Monday, January 1, 2024

24-7-13 Schade □

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24-7-13 Shooter dead and attendee killed at tRUMP rally - CBC > .
24-11-4 Security: Air Force One, The Beast, Marine One - AiTelly > . skip > .
24-9-29 [Could Attempted Assassination Have Been Prevented in Butler] - 60 Min > .
24-7-14 How tRUMP's Attempted Assassination Unfolded | WSJ > .24-7-14 Покушение на Трампа | Assassination Attempt - Impacts? (subs) - Katz > .
24-7-15 [Failed] Attempted Assasination illustrated in 3D - Mike Bell > ⏩24-7-16 Mapping the [Failed] Shooting - fern > ⏩24-7-16 Assassination [Attempt]: Konstantin Kisin Not Surprised - Triggernometry > .
24-8-1 How the Secret Service Failed Catastrophically - Real > .
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24-7-25 Replying to Donald Trump Jr's [false equivalence] Nonsense - Betty > .
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24-7-15 ['Murica] - Violence Against Politicians Has Surged | WSJ > .

>> Authoritarianism >>>

Tragically, a bystander was killed and others injured during the shooting mêlée. The 20-year-old shooter was shot and killed by Secret Service snipers. agrtdr

Needless to say, conspiracy theories have sprung up like weeds. "People can be prone to believe in conspiracy theories due to a combination of personality traits and motivations, including relying strongly on their intuition, feeling a sense of antagonism and superiority toward others, and perceiving threats in their environment, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. .... The researchers found that overall, people were motivated to believe in conspiracy theories by a need to understand and feel safe in their environment and a need to feel like the community they identify with is superior to others. .... The researchers also found that people with certain personality traits, such as a sense of antagonism toward others and high levels of paranoia, were more prone to believe conspiracy theories. Those who strongly believed in conspiracy theories were also more likely to be insecure, paranoid, emotionally volatile, impulsive, suspicious, withdrawn, manipulative, egocentric and eccentric." 

[The APA article does not address another likely cause of trips down the rabbit hole ---- social-media algorithms are designed to amplify any tendency toward viewing/reading material that promotes suspicions.]

In 70 years, this prophesy proved accurate: “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” ― H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe (1956)

24-6-27 Sad! 24-7-21 Better! ..
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24-7-8 Ruscist Atrocities Continue □

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24-7-8 [Kyiv] Children’s hospital comes under [targeted] attack - Kyiv I > .
24-7-9 russian terrorists attacked Ukrainian children | Starsky > .
> Authoritarianism >>  > Axes of Evil >> 

"For Kyiv residents, Monday morning started with loud explosions throughout the city. Russia launched a large-scale missile attack targeting the capital as well as cities in Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk oblasts on the morning of July 8. As of 8 p.m., at least 38 people were killed, and 136 were wounded across Ukraine One of the heaviest strikes hit Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt hospital, Ukraine’s largest children’s medical center."

The war-crime performing Axis of Envious Resentment must NOT be allowed to succeed in their plans for NoXious World Domination.

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24-7-7 Le Phew! □

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24-7-7 France's Election Results Explained - Simple > . skip > .
24-7-12 [Hung Parliament] France Plunged Into Political Uncertainty - Bloomberg > .
24-7-5 Hx National Rally's 50-year campaign to normalize fascism - Barely Inf > .
rēs pūblica - pro libertate >> .

National Rally set to come in 3rd despite topping 1st round CBC

"France is on course for a hung parliament in Sunday's election, early projections suggest, with a leftist alliance unexpectedly taking the top spot ahead of the far right in a potential major upset that would bar Marine Le Pen's National Rally from running the government."
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"But it will also be a major disappointment for Marine Le Pen's nationalist, Euroskeptic National Rally (RN) party. The RN, which had for weeks been projected to win the election, was seen getting 115 to 155 seats.

The party is currently led [nominally led] by Jordan Bardella, who succeeded Le Pen as leader [official leader] in November 2022.

Le Pen, daughter of the party's [Holocaust-denying] founder, remains a party member and retained her seat in the National Assembly during the first-round of voting last weekend."


The National Rally (Rassemblement National, RN), known as the National Front from 1972 to 2018 (Front National, FN), is a French far-right party, described as populist and nationalist. It was the single largest parliamentary opposition party in the National Assembly from 2022 to 2024. Its candidate was defeated in the second round in the 2002, 2017 and 2022 presidential elections. It opposes immigration, advocating significant cuts to legal immigration, protection of French identity, and stricter control of illegal immigration. The party advocates a "more balanced" and "independent" French foreign policy, opposing French military intervention in Africa while supporting France leaving NATO's integrated command. It also supports reform of the European Union (EU) and its related organisations as well as economic interventionism, protectionism, and zero tolerance for breaches of law and order.

