Positive news about Navalny.
The Washington Post: Top Stories | Russian opposition leader Navalny brought out of induced coma after poisoning, Berlin clinic says
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Now not only is Trump pardoning our war criminals, so are other dictators.
Philippine’s Duterte Pardons U.S. Marine Convicted Of Killing Transgender Woman
The pyrocumulonumbus cloud that was heading toward the Las Vegas valley hit the low pressure system we’ve got coming through and crashed out, there is very little visibility right now and the light is very scattered, everything looks vaguely gray-orangeish.
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Trump launches unprecedented attack on military leadership he appointed
Trump says troops love him, attacks top brass ‘who want to do nothing but fight wars’
Trump Rips Into U.S. Military Leaders But Insists Soldiers Love Him
Trump slams Biden over vaccine, defends support for military in Labor Day news conference
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Check out more ways to HELP with GETTING OUT THE VOTE
I added this to WTF - Get Out the Vote - Voter resources 2020 & Obstacles
Adding to this 9.8.20 (from my friend)
Election poll worker volunteers are needed. Anyone in the nation to get connected to their local election board and volunteer at Work Elections. Please forward www.workelections.comand encourage friends and family who are comfortable volunteering on election day, Tuesday, Nov 3rd…think college-age and swing states (WI, MI, PA, NC, FL, AZ, plus NV, NH, GA, TX, OH, MN). Poll worker volunteers are needed everywhere, and for many locations a volunteer can be 16+ while others require the volunteer to be 18+.
https://votefwd.org/ write to swing states
Voter Registration:
Vote.org simplifies political engagement using technology.
The Voter Participation Center seeks to increase voter registration among unmarried women, people of color, and young people.
Reversing Voter Suppression:
ACLU Voting Rights Project works with affiliates and litigation to advocate policies that make voting easier.
Fair Fight. Stacey Abrams’ effort to address mismanagement and irregularities in Georgia’s vote, and her documentary All In: The Fight for Democracy premieres Sept 18th on Amazon Prime.
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights since 1965, advancing and protecting the right to vote including recent work to stop Trump cutting short time for the 2020 Census.
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Trump Emerges as Inspiration for Germany’s Far Right
Among German conspiracy theorists, ultranationalists and neo-Nazis, the American president is surfacing as a rallying cry, or even as a potential “liberator.”
Food for thought…cultural preferences and religion make for a strong union…T tapped into both.
American Christianity’s White-Supremacy Problem | The New Yorker
Much has been made of white evangelicals’ support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. (According to exit polls, eighty-one per cent of white evangelical Protestants voted for him.) Less attention has been paid to the fact that sizable majorities of white Catholics (sixty-four per cent) and white mainline Protestants (fifty-seven per cent) also backed him. In November, President Trump will once again be reliant upon the white Christian vote if he hopes to defeat his Democratic opponent, former Vice-President Joe Biden. Trump’s racism has defined his Presidency—driving his exclusionary immigration policies, his Twitter tirades, his reluctance to condemn white-nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, and his scapegoating of China for the coronavirus pandemic. Yet polls show that most white Christians continue to approve of his job performance. It is a perplexing, distressing trend, one that may be irrevocably damaging to the church, as increasing numbers of people, particularly millennials, leave Christianity. In December, when Mark Galli, who was then the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today , the flagship publication of evangelicalism, wrote an editorial calling for Trump to be removed from office, he urged Christians to consider how their support of Trump influenced their “witness”—the degree to which their lives point to the example of Jesus Christ. “Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency,” he wrote. “If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come?”
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Donald Trump betrayed our Kurdish allies, let Americans be hunted for Russian bounties, told China concentration camps are great, bowed to tinpot dictators, and insulted allies. He is no man of peace and will NEVER deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Period.
The man who nominated him also did so in 2018 with another Norwegian lawmaker:
Trump is being put at 20/1 odds, level with Bill Gates.
Ahead of him? WHO, Greta Thunberg, Jacinda Ardern, and Black Lives Matter.
Donald Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize — now has the same odds of winning as Bill Gates
PS: Remember when Trump had submissions forged twice? I do.
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Okay, September, what do you ha- 
What’s a ‘zombie fire?’ Dangerous underground fires spark record-setting wildfires in Arctic Circle
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What in the absolute ever-loving
What fresh hell is this
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Trump Adds Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, To List Of Potential SCOTUS Picks
Bernie Sanders Says Country Must Get Ready for Trump’s Refusal to Concede
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No surprises here…
After a day of huge revelations from Woodward’s book, to the Whistleblower, to the E J Carroll case now being handled from within the DOJ, T now turns to his buddies at FOX to help him out.
