The Biden administration has approved the deployment of 1,000 CIA-trained private mercenaries as part of a joint U.S.-Israeli plan to turn Gaza’s apocalyptic rubblescape into a high-tech dystopia.
Starting with Al-Atatra, a village in the northwestern Gaza Strip, the plan calls to build what the Israeli daily Ynet calls “humanitarian bubbles” – turning the remains of villages and neighborhoods into tiny concentration camps cut off from their environs and surrounded and controlled by mercenaries.
These mercenaries will be hired by the CIA. “The plan, approved by White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, calls for the Israeli military to clear out pockets of Palestinian resistance. … 48 hours after stamping out resistance, they plan to erect separation walls around the neighborhood, forcing its residents, and no one else, to enter and exit using biometric identification under the CIA contractors’ control. Those who do not accept the biometric regime would be refused humanitarian aid.” In other words: they will starve to death. The Gazans who do accept “the biometric regime” won’t be starved to death. Biometrics includes fingerprinting but also other physical — and also behavioral — measurements of an individual who is being kept under surveillance.
The company at the forefront of this plan is called Global Development Company, described in its promotional materials as an “Uber for war zones.” Israeli-American businessman Moti Kahana owns it and employs several top Israeli and American military intelligence officials, including retired U.S. Navy Captain Michael Durnan, retired U.S. Special Forces captain Justin Sapp, former Israeli military intelligence division head Yossi Kuperwasser, and former Israeli military chief intelligence officer David Tzur.
Kahana has played a key role in the dirty war against Syria in the 2010s and worked with the CIA-backed Free Syrian Army [the “FSA,” which the U.S. Government under Obama hired to help overthrow and replace the Russia-and-Iran-supported President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad; and Dan Cohen’s FSA link is to an article in Britain’s Independent heroizing Kahana, headlining him as “Israeli man starts ‘Good Samaritan’ charity to get injured Syrian women and children to Israel for medical help.” That article opens with a video in which he speaks as a “philanthropist.”]
… GDC has also been involved in Ukraine, where it collaborated with the Zionist organization, the American Joint Distribution Committee, to operate a refugee camp in Romania near its border with Ukraine. …
Kahana’s Gaza plan has been in the works since at least February 2024. He presented the plan to establish these electronic cantons – what Jewish News referred to as “gated communities” – to the White House, State Department, and Defense Department, as well as Netanyahu. U.S. officials did not respond. While the Israeli military had agreed, the Israeli prime minister shot it down. “What’s the rush?” he quipped. …
However, as Hamas has maintained its civil control throughout Gaza and Israel has failed to defeat armed resistance groups, the Netanyahu government is relying on the U.S. to do its bidding. …
While the [original version of the] proposal called for the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, or Saudi Arabia to assume civilian control over the Gaza Strip, that has failed to materialize, prompting the United States to approve deployment of CIA contractors.
In other words: finally, Netanyahu, too, approved the plan.
The meticulous plan, seen by Jewish News, envisages the creation of “gated communities” in a safe space in the Strip and biometric recognition put in place for civilian recipients of aid. Those who did not pass the biometric tests would not have received aid. The gated communities are described as a Secure Humanitarian Logistics Corridor which, the plan states, “once established, can process and securely deliver humanitarian assistance from other sources across Gaza”.
In other words: the plan is as Cohen describes it, but employs euphemistic phrasings to deceive fools into believing that Kahana, his GDC, and his concentration camps for cooperative Gazan survivors, are “humanitarian,” and “gated communities,” such as that phrase is used in America to refer to protected oases of peace amidst a surrounding environment of war — like saying, “We’ll protect you Gazans.”
Cohen’s article didn’t mention the U.S. ‘Defense’ Department’s Defense Forensics & Biometrics Agency (DFBA), but this federal Agency (which he does link to without mentioning it) was, in fact, established by President Obama in 2012, and is crucially involved in what Kahana’s GDC is doing in Gaza. In 2016, DFBA’s “Overview” stated: “Biometrics and forensics are critical to identifying known and unknown individuals by matching them with automated records (such as for access control) or with anonymous samples (such as crime scene investigations).” In other words: the surviving Gazans will be tracked not by a number that is tattoed onto their arms like was done at Auschwitz to prisoners who weren’t immediately sent to their deaths, but instead tracked by the person’s “biometrics.” So: Israel’s Jews use Hitler’s — the original form of — nazism, but against different people, and with modern technology.
Furthermore: their propaganda is far more sophisticated than Joseph Goebbels’s was.
The link that Cohen provides to DFBA is to its current promotional video, their latest “Overview.”
It makes clear that DFBA is being used by the federal Government not ONLY in order to control the surviving Gazans, but ALSO in order to control the American people, as well as to extend the American empire throughout the world.
In other words: Yesterday it was the Jews who were the target; today it is the surviving Gazans who are, and also an increasing percentage of Americans are (targeted by our own Government); and, in the future, this system is to become expanded to everyone.
Cohen’s article also (at the word “worked”) linked to (but unfortunately out of context) a self-promotional youtube by and for Kahana himself, that appears to have been intended by him to promote himself to both Russians and Syrians, as being a magnanimous israeli philanthropist who rescues victims of his hated Assad, because he cares so much about the Syrian people.
We are already well beyond George Orwell’s prophetic novel 1984. This is the reality of today’s U.S. empire.
On October 24 was posted to X an exposé by James Li, of the top people at the U.S. magazine the Atlantic, which opens, “Jeffrey Goldberg, Atlantic‘s Editor-in-Chief who compared Trump to Hitler, was an IDF prison guard at a facility known for torture and sex abuse. He also pushed the false Saddam-Al-Qaeda link that led to the Iraq War and keeps pushing for war in the Middle East.” And the magazine’s owner is Steve Jobs’s deeply neoconservative widow, and she pitches her propaganda to Democratic Party voters, to keep them backing her candidates.
