yardwork
yardwork's JournalI trust Nancy Pelosi.
There are very, very few politicians I trust. Nancy Pelosi is one of them. She kicked ass as the first female Speaker of the House. And she, in partnership with VP Joe Biden, got Obamacare approved by Congress.
I also have a lot of respect for President Obama, Hakeem Jeffries, and Adam Schiff. I doubt that any of them want to hurt our country.
We all love Joe Biden. He's the only politician I love. He's a great man, and he saved us when times were very dark. I don't think any Democratic leaders have it in for Joe. I don't know any reason why big donors wouldn't want Joe. They don't want Trump.
I think they know something we don't, about Joe's health, that is not a dread secret but something kind of obvious, if we're honest.
This is out of my hands. I'm not a big donor. I don't eat dinner with movers and shakers. However this comes out, I'm going to work my ass off to elect our ticket, up and down the ballot.
Republicans only care about money.
Every election cycle, I watch the Democratic Party fall for the same mistake.
We toss our candidates overboard if they fail purity tests. Look at what the party did to Al Franken. We're told that the Christian evangelicals won't vote for anybody who isn't pure. That's proven false. Republicans elected the only two divorced presidents. Republicans don't care at all what Trump has done or said.
We Democrats mercilessly parse our leaders' words and votes. Many Democrats rejected Hillary Clinton because she wasn't pure enough. Some say they'll do the same with Joe Biden.
Republicans don't care about fairness, helping others, making the world a better place, or any of that stuff they deride as "woke." Republicans want only one thing from the government. Money.
Republican voters want tax breaks. (Preferably no taxes at all.) They want deregulation. They don't want the government telling them what to do. They definitely don't want their tax money used to help other people. In fact, they want the government and law enforcement to control other people in order to protect the Republican voters' money and property.
We're the ones who care about rights, ethics, kindness, helping others, reversing climate change, curing diseases, etc. Democrats care about those things. Republicans don't care if their candidate is a gross, lying, hypocritical bag of shit. If Trump can get them more money, that's literally all that matters.
Every time we throw one of our own overboard for things the Republicans don't care at all about, we're losing. Every time we wince when Joe stutters or misspeaks, we're losing. Republicans don't care that Trump's speeches make no sense whatsoever. All they hear is "tax breaks - strong man - police will protect white people's property." Period. That's it.
It's the money.
Police snipers were inside building as shooter fired from roof above
This article contains some interesting information.
Gift article, no firewall:
https://wapo.st/3Wovh2X
Police snipers were inside building as Trump rally shooter fired from roof above
The revelation adds to a growing list of questions about the security arrangements outside the Pennsylvania rally’s perimeter.
Local police who were assigned by the Secret Service to help spot threats in the crowd at Donald Trump’s rally Saturday were inside the building where a gunman had positioned himself on the roof to shoot at the former president, according to a Secret Service official briefed on the incident.
From inside the Agr International building, they spotted a man acting furtively, walking back and forth around the building with some gear, and radioed a Secret Service command post to alert them, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
Human rights in Iran
While we continue to discuss Israel and Hamas on DU, I thought it would be instructive to learn more about human rights in the Middle East.
One of the most powerful nations there is Iran. Here is Amnesty International's latest report on human rights in Iran.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/middle-east/iran/report-iran/
tl:dr - there aren't any human rights in Iran. In particular, women, LGBTI people, and anybody who doesn't follow state-mandated interpretations of Islam are abused, tortured and killed.
Russia is flooding Europe with disinformation. The U.S. elections are next.
Gift article, no firewall: https://wapo.st/4bBT1Gi
With European parliamentary elections coming in June, Moscow has jumped into action.
In 2022, European monitors who track Russian disinformation spotted an ambitious online influence operation they called Doppelganger. The Moscow-run effort cloned the websites of legitimate newspapers, magazines and news services, including Britain’s Guardian and Germany’s Bild, posted replicas under similar domain names and filled them with Kremlin propaganda.
The campaign was not shocking, given Russia’s kitchen-sink efforts to manipulate Western public opinion. More surprising is that, at least two years after they were detected, Doppelganger’s phony sites continue popping up around the internet like mushrooms after a cloudburst, despite ongoing efforts to close them down.
The sites’ persistence reflects the flood of Russian interference — and the near-impossibility of monitoring it, let alone stopping it — ahead of elections next month for the European Parliament.
