I love that stuff. That is all. For this post.
Stores Should Not Put Out The Christmas Merch until the Peppermint Bark is there to be sold, as well.
I love that stuff. That is all. For this post.
Tag: Justice
Trump praises Hitler. ADL remains silent.
In a terrifying moment for American Jews, the org is nowhere to be found.
(I followed Marisa Kabas’s Substack. She was organizational in working to get Substack to stop allowing Nazis to monetize their Substacks. When Substack decided they weren’t going to do that, she broke away and writes her work on her own Handbasket. I wish I had the money to support her, but I can share her work, and this piece is extra-important. -A)
Marisa Kabas October 24, 2024
Did you know that two separate stories dropped this week in which former Trump officials said he praised and admired Hitler while in office during his first term?
No, it’s possible you didn’t. It wasn’t on the front page of major newspapers. It didn’t warrant major cable news segments. The Anti-Defamation League didn’t even consider it worthy of a response. To put a finer point on it: The Republican candidate for the Presidential election taking place in less than two weeks openly praised Hitler and it was met with a yawn. How did we get here? How is this happening?
For background, The Atlantic published a story with details of a disturbing conversation:
As his presidency drew to a close, and in the years since, he has become more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this.
Then an interview with former Chief of Staff John Kelly published by the Times on Tuesday evening included this bit:
Trump told him that “Hitler did some good things.”
Mr. Kelly confirmed previous reports that on more than one occasion Mr. Trump spoke positively of Hitler.
“He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too,’” Mr. Kelly said Mr. Trump told him.
Mr. Kelly said that Mr. Trump had little appreciation for history — “I think he’s lacking in that,” he said — but said that he would still try to explain to Mr. Trump why those comments about Hitler were problematic.
It was bad enough that Vice President Harris addressed it in brief remarks from her DC residence Wednesday afternoon. “It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler — the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews, and hundreds of thousands of Americans,” she said.
It’s difficult for me to be incredulous anymore after nearly 10 years of a Trump-clogged news cycle, but this one makes me want to yell at the Editor-in-Chief of the New York Times, “We’re talking about Hitler! The man who orchestrated the mass murder of Jews! Your own paper has evidence that Trump admires him! Sound the alarm!”
The interests of media bosses have always been at odds with reporters and readers, but now that conflict has been laid bare.
Adam Serwer (@adamserwer.bsky.social)
Though the story failed to be a media priority, I figured the ADL, the country’s most prominent Jewish nonprofit with a mission of combating antisemitism in all forms, would have something to say. Yet when I looked at their website, I saw nothing (aside from an announcement of a “Concert Against Hate” hosted by Ben Stiller and featuring Sia.) Their social media feeds were similarly void of any reference to Trump and Hitler.
So on Wednesday afternoon I reached out with a brief synopsis of Trump’s positive comments on Hitler and asked if the ADL had a comment. More than 24 hours later: silence. I followed up Thursday morning and reached out via multiple social platforms to the organization and its CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. Still, nothing.
The ADL’s failure to address Trump praising Hitler isn’t shocking, given their selective outrage in the past year about which Jews are worthy of defense, and the fact that they honored Jared Kushner with an award earlier this year. Greenblatt issued a rare rebuke of Trump in September after the Republican candidate said “If I don’t win this election…. the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens.” But other than, Greenblatt has continually shown his willingness to kowtow to power, whether it be Trump or Elon Musk. And the current silence is galling.
Why fixate on the response of one nonprofit organization? Well, because the ADL—with Greenblatt as their public face—has positioned itself as the arbiter of what is and is not antisemitic. Whenever you’re reading an article and it cites a figure about the number of antisemitic incidents in the country, that’s likely a stat from the ADL’s annual audit. In the wake of the October 7th attacks in Israel, they’ve frequently conflated antizionism with antisemitism—so much so that Wikipedia’s editors voted in June to designate the organization as “generally unreliable” source on antisemitism. But still they’re considered an authority on the wants and needs of American Jews.
This dangerous conflation has led to the unfair persecution of Jews against Israel’s mass murder of Palestinians, including a Harvard student who was accused of antisemitism for posting protest posters ahead of Yom Kippur. There is no world in which this makes it safer to be Jewish.
Greenblatt found time in the past two days to tweet about his loathing for Jewish pro-Palestine student protesters, but didn’t have a moment to spare for the single-most terrifying thing an American Jew could read: that the potential next president thinks Adolf Hitler was good.