On October 15,ZeroHedgeheadlined “US Threatens Israel With Arms Embargo As Evidence Of War Crimes Becomes Impossible to Deny.” This is how successful U.S. politicians win votes from their suckers. Biden publicly threatens Israel at the same time as he privately authorizes — and arms to the teeth — what it is doing that he publicly condemns. Both of America’s political Parties are fully complicit in this deceit — this genocide.
If you believe, as I do, that the war of ideas is a critical front in political struggle, then clarity and logic become a necessity in that war. Indeed, the war of ideas can often become a war of words or phrases. When we allow or accept phrases like “the axis of evil” or words like “deplorables” to uncritically enter popular discourse, we have lost a skirmish in the ideological struggle.
This project is not the same as the language-policing so popular with liberals. It is not an excuse for shaming, embarrassing, or demeaning people because they are ignorant or dismissive of liberal etiquette.
Instead, it’s a search for focus and rigor, an attempt to sharpen our tools in the war of ideas. Therefore, it’s time to call out words or expressions that mislead, distort, or poison our discourse. Below, I nominate several candidates for retirement, restraint, or caution.
●Terrorism: Those holding power have persistently labeled their weaker opponents who rise up as “terrorists.” Virtually every anti-colonial movement in the post-war period has been called “terrorist,” regardless of the tactics employed in their struggle or whether those tactics were defensive or offensive. From the Indian National Congress to the Mau Mau movement, to the Palestine Liberation Organization, to the Vietnamese National Liberation Front, to the African National Congress, oppressors have denounced the oppressed as terrorists. The term lost any even minimal credence with the US government’s blatant and blatantly inconsistent use as a slander against socialist Cuba. Retirement of the term is obligatory.
●Middle Class: There is no middle class except in the clouded minds of those who dispute that the US and other advanced capitalist societies are class societies. Of course, there is a statistical middle when incomes and wealth are divided into three, five, seven, or more parts. But those divisions are arbitrary and virtually meaningless. We can speak loosely of a middle stratum, provided we understand that there is no significant social boundary with the strata on either side. “Middle” itself identifies no useful socio-economic category.
Of course, there are classes and significant strata identifiable by socio-economic criteria. One such criterion that has stood the test of time is the Marxist class distinction between those who own and control the wealth-producing assets and those who must secure employment from them. This remains a clear and rigorous divide with vast social, political, and economic consequences.
When politicians and labor leaders refer to the “middle class,” we can be sure that they have no intention of challenging real, existing class society and its inevitable inequality, oppression, and destruction.
●Authoritarianism: When the Soviet Union fell, capitalist ruling classes reserved the shop-worn Cold War term “totalitarianism” for People’s China and the remaining countries ruled by Communist Parties. Yet there were many countries that structurally embraced the institutions of bourgeois democracy — regular elections, representative bodies, legal institutions, and constitutions — though earning the ire of the Euromerican ruling classes and their media and academic lapdogs. A new term was appropriated to condemn the dissenters for allegedly abusing, corrupting, or influencing those institutions: authoritarianism.
Countries like Russia, Venezuela, or Iran — while sharing look-alike institutions with the “liberal” democracies — are condemned as authoritarian, even though their institutions function similarly, or sometimes better than their accusing critics. US critics depicting other countries as authoritarian are particularly hypocritical, coming from a country where political outcomes are determined by money or power to a greater extent than any other place on the planet. International polling (here and here) consistently shows that the people in supposedly authoritarian-ruled countries have greater trust in their governments than their Euromerican counterparts, a finding that surely sends the word “authoritarianism” to the historical dustbin.
●Fascism: The word “fascism” has a legitimate use to refer to a specific historical period, its essential features, and the common conditions that generate its arrival. Its twentieth-century rise in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution, from the volatility in the wake of a global war, and coincident with severe economic instability, is no mere accident, but is vital to our understanding. Just as the conditions of its development were unprecedented, fascism was unprecedented, generated by a profound challenge to the capitalist order. Fascism was a desperate reaction to a powerful, emergent revolutionary working-class movement, growing political illegitimacy, and economic collapse. The word’s rigorous use requires that these conditions be met.
Instead, the word has come to be used by unprincipled political operatives in the way that the charge of Communism has been used so often by unscrupulous red-baiters, trading on emotions. Bereft of a telling argument for a policy or strategy, philistines fall back on fascist-baiting, to paint their opponents with an association with Blackshirts, Stormtroopers, and the Gestapo. Weaponizing “fascism” distracts from revealing the actual obstacles to change and devising real answers to those obstacles.
●Neoliberalism: The era — beginning in the 1970s — identified with policies first associated with Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US– has often been called “neoliberalism.” There is some logic to labeling the period accordingly, drawing attention to its similarity to an earlier period of laissez faire capitalism before the Keynesian revolution and before intensified government oversight of the capitalist economy. Academic writers David Harvey and Gary Gerstle have understood the term in a more precise way: as an effort to “restore and consolidate class power,” in Harvey’s words.
But “neoliberalism” has come to connote a rightwing-imposed deviation from the benign, social democratic, social safety-net regime of the heralded thirty glorious post-war years. With this interpretation, capitalism with a humane, happy face was interrupted by a far-right counter-revolution, leading to massive deregulation, privatization, commodification, market fetishism, and rabid individualism.