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Must Read Op-Ed and ProfilesIt is sickening for an American president to fawn over a mass murderer and tyrant.
Transcript: Kim Jong Un’s letters to President Trump
Bob Woodward obtained the 27 “love letters” President Donald Trump exchanged with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un , 25 of which have not been reported publicly. The letters, filled with flowery language, provide a fascinating window into their relationship. Kim flatters Trump by repeatedly calling him “Your Excellency,” and writes in one letter that meeting again would be “reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film.” In another, Kim writes that the “deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force.” CNN has obtained the transcripts of two of the letters.
Woodward, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was shown the letters but was not permitted to make copies or take photos. He dictated the letters into his tape recorder, and these are transcripts as he read them:
Dec. 25, 2018 letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump
25 December 2018
Your Excellency,
It has been 200 days since the historic DPRK-US summit in Singapore this past June, and the year is now almost coming to an end. Even now I cannot forget that moment of history when I firmly held Your Excellency’s hand at that beautiful and sacred location as the whole world watched with great interest and hope to relive the honor of that day. As I mentioned at that time, I feel very honored to have established an excellent relationship with a person such as Your Excellency.
As the new year 2019 approaches, critical issues that require endless effort toward even higher ideals and goals still await us. Just as Your Excellency frankly noted, as we enter the new year the whole world will certainly once again come to see, not so far in the future, another historic meeting between myself and Your Excellency reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film.
I have already instructed my closest and most trusted colleagues and the relevant organs to speed up the preparations for holding a second DPRK-US summit and am prepared to achieve good results with Your Excellency during the next meeting.
Nevertheless, what worries me is that it may not reflect positively on us should both sides appear to stubbornly insist on our respective positions regarding the location of the summit. It could also result in wasting a lot of time. Therefore, my position is to urgently hold senior-level contact between the DPRK and the US to internally (translator’s note: privately) discuss and coordinate issues regarding the location.
I hope that Your Excellency will once again demonstrate great decisiveness and excellent leadership to accomplish results in the second DPRK summit. I wholeheartedly hope that the things that Your Excellency seeks to achieve will come to great fruition.
I wish the honorable First Lady, your family and those close to you good health, happiness and great success.
Sincerely, with unchanging respect for Your Excellency the President,
Chairman State Affairs Commission
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Kim Jong Un
25 December 2018
June 10, 2019 letter from Kim Jong Un to Trump
June 10, 2019
Your Excellency Mr. President,
I am writing this letter to you as we are nearing the first anniversary of our meeting in Singapore on June 12 – the historic moment of great significance that captured the attention of the world and left an imprint still indelible in my memory – as well as to congratulate you on your birthday, which is just days away. I take it as a great honor to be able to send such a letter to Your Excellency.
I extend my sincere and warm regards to Your Excellency on the occasion of your birthday. My regards also to the First Lady and the rest of your family and all your people, and I wish everyone good health and happiness and hope that everyone’s dream will become a beautiful reality.
Like the brief time we had together a year ago in Singapore, every minute we shared 103 days ago in Hanoi was also a moment of glory that remains a precious memory. Such a precious memory that I have in my unwavering respect for you will provide impetus for me to take my steps when we walk toward each other again someday in the future.
I also believe that the deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force that leads the progress of the DPRK-US relations, clearing all the hurdles we face in the process of bringing about the developments we seek to achieve.
Your Excellency Mr. President, I still respect and lay my hopes on the will and determination that you showed in our first meeting to resolve the issue of our unique style that nobody had ever tried, and to write a new history. Today’s reality is that without a new approach and the courage it takes, the prospects for resolution of the issue will only be bleak.
I believe the one day will come sooner or later when we sit down together to make great things happen, with the will to give another chance to our mutual trust. Such a day should come again. It may well be recorded as yet another fantastic moment in history.
I assure Your Excellency that my respect for you will never change.
Happy birthday once again, Your Excellency. I hope Your Excellency will always be in good health and achieve success in your work. I extend my best wishes on behalf of my family to the First Lady and the rest of your family.
Sincerely yours,
Kim Jong Un
June 10, 2019
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Trump re-tweeted a random tiny post of somebody making a fat joke about him. Everybody, including the person who made the joke, who is very much NOT a Trump fan, is confused.
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This is an opinion piece on why there are so many women adherents to QAnon…and some theories. Just interesting to see where this might attract more women…given it’s messianic zeal to save children at any costs, etc (forgeting of course the conspiratorial origins of the stories.)
As with all things QAnon, it’s difficult to speak definitively. But my own hypothesis is that QAnon’s apparent success with women has more to do with how its digital network has developed than the actual content of the theory itself.
