Two boys take part in a Georgia high school walkout demonstration demanding state leaders “protect kids, not guns” on September 20, 2024.

 (Photo: March for Our Lives/Facebook)

Organizer March for Our Lives said the statewide walkouts “speak to the urgency and frustration young people feel after yet another shooting has been met with only ‘thoughts and prayers.'”

BRETT WILKINS

Sep 20, 2024 (CommonDreams.org)

Joined by educators, parents, and gun control advocates, thousands of Georgia students on Friday staged a classroom walkout organized by the youth-led March for Our Lives “to demand a future free from gun violence” following the September 4 mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, the deadliest such event in the state’s history.

March for Our Lives (MFOL)—which was founded in the wake of the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—said that Friday’s walkouts “speak to the urgency and frustration young people feel after yet another shooting has been met with only ‘thoughts and prayers.'”

Two Apalachee students—Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both age 14—and teachers Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie were shot dead by a 14-year-old armed with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle. Nine others were wounded in the attack.

The shooter was arrested and charged with four counts of murder. His father, Colin Gray, was also arrested and charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children for purchasing the gun used in the shooting and giving it to his son.

“Across Georgia, Republican leaders—like those who control the majority on the Cobb Board of Education and both chambers of the Georgia General Assembly—refuse to take commonsense action to protect our communities and our lives from preventable gun violence,” MFOL said.

https://x.com/AMarch4OurLives/status/1837167913817542960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1837167913817542960%7Ctwgr%5E344e56aba6f5229f49c605567e0b190dc55cf04a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fmarch-for-our-lives-georgia

The group continued:

We will never allow our elected officials to forget the senseless act of violence that could have been prevented at Apalachee High School. We will honor the lives of Cristina Irimie, Christian Angulo, Mason Schermerhorn, and Richard Aspinwall with action. Everyone has the fundamental right to feel safe in our schools and our communities, and we will continue to fight until that freedom is a reality for all.

Guns are the No. 1 killer of children and teens in our country, and far too many educators and students go to school with the daily fear that their community could be next. This failure is a choice that our leaders are making for us. Today, we join organizers and students from over 30 high schools all across Georgia in calling on Gov. Brian Kemp, Lieutenant Gov. Burt Jones, and the Georgia General Assembly to commit their support for the passage of the Pediatric Health Safe Storage Act at the start of the 2025 legislative session.

“The Georgia General Assembly and Gov. Brian Kemp, the sad truth is that they have made us feel less safe,” said Saif Hasan, a senior at Lambert High School and county organizing deputy director at the Georgia Youth Justice Coalitionwholed hundreds of students in a walkout on Friday.

“This weekend, we’re going to be out knocking doors in Suwanee, Roswell, and East Cobb to help elect new leaders who will build the future we deserve,” Hasan added. “We’re going to be out talking to Georgians about safe storage to make sure kids my age are never scared to go to school.”

Apalachee High School junior Sasha Contreras said during a Friday walkout rally in Gwinnett that “I wasn’t going to speak today but seeing and hearing everyone’s courage in showing up today and taking action made me realize that my voice was important.”

“There is nothing being done to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again. As a student that has [Advanced Placement] exams at the end of the school year as well as leadership positions, I understand the importance of going back to school,” Contreras added. “However, many of my peers including myself feel anxious about returning with no preventative measures in place.”

March for Our Lives director of organizing Gaby Salazar said that “we are so proud to support this student-led action, but heartbroken that we keep having to walk out of our classes again and again to get our leaders to listen to us.”

“Guns kill more kids than any other cause in the state of Georgia,” Salazar added. “More than cancer, more than car accidents. Even though a sweeping majority of Americans support commonsense gun laws, we know it’s an uphill battle to convince state lawmakers to value our lives over the gun lobby’s money. But young people in Georgia will not stop fighting until gun violence is a relic of the past.”

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BRETT WILKINS

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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Al Jazeera Ramallah bureau chief Walid al-Omari broadcasts as Israeli troops raid and shut down the network’s operations on September 22, 2021.

 (Photo: Al Jazeera screen grab)

“Why would Israel shut Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah?” asked one human rights defender. “Because it has been the center of Al Jazeera’s reporting on Israeli repression—the apartheid—in the occupied West Bank.”

BRETT WILKINS

Sep 22, 2024 (CommonDreams.org)

Press freedom advocates accused Israel of “trying to erase the truth” after heavily armed soldiers raided Al Jazeera‘s bureau in the West Bank of Palestine early Sunday morning and ordered the outlet—which has been the world’s sole media window on the Gaza genocide—to shut down for 45 days.

Al Jazeera—which is owned by the Qatari government—said Israel Defense Forces troops stormed its bureau in Ramallah, the capital of the illegally occupied West Bank, at 3:00 am Sunday during a live broadcast. IDF troops confiscated documents and equipment and took the microphone from the hand of bureau chief Walid al-Omari as he reported on the raid.

The network—which was ordered to cease operations for 45 days—said the soldiers tore down a poster of Shireen Abu Akleh, the renowned Palestinian-American Al Jazeera correspondent who was shot dead by Israeli troops in May 2022 while covering an IDF raid on the Jenin refugee camp.

“This is part of a larger campaign against the Palestinian outlets and media in general aimed at erasing the truth,” al-Omari said in an interview with Al Araby Al Jadeed. “We’ve been under increasing incitement since the beginning of the war.”

https://x.com/AJEnglish/status/1837861912219934725?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1837861912219934725%7Ctwgr%5E962986711f138e28b4f0a07fbf3b13f8b4736bb5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fal-jazeera-west-bank

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned the shutdown as an “arbitrary military decision” and “a new aggression against journalistic work and media outlets.”

Israel’s Foreign Press Association said it is “deeply troubled by this escalation, which threatens press freedom, and urges the Israeli government to reconsider these actions,” adding that “restricting foreign reporters and closing news channels signals a shift away from democratic values.”

The IDF acknowledged the raid later Sunday, claiming without evidence that Al Jazeera‘s Ramallah bureau was “being used to incite terror [and] to support terrorist activities.”

Sunday’s raid followed a May raid and shutdown of Al Jazeera‘s Jerusalem bureau, which is believed to be the first such action against a foreign media outlet operating in Israel.

https://x.com/KenRoth/status/1837826142058729822?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1837826142058729822%7Ctwgr%5E962986711f138e28b4f0a07fbf3b13f8b4736bb5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fal-jazeera-west-bank

Responding to the raid, Carlos Martínez de la Serna, program director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said that the group “is deeply alarmed by Israel’s closure of Al Jazeera‘s office in the occupied West Bank, just months after it shuttered Al Jazeera‘s operations in Israel after deeming it a threat to national security.”

Al Jazeera is the only international news network providing nonstop on-the-ground coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza. Its reporters work under constant risk to life and limb, as more than 100 media professionals, the vast majority of them Palestinians, have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7. CPJ and others say have decried what they say are deliberate attacks on media workers and their families.

In December, Israeli troops killedAl Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa as he reported on the war in southern Gaza, an attack that also injured the network’sGaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, whose wife, son, daughter, and grandson were killed in a separate IDF strike.

Previous independent probes—including investigations of Abu Akleh’s killing—have confirmed that Israel has deliberately targeted journalists.

Last May, CPJ published Deadly Pattern, an investigation that found the IDF killed at least 20 journalists over the past 22 years with impunity. While some of the slain journalists have been foreigners—including Italian Associated Press reporter Simone Camilli and British cameraman and filmmaker James Miller—the vast majority of victims have been Palestinian.

