May 5, 2024

Fox News Mingewomble Rachel Campos-Duffy's Hammer Joke About Paul Pelosi: Sickening

https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1786698438827983313

During a discussion about the Medal of Freedom award recipients Rachel Campos-Duffy laughs that Paul Pelosi should have gotten a hammer. Pelosi was viciously attacked in his home by a mentally unstable man with a hammer. He suffered a skull fracture and needed surgery.

May 4, 2024

Gaza anger casts cloud over UK Labour's election celebrations

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/gaza-anger-casts-cloud-over-uk-labours-election-celebrations-2024-05-03/

https://archive.ph/Qyzsh



LONDON, May 3 (Reuters) - Celebrations by Britain's Labour over local election victories were tempered on Friday by concerns that Muslim voters had turned against the opposition party over Gaza, a trend that could hamper its fortunes at a national poll this year. Labour leader Keir Starmer has struggled to bring his party with him on the Gaza conflict despite bowing to pressure this year to call for a lasting ceasefire, with some critics urging him to toughen his line on Israel. But despite seeing a drop in voters for Labour in places with large Muslim populations in southern and northern England, one lawmaker said he saw it more as a protest vote, which would not necessarily be replicated in the national election.

Speaking after his party won a parliament seat in northern England and control of several councils across England, dealing a huge blow to the governing Conservatives, Starmer acknowledged Gaza had had an impact on Labour support in some areas. "Look, there are some places where that's a very strong factor and I understand that, respect that," he told reporters. "Where we have lost votes, we will earn them back through hard work, just as we have done on many other issues, but I don't think that that can really shut out the fact that this is a very good set of results for the Labour Party."



Britain's leading pollster John Curtice said from the earliest results it looked as though Labour's support was down by eight points since last year in areas where more than 10% of people identify as Muslim. With his Labour Party well ahead in the polls before the national election, Starmer's approach to the conflict has almost been in lockstep with the government's, carefully calibrated to say Israel has the right to defend itself but saying the level of death and destruction in Gaza has been intolerable. His position is also shaped by his pledge when appointed Labour leader in 2020 to stamp out antisemitism in the party after his leftist predecessor Jeremy Corbyn repeatedly came under fire by critics over his response to allegations of antisemitic abuse.

OPEN DIVISIONS

The divisions in Labour blew open late last year when several members of Starmer's policy team quit their roles to vote for a ceasefire in Gaza. Since then he has been forced to pull the party's support for a candidate at an election in northern England earlier this year who had been recorded espousing conspiracy theories about Israel. That opened the way for left-wing maverick George Galloway to win a seat in parliament on a pro-Palestinian platform. At Thursday's local elections, Labour lost control of the council in Oldham, a town in northwestern England with a sizeable Muslim population, after two former |Labour councillors left the party] to run as independents over Gaza. The Labour leader of the council in nearby Bolton said some results had been affected by the war in Gaza, after voters elected a Green Party councillor for the first time.

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May 4, 2024

Dinner for two: recipes from Suffolk's best-kept foodie secret

James Carn’s cooking at Lark in Bury St Edmunds has wowed the critics. Here’s why

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/recipes-for-two-from-lark-restaurant-bury-st-edmunds-7z53pzqjd

https://archive.ph/pvYLX





It doesn’t sound the most auspicious place to open a restaurant, but a former bus shelter overlooking the abbey and cathedral in the heart of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk has proved just the ticket for James Carn. The 33-year-old chef started Lark with his wife, Sophia, just over a year ago and has already been named the country’s chef to watch by The Good Food Guide. “It was quite shocking, really,” Carn says. “We were up for two awards including best new restaurant, which we quite rightly lost to Tomos Parry’s Mountain in London, but it was humbling just to be on the list alongside so many chefs I look up to.”

The tiny restaurant has just 20 covers and was opened on such a shoestring, Carn had only 18 sets of cutlery and needed to borrow chairs from a local pub on launch night. Lark has since won a loyal following, however, with its emphasis on local seasonal produce served as part of a small plates menu (although recipes here serve 2 as a full-sized main course). “I know sharing-plate restaurants are two a penny in London but no one was doing it locally, and it’s the way Sophia and I enjoy eating, a way to try things you might not otherwise have eaten,” he says. “We just cook things we love to eat, and luckily they turn out to be things our customers love to eat too.”



