Here I am… just a man… agreeing with Bill Clinton.
COLUMBUS, Ga. — Former President Bill Clinton said as he campaigned for Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday that the election will come down to whether there is a fair and transparent vote tally.
Asked by NBC News what will decide the outcome, Clinton responded, “Who wants it bad enough and whether we can get an honest, open count.”
Part of the proposal includes providing one million loans that are fully forgivable up to $20,000 to Black entrepreneurs and others to start a business.
In other words, she wants to give one million Black men $20k of your money. What’s $20 Billion to her if it buys her some votes?
Harris is also calling for creating and investing in programs that help expand pathways for job opportunities for Black men, including promoting apprenticeships, strengthening the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and investing in more Black male teachers. On the campaign trail, Harris has said she will cut college degree requirements for certain federal jobs if elected president.
Yikes. How racist is that? She wants to lower standards so she can give jobs to Black men? Talk about the bigotry of low expectations.
Another component includes legalizing recreational marijuana and creating opportunities for Black Americans to succeed in the industry. The vice president has often reiterated that she believes marijuana should legalized in the US.
Again, how racist that she is positioning legalizing pot as a policy to appeal to Black men. Really?
And, of course, the question Harris should always be asked when she proposes stuff… you’re the incumbent. Why haven’t you already done this?
This is probably the easiest decision on the ballot. The West Bend School District is facing a rapid and persistent DECLINE in enrollment and has done almost nothing to plan for it. You would be an imbecile to give them over $150 million to educate fewer kids with zero commitment to improve educational outcomes.
In West Bend, district residents will be asked to approve a $106.25 million facilities referendum to fund security improvements, critical capital maintenance improvements, improve operational efficiency, realign grade levels and replace Jackson Elementary School.
With interest included, at a rate of 4.75%, and annual fair market property growth, at 2%, the estimated total cost is $165.45 million. The current interest rate of 3.95% would place the total cost at about $13 million less, for an estimated $152.45 million.
The estimated tax impact would be an increase in the mill rate of $102 per $100,000 of assessed property value for approximately 20 years, if approved (based on a 20year repayment for Tax-Exempt General Obligation Bonds, a 2% annual fair market property value growth and approximately $59.2 million in estimated interest costs — the cost at a 4.75% interest rate.)
Included in the referendum plan is the closing of Decorah Elementary, Fair Park Elementary, the Rolfs Education Center and the Education Service Center (district central office), which will help the district avoid $51 million in capital maintenance costs, according to the WBSD.
The referendum question for WBSD residents on the Nov. 5 ballot reads: “Shall the West Bend Joint School District Number 1, Washington County, Wisconsin be authorized to issue pursuant to Chapter 67 of the Wisconsin Statutes, general obligation bonds in an amount not to exceed $106,250,000 for the public purpose of paying the cost of a district-wide school building and facility improvement project consisting of: construction of a new Jackson Elementary building on district-owned land; renovations and construction of additions, including for safe and secure entrances at East/West High Schools; renovations, including new safe and secure entrances and grade level reconfiguration at Green Tree and McLane Schools; renovations and grade level reconfiguration at Silverbrook and Badger Schools; districtwide capital maintenance and site improvements; and acquisition of furnishings, fixtures and equipment?’
This ABC story highlights the “fallout” after Texas ended DEI programs at universities. The first fallout highlighted? There are fewer taxpayer-funded programs to help illegal aliens access other taxpayer-funded resources to attend a taxpayer-funded university. I’m okay with such fallout.
At UT Austin, students like Arely had a place to turn to for answers. Monarch, an on-campus student program for undocumented and temporary status students, hosted workshops on those logistical concerns, mental health resources at little to no cost, career fairs specifically geared toward undocumented students, panel discussions with undocumented grads, and a donor-based scholarship.
“Those are the things that I would help students navigate,” said Alicia Moreno, the former Monarch Student Program Coordinator. “Like working with campus partners to create resources and help students understand what their options were because many students that I heard – before they ran into Monarch – they believed their options were really slim.”
This is an absolutely amazing feat of imagination and engineering. America is still capable of great things – as long as we keep government out of it.
I think this has less to do with Trump and more to do with a cumulative societal response.
Polls indicate the political gender gap among young people has widened since Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee in July. Overall the vice-president seems to be pulling more young people into her camp – but her support among young women has risen faster than her support among young men.
Recent research by the Harvard Youth Poll indicates 70% of women under age 30 support Harris, while 23% plan to vote for Trump. Among men in the same age group, 53% back Harris and 36% support Trump.
Daniel Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life, part of the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, says that the political gender gap mirrors larger social divisions which have left many young men feeling like few politicians are looking out for them.