Israeli forces have also attacked newsrooms in every major assault on Gaza, including in May 2021 when the 11-story al-Jalaa Tower, which housed offices of Al Jazeera, The Associated Press, and other media outlets, was destroyed in an airstrike.

U.S. investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill pointed out Sunday that Al Jazeera has also been targeted by American forces during the so-called War on Terror. He noted that U.S. forces “bombed its facilities, killed its Baghdad correspondent, and locked a cameraman in Guantánamo.”

“Israel has repeated this pattern,” Scahill added. “All journalists must condemn these violent assaults on freedom of the press.”

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BRETT WILKINS

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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David Feldman • Streamed live on Sep 20, 2024 • Full Episodes Of The David Feldman ShowDavid does The News for September 21, 2024

Green Bay Sweep (politics)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about a plot to overthrow the 2020 US Presidential election. For the American football play made famous by the Green Bay Packers, see Packers sweep.

The Green Bay Sweep is the name of a procedural strategy to attempt to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election advocated by Peter Navarro. He outlined the plot in a book published in November 2021^[1] and spoke about it in multiple media interviews. It took its name from the Packers sweep, where the Green Bay Packers of the 1950s and ’60s, led by Vince Lombardi, would flood a zone with blockers, allowing the football to be advanced dependably behind them. In the political iteration, devised by Steve Bannon, the Electoral College vote count would be blocked by repeated challenges to various state’s vote counts by Republican members of the House and Senate favorable to Donald Trump. Each challenge could take up to two hours of debate by each chamber, individually, leading to as much of 24 hours of televised hearings.^[2]

The Green Bay Sweep was intended to implement a strategy laid out by the Eastman memos for the purpose of overturning election results such that Donald J. Trump would be designated as president for a second term.^{[citation needed]}

According to the plan, public pressure created by the delay would lead state legislatures in six key battleground states with Republican-dominated legislatures – Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada – to de-certify election results, with the intended outcome that Trump would have more certified electoral college votes than the election’s actual winner, Joe Biden.

Trump supported the strategy,^[3][4] but Pence rejected it,^[5] and the plan was dependent on Pence’s participation. It was difficult to pressure Pence, said Navarro, because all communication passed through his chief of staff, Marc Short, who had been president of the Koch Brothers-funded Freedom Partners.^[2]

It was like the Soviet Union taking over Eastern Europe. As an Iron Koch Curtain fell over the vice president, the only way you could speak to VPOTUS was to go through Short.

— Peter Navarro^[2]

January 6, 2021

Republican legislators initially followed the plan. Recalling January 6, 2021, Navarro said that “Sen. Ted Cruz and [Arizona Rep.] Paul Gosar started the Green Bay Sweep” at 1 p.m. by challenging Arizona’s election results and that over a hundred Republicans in the House and Senate were available to participate. He told this to MSNBC host Ari Melber in a January 4, 2022 interview.^[6]

After proceedings were interrupted by the January 6 Capitol attack, Pence cited the violence as a rationale for blocking further challenges.^[2]

Indictment of Navarro

Further information: United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack

Though Navarro spoke to MSNBC host Ari Melber on January 4, 2022, several weeks after his book was released,^[6] he defied a February 2022 subpoena from the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack,^[7] citing executive privilege. The full House sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress. Navarro was arrested, indicted on two counts of contempt, and convicted of both counts on September 8, 2023. ^[8][9][10]

More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Sweep_(politics)

Rolling Stone article: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jan6-peter-navarro-ted-cruz-green-bay-sweep-1276742/

MSNBC Sep 18, 2024 • Friday, September 20th, MSNBC Films presents “From Russia with Lev,” executive produced by Rachel Maddow and directed by Billy Corben. Featuring former Trump insider Lev Parnas, the new documentary pulls back the curtain on the Ukraine scheme that got the former President impeached the first time. Watch “From Russia with Lev” Friday, September 20th at 9pm ET on MSNBC. “From Russia with Lev” is a production from MSNBC Films, rakontur, UTAS, and Surprise Inside. » Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc

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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) heads to the House floor for a vote on September 18, 2024. 

(Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

“As long as House Republicans continue pushing Project 2025 funding bills, they will continue pushing our nation towards a government shutdown,” said Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle.

JAKE JOHNSON

Sep 19, 2024 (CommonDreams.org)

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday rejected a GOP resolution that would have punted a fight over government funding until after the next president takes office and pushed through a noxious voter suppression measure backed by Republican nominee Donald Trump.

The final vote was 202-220, with 14 Republicans joining nearly every member of the House Democratic caucus in voting against the legislation. GOP opponents of the bill included far-right lawmakers who want to slash spending.

Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Don Davis (D-N.C.), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) broke with their party and backed the Republican continuing resolution, which would have largely extended government funding at current levels into March.

With Trump’s backing, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) agreed to attach to the continuing resolution the SAVE Act, legislation purportedly aimed at preventing noncitizens from voting—which is already illegal. Voting rights advocates have condemned the SAVE Act as an “unnecessary and dangerous” bill that would “make it harder for voters of color and naturalized citizens to register to vote.”

“Instead of working with Democrats to fund the government, House Republicans tied themselves into knots trying to give Trump what he wants.”

House Democrats said Wednesday that the failure of the GOP continuing resolution was an inevitable consequence of the party’s decision to push extremist spending bills instead of working on a bipartisan solution to government funding.

The government will shut down on October 1 unless Congress acts. Johnson said leading up to Wednesday’s vote that there is “no Plan B.”

“Once again, the House Republican majority has failed at its most basic tasks while trying to force Trump’s extreme and unpopular Project 2025 agenda on the American people,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee. “Everyone in Washington, Democrats and Republicans, knew this ill-conceived continuing resolution was destined to fail. Why we spent a week and a half considering a partisan bill, just days from a government shutdown, is beyond comprehension.”

“We have seven legislative days to keep the government open,” she continued. “The time to begin negotiations on a continuing resolution that can gain the support of Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate was last week—but right now will suffice, if Republicans are willing to meet us at the table and actually govern.”

Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said late Wednesday that “as long as House Republicans continue pushing Project 2025 funding bills, they will continue pushing our nation towards a government shutdown.”

“Trump said he’d ‘shut down the government in a heartbeat‘ to push his Project 2025 agenda—and instead of working with Democrats to fund the government, House Republicans tied themselves into knots trying to give Trump what he wants,” said Boyle. “Just as they’ve done for the last two years, House Republicans have proven they’re more interested in imposing Trump’s dangerous agenda than lifting a finger to help middle-class families and keep our government open. American families deserve better than this extreme bill and they deserve better than House Republicans.”

Democratic lawmakers are reportedly expected to propose a clean three-month extension of government funding to avert a shutdown and buy time to negotiate a longer-term deal on government spending.

Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, DeLauro warned that House Republicans believe delaying the government funding fight until March 2025 would give them “more leverage to force their unpopular cuts to services that American families depend on to make ends meet.”

“This bill is an admission that a House Republican majority cannot govern,” said DeLauro. “They would rather gamble on an intervening election than attempt to complete their work on time.”

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JAKE JOHNSON

Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

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Former president Donald Trump looks on as Sean O’Brien, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters speaks at Fiserv Forum on Sunday, July 15, 2024, on the first day of the Republican National Convention in downtown Milwaukee, Wis.

