The Political Thread

[Grim]

Hello, its your friendly reminder that the world is currently seeing five major genocides occurring at this very moment.

- The "Vbyvstvo": Russian state-sponsored genocide of Ukrainians (At least 1 million casualties since 2014)

- The Chinese genocides of native Tibetans and Uyghur Muslims. (At least 1.5 Million deaths)

- The Congolese genocide of Tutsis (which of itself is a continuation of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide) [12k+ Deaths]

- Myanmar Rohingya Genocide (43k+ Deaths)

- The Palestinian Crisis (41k+ killed)

The Palestinian and Ukrainian genocides are perhaps the most prevalent to the Western world, but we shouldn't forget about the other three happening right now.

 

[Chris]

A Mystery Repeats: Harris Up 4 in Pennsylvania, and Trump Up 6 in Arizona

Being uncertain about our earlier poll results but finding almost the same numbers the next time around.

www.nytimes.com

At the end of our last wave of post-debate battleground polls, there were two state poll results that didn’t seem to fit the rest.

One was Pennsylvania: Kamala Harris led by four percentage points, making it her best result in the battlegrounds. It was our only state poll conducted immediately after the debate, when her supporters might have been especially excited to respond to a poll.

The other was Arizona: Donald J. Trump led by five points, making it his best result among the battlegrounds. Even stranger, it was a huge swing from our previous poll of the state, which Vice President Harris had led by five points.

In both cases, it seemed possible that another New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll would yield a significantly different result. With that in mind, we decided to take an additional measure of Arizona and Pennsylvania before our final polls at the end of the month.

The result? Essentially the same as our prior polls.

Ms. Harris leads by four points in Pennsylvania, just as she did immediately after the final debate.

Mr. Trump leads by six points in Arizona, about the same as the five-point lead he held three weeks ago.

That’s not what I expected. The average of other polls continues to show a tighter race in both states, and — unlike in Florida — there isn’t an obvious explanation for why the Times/Inquirer/Siena poll is producing a somewhat different result in these two states.

 

[Shane]

How bout the polls are BS and we just wait until Election Day?

 

[Chris]

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-war-iran-palestine-lebanon-10-12-24/index.html

At least 22 people have been killed by Israeli bombardment in the city of Jabalya in northern Gaza, emergency responders said. It comes as Israel is intensifying its military operations in the area.

• Hezbollah said it continued to fire rockets into Israel on Saturday, targeting what it said was a “gathering of Israeli enemy forces.” Meanwhile, the Israeli military has expanded its evacuation warnings to 19 more villages in southern Lebanon. Overall, a quarter of Lebanon’s territory has been placed under evacuation orders by Israel.

• Iran has informed the United States that it will retaliate against any new attack by Israel, a source in Tehran told CNN on Saturday. Iran’s government has also been engaging in urgent diplomatic efforts with countries in the Middle East to gauge whether they can reduce the scale of Israel’s response to its missile attack earlier this month and – if that fails – help protect Tehran, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

• Lebanon’s prime minister made another push for a ceasefire on Saturday, speaking to the US presidential envoy and the president of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran. He reiterated that the Lebanese government’s priority is “working towards a ceasefire” and “halting Israeli aggression,” Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.

• A UN inquiry has accused Israel of war crimes during its year-long war against Hamas in Gaza, saying Israel carried out a “concerted policy” of destroying the enclave’s health care system. Palestinians are living in desperate conditions, with food not having reached northern Gaza since last month, the UN says.

 

[Sky]

Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond dies

The former MP and MSP, who led the country between 2007 and 2014 during the independence referendum, took ill while giving a speech in North Macedonia.

www.bbc.co.uk

Alex Salmond, former First Minister of Scotland (and possible sexual predator, let's not forget) dead at 69

 

[Chris]

Harris Struggles to Win Over Latinos, While Trump Holds His Grip, Poll Shows

Latino voters said they were open to Donald J. Trump’s immigration policies and hungry for change. Many remain undecided.

www.nytimes.com

Vice President Kamala Harris’s support among Hispanic voters is in dangerously low territory for Democrats, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll, while her rival, former President Donald J. Trump, has maintained his strength with the fast-growing group poised to play a key role in deciding control of the White House.

The survey of the likely Latino electorate across the country found Ms. Harris underperforming the last three Democratic candidates for the White House, and vulnerable on a slate of top issues, including the economy, immigration and crime.

Mr. Trump, who shocked Democrats four years ago with his appeal to Latinos, particularly men, has only tightened his grip — even as he closes his campaign with a sharply anti-immigrant message.

The poll found that those escalating attacks on immigrants had not driven Latino voters to Ms. Harris. Two-thirds of those surveyed said they believed Mr. Trump was not referring to people like them when he spoke about immigrants. (Half of foreign-born Hispanic voters said the same.)

 

[Chris]

US will send an air defense battery and American troops to Israel to bolster defenses against Iran

The Pentagon says the United States will send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery and troops to to Israel

abcnews.go.com

The United States will send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery and troops to Israel, the Pentagon said Sunday, even as Iran warned Washington to keep American military forces out of Israel.

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin authorized the deployment of the THAAD battery at the direction of President Joe Biden.

Ryder said the system will help bolster Israel's air defenses following Iran’s missile attacks on Israel in April and October.

“This action underscores the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defense of Israel, and to defend Americans in Israel, from any further ballistic missile attacks by Iran,” Ryder said.

 

[Grim]

 

[Shane]

How any Latino can vote for Trump is beyond my comprehension. The IQ of the USA is just shockingly low

 

[Grim]

Well culturally speaking Latinos tend to lean conservative fiscally and are center-right socially. A lot of that has to do with the whole family dynamic of their various cultures.

So yeah, I can't say I'm surprised.

 

[Shane]

Well culturally speaking Latinos tend to lean conservative fiscally and are center-right socially. A lot of that has to do with the whole family dynamic of their various cultures.

So yeah, I can't say I'm surprised.

The way Trump talks about their kind should turn em off though.

 

[Grim]

The way Trump talks about their kind should turn em off though.

Unfortunately they don't care. It's massive "Pick Me" energy

"Trump isn't talking about us, we're *legal* Latinos, he's talking about those filthy [Insert Specific Ethnic Group Here]"

 

[Samoa Looch]

2015: Trump says Mexican immigrants are rapists and murderers (except for some, which are "probably good people")
2024: Latinos when they hear Trump talking about deporting immigrants and immigration politics: "There is no chance he means me with that"

 

[Chris]

Three Receive Nobel in Economics for Research on Global Inequality

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson shared the award for their work on explaining the gaps in prosperity between nations.

www.nytimes.com

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded on Monday to Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and to James Robinson of the University of Chicago.

They received the prize for their work on the gaps in prosperity between nations, and for their research on how institutions affect economic progress.

The laureates used both theory and data to better explain inequality between countries, according to the prize committee.

“Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time’s greatest challenges,” Jakob Svensson, chairman of the economics prize committee, said in a statement. “The laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for achieving this.”

Their research has shown that the institutions that were introduced during European colonization have helped to shape economic outcomes in the once-colonized countries.

 

[Chris]

India and Canada expel top diplomats over murder charges

Canada accuses agents of the Indian government of involvement in "homicides, extortion and and violent acts".

www.bbc.com

India and Canada have expelled their top envoys along with other diplomats as Justin Trudeau's government accused Indian agents of involvement in "homicides, extortion and violent acts" on Canadian soil.

Canadian police said the criminal activity had particularly targeted supporters of the pro-Khalistan movement which seeks a separate homeland for Sikhs in India.