They’re also a foretaste of what Americans can expect in the fall’s presidential contest, in which Moscow will try to amplify the venomous clamor of U.S. politics.
Social media has made the distribution of disinformation and propaganda almost free. Now generative AI has slashed the cost of producing it in the run-up to the E.U. parliamentary voting between June 6 and 9, when some 200 million voters across the bloc’s 27 member states are expected at the polls.
Our goal is to keep Trump out of the White House
Sure, most of us would also like to see Trump in prison because of his many foul crimes, but that's secondary to keeping him away from the White House.
Our democracy is truly in danger if Trump regains the White House.
Strategically, I never saw the court cases as any guarantee that Trump won't be reelected. We have to stop him at the ballot box, by getting out the vote in support of Biden.
Now, Trump is in a very bad position where his best legal strategy - to delay, delay, delay - runs counter to his best political strategy.
From a political point of view, this SC ruling that keeps the cases against Trump in limbo - and thus in the news - is a disaster for Trump. Unresolved court cases are the worst type of publicity.
Will Trump ever pay for his crimes? I have no idea. My goal is to keep him out of the White House.
Inside Biden's Five-Hour Face-Off with the special counsel
Gift article, no firewall:
I still object to some editorializing slants in this article, but it's at least a beginning at giving the White House perspective.
https://wapo.st/49mL2LO
The president’s attorneys felt the early October interviews went well, only to be stunned this week by Hur’s disparagement of Biden’s memory.
....
In the view of Biden’s team, the interviews proceeded in a routine, even dry, manner, as prosecutors asked Biden where he bought a particular file cabinet and how certain boxes were packed.
Biden himself was focused at the time on more immediate and world-shaking matters, having just made a round of phone calls to U.S. allies that would affect the roiling situation in the Middle East.
Biden and his attorneys even discussed postponing the interview, but they ultimately decided against it. They had already blocked off two days on the president’s schedule and, with the investigation already dragging on much longer than anticipated, were eager to put it behind them. They never contemplated resisting Hur’s request for the interview, figuring Biden had little to hide and would benefit from being transparent, according to members of his legal team.
The Republican ads in central NC are making me sick.
As the March 5 primary election in NC approaches, Republican candidates are trying to out-Trump one another. They are running vile ads full of lies. I hope the DNC is paying attention because if this works, it will be the blueprint for the fall election.
The ads are all about the border. Yes, we're in North Carolina. We border South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. However, based on the imagery in these ads it would appear that we are under attack by an invading army. We are told that "Biden and Harris have done nothing" to secure the border.
One ad states that under Trump, "we had a secure border, a powerhouse economy, and only two genders."
Most of the Republican candidates - several of whom are blonde women - say that they are veterans and fought "the same people who are invading our border now."
The ads don't have any resemblance to reality but they are constant. We watch our local evening news and the ads run at every break, right after the other. It's a barrage of lies.
I haven't seen one Democratic ad.
State Dept issues travel advisory for Jamaica
I've always heard that Jamaica is beautiful, but their abysmal LGBTQ laws always kept me from choosing to travel there. It looks like their human rights problems are even deeper than I realized.
https://jm.usembassy.gov/travel-advisory-change-to-travel-advisory-level-for-health-and-crime/
Event: The State Department has recently changed the Travel Advisory for Jamaica.
Reconsider travel to Jamaica due to crime and medical services. U.S. government personnel under Chief of Mission (COM) security responsibility are prohibited from traveling to many areas due to increased risk. Please read the entire Travel Advisory.
Country Summary: Violent crimes, such as home invasions, armed robberies, sexual assaults, and homicides, are common. Sexual assaults occur frequently, including at all-inclusive resorts.
Local police often do not respond effectively to serious criminal incidents. When arrests are made, cases are infrequently prosecuted to a conclusive sentence. Families of U.S. citizens killed in accidents or homicides frequently wait a year or more for final death certificates to be issued by Jamaican authorities. The homicide rate reported by the Government of Jamaica has for several years been among the highest in the Western Hemisphere. U.S. government personnel under COM security responsibility are prohibited from traveling to the areas listed below, from using public buses, and from driving outside of prescribed areas of Kingston at night.
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Gender: FemaleMember since: Wed Mar 3, 2004, 08:03 PM
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