Omitted from this tale is the harsh and telling fact that the post-war social democratic consensus was rapidly collapsing before intensified global competition, pressure on profits, inflation mutating into stagflation, and unemployment. That deviation from classical economic liberalism left its own scars on working people. The crisis of the New Deal model– widely followed internationally — opened the door to options, quickly filled by the far-right zealots of market fundamentalism.
Neoliberalism, understood as the disease and not a symptom, deflects attention from diagnosing the real disease: capitalism.
●Deep State: The idea that there is a highly visible, superficial state that is widely believed to be the governing body, but merely a facade for a far deeper, secret apparatus, is an attractive alternative to the official, widely circulated myths of popular sovereignty. From various perspectives, that apparatus is the CIA, Freemasons, followers of Lyndon Larouche, George Soros, or zombies.
And therein lies the problem: the deep state is whatever the latest schemer, plotter, or crackpot says it is. The vague idea of a wizard (of Oz?) pulling strings behind the scenes is the genesis of conspiracy theories, and should be seen as such.
There is a far more robust, time-tested, and scientific concept to describe the bogus high-school-civics-class picture of transparent, democratic, and representative governance uniquely practiced by the advanced capitalist countries. That well-founded concept is the notion of a ruling class, developed by — but not exclusive to — Marxists. A ruling class has both shallow and deep features — overt and covert aspects — that work together to maintain class rule. While elements of the ruling class may differ on how best to guarantee the interests of the elites — typically the employer class — they all agree that they will promote and protect those interests.
Where the so-called “deep state” conjures a picture of puppeteers hidden in the shadows manipulating and distorting a benign government structure, the ruling class concept offers a robust and rational picture of the existing asymmetry of power and wealth generating a governing body that operates to preserve and protect that asymmetry. Absent a countervailing force organized to wrest the power away, one would expect no less from a social order constructed on inequality of wealth and income.
It is not plotting or conspiracies or intrigues that shape how we are ruled, but the social composition of our states. “Deep State” leads us away from that understanding.
●Microaggressions and Safe Spaces: The “social justice” industry — academics, NGOs, non-profits, and consultants– creates its own language of social advancement. Certainly, many engaged in the industry are well meaning, but they are also transactional. They believe that their services are best commodified and paid for with promotions, donations, grants, and direct compensation. Accordingly, they have an interest in creating new justice-rendering commodities, new social-justice services. Microaggressions and Safe Spaces are the basis for such new commodities.
In a just society, all spaces should be safe. Short of a commitment to making all public spaces safe, designating certain spaces as safe is necessarily supporting privilege for those with access to such spaces, whether determined by lot, by merit, or by special characteristics. Safety, like health, is not something merited by a specific time, place, or group. Safe Spaces invokes the logic of a gated community.
Microaggressions become relevant in a world without war, poverty, genocide, and exploitation. Until those gross aggressions are gone, microaggressions — the bruising of individual sentiments — remain matters of etiquette. Hurt feelings, slights, and discomforting words or body language belong in the realm of interpersonal misfortunes and not in the realm of social injustice.
The “social justice” industry fails us because it is caught between sponsors, donors, and administrators heavily invested in the existing order and the radical needs of the victims of that order. Too often they offer the victims empty or useless words as salve for deep wounds.
Again, the point sought here is not to shame, accuse, or denigrate, but to sharpen language to better advance the struggle for social justice, to win the battle of ideas. Those who oppose social change benefit when words are chosen for their emotive power, when they subtly reflect class bias, or when they distort a real insight.
North Gaza has become Israel’s feasibility test for its version of genocide: total eradication of all life. All of Gaza north of the Netzarim Corridor, created by Israel as a barrier between the northern metropolis and the rest of the enclave, is now sealed off from any supplies, and the extinguishers of life are eliminating the remaining population and life forms, as well as all that sustains them.
Prior to October 8, 2023, northern Gaza was home to more than a million Palestinians. As recently as a few weeks ago, it was estimated to have as many as 400,000. Now, the estimates are closer to 100,000, and declining rapidly. Perhaps half of the original population fled to southern Gaza, where between 50,000 to 100,000 of their numbers have died – thousands from Israel anti-civilian weaponry, but mostly from malnutrition, disease, exposure and dehydration, predominantly women and children, especially newborns and infants. That is only among those who left north Gaza, and these are only rough estimates based on conditions and the proliferation of mass graves. The totals for the entire population of Gaza are at least double that number.
But the immediate Israeli objective is to create a wasteland in northern Gaza, where only weeds, insects and small reptiles survive. In Beit Lahia, a single bombing attack killed more than 100 civilians, mostly women and children. More than 100 such attacks took place in northern Gaza in October 2024, one of which eliminated the last remaining hospital, with its entire medical staff killed or taken prisoner. No food or medicine has entered northern Gaza for more than two weeks. Journalists have been assassinated, and few images or news have been received from inside.
Israel may achieve its goal of an empty northern Gaza as soon as the end of November. If so, it will serve as a model for the rest of Gaza, and the larger West Bank, as well. Until now, however, none of this has reduced the effectiveness of Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian resistance, even in northern Gaza. It therefore remains to be seen whether Israel’s Jewish settlers will be able to inherit the land.
In the meantime, Israelis continue to leave Israel, as many as a million or more since October 7, 2023, with long waiting lists for departure. 1300 out of 1700 reservists recently called up refused to report, and more than 100 active soldiers refuse to continue. Casualty rates of soldiers are beyond anything Israel has experienced, thwarting the ground invasion of Lebanon. The Israeli military is saying that it does not have enough soldiers. Trade with Israel has ground to a halt in many sectors, and hundreds of businesses have closed. Israel’s attempt to widen the war by attacking Iran was a near total failure. Its options are dwindling.
