August 13, 2019

Stacey Abrams to launch voter protection program in battleground states ahead of the 2020 election

Stacey Abrams is taking her voting rights crusade national, with a program to provide technical and financial assistance to help Democrats in key states strengthen their voter protection operations ahead of next year’s general election.

The initiative, called Fair Fight 2020, takes its name from the organization that the Georgia Democrat founded last year after narrowly losing her bid to become the nation’s first black female governor. Abrams is set to announce the program Tuesday during a speech at the convention of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades in Las Vegas.

Abrams, 45, who for the past several months has said she was considering a bid for president, will instead focus on helping Democratic Party leaders and activists in 20 states to immediately begin building systems to make sure their voters have minimal problems casting ballots and that those ballots are counted.

The effort, expected to cost between $4 million and $5 million, will target 20 states, most of them battlegrounds in the Midwest and Southeast, and three states with gubernatorial elections this year: Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/13/stacey-abrams-launch-voter-protection-program-battleground-states-ahead-election/

August 13, 2019

2C: BEYOND THE LIMIT Extreme climate change has arrived in America

LAKE HOPATCONG, N.J. — Before climate change thawed the winters of New Jersey, this lake hosted boisterous wintertime carnivals. As many as 15,000 skaters took part, and automobile owners would drive onto the thick ice. Thousands watched as local hockey clubs battled one another and the Skate Sailing Association of America held competitions, including one in 1926 that featured 21 iceboats on blades that sailed over a three-mile course.

In those days before widespread refrigeration, workers flocked here to harvest ice. They would carve blocks as much as two feet thick, float them to giant ice houses, sprinkle them with sawdust and load them onto rail cars bound for ice boxes in New York City and beyond.

"These winters do not exist anymore," says Marty Kane, a lawyer and head of the Lake Hopatcong Foundation.

That’s because a century of climbing temperatures has changed the character of the Garden State. The massive ice industry and skate sailing association are but black-and-white photographs at the local museum. And even the hardy souls who still try to take part in ice fishing contests here have had to cancel 11 of the past dozen competitions for fear of straying onto perilously thin ice and tumbling into the frigid water.

New Jersey may seem an unlikely place to measure climate change, but it is one of the fastest-warming states in the nation. Its average temperature has climbed by close to 2 degrees Celsius since 1895 — double the average for the Lower 48 states.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climate-environment/climate-change-america/



Insulated trains, such as this ice car from around 1910, brought the ice from New Jersey to New York City.

August 10, 2019

If this doesn't make you sick then you're the problem

https://twitter.com/Eleven_Films/status/1160068967517450240

August 9, 2019

Pope Francis again warns against nationalism, says recent speeches sound like 'Hitler in 1934'

Pope Francis called for a united Europe in an interview published by Italian daily La Stampa on Friday, saying recent political rhetoric has echoed that of Nazi Germany.

“I am concerned because we hear speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934,” he said. “ 'Us first. We … We … ’ These are frightening thoughts.”

It is not the first time the pontiff has made such remarks, but his comments published Friday came as Italy’s populist government appeared to be on the verge of collapse.

On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the most powerful politician in Italy, called for parliament to be dissolved and asked President Sergio Mattarella to order snap elections that could make Italy’s government lean even further right.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/08/09/pope-francis-again-warns-against-nationalism-says-recent-speeches-sound-like-hitler/

August 9, 2019

Armed man detained outside ElPaso migrant community center says he's coming to Portland for RW rally

An armed man detained and released Wednesday by police in El Paso -- after witnesses say he displayed a knife and threatened people outside a migrant community center -- said he plans to be in downtown Portland next weekend for a right-wing rally.

Thomas Bartram on Thursday told NBC News he would be leaving Texas to head north for an Aug. 17 demonstration organized by members of the Proud Boys and other right-wing groups. Members of antifa and other left-wing groups have said they plan to hold counter-demonstrations, and Portland city officials, including the mayor and police chief, have warned participants who plan to engage in violence not to attend.





https://twitter.com/Oregonian/status/1159893193372110848/photo/1



Check out the guy's truck. Why do these assholes always put Trump's head on the Rock's body?

August 9, 2019

Reports say White House has drafted an order putting the FCC in charge of monitoring social media

The White House is contemplating issuing an executive order that would widen its attack on the operations of social media companies.

The White House has prepared an executive order called “Protecting Americans from Online Censorship” that would give the Federal Communications Commission oversight of how Facebook, Twitter and other tech companies monitor and manage their social networks, according to a CNN report.

Under the order, which has not yet been announced and could be revised, the FCC would be tasked with developing new regulations that would determine when and how social media companies filter posts, videos or articles on their platforms.

