#Latest List of Governors

[reasonsforhope]

Paywall-Free Article

"In one of its first big decisions, Britain’s new Labour government on Friday [July 12, 2024] announced the early release of thousands of prisoners, blaming the need to do so on a legacy of neglect and underinvestment under the Conservative Party, which lost last week’s general election after 14 years in power.

With the system nearly at capacity and some of the country’s aged prison buildings crumbling, the plan aims to avoid an overcrowding crisis that some had feared might soon explode.

But with crime a significant political issue, the decision is a sensitive one and the prime minister, Keir Starmer, a former chief prosecutor, lost no time in pointing to his predecessors to explain the need for early releases.

“We knew it was going to be a problem, but the scale of the problem was worse than we thought, and the nature of the problem is pretty unforgivable in my book,” Mr. Starmer said, speaking ahead of the decision while attending a NATO summit in Washington...

Under the new government’s plan, those serving some sentences in England and Wales would be released after serving 40 percent of their sentence, rather than at the midway point at which many are freed “on license,” a kind of parole.

The even earlier releases will not apply to those convicted of more serious crimes, including sexual offenses, serious violence and terrorism. But Mark Icke, vice president of the Prison Governors’ Association, told the BBC that the plan could remove from the system “between 8,000 and 10,000 people,” providing “some breathing space.”

[Note: And more importantly - breathing space for thousands of people who have been unjustly imprisoned for minor offenses, as well as their families.]

Despite some early releases under the previous government, the strain on the prison system has been relentless. In England and Wales, the prison population stands at 87,505 — very close to the maximum capacity of 88,956 — according to the latest official data...

In its first week in power, Labour has said that it is grappling with a difficult inheritance after years of restraint in spending on public services under the Conservatives. In one of her first acts in government, the new chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has ordered a review of Britain’s public finances.

Before Labour had won the election, it identified the strain on Britain’s prisons as a potentially major problem. The issue was cited on an internal list of key concerns; others included the strain on the overburdened health care system and financial pressure on municipalities and universities.

The prison population of England and Wales has doubled over the last 30 years, despite a decline in crime rates, and it has increased by 13 percent in the past three years...

Rory Stewart, a former Conservative prisons minister, said that Britain had incarcerated too many people, including for minor crimes such as repeated failure to pay council tax, which is levied by local authorities for municipal services.

According to Mr. Stewart in remarks to the BBC, imprisoning people for minor crimes “doesn’t protect the public. It doesn’t help these people get away from offending. And it creates these violent, filthy, shameful places which our prisons have become today.” The Conservative and Labour parties, he added, had “competed with each other on being more and more ferocious in demanding longer and longer sentences.”

Mr. Starmer has raised hopes among those who want to change that policy by appointing a prominent advocate of overhauling the prison system, James Timpson, as prisons minister. Mr. Timpson, a businessman, has a record of employing former prisoners in an effort to give them a second chance."

-via The New York Times, July 12, 2024

[beardedmrbean]

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was interrupted during a congressional hearing dedicated to discussing "hate" on Tuesday by an anti-Israel agitator who stood up shouting "F---ing Jews." 

During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled, "A Threat to Justice Everywhere: Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America," Cruz discussed soaring antisemitism on college campuses in the wake of Oct. 7. 

"Antisemitism is a unique, historic form of evil, and over millennia, it is manifested in violence, mass murder and genocide," Cruz said. "October 7th was one of the darkest days in human history when terrorists murdered over 1,200 Israelis and took 251 hostages. Women and girls were raped. It was the single largest mass murder of Jews in a day since the Holocaust. In the wake of October 7th, we have seen antisemitism explode across the United States and across the world, but especially on college campuses." 

After listing examples of antisemitic and pro-Hamas messages hurled toward Jewish students, Cruz called out the Biden-Harris administration. 

COLUMBIA ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS TO REACH ‘CRESCENDO OF INTIMIDATION’ AS SCHOOL SUFFERS LATEST BLACK EYE

"Throughout all of this, the Biden-Harris administration has been utterly absent. Does anyone doubt if the Klan were on college campuses terrorizing African American students, threatening African American students, that we would see the FBI there, that we would see prosecutors there, that we would see federal funding cut off to universities? Of course we would. And we should," Cruz said. "But when it comes to antisemitism, the Democrats have a problem. I would note this is occurring in blue states with blue governors, because the Democrat Party is terrified of the pro-Hamas wing of their party."

"In states like Texas and Florida, we don't allow this. At the University of Texas, when violent protests threatened Jewish students, police officers arrived and arrested them. That's what happened when you enforce the law," Cruz continued. "Every Republican member of this committee asked the chairman to hold a hearing on antisemitism in February. And yet we don't get a hearing on antisemitism. We get a hearing generically on hate."

Cruz was about to explain why he believes the Biden administration is to blame for this, when a man in the audience stood up and interjected, shouting profanities including "F---ing Jews," according to video on social media. The anti-Israel agitator was then escorted out. 

"And this is the kind of anger and hate that is encouraged. You're now seeing the hate manifesting right here," Cruz said, referencing the protester. 

"So we now have a demonstration of antisemitism. We have a demonstration of the hate," he added. 

Cruz proceeded to ask one of the witnesses, Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, "Has the Biden administration cut off the funding of any of the colleges that have allowed this hate? Have they indicted anyone for funding these violent protests? Have they indicted the people paying for the matching tents, or have they sat there silently and have the universities, sat there silently while their students are terrified to go to class?" 

Goldfeder responded, "They have not indicted anyone." 

"Has any university had their funding cut off for allowing this sort of violent intimidation?" Cruz asked. 

"Not a single university," Goldfeder said. 

The senator earlier referenced how the Anti-Defamation League has illustrated how the number of antisemitic incidents in the United States more than doubled from 2022 to 2023. 

ACTRESS SELMA BLAIR CONDEMNS ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS 'PRAISING' HAMAS TERRORISTS: 'SOMETHING VERY WRONG'

Cruz said that "college campuses in particular have become vile incubators of hatred of Jews," citing examples of how one Cornell University student made threats after Oct. 7, including statements such as "if I see a pig, male Jew, I will stab you and slit your throat.If I see another pig female Jew, I will drag you away and rape you and throw you off a cliff." 

The Republican senator displayed a flier circulated by a student organization at California State University, Long Beach, calling for a "Day of Resistance" celebrating Oct. 7, noting how the flier included an image of a person parachuting with a fan attached, "a direct reference to and a glorification of Hamas terrorists that used gliders to descend upon a music festival and murder 260 innocent people and take many more hostages." 

Cruz recalled that in the days after now-former Columbia University President Minouche Shafik was confronted about soaring antisemitism on campus before the House Education and the Workforce Committee in April, Rabbi Elie Buechler issued a warning to Jewish students that Columbia "cannot guarantee Jewish students' safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy," and that he "would strongly recommend" that Jewish students leave campus and go back to their homes.

Cruz said the rabbi "had every reason to be concerned," as at Columbia's campus, individuals yelled, "We're all Hamas! Long live Hamas!" 

The senator continued to list examples of antisemitism on campuses across the U.S., including the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor who was told to "go back to the gas chambers," and displayed a photo of a student at Columbia University holding a sign reading "al-Qassam's next targets," in front of a group of students holding American and Israeli flags in counter-protest. 