For at least 20 years, our entire culture has shifted to ignore or outright denigrate men. From school to politics to entertainment, our culture has been trying to rectify the previous generations’ oppression of women by overcorrecting the other way. The result is a generation of men who have been told their entire lives that they are the lesser of the two genders. Of the two major political parties, the Democrats have doubled and tripled down on this cultural shift. The Republicans have actually started to respect men again. Ergo, men – especially young men who are less ideologically inclined and more culturally inclined – are leaning toward the Republicans. Trump is a beneficiary of this trend and is making some effort not screw it up.
What a shame. Memphis is a fun city. Beale Street is getting a little worn, but still a lot of fun.
Memphis, Tennessee, once known for its blues, soul and rock ‘n’ roll music, has now turned into a haven for crime and drug abuse.
A study by WalletHub has named the Southern city the most dangerous city to live in America among the 182 cities surveyed.
The United States Department of Justice also declared that this once-flourishing metro has the highest number of homicides – 129 in the first half of 2024.
This is fascinating for several reasons.
Former President Barack Obama on Thursday admonished Black men who are hesitating to back Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, telling them it’s “not acceptable” to sit out this election and suggesting they might be reluctant to vote for Harris because she’s a woman.
The striking comments by Obama, made to a small group of voters in a surprise stop at a local Harris campaign office in Pittsburgh, were part of a more forceful campaign message delivered by the former president on Thursday as polls continue to show a neck-and-neck race. At a rally in the city later that evening, Obama issued some of his most searing public criticisms of his successor to date.
The lack of energy some see around Harris’ campaign, Obama first told the smaller group, “seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.”
“You’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody (in former president Donald Trump) who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down?” Obama said. “That’s not acceptable.”
The problem, he suggested, was less complicated than some are making it out to be – and that it often comes down to sexism.
“You’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I’ve got a problem with that,” Obama said. “Because part of it makes me think – and I’m speaking to men directly – part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”
First, Obama rolls out of his mansions and private plane to lecture Black men about how they aren’t being racist enough to base their vote on the color of the candidate’s skin. Then, he turns around and accuses them of being sexists. On what planet does Obama live that he thinks he can lecture Black men like this?
Second, the fact that Obama was even in the room is a signal that things are not going well in the Harris camp. They didn’t call out Obama to appeal to independents or undecideds. The called him out to shore up a part of the electorate that has historically voted 90% for Democrats. Harris is losing support in parts of the electorate that the Democrats had been taking for granted for decades.
Third, also notice that Obama isn’t touting Harris’ strengths. Even he can’t come up with any. The entire basis of the Harris campaign is “Orange Man Bad.”
Fourth, frankly, I’m surprised that Obama came out in public at all. Harris is a sinking ship and he doesn’t usually tie himself to losers. He must really be worried about what another Trump presidency will uncover about him and his.
Wow. I didn’t know that we didn’t know where he was.
Scientists have solved the 500-year-old mystery surrounding Christopher Columbus’ final resting place.
The team spent 20 years performing a DNA analysis on human bones found buried in Spain‘s Seville Cathedral, confirming with ‘absolute certainty’ they belonged to the explorer who died in 1506.
For the past two decades, they have been comparing DNA taken from the samples with that of relatives and descendants.
Columbus’ body had been moved several times following his death, with some experts claiming he had been buried in the Dominican Republic, sparking a hunt to track down the navigator’s remains.
Miguel Lorente, a forensic scientist who led the research, said on Thursday: ‘Today it has been possible to verify it with new technologies, so that the previous partial theory that the remains of Seville belong to Christopher Columbus has been definitively confirmed.’
Many experts have believed that the tomb inside the cathedral has long held Columbus’ body, but it was not until 2003 when Lorente and historian Marcial Castro were granted permission to open it, finding the previously unknown bones were inside.
Absolutely amazing foresight and ingenuity.
The first part of the plan – booby-trapped radios – was initiated by Mossad in Lebanon in 2015. The concept for the pager operation emerged in 2022 and began to be implemented more than a year before the Hamas attack on October 7, reports The Washington Post.
[…]
A special proposal, allegedly from a well-known Taiwanese company, was developed for Hezbollah militants. The Apollo AR924 pager was somewhat bulky but ideal for combat conditions. It was waterproof and equipped with an extended battery that could last for months without recharging. However, its main advantage was its purported anti-tampering protection. Hezbollah leaders were so impressed that they purchased 5,000 units and began distributing them to mid-level fighters and support staff in February.
According to officials from Israel, the US, and Middle Eastern countries, around 3,000 Hezbollah officers and members were killed or injured when Mossad remotely activated the devices on September 17.
