of doctors and hospital beds that this isn’t the case. Indeed, UK people with unmet care needs are among the highest in Europe. That’s despite having less people over 80 as a percentage of the population than in countries like France and Germany.

Just treat yourself!

So do Keir Starmer and health secretary Wes Streeting want to make up for these shortfalls with so-called ‘self care’? And with profit-driven companies like Haleon seeking to make shareholder cash from diverting people from NHS treatment?

Fund it properly.

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Appeals panel signals skepticism over NY civil fraud case against Trump

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4901615-trump-ny-fraud-case-judgment-appeal/

A New York appeals panel on Thursday appeared wary of the state’s civil fraud case against former President Trump that ended in a $464 million judgment against him and his business.

During arguments lasting more than an hour, the five-judge panel on the Appellate Division — New York’s midlevel appeals court — questioned whether any constraints apply to the law New York Attorney General Letitia James used against Trump. 

The law gives the state sweeping power to bring actions against businesses that engage in “repeated fraudulent or illegal acts or otherwise demonstrate persistent fraud or illegality in the carrying on, conducting or transaction of business.” 

“How do we draw a line, or at least put up some guardrails, to know when the AG [attorney general] is operating well within her broad — admittedly broad — sphere … and when she is going into an area that wasn’t intended for her jurisdiction?” Justice John Higgitt asked.

A lower judge in February ruled that Trump, the Trump Organization and top executives, including two of Trump’s sons, falsely altered Trump’s net worth on key financial statements to reap tax and insurance benefits.  

He ordered them to pay a combined $464 million, plus interest, of which $454 million is owed by Trump alone, and exacted several other penalties. As of Thursday, interest on the judgment has surpassed $24.7 million, bringing the grand total to more than $489 million. That figure will continue to balloon until Trump pays.  

Trump attorney D. John Sauer, who represented the former president before the Supreme Court in his presidential immunity challenge, argued before the panel that the state’s case was brought too late and that decades-old financial statements should not be the basis for such a “crippling” financial penalty. 

Sauer also reiterated arguments made at trial that banks wanted to work with the Trump Organization, did their own due diligence and found no fraud.   

“They did do their own due diligence,” Sauer said. “The uncontradicted testimony in the summary judgment record is ‘Everything we did was independent; we didn’t rely on the numbers.’” 

New York’s Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale argued on the state’s behalf that the law gives the attorney general “broad” discretion, but two justices interrupted her opening remarks to ask whether there are any other examples of the state suing “equally sophisticated partners” in such a manner.  

“Because I’ve gone through the case that you’ve cited, and all of them always involved consumer protection aspect — it involved protection of the market,” Justice David Friedman said.  

“You don’t have anything like that here,” he added.  

The arguments held high stakes for Trump. If the panel affirms the lower court’s ruling, it would mark a catastrophic hit to the former president’s wealth and business empire — both of which underpin the persona that rocketed him to the White House.  

In addition to the eye-popping financial penalty, Trump was banned from holding top leadership positions at any New York company for three years and an independent monitor was appointed to oversee his business. 

His sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, both executive vice presidents of the Trump Organization, were blocked from serving in leadership roles for two years, on top of the $4.7 million penalties they each owe.  

Those penalties are on pause after Trump posted a $175 million bond earlier this year, blocking James’s office from collecting the massive judgment during the appeal.  

If the panel’s ruling is unfavorable to Trump, interest on the judgment would continue to mount during an appeal to the state’s highest court. If he loses there, he’ll be forced to pay up.  

Despite his estimated $3.7 billion net worth, only approximately $413 million is made up of liquid assets or cash and personal assets that could be used to pay the judgment, according to Forbes.

A ruling on Trump’s appeal is expected in coming months, though it’s unlikely that a decision will be reached before Election Day.   

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https://www.kenklippenstein.com/api/v1/file/cf621103-974c-43a1-8d78-acfb340302b2.pdf (RESEARCH DOSSIER J.D. VANCE)

 

fucking hypocrite Musk..............'free speech' for me but not for thee!

Elon Musk Suspends Reporter Who Published JD Vance Dossier

https://www.newsweek.com/jd-vance-dossier-leak-hack-iran-ken-klippenstein-1960044

 

The X, formerly known as Twitter, account of journalist Ken Klippenstein was suspended on Thursday following the release of a dossier about Senator JD Vance that was allegedly from an Iranian government hack.

