“I am dumbfounded by the Democratic Party strategy’s of treating the men of America like an annoying child who repeatedly asks his mother, ‘Why?’ When we hesitate to support a candidate who won’t give us clear answers to our reasonable questions, all we get in response are accusations of hatred or indifference toward a woman seeking power — even though we’ve held up the same expectation for the other candidate. Nearly every major Democratic politician, surrogate and pundit has directed unnecessary aggressiveness toward men, with the party apparently feeling it can take our votes or leave them. Clearly, male voters are not their focus.” (11/03/24)
“As I have discussed in previous columns, the current Democratic coalition (it can and will change over time) is mainly built around race, gender, and sexual preference. A person’s race and gender, unarguably, cannot be controlled. People have no say at birth about the color of their skin or their gender. There is, however, a huge dispute over whether ‘sexual orientation’ is a matter of birth or choice. Democrats insist on the former, and it is one of their main areas of attack on Christianity and the family. People cannot control what they are. But can they control what they do? Traditional Christianity teaches free will, i.e., that no one is born a murderer, or a thief, or an adulterer, or homosexual, and certainly not ‘transgender.'” [editor’s note: I doubt Lewis would recognize “traditional Christianity” if it walked up behind him and whacked him across the ass with a bass fiddle – TLK] (11/04/24)
“A mother whose son is being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza has accused Israel’s government of ‘a cynical deception operation that is taken from dark regimes,’ after it emerged a government spokesperson had been arrested for allegedly leaking documents that may have undermined a ceasefire and hostage release deal. It came after a court in Rishon LeZion said Eli Feldstein and three others were under investigation for feeding stories to European newspapers. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Radio also reported a fifth arrest in connection with the probe, said to be a major in the military’s intelligence branch information security department, tasked with preventing and investigating leaks. The Haaretz newspaper said all unnamed suspects were from this unit. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing by his staff, but opposition figures and hostages’ families have accused his government of sabotaging negotiations.” (11/04/24)
“In Cuba, blackouts may be bringing light. The island’s power grid has collapsed at least four times in October, plunging the country into darkness. Even under the best conditions, electricity reaches only parts of the population for a few hours at a time. President Miguel Diaz-Canel declared a state of emergency and blamed the crisis on Washington’s long-standing economic embargo. But even his most senior aides no longer trust that old excuse to placate frustrated citizens. On Tuesday, the ruling Communist Party fired the vice prime minister in an anti-corruption probe into private business. Several days earlier, Vice President Manuel Marrero Cruz openly contradicted his boss, ascribing the outages – a ‘complex’ situation, he called it – primarily to dilapidated energy infrastructure.” (10/31/24)
“The Republican-led state of Missouri asked a judge on Monday to block the U.S. Justice Department from sending lawyers to St. Louis on Election Day to monitor for compliance with federal voting rights laws, even after the city’s election board agreed to permit it. The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri by the state’s attorney general and secretary of state, accuses the Justice Department of making an 11th hour plan that intends to ‘displace state election authorities’ by sending poll monitors on Tuesday to locations throughout St. Louis. Republican former President Donald Trump, who faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election, continues to falsely claim that his 2020 defeat was the result of widespread fraud. He has urged his supporters to turn out at polling places to watch for suspected fraud.” (11/04/24)
“P’nut the squirrel and Liz Cheney are two bizarre closing symbols of this election campaign. If we read the tea leaves, we can see how they represent what’s really at stake on Tuesday: freedom versus authoritarianism — only it’s the reverse of what Kamala Harris has been saying. (Hint: it’s her political compatriots who killed the squirrel.) The brutal seizure and euthanasia of a pet squirrel by New York state officials, and the embrace by Harris of the turncoat Republican daughter of the architect of the Iraq War are really two sides of the same coin: the authoritarian nature of the modern Democratic Party and its Deep State allies.” [editor’s note: Devine is writing, of course, in a newspaper that endorsed George W. Bush for president, with Dick Cheney as his running mate, twice … and John McCain too – TLK] (11/03/24)
“Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Monday after a six-month stay on the Tiangong space station, part of China’s effort to be a global leader in space exploration. A parachute slowed their capsule’s nighttime descent to a remote landing area in China’s Inner Mongolia region. The crew emerged after touching down at 1:24 a.m. A Chinese national flag stuck in the ground near the capsule flapped in the wind. In recent years, the country’s space program has brought back rocks from the moon and landed a rover on Mars. It aims to put a person on the moon by 2030, which would make China the second nation after the United States to do so. The space station astronauts returned after welcoming a replacement three-person crew last week for the latest six-month mission.” (11/04/24)
“The Israel Defense Forces routinely use detained Palestinians as human shields in Gaza, according to testimony from four Palestinians and one IDF soldier shared with the Washington Post. Their stories, published on Sunday, build on other accounts from Haaretz, Al Jazeera, the international press, and Defense for Children International to reveal a pattern of Israeli soldiers forcing Palestinians — including children — to enter buildings or tunnels ahead of them to check for militants or explosives, in clear violation of international law. ‘This wasn’t something that happened just here and there but rather on a large scale throughout a number of different units, at different times, throughout the war and in different places,’ Joel Carmel, advocacy director of ‘Breaking the Silence’, told the Washington Post.” (11/04/24)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Mainstream western politics and culture pretend the rest of the world does not exist. The mainstream western worldview shrinks the earth down to US-aligned countries and acts as though the billions of people who live in the global south do not share a planet with us. You really see this illustrated in US presidential election season, when debates will feature five or six minutes on ‘foreign policy’ with the remaining two hours dedicated to ‘domestic policy’ and culture war wedge issues despite the the White House’s relationship with foreign countries having orders of magnitude more significant real-world consequences. Americans discuss election results as though the whole thing revolves around them and their feelings and how much more convenient or inconvenient the next president might make their lives, while Europeans discuss what the results might mean for NATO expenses and trade agreements.” (11/04/24)
“Brazilian police have indicted a Colombian fish trader as the person who planned the slaying of Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips in the Amazon in 2022, they announced Monday. The statement did not name the accused, but a police officer told the The Associated Press that it is Ruben Dario da Silva Villar and a second source with direct knowledge of the indictment confirmed this. Da Silva Villar is accused of supplying the ammunition used in the crime and assisting in hiding the bodies. In testimony, he has denied any wrongdoing. Da Silva Villar has been in jail since July 2022, one month after the two men were killed as they traveled by boat on the Itaquai River. According to the federal police investigation, da Silva Villar financed an illegal fishing operation inside the Javari Valley Indigenous Territories, where thousands of Indigenous people live, including the world’s largest concentration of uncontacted groups.” (11/04/24)