The idea for the pager operation originated in 2022, with elements of the plan being implemented more than a year before the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
The first part of the plan – booby-trapped radios – was initiated by Mossad in Lebanon nearly ten years ago, in 2015. The mobile two-way radios contained large battery packs, hidden explosives, and a transmission system that provided Israel with full access to Hezbollah’s communications.
According to sources, for nine years, Israeli operatives eavesdropped on Hezbollah while maintaining the capability to turn the radios into bombs. However, a new opportunity arose: a small pager equipped with powerful explosives.
Let’s see… an administration that has weaponized every agency for political gain, and a BLS whose monthly reports are almost universally too high and are revised substantially downward in later months, issues a big positive jobs report the month before the presidential election, and then the media all takes the same line that the jobs report supports Harris’ economic agenda?
A hotter-than-expected jobs report released Friday sets up a contrast for the final month of the 2024 campaign as Democrats and Republicans prepare their closing economic arguments.
DOHA, Qatar — The day after Iran launched strikes against Israel, a senior Hamas official told NBC News on Wednesday that the militant group has been let down by its Arab neighbors in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks.
In an interview in Qatar’s capital, Doha, where part of the group’s political wing is based, Dr. Basem Naim said Hamas was “disappointed by the reaction of the region, of the countries in the region.” Although some of them had supported the group politically and financially, he said Iran “was maybe the only country regarding supporting the resistance.”
He has a point. Where is Saudi Arabia? Iraq? Egypt? Jordan? Turkey? Oman? The UAE? Qatar? Libya? Bahrain? Syria? It is telling that none of these countries have stepped out to support Hamas or Hezbollah
Why?
Two reasons. First, for decades, the myth of a unified Arab or Muslim block is just that… a myth. These countries all have their own interests and, as history has shown, the sharpest fights are often between siblings. They have given rhetorical support to the Palestinian cause in an effort to further their own interests, but they aren’t interested in expending blood or treasure on it.
Second, knowing this first fact, Trump’s Middle East policy of engagement and economic entanglement based on mutual self-interest is paying dividends. Many of these Arab countries have political, economic, and even cultural ties to Israel, the United States, and European nations that are more valuable to them than the Palestinian cause.
Iran is on an island even in their own sea. That is largely thanks to Trump’s foreign policy.
Really? If you are living in one of these totalitarian countries and happen to be surfing around the CIA’s channels, you’re already on a list. Or you make the list. This feels like an agency that’s out of ideas.
The US Central Intelligence Agency has launched a new drive to recruit informants in China, Iran and North Korea.
The organisation posted messages on its social media accounts in Mandarin, Farsi and Korean on Wednesday, instructing users how to contact it securely.
This latest effort follows a campaign to enlist Russians in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, which the CIA says was a success.
“We want to make sure individuals in other authoritarian regimes know that we’re open for business,” a CIA spokesman said in a statement.
Ope. Guess people will have to go back to eating less and exercise for a while.
As a port strike stretching from New England to Texas halted nearly half of all trade coming into the U.S., customs data shows that critical medical devices and drug components for the booming, expensive weight-loss and diabetes drugs from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly — Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound — are among the trade casualties in the ILA union port work stoppage.
Bills of lading, the digital receipts of freight containers, show that the delivery mechanisms for insulin and weight-loss drugs rely on East Coast ports for incoming trade.
“Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are both heavily reliant on the Port of Norfolk,” said William George, director of research at ImportGenius, which tracks the customs data.
In the past year, Novo Nordisk has imported through Norfolk 419 twenty-foot equivalent unit, or TEU, containers worth of pharmaceuticals and injection devices that contain semaglutide, a compound in its branded weight-loss drugs, according to George. “Novo fine syringes commonly used for insulin injections come into the U.S. by ocean freight as well,” he said.
Novo Nordisk has raked in nearly $50 billion in sales from Wegovy and Ozempic, with most of that revenue coming from the U.S., its CEO said in recent testimony before the U.S. Senate.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Local police in the cartel-dominated city of Culiacan, Mexico have been pulled off the streets after the army seized their guns, officials announced Monday.
The move came just one day after about 1,500 residents of Culiacan, the capital of the northern state of Sinaloa, held a march Sunday though the city’s downtown to demand peace after weeks in which cartel gunfights have killed dozens of people in and around the city.
But rather than announcing a stepped-up police presence, Ruben Rocha, the state’s governor, said Monday the entire 1,000-member municipal police force would not return to duty until they get their weapons back. Soldiers, state police and National Guard will take over patrolling until then.
Rocha said the seizure of the weapons for inspection of their permits and serial numbers was not a routine check, but rather was “exceptional,” and said “we hope it will end soon.”
Historically, the Mexican army has seized the weapons of local police forces they distrust, either because they suspect some local cops are working for drug gangs or because they suspect they are carrying unregistered, private sidearms that would make abuses harder to trace.
