The Fight Over Ballots Has Already Begun in Wisconsin
Drop boxes, which had been used for years in Wisconsin until they were mostly banned after Republicans mounted legal challenges, are back. They have become the subject of bitter debate.
In Wisconsin, registered voters may request an absentee ballot without providing a reason.Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
Karen Cannestra does not like that drop box in front of West Bend City Hall.
Ms. Cannestra, 72 and retired, prefers to vote at her polling place in Wisconsin on Election Day, the way it was always done. It goes beyond personal preference, she says. Who knows the motives of the person who’s pulling those ballots out at the end of the day? Couldn’t somebody tamper with the process?
Isn’t that exactly what happened in 2020, she asked, when, she felt, the election was stolen?
“I don’t trust it, the drop box,” Ms. Cannestra said, before walking into City Hall to pay a utility bill. “No, no, no.”
Many Republican voters still believe former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claim that he won the presidential election in 2020. In Wisconsin, they are taking those fears over election fraud and directing them at the dozens of ballot drop boxes across the state, though there weren’t any major problems with voter fraud there in 2020.
Drop boxes, which had been used for years in Wisconsin until they were mostly banned after the claims of fraud, are back, and they have become the subject of bitter debate. City Council and county board meetings in the state have been consumed with battles over the boxes in recent days, a glimpse of what could soon be a repeat of 2020: the results of a legitimate presidential election being questioned and rejected by a wide swath of Americans.
A ballot drop box at West Bend City Hall is available for use at any time of day.Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
In the central Wisconsin city of Wausau, Mayor Doug Diny stoked fears over drop boxes in September by personally removing one that had yet to be fully installed. Last week at a City Council meeting, one Wausau resident insisted that she had seen drop boxes covertly stuffed with ballots on four different occasions when she was living in Colorado four years ago. Another man said that he believed there was “corruption” on the City Council over the issue and that the city clerk, who has local authority over drop boxes, was not doing her job.
“I think it’s absolutely appalling what’s going on in our community,” he said.
In suburban Milwaukee last week, the Washington County Board of Supervisors voted to allocate $3,000 for video surveillance of drop boxes, should municipal clerks need the funds to tighten security.
Some officials went even further.
“Every citizen should have access to livestream of the camera and instructions for how to proceed if they see something suspicious,” said one supervisor, Linda Gurath.
Another supervisor, Tina Pridemore, wondered if someone could shove 20 ballots into a box at once, and said that she knew people who were willing to volunteer to stand near the drop boxes “to make sure that we’re not having this illegal voting,” she said.
Beleaguered city clerks, nonpartisan officials who are responsible for deciding whether their municipalities should have drop boxes, have tried to reassure the public that the boxes are perfectly secure.
Around the state, some of the drop boxes are free-standing, bolted to the ground like mailboxes outside City Hall or on street corners. Others are built into the walls of municipal buildings, allowing voters to drop absentee ballots through a slot and directly inside, where they are then collected by workers and locked into a vault until Election Day. As of Wednesday, at least 78 boxes were in use, election officials said.
In Wisconsin, any registered voter may choose to request an absentee ballot without providing a reason, and hundreds of thousands of people usually vote using absentee ballots, which can be returned in person or in the mail.
In Eau Claire, the drop box has a padlock, said Kristina Kuzma, the city clerk. “When we close it, we put a tamper-evident seal every time. We empty it once a day. We have two people go out and empty it together,” she said.
“We work really hard to be nonpolitical and to stay out of politics as much as we possibly can,” Ms. Kuzma added. “We just administer the election fairly.”
Lori Stottler, the clerk-treasurer in Janesville, said she checks the box at least four times a day to collect ballots.
“People have said things like, people can do X or Y to it, they could attempt to commit crimes,” she said.
Though they were used without controversy even before 2020, the drop boxes gained popularity during that presidential election, which was held during the pandemic. By spring 2021, 570 drop boxes had been placed in nearly all of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, according to a state Supreme Court document.
Officials in Racine, Wis., have installed seven drop boxes across the city.Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
Then Republicans filed a lawsuit challenging their use, and the state Supreme Court, which was controlled by conservative justices at the time, decided in 2022 to mostly ban them.
This summer, under a state Supreme Court with a newly liberal majority, the court reversed the ruling. Drop boxes were back, should city clerks decide to use them.
Meagan Wolfe, the state’s chief election official, said on Wednesday that voters “should have a great deal of confidence that that is a secure option.”
Wisconsin has a heavily decentralized election model, with more than 1,800 municipal clerks who administer local elections. Some clerks have cited the convenience that drop boxes offer for people who would prefer to not return their ballot in the mail, or voters who drop off ballots in the evening hours, on their way home from work.
Many conservatives in Wisconsin have since denounced the boxes and praised towns that have not used them.
At a rally in Dodge County this month, Sheriff Dale J. Schmidt took the stage, turning to address Mr. Trump, who was campaigning there.
“I have something very important I think you’re going to want to hear,” Sheriff Schmidt said. “In Dodge County, in this 2024 election, there are zero drop boxes for the election.”
As the crowd erupted in cheers, Mr. Trump gave a double thumbs-up.
“We’re going to make sure that we have the best, most secure election in Dodge County history,” Sheriff Schmidt said.
(Sheriff Schmidt was wrong about the number of drop boxes; several municipalities in Dodge County have them, as the clerks pointed out last week.)
Some clerks have opted out to use the boxes. In Racine in southeastern Wisconsin, seven of them are in use. In Kenosha, which is roughly the same size as Racine and also in the southeastern part of the state, there are none.
Michelle L. Nelson, the Kenosha city clerk and treasurer, said that she decided not to use a drop box, and instead expanded early voting hours.
“I know that some people think that they aren’t secure,” she said. “On the other side, there have been people who have asked, how can I as a clerk make sure that there isn’t intimidation?” Ms. Nelson added, envisioning a scenario where people could position themselves near the drop box and ask voters if the ballot was actually theirs.
Some Republican officials said that they have tried to persuade voters not to worry about the security of ballot drop boxes.
Jilline Dobratz, the city clerk in West Bend, has heard from residents who seem skeptical about the security of their ballots. Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
Stephanie Soucek, the chair of the Republican Party of Door County in northeastern Wisconsin, said she has tried to tamp down fears.
There is a drop box in the county seat of Sturgeon Bay, a city of 10,000 people, which Ms. Soucek says is safe and secure.
“I’m encouraging people that they can trust this process,” she said. “I feel like Republican voters have slowly come on board with the idea. It’s just taking time.”
At public meetings, residents have also spoken up in favor of the drop boxes, arguing that trying to remove them is a form of voter suppression.
“Making it harder to vote is out of touch with Wisconsin values,” Nancy Stencil of Wausau said at a City Council meeting last week.
Inside West Bend City Hall, Jilline Dobratz, the city clerk, said she has encountered voters who return ballots in person and slide them across the counter, underneath a wall of plexiglass.
“‘Make sure it counts,’” they sometimes tell her, Ms. Dobratz said.
“It’s tough to hear those things because I’ve been doing this over 11 years, I have many clerk friends and we work hard,” she said. “When people say negative things, it’s hard not to take it all personal.”
Vulnerable Senate Democrat Promotes Trump Ties in New Ad
The spot, which says that Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania had “sided with Trump” on trade and tariffs, was quickly denounced by the Trump campaign.
Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, distances himself from the Biden administration and highlights his support of certain Trump administration policies in a new TV campaign ad that aired in parts of the state on Friday, signaling a last-minute appeal to the former president’s supporters in a crucial battleground state.
In the ad, two voters — a married couple made up of a Republican and a Democrat in Old Forge, Pa. — praise Mr. Casey as an independent lawmaker, saying that he “bucked Biden to protect fracking and he sided with Trump to end NAFTA and put tariffs on China.”
The spot aired nearly 100 times in Pennsylvania on Friday, frequently in heavily Republican areas such as Johnstown and Altoona, according to data provided by the tracking firm AdImpact.
The Trump campaign quickly seized on Mr. Casey’s references to Mr. Trump in the commercial, attacking the senator on social media for “desperately trying to embrace President Trump” and saying he was “a shill for Kamala’s deranged, radical left agenda.”