"Here's the dossier the media refused to publish," Klippenstein wrote in a post earlier.

Klippenstein, who is a former reporter at Intercept, published the dossier to his substack website about three hours prior to the account suspension on Thursday. It is still available to be viewed at the time this article was published.

"The dossier has been offered to me and I've decided to publish it because it's of keen public interest in an election season," Klippenstein wrote. "It's a 271-page research paper the Trump campaign prepared to vet now vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance. As far as I can tell, it hasn't been altered, but even if it was, its contents are publicly verifiable. I'll let it speak for itself."

Newsweek reached out to Klippenstein and X via email for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.

The dossier goes through personal information about Vance, his campaign finances during his run for senate, voting records, military records, business records and his "anti-Trump record and establishment ties."

It includes information that said Vance was "one of the chief obstructionists to US efforts to providing assistance to Ukraine," as well as having "criticized public health experts and elected officials for supporting some Black Lives Matter protests while condemning anti-lockdown [Covid] protests."

The dossier also said that Vance "previously criticized the idea of a Southern border wall," called illegal immigration "about money," and that he "opposed Trump's Muslim ban."

Newsweek reached out to the former President Donald Trump and Vance campaign for comment

The Dossier also mentions Vance's wife Usha, who clerked for Kavanaugh.

The FBI announced in July that Iran had allegedly been separately plotting to kill the former president. Federal officials later revealed that Iran had hacked and stolen confidential information from the Trump campaign.

Iranian officials have denied involvement in any plot to assassinate Trump and called the hacking accusation "unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing."

"Such allegations are unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing," the Iranian Mission to the United Nations said in a statement shared with Newsweek. "As we have previously announced, the Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intention nor the motive to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.

In August, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) identified "increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns."

"This includes the recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump's campaign, which the IC [intelligence community] attributes to Iran," the statement said.

Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime that Iran should "pay a price" for allegedly targeting Trump and attempting to "undermine" the 2024 presidential election.

 

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Secret Service agent sexually assaults Kamala Harris staffer, say witnesses

https://boingboing.net/2024/09/26/secret-service-agent-sexually-assaults-kamala-harris-staffer-say-witnesses.html

If you want to stay safe, stay far away from the Secret Service.

In the organization's latest scandal, a Secret Service agent has been accused of sexually assaulting one of Kamala Harris' female staffers last week in a hotel room, while others were there.

The agent — who is now on administration leave — was part of the vice president's protective detail and had joined a group of Secret Service members and Harris staffers for dinner and drinks during a campaign scouting trip in Wisconsin. After dinner, the group headed up to the woman's room, where the agent then allegedly "forced himself on the woman and groped her," according to witnesses via The Independent.

The group reportedly intervened, kicking the agent out of the room. He was so drunk, witnesses said, that he then passed out in the hallway.

Although disappointing, given the Secret Service's long history of disgusting behavior, this latest allegation of drunkenness and sexual assault comes as no surprise. The takeaway here: if you find yourself among Secret Service "protectors," be sure to have hired body guards at your side.

From CNBC:

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating allegations that one of its agents sexually assaulted a female staff member of the office of Vice President Kamala Harris, the agency confirmed Wednesday.

Two law enforcement officials told NBC News that the agent was intoxicated when the alleged groping occurred.

The local Secret Service field office was told about the alleged assault, and the agent's gun and badge were confiscated, one of the officials told NBC. …

The incident comes as the Secret Service continues to face sharp criticism for the attempted assassination of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on July 13 during a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania.

Trump was nicked by a bullet, one rally attended was killed and two other men were wounded when a gunman who was able to climb up to a roof overlooking the rally site fired at the former president before the shooter was killed by a Secret Service sniper.

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PM’s rejection of Lebanon ceasefire plan ‘shatters’ ties with Biden — TV report

Strategic affairs minister, with Netanyahu’s approval, said to have reached understandings with US on process, with premier meant to speak about it at UN General Assembly

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pms-rejection-of-lebanon-ceasefire-plan-shatters-ties-with-biden-tv-report/

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s backtracking on an agreed-upon ceasefire process covering both Lebanon and Gaza shattered relations with US President Joe Biden, according to a TV report Thursday evening that set out what it claimed was the sequence of events leading to the apparent collapse of the effort.