"Al-Qassam is the military arm of Hamas. According to social media, this particular student is a wealthy student from Georgia. She's not Palestinian, but she has been taught lies and hatred, and she feels perfectly comfortable advocating the murder of her fellow students at Columbia," Cruz said. 

[darkmaga-retard]

Well, the list of Democrats lying about their military service is getting so big, we decided to do a “megablog” to cover all the new info flooding the internet. As we all know, the Big Daddy of Stolen Valor is still Tampon Tim, and when asked about it during the recent CNN interview, he refused to own up to his shameful actions and blamed his lies on “bad grammar.”

(Article republished from Revolver.news)

CNN: “You said you carried weapons in war, but you’ve never deployed in a war zone…” Walz: “… I speak candidly. I wear my emotions on my sleeves…” CNN: “… You said that you were in war. Did you misspeak?” Walz: “… My grammar is not always correct.”pic.twitter.com/ZU2frJL2FD — Jerry Dunleavy IV ?? (@JerryDunleavy) August 30, 2024

Dems really think the American people are stupid.

The latest stolen valor scumbag is Wes Moore—the new political figure the Dems are grooming to be their next “Obama.” But Mr. Moore, like others before him, is a shameless liar who steals valor and fabricates stories to make himself look better than he is. Surprisingly, even the New York Times is covering this issue, as Moore’s lies begin to unravel on the national stage. One of the most egregious is his false claim of receiving a Bronze Star—a particularly disgraceful lie, in the Dems stolen valor genre.

The New York Times:

When Wes Moore ran for governor of Maryland in 2022, questions about whether he had claimed to have been awarded a Bronze Star for his Army service in Afghanistan hovered over his campaign. For reasons that remain unexplained, two television interviewers, Gwen Ifill and Stephen Colbert, had wrongly introduced him years earlier as a recipient of the award. Mr. Moore failed to correct them, even as he and his aides insisted he had never told anyone he had a Bronze Star. But at least once, Mr. Moore, now the state’s Democratic governor, did say he had received the award. He made the claim on an application for a prestigious White House fellowship in 2006, when he was 27 years old, according to a copy of the document that was obtained this week by The New York Times as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. “For my work,” he wrote, “the 82nd Airborne Division have awarded me the Bronze Star Medal and the Combat Action Badge.”

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) has signed a bill that bans state and local governments from mandating COVID-19 vaccines for workers after a similar ban expired last month.

The legislation signed Thursday is aimed at defending citizens’ “individual liberty,” Sanders said at a press conference prior to its signing.

The legislation also prohibits COVID-19 vaccinations from being required as a condition of education, or for obtaining a service or licensure, permit or certificate of some kind. Any potential risks and harms associated with the shots must also be recorded and published by the state.

The bill is different from the state’s prior ban on vaccine mandates, which first went into effect in 2021, in that it covers vaccines or immunizations for any subvariants of the coronavirus, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The latest COVID-19 vaccine, which was federally authorized for use this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, is specially designed to reduce major illness and illness from omicron virus variants that are currently circulating.

In total, Sanders signed 11 bills on Thursday.

A separate bill she signed restricts the public release of her travel and security records. That bill, which went into immediate effect, shields details about the security that the Governor and other constitutional officers receive.

These details include who travels on the State Police airplane and the cost of individual trips. Sanders argued that it was needed for her and her family’s safety, though some critics said it eliminates government transparency.

State Sen. Bart Hester (R), who co-sponsored the bill, said at Thursday’s press conference that all of the state’s elected government leaders are still able to see the travel receipts through audit. The law also requires the state to file a quarterly report listing the monthly costs of protecting the Governor.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On Wednesday morning, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump launched his first attacks on Tim Walz, the Democratic Party's Vice Presidential pick. Trump criticized Walz for being too supportive of transgender rights. These sentiments have been echoed by other prominent Republican campaigners, including some from organizations known for spending millions in failed campaigns against candidates with pro-LGBTQ+ and pro-transgender records. The segment on Fox & Friends opened with a list of things that make a Harris/Walz ticket “too liberal,” according to the panel. The list included healthcare for immigrants, making abortion a fundamental right, COVID-protection measures, and “signing a law making MN a sanctuary for children seeking ‘gender-affirming’ care.” Trump then took to answering questions from the hosts. When asked about his reaction to Governor Tim Walz joining Kamala Harris as the Democratic VP pick, Trump responded, “I would say my reaction is I can’t believe it, I never though this would be the one that was picked,” before turning to Walz’ role in the Black Lives Matter protests. Then, he turned to Walz record on transgender people, stating, “This is… there’s never been a ticket like this. This is a ticket that would want this country to go communist immediately, if not sooner. We want no security, no anything. He’s very heavily into transgender. Anything transgender, he thinks is great.”

The attack on Walz’s record on transgender rights primarily centers around a 2023 executive order that designated Minnesota a “safe state” or “refuge” for transgender people seeking care across state lines. Before this executive order, transgender individuals who obtained care in Minnesota could potentially have their health records subpoenaed by attorneys general in other states. This notably happened with Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, who attempted to obtain transgender patient records from trans youth who received care at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where a nearly identical law prevented those records from being subpoenaed. Importantly, most safe state and shield law protections apply not only to transgender care but also to abortion care. 

[...] Attacks on transgender people have little record of electoral success, with similar efforts failing in many campaigns over the last few elections. [...] Nevertheless, it appears that Trump and Republican operatives will intensify their anti-transgender attacks against the Democratic ticket in the 2024 election, a strategy may signal desperation in the wake of falling poll numbers.

Appearing on Fox and Friends Wednesday, Donald Trump launched attacks on Kamala Harris’s running mate pick Tim Walz’s support for transgender rights by stating that “he’s very heavily into transgender”.

The main anti-trans attacks levied against Walz are because of his transgender safe refuge executive order during his current job as Governor of Minnesota.

In recent elections, most campaigns that made anti-trans attacks the centerpiece pitch lost.

See Also:

The Advocate: Donald Trump bashes Tim Walz's support for trans people in such a weird way

From the 08.07.2024 edition of FNC's Fox and Friends:

[george-the-good]

The Sunday Pictorial - May 18, 1947

By a Special Contributor to the ‘Sunday Pictorial’

The tumult and the shouting dies. But for the King there can be no relaxation. When the cheering crowds disperse and go home, he has a tedious exacting job to do at his desk.

Throughout Britain this week the talk has been of our King and Queen. When they left for South Africa they were envied their promise of sunshine and non-austerity food.

Then, day after day, we heard of them giving a reception here, auditions there... It was work, hard work.

And now they are back… to work again in surroundings so familiar that they lack the excitement and glamour of the young Dominion.

Passers-by, looking up at the Royal Standard floating above Buckingham Palace, know that the King is back in London and try to imagine what he is doing. But all that emerges from behind those grey stone walls is a dull, factual Court Circular, with its list of people received, Privy Councils held, and ladies and gentlemen in attendance.

Now let’s go through the tall, double glass doors of the Privy Purse, the ‘business’ entrance of the Palace, on your right as you face it from the Mall, and see how the King’s day is planned, how the head of the Empire does his work.

In general control of the King’s official activities is his private secretary, holder of an office that has grown in importance greatly during the past three reigns until today it is often referred to as that of the ‘Sovereign’s Personal Prime Minister.’