An official with Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign in Pennsylvania said that Ms. Harris supports fracking, and that the ad was not an indication that Mr. Casey was separating himself from the vice president. When asked if Mr. Casey’s campaign had informed the Harris campaign about the ad before it aired, the official said that he would not discuss internal communications between the two campaigns.
Maddy McDaniel, a spokeswoman for Mr. Casey, said that the senator “always does what’s right for Pennsylvania, regardless of party,” and that “he stands with Pennsylvanians and doesn’t care what any politician has to say about it.”
Mr. Casey had a reputation early in his Senate career as a low-key moderate, but he gained prominence for his resistance to many of former President Donald J. Trump’s policies. He has also moved considerably to the left over the nearly 18 years he has been in the Senate — becoming more supportive of gun control measures and bills aimed at ensuring access to abortion.
Another Democratic senator running for re-election — Senator Tammy Baldwin, in the battleground state of Wisconsin — also aired an ad in her state’s major cities on Friday that portrayed her as working equally with Mr. Trump and President Biden on policies promoting American manufacturing. The ad says that Ms. Baldwin “got President Trump to sign her Made in America bill, then she got President Biden to make it permanent.”
The ads were the latest indication that both senators are tacking to the center as their races tighten. Mr. Casey sailed to re-election in 2018, defeating his Republican opponent by 13 points. A Times poll last week showed Mr. Casey leading David McCormick, a Republican businessman, by five points. Polling has shown Ms. Baldwin’s lead over her Republican opponent, Eric Hovde, a banking executive, to be shrinking in recent weeks.
Incumbent lawmakers and other candidates often highlight their efforts to reach across the aisle on issues that matter most to their constituents. Mr. Casey’s opponent, Mr. McCormick, for example posted a picture on social media of him shaking hands with Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, at a police conference after the first assassination attempt against Mr. Trump earlier this year.
But Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris and other top Democrats have spent years presenting Mr. Trump as a singular threat to American democracy while some of their Senate colleagues are amplifying their efforts to cooperate with Mr. Trump.
At least one of the claims in the ads is somewhat misleading, when it says he “bucked Biden to protect fracking and sided with Trump to end NAFTA.”
Mr. Biden took no actions against fracking in Pennsylvania.
On NAFTA, Mr. Casey had expressed support for steps the Trump administration took to renegotiate NAFTA, and to withdraw outright from another Pacific trade deal.
Mr. Casey voted for the updated trade agreement, but in a statement on his Senate website, he notes that significant changes were made before he and other Democrats supported it. It adds that “the initial version negotiated by the Trump Administration was a corporate trade deal and completely unacceptable.”
20 октября 2022 года Санкт-Петербургский городской суд признал геноцидом советского народа преступления нацистов и их пособников во время блокады Ленинграда в годы Великой Отечественной войны.
Никто из кандидатов не набрал нужного числа голосов - более 50% - в 1-м туре выборов главы Молдавии, будет 2-й тур 3 ноября, свидетельствуют предварительные данные ЦИК после обработки 75% протоколов.
Санду пока лидирует на выборах президента Молдавии с 34,12%, вторым идет Стояногло с 30,09%, свидетельствуют первые данные ЦИК после обработки 13,9% протоколов.
На четырех участках, в том числе в Москве, всё еще продолжается голосование. Работу участков продлили до 23:00 мск.
Одна из проблем объединения выборов президента Молдавии и референдума по евроинтеграции, о которой мы рассказали ранее, заключается в сложности разграничения явки по двум видам голосованиям.
Президентские выборы в Молдавии уже можно считать предварительно состоявшимися: избирательный порог в 33,3% превышен и достиг 48%.
▪️Однако в ЦИК отдельные цифры по явке на референдум объявили только два раза и с значительной задержкой.
▪️В комиссии задержку объясняют тем, что якобы собирают данные о явке на референдум вручную в отличие от выборов.
▪️Первое объявление цифр по явке на референдум не обшлось без коллизий. Например, на брифинге глава ЦИК Анджелика Караман заявила, что к 12:00 на референдуме проголосовало 144 233 человека, что составило 16,14%.
А несколько минут спустя в комиссии опубликовали совсем другие цифры — 442 331 голосов при том же проценте. В ЦИК объяснили подмену путаницей при чтении — якобы в тексте слились цифры с буквами, из-за чего Караман неверно озвучила число проголосовавших.
▪️Провластные СМИ вовсе объединяют цифры по явке на выборы и референдум, что явно не соответствует действительности. Ведь не все голосующие на выборах берут бюллетени для референдума.
▪️Поступает информация, что на некоторых участках сотрудники избирательных комиссий от правящей партии PAS обязывают избирателей брать бюллетени для референдума, что является грубым нарушением.
Не исключено, что ЦИК Молдавии подгоняет цифры по явке на референдум к выборам, чтобы придать европейскому плебисциту законность. По официальным данным, к 18:00 явка на референдум уже составила 42%.
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Ну и нарушения, куда без них.
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Одно из главных — для полумиллиона живущих в России граждан Молдавии напечатали только 10 тыс. бюллетеней, а количество избирательных участков с десяти урезали до двух, причём оба — в Москве! При этом в США, Канаде, Швеции, Норвегии, Финляндии и Исландии впервые разрешили голосовать по почте. Наверное, граждане Молдавии, проживающие в России, облучены страшной пропагандой, поэтому им такое не положено? Или потому что всё-таки поняли, что благополучие не обязательно достигается вступлением в ЕС? Да нет, быть не может.
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Источник.
Действующий президент Молдовы собирается заполучить победу на выборах главы государства путем различных манипуляций, считает первый заместитель председателя комитета Совета федерации по международным делами Владимир Джабаров.
"Проиграть на выборах действующий президент Майя Санду может только в одном случае - если подсчет голосов будет проводиться честно. Манипулировать результатами в Кишинёве уже научились — в основном у своих западных кураторов", — написал политик в своем Telegram-канале.
"В режиме онлайн следим за информацией о голосовании в Москве, уточняем, что там участки были обеспечены максимальным количеством бюллетеней по 5 тысяч на каждый вид голосования - референдум и выборы".
Об этом заявила председатель ЦИК Анжела Караман.
По ее словам, главная причина, почему было открыто всего 2 участка в РФ - "большой риск для безопасности голосующих и работников на избирательном участке".
(выделено а.п.)
В День президентских выборов и голосования по референдуму об изменениях в Конституции в Молдове открылось 1987 избирательных участков, сообщила пресс-секретарь ЦИК Родика Сырбу.
В Гагаузской автономии Молдавии после обработки 100% голосов против вступления республики в Евросоюз проголосовали 94,84% избирателей, в Приднестровье — 62,56%.
В Приднестровье против вступления Молдавии в Евросоюз проголосовали более 60% избирателей, свидетельствуют данные ЦИК после обработки всех протоколов в ПМР.
"Это разгром. Молдавский народ сказал свое слово. Санду, ты услышала? Ни твой ЕС, ни ты, ни твои еврохозяева здесь не нужны. Как же ты достала людей, что даже с конским админресурсом, блокировками, арестами, вбросами тебя просто вышибли с треском. Все понимают, что сейчас ты изо всех сил пытаешься украсть голоса. Но результат мы уже видим. И поверить в обратное ты никого не заставишь", — написал Шор в заблокированном для жителей Молдовы канале Telegram.
"Решения" — это про отмену результатов выборов и итогов голосования по референдуму?
У Санду действительно не осталось других "решений", кроме захвата и узурпации государственной власти, насильственного уничтожения демократических процедур и подавления народного волеизъявления?
Давайте на мгновение представим, что в Молдове никогда не вводили цензуру, не закрывали телеканалы, не блокировали СМИ, не отбирали у людей право голосовать, лишая их избирательных участков, не арестовывали и не судили оппозицию, что правящая партия не захватывала ЦИК, СИБ, МВД, правительство.
И как выглядели бы ТОГДА результаты сегодняшнего голосования.
Moldova holds election, EU vote dogged by alleged Russian meddling
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ALLEGED MEDDLING
The foreign ministry said two polling stations in Moscow - set up for Moldovans abroad - had been "artificially" overcrowded and there might be illegal attempts to bus voters in.
The vote has been overshadowed by election-meddling allegations.