Channel 12 news reported that Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer had reached agreements in principle with the US on the approach with Netanyahu’s approval before the prime minister vowed Israel would continue to strike Hezbollah “with full force” as he landed in New York to attend the annual UN General Assembly, rebuffing the ceasefire push.

After the report aired, an Israeli official said, “As we said, Israel was updated about the American proposal but never agreed to it,” contradicting both the position of the White House press secretary and a senior Western diplomat who spoke to The Times of Israel and said that both Israel and Lebanon had backed the plan.

The process began earlier this week with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan reaching out to Dermer, and saying that steps must be taken to prevent the Israel-Hezbollah escalation spilling out of hand, Channel 12 reported.

Dermer reportedly responded that Netanyahu wanted to avoid all-out war.

Discussions then got underway on a temporary ceasefire during which a more permanent arrangement could be negotiated. This intended arrangement would be based on ongoing efforts by US envoy Amos Hochstein and on UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Lebanon war, and also on the Gaza hostage-ceasefire proposal unveiled by Biden at the end of May, the report said.

The Iron Dome fires interception missiles at rockets fired from Lebanon, seen over Safed, September 26, 2024. (David Cohen/Flash90)

This broad framework was intended to enable Israel to say it had separated the northern front crisis from Gaza, while Hezbollah could argue that it was ceasing its attacks because the Gaza war would be coming to an end.

According to what Channel 12 called “an emerging understanding,” Netanyahu was to have related to the intended arrangement during his speech to the UN General Assembly on Friday. He was expected to declare that Hamas had been defeated militarily in Gaza and announce the transition to the next phase of that war.

The US-Israel discussions reportedly continued in unspecified “wider forums” ahead of Netanyahu’s departure for New York early Thursday morning, including with the participation of Maj. Gen. Eliezer Toledano, the head of the IDF’s Strategy Directorate and a former military secretary to Netanyahu.

It was recognized that even if the intended arrangement did not come to fruition, the effort to reach it would provide greater legitimacy for the US to stand firmly behind Israel if regional war were to break out, Channel 12 reported.

While this diplomatic process, overseen by Netanyahu and Dermer, continued, the IDF carried on with its strikes on Hezbollah. Netanyahu updated a small number of ministers about the developments.

When word of the potential ceasefire began to emerge from the Biden administration in Washington on Wednesday, it was with Netanyahu’s knowledge and approval, the report said.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also insisted Thursday that the US’s call for a ceasefire had in fact been “coordinated” with Israel, despite the rejection, adding that talks were continuing at the UN General Assembly in New York.

French President Emmanuel Macron (R) meets with US President Joe Biden during the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on September 25, 2024. (Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

“We had every reason to believe that in the drafting of [the statement] and in the delivery of it that the Israelis were fully informed and fully aware of every word in it. We wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t believe that it would be received with the seriousness with which it was composed,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said in a briefing with reporters.

Asked if it was fair to say that the US wouldn’t have published the statement had it not believed that Israel was on board with the plan, Kirby responded in the affirmative.

Nonetheless, the White House still believes that it is possible to reach a diplomatic solution between Israel and Hezbollah and have continued talks with Israeli counterparts even after Netanyahu’s remarks upon landing in New York.

“We’ve seen Prime Minister Netanyahu’s comments. We still believe an all-out war is not the best way to get people back in their homes. If that’s the goal, we don’t believe an all-out war is the right way to do that,” Kirby said.

A French official told The Times of Israel that “there were conversations at a very high level between the US, France, and Israel, and from those conversations, we understood there was a basis to go ahead with the joint announcement.”

“We understand that Netanyahu has to deal with the domestic political reaction as well, but for us, the possibility for a ceasefire to allow negotiations remains alive,” said the official.

Additionally, a senior Western diplomat told The Times of Israel that both Israel and Lebanon privately gave mediators their support for the arrangement before it was announced. The diplomat also said that Netanyahu and his aides were closely involved in crafting and approving the joint statement.

While Netanyahu was en route to the US, Biden and French President Emanuel Macron jointly announced the 21-day ceasefire plan.