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May 4, 2024

Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert - Israelis Must Flood the Streets to Keep the IDF Out of Rafah

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-05-03/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israelis-must-flood-the-streets-to-keep-the-idf-out-of-rafah/0000018f-3aac-d516-afbf-feeea9ff0000

https://archive.ph/jEB1J



After more than six months of hybrid warfare – in the air, on land and underground – it's possible to conclude that the bulk of Hamas' military power has been dismantled. Most of its rockets and launch sites have been destroyed and there has hardly been any rocket fire from the Gaza Strip for over four months. This isn't the result of some tactical decision by Hamas intended to deceive and disarm Israeli security forces, to then surprise us again with an unexpected attack that could gravely damage the home front and our combat units. It is highly likely that Hamas has hardly any rockets or launch sites left and is incapable of operating the few it has, as the military controls most of the areas from which rockets could be fired at Israel.

A considerable portion of Hamas fighters has been killed, an accomplishment that is highly significant. These are not just its frontline combatants, but also members of its command level. It is almost certain that the most senior commanders, above all Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, are still alive. They are hiding in places whose penetration could exact a heavy price from Israel, one that would be wrong to pay. It will be possible to hit Sinwar and Deif in future targeted actions, even if it takes time and does not necessarily suit the prime minister's personal timetable. For him, the killing of Hamas commanders is an opportunity to throw a victory gala designed to obscure the magnitude of the failure for which he bears responsibility – the October 7 disaster.

However, as has been said repeatedly, the course of the war and its priorities must not be made subordinate to Netanyahu's personal needs. There is no one in Israel who isn't yearning to hear of Deif and Sinwar being killed. They are cold-blooded arch-murderers who lack moral inhibitions, terrorists in the fullest sense of the term. As much as we want to take them out, we must act with restraint, patience and reason. During the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was defined as a target for a strike. We wanted to chop off the head of that poisonous snake, but we did not make the war subservient to this cause alone. Ultimately, Nasrallah stated on Lebanese television that had he known what 1 percent of the scope of Israel's response to the abduction and murder of Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev and other soldiers would be, and Israel's ferocious response to Hezbollah's rocket attack, he wouldn't have done it.

As an Israeli military accomplishment, such a statement from a live Nasrallah was almost the same as killing him and displaying his body. The 17 years in which he took caution not to initiate a single attack on Israel – not even with light arms – are a profound reflection of the military accomplishment of that 2006 war and the deterrence it created on the northern border. Even though some among us still enjoy criticizing its successes after all these years, the fact that Nasrallah understands the magnitude of his defeat is enough to put that war in the right perspective. At this point, we have achieved the same level of deterrence in Gaza that we had at the end of the Second Lebanon War. At the beginning of the ground maneuver in Gaza, the prime minister set an unrealistic goal, which there was no way to achieve and no way to measure. Benjamin Netanyahu did it, to my understanding, for vile conspiratorial reasons that can't be concealed. He knew talk of "total victory" over Hamas was an empty slogan. There will not be such a victory. In its absence, he can always blame the military for not accomplishing it.

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May 2, 2024

Harsh deportation tools are just fine with many Americans

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/29/harsh-deportation-tools-are-just-fine-with-many-americans/

https://archive.ph/xyfIW

For months, former president Donald Trump and his allies have previewed a plan for mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants. And through it all, the Biden campaign has increasingly sought to elevate their comments, apparently believing that the plan is at odds with the American people and voters. “Trump’s America in 2025: Mass Deportations,” read a February news release from the Biden campaign. It might be an effective strategy — but perhaps not as effective as it once might have been.

https://twitter.com/BidenHQ/status/1764689534111899990
https://twitter.com/BidenHQ/status/1782931778346295678
https://twitter.com/BidenHQ/status/1763633327393640690
https://twitter.com/BidenHQ/status/1725557769539867135
Polls for months have shown Americans adopting blunter and harsher views on illegal immigration, coinciding with a prolonged crisis at the southern border. For instance, Trump’s signature proposal for a border wall has gone from being supported by fewer than 4 in 10 Americans during his presidency to a majority in most recent polls. Those are the highest numbers ever for a border wall or fence, going back three decades. Such also appears to be the case with efforts to deport undocumented immigrants — and some of the harsh methods that would entail, like using troops and even detention camps.

It’s not evident that Americans would support Trump’s making good on such a plan and all its particulars, but they appear at least split on the broad strokes of it. A February CNN poll tested a number of Trump proposals that might seem extreme or unpopular. The plan to “detain and deport millions of undocumented immigrants” was broached alongside Trump’s jailing his political opponents, pardoning himself and pardoning Jan. 6 defendants. But unlike the other proposals, the deportation plan earned the support of nearly half of Americans: 48 percent.