Police accused Ilan Shor, a fugitive tycoon who lives in Russia, of trying to pay off a network of at least 130,000 voters to vote "no" and back a candidate he would only disclose at the last minute.
Shor, jailed in absentia for fraud and theft and under western sanctions, has offered to pay Moldovans to persuade others to vote "no" and back "our candidate". He denies wrongdoing.
In the run-up to the vote, state radio in Chisinau has urged people not to vote for money and asked them to report any such offers to the authorities.
On Thursday, law enforcement agencies said they had uncovered a programme in which hundreds of people were taken to Russia to undergo training to stage riots and civil unrest.
Russia denies interfering and accuses Sandu's government of "Russophobia".
Police chief Viorel Cernauteanu told Reuters a slew of voice and text messages from abroad in recent days had told Moldovans to either boycott the referendum or vote "no".
He said the police had acted to prevent any impact on the vote.
"There will be some kind of impact in any case, but I think it will not influence the votes overall."
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Moldova holds election, EU vote dogged by alleged Russian meddling
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As the war in Ukraine turns the political and diplomatic spotlight on Moldova, the former Soviet republic has sought to escape Moscow's orbit and embarked on the long process of EU accession talks.
Polls show incumbent Maia Sandu, who has championed EU accession in four years as president, has a clear lead over her 10 rivals on the ballot, though the election will go to a Nov. 3 run-off if she fails to reach the 50% mark.
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Moldova has alternated between pro-Western and pro-Russian courses since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union.
Ties with Moscow have deteriorated under Sandu. Her government has condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine, accused Russia of plotting her overthrow, and diversified energy supply after Russia reduced gas supplies.
ALLEGED MEDDLING
The foreign ministry said two polling stations in Moscow - set up for Moldovans abroad - had been "artificially" overcrowded and there might be illegal attempts to bus voters in.
The vote has been overshadowed by election-meddling allegations.
Police accused Ilan Shor, a fugitive tycoon who lives in Russia, of trying to pay off a network of at least 130,000 voters to vote "no" and back a candidate he would only disclose at the last minute.
Shor, jailed in absentia for fraud and theft and under western sanctions, has offered to pay Moldovans to persuade others to vote "no" and back "our candidate". He denies wrongdoing.
In the run-up to the vote, state radio in Chisinau has urged people not to vote for money and asked them to report any such offers to the authorities.
On Thursday, law enforcement agencies said they had uncovered a programme in which hundreds of people were taken to Russia to undergo training to stage riots and civil unrest.
Russia denies interfering and accuses Sandu's government of "Russophobia".
Police chief Viorel Cernauteanu told Reuters a slew of voice and text messages from abroad in recent days had told Moldovans to either boycott the referendum or vote "no".
He said the police had acted to prevent any impact on the vote.
"There will be some kind of impact in any case, but I think it will not influence the votes overall."
Tugged Between East and West, Moldova Makes a Pivotal Choice
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The central electoral commission said on Sunday that updated electoral rolls included 2,714,239 people, and that more than 50 percent of voters had cast ballots by early evening.
Nicolae Panfil, a program director at Promo-LEX, a group that monitors elections, said that a “yes” vote in the referendum would have important, long-term consequences.
“It is not just an opinion poll,” he said, but a binding mandate for constitutional change to moor the country in the West.
The Watchdog survey suggested that while a majority of Moldovans favor integration with the West, a significant pool of voters in a country sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania, a member of NATO and the European Union, still look to Russia. These include residents of largely Russian-speaking areas in the north near Ukraine and older Romanian-speakers who remember Soviet rule as a time of economic and political stability.
More than a third of those surveyed said they opposed amending the constitution and about the same proportion favored joining the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-led bloc comprising Russia, Belarus and three other former Soviet republics.
Natalia Morari, an estranged former ally of Ms. Sandu who is running against her for the presidency, dismissed the referendum as a “political ploy” to gin up support for Ms. Sandu in the presidential race. She said it would do nothing to advance Moldova’s European aspirations and would have to be repeated once negotiations with Brussels are completed. “This referendum is not about real European integration and is just political technology,” she said.
“Russia is working actively to undermine Moldova’s election and its European integration,” the U.S. National Security Council spokesman, John F. Kirby, said on Wednesday. He added that “in the last several months, Moscow has dedicated millions of dollars to influencing Moldova’s presidential election.”
A spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, says Moscow “categorically rejects” accusations of Russian meddling in Moldova.
Любопытно тут два обстоятельства:
⏹️ В речи Трампа отчётливо прозвучало слово "надежда" (Hope). Тут Обамой образца 2008 года запахло;
⏹️ Трамп показал, как надо бросать соль через левое плечо. И хотя эта примета очень древняя, недоброжелатели почти наверняка и тут разглядят "русский след".
Источник.
Цитата:
Trump thrusts McDonald’s into the political arena in final days of campaign
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Donald Trump is pulling one of the most iconic American companies – McDonald’s – into the political arena in the final days of his third White House bid.
The former president is expected to stop by one of the fast-food chain’s Pennsylvania franchises during his Sunday swing through the Keystone State. There, he plans to work as a fry attendant, CNN reported last week.
It’s the same job Vice President Kamala Harris has said she held as a young woman, a biographical detail revealed during her first campaign for president. It has since become a centerpiece of the middle-class origin story she has made key to her pitch to voters as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.
Trump, whose deep affection for the Golden Arches and its offerings is well documented, has meanwhile grown fixated on Harris’ employment there. In interviews and on the campaign trail, he regularly accuses Harris – without evidence – of making up the factoid. His visit to the restaurant is his latest attempt to sow doubt about the Democrat’s work history.
“I’m going to McDonald’s to work the french fry,” Trump told supporters Saturday at a rally in the Pittsburgh area. “I think I’m doing it tomorrow, and I think it’s in a place in Pennsylvania, and I’m going to stand over that french fry.”
Harris has largely ignored Trump, as well as calls from his supporters and inquiries from conservative news outlets to provide proof of her time there. Her campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment about Trump’s accusation and his upcoming visit to McDonald’s.
A campaign official told CNN that Harris worked at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California, during the summer of 1983 when she was still a student at Howard University in Washington. She worked the register and manned the fry and ice cream machines, according to the official.
On Drew Barrymore’s talk show earlier this year, Harris told the actor, “I did fries. And then I did the cashier.” And as a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris mentioned her work at the fast-food chain while joining striking McDonald’s workers on the picket line.
Her time there was repeatedly referenced onstage at this summer’s Democratic National Convention as her allies contrasted her upbringing with Trump’s upper-class roots. Former President Bill Clinton joked that Harris would “break my record as the president who has spent the most time at McDonald’s.” Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett asserted that “one candidate worked at McDonald’s,” while “the other was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”
“Can you simply picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald’s?” said Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. “He couldn’t run that damn McFlurry machine if it cost him anything.”
Trump over the years has repeatedly questioned the biographies of his rivals, often without merit. He was one of the loudest voices in the debunked “birther” movement that falsely questioned Barack Obama’s citizenship and eligibility for the White House, eventually leading the Hawaiian-born president to release his long-form birth certificate. During the 2016 Republican primary, Trump pushed an unfounded conspiracy theory that Sen. Ted Cruz’s father aided in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This election cycle, Trump wrongly suggested his Republican primary opponent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, wasn’t a natural-born US citizen and falsely claimed that Harris has only lately embraced her Black heritage.
Yet, even as he lobbed these accusations, Trump littered his own personal story with exaggerations and fabrications. He coined the phrase “truthful hyperbole” in his best-selling autobiography “The Art of the Deal,” an oxymoronic term that nevertheless illustrates his relationship with facts about himself.
“It’s an innocent form of exaggeration,” he wrote, “and a very effective form of promotion.”
During a 2007 deposition, lawyers caught Trump lying at least 30 times over two days, mostly over mundane facts about his businesses such as the size of his workforce, a payment for speaking fees and the cost of his golf membership. He also once claimed that he stood on the rubble at ground zero after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and that he paid his workers to clear away the debris, neither of which is backed by public record.
And there are multiple accounts of Trump calling reporters under the alias “John Barron,” a supposed executive at his company who once duped a Forbes reporter into inflating Trump’s fortune on the magazine’s list of wealthiest people.
