yardwork
yardwork's JournalOur goal is to keep Trump out of the White House
Sure, most of us would also like to see Trump in prison because of his many foul crimes, but that's secondary to keeping him away from the White House.
Our democracy is truly in danger if Trump regains the White House.
Strategically, I never saw the court cases as any guarantee that Trump won't be reelected. We have to stop him at the ballot box, by getting out the vote in support of Biden.
Now, Trump is in a very bad position where his best legal strategy - to delay, delay, delay - runs counter to his best political strategy.
From a political point of view, this SC ruling that keeps the cases against Trump in limbo - and thus in the news - is a disaster for Trump. Unresolved court cases are the worst type of publicity.
Will Trump ever pay for his crimes? I have no idea. My goal is to keep him out of the White House.
Inside Biden's Five-Hour Face-Off with the special counsel
Gift article, no firewall:
I still object to some editorializing slants in this article, but it's at least a beginning at giving the White House perspective.
https://wapo.st/49mL2LO
The president’s attorneys felt the early October interviews went well, only to be stunned this week by Hur’s disparagement of Biden’s memory.
....
In the view of Biden’s team, the interviews proceeded in a routine, even dry, manner, as prosecutors asked Biden where he bought a particular file cabinet and how certain boxes were packed.
Biden himself was focused at the time on more immediate and world-shaking matters, having just made a round of phone calls to U.S. allies that would affect the roiling situation in the Middle East.
Biden and his attorneys even discussed postponing the interview, but they ultimately decided against it. They had already blocked off two days on the president’s schedule and, with the investigation already dragging on much longer than anticipated, were eager to put it behind them. They never contemplated resisting Hur’s request for the interview, figuring Biden had little to hide and would benefit from being transparent, according to members of his legal team.
The Republican ads in central NC are making me sick.
As the March 5 primary election in NC approaches, Republican candidates are trying to out-Trump one another. They are running vile ads full of lies. I hope the DNC is paying attention because if this works, it will be the blueprint for the fall election.
The ads are all about the border. Yes, we're in North Carolina. We border South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. However, based on the imagery in these ads it would appear that we are under attack by an invading army. We are told that "Biden and Harris have done nothing" to secure the border.
One ad states that under Trump, "we had a secure border, a powerhouse economy, and only two genders."
Most of the Republican candidates - several of whom are blonde women - say that they are veterans and fought "the same people who are invading our border now."
The ads don't have any resemblance to reality but they are constant. We watch our local evening news and the ads run at every break, right after the other. It's a barrage of lies.
I haven't seen one Democratic ad.
State Dept issues travel advisory for Jamaica
I've always heard that Jamaica is beautiful, but their abysmal LGBTQ laws always kept me from choosing to travel there. It looks like their human rights problems are even deeper than I realized.
https://jm.usembassy.gov/travel-advisory-change-to-travel-advisory-level-for-health-and-crime/
Event: The State Department has recently changed the Travel Advisory for Jamaica.
Reconsider travel to Jamaica due to crime and medical services. U.S. government personnel under Chief of Mission (COM) security responsibility are prohibited from traveling to many areas due to increased risk. Please read the entire Travel Advisory.
Country Summary: Violent crimes, such as home invasions, armed robberies, sexual assaults, and homicides, are common. Sexual assaults occur frequently, including at all-inclusive resorts.
Local police often do not respond effectively to serious criminal incidents. When arrests are made, cases are infrequently prosecuted to a conclusive sentence. Families of U.S. citizens killed in accidents or homicides frequently wait a year or more for final death certificates to be issued by Jamaican authorities. The homicide rate reported by the Government of Jamaica has for several years been among the highest in the Western Hemisphere. U.S. government personnel under COM security responsibility are prohibited from traveling to the areas listed below, from using public buses, and from driving outside of prescribed areas of Kingston at night.
How the internet is erasing the Oct 7 Hamas massacre
Gift article: no firewall
https://wapo.st/4914mhj
WaPo updated the title to:
Growing Oct. 7 ‘truther’ groups say Hamas massacre was a false flag
In city council hearings, protests and online, a growing movement with ties to Holocaust denial is effacing history in real-time
By Elizabeth Dwoskin
January 21, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. ET
When she first heard about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Mirela Monte was “appalled.” The South Carolina real estate agent and self-described holistic healer detests violence and is horrified by war and human suffering.
But as Monte read more in Uncensored Truths, a Telegram group with 2,958 subscribers active on foreign policy and the supposed perils of vaccination, her shock turned to anger.
According to the forum, the news reports were wrong: Secretly, Israel was behind the massacre.
Monte now argues the Oct. 7 attack was a “false flag” staged by the Israelis — likely with help from the Americans — to justify genocide in Gaza. “Pure evil,” she said. “Israel is like a mad dog off a leash.”
The Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack is among the most well-documented in history. A crush of evidence from smartphone cameras and GoPros captured Hamas’ breach of the border — a strike Israel says left some 1,200 dead, the most deadly onslaught in the country’s history.
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I am certain that these lies are being spread by the same bad actors who interfered with the 2016 U.S. election and helped cause Brexit.
It's up to all of us to sift through what we read on social media and what we're told by friends, and figure out truth vs. lies. Our democracy depends on each of us doing this.
The plagiarism accusations against Dr. Gay, explained
Gift article, no paywall:
https://wapo.st/47qmtMv
....Though rumors had circulated earlier on anonymous academic forums, the allegations became more widely publicized last month, after Gay and two other university presidents drew public scrutiny for their congressional testimony about antisemitism on college campuses.
On Dec. 10, conservative activist Christopher Rufo and Christopher Brunet, a contributing editor at the American Conservative, wrote on Substack alleging that, as a doctoral candidate at Harvard in the 1990s, Gay had plagiarized sections of her political science dissertation. Rufo said on the social media site X that he and Brunet had been “waiting for the precise moment of maximum impact” before publishing their post, saying that “there are rumors that the plagiarism scandal could be the final nail in Gay’s coffin.”
On Dec. 11, the Washington Free Beacon reported finding “29 potential cases of plagiarism” in Gay’s dissertation and three other papers. On Dec. 12, the New York Post published a story featuring two additional instances of alleged plagiarism in one of those articles.
On Dec. 19 and Jan. 1, the Free Beacon published two anonymous complaints filed with Harvard, detailing 47 incidents of alleged plagiarism by Gay.
[Harvard resignation is a win for conservative Washington Free Beacon]
The reports published in various outlets collect nearly 50 instances in which Gay allegedly misused academic sources. They appear in eight of her works: a 1993 essay in the magazine Origins, her dissertation from 1997, a 2001 working paper, and five articles she published while a professor at Stanford and Harvard (out of a total of 11 journal publications across her career).
The alleged misuse varies in scope. In some places, it appears that Gay took verbatim wording — ranging from sentences to paragraphs — from academics she cited, but without placing that text in quotation marks. In others, she appears to have paraphrased or lightly modified the texts she drew on, without citing the source in the same sentence or paragraph. In a few cases, she did not make any mention of her source.
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The article goes on to show some examples of Dr. Gay's work and the work of others, side by side.
I thought this was a helpful article in terms of explaining more about the specifics of the accusations.
Let me know if you would like to be a host in this forum.
The Feminist forum hosts have been the same for many years. I just dropped a host who has been FFR for many years, so we have an open spot if anyone wants to host. Shoot me a PM.
What is Zionism
There seems to be widespread misunderstanding about the meaning of the word Zionism.
Joe Biden said that he is a Zionist. Now people are asking what that means, exactly.
I am not Jewish. So I hope I'm not stepping on any toes by posting this thread. I am eager to learn more and open to corrections!
From the Anti-Defamation League, the definition of Zionism:
https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/zionism
Excerpts:
Today, with a Jewish sovereign state a reality, Zionists believe in and support the right of the democratic State of Israel to exist as a Jewish homeland. Israel is the only Jewish state in the world. Being a Zionist is distinct from supporting the policies of the government of Israel.
....
....There are Zionists who are critical of Israeli policies, just as there are Zionists who rarely voice disagreement with the Israeli government. There are diverse views among Zionists about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, about how to promote peace, whether to support a two-state solution, and about approaches to Israeli settlements. Being critical of Israeli policies is no more anti-Zionist than being critical of American policies is anti-American.
Zionism does not preclude support for Palestinian self-determination and statehood. For some Zionists, support for a two-state solution is the realization of self-determination for Jews and Palestinians alike.
There are also millions of non-Jews who consider themselves Zionists and supporters of the Jewish state, who are motivated by factors including religion, history, security or politics.
DU on my iPhone formatting messed up
Hi! The formatting of DU on iPhone suddenly broke into long, long columns of single lines. How can I restore the view? Thanks!
It's suddenly become difficult to navigate to forums on my iPhone.
I know DU is trying different approaches to navigation, and you're trying to meet the needs of folks who access DU on different platforms and devices.
However, this morning I'm actually struggling to make my way to GD or LBN. I got "stuck" in Latest threads and it took some non-intuitive clicking around before I found my way back to GD. I had to go to Forums and look up GD in the list of all forums. It used to be much easier.
On my phone, I actually liked the two button approach. Just my two cents. I appreciate what you guys are doing!
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Gender: FemaleMember since: Wed Mar 3, 2004, 08:03 PM
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