How many Israelis will face war crimes tribunals? Palestinians and their allies are compiling lists of murderers with incriminating evidence often placed on social media by the perpetrators themselves. Despite the inaction of most of the world, and the enormous weaponry and wealth placed by the US and a few other countries at the disposal of Israel, it is increasingly doubtful that the Zionist vision will survive any more than the Crusaders, the Nazis, neoconservatives, neoliberals, or any other delusional megalomaniacs and their visions.
Paul Larudee is a retired academic and current administrator of a nonprofit human rights and humanitarian aid organization. Read other articles by Paul.
The British cannot help themselves. They are a meddling island people who conquered huge swathes of the earth in a fictional fit of absentmindedness and remain haughty for having done so. They have fought more countries they can name, engaged in more wars they care to remember. They have overthrown elected rulers and sabotaged incipient democracies. In the twilight of empire, Britain sought, with heavy hearted reluctance, to become wise Greek advisors to their clumsy Roman replacement: the US Imperium.
US politics, to that end, remain a matter of enormous importance to the UK. Interfering in US elections is a habit that dies hardest of all. In 1940, with the relentless march of Nazi Germany’s war machine across Europe, British intelligence officers based in New York and Washington had one primary objective: to aid the election of politicians favouring US intervention on the side of Britain. As Steven Usdin noted in 2017, they also had two other attached goals: “defeat those who advocated neutrality, and silence or destroy the reputations of American isolationists they deemed a menace to British security.”
Much of this is also covered in Thomas E. Mahl’s 1998 studyDesperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939-44, which was initially scoffed at for giving much credence to Britain’s role in creating the office of Coordinator of Information, an entity that became the forerunner of the Office of Strategic Services, itself the forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mahl was, it was revealed in 1999, on to something. In a dull yet revealing study written at the end of World War II documenting the activities of the British Security Coordination office, an outfit established by Canadian spymaster Sir William S. Stephenson with the approval of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, activities of interference are described on a scale to make any modern Russian operative sigh with longing envy. Those roped into the endeavour were a rather colourful lot: the classicist Gilbert Highet, future novelist of dark children’s novels extraordinaire Roald Dahl, and editor of the trade journal Western Hemisphere Weekly Bulletin, Tom Hill.
During Stephenson’s tenure, the office used subversion, sabotage, disinformation and blackmail with relish to influence political outcomes and malign the America Firsters. (How marvellous contemporary.) It cultivated relations with such figures as the 1940 Republican nominee for president, Wendell Willkie. It also offered gobbets of slanted information to media outlets, often produced verbatim, by suborned pro-interventionist hacks. In October 1941, BSC provided FDR a map purporting to detail a plan by Nazi Germany to seize South America, a document the president gratefully waved at a news conference. (The study claims its authenticity, though doubts remain.)
The Democrats are currently receiving the moral and physical aid of volunteers from the British Labour Party, who are throwing in hours and tears for a Kamala Harris victory in various battleground states. Their presence was revealed in a now deleted social media post from Labour’s head of operations, Sofia Patel, noting that somewhere in the order of 100 current and former party staff were heading to the US prior to polling day to campaign in North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
On the other side of the political aisle, Nigel Farage, now Reform UK leader and member for Clacton-on-Sea, has spent much time openly campaigning for Donald Trump. Hardly surprising that he should complain about UK Labour doing what he has been doing habitually since 2016. Walking political disaster and former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss, historically the shortest occupant in that office, also put in an appearance at the 2024 Republican National Convention to offer what limited support she could.
Trump’s campaign team has taken umbrage at the efforts of Labour Party staffers, enough to file a complaint with the US Federal Election Commission (FEC). This is not small beer: any opportunity to allege an unfavourable distortion in votes will be pounced upon. In an October 21 letter to the FEC’s acting general counsel, Lisa J. Stevenson, Trump’s attorney sought “an immediate investigation into blatant foreign interference in the 2024 Presidential Election”. This took “the form of apparent illegal foreign national contributions made by the Labour Party of the United Kingdom and accepted by Harris for President, the principal campaign committee of Vice President Kamala Harris.”
The claim makes mention of another effort in the 2016 elections, when the Australian Labor Party furnished the Bernie 2016 campaign representing Senator Bernie Sanders with “delegates to be placed with the campaign”. The ALP covered flights and provided participants with a daily stipend. The FEC subsequently found this to be a provision of campaign services to the Sanders campaign, and determined that it, and the ALP, had violated the foreign national prohibitions. Each received civil penalties of $14,500.
Patel’s announcement, the claim goes on to argue, seems to emulate the overly enthusiastic ALP model. As head of operations, “her LinkedIn posts indicate that she is speaking as a representative of the party.” Her posts supported “a reasonable inference that the Labour Party will finance at least travel and facilitate room and board.”
As regulations stand, FEC rules permit the participation of foreign nationals in campaign activities as long as they remain uncompensated volunteers. If one accepts the narrow reading of the laws according to the US District Court for the District of Columbia in Bluman v FEC, contributions must be of a non-financial nature. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has stated that party staff have travelled to the US to campaign for Harris “in their own spare time”, staying with other volunteers in the process. By no means is it clear that this did not involve a financial contribution.