It’s unclear why Trump has latched on to Harris’ McDonald’s employment or why a visit there was warranted during one of his few remaining weekends before Election Day. But in recent interviews, Trump has suggested that a small detail about his rival’s past shouldn’t be dismissed.
“We would say, well, that’s not a big lie. It’s a huge lie,” Trump said, “because McDonald’s was part of her whole thing.”
Trump also visited a McDonald’s early in his presidential campaign, this one in East Palestine, Ohio, after a train carrying hazardous materials derailed there, sparking an environmental and public health crisis. There, he joked to a woman working the register, “I know this menu better than you do. I probably know it better than anybody in here.”
The former president has long stated his affinity for fast food. During a 2016 CNN town hall, Trump, a self-described “very clean person,” attributed his preference for their offerings to the quality control, saying, “You’re better off going there than someplace you have no idea where the food is coming from.”
“I think the food is good. I think all of those places, Burger King, McDonald’s, I can live with it,” he added. “The other night I had Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not the worst thing in the world.”
Trump brought that affection into the White House, where he once served Clemson’s national championship football team a smorgasbord of burgers and pizza. His son-in-law Jared Kushner quipped in his autobiography that he knew Trump had turned the corner in his battle with the coronavirus when he requested his favorite McDonald’s order.
“McDonald’s Big Mac, Filet-O-Fish, fries and a vanilla shake,” Kushner recounted.
In an appearance last week on Fox News, Donald Trump Jr. bemoaned that the network in its interview with Harris didn’t ask her which McDonald’s she worked at. He also asserted that his father’s familiarity with the chain’s offerings would surpass the Democratic nominee’s.
“I think my father knows the McDonald’s menu much better than Kamala Harris ever did,” Trump Jr. said.
«Мы видим, как много людей не являются сторонниками идеологии действующего президента Санду»: в Кремле заявили, что выборы в Молдавии «вызывают очень много вопросов»
«Показатели, которые мы сейчас видим, и динамика их изменений вызывают очень много вопросов. Первое — это, конечно, такие механические труднообъяснимые темпы прироста голосов в пользу Майи Санду и в пользу тех участников, которые высказываются за ориентацию на Евросоюз. Любой мало-мальски понимающий суть политических процессов наблюдатель может это зафиксировать»
, — заявил пресс-секретарь президента России Дмитрий Песков.
Действующий президент Молдовы Майя Санду не может честно победить во втором туре президентских выборов — первый зампред комитета Госдумы по делам СНГ Константин Затулин.
"Честно победить во втором туре она не может. Это ясно всем. Теперь надо следить за руками - ведь в условиях "священной борьбы с Россией" Запад готов позволить себе всё",
— написал Затулин в своем Telegram-канале.
Голосование по почте из Канады и отказ открывать участки в России — что нужно знать о референдуме по вопросу вступления Молдовы в ЕС.
1. Внутри страны большинство жителей выступили против вступления в ЕС (554 тысячи "за", 653 тысячи "против).
2. Итоговый результат в данный момент определяет подсчёт голосов граждан, живущих в ЕС, США и Канаде. Для них было открыто максимальное количество участков, плюс им разрешили даже голосовать по почте.
3. В России молдавские власти согласились открыть лишь два участка, причём оба в одном месте — в посольстве в Москве.
4. Для 500 тысяч проживающих в России граждан РМ выделили 10 тысяч бюллетеней (а всего для голосования за рубежом более 200 тысяч).
К этой минуте обработано 98,33% протоколов, разрыв между "за" и "против" — менее 800 человек.
По мнению а.п. никакие выборы нельзя считать легитимными, если из них было сознательно исключено 20% избирателей (490 000 избирателей в России).
Цитата:
Moldova votes to stick with E.U. despite reports of Russian interference
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A razor-thin majority of Moldovans voted in favor of eventually joining the European Union, preliminary results showed Monday, after President Maia Sandu said the referendum had been marred by “unprecedented” pro-Russian interference.
On Sunday, Moldova held a crucial twin vote: one to elect a new president and the other to determine whether the country would eventually choose European Union membership.
For Sandu, a pro-E.U. candidate elected on anti-corruption promises, the vote was a culmination of her four-year-long presidency in this small former Soviet country situated between Romania and Ukraine that has been locked in a decades-long battle over its political direction, torn between Moscow and the West.
Yet the knife-edge result is far from a confident endorsement of her attempts to push the country sharply toward the West. After 99.41 percent of the 1.4 million votes were counted in the referendum, 50.39 percent voted in favor to 49.61 percent who voted against, according to the Central Electoral Commission.
The country’s aspiration to join the bloc will now be enshrined in the constitution, so it will be significantly harder to back away from this path should a more Russia-friendly leader come to power.
For the presidential election, Sandu won 42 percent of the votes, while her primary opponent, former prosecutor-general Alexandr Stoianoglo, took 26 percent in a field of 11 candidates. They will face each other in a runoff Nov. 3.
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine cast a shadow over Moldova’s future, prompting many pro-E.U. politicians to fear their country might be next. Russia keeps a small contingent of troops in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria.
In an early Monday tweet, Sandu said that “criminal groups, working with foreign forces,” had attempted to influence Moldovan elections using “tens of millions of euros, lies, and propaganda.”
“We have clear evidence that these criminal groups aimed to buy 300,000 votes — a fraud of unprecedented scale,” she added. “Their objective was to undermine a democratic process. Their intention is to spread fear and panic in the society.”
Moldovan authorities accused Moscow of stepping up its “hybrid war” campaign to derail Moldova’s E.U. path and sway the elections in Russia’s favor. The allegations include funding pro-Moscow opposition groups, spreading disinformation, interference in local elections and backing a major vote-buying scheme.
One such scheme was orchestrated by fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor, who authorities say ran a major operation to buy votes by offering money to pensioners if they voted against the referendum.
The Washington Post previously reported how the 37-year-old Shor emerged as a key figure in the Kremlin’s efforts to subvert the former Soviet republic, as Moscow funneled millions of dollars to build a network of friendly politicians and pull Moldova back into its orbit.
In 2022, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Shor, saying he had been “coordinating with representatives of other oligarchs to create political unrest in Moldova” and had “received Russian support” and worked to undermine Moldova’s bid to join the European Union.
E.U. officials in Brussels have also underscored Russian interference in Moldova and stressed its continued support for Moldova to one day join the bloc.
“This vote took place under unprecedented interference and intimidation by Russia and its proxies, aiming to destabilize the democratic processes in the Republic of Moldova,” spokesman Peter Stano said in a statement.
Stano told reporters that allegations of vote buying, the busing of voters and disinformation are only the most recent forms of Russian interference, and that attempts to undermine Moldova’s support for the E.U. have been going on much longer.
Top Russian officials sought to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the procedure, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling the election campaign “unfree.”
“The first thing that we see is, of course, such mechanical, hard-to-explain surges in the number of votes for Sandu and referendum participants supporting the integration in the E.U.,” Peskov said in a call with reporters Monday.
“Even amid this unfree election campaign, we see how many people oppose the ideology of incumbent President Sandu,” he added.
Russian state TV echoed the Kremlin’s talking points by claiming the election was riddled with “massive fraud,” with one top anchor calling the vote “the most scandalous in history.”
Марков: Санду ждет провал во втором туре президентских выборов в Молдавии
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Майя Санду имеет все шансы проиграть выборы во втором туре, отметил в беседе с aif.ru политолог Сергей Марков. По его мнению, вероятность такого исхода составляет 90%.
«Распределение голосов по итогам первого тура выборов в Молдавии практически на 90% означает, что в втором туре Санду проиграет выборы, если только не будет вообще чудовищной фальсификации», - рассказал эксперт.
Марков объяснил, что поскольку по итогам голосования с третьего по пятое места заняли промолдавские политики, то их избиратели поддержат Александра Стояногло. Еще одним фактором, который окажет влияние на выборы, эксперт назвал «эффект второго тура».
«Если кандидат на выборах не получил более 45% голосов, то в втором туре он с высокой вероятностью проиграет, потому что все протестные голоса консолидируются. В Молдавии немало тех, кто не голосовал из-за неверия в возможность изменений. Сейчас они увидят, что изменить ситуацию можно. Они придут голосовать, поэтому во втором туре президентских выборов окажется выше, чем на первом туре», - уточнил Марков.