 (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“This election is too important for our union not to do its duty,” said the former labor leader of his successor.

JON QUEALLY

Sep 20, 2024 (CommonDreams.org)

The former longtime president of the International Brother of Teamsters, James P. Hoffa, called out his successor Sean O’Brien late Thursday over the powerful union’s announcement earlier in the week that it would effectively sit on the sidelines of this year’s presidential election by refusing to endorse either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.

“This is a critical error and frankly, a failure of leadership by Sean O’Brien,” Hoffa said in a statement. “This election is too important for our union not to do its duty. We must take a stand for working Americans. There is only one candidate in this race that has supported working families and unions throughout their career, and that is Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Before retiring as leader of the Teamsters in 2022, Hoffa—whose father was the high-profile union leader Jimmy Hoffa who went mysteriously missing in 1975—served as president for over two decades. O’Brien, known for his brash style and was roundly criticized for speaking at this year’s Republican National Convention, took over as Teamsters president the same year Hoffa left.

“In the Teamsters’ messy handling of a presidential endorsement, O’Brien has appeared weak, short-sighted, and feckless.”

On Wednesday, as Common Dreams reported, the Teamsters announced they would withhold an endorsement after polling of its members showed that neither Harris nor Trump had overwhelming support.

Due to Trump’s pronounced and consistent hostility to organized labor and fealty to the corporate class, however, most major unions have treated his potential return to the White House as an existential threat to working people and their families.

As veteran labor reporter Steven Greenhouse wrote this week for Slate:

Trump is an unarguably anti-union candidate. He once said he’d sign a national right-to-work law, he’s denounced prominent labor leaders like UAW president Shawn Fain, and he’s embraced extremely anti-union business leaders including Elon Musk. Trump recently launched a missile at organized labor’s heart by praising the idea of firing striking workers (even though that is illegal under federal law). Three days after O’Brien—in an unusual step for a union leader—spoke at the Republican National Convention to urge the GOP to be nicer to labor, Trump kicked unions in the teeth in his acceptance speech by mocking the United Auto Workers.

Following the announcement by the Teamsters’ national leadership, a slew of Teamster locals across the nation, including in key battleground states, rushed their endorsements of Harris out the door.

“Teamsters regional councils—representing hundreds of thousands of members and retirees—in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and western Pennsylvania—endorsed Harris” just hours after O’Brien’s announcement, reported the Washington Post’s labor correspondent Lauren Kaori Gurley.

“Separately,” Gurley added, “powerful local Teamsters unions in Philadelphia; New York City; Long Beach, Calif.; and Miami—as well as the union’s National Black Caucus and a group of retirees—have endorsed Harris and urged members to vote for her.”

In his statement endorsing the Democratic ticket, William Hamilton, president of the Pennsylvania Conference of Teamsters, said: “In the 45 years the PA Conference of Teamsters has been in existence, it is extremely rare to have a pro-labor candidate for president and a pro-labor candidate for vice president running together. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are exactly that team.”

What stood out to Greenhouse about the nature of the Teamsters’ internal polling, which did show broad support for Trump, comes back around to what Hoffa termed a “failure of leadership” when it comes to O’Brien. He wrote:

That internal survey showing so many Teamsters backing Trump highlighted something else: The union’s leadership must have done a dreadful job informing and educating rank-and-file members about how hugely anti-union Trump is and how aggressively anti-union and anti-worker Trump’s first administration was (and appointees were). Also, Teamster leaders evidently also failed to explain to rank-and-file members that Harris has fought for policy after policy strongly backed by the Teamsters and other unions, including the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which is the labor movement’s No. 1 legislative priority and would make it considerably easier for the Teamsters and other unions to organize. Trump opposes the PRO Act. Harris also supported the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which together will create hundreds of thousands of good-paying union jobs for Teamsters and other union members. Harris, unlike Trump, also supports increasing the pathetically low $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage to at least $15.

“When Sean O’Brien ran to be president of the mighty Teamsters union, he promised to be a strong leader,” concluded Greenhouse. “But in the Teamsters’ messy handling of a presidential endorsement, O’Brien has appeared weak, short-sighted, and feckless.”

Crucially, he added, O’Brien “failed to provide strong leadership on one of his most important tests: to get his union’s rank-and-file and board to reject anti-union Trump” and embrace the Harris, the clear pro-worker candidate in the race.

If Trump ultimately wins, Greenhouse said, the snub of Harris may be something O’Brien and the Teamsters “end up regretting because a second Trump administration will probably be even more of a danger to unions (and democracy) than the first one.”

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JON QUEALLY

Jon Queally is managing editor of Common Dreams.

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By Kasia Pawlowska,Local Editor Sep 21, 2024 (SFGate.com)

901 Market St., the new campaign headquarters of the San Francisco Democratic Party.Charles Russo

Downtown San Francisco may be freshly free of thousands of lanyard-clad Dreamforce attendees, but there’s still a flurry of activity at one central intersection: 901 Market St., on the corner of Market and 5th Street. The building, originally constructed in 1912, had been empty since July of last year, when Nordstrom Rack closed. It now has a new purpose, serving as the campaign headquarters for the San Francisco Democratic Party.

Another Ross Dress for Less could be opening at 901 Market Street in San Francisco, where Nordstrom Rack was once located. The new store would be a block away from one of its existing locations at 799 Market Street. Google Street View

The headquaers, sporting colorful, hand-painted signs evocative of the folksy, grassroots campaigning of yesteryear, are plainly visible to the countless pedestrians who pass it daily. Able to accommodate more than 1,000 volunteers in the 45,000-square-foot historic building, this local HQ opened just in time for the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump several weeks ago, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.)

Inside the building, volunteers are making calls, trying to sway voters in crucial Central Valley Congressional districts — CA-22 (Rudy Salas) and CA-13 (Adam Gray). Both in-person and virtual phone shifts are available.

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After the election, the building may be going back to its frugal shopping roots, and could become Market Street’s second Ross Dress for Less location, as previously reported by the San Francisco Business Times. According to San Francisco Planning, no “character-defining features nor original materials will be removed” from the historic Renaissance/Baroque building. 

SFGATE reached out to Ross for comment. The company was unable to comment on that location, but said that “as the store nears their opening date, a Grand Opening Banner will be hung on the front of the building identifying the grand opening date.” Hopefully, the banner will be as heartfelt and festooned with balloons as the DNC one.
 
SFGATE also reached out to Hudson Pacific Properties, the real estate company that is leasing the space, to find out more about its next tenant, but did not hear back by publication time.

More Local

— Lawsuit filed after ‘thousands’ infected at Tough Mudder race in Bay Area
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Sep 21, 2024

Kasia Pawlowska

LOCAL EDITOR

Kasia Pawlowska is the local editor at SFGATE. Her story about social media addiction won a Western Publishing Association (WPA) Maggie award in 2019 and she also received an award for Overall Editorial Excellence issued by Folio Magazine that same year. Kasia lives in the Sunset District with her husband and dog. Send her an email at kasia.pawlowska@sfgate.com.

Katie DeBenedetti

Sep 21, 2024 (KQED.org)

From “property of antifa” to “the woke agenda,” college football memes leaning into the UC Berkeley stereotype have gone viral thanks to the “Calgorithm.” (Illustration by Darren Tu/KQED)

Auburn University football fans felt pretty good going into a home game against UC Berkeley this month. After all, Cal — an afterthought in the power conference realignment that blew up the Pac-12 and rocked college athletics — was traveling to the heart of the Southeastern Conference, where fans say “it just means more.”