Ugh. Here we go. Stock up on stuff. Estimates are that every day of the strike will take a week to recover from. Remember the supply chain disruptions of the pandemic? That’s what we’re in for, but worse. And when leadership matters, Biden is on the beach, Harris is hiding, and Buttigieg is doing debate prep with Walz.
Tens of thousands of dockworkers have gone on strike indefinitely at ports across much of the US, threatening significant trade and economic disruption ahead of the presidential election and the busy holiday shopping season.
Members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) walked out on Tuesday at 14 major ports along the east and gulf coasts, halting container traffic from Maine to Texas.
The action marks the first such shutdown in almost 50 years.
President Joe Biden has the power to suspend the strike for 80 days for further negotiations, but the White House has said he is not planning to act.
Click through the link for a pretty good story about Walz lies. The man lies about everything. His military service, his arrest, his time in China, his coaching, his record as governor… everything. He’s the drunk at the end of the bar. He’s the 50-year-old unemployed uncle who lives with grandma. He’s a fraud and shame on the Minnesota media for being so uninterested in truth as to allow him to lie his way to the governorship.
In isolation, the exaggeration of Walz’s coaching resume – pushed by his political allies and notably never corrected by the man himself – is surely harmless.
However, when taken in the context of a litany of other exaggerations and untruths about Walz’s life that have emerged since Harris named his as her VP pick in August, it is little wonder that many are beginning to ask if the Minnesota Governor has a problem with the truth.
And, as he prepares to take on his Republican counterpart, J.D. Vance, in tonight’s televised vice presidential debate on CBS, there will no doubt be a lingering nervousness among the Harris-Walz campaign over what Vance might say about his opponent’s trustworthiness.
Will Syria or Iran try to come in the back door as Israel is fighting a 2-front war?
The Israeli military last night confirmed that it has launched a ground invasion of Lebanon, as fears mount that the escalation could plunge the Middle East into an all-out war.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had begun ‘localised and targeted raids’ against Hezbollah enemies in southern Lebanon.
‘These targets are located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel,’ the military added.
It added that the operation will continue ‘according to the situational assessment and in parallel to combat in Gaza and in other arenas’.
The ground invasion has been supported by a series of air strikes, with dramatic pictures showing the missiles lighting up the sky above Beirut.
British nationals have been urged to leave Lebanon immediately, with Foreign Secretary David Lammy warning the conflict could ‘escalate in a major way’.
The US said it was informed beforehand about Israel’s raid, which have been described as ‘limited operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border.’
EW YORK (AP) — U.S. ports from Maine to Texas could shut down Tuesday if a union representing about 45,000 dockworkers carries through with a threatened strike.
A lengthy shutdown could raise prices on goods around the country and potentially cause shortages and price increases at big and small retailers alike as the holiday shopping season — along with a tight presidential election — approaches.
“First and foremost, we can expect delays to market. And those delays depend on really what the commodities are and priorities at the ports and how quickly things move,” said Mark Baxa, president of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.
Prayers for the folks reeling from Helene. Find your reputable charity and pitch in.
• Over 60 dead across 5 states: Deaths have been reported in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. At least 10 people are dead in North Carolina, a release from Gov. Roy Cooper’s office said Saturday evening. At least 23 are dead in South Carolina, including two firefighters in Saluda County, authorities said. In Georgia, at least 17 people have died, two of them killed by a tornado in Alamo, according to a spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp. In Florida, at least 11 people have died, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday, including several people who drowned in Pinellas County. And in Craig County, Virginia, one person died in a storm-related tree fall and building collapse, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Friday.
• Dozens unaccounted amid communications outage: More than 200 people have been rescued from floodwaters in North Carolina after Helene wrought “biblical devastation,” Gov. Roy Cooper said Saturday. Still, over 60 people were unaccounted for in Buncombe County – which includes the hard-hit city of Asheville – and over 150 search and rescue operations were underway. “This is looking to be Buncombe County’s own Hurricane Katrina,” county manager Avril Pinder said, adding the county’s emergency services were overwhelmed. Crews are conducting welfare checks as communication continues to be disrupted, with no cell phone service in the region for at least “several days,” according to officials. Emergency call volumes are also exceedingly high, with the county receiving over 5,500 911 calls and conducting more than 130 swift water rescues since Thursday. East of Buncombe County, over 20 air rescues have been conducted in McDowell County since early Saturday morning. The emergency center is also being inundated with calls, many of which involve patients “entrapped with severe trauma, running out of oxygen or essential medical supplies.” But emergency response efforts are hampered by massive landslides, downed trees, power lines and severely flooded roads.