Peace & Justice History for 10/25:
| October 25, 1955 |
 Sadako Sasaki | Sadako Sasaki, following the Japanese custom of folding paper cranes – symbols of good fortune and longevity – persisted daily in folding cranes, hoping to create senbazuru (1000 paper cranes strung together) when a person’s dream is believed to come true, died. |
| The Sadako story | |
 | Sadako was two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and at 12 was diagnosed with Leukemia, “the atom bomb” disease. Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima showing Sadako holding a golden crane Photo: Mark Bledstein |  |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october241981
Peace & Justice History for 10/24:
| October 24, 1935 Langston Hughes’s first play, “Mulatto,” opened on Broadway. It was the longest-running play (373 performances) by an African-American until Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” which premiered in 1959.  Langston HughesFirst-rate bio of Langston Hughes |
| October 24, 1940 The 40-hour workweek went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, requiring employers to pay overtime and restricting the use of child labor. Decades of labor agitation and a considerable number of lives made this change possible.  More on The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938: |
October 24, 1945 The United Nations World Security Organization came into being when the Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR) in mid-afternoon deposited its instrument of ratification of the U.N. Charter. The USSR became the last of the five major powers and the 29th of 51 nations, the minimum necessary to bring this about. James F. Byrnes, U.S. Secretary of State, then signed the protocol formally attesting that the Charter of the United Nations had come into force.This is now considered United Nations Day. Read more (no paywall.) |
| October 24, 1970 Salvador Allende Gossens, an avowed Marxist and head of the Unidad Popular Party, became the president of Chile after being elected and confirmed by the Chilean Congress.For the next three years, the United States exerted tremendous pressure to destabilize and unseat the Allende government. In 1958, and again in 1964, Allende had run on a socialist /communist platform. In both elections, the United States government (as well as U.S. businesses such as International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), which had significant investments in Chile) worked to defeat Allende by sending millions of dollars of assistance to his political opponents.  Allende and supportersMore on Allende |
October 24, 1981 More than 250,000 people, organized by the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), marched through London to protest the siting of American nuclear missiles in the United Kingdom. More background and video |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october24
Raskin Sends Trump And Vance A Warning
This is your TPM evening briefing.
By Nicole Lafond | October 23, 2024 5:42 p.m.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) warning that their much-hinted-at plan to flout transition rules could end up endangering national security.
Vance and Trump won’t even commit to accepting the results of the election if they lose, so the odds of them adhering to precedent in order to participate in a peaceful transition of power were low to start with. And the pair have run their entire campaign on ideals that run counter to the longevity of democracy. But in his letter, Raskin outlines the uniquely dangerous position it could put the U.S. in.
In refusing to, he wrote, the Trump campaign’s “actions depart from well-established norms of the federal government and demonstrate a spectacular disregard for the successful continuation of the essential institutions of American democratic government. Without these MOUs in place, federal agencies are unlikely to be able to securely and effectively communicate with your staff, which will endanger ‘the orderly transfer of the executive power’ and threaten our national security,” he wrote in a letter first obtained by NBC News, referencing the memorandum of understanding that both the Kamala Harris campaign and the Trump campaign were meant to sign with the General Services Administration and the White House this fall.
“I strongly urge you to expeditiously sign both MOUs and submit your ethics plan.”
While the Harris campaign met both the GSA’s deadline on September 1 and the White House’s deadline on October 1, Trump’s team still has yet to engage. In his letter, Raskin questioned whether the Trump team was trying to skirt rules for fundraising for the transition team — all money privately raised for the transition has to be reported and contributions are limited to $5,000 per person.
“It appears your decision may be at least partially driven by your intent to circumvent fundraising rules that put limits on private contributions on the transition effort and require public reporting,” Raskin wrote. “You may also be acting out of a more general aversion to ethics rules designed to prevent conflicts of interest in the incoming administration.”
“Alas, your recent public statements and your conduct four years ago provide cold comfort to the American people, who have sought to create continuity and legitimacy in the transition between administrations,” he said, warning the two — whose transition team has already been hit with conflict-of-interest accusations — that not complying could evolve into a national security threat.
“If the new President and the new Administration are not ready to govern on their first day in office, our nation’s adversaries may well see and take advantage of the situation,” he wrote.