Unfortunately for the Tigers faithful, they seemed to have poked the wrong bear: X’s “Calgorithm.”

College football smack talk is nothing new; many schools have a coalition of fan accounts that post memes, scores and predictions ahead of Saturday games. But the posts coming out of Cal Twitter, as the community on the social media platform now called X is known, have quickly garnered national attention amid the Golden Bears’ hot start.

Before the teams’ Sept. 7 matchup, Auburn and Cal fans jabbed back and forth on social media, with some pro-Auburn posts remarking that Cal wasn’t likely to have a big group of supporters traveling to the game. They were “likely too busy thinking of a new woke topic that hurts their feels to travel to Alabama,” one X user said.

But Cal pulled off an upset 21-14 win at Jordan-Hare Stadium — now “property of antifa,” as one meme declared — where the stands seemed to have a small but mighty blue and gold contingency. Cal Twitter responded, leaning into the “woke” stereotypes about Berkeley.

“The reputation that Cal has as a fairly left leaning progressive institution since a long time ago — people try to use it against us, especially in the South,” said Mike Davie, known as “Mike the Hot Dog Mayor” on X.

“We kind of flipped the script on that, like, ‘That’s right, and we’re coming armed with pronouns and woke flags.’”

After the game, a meme showing a Democratic-winning election map overlaid with images of Kamala Harris, a rainbow, players including quarterback Fernando Mendoza, and mascot Oski the bear circulated within Cal’s community of “burner” accounts on X. “You just lost to the woke agenda,” it declared.

https://x.com/golDonbear/status/1832555206569292233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1832555206569292233%7Ctwgr%5Efc8a99fa0f14edb6037bc63064f84e24194d8c32%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kqed.org%2Fnews%2F12005663%2Fwoke-cal-twitter-is-taking-over-college-football-meet-its-extremely-online-posters

More memes started flowing, riffing on jokes about Cal students’ reputations for holding far-left and even communist beliefs.

“Pretty quickly it went from just like small California or Alabama stereotypes to just full on ‘We’re going to make fun of you for being quote-unquote “out of touch,” and then at the same time, we’re going to make fun of ourselves a little bit for for going a little too far into the woke ideology,’” said the person behind the X account “Liberal Calgorithm,” who uses the handle @wokemobfootball to keep posts separate from work and personal life and did not want to be identified. “I think by the time we had won, all hell had broken loose, and the ‘Antifa Stadium’ [meme] had been dropped.”

Now, Bears fans are focused on another road trip to unfamiliar territory ahead of Saturday afternoon’s game at Florida State. The memes have included AI-generated photos of FSU fans cheering while holding rainbow Pride flags at Tallahassee’s Doak Campbell Stadium — make that “Woke” Campbell Stadium — and promoting spirit game themes like “pronoun awareness” and “pride celebration.”

https://x.com/HaasOfOtt/status/1835902311018770551?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1835902311018770551%7Ctwgr%5Efc8a99fa0f14edb6037bc63064f84e24194d8c32%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kqed.org%2Fnews%2F12005663%2Fwoke-cal-twitter-is-taking-over-college-football-meet-its-extremely-online-posters

Cal has had a surprisingly strong season so far, going 3-0 ahead of its Atlantic Coast Conference debut, while FSU, a preseason top-10 team, is 0-3.

On X, the Bears have been even more dominant. “Never seen a fanbase so organized and so locked in on trolling their opponents,” one college football fan from Iowa posted. “Hand Cal the natty, they’ve earned it.”

While Cal’s presence in the football Twittersphere has exploded recently, the “burner community,” as Davie refers to them, has been around for years, posting memes and interacting online with one another and with the separate “Write for California” Substack, which says it posts content by, for, and about the Golden Bears.

One of the burners’ first coordinated meme campaigns came last year when the football team hired former interim head coach Jake Spavital to be the new offensive coordinator after the 2022 season.

“He was very public that he’s going to target offensive linemen, [also known as] hogs,” Davie said. The meme on many burner accounts became centered on the team needing more offensive linemen for Spavital, or #hogs4spav, the Daily Cal reported.

Lots of burners have been around since then, but even more have joined the ranks in the past few weeks.

The person behind the @wokemobfootball account grew up as a Cal fan and has attended a few games a year since college, but she said she didn’t end up in the Calgorithm until this season after “Cal tweets started creeping up on my main Twitter page.”

https://x.com/wokemobfootball/status/1835698640113029631?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1835698640113029631%7Ctwgr%5Efc8a99fa0f14edb6037bc63064f84e24194d8c32%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kqed.org%2Fnews%2F12005663%2Fwoke-cal-twitter-is-taking-over-college-football-meet-its-extremely-online-posters

To the outside world, many of the burners are anonymous, but @wokemobfootball said they have group chats where they workshop memes, quote tweet and comment on each other’s content actively, and even meet up IRL.

Davie said he started going to “Write for California” tailgates and met other burners there.

“That becoming the burner tailgate is something that just happened this year,” he said.

The team has even gotten in on the action, he said. Team staffers Marshall Cherrington and Benji Palu have dropped by one of their tailgates, and the quarterback, Mendoza, appeared for a post-game interview wearing a T-shirt from a line started by one of the burners.

One player’s dad even said he thought the memes about his son were hilarious.

Davie said being connected to the wider community helps make sure that burners are kept in check when they post edgier jokes.

‘I’m Done’ — Fans Disappointed as Stanford and UC Berkeley Join Atlantic Coast Conference

Many of the accounts meme-ing about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and communist ideology are also interspersed with left-leaning political content — links to Kamala Harris’s campaign website, for example, and a repost of the Miami Heat denouncing disproved claims about Haitian immigrants after former President Donald Trump falsely said during a Sept. 10 debate that they were eating pets in Ohio.

“I think one of the best ways that we have of ensuring that we toe the line is that we do have a very diverse group of people in our community who all have very wildly different experiences and can kind of jump in,” @wokemobfootball said. “What we aim not to do is punch down on people, whether they’re people of color or gay or trans — the point of the joke is mostly specifically to make fun of the other person’s ideology.”

While the torrent of posts threatening to bring communist football and California’s woke agenda doesn’t seem likely to let up anytime soon, Davie said at the end of the day, it’s all for the love of the game.

“If this whole thing was for a Cal [versus] Florida State game in Berkeley this Saturday, we would welcome Florida State fans,” he said. “’Hey, have a beer, have a shot of Malört, we have a massive food spread and enjoy yourselves.’ We’re good people here.”

By Janet Kobren

Okay, it’s been over a week since I posted my last digest, and so much has happened (Warning from Scott Ritter; SMO continues/BRICS preparations; Kozin on Russia beefing up its Armed Forces; geopolitics with Pepe Escobar, Larry Johnson, The Duran, Matt Hoh, and Amb. Chas Freeman; Israeli trojan horse terrorism in Lebanon and Hezbollah responds; Craig Mokhiber on Western media’s culpability and a colonizer’s claim of “self defense;” horrors of genocide against Palestinians continue; Netanyahu continues escalation; another step in the Biden Genocide Case; a self-immolation attempt; CIA and ISIS in Syria connection; wisdom and outrage from Shahid Bolsen, Lisa Savage, and Jonathan Cook; Richard Wolff on multipolarity; Official statement by Chairman Omali Yeshitela on behalf of the Uhuru 3, including Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel; new moves to shut down the Uhuru movement; more moves to shut down free speech; Radhika Desai on the rise of the authoritarian right; Victoria Nuland “confession;” Danny Haiphong reports from Xinjiang and interviews Chinese Imam; massacres in Haiti; the U.S. elections drama; and more). Items piled up and I got behind in organizing them (long story and apologies). So I’m sharing them all, more or less in the order of the above listing (there’s a lot of overlap) with the understanding that you may already have seen much of this. Janet

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Item#1

Scott Ritter: 72 Minutes To The Planet’s Complete Extinction [Length: 17:45]

Host: Gegenpol

September 20, 2024

[Note from JK: Questions in German with English subtitles, answers in English.]