The present private secretary is sparsely built, quizzical Sir Alan Lascelles, who holds the office not because he is first cousin to the Earl of Harewood, the King’s brother-in-law, but because of his long record as a servant of the Crown. He was assistant private secretary to the Duke of Windsor when he was Prince of Wales, private secretary to the Governor-General of Canada, and assistant private secretary to George V, Edward VIII and George VI.

Always an early riser, Sir Alan walks over from his house at St. James’s - which he has rent free as part of his salary - just after nine, and is firmly seated at his desk, with a good idea of the news of the day, by nine-thirty. At any moment after that a bell may ring, and an old-fashioned card indicator on the wall falls, showing the words ‘The King.’

Then Sir Alan, known to the King and Queen and to everyone else at the palace as Tommy, ‘goes up’ to the King. Those words are literally as well as constitutionally true, for the King’s business room - he does not call it his study - is on the first floor.

With the King, Tommy will go through the latest dispatches and messages from our Ambassadors abroad, reports from Whitehall, minutes from various Government departments, ‘submissions’ from the Prime Minister and from the Premiers of the Dominions, each of whom has the right of direct approach to the King.

Tommy knows more of what is going on all over the Empire and the world than anyone else, except the King. That’s part of his job.

It is his task to advise the King on every kind of problem, from whether he should accept an invitation to open an agricultural show, to what he should say in a Christmas broadcast, or whether and how he should intervene in some major crisis in public affairs.

Under Sir Alan are two assistant private secretaries, who take on the routine work, fixing details of programmes for provincial visits by the King and Queen, arranging for audiences and so on.

Part of their task is to furnish a short ‘aide-memoire’ for the King about everyone whom he receives in audience. The King has a really remarkable memory for faces and names, but he cannot be expected to remember details of each man’s career, of the interests and attainments of everyone he meets.

Another of their responsibilities is to furnish rough outline material for the King’s speeches, material which the King himself will later review and arrange.

Altogether there are about forty-five active members of the Royal Household in daily attendance at the Palace, not counting another fifty or more extra equerries, ushers, chaplains and holders of political appointments to the Household. They are the men - and women - who comprise the Court of St. James’s, the wheels in the smooth-running machine of British monarchy.

Today the Palace is run not as a great gentleman’s house, with everything in profusion regardless of cost, and kindly but not over-efficient amateurs holding important jobs, but on strict business lines.

In any business house it is true that if the boss is slack or unpunctual, the rest of the staff are likely to fall off in efficiency. That is true at the Palace as well, and the ‘boss’ - the King - is as hard working, as early rising as anyone on his staff.

Seven-thirty is his normal hour for rising, and he has his simple breakfast alone - bacon is his favourite dish, but the ration does not always run to it. Immediately afterwards he walks into his ‘business room,’ unlocks the red-leather dispatch boxes which have been brought in by the Page of the Presence - an old and trusted Palace servant - and settles down to read.

His papers may include a secret report from a British ambassador on the state of war-preparedness in the country to which he is accredited, and a memorandum on the miners’ attitude to nationalisation of the coalfields, as well as half a dozen other important matters. All of these the King reads and digests.

Presently he rings for his secretary, and the long morning procession begins, to end before lunch with perhaps a new ambassador coming to present his ‘letters of credence’ or a new bishop to do homage on bended knee before the secular head of the Established Church, or an Empire statesman or an outgoing Governor-General to have audience and stay to lunch.

Almost every day the King and Queen lunch together, usually with Princess Elizabeth at table as well, and over lunch the family discuss their plans, arrange theatre parties or dances, talk over the coming week-end at Royal Lodge, and chat of the everyday familiar things that are part of any family’s life.

If there are important State guests at luncheon, the talk is naturally on a more serious plane, and Elizabeth, who meets as many of the important Palace visitors as possible, as part of her training, joins in the conversation.

After luncheon, the King likes to take a short stroll in the Palace gardens, sometimes with Elizabeth and her Corgi dog, sometimes alone. Then it is back to his desk till tea time.

Tea is another family gathering, after which, there is usually a final audience the King must give to the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, or some other highly placed member of his Government.

Between then and dinner, the King sits at his desk tidying up the odds and ends left over during the day: for he is a man with a tidy mind, as befits a former naval officer, and he cannot bear leaving over things unfinished till the next day.

Often it is seven-thirty before he is finished - and that means that one or other of the secretaries, if not all three, is still on duty - and the royal dinner is served at eight.

There is just time to bath and dress - the King nearly always wears a dinner jacket and black tie - before he joins the Queen and the Princesses for what they all regard as the pleasantest part of the day.

In armchairs, the King and Queen and their daughters like to sit, the King reading a light book for relaxation, or looking at a sporting magazine, the Queen knitting or doing embroidery, and the Princesses reading or studying.

Even then, the King is not off duty. At any moment there may be a telephone call from Whitehall, a Government messenger may come to the Palace with urgent dispatches which the King must see at once.

Then the private line to Tommy’s house over at St. James’s comes into action, and if the matter is one of real gravity, the King’s secretary will leave his own home and rejoin his master for a conference that may go on till midnight.

For being the King-Emperor is a full-time job. He is, indeed, the servant of his own subjects and he is ready always to turn from his own recreations to the duty which is not of his own choice, but which he has accepted at all times with unflagging zeal.

[dipstick-university]

From the UBC Social Justice Centre: While we study at UBC, the Israeli genocide of Palestinians continues halfway across the world. The distance between stolen Coast Salish territories and Occupied Palestine might give the impression that our university is detached from the Zionist system of apartheid. In reality, the flows of global capital and academic exchange have implicated UBC in Israeli crimes against humanity.

UBC’s latest holdings disclosure report revealed that the Board of Governors had approved investments of over $66 MILLION in banks and companies complicit in the Zionist settler-colonial occupation of Palestine, the Israeli apartheid system, and the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Over $10 MILLION is invested in notorious weapons manufacturers like Airbus, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, BAE Systems, and Elbit Systems, all of which are currently supplying the Israeli Occupation Forces with the weapons used to massacre Palestinians in Gaza.

In order to educate our community on UBC’s complicity in the genocide, the Social Justice Centre’s International Solidarity working group partnered with Graduate Students for Palestine to produce this resource: the UBC Apartheid Investment Database. Please find the full list of companies linked in our bio.

We hope that this resource deepens your understanding of the connections between settler-colonial occupation, oppression, and dispossession from the Salish Seas to Palestine. We also hope that it highlights the responsibility we all have as UBC students to stand against racism, militarism, and apartheid.

We cannot let this be normal. It is our duty to honour Palestinians’ own calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) by loudly and clearly rejecting the Board of Governors’ undemocratic and unconscionable choice to fund companies profiting from the systematic annihilation of Palestinians.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

A breathtaking scam: Inside Georgia's newest voter suppression tactic

Thom Hartmann

August 2, 2024 12:07AM ET

Photo by Olesya Yemets on Unsplash

Republicans in Georgia have been champions at pioneering new ways to disenfranchise Democratic voters. Their latest scam is breathtaking.

First, the background.

When Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp was Secretary of State — the state’s top elections official — and running against Stacey Abrams for Governor in 2018, Abrams’ organization had registered 53,000 people (70% African American) to vote. Kemp put those registrations on hold so they couldn’t vote in the 2018 election, which he won by 54,723 votes.

But that was just the beginning for Kemp. By the year prior to the 2018 election he’d purged a total of 1.4 million voters from the rolls, claiming he was just removing people who’d died or moved. On a single night in July 2017 he removed half a million voters, about 8% of all registered Georgia voters, an act The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said “may represent the largest mass disenfranchisement in US history.”

ALSO READ: We asked 10 Republican senators: ‘Is Kamala Harris Black?’ Things got weird fast.

Investigative reporter Greg Palast hired the company Amazon uses to verify addresses and ran the names and addresses of those 534,000 people Kemp purged that July day through their system: 334,000 of them, most Black, had neither died nor moved. But they’d sure lost their right to vote.

Then Kemp shut down 8 percent of all the polling places in Georgia just before the election, the majority — recommended as a “cost saving move” by a white consultant Kemp had hired — in Black neighborhoods. Did I mention that he “won” that election by only 54,723 votes?

In 2020, when Stacey Abrams again challenged Kemp for the governorship, Kemp’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (pronounced “Raff-ens-purger”) purged another 309,000 voters from the rolls; Palast hired the company again and found that 198,351 of them had neither died nor moved.

It’s worth noting that if Brian Kemp wanted to take away a gun from any Georgia resident, Republicans on the Supreme Court have ruled that he’d have to go to court and prove his case; to purge voters from the rolls and take away their votes, though, Republicans on the Supreme Court have also ruled that Kemp doesn’t even need to notify those voters.

This year, Kemp signed a new law allowing any citizen to present a list of voters they believe must be purged from the rolls; one person, Marjorie Taylor Greene ally and Republican activist Pam Reardon, submitted a list of 32,000 voters, and the Chairman of the Ft. Benning area GOP, Alton Russell, challenged over 4,000 voters. A total of 149,000 voters were challenged by a handful of white Republican activists.

These tricks have helped keep Republicans in charge of Georgia politics, a state that would almost certainly be blue if every citizen were allowed to easily vote.

But there was some blowback to Kemp’s and Raffensperger’s “mass purge by vote vigilantes” strategy, so now comes Kemp’s latest trick.

This week Georgia rolled out a new website where people can let the state know they’ve moved (or their relative has died) and cancel their voter registration online. It’s super easy; you just plug in your information and, poof, your voter registration vanishes.

This would seem to be a solution in search of a problem. For example, over the past 50 years I’ve lived in Michigan, New Hampshire, Germany, Georgia, Vermont, Oregon, Washington DC, and then Oregon again: I never once let a state know I’d moved. Nobody does.

Instead, states track death records and the expiration of drivers’ licenses to determine who’s died and moved so they can then cancel registrations appropriately. My being registered to vote in both, say, Washington DC and Oregon when I only live in Oregon, is not a problem for DC if I don’t try to vote there. And nobody ever tries to vote twice just because they’ve moved; it’s a form of “voter fraud” that just doesn’t happen in any meaningful numbers.

But “keeping the voter rolls clean” — as if it were an urgent imperative making the wait for drivers’ licenses to expire just too dangerous — is the new excuse for Kemp’s Georgia website. Nobody’s believing the GOP’s “mass voter fraud” schtick anymore, so they’re reverting to this rational-sounding new way of getting Democrats removed from the voting rolls.

The problem with the new “cancel my registration” site is that bad actors, if they know a person’s name, address, DOB, and either Social Security or drivers’ license number, can simply go in and cancel other people they don’t want voting.

The “safety barrier” is that Republican activists who want to delete voter registrations in areas they know are heavily Democratic might be deterred from trying to do that with this new site, because they don’t have all that data on every Georgia voter.

Until this week.

For an hour Monday, the entire Georgia voter database — including names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security and drivers’ license numbers — was publicly posted on that very site. Oops, Kemp said! Anybody could download it and share it with others, including Republican activists who might want to keep on purging Democratic voters.

As the Executive Director of the Georgia Democratic Party said, “This portal is ripe for abuse by right-wing activists who are already submitting mass voter challenges meant to disenfranchise Georgians.”

When the Associated Press — which downloaded and printed out the list — showed it to the Georgia State Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, she was horrified, pointing out, “If someone knows my birthdate, you could get in and pull up my information and change my registration.”

This is nuts.

Vice President Kamala Harris has promised that if she’s elected president and gets a Democratic House and Senate, the first piece of legislation she’ll sign will be the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which will put an end to Kemp’s games in Georgia and similar Republican stunts across the nation.

If you think it should be harder to take away your vote than your gun, double-check your voter registration (especially if you live in a Red state) and show up this fall!

ALSO READ: We asked 10 Republican senators: ‘Is Kamala Harris Black?’ Things got weird fast.

[josefavomjaaga]

Junot in Eugène's correspondence of 1813

Just to add to the confusion about Junot’s sojourn in Illyria, I’ve put together a list of excerpts that I could find at first glance about Junot in volume 9 of the DuCasse edition of Eugène’s correspondence. It is quite likely that some letters are missing, DuCasse only publishing what he considered worthy of publication.

For context: Eugène was technically only viceroy of Italy but factually control center for anything connected to the Italian peninsula, Illyria and the Ionian islands, often tasked with support (and soon defense) and communication. He had, however, left for the Russian campaign in mid-1812 and only returned back to Milan on 18 May 1813 (to a complete economical breakdown and the bankrupcy of several Milanese banks due to Napoleon’s »France first!« policy, btw).

Junot, as to him, according to Paul Pisani’s book about Dalmatia, reached Trieste on 25 May 1813 (not sure if this is correct, see below), coming from France where he had been since February (?), following the Russian campaign.

Eugène to Napoleon, Milan, 19 May 1813 […] The news from Illyria is that the Duke of Abrantès is touring the Dalmatian coast.

If Eugène, on the second day of his return home, already has news about Junot in Illyria, the latter must have been in the region for some time before 25 May. Maybe Pisani only meant his official entry into Trieste.

Eugène to Napoleon, Milan, 14 June 1813 [Listing up preparations and fortifications in Italy, then in the provinces not directly under his command] […] I have written to the Duke of Abrantès about the position of Zara and Raguse: I am also writing to him to form some supplies around the points of Laybach to nourish the troops due to assemble there. […] I intend to create two corps for the observation army on 1 July [...]. One of the two corps will be commanded by General Grenier, and, as I think that neither General Miollis, given his age, nor the Duc d'Abrantès, given the state of his health, are suitable for the other corps, I would ask Your Majesty for a general officer, like General Grouchy, if it is true that he is currently unemployed.

This is Eugène for the first time addressing the elephant in the room: Illyria is under command of Junot, and Junot is not fit to command an army, not even an army corps anymore.

Same date, different letter: Sire, I have the honour of reporting to Your Majesty that the latest reports from the sea announce the 4th battalion of the 4th Light Infantry, which I am sending to Dalmatia to relieve the two battalions of the 5th Light Infantry, had happily landed at Trieste. Today's telegraphs from Venice report that a ship and a corvette, a second ship and a frigate are cruising at the tip of Istria. 4 or 5 boats from the latter vessels appeared three days ago in front of Fiume, where they disembarked and caused some disorder in town. I have not yet received a report from the Duke of Abrantès, who, according to what I have just learned, is settling in Gorizia on account of his health, in other words, at one of the farthest ends of his government. I am very upset that Your Majesty has not placed someone in that country who would not cause General Bertrand to be missed as much.