Previous public efforts to sway election results in the US by British well-wishers hoping to test the waters have not ended well. In 2004, the Guardian newspaper launched Operation Clark County, a smug and foolish effort to dissuade undecided voters in the swing state of Ohio from voting for the Republican incumbent, George W. Bush. The response was one of unmitigated, volcanic fury. A letter from Wading River, NY captured the mood: “I don’t give a rat’s ass if our election is going to have an effect on your worthless little life. If you want to have a meaningful election in your crappy little island full of shitty food and yellow teeth, then maybe you should try not to sell your sovereignty out to Brussels and Berlin, dipshit.” The letter is coarsening in its finality. “Oh yeah – and brush your goddamned teeth, you filthy animals.” Starmer, beware.
The most ideal title should be: “How the Electoral College in the USA came about and how it works, which even ordinary Americans completely fail to understand.”
We will indirectly refer to three texts, the “US Constitution” (1787), Howard Zinn’s book, A People’s History of the United States (1980), but also Paul Johnson’s book, A History of the American People (1997—it took him 32 years to write!). Here are some key ideas we find:
The Electoral College could be a legacy of the Wild West, but it isn’t. It is a “heavy legacy” of the era of slavery, and not only. As the various States stood on their own two feet, there were also fundamental differences. The worthy Founding Fathers had studied the experience of ancient Greece, where every citizen had one vote. So, when they were thinking about how to draft America’s founding documents, the fact of the vote had to essentially be this: one citizen equals one vote, as that is also the rule of democracy.
In the American South, slaves did not have the right to vote. The state rulers and “Southern thinkers of the time” (if such a thing can be said) wanted the slaves to be counted and considered as part of the general population to increase the power of each State, but not to vote. In addition, the Founding Fathers also wanted a compromise between electing the President by Congress—it was an idea—and electing him by the popular vote. It also played a role that, in the 17th century when all this was planned, the fastest way to convey information was on horseback.
How could these issues be resolved? With electors, i.e. the institution/body of the College of Electors.
In each State, the electors are a number proportional to the population, as it is made up of the number of representatives and the number of senators, two in each State. The representatives and senators of each State cannot become electors themselves. Each of the States starts with three electors. (After the Constitution was revised in 1961, the District of Columbia, where Washington is located, also gained three electors). The two senators and “the starting point of three electors” which is the minimum guarantee the equality of the States. The total number of electors is 538, of which 438 are representatives and 100 are senators. (For example, California has 54 electors, Arizona 11, Alaska 3).
The acceptance of the electoral system as a fixed system of electing the President has a long history and special weight. And, paradoxically, this College helped to stabilize and grow America (…buying territories from France, Russia, and elsewhere, and in time, to become the superpower of the 21st century. It is the leading power of the West. The US election concerns every corner of the planet).
The District of Columbia and all but two states have chosen the first-past-the-post system in how electors are apportioned. In other words, the party that wins in the State —with the classic 50+1 of the votes— also gets all the electors. The two states that “go against the current” are Nebraska and Maine. Here, the distribution of electors is done proportionally, i.e. according to the percentage of each party. But usually, their electors divided somewhere in the middle.
The Electoral College has “gone against” the popular vote only 5 times (there have been 59 US presidential elections). “Gone against” means there is a mismatch between what the people in the 50 States plus the District of Columbia want/vote for and what the Electoral College tally that decides who will be President finally gives. In 2016 we had such a mismatch, when Donald Trump was elected President, while Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.
Let’s add another observation here: American voters —who themselves do not understand much how the Electoral College works— do not vote on November 5 directly for president, but “tell their State” how to vote for president. Electors are not “obliged” to follow what the citizens have told them: if they wish, the law allows them to change their minds. The 538 electors will meet in December to “elect” the President and the Vice President.
In elections there are states that traditionally vote for Republicans and others for Democrats. There are seven states in total, and it is their own electors who make the big difference. As an example, Pennsylvania with 19 electors, Michigan with 15, Wisconsin with 10… And you reach the most powerful office in the world when 270 electors gather. Thriller. But, recently, there is hope that a woman will cut the thread for the first time… (And, also, one day in the future, it could be a progressive idea to return to the ancient rule of democracy: one citizen equals one vote, and reform to its core the Electoral College, or even to be completely abolished.)
Tuesday, October 29, 2024. The hate rally in Madison Square Garden promoted a range of reactions -- and we note some of them including one sour grapes gal whose been overlooked.
Let's start with a new ad from Kamala Harris' presidential campaign.
Yesterday in Philadelphia, Kamala spoke with reporters:
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Hi. Good morning, everyone. Good morning.
Well, it is good to be back in Philadelphia, and we’re going to have a — an active day of speaking with folks in various neighborhoods around town and really highlighting something you hear me say often, which is: I truly believe it’s a lived experience to know the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us.
And so, we’ll be visiting with folks in different parts of town, talking with them about what we all have in common and — and a collective desire to bring the country together and to set a tone that really is about unifying our country around common desires and challenges, whether it be bringing down the prices of everyday necessities or what we can do to invest in our small businesses and lift up our families.
And this obviously will be in stark contrast to Donald Trump, who increasingly is using dark and divisive language, even more than he — he has done in the past.
He talks about America being the garbage can of the world and just continuously, I think, demeans the character and nature of who we are as America and who the American people are. And clearly, it is intended to keep fanning the flames of — of hate and division; referring to beautiful American, historic American cities like Detroit and Philadelphia in such disparaging words. And as we said, even just this morning, I think people are ready to turn the page. And — and that is about all I have.
AIDE: Julia —
(Cross-talk.)
AIDE: Hold on. Julia.
Q Oh, thank you.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Hi.
Q Madam Vice President, Pennsylvania has been such a focus of this election for both campaigns. What do you make of some of the activity that Elon Musk is involved in in this state? Do you — do you worry about, you know, any little difference, including (inaudible) —
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I haven’t really been paying attention. I’m focused on our work. (Laughs.) But thank you for asking.