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May 2, 2024

We Don't Need Warrior Cops Policing Campus Protests

Heavily armed and armored officers cracking down on pro-Palestinian protests is unnecessary, dangerous, and sets a terrible precedent.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/we-dont-need-warrior-cops-policing-campus-protests



“Rather than muzzle students, we should allow them to hear and be heard,” New York Times columnist Pamela Paul wrote recently. “It’s worth remembering how children once responded to schoolyard epithets: ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me.’ Narrow restrictions on putatively harmful speech leave young people distracted from and ill-prepared for the actual violence they’ll encounter in the real world.” It's good advice. Unfortunately, I've misled you. That’s actually a Pamela Paul column from Feb. 2023.

Here's what she wrote in response to the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University: “t’s a rare pleasure to get a chance to applaud the president of a university, in this case Minouche Shafik of Columbia, who on Thursday called in the police to remove student protesters who have camped out on campus in violation of university policy… with the authority at her disposal and with the courage that too many academic leaders have lacked, Shafik did what any responsible adult should do in her position: She ordered the police to clear Columbia’s campus of the students seemingly unaware of how lucky they are to attend one of the nation’s top universities.”

The Columbia protesters had barely set up their tents before U.S. senators like Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley were demanding intervention from the National Guard. Since then, House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed the protesters' rights by pointing out they had been “endorsed by Hamas,” a curious “speech endorsed by bad people isn’t free” exception to the First Amendment that Republicans’ own antisemitic supporters might find surprising.



Numerous Republican office holders have since described the protests as “pro-Hamas,” falsely called them “rioters” and “terrorists” and made evidence-free claims about violence inflicted on Jewish students. All of that has been alarming, but not surprising. Republicans and the MAGA right have been openly baying for and celebrating violence against protesters for years—all while excusing their own violent protesters as patriots and martyrs. What’s different this time is that MAGA world has been joined by centrist pundits and more than a few prominent Democrats in calling for police dressed for battle to squash student demonstrations against an unpopular war.

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May 2, 2024

Violence against women: 'tradition' confronts Europe

The European Commission recently proposed that EU accession negotiations be opened with Bosnia-Herzegovina.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/violence-against-women-tradition-confronts-europe


In August 2023, in Gradacac, a small town in Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H), Nermin Sulejmanović brutally murdered his ex-wife, Nizama Hecimovic, during a live stream, with their child in the room. On the morning of August 11th, the bodybuilder started the live stream with the chilling words that viewers were about to witness a murder. Having killed his wife, Sulejmanović went on to kill two other people before committing suicide. Over 10,000 people watched the live stream, some even encouraging the violence. The victim had reported the perpetrator to the official institutions, which decided to ignore his previous violence. Indeed, in the live video Sulejmanović cited the fact that she had reported him as a reason for the killing.

In B-H, one in two women has experienced violence since turning 15. Violence against women, particularly in the home, remains a pervasive social issue. Despite the advocacy efforts of non-governmental organisations to enhance legal protection for women against violence in public and private domains, it continues to enjoy alarmingly wide social acceptance. Nor is this phenomenon confined to B-H. There are similar occurrences, of alarming frequency, in other western-Balkan countries: Croatia ranks as the third-highest country in the European Union for femicides. Simply being a woman in the western Balkans is perilous.

Suffering in silence

In B-H, any woman can become a victim of violence, but women from rural areas and with less education are most at risk. Many who are victims suffer in silence, lacking support from institutions and often from their families. It is common for a woman’s family to distance themselves after she gets married, when she becomes ‘someone else’s problem’. In some areas, selective abortion of female foetuses is quite common too. Intimate-partner violence is not just physical but emotional, financial and sexual. The story of violence against women in the region has a broader cultural and historical context. ‘Tradition’ in the western Balkans ‘dictates’ that a woman is subservient to her husband and financially dependent on him.

Meanwhile, the man, as head of the household, is expected to assert his dominance, even if that means resorting to violence against his wife and children. Recently, a video circulated online featuring the Bosnian Muslim scholar Elvedin Pezić offering advice on how to hit a woman (the face should not be the target and no bruise should be left). This derogatory view of women, as tied to the home and children, distances western-Balkan countries from European values. Their political and religious elites must be rendered aware that the ‘traditional’ values they advocate often do not align with the universal norms espoused by the European Union and the Council of Europe. Cultural and religious identity matters, but it cannot stand in the way of progress, human rights, equality and the rule of law.

Insufficient shelter....................