People and rescuers gather at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an apartment on al-Qaem Street in Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 26, 2024. (Ibrahim Amro/AFP)

The understanding was that Netanyahu would relate publicly to the intended arrangement when he landed in New York on Thursday and it would be possible to take the effort forward, the report said. Netanyahu was set to say that while Israel continues to battle Hezbollah, it welcomes any ceasefire initiative that would safely enable the return of northern Israeli residents to their homes. There were even draft texts of what Netanyahu would say, according to the report.

But then came the wave of political criticism of the nascent ceasefire in Israel, and “everything turned upside down,” the report said, leading Netanyahu to distance himself from truce proposals, issuing denials from his plane.

Channel 12 quoted a source familiar with the details as saying, “Obviously the president of the United States would not lead a process like this without the agreement of Prime Minister Netanyahu. This backtracking completely shatters what remains of relations with the Biden administration.”

The Western diplomat who spoke with The Times of Israel said Netanyahu’s conduct is an extension of how he has handled the Gaza hostage talks, in which he has privately agreed to show flexibility only to make public statements immediately afterward aimed at calming his political base but that risk thwarting progress in negotiations.

Reporters traveling with Netanyahu were told that no such arrangement was discussed by the security cabinet. But, the report said, the issue was discussed in the ad hoc forum Netanyahu assembled in recent days, attended by several key ministers although not by Defense Minister Yoav Galant. He told them about the discussions and the US-French ceasefire efforts. Several ministers made plain their opposition to a ceasefire, and Netanyahu told them the plan was also an effort to bolster Israel’s legitimacy.

Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu, having hardened his position in the wake of the political criticism at home, told reporters on his plane, when asked whether Israel would seek to kill Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, “If Hezbollah does not get the message we have conveyed in the past week, including the elimination of senior figures, it’ll understand in a different way.”

US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew reiterated Thursday evening the Biden administration’s call for a 21-day ceasefire while stressing that Hezbollah was the party that instigated the ongoing conflict along the border.

“Since Hezbollah began its rocket attacks on Israel on October 8, round after round of strikes and counter strikes have driven people from their homes,” Lew wrote on X.

“The unacceptable risk of broader regional escalation demands immediate action,” he continued, arguing that the ceasefire backed by over a dozen countries “is the best way for diplomacy to restore safety for citizens to return to their homes.”

“Conditions in the north of Israel and the south of Lebanon must change to permit their safe return. At the same time, we press forward every day for an agreement to release the hostages and achieve a ceasefire in Gaza,” Lew added.

Amid the talk of a ceasefire, some 25 rockets were launched from Lebanon at the Lower Galilee in the evening, setting off sirens in several towns and injuring one person.

According to the military, the rockets all struck open areas.

Paramedics treated a 45-year-old man who was moderately wounded by shrapnel in the attack, the Magen David Adom ambulance service said in a statement.

An Israeli Air Force drone struck the launcher used in the attack a short while later, the IDF said.

Troops of the 7th Armored Brigade carry out a drill in northern Israel, in a handout photo published September 26, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

Overall Thursday, Hezbollah launched more than 175 rockets at northern Israel.

In preparation for a further escalation of the conflict, troops of the IDF’s 7th Armored Brigade wrapped up a drill simulating a ground offensive in Lebanon, the military said.

According to the IDF, the drill took place several kilometers from the Lebanon border, and simulated ground operations and combat in “complex and mountainous terrain.”

The drill was the latest in a series carried out by the IDF for a potential ground offensive in Lebanon.

Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.

Since Israel escalated its airstrikes on the Hezbollah terror group on Monday, more than 630 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the country’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

At least a quarter of those killed have been women and children, according to Lebanese health officials. More than 2,000 were wounded. Israel has said that many Hezbollah operatives are among the dead.

Edited 3 hours ago by Vesper

[Vesper 28,343]

The New York Post doesn’t survive the How It Started vs How It’s Going test.

Rupert Murdoch helped install Eric Adams who was already allegedly receiving illegal payoffs from Turkish nationals and companies for a decade. As soon as Eric Adams won the Democratic primary he sat ran uptown for a dinner at Rao’s with Republicans Bo Dietl and billionaire John Castamatides.

Mayor Adams railed against President Biden about the migrant crisis, but those migrants were bussed to New York by Republican governors from Texas and Florida. It’s time for Governor Kathy Hochul to deal with this Republican Trojan horse and remove Mayor Eric Adams from office now.

Edited 3 hours ago by Vesper