(Cross-talk.)
Q Madam Vice President, you’ve talked about new homebuyers and $25,000 for them.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q What about people who are currently in their homes as neighborhoods gentrify and prices go up? What would you do for them?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: So, for cor- — current homeowners, there are — still facing the challenges, whether it be what we need to do around an issue I’ve addressed over the last four years, dealing with fair appraisal values and making sure that the appraisal system is fair, especially for people living in minority- and Black-owned communities — in terms of housing and home- — high levels of homeownership, we’ve seen bias there.
But also just bringing down the price of everyday living, whether it be groceries and what I’m going to do to address things like price gouging, or what we need to do to expand the Child Tax Credit to help people have more resources at the fundamental phases of their child’s development; the work that we are doing that is about small businesses.
A lot of neighborhoods, as we know here in Philadelphia and around the country — those homeowners often are also small-business owners and need more support. So, a lot of my plan is about giving them tax cuts, but also cutting a lot of the red tape so that they can continue to grow and prosper.
So, there are a multiple — multitude of issues that affect homeowners, including, obviously, the challenges for homeownership itself.
AIDE: Joey.
Q Yeah, Madam Vice President, are you getting the turnout that you need right here in Philadelphia to win Pennsylvania, particularly among Black voters? Are you concerned that you’re going to get the level that you need to to win this state?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I’m very excited about the reports that we’re getting about enthusiasm here in Philadelphia. And to your point, Philadelphia is a very important part of our path to victory, and it is the reason I’m spending time here, have been spending time here. But I’m feeling very optimistic about the enthusiasm that is here and the commitment that folks of every background have to vote and to — to really invest in the future of our country.
I think people are exhausted with things as they’ve been, and they’re prepared to act on their feelings about that.
AIDE: Akayla.
Q Madam Vice President, the former president has said he’s spoken to Prime Minister Netanyahu multiple times this month. Are you concerned that those conversations are undermining what the administration is trying to do in the Middle East?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No. And I do believe that it is critically important that we, as the United States of America, be an active participant in encouraging, one, that this war ends, that we get the hostages out, but also that there is a real commitment among nations to a two-state solution and the day after, and we have to fulfill that responsibility.
AIDE: O.J.
Q Yes, Vice President Harris, as you go out in the community today, what is it that you can do or do you have a strategy to dispel all the informa- — all the mi- — misinformation in the political ads and what —
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q — your opponent is spewing?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, to your point, there is a lot of misinformation, and he’s putting tens of millions of dollars into various TV markets around the country. And what I’m heartened by is that folks in the community, when I am there, they are aware of it and, frankly, don’t want to be played. They are aware of fact.
And what I am seeing is that not only are they aware of the misinformation, but they are also aware, if not eager, to know and hear more details about my plan for them, whether it be, again, on the issue of homeownership; bringing down costs; investing in small businesses; investing in families, including families with children. And — and folks are very receptive to that.
I think people really do want to know and see and feel that their leaders and that their president is prepared to do the hard work of thinking about them, not themselves, unlike Donald Trump, and has a plan that will be implemented on day one. And I’ve been very clear about that as well.
Look, just imagine the Oval Office on January 20th. It’s going to be one of two people. It’s going to be either Donald Trump or me.
If it’s Donald Trump, you can see what’s going — what that day is going to be. It will be him sitting at that desk, stewing over his enemies list. He is full of grievance. He is full of — of dark language that is about retribution and revenge.
And so, the American people have a choice. It’s either going to be that or it’ll be me there, focused on my to-do list, focused on the American people and getting through that list of — of goals and plans to improve the lives of the American people.
AIDE: Last one. Jeff.
Q Madam Vice President, can you give us a sense of your internal polling at the campaign and how that is making or influencing your decisions on what to do over the next nine days?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: So, to be very frank with you, my internal polling is my instinct. (Laughs.) I let the campaign people deal with the poll- — all that other stuff. And I am responding to what I’m seeing.
I mean, just two nights ago, we had 30,000 people show up — I think it was actually more than 30,000 people — with an incredible amount of enthusiasm. If you see the people showing up last night, every event that we do — and the feeling is one of energy and excitement.
What I love about the folks who are showing up is it’s every walk of who we are as a country and as Americans, every race, age, gender, from all different kinds of backgrounds together under one roof. It’s very exciting. The number of young people. You know, I’ve begun to really point out the first-time voters who are there, because now people are actually registered. And — and it’s — it’s very exciting. And the momentum is with us.
Q Do you need to win Pennsylvania —
AIDE: Thank you.
Q — to win this election (inaudible)?
AIDE: Thank you.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Pennsylvania will be key, no doubt. No doubt.
Bishop and Poor People's Campaign co-chair Rev. William Barber II joined more than 1,000 religious leaders on Sunday in endorsing U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris for president over former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Other prominent faith leaders who have signed on to the endorsement include Rev. Kevin R. Johnson of New York City's Abyssinian Baptist Church; Rev. Teresa L. Smallwood, vice president and dean of academic affairs at North Carolina's United Lutheran Seminary; and the Rev. Andrea C. White, who teaches theology and culture at New York City's Union Theological Seminary. Barber and the other leaders offered their endorsement in their personal capacities and not on behalf of any congregation or institution they are affiliated with.
"In a moment like this, I am compelled to be clear that every voter must make a choice, and my choice is to oppose the dangerous politics that Trump and the MAGA movement have unleashed by supporting the ticket that can defeat this potential for American fascism," Barber wrote in a statement explaining his endorsement on social media.
"I'm endorsing Harris and Walz because we are in the midst of a crisis of civilization and democracy."