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May 2, 2024

Mayday, mayday: democracy in peril

This May Day, trade unions must be at the centre of defending and rebuilding democracy.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/mayday-mayday-democracy-in-peril



This year, some four billion individuals in more than 40 states will have the chance to participate in elections. It will a historic year for democracy, but if we look closely at the health of global democracy—especially democratic trade-union rights—it should be in intensive care. Trade unions are central to democracy: there cannot be one without the other. That is why the global trade-union movement, as the world’s largest social movement with a long history built on democratic values, needs to use its collective power to defend and rebuild democracy. This May Day we should reflect on the historical contributions of trade unions to democracy and mobilise to preserve and enhance democratic norms in the workplace, in society and at the global level—as set out in the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) ‘For Democracy’ campaign.

Global decline in democracy

Over many years, reports and surveys have highlighted a consistent erosion of democratic values worldwide. According to the 2023 Global State of Democracy report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Stockholm, more countries have regressed than progressed in democratic practices since 2018. The Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index for 2023 gives global democratic health a score of 5.22—down from from 5.29 in 2022, influenced by conflicts and war. The report reveals that while 45.5 per cent of the world’s population inhabit some form of democracy, only a meagre 7.8 per cent live in ‘full democracies’ and 39.4 per cent are under authoritarian regimes. The ITUC’s 2023 Global Rights Index meanwhile shows alarming trends, with 87 per cent of countries infringing the right to strike and 79 per cent the right to collective bargaining. Such violations have risen consistently and chillingly over the ten years of the index and correlate with rising economic inequality and insecurity.

Where the presence of trade unions is strong, wealth and power distribution are more equitable and trust in democratic processes is higher. Norway, where trade-union density is 49 per cent and coverage by collective agreements 72.5 per cent, is recognised for its deliberative and egalitarian democratic structure. Globally, however, union density is on the decline, harming democratic workplace rights and the union wage premium. The resurgence in the political mainstream of extreme ideologies such as fascism, nationalism and xenophobia is increasingly bolstered by austerity measures implemented by capitalist economies. A 2022 study, ‘The political costs of austerity’, analysed 200 elections across Europe and linked austerity policies to a rise in extremist parties, reduced voter turnout and greater political fragmentation. These economic policies often see the privatisation of profits accompanied by the socialisation of losses and erode trust within the electorate.

Vital trade-union role

Trade unions play a pivotal role in combating these challenges. They are not only defenders of workers’ rights but also bastions of democracy, ensuring voices from the grassroots are heard, and heeded, in policy-making. The strength of trade unions lies in their ability to organise and mobilise workers across industries, making them a formidable force against anti-democratic trends. As economic disparities widen and political freedoms are threatened, the proactive stance of trade unions in advocating for social justice, equitable economic distribution and political transparency becomes even more vital. Trade unions foster a culture of participation and negotiation, essential for a healthy democratic society. Their efforts in educating workers about their rights and the importance of civic engagement contribute significantly to democratic resilience. It was in response to these challenges that the ITUC launched the For Democracy campaign. This underscores the indispensable role of trade unions in upholding democratic values, such as freedom of association and the right to strike, and advocating for equitable societies. The ITUC is pressing for reinforcement of the foundations of democracy in three critical domains: the workplace, society and the global arena.

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May 2, 2024

The Many Faces of Campus Activism

https://prospect.org/education/2024-05-02-many-faces-of-campus-activism/


I’m numbed by the police state response to campus protests to end institutional support for the killing in Gaza. College administrators have a model, wielded at places like Brown University, where a set of demands are met with meaningful dialogue, leading to a rapid de-escalation. Elsewhere, there’s been pointless brutality and chaos. A few miles from my house, pro-Israel protesters attacked an encampment at UCLA while police watched. Professors have been detained and beaten, as have members of the press. High-grade military equipment has been put to use as part of suppression tactics. And the hysterical commentary around the spectacles has been completely divorced from the purpose of the protests, to end a war and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe perpetrated against Palestinian civilians.

Every generation winds up learning for themselves that official tolerance for dissent, however celebrated by elites in their gauzy treatment of the past, is always contingent on whether it interferes with those elites’ particular agendas. It’s a painful lesson, though it should not be viewed entirely with despair. History offers countless examples of protesters bruised, manhandled, arrested, ejected, and removed, and later on winning some or all of their goals. Movements crash on the shore like waves, and each gets a bit closer to the peak of the tide. What’s happening now on campus isn’t a triumph of state power; rather, it reveals the hollowness of it. And it will not lead to where administrators who give the go sign to cops with nightsticks think it will.

And there’s a good example of student persistence toward seeking basic rights—in this case for themselves—leading to results, against impossible odds. It doesn’t have anything to do with Gaza. These students didn’t go to an elite university, and they look more like America in terms of demographics and education levels. They enrolled in school seeking a better career path for themselves and were swindled—not by discovering limits on their free speech but literally swindled, stolen from, defrauded, left without a future by a system that had no use for them. It took a decade to reverse the last and most wrenching aspect of that action.