Ранее глава оппозиционного движения «Победа» Илан Шор заявил, что предварительные результаты голосования на выборах президента Молдовы и европейском референдуме обернулись сокрушительным поражением для действующей власти.
Представитель президента РФ Дмитрий Песков отметил, что скорость увеличения голосов, поддерживающих Майю Санду на выборах, вызывает недоумение и множество вопросов.
UE: Von der Leyen: Mołdawia pokazała, że chce europejskiej przyszłości
W obliczu hybrydowych działań Rosji Mołdawia pokazała, że jest niezależna, silna i pragnie europejskiej przyszłości - oświadczyła w poniedziałek przewodnicząca Komisji Europejskiej Ursula von der Leyen komentując wyniki wyborów prezydenckich oraz referendum w tym kraju.
Szefowa KE wydała krótkie oświadczenie na swoim profilu na platformie X po tym, jak mołdawska Centralna Komisja Wyborcza opublikowała dane na podstawie głosów z 99,32 proc. komisji. Zgodnie z nimi 50,35 proc. wyborców opowiedziało się w niedzielnym referendum za wpisaniem eurointegracji do konstytucji kraju.
Natomiast w wyborach prezydenckich, które także odbyły się w niedzielę, najlepszy wynik 41,98 proc. uzyskała ubiegająca się o reelekcję Maia Sandu. Oznacza to, że 3 listopada odbędzie się druga tura wyborów prezydenckich, a rywalem Sandu będzie były prokurator generalny Alexandr Stoianoglo.
Poparcie dla eurointegracji uzyskane w referendum jest niższe od prognozowanego w sondażach, które mówiły o zdecydowanej przewadze zwolenników wejścia do UE. Z badań tych wynikało, że w Mołdawii jest około 50-55 proc. osób gotowych zagłosować w referendum na "tak", a wraz z diasporą wynik ten miał przekroczyć nawet 60 proc.
Von der Leyen złożyła gratulacje obywatelom Mołdawii oraz prezydentce Sandu. "Zrobiłaś to znowu!" - napisała, zwracając się do mołdawskiej przywódczyni. (https://tinyurl.com/49apambd)
Wcześniej rzecznik KE Peter Stano powiedział dziennikarzom, że rezultaty wyborów w Mołdawii pokazują, jak wymagająca jest walka z ingerowaniem przez Rosję w proces wyborczy.
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CHISINAU, Oct 21 (Reuters) - A slim majority of 50.39% voted "yes" in Moldova's crunch referendum on European Union accession, preliminary results showed, after President Maia Sandu said that Sunday's twin votes had been marred by "unprecedented" outside interference.
The knife-edge finish - with fewer than 1% of ballots still to be counted - is far from a resounding endorsement of the pro-EU path that Sandu has pursued over four years at the helm of the small ex-Soviet republic tugged between Russia and the West.
Sandu took 42% of the vote at a presidential election that was held simultaneously, while her main rival, former prosecutor-general Alexandr Stoianoglo, won 26%, a stronger result than polls had predicted.
The result sets the scene for a tightly fought run-off between the two on Nov. 3. Stoianoglo has said that, if elected, he would build a "balanced" foreign policy involving ties with the EU, the United States, Russia and China.
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Материал полностью.
Цитата:
Всевозможные махинации. Как прошёл референдум о евроинтеграции в Молдавии
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Второй тур президентских выборов в Молдавии ушёл на такой же план после скандала с подсчётом голосов на референдуме о евроинтеграции. О махинациях и фальсификациях оппоненты Майи Санду заявляли с самого начала голосования, однако даже таким образом ей не удалось получить нужный результат, и в ход пошла «тяжёлая артиллерия».
Игольное ушко и другие грязные приёмы
Штаб Санду основательно готовился к выборам, не брезгуя грязными ходами. В России, например, евроинтеграторы решили прогнать избирателей через игольное ушко. Для четырёхсот тысяч граждан Молдавии, проживающих в России, открыли два избирательных участка. Оба в Москве. Несмотря на то, что добраться до них сумели далеко не все, собрались огромные очереди. Проголосовать смогли не все.
«На каждый из двух избирательных участков мы отправили по 5 тысяч бюллетеней. Это означает, что в Российской Федерации смогут проголосовать 10 тысяч человек», — заявил за день до выборов и референдума вице-председатель молдавской ЦИК Павел Постика в интервью Agora.
Меры более топорного характера были приняты в самой Молдавии. Групповое голосование, незаконная агитация. По данным неправительственной организации Promo-LEX, было зарегистрировано более 170 сообщений о различных нарушениях.
«Нас проинформировали, что в ряде больниц и клиник медицинский персонал массово собирает у пациентов бюллетени. Не исключаем, что это делается с целью фальсификации выборов и голосования на референдуме», — заявил в воскресенье экс-премьер, кандидат в президенты Василий Тарлев.
Его оппонент на выборах, другой бывший премьер и экс-министр финансов Ион Кику, рассказал, что его наблюдателей не пустили на участки. О нарушениях говорил даже сторонник евроинтеграции, экс-глава МИД и кандидат в президенты Тудор Ульяновский. Его наблюдатели сообщили о незаконной агитации в Брешии, Вероне и Милане. «То, что происходит в данный момент, является вопиющим нарушением закона. Недопустимо, чтобы подобная практика использовалась для влияния на избирателей, особенно в диаспоре, где власти явно готовятся к фальсификации выборов», — написал он в запрещённой в России социальной сети.
«Мерами лёгкой фальсификации через голосование на зарубежных участках, где во всех странах было открыто огромное количество участков, кроме России, Санду пыталась выиграть количество голосов в пользу евроинтеграции, рассчитывая, что эти люди и будут голосовать. Лёгкая фальсификация, которая должна была сработать.
Однако ночью мы увидели, что это не сработало, и тенденция была очевидной», — прокомментировал aif.ru ход молдавского голосования директор Центра политического анализа Павел Данилин.
Цифровые технологии
До подсчёта 86% голосов противники евроинтеграции стабильно опережали сторонников на десять процентов. Граждане Молдавии почему-то не бросились в едином порыве менять Конституцию для попытки войти в состав ЕС.
«У Санду началась истерика, — говорит Данилин. — Она начала угрожать, в том числе представителям избирательной комиссии, которые отказывались заниматься большими фальсификациями. Но она их убедила, что всё будет плохо у них, если они откажутся вмешиваться в итоги голосования. И они начали резко наращивать голоса. Это же чётко видно, когда это произошло. Рухнул сайт ЦИК, после чего начался резкий рост у тех, кто голосует за, и очень медленное нарастание у тех, кто голосовал против».
Подсчёт голосов ЦИК держала в тайне до трёх часов ночи. За час до объявления итогов Санду созвала срочный брифинг. Бандиты и шпионы мешают молдавским гражданам исполнить гражданский долг, заявила она.
«Молдавия сталкивалась в последнее время с беспрецедентной атакой на свободу и демократию в нашей стране, ОПГ вместе с иностранными силами атаковали нашу страну десятками миллионами евро, ложью и пропагандой, самыми низкими способами, чтобы ввергнуть страну в зону нестабильности. У нас есть доказательства, что целью ОПГ была покупка 300 тысяч голосов на выборах, чтобы скомпрометировать демократический процесс», — приводит её слова РИА Новости.
Какие именно иностранные силы она винит в провале, Санду не уточнила. Учитывая её постоянную антироссийскую риторику, несложно догадаться, что она скажет, когда снова начнёт говорить на эту тему.
После её выступления ЦИК опубликовала итоги подсчёта 97% голосов. За то время, пока «лежал» сайт, сторонники евроинтеграции резко подтянулись к оппонентам: 49,5% за вхождение в ЕС, 50,5% против. После обработки 99,01% протоколов итоги таковы: за 50,29%, против 49,71%. Десять процентов разницы магическим образом исчезли.
«Распределение там отнюдь не пополам, это было очевидно. Большинство, причём достаточно серьёзное, процентов 60 — против евроинтеграции, и только сорок за», — отметил Данилин.
Молдавская оппозиция итогов референдума не признаёт, у них есть шанс добиться своего: второй тур президентских выборов.