Read the full letter here. (snip)
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/where-things-stand/raskin-sends-trump-and-vance-a-warning
Peace & Justice History for 10/23:
| October 23, 1915 33,000 women marched in New York City demanding the right to vote. Known as the “banner parade” because of the multitude of flags and banners carried, it began at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and continued until long after dark, attracting a record-breaking crowd of spectators. Motor cars brought up the rear decorated with Chinese lanterns; once darkness fell, Fifth Avenue was a mass of moving colored lights.  The history of women’s suffrage in the U.S. |
| October 23, 1945 Jackie Robinson and pitcher John Wright were signed by Branch Rickey, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers Baseball Club, to play on a Dodger farm team, the Montreal Royals of the International League.Robinson became the first black baseball player to play on a major league team.  Jackie Robinson |
| October 23, 1947 The NAACP filed formal charges with the United Nations accusing the United States of racial discrimination. “An Appeal to the World,” edited by W.E.B. DuBois, was a factual study of the denial of the right to vote, and grievances against educational discrimination and lack of other social rights. This appeal spurred President Truman to create a civil rights commission. |
| October 23, 1956 The Hungarian revolution began with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets to demand an end to Soviet rule. More than 250,000 people, including students, workers, and soldiers, demonstrated in Budapest in support of the insurrection in Poland, demanding reforms in Hungary.  Hungarian students,1956 Hungarian revolution monumentThe day before, the students had produced a list of sixteen demands, including the removal of Soviet troops, the organization of multi-party democratic elections, and the restoration of freedom of speech. On the evening of the 23rd a large crowd pulled down the statue of Josef Stalin in Felvonulási Square. Hungary 1956 and the Political Revolution More |
| October 23, 1984 The Fact-Finding Board looking into the assassination of Filipino democratic leader Benigno Aquino confirmed that his death was the result of a military conspiracy, and indicted Chief-of-Staff General Fabian Ver, the first cousin of dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos had blamed the chair of the Communist Party for the assassination, despite the fact that Aquino had been in the custody of the Aviation Security Command and surrounded by military personnel as he disembarked from the plane returning him to the Philippines. The chair of the Board, Corazon J. Agrava, was pressured into submitting a minority report clearing General Ver. He and the 25 other military officials charged were all acquitted. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october23
we could all use a Good News Tuesday by Jeff Tiedrich
(More good news, after Scottie’s video, as to the early voting news! Blue language alert, so no reading until you’re not somewhere the f-word is not acceptable. Else scroll just a bit, because of course the first sentence is joyous and contains the f-word. Also, italicized script beneath the suns are by the author, Jeff Tiedrich.)
Kamala’s up and Donny’s down Read on Substack
LA LA LA LA no reading here if you’re at work,
LA LA LA LA no reading here if you’re at work.
LA LA LA LA no reading here if you’re at work,
LA LA LA LA no reading here if you’re at work!
🌞 🌞 🌞 🌞 🌞
Okay. Next line,
fuck this fucking nail-biter of an election. good news is out there — let’s have a look.
undecideds are deciding — and they’re breaking towards Kamala Harris.
A majority of voters (80%) say they made up their minds about which candidate to support over a month ago, while 11% made up their minds in the last month, 6% made up their minds in the past week, and 3% still have not made up their mind.
“Voters who made their decision on who to support over a month ago break for Trump, 52% to 48%, while voters who made up their mind in the last month or week break for Harris, 60% to 36%,” Kimball said. “The three percent of voters who said they could still change their mind currently favor Harris, 48% to 43%.”
I know, right? who could be undecided in a race that’s basically everyone gets a puppy vs diarrhea forever?
but there are huge swaths of votes who just don’t pay attention to politics until the very last minute — and now that they’re finally tuned in, it’s dawning on them that wait, one of the candidates is ass-spraying mayhem? oh, fuck that shit.
think back to 1980. polling showed the race was a dead heat — but in the final weeks, just about every goddamned undecided broke towards Reagan, and what looked like a nail-biter ended up being a blowout.
this year, however, it looks like the fence-sitters are doing the right thing.
hang on, you need some more good polling news? fine, be that way.
Kamala leads dong-obsessed fry chef Donny Convict in favorability by 11 percentage points, while 58% of registered voters fucking loathe Donny.