General Bertrand of course being Junot’s predecessor as governor of Illyria. - This letter was the main reason why I wanted to make this post, in particular the last sentence. Eugène actually writes »Je suis faché que Votre Majesté...«., and for Eugène, that’s quite a strong wording. In fact, it’s precisely the wording Napoleon usually uses if he wants to express his strong displeasure at something (only topped by »je suis mécontent«). Eugène daring to openly critisize Napoleon’s decision is highly unusal for him.

But I get his frustration. He was left pretty much alone with everything concerning Italy, be it politics or military, and could not even rely on the governor of the most vulnerable province because Napoleon had decided to put somebody in charge there who was clearly incapable of doing his job.

Which makes me wonder why Napoleon had sent Junot to Illyria in the first place. Sure, maybe he had thought Junot would have nothing but representative duties there, maybe he really had not suspected Austria would change sides. Which would be stupid because his generals in charge of the remnants of the Grande Armée had informed him of Austria’s wavering attitude since at least March 1813, Poniatowsi probably earlier. But as soon as Napoleon realized there was a chance of Austria going to war – and he had realized by this time, hence his insistence Eugène organise the defense of Illyria – it was essential to replace Junot with somebody else.

Why didn’t he do it? Frankly, I feel like he didn’t care. Defending Italy was Eugène’s job, after all. And Napoleon needed all good generals and all good troops in Germany. Same attitude as in Spain.

But in the next letter, Junot for the first time gives a sign of life:

Eugène to Napoleon, Milan, 22 June 1813 […] The Duke of Abrantès answers me that he has taken all the measures to complete the supply of Raguse and Zara, and that he hopes that it will be done very shortly. I recommended that he take preparatory measures to ensure the subsistence of the troops who might perhaps gather towards Laybach.

And some more on the next day, in the next letter:

Eugène to Napoleon, Milan, 23 June 1813 […] I have the honour of sending to Your Majesty several reports from the Duke of Abrantès concerning the presence of the enemy in the Illyrian area and the two small landings they have made near Ragusa and in Istria.

So apparently Junot (or somebody acting for him) was still able to put together reports at this point.

Eugène to Napoleon, Milan, 27 June 1813 Sire, I had the honour of writing to Your Majesty to ask for General Grouchy for one of the lieutenancies of the army of Italy. In the event that Your Majesty does not deem it appropriate to grant me this, I will ask him for General Molitor to command the 2nd lieutenancy. I have already served with this general and I have nothing but praise for him. Your Majesty appears to be considering General Miollis and the Duc d'Abrantès; but I dare to assure you that neither of them is suitable for this command, one because of his age, the other because of his health, given the qualities necessary to train young troops and command them.

Eugène still really fearing Napoleon might put Junot in charge of an army at this point. Also, Napoleon still not having answered Eugène's request from two weeks ago, while time was pressing, shows how much interest he had in events in Italy.

Eugène to Napoleon, Milan, 29 June 1813 […] I report to Your Majesty that on the 24th of this month the enemy made a small landing in Istria near Pola, of approximately 5 to 600 men. He ransacked several houses and particularly the public administrations and took several civil servants with him. I have not yet received detailed reports of this fact from the Duke of Abrantès.

And now the shit hits the fan:

Eugène to Napoleon, Monza, 30 June 1813 Sire, I have the honour of reporting to Your Majesty that I received this morning the two letters that I enclose here as originals. The private information I received concurs with these two reports. I think that it is becoming very urgent, for Your Majesty's service, to appoint a good general officer to fulfil the functions of Governor of Illyria. The Duc d'Abrantès is definitely no longer good for anything, and I think that Your Majesty can authorise him to return to France to look after his health. However, as it was my duty to provide for the most urgent matters, I immediately sent Adjutant Commandant Lecat to Illyria to fulfil the duties of Chief of Staff. He is a very calm and reliable officer, who is used to dealing with details and who will surely carry out the orders he receives.

So this is the point when Junot’s subordinates take the – rather extraordinary – step to write to the next guy up the line they could find, i.e. Eugène, to please please please do something. The something then being Eugène sending somebody who can do Junot’s job, without officially replacing him.

Then we have a brief and rather curious letter from Napoleon, who at this point cannot yet have received Eugène’s last one about Junot needing to be replaced:

Napoleon to Eugène, Dresden, 1st July 1813 My son, I am sending you a letter from the Duke of Abrantès. As you have command of Illyria, I assume that you are providing for the defence of this country.

I really wish there was more information to this. (Does somebody happen to have the 1813 volume of the new Correspondance Générale)? Had Junot complained to Napoleon about a lack of help coming from Italy? Or had he accidentally/on purpose sent reports he should have sent to Eugène to Napoleon directly instead? Some later remarks make me suspect that.

Eugène to Napoleon, Monza, 2 July 1813 I also have the honour of sending Your Majesty the report made to me by the colonel of the gendarmerie of Illyria on the continuing illness of the Duc d'Abrantès. I have written to the Intendant General of the Illyrian provinces asking him to give all his care to the Governor General, to have him carefully guarded at home if his state of insanity continues, and that, if this state causes the slightest scandal, he should send him to France to take care of his health.

Apparently Eugène has received additional information and realizes that it’s become necessary to lock Junot away from the public.

Eugène to Napoleon, Padua, 5 July 1813 Sire, I have the honour of sending word to Your Majesty that a secretary of the Duke of Abrantès is arriving at this moment to tell me verbally, on behalf of the Duke, that the English have landed at Fiume.

This would be the landing mentioned in Eugène’s letter of 14 June, presumably? Or a second one? In any case, sending a secretary all the way to meet Eugène in Italy instead of using the official channels is probably another sign of Junot loosing his cognitive capabilities.

In the meantime, in Germany, Napoleon gets the news:

Napoleon to Eugène, Dresden, 6 July 1813 My son, I have received your dispatch of 1 July with the letter from the consul of Trieste of 28 June. After an event like this, there is not a moment to lose in ordering the Duc d'Abrantès to go home to Burgundy. The administration will pass into the hands of the intendant. You can give this mission to one of your aides-de-camp, who will report to you on everything and submit anything important to your decision. Show this unfortunate man all the kindness his position requires; but remove him quickly from a country where he is a distressing sight.

And because on second thought it probably dawned on him that this situation was, in the end, his own fault for sending Junot to such an important post in the first place, he firmly puts the blame elsewhere one day later:

Napoleon to Eugène, Dresden, 7 July 1813 My son, I am surprised that after everything the Duc d'Abrantès has done you have not sent him back to France. I can only express my displeasure that you have not put an end to such a distressing spectacle for French people in a foreign country. Send him away without delay and, as he must not go to Paris, where he is too well known, he must be taken to his father's home near Dijon. Write to the Minister of War requesting that his wife go to meet him and take him there.

Of course Eugène is not in any position to simply remove and reinstate the highest-ranking official of a French province, an official who has been installed by the emperor. I would not want to hear what Napoleon would have had to say if Eugène actually had done that. 😋 (Just ask Soult, he knows.)