«Санду может проиграть президентскую кампанию, и тогда можно будет говорить и об отмене итогов референдума», — рассказал Данилин. Голосование состоится через две недели, 3 ноября. Очевидно, что референдум о евроинтеграции станет ключевым моментом в избирательной кампании и для Санду, и для Александра Стояногло.
Перманентная гражданская война им. Харрис/Трамп - это то, что нужно для закрытия Америки.
Цитата:
New cases of political violence roil US ahead of contentious election
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Oct 21 (Reuters) - - In York, Pennsylvania, a man accosted a group of people rallying for Vice President Kamala Harris’ White House campaign, punching a 74-year-old man in the head and calling another man a “n— supporter” as he fled.
In northern Michigan, an assailant enraged by his hatred of Donald Trump used an all-terrain vehicle to run over and injure an 81-year-old man who was putting up a yard sign for the former president’s reelection bid.
The recent attacks were among at least 300 cases of political violence identified by Reuters since Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including at least 51 incidents this year. With just two weeks to go before the Nov. 5 presidential election, the cases are part of the biggest andmost sustained increase in U.S. political violence since the 1970s.
Some of the violence has been reported widely, most notably two assassination attempts on Trump, a Republican. Other high-profile incidents include three shootings in recent weeks at a Democratic campaign office for Harris in Arizona.
But Reuters documented scores of other cases on contentious political issues – from election disputes to LGBTQ+ rights and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Incidents ranged from small fights over political signs to more violent brawls and property destruction at rallies. Most of this year's violence wasn't fatal with the exception of two deaths: a spectator killed during July’s attempt on Trump’s life and the shooter.
The pace of cases has remained remarkably consistent since beginning to rise in 2016, around the time of Trump’s first presidential run. In 2021, which included the tumult that followed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, there were 93 cases of political violence, followed by 79 in 2022, and 76 in 2023.
Political extremism experts warn that the charged atmosphere around the 2024 presidential election has created a highly volatile situation. Trump in particular often uses incendiary rhetoric, threatening to put his political enemies on trial and to deploy the military against the “radical left”, calling them “the enemy within.”
Americans are starting to see violence as “part of the way politics happens,” said Nealin Parker, who heads Common Ground USA, a nonprofit that studies ways to bridge America's political and cultural divides. In the current climate of mistrust, she added, “incidents of violence can metastasize into something bigger.”
Robert Pape, a University of Chicago professor who studies political violence, expressed concern over the prospect of post-election violence in battleground states, where the margin of victory could be a few thousand votes. He likened it to “a wildfire season” with lots of “dry combustible material” and the “potential for lightning strikes.”
Trump himself has declined to rule out the possibility of violence if he loses in November. When asked by Time magazine in April if he expected violence after the election, he said, “If we don’t win, you know, it depends.” He has told supporters that any loss in this year’s race would be due to fraud.
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The Trump campaign, when asked about the steady rise of political violence and the recent attacks against Harris and Trump supporters, provided a statement attacking Harris on immigration and criminal justice reform.
“DOING MY PART”
The highest-profile case of recent political violence was the first assassination attempt on Trump at a July 13 campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The shooter, Thomas Crooks, was killed at the scene. He had no “definitive ideology,” federal investigators concluded.
Law enforcement agencies were put on alert for potential retaliatory violence by Trump supporters. There were some concerning incidents, including a man in Florida who told his wife he was “preparing for war” after the shooting and left home with multiple guns, according to police reports. He was found burying a full ammunition box in a public park. Police seized seven rifles and handguns, and had the man hospitalized for a mental health evaluation.
But the anger wasn’t confined to Trump’s supporters.
On the day of the assassination attempt, Joshua Kemppainen, an avowed Trump hater in northern Michigan, raged in a private chat with friends on the Discord messaging app. “Nice aim dickhead,” Kemppainen wrote over a picture of a bleeding Trump. A member of the chat group shared the message with Reuters.
Kemppainen, 22 and unemployed, went on a vandalism spree eight days later in his town of Hancock, population 4,500, which mostly backed Trump in the 2020 election.
On July 21, when President Joe Biden quit the presidential race and endorsed Harris, Kemppainen rode an all-terrain vehicle through the streets and targeted Trump supporters, said Hancock Police Department chief Tami Sleeman in an interview.
Reuters pieced together what happened from police reports obtained in a records request, copies of chat messages provided by Kemppainen’s associates and police, and a video Kemppainen posted on Discord.
He vandalized a pickup truck with a Trump sticker, deflating its tires, tearing off a side mirror and smashing its windows. He also damaged a truck with a pro-police decal. He posted a video of one attack on Discord with the comment “doing my part.” Then he tore up Trump yard signs and threw them into the street.
When an onlooker, Carl Nelson, 81, replanted the signs, Kemppainen ran him over with the ATV and fled, hospitalizing the Vietnam veteran.
The next day, Kemppainen rang Hancock Police: “I am calling to confess to a crime,” he said in a message describing his rampage, according to a recording police shared with Reuters. “So if you could send someone to pick me up. I appreciate it."
When police heard the voicemail two hours later, they worried the caller sounded unbalanced and dispatched six officers, said Sleeman, the chief. By the time they arrived, Kemppainen had fatally shot himself with an assault rifle, a police report said. His father said Kemppainen was on anti-depression medication and also had an autism diagnosis, the report added. In an interview, a family member confirmed that Kemppainen struggled with mental health issues.
Nelson, who Kemppainen attacked, told Reuters he spent several days in the hospital for knee and upper body injuries. “This was such a peaceful area,” said Nelson. He has decided to vote for Trump, he added.
On Sept. 15, a second assassination attempt on Trump refocused attention on the risk of political violence in this year’s election. Suspect Ryan Routh had waited for hours with an assault rifle by Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach when an agent spotted him in shrubbery and fired. Routh fled and was apprehended quickly.
Eleven days later, in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Alan Vandersloot, a 74-year-old local borough councilman, stood with a Harris sign among about a dozen of her supporters at a rally in York, a city of nearly 45,000 in a county that broadly backed Trump in 2020.
As the rally was ending, Vandersloot told Reuters, a man grabbed him from behind and slammed him to the pavement, opening a two-inch gash on his forehead. The attacker, Robert Trotta, punched Vandersloot repeatedly before fleeing, two witnesses said in interviews.
When another rallygoer, Dan Almoney, gave chase, Trotta called him “a n—- supporter,” Almoney said. Almoney interpreted the slur as a reference to Harris and her backers, he said. Trotta, Vandersloot and Almoney are white.
Trotta, unable to post bail, has yet to make a plea on assault and harassment charges, court records show. His lawyer declined to comment. Trotta is a registered Republican, according to state records. His social media posts, from an account last active in 2020, supported Trump and criticized Democrats.
A York City Police Department spokesperson, Captain Daniel Lentz, said he didn’t believe Trotta’s attack was “politically motivated” because Trotta previously pleaded guilty to two cases of harassment in which he struck random people. The police report, however, did not include statements from Vandersloot and Almoney, who both said they believed the attack was political. Lentz said he didn’t know why the police didn’t record their accounts.
NEW ISSUES, NEW VIOLENCE
There’s no government data on political violence, though several universities and private research groups track it in various ways, typically using databases built on news accounts. Some include random hate crimes; others, including Reuters, do not. Most have not released comprehensive data since 2020.
The 300 cases identified by Reuters were culled from records on thousands of violent crimes since the 2021 Capitol attack. Most of that data was captured initially by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a global violence-tracking project run by a nonpartisan research group in Wisconsin. Reporters identified additional cases using news databases, court filings and police reports obtained through public records requests.
Some of the cases don’t break down along traditional partisan lines, including those linked to disputes over the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
That was the case last month when Caleb Gannon, a pro-Palestinian critic of U.S. government support for Israel, began heckling a pro-Israel rally in Newton, Massachusetts. Cell phone video shows Gannon shouting, “You’re supporting genocide!” before running into the crowd and tackling Scott Hayes, a fervent backer of Israel.
Earlier this year, Hayes, an Iraq War veteran, posted a photo on social media of a handgun with a Star of David pendant and the message “Hey Jew Haters. Bring it.” As they wrestled on the ground, Hayes shot Gannon in the abdomen.