Item#2

Copy/pasted below my name at the bottom are Dr. Vladimir Kozin’s two latest reports, Report # 319. RUSSIA INCREASED THE SIZE OF ITS ARMED FORCES for September 17, covering:

1. Moscow has beefed up its Armed Forces

2. More Ukrainian troops in the Kursk Region became KIA

and Report # 320. Kozin’s interview on various Ukrainian issues for September 21. Note that Dr. Kozin is referred to as Vladimir Petrovich in the interview, his Russian patronymic name.

The highlighting is his.

Dr. Kozin is a Moscow-based Russian military expert and researcher who publishes these reports.

Item#3

Pepe Escobar: BRICS Summit in Kazan – Ukraine on the Edge of Collapse? – Israel vs. Hezbollah [Length: 1:02:20]

Host: Nima R. Alkhorshid/Dialogue Works 

September 20, 2024

Item#4

Larry C. Johnson: Ukraine’s Offensive Failing? Russia Makes Major Gains! – Israel in Grave Troubles [Length: 51:15]

Host: Nima R. Alkhorshid/Dialogue Works 

September 16, 2024

Item#5

Pepe Escobar : Russia, China, and Global Cooperation [Length: 27:48]

Host: Judge Napolitano – Judging Freedom

September 10, 2024

Item#6

UKRAINE ceasefire and the negotiation trap [Length: 31:31]

Co-Hosts: Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris/The Duran                                              

September 10, 2024

Item#7

Capt Matthew Hoh: Answers Questions On Military Conflicts* #realtruthtalk1 #AngryWarhawk [Length: 1:24:29]

Co-Hosts: Juan Rodriguez/RealTruthTalk and Angry (James) Warhawk

September 19, 2024

Item#8

Amb. Chas Freeman: Israel’s Ultimate Downfall Coming? – Ukraine Fanciful? [Length: 46:42]

Host: Nima R. Alkhorshid/Dialogue Works 

September 20, 2024

Item#9

IDF Mass Warning: IT’S IMMINENT | Hizbullah’s “Sunni” Ally: “EXECUTE Them All & ATTACK Israel Now!” [Length: 14:57]

Host: Mahmood OD | محمود عودة

September 21, 2024

Item#10

Haifa, Ramat David Base, Nazerath Areas HIT WITH HEAVY MISSILES BY HIZBULLAH | Live + [Length: 30:28]

Host: Mahmood OD | محمود عودة

September 21, 2024

Item#11

100,000 IRAQI Fighters To LEBANON | US Is LEADING The War Expansion | COLLAPSING The West Bank [Length: 23:06]

Host: Mahmood OD | محمود عودة

September 20, 2024

Item#12

Gallant: We Entered A New Phase | 14 Lebanese Killed & 450 Wounded In Funerals & Public Spaces [Length: 1:29:04]

Host: Mahmood OD | محمود عودة

September 18, 2024

[Note from JK: In every long podcast Mahmood OD does he starts out with a 15-20-minute presentation and analysis and then opens it up for Q&A responding to posts by members of his “community,” usually all very interesting.]

Item#13

““Absolute chaos and mayhem across Lebanon” after exploding pagers kill at least 9 and wound 2,800, in what @KimGhattas says is “clearly a targeted attack by Israel against Hezbollah operatives.” The Israeli military is refusing to comment on the explosions.“

X post by Christiane Amanpour @amanpour

September 17, 2024

[Note from JK: 1.5-minute report embedded inside the post.]

Item#14

If Israel can do this, why can’t Russia do that? [Length: 1:49]

Host: George Galloway

September 21, 2024

Item#15

EXPOSED: How Western Media Can Be Prosecuted For It’s Role In Gaza Genocide | Craig Mokhiber [Length: 28:05]

Host: Ahmed Alnaouq/Palestine Deep Dive

September 20, 2024

Item#16

Israel Turns The Page(r) On October 7

Whose well-renumerated betrayal led to Hezbollah receiving a tainted order of new pagers?

By Lisa Savage/Lisa’s Substack

September 18, 2024

[Note from JK: LS’s informative blogpost includes links to items by Caitlin Johnstone and Lowkey, both well worth looking at.]

Item#17

Israel Crossed All Lines | 3,000 Lebanese Casualties In BARBARIC Attack | SHOCKING RESPONSE Awaits [Length: 17:11]

Host: Mahmood OD | محمود عودة

September 17, 2024

Item#18

Lebanon Pager EXPLOSION With Lebanese Journalist Rania Khalek + Craig Mokhiber On Self Defense [Length: 1:09:05 (I started this at the Craig Mokhiber segment; scroll back for Rania Khalek.)]]

Host: Katie Halper

September 17, 2024

Item#19

Exploding Pagers: Israel’s latest terrorist attack in Lebanon [Length: 32:05]

Host: Dimitri Lascaris

Guest: Laith Marouf

September 17, 2024

Item#20 

Capt Matthew Hoh: Answers Questions On Military Conflicts* #realtruthtalk1 [Length: 1:24:29]

Host: Juan Rodriguez (RealTruthTalk) and Angry (James) Warhawk

September 19, 2024

Item#21 

Here we go! Middle East about to EXPLODE, Diddy arrested, Trump Shooter groomed | Redacted Live [Length: 1:21:09]

Host: Redacted

Guest: Scott Ritter

September 17, 2024

[Note from JK: SR weighs in on the pager attack.]

Item#22

Middle East In Depth With Laith Marouf Episode 26 – Yemen Goes Hypersoic [Length: 46:44]

Host: Garland Nixon

September 17, 2024

[Note from JK: This was apparently aired prior to the pager attack.]

Item#23

Breaking news and analysis on day 348 of Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Flood | The Electronic Intifada Podcast [Length: 2:31:01]

Co-Hosts: Ali Abunimah, Nora Barrows-Friedman, Jon Elmer, and Asa Winstanley/The Electronic Intifada

Guests: Huda Aomori and Max Geller/Palestine Action (UK)

September 18, 2024 

Some segments:

@18:17 a segment on Palestine Action UK including disabling Elbit in the UK

@1:10:29 Jon Elmer’s coverage of the pager attacks against Hezbollah

Item#24

Prof. Mohammad Marandi: Israel DESTROYED as Iran, Hezbollah, and Regional Allies Wreck IDF [Length: 1:33:48]

Host: Danny Haiphong

September 13, 2024

Item#25

Sinwar’s Letter To Nasrallah: PLAN REVEALED | Hamas Runs Gaza | 8200 Massacre | IL Electricity Down [Length: 17:36]

Host: Mahmood OD | محمود عودة

September 13, 2024

Item#26

Tanks To LEBANON | Unit 8200 Head “Resigns” After HIZBULLAH Targeted Him | Hamas DESTROYED In Rafah? [Length: 17:41]

