Source: The American Conservative
by James Bovard
“TSA’s air marshal program is the equivalent of a ticking time bomb waiting for the next boondoggle to explode. TSA claims that it merely places air marshals on flights which are considered high-risk for hijacking or terrorist attacks. But in 2021, insiders revealed that 900 air marshals—almost half the active total — were designated to stand by for flights taken by members of Congress. … Quiet Skies is only the latest TSA air marshal pratfall. TSA spends almost $1 billion on air marshals. Though marshals have never stopped a hijacking, they have scored plenty of headlines. … Rep. John Duncan (R-TN) groused that the air marshal program ‘has come to be a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the DHS, when 4,000 bored cops fly around the country First Class, committing more crimes than they stop.'” (08/25/24)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/gabbard-episode-shows-the-surveillance-state-strong-and-stupid-as-ever/
Source: Newsday
“Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign says it has now raised $540 million for its election battle against Republican nominee former President Donald Trump. The campaign has had no problems getting supporters to open their wallets since President Joe Biden announced on July 21 he was ending his campaign and quickly endorsed Harris. The campaign said it saw a surge of donations during last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago where Harris and her vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, accepted their nominations. … Trump has also proven to be a formidable fundraiser, but appears to be outpaced in her month-old campaign. Trump’s campaign and its related affiliates announced earlier this month that they had raised $138.7 million in July — less than what Harris took in during her White House bid’s opening week. Trump’s campaign reported $327 million in cash on hand at the start of August.” (08/25/24)
https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/kamala-harris-donald-trump-fundraising-t29450
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“Is Kamala Harris a communist? That would depend on what ‘communist’ means. Defenders of communism get very slippery when you try to pin them down on the definition. Their usual tactic is to demand to know how you define communism rather than to define it themselves — probably because they can’t define it without looking like monsters for defending it. Whatever you say in response, they’ll claim it isn’t ‘real communism’ like they are advocating. … Since I’m not a mind reader, I can’t tell you what people who advocate communism are thinking or what they want. A more useful approach is to describe what communists tend to do when they get power.” (08/25/24)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2024/08/25/voices/opinion-both-candidates-tick-communist-boxes/179233.html
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“Malaysia’s former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin will be charged with sedition on Tuesday, police and his party have said, over alleged comments about the previous king’s appointment of Anwar Ibrahim instead of him after a tight 2022 general election. Muhyiddin, who led Malaysia between 2020 and 2021, will be the country’s first former leader to be charged under the colonial era law, and faces a maximum fine of 5,000 ringgit (US$1,140), up to three years’ jail or both if found guilty. He allegedly questioned then-king Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah’s decision to back Anwar for the prime minister’s office despite Muhyiddin claiming he had secured a simple parliamentary majority.” (08/26/24)
https://archive.is/hxzD0
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“The long decline of major-media news journalism has been quite a story. We’ve been following it for years — perhaps all our lives. Back when there were only three channels in the U.S., and when most cities had a newspaper or two, all competing to ‘cover the news,’ we thought that there was some objectivity to it all — that facts were paramount. That may have been naive. But with the rise of cable television news and the 24-hour news ‘cycle,’ and then Internet blogging, vlogging, and podcasting, all fixed around a few social media company platforms, all pretense of rigorous reporting has evaporated.” [editor’s note: “Objective journalism” was a 20th century fetish that hid bias rather than eliminating it; personally I’d rather it was just openly displayed – TLK] [other editor’s note: Back when I was a “journalist” there was at least an effort made to be as “objective” as possible when reporting “news” and letting Opinions be clearly labeled as such – SAT] (08/23/24)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2024/08/23/democrats-move-on
Source: New York Times
“Colorado Republicans have voted to remove their party’s chairman amid mounting internal criticism of his leadership, including over recent posts that attacked the L.G.B.T.Q. community and accusations that he had fueled divisions within the party. Dave Williams, a hard-line state representative who was elected to helm the Colorado Republican Party last year, was ousted on Saturday …. According to Michael J. Allen, a Republican district attorney in Colorado Springs, about 88 percent of the 182 or so eligible members voted for the motion at the Saturday meeting to remove Mr. Williams. … Williams denounced the meeting, which was held at a church in the municipality of Brighton, near Denver, as a ‘sham,’ noting that it was ‘illegitimate’ based on procedural grounds. Mr. Williams also described those behind the vote as ‘a fringe minority faction’ and said that a ‘real’ meeting is scheduled for next Saturday.” (08/25/24)
https://archive.is/dqIRO
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“The citizenship clause’s ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ language was intended to exclude only a few categories of people — e.g., the children of foreign diplomats and tribal Native Americans (to whom Congress extended citizenship in 1924). Congress in 1868 could not, in expected application of the phrase, have contemplated the exclusion of children of illegal immigrants. This is because in 1868 there were none: Until 1875, there were no national immigration laws to violate. Today, illegal immigrants are prosecuted for breaking laws besides those concerning entry into the country: Those here illegally are ‘subject to’ U.S. ‘jurisdiction.'” (08/23/24)
https://archive.is/9Hfzl
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“The reason I find myself fighting with both Harris supporters and Trump supporters is because they see the other party as the problem while I see the US empire itself as the problem. They seek to make things better by ensuring that the empire is under the correct management, while I seek the end of the empire. … People say things like ‘Oh but Kamala Harris speaks so compassionately about the suffering of the Palestinians!’ These dupes had eight years of Obama speaking eloquent, compassionate-sounding words while continuing and expanding all of Bush’s ugliest policies, and they still haven’t learned the lesson here. … Call me naive but I am truly, legitimately shocked that the Democrats are running on such a warmongering platform instead of pretending to stand for peace this election season.” (08/25/24)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/08/25/the-problem-isnt-the-us-having-the-wrong-president-the-problem-is-the-us-empires-existence/
Source: Bloomberg
“In Jackson Hole this weekend, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell outlined two priorities for the months ahead: keeping the US economy afloat while also taking a closer look at what went wrong over the past few years. Headlines from the Fed chair’s Friday speech were dominated by his concerns over the state of the cooling labor market. But Powell also previewed what will be the Fed’s first formal review of its strategy since being caught off guard by an inflation surge during the pandemic, a mistake that forced officials to raise interest rates rapidly to catch up. … With inflation almost back to the Fed’s target and concerns over unemployment rising, the central bank is poised to begin cutting rates in September. That’s bringing questions about how quickly it needs to ease and where rates will ultimately settle into the spotlight.” (08/25/24)
https://archive.is/LKoiL
Source: The Anarchist Experience
“Rich, MC, and KS discuss the fallout of the DNC, potential nuclear war in Europe, who run NATO, and a brief encounter with ya boi.” (08/24/24)
https://theanarchistexperience.wordpress.com/2024/08/24/the-anarchist-experience-490/