Barber gave several reasons for his opposition to Trump, including the former president's frequent lies, embrace of guns, inflammatory anti-immigrant statements, and economic agenda that favors the wealthy over the poor and marginalized. In particular, he blamed Trump for undermining the strong economy he inherited from former President Barack Obama by giving massive tax cuts to the wealthy while refusing to raise the minimum wage
"I must oppose Donald Trump and his policies of catering to the greedy, attacking healthcare, and working against living wages," Barber wrote.
He also alluded to Trump's violent rhetoric, such as his recent threat to deploy the National Guard against his political enemies if elected.
"I must prophetically oppose Trump's candidacy because he is threatening to use the office of the president for retaliation and destruction and refers to himself as the only answer to the troubles of America, which is a form of idolatry," Barber said.
In contrast, Barber said he was endorsing Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz because they "are seeking to speak truthfully about the issues of our nation, and, at the same time, to lead us toward a way of working together on issues that matter."
In particular, Barber praised their economic agenda, such as their commitment to increasing wages and expanding healthcare access. He also said they would offer equal protection to all U.S. residents and tackle the climate crisis.
"I'm endorsing Harris and Walz because we are in the midst of a crisis of civilization and democracy," Barber said. "We don't need more despotism. We must work together for a Third Reconstruction."
Endorsements continue to be made. Except by two large newspapers. There's THE LOS ANGELES TIMES which was already unimportant. It was only for their two US senators's sake that they were available in DC -- and that dates back to when the two senators were Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. It's an unimportant little paper that bleeds readers both online and offline. The other is THE WASHINGTON POST. In both cases, their money bags owners decided not to endorse. And did so after the paper's editorial boards had completed the endorsements.
Jeff Bezos and no name (he is a no name, the owner of THE LOS ANGELS TIMES, and let's keep him that way) insist that they are doing journalism and so they're just going to provide information and not tell people how to vote.
Maybe the first clue that the wrong person owns a paper is when they say something like that. Editorials are journalism. They're not reporting, no. But they are journalism -- as is any opinion column.
More to the point, Bezos and no name both bought papers in order to have influence. Which, please note, means they're not killing off editorials. They're just killing off endorsements in the presidential campaign.
This has resulted in a lot of commentary -- some might say too much.
For example, bitter, failed journalist Glenn Greenwald. As Sam Seder has explained in his podcast, Glenn's been attacking Rachel Maddow and others for years just because she stopped inviting him as a guest on her program. All those 'critiques' he offered? Just the sour grapes of a loser turned away. He better that soon to be released prisoner in the US is lying or at least can prove the relationship the prisoner says he and Glenn had online is true. That will really put the nail into Glenn's coffin with the public.
If the prisoner is telling the truth and you recoil because the prisoner is even uglier than Glenneth, just remember that Glenneth was feeling lonely because his husband was in the hospital. Oh wait. That excuse only make GG more disgusting, doesn't it?
Glenneth knows all about press freedom. You may remember he quit THE INTERCEPT. As he told it, they would not publish his column on the Hunter Biden laptop. He told them to publish it as is and they wouldn't. We defended Glenn and I would so on that for anyone. But we also noted how dumb Glenn was. If he had a contract -- and this half-wit faux lawyer said he did -- that required THE INTERCEPT to publish what he wrote, then why quit?
Why walk out on money you're owed and a place you created. All you have to do is file and appear before a judge. Most likely, THE INTERCEPT would have published the column the minute they learned Glenny had filed a lawsuit.
Contract law is not vague. Contract law is very specific. I made millions for doing nothing but filing against someone I had a contract with when they refused to honor it. I was iffy on endorsing anyway but I did like the product -- a shampoo -- and when they failed to honor their end of the written contract -- at the very start -- I filed and in the end got the money and didn't even have to record one commercial.
Glenn's the biggest idiot on the block. I've always noted -- as far back as the '00s -- two things about the wretched Glenneth Greenwald: He promoted the war on Iraq and he didn't know a damn thing about the law.
So maybe it's his bitterness that makes him attack various columnists for THE WASHINGTON POST right now?
Or maybe it's just his well known stupidity.
Well known and otherwise, we're seeing a lot of stupidity as six days remain in this US presidential election. A lot of stupidity from people who should know better and should grasp how important it is that we elect Kamala Harris. But she's a woman. And she's Black. And she's this and she's that and they just can't seem to get behind her.
U.S. intelligence agencies have identified domestic extremists with grievances rooted in election-related conspiracy theories, including beliefs in widespread voter fraud and animosity toward perceived political opponents, as the most likely threat of violence in the coming election.
In a Joint Intelligence Bulletin that was not distributed publicly but was reviewed by NBC News, agents from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security warn state and local law enforcement agencies that domestic violent extremists seeking to terrorize and disrupt the vote are a threat to the election and throughout Inauguration Day.
The report identified the potential targets as candidates, elected officials, election workers, members of the media and judges involved in election cases. The potential threats include physical attacks and violence at polling places, ballot drop boxes, voter registration locations and rallies and campaign events.
The October internal report was among several intelligence documents obtained through public records requests by Property of the People, a nonprofit group focused on government transparency. Federal agents regularly provide that type of threat assessment to state and local law enforcement agencies through formal bulletins. Before Jan. 6, 2021, they were more reluctant to distribute them because of concern that investigations of Americans might appear to violate free speech protections.
“The United States remains in a heightened, dynamic threat environment and we continue to share information with our law enforcement partners about the threats posed by domestic violent extremists in the context of the 2024 election,” DHS spokesperson Mayra Rodriguez said in a statement. “Violence has no place in our politics, and DHS continues to work with our partners to evaluate and mitigate emerging threats that may arise from domestic or foreign actors.”