Host: Mahmood OD | محمود عودة

September 12, 2024

Item#27

LEAKED: Netanyahu’s DIRECT TALKS With 2ND LARGEST Palestinian Resistance Movement | Live + [Length: 57:15]

Host: Mahmood OD | محمود عودة

September 11, 2024

Item#28

Biden Genocide Case: Legal Experts, Ex-Diplomats, Human and Civil Rights Groups Urge Court to Review Palestinians’ Claims That Biden Is Enabling Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

District court judge found “plausible” case of genocide but dismissed lawsuit on jurisdiction grounds 

Source: Center for Constitutional Rights press release

September 10, 2024

Item#29

IDF Troops Hospitalized From Hizbullah Attack | The Mawassi Massacre 2: Israeli Death Cult Bloodlust [Length: 14:46]

Host: Mahmood OD | محمود عودة

September 10, 2024

Item#30

Gallant On The Lebanese Borders: “BE PREPARED To Carry Out This Mission” | ALL-OUT-WAR [Length: 1:26]

Host: Mahmood OD | محمود عودة

September 10, 2024

Item#31

IDF Forces In Gaza ATTACKED FROM EGYPT! | Israel Responds: “IT HAPPENED & WE’RE INVESTIGATING” [Length: 4:18]

Host: Mahmood OD | محمود عودة

September 9, 2024

Item#32

The Shocking Link Between CIA and ISIS in Syria REVEALED by Kevork Almassian | Syriana Analysis [Length: 1:06:00]

Host: Larry Johnson/Counter Currents

September 20, 2024

[Note from JK: KA talks about his life background. He is an Armenian Christian Syrian who lives in exile in Germany and he talks about his journey there from Syria. Something he said was memorable to me, “In Syria people live to have fun.” Apparently Syrians manage to do that even with all the danger they live under. But is that a reasonable approach to life for those of us who live in the empire whose “fun” it is to harm people?]

Item#33

Middle East In Depth With Laith Marouf – Episode 25 – New Israeli Massacre And Attack On Syria [Length: 1:01:22]

Host: Garland Nixon

September 10, 2024

Item#34

IDF KILLS American In The West Bank [Length: 16:55]

Host: Sabrina Salvati (Sabby Sabs)

September 9, 2024

Item#35

Mapping 11 months of Israel-Lebanon cross-border attack

Israel, Hezbollah and other Lebanese groups have exchanged more than 9,613 attacks between October 7 and September 6.

By Mohammed Hussein/Al Jazeera

September 11, 2024

Item#36

Madafeh — Dr Khalil Khalidy – Live from Gaza [Length: 1:19:03]

Host: Palestine Museum US

Co-Hosts: Faisal Saleh and Christa Bruhn/Palestine Museum US

Other guests: Dr. Noor Amin, Dr. Hina Syed, Dr. Mads Gilbert

September 9, 2024

Item#37

Cowards Drop Bunker Buster Bombs On Safe Zone Tents

While Ghouls Help & Profit

By Lisa Savage/Lisa’s Substack

September 10, 2024

Item#38

Man Self-Immolates in Front of Israeli Consulate in Boston

“It is done to wake us up”

By Sam Husseini

September 13, 2024

[Note from JK: An Instagram video by the man, Matt Nelson, right before the act can be found here.]

Item#39

Hushed Up Self-Immolation Over Gaza At Boston’s Israel Consulate

Matt Nelson’s statement is remarkably similar to that of Aaron Bushnell

By Lisa Savage/Lisa’s Substack

September 14, 2024

Item#40

Breaking news and analysis on day 341 of Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Flood | The Electronic Intifada Podcast [on Twitch] [Length: 03:36:33 (content starts @35:50)]

Co-Hosts: Ali Abunimah, Nora Barrows-Friedman, Jon Elmer, and Asa Winstanley/The Electronic Intifada

Guest: Matt Kennard/Declassified UK 

September 11, 2024

[Note from JK: YouTube has restricted TEI from livestreaming for 7 days, a punitive freeze for 3 of its videos that YouTube has taken down for violation of its “community guidelines!” See TEI’s statement on its YouTube channel here.]

Item#41

Daniel P. Welch: The West’s EPIC Failures in Ukraine & Israel EXPOSED! [Length: 54:03]

Host: Nima R. Alkhorshid/Dialogue Works 

September 16, 2024

Item#42

Iranian Prof. Ends Piers Morgan’s Career! – Heated Israel-Palestine Debate [Length: 10:55]

Source: The Daily Reminder

September 7, 2024

Item#43

If this is not genoc**e then I’m a Dutchman [Length: 2:02]

Host: George Galloway

September 14, 2024

Item#44

Western word games

Shahid Bolsen/Middle Nation

July 3, 2024

Item#45

Western Freedom & the Negative View of Human Nature [Length: 16:24]

Shahid Bolsen/Middle Nation

September 17, 2024

[Note from JK: Yet another SB gem.]

Item#46

Necessary Discomfort: Career Fair Disruption

Cornell students shut down recruiting by genocide profiteers Boeing and L3Harris

By Lisa Savage/Lisa’s Substack

September 20, 2024

Item#47

How the war on Gaza exposed Israeli and western fascism

Material and rhetorical support for the genocide of the Palestinian people is everywhere. It’s time to ask why

By Jonathan Cook

September 13, 2024

[Note from JK: On September 14, 2024 Paul Larudee wrote the following post and then linked to JC’s article:

“Tsk, tsk. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, more than half children, have died in Gaza, but only 41,000 are counted by name as having been killed. That is because the rest have died of passive causes: starvation, disease, thirst, as well as killed without having been counted. Never mind that the infants, pregnant mothers, school children, and all who died passively did so as a matter of deliberate Israeli policy to make them die (sometimes also called killing or murder).

“But don’t call it genocide. That would be antisemitic. That’s why it’s never mentioned by Democratic or Republican candidates for election. It’s not an issue. It won’t get you elected. Only the indomitable and courageous Jill Stein uses it. It’s why you will never hear the word in the mainstream media.

“Genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide. There, I said it. And yes, it’s Israel committing genocide, and the Israeli public supporting genocide. And the US government participating as a full partner in genocide. But you can’t say genocide. It’s antisemitic. Saying genocide can get you banned by the social media censorship police. And beaten by municipal police at campus demonstrations against…what? Genocide, of course. 

“Actually, Jonathan Cook says it better than I do.”]

Item#48

Richard D. Wolff: Is a Peaceful Multipolar World Even Possible Without Massive Wars? [Length: 57:49]

Host: Nima R. Alkhorshid/Dialogue Works 

September 21, 2024

Item#49

The Uhuru 3 verdict is in: We work for Black people, not Russia! The U.S. government lied and lost! The Uhuru Movement told the truth and won!

Official statement by Chairman Omali Yeshitela on behalf of the Uhuru 3, including Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel

September 14, 2024

Item#50

“WHY won’t the city of St. Louis grant the Uhuru Bakery & Cafe the permit to expand this buidling to bring healthy food, employment and a space for community culture to the North St. Louis black community which has faced food apartheid for decades?

