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Democrats are reportedly coordinating activity on Reddit and abusing X Community Notes

Kamala Harris’ and Tim Walz’s campaign staff have organized “astroturf” operations on the social media platform Reddit and conspired to manipulate the Community Notes feature on X, according to an American researcher.

The Harris-Walz campaign “fraudulently games Community Notes with sock puppet accounts and astroturf tactics. And we have the screenshots and spreadsheets and campaign comms to prove it,” Sean Davis, founder of the outlet Federalist, posted on Wednesday.

Davis was citing a series of articles by a researcher going by the handle ‘Reddit Lies’, including screenshots taken from the Harris-Walz server on the messaging platform Discord, purporting to show how the Democrats conspired to swamp social media with their content, while suppressing criticism.

What a surprise. All that crying about Russia, Russia, Russia. Many of us have long known that there was coordination going on and that the teams and tactics date back to the Hillary campaign.

The researchers are of course Republican reactionary types. But it's nice they're paying attention and howling about this as it would be if they do something to harass or punish these people if they win power as they are ever so annoying.

https://archive.is/UW6Vv

https://archive.is/9oTJO

We have entered a strange, late-stage Empire era, comparable to the Soviet Union’s Glasnost, in which elements of the US imperial braintrust can see with blinding clarity Washington’s entire hegemonic global project is stumbling rapidly and irreversibly towards extinction, and announce so publicly - but their insight does not translate into evasive governmental action at home. The RAND Commission report elicited no mainstream coverage or comment whatsoever, proof positive there isn’t a concomitant effort to manufacture consent for its radical, far-reaching prescriptions.

Were we living in a unipolar age, a multipronged PR campaign would immediately ensue to convince Americans of the righteousness of the Empire’s mission, and the necessity of investing in US “defense” to the tune of trillions. The media’s silence on the Commission’s findings definitionally reflects an omertà among the US political class. The fatal “disconnect” between the Pentagon’s operational and industrial planning identified by RAND will endure. So too ever-intensifying US military impotence. We’re spectating the Empire’s final acts in real-time.

3.3. LEVELS OF AUTHORITY.

Subject to Paragraph 3.1., Defense Intelligence Components may provide personnel to assist a Federal department or agency, including a Federal law enforcement agency, or a State or local law enforcement agency when lives are in danger, in response to a request for such assistance, in accordance with the following approval authorities:

a. Secretary of Defense Approval.

(1) The Secretary of Defense may approve any type of requested permissible assistance described in Paragraph 3.2.

(2) The decision to approve requests for these types of permissible assistance described in Paragraph 3.2. to law enforcement agencies and other civil authorities are reserved to the Secretary of Defense:

(a) Provision of personnel to support response efforts for civil disturbances, which may also require Presidential authorization.

(b) DoD response to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-yield explosive incidents.

(c) Assistance in responding with assets with potential for lethality, or any situation in which it is reasonably foreseeable that providing the requested assistance may involve the use of force that is likely to result in lethal force, including death or serious bodily injury. It also includes all support to civilian law enforcement officials in situations where a confrontation between civilian law enforcement and civilian individuals or groups is reasonably anticipated. Such use of force must be in accordance with DoDD 5210.56, potentially as further restricted based on the specifics of the requested support.

(d) Provision or use of DoD unmanned systems in the United States except as delegated by the Secretary of Defense pursuant to the October 31, 2023 Secretary of Defense Memorandum.

Under this undemocratic system dominated by the two parties of Wall Street, alternative candidates like Claudia and Karina are unjustly excluded from the polls, debates, and most mainstream coverage. But thanks to the tireless work of thousands of volunteers, we’re breaking through the obstacles!

At the time of Roberson’s trial, shaken baby syndrome — now referred to as abusive head trauma — was a common misdiagnosis.

In 2013 the Texas Legislature passed what is now called the junk science law, or statute 11.073. The law allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence used against them is no longer credible.

However, according to a report by the Texas Defender Service, “of the 25 applications filed by people sentenced to death, 64% were dismissed or denied. Applications from death-sentenced people constituted 34% of all applications filed. The deadly consequences of this pattern are clear: People may be executed following convictions that rest on faulty science, because they are unable to obtain relief under 11.073.” (tinyurl.com/4jyw36s3)

When an execution date was ordered this past summer, action went into high gear. A bi-partisan majority of the Texas House of Representatives urged the state to grant clemency. Famed writer and retired attorney John Grisham penned op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. Almost all Texas media was reporting on the case as were national press from the New York Times to CNN to Time Magazine.

A group of legislators spent several hours at the prison housing death row visiting Roberson and praying with him. Even the coach of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team urged Texans to contact the governor and ask for the execution to be stopped.