Also, I’m not really very fond of Laure Junot. But she has all my sympathy here, together with Junot’s old father. - Tell his wife and his family to take care of the living carcass we depose on their doorsteps!

The main thing Napoleon seems concerned with about Junot's situation is appearance. Junot must not embarrass the empire. I feel like that's what pains me the most.

Eugène to Napoleon, Venise, 8 July 1813 Sire, I have received the reports on the situation in Illyria which the Duke of Abrantès sent to the Minister of War, and which Your Majesty has done me the honour of returning to me. I have the honour of reporting to Your Majesty of the measures which I considered necessary to take to ensure tranquillity there: […]

This I presume to be the reply to Napoleon’s brief letter from 1st July. (That concerns you, as you’re in charge of that Illyrian stuff.) Apparently, Junot had sent those reports about the situation in Illyria all the way to Clarke in Paris, instead of to Eugène (who repeatedly remarked that he was waiting for reports), and Clarke then had nothing better to do then send it onto Napoleon, who then sent them back to Eugène. It’s not as if these are pressing matters, after all.

Eugène to Napoleon, Udine, 11 July 1813 […] I saw the Duke of Abrantès myself yesterday in Treviso; I could ascertain that he had completely lost his mind and that he badly needed treatment for his health. I took the necessary steps to ensure that two officers and two attendants would bring him back to his family with all possible care, and I arranged for the appropriate funds to be handed over to him, as he was completely destitute in this respect.

Eugène to Napoleon, same date, second letter, apparently somewhat later I have just received the letter which Your Majesty wrote to me concerning the Duc d'Abrantès. Your Majesty will see from the letter I had the honour of writing to Him this morning that I had already taken the measures made necessary by the Duke's health, after ascertaining his situation for myself. I am carrying out the order given to me by Your Majesty concerning Illyria, by immediately sending General d'Anthouard, the only one of my aides-de-camp of a high rank who is currently available.

Which is probably something that should not be overlooked: All this took place during frantic action, and Eugène had to take care of Junot while being overburdened with tasks from reorganizing the military situation between Piedmont and Illyria, putting together an army corps at Laibach and evacuating all mercury and other resources from the Illyrian mines so invading Austrian forces would not get them (explicit order from His Majesty dearest). So loosing his only experienced aide-de-camp was probably not all too welcome at the moment.

Eugène to Napoleon, still 11 July 1813, third letter, in the evening […] Your Majesty will have seen from my previous reports that the Duke of Abrantès is already on his way to France. He is accompanied by two officers and several ordinances. I have given orders that he be handed over to his family in Burgundy, and I have written to the Duke of Feltre so that, in accordance with Your Majesty's intentions, his wife can come and meet him.

Oh, and because Napoleon alone is not enough, now minister of War Clarke also has something to say:

Clarke to Eugène, Paris, 19 July 1813 Monseigneur, the news I have received from Gorizia and the dispatches addressed by Your Imperial Highness to the Emperor, which His Majesty has sent me, have informed me of the unfortunate state in which the Duke of Abrantès finds himself and which no longer leaves him the freedom of mind necessary to maintain the command entrusted to him. The Emperor has deigned to inform me that he is going to provide for the replacement of the General Duc d'Abrantès, and to designate another general officer for this purpose; but, while waiting for His Majesty's choice to be known, it is important that the exercise of military authority not be interrupted in the present circumstances. I have no doubt that this matter has attracted the particular attention of Your Imperial Highness. He is asked to inform me of the arrangements he has ordered to temporarily ensure the service since the departure of the Duc d'Abrantès.

I think that’s 19th century French court speak for »Ey! I’m the minister of war here and nobody tells me about Junot going crazy? What’s going on? You better make sure there’s somebody in Illyria, boy, `cause god knows when Napoleon is going to do something about the situation!«

Napoleon actually did act rather quickly, as Eugène already informs his ADC d’Anthouard five days later about Fouché being the new governor of Illyria.

I believe that’s all mentions of Junot’s deteriorating health in Eugène’s corespondence. Maybe it’s useful to somebody.

[whump-lover-and-reader]

Tokyo MER: Mobile Emergency Room Whump List

Synopsis: Tokyo MER was formed by order from the Governor of Tokyo. The members are emergency care professionals who go to sites of dangerous accidents and disasters using ER cars. Their ER car is a large vehicle equipped with the latest medical devices and an operating area where Tokyo MER saves the lives of the injured.

Kitami Kota is a doctor for Tokyo MER and its leader. He holds firm convictions that he goes to accident sites to save lives regardless of the dangers.

Genre: Medical, Thriller, Drama

Whumpees: Kitami Kota played by Suzuki Ryohei and Otowa Nao played by Kaku Kento

Note: Joint effort! Up to the 5th episode this list was done by the wonderful @love-me-a-lotta-whump, the rest is by me

!!Spoilers Below!!

Kitami Kota

Ep. 00: no appearance

Ep. 01: in an explosion, covered in blood/debris/ ashes, traumatic flashbacks, anxious ::: breathing in toxic gasses, feeling unwell, coughing, heavy breathing, blurred vision, passed out, collapsed, saved, in an explosion ::: sitting with an oxygen mask over his face

Ep. 02: none

Ep. 03: shot at multiple times, collar grabbed ::: collar grabbed

Ep. 04: none

Ep. 05: oxygen mask over his face

Ep. 06: secretly watched

Ep. 07: being near an explosion, took off protective mask in a basement potentially full of poisonous gas

Ep. 08: questioned, questioned by a teammate, out in heavy rain, leg hit by a sliding boulder, fell, electrocuted, unconscious, his heart stopped, being resuscitated, his team was ordered to give up on him, coming back to life

Ep. 09: trapped in a place with high CO2 concentration, the team is not allowed to rescue him, running and carrying someone, on the verge of passing out, saved, saving someone by doing cpr

Ep. 10: held hostage by a terrorist, accused of aiding them, held at knifepoint, locked up in a room, saving someone by doing cpr, in explosion, covered in burns and soot, saving someone by doing cpr, his sister died, taunted by her killer

Ep. 11: in hospital after collapsing off-screen, feeling guilty and depressed, accused of being a terrorist, grieving, crying, saving someone

Otowa Nao

Ep. 00: no appearance

Ep. 01: saving someone ::: cuts on his face, covered in ash

Ep. 02-04: none

Ep. 05: trapped in an elevator ::: still trapped, the elevator catches fire and the elevator floods with smoke, coughing ::: inhaling smoke, refusing an oxygen mask (sorta self sacrifice) ::: inhaling more smoke, coughing ::: panicked, pressured, anxious, collar grabbed, defiant ::: inhaling smoke, coughing, looked after ::: inhaling smoke, coughing, losing consciousness, growing weak, saved, looked after, saved, emotional, passed out, collapsed into someone's arms ::: asleep in the hospital, woke up

Ep. 06: none

Ep. 07: being near an explosion

Ep. 08: out in heavy rain, saving someone by doing cpr, out of breath after

Ep. 09: none

Ep. 10: held hostage by a terrorist, saving someone by doing cpr

Ep. 11: breathing in poisonous gas, coughing, losing consciousness, burred vision, on the verge of passing out, held, saved

[darkmaga-retard]

Besides the cold weather and bad politics, many Minnesotans are fleeing their state due to Gov. Tim Walz's pro-crime policies.