Be part of the solution: 314-334-8307 stl@uhurufoods.org

@scootershelton @bolanleambonisye @hall.juan @purecateringstl @mayortishaurajones @aldermansheenbean @anne_schweitzer @pamela.boyd.961 @alderwoman1stward @shameemclarkhubbard @caraspencerstl @lishaliberty @stl4ward @shanecohn @oldenburgstl @saintlouispres”

Source: black_power_blueprint

September 19, 2024

Item#51                                              

Ask the Inspector Ep. 193 (streams live on Sept. 12 at 8:30 PM ET) [Length: 1:56:06]

Host: Scott Ritter/U.S. Tour of Duty

September 12, 2024

[Note from JK: Starts out with SR’s comments about the Uhuru 3 split verdict. Be sure to listen starting @18:04 to the first caller who is the Bay Area’s own Jane Stillwater asking SR to give her tips on traveling to Russia for the BRICS conference (just like her). Also @44:46, SR talked about the Uhuru 3 judge saying that the definition of “disinformation” isn’t about being truthful or not truthful but rather “saying something that is against the government narrative.” Holding a narrative that is against the official narrative.]

Item#52

Uhuru 3 & Scott Ritter @ Pacifica Fight Back Town Hall Meeting On Fascism (Part 1) Aug 24, 2024

August 24, 2024

[Note from JK: This was the first time Scott Ritter, Chairman Omali Yeshitela, and Penny Hess spoke directly to each other and when Scott invited them to be guests on his show Ask the Inspector Ep. 189 () which aired on August 30 and which resulted in an amazing 90-minute conversation.]

Item#53

INTERVIEW: ‘This was purely for terror’: Sarah Wilkinson [Length: 25:49]

Host: George Galloway

September 13, 2024

Item#54

Richard Medhurst UN Speech in Geneva on Palestine & the UK’s Crackdown on Free Speech [Length: 8:42]

Source: Richard Medhurst

September 14, 2024

Item#55

Craig Murray [UN Speech in Geneva on Palestine & the UK’s Crackdown on Free Speech] [Length: 9:36]

Source: Craig Murray

Posted September 16, 2024

Item#56

MEMORIAL LECTURE 2024 | The Rise of Authoritarian Right in the World & South Africa [Length: 2:38:58 (content starts @33:34)]

Presenter: RADHIKA DESAI – Canadian geopolitical economy scholar activist, author of After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire building who spoke on the Rise of Authoritarian Right in the World & South Africa: implications for the working class and movement building

Sponsor: Abdulhay Ahmed Saloojee Trust 

Facilitator: Martin Jansen

Location: Cape Town. S.A.

September 18, 2024

Item#57

Victoria Nuland on Russia-NATO relations, peace negotiations with Ukraine, and the U.S. elections [Length: 1:12:03]

Host: Mikhail Zygar

September 3, 2024

[Note from JK: This interview is the source of the most recent hullabaloo about VN.]

Item#58

Victoria Nuland admits US told Ukraine to abandon peace talks in March 2022

She didn’t feel the Istanbul deal was good enough

Source: Anti-imperial Nexus

September 10, 2024

Item#59

NATO countries put their people at risk by escalating with Russia

We’re not allowed to know the details of what they’re planning…

Source: Anti-imperial Nexus

September 13, 2024

Item#60

Aaron Maté : Victoria Nuland War Criminal [Length: 27:57]

Host: Judge Napolitano – Judging Freedom

September 11, 2024

Item#61

The Xinjiang China THEY Don’t Want YOU to SEE…My SHOCKING Muslim Experience [Length: 18:24]

Host: Danny Haiphong

September 21, 2024

Item#62

Human Rights Delegation Condemns Political Massacres Tied to

Haiti’s Government

Investigation reveals attacks in Lasalin, Tokyo and Site Vinsant neighborhoods, rather than simply gang warfare, were retaliation for anti-government protests (Oakland, Los Angeles and Boston, May 8, 2019)

Source: Haiti Action Committee

Item#63

Elections are Obsolete in the US [Length: 3:36]

Shahid Bolsen/Middle Nation

September 16, 2024

Item#64

The Dark Lord returns – The Grayzone live [Length: 2:10:01]

Co-Hosts: Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté/The Grayzone

Guest: Anya Parampil 

September 10, 2024

Item#65

Whose Lie Was Worse?

Phantom Pets For Dinner Or Phantom Rapes On Oct 7?

By Lisa Savage/Lisa’s Substack

September 11, 2024

Item#66

Jill Stein’s Surge TRIGGERS The Breakfast Club & AOC [Length: 1:03:47]

Host: Sabrina Salvati (aka Sabby Sabs)

September 14, 2024

Item#67

Musings On The Second Trump Assassination Attempt

Another Trump assassination attempt has been foiled by the Secret Service, this time with the would-be assassin alive and in police custody.

By Caitlin Johnstone

September 16, 2024

Item#68

A Short Conversation About Politics

“If you don’t vote for the Baby Incinerators with Blue Hats, you’re helping the Baby Incinerators with Red Hats!” But I oppose incinerating babies. “Look, those babies are getting incinerated no matter what, so we need to worry about the ones with red hats, who are WAY worse on other non-baby-incineration-related issues.” Don’t you think…

By Caitlin Johnstone

September 14, 2024

Item#69

The Debate Was Two Assholes Bragging About What Murderous Empire Sluts They Are

Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): ❖ If you missed the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, this was pretty much the tone of it: Trump: She’s a communist. She’s literally a Marxist. Harris: Actually Goldman Sachs loves me. Trump:…

By Caitlin Johnstone

September 12, 2024

Item#70

Harris – Walz website with policy

Item#71

Hilarious Trump impersonator directing traffic in Manhattan #Shorts

Source: NYC Video Tours

June 12, 2022

~ Janet 

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BEGIN KOZIN REPORTS

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Report # 319. RUSSIA INCREASED THE SIZE OF ITS ARMED FORCES

September 17, 2024

1. Moscow has beefed up its Armed Forces

On September 16, 2024 President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to set the total strength of the country’s Armed Forces at around 2.4 million persons or exactly 2,389,130 persons, including 1.5 million servicemen.

The decree will enter into force on December 1, 2024. 

The latest increase comes after a similar decree released in December 2023, when the president boosted the overall number of employees in the Russian military to just over 2.2 million, including 1.3 million military men.

Russia’s Defense Ministry stated that the expansion of the Armed Forces would be done through citizens who voluntarily wish to serve under contract with the MoD.  

It has also explained that the decision to increase personnel numbers was due to the threat posed by NATO’s continued expansion and the aggressive activities of the alliance. Members of the US-led bloc have significantly expanded their military presence along the Russian border, deploying additional air defense systems and strike weapons, Including new versions of the forward-based nuclear weapons. 

2. More Ukrainian troops in the Kursk Region became KIA

As it stands for September 16, 2024, the Armed Forces of Ukraine that began their military invasion into the adjacent Russian Kursk Region since August 6, 2024 has already lost more than 13,800 troops due to successful ‘bumping out operation’ launched by the Russian Armed Forces. 

Since the beginning of the direct armed aggression against the Kursk Region, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have lost more than 13,800 troops. That figure includes recent Ukrainian reinforcements.

 Also 115 AFU tanks, 44 infantry fighting vehicles, 91 APC, 729 AFVs, 439 motor vehicles, 98 artillery guns, 28 MLRS launchers, including seven of HIMARS and six other MLRS made by the USA, eight SAM launchers, two transport-loading vehicles, 26 ECM stations, 7 counter-battery radars, two AD radars, 13 engineering vehicles –
many of them being supplied by NATO – have been destroyed in that region.

The operation to neutralize the AFU units in the Kursk Region is in progress.