No one knows what will happen after Roberson testifies before the House Committee. Another execution date could be immediately set by either the Anderson County District Attorney or Attorney General Paxton, although it would have to be at least 90 days away. This would then necessitate a new round of appeals and hopefully some court or judge or body would find a way to listen to the facts of the case and either drop the charges or order a new trial.

When Roberson was asked what he wanted, he simply said he wanted to go home.

The agreement was made with the intervention of Secretary of Labor Julie Su, an agent of the Biden administration and the corporations. The strike stems from the workers’ anger at being without a new contract for 16 years due to Boeing’s attacks and concessionary bargaining by the Machinists union leadership. In an era of galloping inflation, IAM members have experienced a lot of erosion in their living standards.

The workers have been told by Boeing that the company will move their jobs elsewhere. Cutbacks, harassment, layoffs and outsourcing have been applied. But the Machinists understand that they’re essential, and Boeing can’t build planes without them.

The union is demanding a pay increase of 40%. The workers have come close to winning this with a pay hike of over 35% in the most recent contract offer. Boeing’s first and second offers of 25% and 30% were rejected by the strikers.

Workers are demanding a return to their defined benefit pension plan, which was stolen from them in 2014. The company has added new contributions to the IAM’s 401(k) plan in the latest offer but refuses to restore traditional, defined benefit pensions, which are better for the workers. For this reason, the IAM leadership is not recommending a “yes” vote.

Many Machinists might hold out for pensions. At a recent rally of several thousand strikers, they chanted, “Pension, Pension!” After the rally, the workers marched from the Machinists Hall to Boeing’s Seattle plant.

In retaliation for the strike, Boeing has imposed extreme attacks on its workers. The company has canceled all of the strikers’ medical plans for the duration of the strike.

Boeing has a debt of $45 billion and in the first half of 2024 had a cash outflow of $8 billion. Before the strike began, the company started furloughing thousands of workers, i.e., making them work only three weeks out of four. Then on week five of the strike, Kelly Ortberg, the new company CEO, announced the layoff of 10% of Boeing’s workforce – 17,000 workers. These are mostly non-union workers or workers from outside of Seattle and Portland. The union Machinists would not be laid off.

These attacks are anti-worker and contradict the company’s supposed need to increase production. This ploy is only an attempt to conserve cash. The IAM responded to this by condemning Boeing’s payment of $68 billion to Wall Street investors in dividends and stock buybacks in the last decade.

Boeing is desperate. Although some strikers are hurting after 40 days, they are still strong on the picket line.

Over a century of imperialist exploitation of Congo’s natural resources and labor has left the people in poverty and experiencing human rights violations, while billionaires have reaped huge profits.

A group of international lawyers, on behalf of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), sent a letter in April to Apple’s CEO, charging that minerals used to make its products are mined illegally in the country under abusive conditions and then smuggled out by armed groups.

The letter includes this charge: “The iPhones, Mac computers and accessories that Apple sells to its customers around the world rely on supply chains that are too opaque and that are tainted by the blood of the Congolese people.” (2024.04.25-AP-DRC-Blood-Minerals.pdf)

Over the past three years, a war of aggression has been waged for economic gain by the March 23 Movement (M23), whose members have killed hundreds of civilians and forced more than 1 million people to abandon their homes. The term “genocost,” meaning genocide for economic gain, has been used to describe what is happening in Congo. Reinforcements from the Rwandan Defense Forces have aided M23, and Rwanda has managed to launder vast quantities of tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold from the DRC.

In a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City in 1964, Malcolm X made the connection between conditions in Congo and those that Black people face in the United States: “As long as we think that we should get Mississippi straightened out before we worry about the Congo, you’ll never get Mississippi straightened out — not until you start realizing your connection with the Congo.” (friendsofthecongo.org)

On the 25th anniversary this year, the often-overlooked impact of capital punishment on families was highlighted, and they were the only speakers at this year’s rally organized by a coalition of groups on Oct. 19.

Before the rally a spirited march took everyone to a nearby overpass of a busy freeway where a banner drop was held. Traffic honked approval, and three large banners and dozens of signs were well-received.

Speaking and chanting on bull horns as they went through the historic Third Ward African American neighborhood, words echoed off the homes and buildings with chants like “Death penalty? Shut it down!” and “Texas says death row! We say hell no!”

The rally at Our Park, adjacent to the S.H.A.P.E. Community Center, was led off by the mother of Erica Sheppard, who was sent to death row in 1993 at age 19, and said she was angry and tired.

Madelyn Johnson has raised Sheppard’s three children and numerous grandchildren and said, “I am ready for Erica to come home.” Johnson talked about the expense, both financial and emotional, of visiting her daughter.

She drives over three hours to visit her daughter, paying for overpriced food and drinks from the vending machines. She regularly puts in money in her daughter’s commissary account for essentials like toothpaste, deodorant and extra food, plus she buys minutes so Erica can regularly call home.