Hayes, 47, is awaiting trial after pleading not guilty to assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. The county prosecutor has said an assault and battery charge also will be pursued against Gannon, 31, who remains hospitalized. Hayes’ lawyer said he will argue self-defense but declined further comment.
Other cases are directly linked to the election.
On Sept. 26, a Michigan man was arrested for assaulting a U.S. Postal Service worker who delivered a Harris campaign mailer to his house. The postal worker was in her truck when Russell Valleau, 61, approached on a bike, yelling that he “did not want that ‘Black bitch’ in his mailbox,” according to police records and a statement from the Oakland County prosecutor.
When the postal worker, who is Black, told Valleau to back away, he called her a “Black bitch” and lunged at her with a knife, according to her account to the Farmington Hills Police Department. She sprayed him with dog repellent, and he retreated. “I just had a man come to me with a knife and try to stab me,” she said moments later in a call to police, according to a recording obtained through a records request. “I sprayed him.”
Police reported finding Valleau lying in a nearby yard, apparently intoxicated and suffering the effects of chemical repellant. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of assault and battery and ethnic intimidation. His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
In another case this summer, four white men in a pick-up truck rolled up to a rural home in coastal North Carolina and asked three Black teens in the yard “if they liked Donald Trump,” according to a report from the Pasquotank County Sheriff's Office. When the youths said, “No,” the report said, the men opened fired with a BB gun, hitting one youth in the leg and another in the buttocks. The shots also broke windows on the house, a shed and a car out front.
The truck drove off. Police are investigating the case as an assault with a deadly weapon and have no suspects. The children suffered minor injuries and declined medical treatment.
Christian Gilyard, the youths’ father, said political tensions have become more pronounced since the contested 2020 election, but he never expected problems in his own neighborhood. “It’s shocking,” he said, “that something like this would happen here.”
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Что означают результаты референдума и выборов президента в Молдове?
Они оказались неожиданно плохими для действующего президента Майи Санду.
Главное - фактически провалился инициированный ею референдум в поддержку евроинтеграции.
Санду была абсолютно уверена в положительном исходе и хотела использовать его, в том числе, и как пиар-локомотив для собственной предвыборной кампании.
Но вышло все совсем по-другому. По итогу подсчёта 99% голосов сторонники евроинтеграции опережают противников менее чем на 1%. Причем перевес появился только после обработки последних нескольких процентов протоколов. До того впереди были противники ЕС.
Перевес в пользу евроинтеграции получился лишь за счет голосов диаспоры. Большинство жителей самой Молдовы проголосовали против. А если брать Гагаузию, то там против было подавляющее большинство (почти 95%).
Но, в любом случае, крайне небольшой отрыв между «да» «нет» подрывает легитимность самого референдума и, де-факто, не позволяет говорить, что народ дал мандат на определенный курс.
И, тем более, его результаты нельзя трактовать как вотум доверия Санду. Скорее, это для нее провал и показатель разочарования общества в ее политике.
Сама президент заявляет, что подобные итоги референдума стали следствием скупки сотен тысяч голосов пророссийскими силами. Но, во-первых, это надо ещё доказать (просто на слово Санду верить мало кто будет, а оппоненты уже трактуют ее обвинения как попытку оправдать провал своей инициативы). А, во-вторых, возникает вопрос к самой команде президента - насколько она контролирует ситуацию в стране, если такая грандиозная покупка голосов вообще стала возможной.
Крайне неубедительный результат референдума усугубляет негативный эффект для Санду и от второй проблемы - итогов президентских выборов. Санду не сумела на них выполнить свою основную задачу - победить в первом туре. Более того, ее главный соперник - кандидат от Соцпартии экс-генпрокурор Александр Стояноглу, вопреки прогнозам, набрал очень приличный результат. Что делает победу во втором туре 3 ноября для Санду непростой задачей.
Впрочем, разрыв между ней и Стояноглу (42% против 26%) все ж таки велик, а потому у действующего президента, безусловно, есть шансы на победу.
Однако, даже в таком случае, как мы уже писали в нашем предвыборном анализе, она получит большую проблему на предстоящих в следующем году парламентских выборах, по итогам которых определится, кто будет контролировать правительство страны.
Социалисты, выведя своего кандидата во второй тур, закрепились как главная оппозиционная сила. В том числе, главная и на пророссийском политическом поле.
Соответственно, они могут стать центром притяжения для большинства избирателей этого спектра, консолидировав их и обеспечив, тем самым, высокую явку своих сторонников на выборы.
Кроме того, в выборах парламента, скорее всего, примет участие и популярный мэр Кишинева, бывший социалист Ион Чабан. Его партия может взять значительную часть центристского электората, «откусив» его и от нынешних избирателей Санду. И, по итогу выборов, новое большинство смогут сформировать социалисты и партия Чабана. Плюс, возможно, и другие оппозиционные политсилы, которые пройдут в парламент.
И если такой сценарий осуществится, то Санду потеряет контроль и над парламентом, и над правительством, которое, по Конституции Молдовы, имеет больше полномочий, чем президент.
Впрочем, на фоне тяжелых для себя итогов президентских выборов и референдума, Санду может, заручившись поддержкой Запада, «сыграть в Чапаева» - обвинить оппозицию в работе на Россию и просто запретить или не допустить к выборам крупнейшие оппозиционные силы, припугнув их лидеров уголовными делами. Однако, для столь жестких мер Санду должна иметь полный контроль над ситуацией в стране и эффективный госаппарат. Но в наличие всего этого, судя по тому, как прошел референдум, есть большие сомнения.
В более широком геополитическом контексте итоги вчерашнего голосования в Молдове демонстрирует серьезное снижение для обществ и элит в постсоветских и восточноевропейских странах привлекательности идеи интеграции в ЕС, которая ранее воспринималась здесь как великий приз и удача.
Молдова – только один пример. Есть еще Грузия, власти которой вошли в клинч с евроструктурами и где предстоят также очень показательные парламентские выборы в следующее воскресенье.
В обоих случаях на ход событий, безусловно, сильно влияет и Россия, действуя через местных политиков. Причем такие политические действия Москвы куда эффективнее с точки зрения корректировки курса постсоветских стран, чем военная сила, примененная в Украине, которая максимально оттолкнуло страну от России.
При этом фактор российско-украинской войны также широко используется лояльными Москве силами (особенно это ярко видно в Грузии) для проведения линии «если будет жестко прозападно-европейский и антироссийский курс, то у нас будет война как и в Украине».
Эксперты говорят об ослаблении «европейского магнетизма».
«Мы стали свидетелем важного поворота на Востоке Европы. При переходе к демократии в Центральной и восточной Европе в 90-е тамошние политически элиты исходили из того, что они могут бороться за власть и уступать ее друг другу, но это соперничество происходит на твердом фундаменте европейского выбора большинства народа. И действительно, так дело обстояло в Польше, Чехии, Венгрии, Словакии, Словении, Румынии, Болгарии, странах Балтии, даже Хорватии. Там смена партий у власти не означала смену генерального направления развития. Очевидно, что это прямо сейчас не так в Турции, Сербии, Молдове, Грузии, Армении, Беларуси, и до войны и аннексий 2014 года могло быть не так даже в Украине. Нигде здесь европейский выбор не является платформой, на которой идет политическая борьба. Он сам — предмет борьбы. Даже там, где, как в Грузии, он уже записан в конституцию. Просто в Молдове, где он казался само собой разумеющимся, это видно резче. И то что европейский выбор является предметом не консенсуса, а борьбы для такой большой части Восточной Европы свидетельствует о том, что европейский политический магнетизм, сила притяжения европейского поля ослабевает с временем и расстоянием. Это повод для большой европейской рефлексии», - пишет эксперт Берлинского центра Карнеги Александр Баунов, комментируя итоги выборов и референдума в Молдове.
Israel's plans to prevent Iranian nuclear power: Is there a Russian 'fly in the ointment'?
Israel must take into account Russia’s escalating threats to deter Israeli preemptive strikes against Iran. Opinion.
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For Israel, even after recent successes in complex self-defense operations, it is high time to forge a comprehensive “strategic dialectic." To be sure, Jerusalem’s most capable security planners are already “on the job,” but there remains at least one seemingly indecipherable factor: Credibility of Russia’s escalating threats to deter Israeli preemptive strikes against Iran.