Most other far-right communities are much more insular, and usually make an attempt to draw their digital borders along race- or gender-based lines by emphasizing purity. In practice it never quite works, because of the porous nature of digital subcultures, but it makes for a hostile environment for non-white, non-male newcomers.
QAnon, by contrast, has looked for converts anywhere it can find them, making the slogan “where we go one we go all” (usually abbreviated to the hashtag #WWG1WGA) its rallying cry. It’s no surprise that anti-Semitism, a familiar staple of so many conspiracy theories, can be found in QAnon communities, but in general, racial purity isn’t a central factor.
It has also mutated as it has spread. QAnon may have started on 4chan and 8chan, but it quickly left such message boards behind for more mainstream platforms like Facebook and Instagram, Ms. Crawford said — platforms where young women are very active. It engaged in a partial “rebrand,” appropriating “#SavetheChildren” and other already-existing human trafficking campaigns and hashtags. And when majority-female anti-vaccine groups on Facebook began suggesting dark forces were at play in the Covid-19 crisis and expanded into anti-mask, anti-lockdown sentiment, QAnon eagerly folded all of these conspiracies into its own master narrative.
Today, the lines between the two have blurred; who is “just” an anti-vaxxer and who has gone full QAnon? It’s not clear that participants themselves draw a distinction. The “Covid-skeptic” communities I monitor on Facebook casually drop in comments about “the cabal” and child trafficking with little to no resistance from the rest of the group and, crucially, no platform moderation. It’s clear that even if these users wouldn’t recognize QAnon itself, or view themselves as supporters, they’re certainly familiar with its talking points.
Those videos of mothers bemoaning the brainwashing of their children? They’re not only compelling and dramatic content, but are also easily shared in other parenting groups with little indication of their far-right origins. It’s not just that women are more likely to become prominent influencers in the QAnon digital network; it is actively useful for QAnon for them to do so.
Why does the gender of those who subscribe to QAnon matter? It matters less for what it tells us about women and what they may or may not believe, and more for how it could potentially shape our own response to QAnon.
Conspiracy theories are no less dangerous even when they claim to be driven by maternal love. At the heart of QAnon lies an undeniably frightening ethos that demands harsh punishment, even execution, for its ever-growing list of political enemies. History teaches us that sex panics do not end well for society’s most vulnerable minorities; QAnon and its offshoots must be rejected in the strongest possible terms.
But this becomes more personally and politically difficult if the theory’s adherents look less like our traditional conception of fascists and more like ordinary concerned mothers taking a stand for child sex abuse victims. The alt-right, for instance, cloaked and distracted from its dangerous views with khakis and polo shirts; we must be careful to avoid the same pattern here, of allowing unexpected aesthetics to obscure a toxic ideology.
If QAnon is indeed mutating as it spreads, we must not to be fooled by its changing appearance. Our answer must be a balance of empathy for those who have been drawn in by QAnon’s seductive message, coupled with a firm rejection of its lies.
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When the Administration wanted to push that there were thousands of illegal immigrants on the border, it tried to get NBC to state that there were more than 6 people at the border.
A new whistleblower complaint alleges that in late 2018 and early 2019 former senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security sought to inflate the publicly reported number of known or suspected terrorists crossing the border in a move to increase support for a border wall.
In early 2019, a DHS spokeswoman pushed NBC News to retract a story based on accurate figures the agency had disclosed in a document to Congress in the months prior that were far lower than the nearly 4,000 in a year the administration had been citing publicly.
The January 2019 NBC News story reported that contrary to those public statements by Trump administration officials, only six immigrants who were known or suspected terrorists had been encountered at the southern border in the first half of fiscal year 2018.
At the time, the administration was repeating the 4,000 figure in an effort to justify the government shutdown over Trump’s border wall, and the lower, more accurate figure undercut their argument.
That 2019 NBC News story was based on non-publicized figures provided by Customs and Border Protection to Congress in May 2018.
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Apocalyptic scenes out of the west.
‘Do not let your guard down’: Northern California blazes grow to historic proportions just as fire season starts
‘We have never seen this’: 10% of Oregon under evacuation orders; death toll at 26 from Western wildfires
New Report Details Dozens of Trump Rollbacks During Pandemic
Charleston, SC Becomes First City in U.S. South to Sue Big Oil for Climate Costs
Trump Is Conveniently Ignoring the Climate-Fueled Fires Raging in the West
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‘Reckless, violent, massacre’ of 570 wolves and wolf pups in Idaho bolsters alarm over Trump attack on species protections
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