The party was founded in 1972 to unify the French nationalist movement. Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the party and was its leader until his resignation in 2011. While the party was a marginal political force for its first ten years, it became a major force of French nationalism since 1984. It has put forward a candidate at every presidential election but one since 1974. In the 2002 presidential election, Jean-Marie Le Pen advanced to the second round but finished a distant second in the runoff to Jacques Chirac. [Jean-Marie's] daughter Marine Le Pen was elected to succeed him as party leader in 2012. She temporarily stepped down in 2017 in order to concentrate on her presidential candidacy; she resumed her leadership after the election. She headed the party until 2021, when she temporarily resigned again. A year later, Jordan Bardella was elected as her successor.

The party has seen an increase in its popularity and acceptance in French society in recent years. It has frequently been accused of promoting xenophobia and antisemitism. While her father was nicknamed the "Devil of the Republic" by mainstream media and sparked outrage for hate speech, including Holocaust denial and Islamophobia, Marine Le Pen pursued a policy of "de-demonisation" of the party by softening its image and trying to frame the party as being neither right nor left [despite classic right-wing policies and receiving funding from Vladimir Putin]. She endeavoured to extract it from its far-right roots, as well as censuring controversial members like her father, who was suspended and then expelled from the party in 2015.
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On the other hand, the far-left can be problematic in different ways.

The Risky Politics of France’s Hung Parliament tn

" .... in a resurrection of the so-called “republican front,” over 200 centrist and left-wing candidates withdrew before the July 7 runoff in order to block the far-right ticket. .... Divided between three acrimonious blocs, the new National Assembly points above all to a period of extended instability and institutional paralysis. .... There’s one crucial point of agreement between Macronists and the forces to their right: Any left-wing government, and specifically one with ministers from La France Insoumise, would be welcomed with an immediate vote of no confidence."
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24-7-4 UK Upheaval □

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24-7-4 Keir Starmer, Britain’s next prime minister - Economist > .
24-7-14 Can the Conservative party survive defeat? | FT > .
24-7-13 Who and What is Keir Starmer? David Starkey > .
24-7-12 Melanie Phillips: Britain chooses Labour [Danger to Israel, West] - JNS > .
24-7-5 Jonathan Pie: '50 Shades of Beige' | Britain's New PM | NYT > .
24-6-29 Fareed Zakaria: revolutions, tribalism, demise of West | Spectator > .

Given that weakism has completely abandoned rationality, I expect that the British will soon be as sorry about this kneejerk landslide as they are about BrexTWIT. For Britain's sake, I hope I'm wrong. On the positive side: the SNP has taken a drubbing; Liz Truss lost her seat rather ungraciously, whereas others swamped by the changing tide were gracious losers; and, 30-years-wait-to-be-MP Nigel Farage's Reform accomplished little despite an annoying social media plague of Reform-bots.

A comment thread beginning with "Reform - 4 million votes and 5 seats. LibDem - 3.5 million votes and 71 seats" reveals much about the MAGA-like capacities of Reform voters = emotional reactivity with almost zero attempt to comprehend the underlying mechanisms of multi-party vote splitting in an FPP system.  
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24-6-27 Sad! 24-7-21 Better! □

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24-7-21 Biden Drops Out of Presidential Race: A Timeline | WSJ >
24-7-21 Biden Drops Out of Election: A Look Back at 50-Year Career | WSJ > .
24-7-21 What Happens If A Presidential Nominee Drops Out - Versed > .
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24-6-28 The exact moment Biden lost the debate | About That | CBC > .

Schade [failed assassination attempt, attendee killed] 24-7-13 ..

Biden's problem appears to be Parkinson's +/- Alzheimer's -- not merely the inevitable changes associated with advancing age. Too old? At 81, Biden is clearly too old, and appears to be suffering from Parkinson's, which, although symptoms can be ameliorated with medications, continues to worsen. Equally, despite daily  fluctuations in lucidity, Alzheimer's course is inexorable. 

DJT is almost as old, and is notorious for inane rambles >. So, it might be merciful for the future of America's democracy that ageing Wanna-be-Dicktator DUHnocchio is also close to a natural time out.

Predictable American 'what-about-me?' whining aside, the numbers indicate that, despite Biden's increasing difficulties and a global economic downturn, the Biden administration has performed quite well. 

The erratic, self-obsessed, convicted felon, on the other hand, has already instigated an unsuccessful insurrection > in which MAGAts chanted that they wanted to hang Mike Pence. Malignant narcissists USE people to achieve their purposes; and, being devoid of empathy and conscience, they don't care about them.

For the sake of America's and the globe's future, Democrats must defeat MAGAtry.

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sī vīs pācem, parā bellum

igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum    therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...

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