The nationwide poll, conducted last week, found Harris’s favorability to be significantly higher than Trump’s, with 51 percent of registered voters viewing Harris as a favorable candidate compared to just 40 percent who felt the same about Trump. Independent voters, notably, were equally split on their opinions of Harris, while the majority of independent voters—58 percent—felt negatively about Trump.
don’t forget that this is going to be the first post-Roe national election.
But perhaps no Democratic stance resonated more with voters than abortion, which saw Harris lead Trump by 23 percent.
reproductive rights continues to be a losing issue for Donny, and he’s still bragging about being the guy who shitcanned Roe.
Donny is being abandoned by his base.
white folks who never went to college have long been Donny’s most hardcore cultists — but this year they seem to be suffering from Dear Leader Fatigue.
here’s CNN’s Harry Enten to explain.
“it’s been a key demographic for him — his base. and this is what’s so interesting … in fact, it’s moving away from him. this is Trump’s margin with non-college white voters. this group is not moving towards him. it’s moving slightly away. go back eight years ago, he won it by 33. you go back four years ago, he won it be 31. now we see he’s only up by 27.”
Donny’s losing the people who have been filing out of his hate-rallies early.
after a half hour of listening to him drone on about sharks and batteries and Hannibal Lecter wants to have you for dinner, they turn to their spouse and say Lurleen, let’s go home and see if NASCAR’s on TV.
plus-27 is still a fuck-ton of support from Donny’s base — but in a close election, he can’t afford to lose the additional 6% who voted for him in 2016. these people may never vote for Komrade Kamala, but enough of them may stay home on election day to make a difference.
we’re all worried about post-election fuckery, but let’s not forget that nearly all swing state governors are Democrats.
here’s WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin to talk us all down off that ledge.
Constitutional expert Richard H. Pildes reminded us that scenarios involving mischief by governors are unlikely. “In nearly all the swing states, the governors are Democrats, who are hardly going to be receptive to any entreaties by Trump,” he wrote. Even in Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans, “have done as much under fire as any political officials to prove their commitment to certifying an accurate, lawful count.” And although a few local boards might refuse to certify, there are remedies in court. (A Georgia court recently rejected the notion that officials could refuse to certify results.)
and, on that note, some Arizona dipshit who thought she could fuck around with certifying her state’s 2022 senate race is now learning that finding out truly sucks.
An Arizona County elections official has agreed to plead guilty after she refused to certify the 2022 election in which Kari Lake lost to Katie Hobbs.
The Washington Post reported Monday that Peggy Judd, who helps lead Cochise County southeast of Phoenix, was indicted last year for allegedly “flouting the state’s deadlines” for the 2022 election certification.
actions, consequences. it’s nice when things work out in that order.
Jill Stein might be hurting Donny this year.
perpetual Kremlin dinner guest Jill Stein is like some fucked-up asteroid. every four years, her weird-ass orbit swings her too close to the Earth, and she ends up dicking with the tides and screwing with our electoral magnetic field.
Jilly’s back, but a new poll apparently indicates that this year, she’s taking away votes from Donny.
A new poll suggests that Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is drawing more voters from former President Donald Trump than from Vice President Kamala Harris.
The poll shows Harris leading Trump 49 percent to 47 percent. However, with Stein in the race, Trump’s support dips to 46 percent, while Harris maintains her 49 percent backing, suggesting that Stein draws more support from Trump than from Harris. Though Stein’s voter base remains relatively small, at about 1 percent, it could prove crucial in an election that hinges on tight margins in swing states.
the five innocent and exonerated black men known as the Central Park Five are suing Donny for defamation.
The five men who make up the Central Park Five and now call themselves the Exonerated Five have filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump over his remarks during the presidential debate last month.
During the debate he said: “They admitted — they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately. And if they pled guilty — then they pled we’re not guilty.”
At the time of the trials, each had pleaded not guilty, and the victim of the attack survived.
ok, this one is not election-related news — but it still makes me laugh to see Donny get served another big, fat slice of Justice Pie.
Donny continues to be an increasingly-deteriorating imbecile.
“it’s as big a water— y’know, it’s as big a water-storm, they say, as we’ve ever seen.”
‘water-storm?’ the word is hurricane, you decompensating dotard.
Alexa, what’s aphasia?
Aphasia is a language disorder that affects how you communicate. It’s caused by damage in the area of the brain that controls language expression and comprehension. Aphasia leaves a person unable to communicate effectively with others.