The draft order also calls for the Federal Trade Commission to take those new policies into account when investigating or filing lawsuits against technology companies, according to the CNN report.


https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/09/reports-say-white-house-has-drafted-an-order-putting-the-fcc-in-charge-of-monitoring-social-media/

August 8, 2019

El Paso 'on edge' after armed Trump supporter detained for lurking outside migrant community center

An armed supporter of President Donald Trump and Republican Senator Ted Cruz was detained by police Wednesday outside a migrant community center in El Paso, according to Dallas News.

He was spotted lurking outside the Casa Carmelita shelter. “He was sitting in his truck wearing blue latex gloves, and brandishing a knife. Police recovered a loaded gun, ammo, and a bag of white powder from his person,” Casa Carmelita wrote in a Facebook post.

In a statement on Facebook, Casa Carmelita blasted El Paso for releasing the man without charges.

“Police stated that the gunman has rights, that they cannot search his truck, and that they have no cause to arrest him. An eyewitness saw him brandishing a gun and attempting to enter our building, women were fleeing down the street, warning neighbors as they ran away. We watched officers removing clips of ammo from his person,” the shelter wrote.

“One officer acknowledged that if they had not arrived when they did, Thomas was likely to have committed acts which would be ‘a different situation’. They released him shortly after, on our block. The number one demographic of mass shooters are young white males.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/el-paso-on-edge-after-armed-trump-supporter-detained-for-lurking-outside-migrant-community-center/

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/immigration/2019/08/08/trump-supporter-briefly-detained-el-paso-after-reportedly-carrying-gun-knife

August 7, 2019

Trump looks like he's in Dayton celebrating by the pictures taken of him

https://twitter.com/Rschooley/status/1159202071582629888


https://twitter.com/Diane_7A/status/1159200345186287618



https://twitter.com/owillis/status/1159202165505908736


i cant qwhite put my finger on what all the people in the pics with trump have in common.



https://twitter.com/riotwomennn/status/1159199831149162500


America, have we ever seen anything this disgusting?

Trump was supposed to be comforting victims, instead he cut & released a 2020 campaign commercial with music

I don't know how to explain it without attaching it

Is it just me or is this wrong?

August 6, 2019

Trump, RNC sue to block California law requiring release of tax returns

President Trump and the Republican National Committee on Tuesday filed a pair of lawsuits in federal court in California, opposing a new state law that would require President Trump to release his tax returns.

The law, signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) last week, requires that presidential and gubernatorial candidates provide five years of federal tax returns from the most recent taxable years to the California secretary of state in order to appear on the state’s primary ballot.

Trump refused to release his tax returns during his 2016 presidential bid, rejecting decades of precedent. He is already engaged in a pair of lawsuits concerning the potential release of his federal and New York state tax returns to Democrats in Congress.

The RNC lawsuit alleges that the law is “a naked political attack against the sitting President of the United States.”


https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/456384-trump-rnc-sue-to-block-california-law-requiring-release-of-trump-tax

August 6, 2019

I Spent 25 Years Fighting Jihadis. White Supremacists Aren't So Different

By Ali H. Soufan
Mr. Soufan is a former F.B.I. special agent and the author of “Anatomy of Terror.”


When a young Muslim man, self-radicalized online, kills in the name of Islamist ideology, we have no trouble calling him a terrorist and connecting him with groups like ISIS. When a young white man, similarly self-radicalized, kills in the name of racist ideology — even when he publishes a manifesto to that effect — we tend to call him disturbed. We speak about him as a troubled loner, rather than a member of a wider network.

The disparities are not limited to cultural perceptions. America’s law enforcement agencies, intelligence community and court system all treat these two scenarios differently. Those differences in treatment mask instructive similarities between these two forms of organized hate. Having spent almost 25 years fighting jihadi terrorism here and abroad, I see disturbing parallels between the rise of Al Qaeda in the 1990s and that of racist terrorism today.

White supremacists, like their Islamist counterparts, explicitly seek to use violence to create a climate of fear and chaos that can then be exploited to reshape society in their own image. Their recruitment videos share an emphasis on the lifestyle they purport to offer recruits — one of “purity,” militancy and physical fitness. While jihadis share beheading videos, right-wing extremists glory in the live streaming of the deadly attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. While Islamic State supporters communicate through an online platform called Telegram, white supremacists tend to do so through another platform, 8chan.

One group for neo-Nazis, founded by a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, has taken the analogy to its logical conclusion, calling itself “The Base” — a direct translation of the meaning of the word Al Qaeda. The organization also uses similar black flag imagery. The Base maintains an online library of terrorist manuals; the Al Qaeda publication Inspire taught the Boston bombers how to build pressure-cooker explosives.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/opinion/white-supremacy-terrorism.html