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Report # 320. Kozin’s interview on various Ukrainian issues

September 21, 2024

Covering a special meeting on UAV, bumblebee drones and combat robots. mobilization and ex-president Zelensky “victory plan”

Released by “Ukraina.ru” website (Moscow) on September 19, 2024

Questions have been asked by Anna Cherkasova, staff writer, “Ukraina.ru”

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Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences, historian, and ex-diplomat Vladimir Kozin named four areas that Russia needs to develop in order to become the “number one” state in terms of implementing advanced military technologies.

He said this in an interview with “Ukraina.ru”.

Q: Vladimir Petrovich, what other decisions do you personally expect from the Russian president in connection with the attacks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Russian territories?

A: I expect the most innovative, prospective and widely promising ones. Russia should become the “number one” state in terms of advanced military technologies. Without delay.

First, we urgently need to find both means of countering enemy UAVs, and create drones that could even more successfully destroy military facilities and military equipment of the aggressor state of Ukraine.

Secondly, it is advisable to create in the Russian Armed Forces specialized full-time units for controlling drones and countering them, as well as units for upgrading and repairing UAVs.

Thirdly. The issue of creating as large a range of automatic robotic combat systems requires close attention — both for strike and reconnaissance missions and for auxiliary logistics support.

Fourth. I personally think that the program of creating and launching miniature kamikaze drones for individual targeting in order to destroy the personnel of the Armed Forces of the aggressor state is an important dimension. For example, in the form of ‘bumblebee drones’ equipped with a small amount of explosives. Swarms of such drones made of 50-100 pieces could thoroughly terminate the enemy out in the open terrain.

Q: Earlier, Vladimir Putin signed a decree on increasing the full-time strength of the Russian Armed Forces by 180 thousand people (compared to December last year) – up to about 2.4 million people, including 1.5 million military personnel. The document will come into force on December 1, 2024. Is this enough?

A: At this stage, this number is quite sufficient.

The above-mentioned maximum level of personnel of the Russian Armed Forces has been carefully calculated with an accuracy of one person [it will be exactly 2,389,130 persons]. It takes into account the current development of the military-political situation on the European continent and on the global scale.

It reflects as well as potential aggravation of such situation in the near future as a result of the strengthening of NATO‘s military potential, the advance of its warfighting machine to our borders in the form of offensive forward-based groupings and rapid deployment forces, and the aggressive and terrorist line of the former and current Ukrainian regimes.

By the way, in my opinion, this very qualification [of the Ukrainian regimes] should have been approved by the highest legislative bodies of Russia a long time ago. It was the highest military and political leadership of Ukraine that launched an unprovoked large-scale armed aggression: in April 2014 against the civilian population of Donbass, and then, in September 2022, against Russia – after the historical territories, namely Donbass [the DPR and the LPR] and Novorossiya [Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions] became parts of it.

Q: And how did you calculate how much the staff of the Russian Army should be increased? Is there a need for additional mobilization?

A: When determining the specified number of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, we took into account both military-technical and financial-economic capabilities of our state. As well as social and humanitarian tasks that are not subject to change in the direction of their reduction. Further improvement of the national social sphere in Russia is a fundamentally priority area of activity of its leadership.

So far, I believe that no mobilization of additional contingents is required in our country. 

But this does not mean that we should not take into consideration the further aggravation of the military-political situation in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific Region. And in the world at large.

An objective assessment of the key military strategies of the United States and other NATO member states and the implementation of their military development programs should be constantly carried out. It is also necessary to analyze the full range of their actions against Russia, its allies and friends – both military and non-military in nature. It is important to timely identify the evolution of Western high-precision nuclear capabilities, development of the missile defense, hypersonic and space-based strike weapons. 

Q: Now the USA wants to promote Zelensky‘s plan to resolve the conflict during the high-level week at the current UN General Assembly that will be held later in September. How do you think we can respond to this?

A: Washington has repeatedly supported and promoted various types of ‘Zelensky peace plans’ despite the fact that they always pursued the same goal — to continue combined armed aggression against Russia and the new territories that have become part of it.

The current ‘victory plan’ of ordinary Ukrainian citizen named Zelensky who has received the prefix “former president” since last May, in my opinion, is even more hostile in its consequences than the options previously outlined by him.

Zelensky, according to information leaked by the Ukrainian side in the mass media, set two main tasks in it: Ukraine’s entry into the NATO and the continuation of direct large-scale armed aggression that has been mentioned already, by increasing qualitatively new military supplies to Ukraine and striking deep into the territory of Russia with long-range weapons.

If his newfound ‘plan; in its final form retains such a focus, then this may cause not only a regional, but a global armed confrontation between the great powers, with the inevitable participation of other NATO and non-NATO states in it.

How can Russia respond to this? Russia will have to respond adequately to such an aggressive and terrorist ‘’plan’.

Moreover, there are signals from Washington that it should be a ‘maximalist’ plan. If so, the military machine of Ukraine must be completely destroyed in the shortest possible time. The countries that supply lethal types and systems of weapons for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) must also bear serious responsibility.

If Kiev comes up with a different, really peacemaking initiative, putting it forward without any preliminary and mandatory conditions, and responds positively to the constructive proposals made by Russia and a number of other states of the world, then it is quite obvious that Moscow will show readiness to consider all this in a businesslike way, but with a legitimate government in Ukraine.

I believe that in the updated Istanbul draft agreement on political settlement initialed by the heads of delegations of Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine will have to recognize the entry into Russia of the four territories of Donbass and Novorossiya, as well as Crimea.

Odessa and Nikolaev Regions should be transferred to Russia by peaceful means. Thus, it will be totally seven territories. Then the initialed agreement must be approved by the heads of the two countries and their parliaments. Without this, the Istanbul draft agreement will remain a draft only from any angle.

Moscow and Kiev should sign and ratify the Treaty on Mutual Neutrality and Non-Aggression. 

Ukraine must commit to its non-membership in NATO.

I would like to note that this document should clearly reflect the requirement to fix the permanent nuclear weapon-free status of Ukraine and the zone where other types of weapons of mass destruction will not be deployed. This refers to the introduction of a ban on flights, overflights of heavy strategic and tactical bombers carrying nuclear weapons of foreign states in the airspace of Ukraine and their landing on its territory.

It is also necessary to reflect the preservation of the territory of Ukraine free from the deployment of foreign military bases and military control and intelligence centers, the refusal to conduct any military exercises and maneuvers with NATO member countries.

It is necessary to mention the provision prohibiting the deployment of missile and missile defense operational bases on Ukrainian territory, as well as space and cyber defense facilities, and specify concrete deadlines for the elimination of laboratories and production facilities for the creation of chemical, biological, and toxin weapons and their components.

The two parties could sign an agreement on the demarcation of the state borders, which would take into account the admission of all seven new territories into Russia, as well as an agreement on the payment by Ukraine all compensations for the damage it has caused since April 14, 2014 to Russia and the newly joined territories.

Q: The longer the aggression of Ukraine and NATO against Russia lasts, the more willing people are to help resolve the situation. Vice presidential candidate James David Vance expressed his view of the truce in an interview with The New York Times. In particular, he voiced the idea of creating a demilitarized zone along the current front line. How realistic is it to do this in practice?

A: The width of such a zone on the territory of Ukraine should be the longest. Up to 150-200 km approximately. It should not run along the line of contact, but stretch along the Ukrainian-Russian and Ukrainian-Belarusian borders. Both along the old ones and the new ones on the Ukrainian territory.

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END OF KOZIN REPORTS