Alexa, can aphasia be a sign of dementia?
what the fuck do you think?
so, there’s lots of good news all around — but as a commenter under yesterday’s post said, “we still have to fight like we’re ten points down.” that person is exactly right. we don’t have the luxury of complacency. that’s how we fucked it up in 2016 — we all thought Hillary’s got this in the bag, and so we blew up the balloons and popped the champagne way too early, and too many of us decided it was totes okay stay home on election day. after all, Nate Silver promised us that Hillary had a 99% chance of victory, right? but polls don’t vote — people do.
this year, we all understand the assignment.
Kamala understands the assignment, too. unlike the email lady in 2016, Kamala and Uncle Tim are hitting all the swing states. meanwhile, Donny Convict is squandering his time doing vanity rallies in places like California and New York — states he hasn’t a snowball’s chance of winning.
14 days to the election. if we vote, we win.
Amazing.
I didn’t know this movie was in the works.
Peace & Justice History for 10/22:
| October 22, 1963 200,000 students boycotted Chicago schools to protest de facto segregation. Why MLK Encouraged 225,000 Chicago Kids to Cut Class in 1963 |
| October 22, 1968 More than 300,000 protesters marked International Antiwar Day in Japan. The U.S. war in Vietnam and the ongoing (since the end of World War II) and massive American military presence on the Japanese island of Okinawa helped swell the ranks of the demonstrators; nearly 1400 were arrested. |
October 22, 1979 The deposed Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, arrived in New York for medical treatment from Mexico. He received permission to do so from the U.S. government (which had installed him as shah in a 1954 coup) despite warning from the newly established Islamic republic in Iran demanding that the Shah be turned over to them for trial. More on the Shah |
| October 22, 1983 Capping a week of protests, more than two million people in six European cities marched against U.S. deployment of Cruise and Pershing nuclear missiles: 1.2 million Germans, including 180,000 in Bonn; a 64-mile human chain between Stuttgart and New Ulm (and Hamburg, W. Berlin); 350,000 Rome; 100,000 Vienna; 25,000 Paris; 20,000 Stockholm; 4000 Dublin; plus 140 sites in U.S. In London, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) held its biggest protest ever against nuclear missiles with an estimated one million people taking part. Read more |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october22
Pacific killer whales have enough food, but are still struggling
October 22, 2024 Evrim Yazgin
Marine biologists have challenged the claim that lack of food is driving a population crash in killer whales in the Pacific Ocean saying boat noise may be the issue.
Killer whales (Orcinus orca) frequent the waters of British Columbia and feed on Chinook salmon.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia in Canada used echosounder data to determine prey salmon densities, as well as discussions with local anglers and whale watching crews in British Columbia, Canada.
There are 2 different populations. One population is local to northern waters. These killer whales have tripled their numbers to about 300 individuals since monitoring began in the 1970s.
The other population inhabits the waters between British Columbia and California to the south. Their numbers fluctuated between 66 and 98 individuals with the latest census putting their numbers at just 73.
“The differing trajectories of these two populations of fish-eating killer whales have been attributed to ecological and biological differences between regions such as prey availability, diet breadth, competition, physical disturbance, underwater noise, contaminants and inbreeding,” the authors write. “However, food availability likely plays the greatest role in limiting their carrying capacities.”
Previous research has shown a correlation between salmon numbers and killer whale population health. But the authors say these studies have never been able to show why the southern population was struggling.
In fact, the southern population of killer whale is the only marine mammal that is struggling in the region. Harbour seals, sea lions, other types of whale and porpoises are all thriving.
Nevertheless lack of access to the Chinook salmon was always put down as the reason for the killer whales’ woes.
But sport anglers told the researchers that they have noticed no drop in salmon numbers. And whale watchers have reported that they have regularly seen the endangered orcas swimming among salmon.
The researchers suggest that the issue isn’t lack of salmon, but that the southern population of killer whales are having trouble catching their prey. This, they say, is likely due to noise from boats. The area where the southern orca population lives has far higher sea traffic than the regions further north.
It’s also possible the orca struggle to hunt at different times of year. They may find enough salmon in summer, but have trouble during spring.
The findings are presented in a paper published in PLOS ONE.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/marine-life/pacific-killer-whale-food/
Scottie's Playtime 