Under Walz, murders throughout the Land of 10,000 Lakes are up 50 percent compared to 2019, according to the latest data. Assault offenses are also up 8 percent while robberies are up 9.5 percent – but the worst figure is for motor vehicle theft, which is up 163 percent across the state.

"This is why Minnesotans are fleeing his state in record numbers," tweeted the "DC_Draino" (@DC_Draino) X account. "He let BLM burn down Minneapolis and then he defunded the police. Now violent crime is through the roof."

If Walz gets installed as vice president with Kamala Harris as his boss, Americans everywhere can expect crime rates to eventually increase in their areas, too.

(Related: Did you know that Walz was pro-riots to the max during the Black Lives Matter [BLM] riots of summer 2020, setting a horrible example for the rest of the country in terms of cracking down on the criminals responsible for them?)

Minnesota was much safer before Walz was installed in 2018

Compared to the other 49 states, Minnesota ranks roughly in the middle in terms of crime, ranking 29th on the list of most dangerous states in the U.S. as determined by Forbes Advisor.

Using figures collected from the 2022 FBI Crime Data Explorer, Forbes reportedly calculated a 2.81 violent crime rate per 1,000 residents in the state. The average Minnesotan has a one in 356 chance of becoming a victim of violent crime at any given time.

The most dangerous state in the nation is New Mexico with a violent crime rate of 7.8 per 1,000 residents. The safest state is New Hampshire with only 1.26 per 1,000 people in the state succumbing to violent crime.

What makes Minnesota's crime situation especially noteworthy is the fact that it used to be a much safer place before Walz was installed as governor in 2018. In 2018 and 2019, it dropped from previous figures, but was followed by a massive 17.2 percent crime spike in 2020 and a 21.6 percent crime spike on top of that in 2021.

[rjzimmerman]

"Tongue in cheek" article from Daily Kos. Regardless, it highlights the absurdity of one of the latest dumb ass (and wrong) opinions from the U.S. Supreme Court. (......or.......the U.S. Supreme Corrupt Court).

Just a simple diary to point out that Biden is in a unique position of Not needing to stand for re-election and according to this benighted Supreme Court “absolute Immunity” for any official acts.   So, let’s make the absolute most of this.  What sort of “executive orders” would you like to see?   I’ll start:

13 Supreme  Justices:  This one just makes sense.  there are 13 judicial circuits  each justice is supposed to be the head of one circuit.   Let’s go back to this, and demand Chuckie Schumer go full “Nuclear option” and confirm all of them in one fell swoop.

Forgive ALL outstanding student Loan balances:  Yes the conservative justices are blocking these plans, but he need to do it anyway and wipe the balances off the federal books.   What are the judges gonna do?  Hold him in contempt? “Absolute” immunity batches.

Federalize the Texas National Guard and put them to work dismantling governor Abbots floating buzzsaw of death in the Rio Grande

Send Gov DeSantis to Gitmo:   The US Treasury just announced that FL’s “anti-woke” banking laws are hindering efforts to fight money-laundering and terrorism financing.   That sounds like “providing material support for terrorism” to me.   And DeSantis fought to keep people locked up there for far less, soooo…..

So I’m only half joking, but, serious or silly what do you think an “all out of F---’s to give” Biden should do with his last 6 months?

[deabruarenjarraitzaileaya-ha]

@beansterpie tagged me to list six albums I've been listening to recently. Thank you 😘😘

Tbh I'm not much of an album listener? Usually only if it's a new album or band, then I select my favourites and create a masterlist. But I do listen to some occasionally, so here are the latest ones in no particular order:

Truco o Trato - Megara

We Will Reign - The Last Internationale

RUSH (ARE U COMING?) - Måneskin

十二次元 - QUEEN BEE

Neomak - Neomak

Su Garaian - Governors

Tagging @shortandbittersweet @ajayers-art @mme-m @that-angry-devilbat @arancar-no-6

@1982brucespringsteen @upbeatvampiria @foughfaugh @alphacygni @irisseireth and anyone else who'd like to participate!

[beardedmrbean]

The Huntsman family has halted donations to the University of Pennsylvania due to its response to Hamas' terrorist attacks on Israel and the resulting war. It's the latest indication of the growing friction between elite colleges and their rich alumni over the conflict.

Jon Huntsman Jr. — the former governor of Utah and US ambassador to China, Russia, and Singapore — penned a letter to Penn's president Elizabeth Magill, alerting her of the Huntsman Foundation's decision.

"The University's silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel (when the only response should be outright condemnation) is a new low. Silence is antisemitism, and antisemitism is hate, the very thing higher ed was built to obviate," he wrote in the letter, which was published by the student newspaper. "Consequently, Huntsman Foundation will close its checkbook on all future giving to Penn."

The Huntsman family, which includes three generations of Penn graduates, has donated tens of millions of dollars to the school over the past three decades, including a $10 million gift in 1997 and a $40 million gift to its business school, Wharton, in 1998. The family has donated at least $25,000 annually to Wharton in recent years.

The late Jon Huntsman Sr. attended Wharton on scholarship and went on to become the billionaire CEO of chemical giant Huntsman Corp. Huntsman Jr. has had two stints on Penn's board of trustees.

Huntsman's letter was reportedly written before an email from Penn's president Magill went out to the Penn community on Sunday.

"I want to leave no doubt about where I stand," she wrote in the email, which was viewed by Insider. "I, and this University, are horrified by and condemn Hamas's terrorist assault on Israel and their violent atrocities against civilians."

The Huntsmans are the latest megadonors to pull back from from donations to the school: Last week, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan announced he would donate $1 — rather than his typical annual contribution — unless Magill and the chairman of its board of trustees, Scott Bok, stepped down. Rowan and his wife donated $50 million to Wharton in 2018. 

The campus has been mired in tensions over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since September, when the Palestine Writes Literary Festival, which some said gave antisemitism a platform, was hosted at the university.

"The University did not, and emphatically does not, endorse these speakers or their views," Magill wrote in her email on Sunday. "While we did communicate, we should have moved faster to share our position strongly and more broadly with the Penn community."

Penn did respond to a request for comment regarding Huntsman's letter. The Huntsman family did not respond to requests for comment ahead of publication.

Across the country, campus conversations have boiled over into the real world, as alumni donors and prospective employers follow student and school leadership responses to the war between Israel and Hamas.

For the past week, Harvard has been grappling with the ramifications of a joint statement signed by more than 30 student groups, together dubbed the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups, that said the Israeli government was "entirely responsible for all unfolding violence." 

The statement launched a series of hostilities: Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, a Harvard alum and donor, called on the university to release the names of students in the groups that signed the letter so he could avoid hiring them. A Harvard alum, who seemingly had nothing to do with the letter, said they were doxxed. Ackman's call for the list of names was likened to McCarthyism.

The joint statement was eventually deleted, but the fallout continues.

Idan and Batia Ofer, Israel's richest man and his wife, stepped down from the board of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

"Unfortunately, our faith in the University's leadership has been broken and we cannot in good faith continue to support Harvard and its committees," the Ofers said in a statement.