Still, the reports “are not typical election threat intelligence,” said Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People. “The documents are unmistakably a product of a radically heightened threat environment.”
Former President Donald Trump has claimed elections have been rigged against him since 2016, when he won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote. In 2020, he and his allies ramped up false claims of cheating — lies the courts quickly struck down — but the claims became fuel for a violent attack at the Capitol, which aimed to overturn the election.
Add to that Sunday when Convicted Felon Donald Trump held his hate rally in Madison Square Garden -- see yesterday's snapshot. Here's AOC on CNN addressing that hate rally.
Comic and podcaster Marc Maron is calling out his peers who use their positions to drive what he terms “the new fascism” just a day after right-wing comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made racist and sexist jokes at Donald Trump‘s Madison Square Garden rally.
Other comics also slammed Hinchcliffe who, among other things, called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.”
Tweeted Michael Ian Black, “I think America just found its next Jim Breuer!”
Maron’s statement, posted in full on his WTF With Marc Maron website and shared in part on social media, did not specifically name Hinchcliffe, but the message seems clear.
Trump's "They're eating the dogs" debate seemed like his low point, but tonight's "Puerto Rico is a pile of garbage" rally went lower. But I'm sure Tulsi Gabbard will really attract voters. Shrieking bigotry is the only platform the Repubs have so they're leaning into it
We all heard the antisemitic and racist speeches at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally yesterday.
It’s appalling to hear those slurs. But nothing will stop me from living fearlessly as a Jew. Nothing will stop Kamala and me from speaking out. pic.twitter.com/1pgmgXnK9R
President Obama: Last night, the speakers at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally spewed racist stereotypes and called Puerto Rico an ‘island of garbage.’ These are fellow citizens he’s talking about. Donald Trump doesn’t respect you. He does not think you are equal to him. And if… pic.twitter.com/uYHOzRzK3Z
Rachel Maddow reacts to former President Donald Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden, which drew comparisons to the pro-Nazi rally held at a previous iteration of the famed arena in 1939. "If you don't want to be compared to the folks who held rallies like that in 1939, don't… pic.twitter.com/cmZUQUiSx2
I share this gentleman's sentiment. New York is not a swing state. The only reason for Trump to hold a hate rally in New York City's Madison Square Garden was so he could have his 'Nazi moment.' 😳👇 pic.twitter.com/Gu7TPo9itU
"Nobody gets a pass trashing America... Nobody gets a pass degrading people." @morningmika weighs in on former Pres. Trump's New York rally at Madison Square Garden. pic.twitter.com/bwcuG1kLaV
Yesterday I called my friend in FL. She said after the disgusting comments in Madison Square Garden her brother & sister in law are no longer voting for Trump. I hope Puerto Ricans show up in FL, NY, NJ, IL, CT, NC for Harris/Walz 2024. Women lives depend on it.
— RN NJ Rican Passing through NC🇵🇷 (@lovelypr101) October 29, 2024
We noted reactions yesterday and there are some more. A lot of reactions have been noted. There's one though that everyone keeps missing.
Drivel.
I wasn't aware of Donald's hate rally and how awful it was on most of Sunday. I was speaking to one group after another about the importance of voting for Kamala and making her our next president. It was after 10:00 pm when we finally got done speaking. At which point, Ava and I wrote "Media: The double standard." I then wrote the Sunday night piece here. I was pulling from things that had happened that day -- and that's when I learned of the rally. And I came across garbage.
I left a comment noting that it was drivel.
I need you to picture Sunday and the hate rally. Think about how offended you were.
Because apparently not everyone was. Marianne Williamson elected to make Sunday night about how there is good on both sides and we need to love each other and we need to know that we will come together and blah blah blah.
Drivel.
In the face of threats of violence from the far right and following what took place in Madison Square Garden hour before she posted, Marianne taped a garbage video.
What is the point? You'll note that she can't endorse Kamala but she can do videos making excuses and apologies for those taking part in a hate rally.
Sour grapes? Maybe so. She wanted the nomination. She thought she had it sewn up. She got all these YOUTUBERS to get on board with her in 2023 and she just knew they were going to take her to the nomination. That didn't happen. In fact, some of the YOUTUBERS pimping her pimped way too hard thereby ensuring that she wouldn't get the nomination.
Then with no traction at all, she dropped out. This was followed by a re-merence when some people were trying to get Joe Biden not to run and voting "uncommitted." So she relaunched her failed campagn and we saw her faila gain and drop out again.
Then, after dropping out twice, when Joe finally stepped aside, she announced she wanted the nomination. No one gave a damn about what she wanted. And as she realized that, she refused to rally behind Kamala which was bad enough for a Democrat. But she also began excusing away things that cannot be excuse. Sunday the hate rally took place at Madison Square Garden and, before teh day concluded, Marianne had another one of her grifting videos up saying we're all wonderful and we're all going for the same thing.
No, dear, that's a lie.
Some of us are going for freedom and equality and smoe of us are going for hate and violence.
These mercenaries will be hired by the CIA. “The plan, approved by White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, calls for the Israeli military to clear out pockets of Palestinian resistance. … 48 hours after stamping out resistance, they plan to erect separation walls around the neighborhood, forcing its residents, and no one else, to enter and exit using biometric identification under the CIA contractors’ control. Those who do not accept the biometric regime would be refused humanitarian aid.” In other words: they will starve to death. The Gazans who do accept “the biometric regime” won’t be starved to death. Biometrics includes fingerprinting but also other physical — and also behavioral — measurements of an individual who is being kept under surveillance.