On Wednesday, 317,000 students who between 2004 and 2017 attended the Art Institutes, a for-profit conglomerate of several dozen art schools around the country, finally had their loans automatically canceled, in recognition of the “substantial misrepresentations” that characterized their educational career. The Art Institutes, formerly controlled by a now-defunct parent company called Education Management Corporation (EDMC), lied to students about the value of their degrees. The company told them how many students who matriculate would be placed for jobs in their chosen field, what salaries they could expect, and what career services the institution would provide. None of this proved to be the case.

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May 2, 2024

Nuclear Blackmail: How Trump and Putin are Conspiring to Hold the World Hostage

https://washingtonspectator.org/wide-angle-nuclear-blackmail/



A little-remembered magazine interview from 1987 may hold clues about what Trump and Putin are ultimately up to. What was on Trump’s mind back then — besides dispensing unsolicited foreign policy advice in full page newspaper ads? Nothing less than making a deal with the Soviets to jointly seize the world’s nuclear weapons and thus bring about world peace. He told writer Ron Rosenbaum in an interview for the magazine Manhattan, inc., “We approach [the USSR] on this basis: We both recognize the nonproliferation treaty’s not working, that half a dozen countries are on the brink of getting a bomb. Which can only cause trouble for the two of us. The deterrence of mutual assured destruction that prevents the United States and the USSR from nuking each other won’t work on the level of an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange. Or a madman dictator with a briefcase-bomb team. The only answer is for the Big Two to make a deal now to step in and prevent the next generation of nations about to go nuclear from doing so. By whatever means necessary.” I’ve come to believe this interview, largely forgotten (save for being republished with a new foreword by Slate in 2016) is a missing fossil in the record that explains much of what we are observing today. Let me elaborate further.

Nuclear Scientists and the USSR

After the first nuclear weapons were deployed in Japan in 1945, many of the scientists who helped develop them were shocked and felt deep moral outrage that the United States had killed civilians. In particular, and primarily so that Hitler would not get there first, the Jewish scientists Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein had proposed the bomb project to President Roosevelt. They formed the kernel of a network of like minded scientists who came together under the umbrella of the Federation of American Scientists. In 1946, they published an influential tract titled “One World or None,” which argued that nuclear weapons must be brought under the control of a global authority; otherwise they felt that proliferation would become inevitable, and as proliferation continued, a fatal deployment or escalation would become inevitable. They argued that the planet must come together as “one,” or we would risk losing it (“none.”) Bernard Baruch, a Manhattan financier, drafted a proposal (known as the Baruch Plan) that would have the United States decommission all of its nuclear weapons on the condition that other countries would do the same.


The Soviets, fearing it would excessively curtail their sovereignty, strongly opposed Baruch’s plan. Instead, the Soviets aligned themselves with a wide array of groups that attracted prominent American scientists like Harlow Shapley from the Harvard Observatory, and organizations like the Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. These groups reflected alignment with the KGB and the Communist Party USA in that they sought to undermine American nuclear capacity while also arguing for technology transfer to the Soviets in a bid, they maintained, to level the playing field and minimize risk of conflict. Their efforts led to the nomination of Henry Agard Wallace (Franklin Roosevelt’s agriculture secretary) to run for president in 1948 under the banner of the Progressive Party. Wallace’s platform? Putting an end to what he argued was rampant American expansionism, and promoting rapprochement with Russia — both in the name of global peace.

The Influence of Uncle John


In the Rosenbaum interview, Trump emphasizes that it was through his many discussions about “nuclear” with his uncle, MIT scientist John G. Trump, that he formed his opinions about global nuclear disarmament. Quoting the interview: “[Uncle John] told me something a few years ago. He told me, ‘You don’t realize how simple nuclear technology is becoming.’ That’s scary. He said it used to be that only a few brains in the world understood it and now you have a situation where thousands and thousands of brains can easily understand it, and it’s becoming easier, and someday it’ll be like making a bomb in the basement of your house. And that’s a very frightening statement coming from a man who’s totally versed in it.”” Such a claim, which is not unreasonable, would have fit right into One World or None. John Trump also had direct ties to Soviet activities in America. Nikola Tesla, the famed electrical engineer who died broke in the New Yorker Hotel in 1943, had allegedly developed an electrical “death ray” super-weapon. The Soviets were keenly interested in this rumored technology, and arranged to purchase Tesla’s personal papers through an organization called AMTORG, a KGB front operating in New York originally formed by Russian-American industrialist Armand Hammer.

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