Yale, NYU, and Stanford have also been caught up in the escalating tensions, which have no signs of slowing down or staying on campus behind ivy-covered gates. 

[dryad-of-the-dogwood]

The Grav Jump Tango Chapter 10: The Bridges We’ve Burned Pairing: Sam Coe x Spacefarer

Excerpt below the cut for main story spoilers

Much to Cora’s disappointment, the second temple hadn’t made Cass’s gravity powers stronger after all. Instead, it had given her the ability to create some strange… bubble of clean air, which was an odd thing to try to connect to the gravity-related nature of the Artifacts and temples themselves. Sam had joked it would come in handy if she ever accidentally spaced herself. Cass had looked thoughtful and pointed out that it could save someone with a suit leak, too. Not that either of those things were particularly likely, but it couldn’t hurt to have in her back pocket just in case.

Things settled into a kind of routine, after that. Sometimes Sarah would stay in the Lodge and Andreja or Barrett would join in for the surveys Vlad set for Cass, but every time she’d extend an invite to Sam and Cora, too. A few times they stopped a while in Cydonia or Akila, to shop or hunt down rumors. Often as not, Cass would find someone like that little girl in Akila City who she couldn’t say no to helping out—including another kid who had wanted help hanging drawings of a space frog, of all things. He’d expected that one once the girl pulled out the puppy dog eyes at least, and Cora had been over the moon when Cass sneaked out one of the posters for her room in the Lodge.

Their most recent visit had seen Cass first break out her mining laser to help the crew meet their quotas, and then somehow managed to snowball into her leveraging her background in corporate espionage to get them new mining equipment, talk down a miner turned attempted thief, and ended with her handing evidence to the head of security that cost the governor of Cydonia his job. Personally, Sam didn’t think the murderer deserved the dignity of stepping down before he stood trial, but with bureaucracy there was never a real win, just a mildly less distasteful solution.

They’d been on downtime since then, and Cass seemed to keep herself busy in the city a lot when they were on Jemison, so it had been a couple of days since he’d more than passed her having dinner. Not that he was keeping an eye out or anything, but her absence from the Lodge seemed oddly obvious already, despite what a relatively short time she’d been there. Nobody to referee Mattias and Noel except Barrett without her, after all, and his version of refereeing was usually more like goading them both.

So Sam had made sure Cora was tucked in—with her reading lamp on and some dusty novel in her hands, naturally, but tucked in nonetheless—and then gone to check on his ship to avoid the latest disagreement over the nature of the divine, or whatever Mattias was most recently convinced the Artifacts really were. Sam hadn’t taken his ship into the ’field in a couple of weeks by that point, but he didn’t feel like trying to squeeze in an evening departure slot so he settled for giving the drive a little TLC. Until Lillian called, and then he was glad he was far out of Cora’s earshot.

That conversation had gone about as well as it ever did, especially after Lillian tried berating Sam for putting Cora in danger again. Apparently, based off something she had heard from Pryce in Neon about Cass. Like Lillian had any damn ground to stand on as far as protecting Cora was concerned, when she couldn’t even manage to show up for visits. Whether Jaylen’s info was true, Sam didn’t know or care, because it didn’t much matter. He’d seen by now how high keeping Cora busy enough to stay safe ranked on Cass’s priority list, and also how much having someone to talk to who loved books as much as she did meant to his little girl. Cass had volunteered to stay away entirely rather than risk being a bad influence, for fuck’s sake. Those were the important things as far as he was concerned.

Sam was still fuming when he made it back to the Lodge sometime around midnight, glad that at least everyone else should be asleep. Maybe he could get in a few rounds on the punching bag until he was too exhausted to be angry. But despite the hour, Sam heard a glass clinking as he came up the stairs. He paused on the landing and then let his feet carry on past the hall. He was curious to see who might have stayed up for a nightcap, and then only more so when he realized it was Cass. He’d never seen her in the bar before, but she was pouring what appeared to be at least her second glass.

“Long night?” he asked cautiously as he approached. She seemed like the type who when she did drink, might prefer to do so alone.

Cass didn’t exactly startle but her head did snap toward him unusually quickly, so he thought he might have still caught her off guard. The tension in her shoulders relaxed fast enough though. Maybe she preferred having her late night drink witnessed by him rather than Sarah. He knew he sure would, in her place.

“For you too, it looks like,” she said, taking a sip. Sam would’ve liked to have been able to say his eyes didn’t focus on the way the tip of her tongue ran over her lips afterward, but that would’ve been a lie. Still failing at not paying attention to those small, tantalizing little motions, no matter how many times he reminded himself he should. She frowned once she got a look at him. “You all right?”

“Well, managed not to break my neck trippin’ over another one of Cora’s experiments, so I’d say I’m ahead so far for today,” Sam evaded, though he still didn’t take his eyes off her. “Have I just missed every other time you’ve come up here, or is there a special occasion?”

Cass hummed noncommittally, taking another drink and then staring down into the glass as she swirled the liquid around inside. “I wouldn’t exactly call it a special occasion. More like a nice trip through purgatory, with a non-zero chance of a detour to hell.”

[texasobserver]

From ”‘School Choice’ Is Just a Ploy to Defund Public Ed” by correspondent Dr. David Brockman:

Another session of the Texas Legislature, another push to spend public dollars on private and religious schools.

Vouchers and voucher-like schemes have been floated repeatedly by Republican legislators over the years, and just as repeatedly have been shot down by the combined opposition of Democrats, rural Republicans, and public school advocates. This time, however, GOP leaders are going all out to make vouchers—in the form of education savings accounts (ESAs)—a reality here in Texas under the sunny mantra “school choice.” As Rev. Charles Foster Johnson, founder and executive director of Pastors for Texas Children, told the Texas Observer, “‘School choice’ is a deceptive misnomer” because the choice lies not so much with parents as with the private schools, which “are highly selective about who they enroll and who they do not enroll. They will not take the economically disadvantaged, at-risk, special needs, socially and emotionally challenged child because it is too expensive to teach that child.”

However, Republican leaders have laid the groundwork for ESAs through well-funded efforts to undermine confidence in public schools, along with an equally well-funded push by Christian nationalist donors to elect voucher-friendly candidates. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (who has long championed vouchers) said he and Governor Greg Abbott are “all in on school choice”; both have listed it among their legislative priorities for this session. Abbott has embarked on a statewide “parent empowerment” tour of private schools—so far, all of them Protestant Christian schools—to tout ESAs. And last week, the Senate passed the leading “school choice” measure, part of the omnibus education Senate Bill 8, on a party-line vote—though as of this writing, it faces an uphill battle in the House. 

But in another, deeper sense, there is nothing new about this session’s “school choice” push. Having spent nearly a decade researching and writing about Christian nationalism—the movement to make the United States an explicitly “Christian nation” governed by Bible-based laws—I see this year’s push to fund private and religious schools as just the latest front in that movement’s decades-long battle to undermine what Thomas Jefferson called the wall of separation between church and state, and thereby establish conservative Christian dominance over government.

Prominent Christian nationalists in Texas are involved in the ESA push, and a win could undermine not only Texas’ venerable public school system, but our nation’s even more venerable tradition of church-state separation. That should worry all Texans, religious and non-religious alike. 

Read more at the Texas Observer.

(📸 Photography by Josephine Lee for the Texas Observer)