Though there could be no scientific or logic-based way to fully assess such Russian threats (extraordinary because they concern events that would be historically unique or sui generis), the Jewish State will still have no choice but to reach operationally useful conclusions.
For Jerusalem, there will be multiple and potentially intersecting scenarios. In these daunting cases, total prospective harms would always be greater than the calculable sum of their constituent “parts.” Among other things, this cumulative metric could signal an enlarged and potentially irreversible exposure to Russian-inflicted harms which could be authentically existential.
Reduced to its essentials, a worst case scenario for Jerusalem would commence with additional and progressively more explicit threats from Moscow concerning contemplated Israeli preemptions. Israel, fully aware that it could not reasonably expect to coexist indefinitely with a nuclear Iran, would go ahead with its planned preemptions in spite of Russian warnings. In response, Russian forces (air, land, sea) would begin to act directly against Israel (as they are presently acting against Ukraine), seeking to persuade Jerusalem that Moscow is in a plausibly superior position to dominate any imaginable escalations.
Such persuasion ought not to be a “hard sell” for Putin. Unless the United States were to immediately enter the situation in unambiguously support of Israel, Moscow would have no foreseeable difficulty in establishing “escalation dominance.”
Would the United States display such credible willingness, a commitment that could place its tiny ally in an historically unprecedented positon of vulnerability? For the most part, the answer would lie with the character and inclinations of the new American president. It this national and international leader would accept the long-term benefits of honoring US alliance agreements; the world could be looking at another Cuban Missile Crisis or some similar confrontation. If not, Jerusalem would have no real choice but to face a nuclear Iran.
There will be important issuers of nuclear doctrine. In his continuing war of aggression and genocide against Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has been recycling provocative elements of Soviet-era strategic thinking. One especially critical element concerns the absence of any presumptive or codified “firebreak” between conventional and tactical nuclear force engagements. Now, much as it was during the “classical” Soviet-era of nuclear deterrence, Moscow openly identifies the determinative escalatory threshold with a first-use of high-yield, long-range strategic nuclear weapons, not with any first use of tactical (theater) nuclear weapons.
This perilous escalation doctrine is not shared by Israel’s United States ally, and could erode once-stabilizing barriers of intra-war deterrence between the superpowers. Whether sudden or incremental, any such erosion could impact the plausibility of both a deliberate and inadvertent nuclear war. Here, as Israel could need to depend on US support in countering Russian nuclear threats, Vladimir Putin should occupy a central place in Israel’s threat assessments of Iranian nuclear progress.
For Israel, the bottom-line of such assessment is the obligation to work-through all preemption–option complexities, no matter how “dense.” Reaching a rational judgment on launching defensive first strikes against a still pre-nuclear Iran will require careful anticipations of (1) Russian and/or North Korean involvement; and (2) United States willingness to stand by Israel in extremis; that it, when all active adversaries are struggling for “escalation dominance.”
For Israel, perhaps more than any other decisional factor, compelling evidence of Russian support for Iran’s ongoing nuclearization could represent a poisonous “fly in the ointment.” Together with certain other potentially lethal threats from already-nuclear North Korea, this latent “toxin” warrants continuously close attention in Jerusalem.
Keir Starmer WON'T apologise for Britain's role in the slave trade at Commonwealth summit and reparations 'not on the agenda', says No10 - as PM ignores Labour MPs
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Sir Keir Starmer won't be issuing an apology over Britain's role in the slave trade at an upcoming Commonwealth summit, Downing Street said today.
The Prime Minister is this week heading to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa, where he will be joined by King Charles.
He is under pressure from Caribbean governments, some Labour MPs and senior Commonwealth figures to address the impact of the slave trade and colonialism.
But No10 insisted neither an apology or negotiations over reparations would be forthcoming from Sir Keir while he is at the summit in the Pacific island state.
The PM's official spokesman said the issue of slavery reparations was 'not on the agenda' for the meeting and added that Sir Keir 'won't be offering an apology'.
Caricom, a group of 15 Caribbean countries, are expected to push Sir Keir on the issue of reparations when he attends CHOGM.
The PM of Barbados, Mia Mottley, has said compensation should be part of a new 'global reset'.
Joshua Setipa, former trade minister for Lesotho, has also insisted the body should address the impact of the slave trade and colonialism.
He is one of three contenders to be next secretary-general of the Commonwealth.
And a group of five Labour MPs are putting pressure on Sir Keir to 'confront our nation's history' while in Samoa.
Mr Setipa - who is vying to replace Baroness Scotland as Commonwealth chief at the summit - said reparations had 'gained traction and global attention'.
He argued the Commonwealth was the best forum to make a 'political commitment' on the issue.
All three hopefuls are believed to be open to backing reparations, but Mr Setipa said 'cheques' would not be enough.
'Take India. If the UK were to calculate how much it has to pay India, I don't think it even has that much money,' he told the Financial Times.
Mr Setipa suggested richer countries need to push for reform to the global financial system with more loans and grants.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who has spoken of being descended from slaves, called for reparations when he was a backbench Labour MP in the wake of the Windrush scandal in 2018.
He said then: 'I'm afraid, as Caribbean people, we are not going to forget our history – we don't just want to hear an apology, we want reparation!'
Speaking to the Guardian, current Labour backbenchers Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Nadia Whittome, Clive Lewis, Marsha de Cordova and Dawn Butler said ministers should be willing to discuss reparations now that Labour is in power.
Ms Whittome said: 'We should be responsible enough to confront our nation's history and the legacy it continues to leave today.
'That should start with opening up a dialogue with those countries whose wealth we extracted, about the impact of colonialism and slavery on their society and how the wrongs of the past can be righted.'
But the PM's official spokesman said reparations are 'not on the agenda' at CHOGM.
'The Government's position on this has not changed, we do not pay reparations,' he told reporters.
'The PM is attending this week's summit to discuss shared challenges and opportunities faced by the Commonwealth including driving growth across our economies.'
Asked about an apology, the spokesman added: 'The position on apology remains the same, we won't be offering an apology at CHOGM.
'But we will continue to engage with partners on the issues as we work with them to tackle the pressing challenges of today and indeed for the future generations.'
South Korea Could Follow North Into Russia-Ukraine War
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South Korean media claimed on Monday that Seoul could send military and intelligence personnel to Ukraine after the North dispatched troops to support Russia in the war.
A report said the government and military of South Korea "are reviewing a plan to send an appropriate number of personnel, including intelligence officers [specialized in North Korea] and experts in enemy tactics," to Ukraine, citing a South Korean intelligence official.
South Korean personnel in Ukraine would interrogate or provide interpretation services if North Korean soldiers were captured by Ukrainian forces, the report said. They would also provide Kyiv with information about the North's military tactics, doctrine, and operations.
The Defense Ministry of the South said at a press briefing later on Monday that it will review measures with "an open attitude" regarding possible supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine. Seoul has provided humanitarian aid to Kyiv during the Russia-Ukraine War.
The report and remarks from South Korea came after the country's intelligence agency on Friday claimed that North Korea, ruled by Kim Jong Un, had decided to dispatch 12,000 special forces troops to support Russia, with 1,500 of them already in the Russian Far East.
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that North Korea has "an intention to prepare 10,000 soldiers from different branches of the armed forces" to fight alongside Russia, warning the North's involvement could be "the first step to a world war."
North Korea has reportedly sent thousands of containers of munitions to Russia. Last month, Ukraine's military spy chief said the North's support for Russian President Vladimir Putin's war effort is the "worst problem" Kyiv is facing from Moscow's allies.
The Kremlin on Monday refused to answer questions on Russia's alleged plan to use North Korean soldiers in its so-called "special military operation" against Ukraine, claiming "we see a lot of contradictory information" from South Korea and its ally the United States.
"North Korea is our close neighbor, our partner, and we are developing our relations in all areas," said Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for the Kremlin, according to state media. "This should not worry anyone, because this cooperation is not directed against third countries."
The enhanced military cooperation between North Korea and Russia has become an issue of mutual concern for South Korea and NATO. The U.S.-led alliance has been supporting Ukraine since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago.
During a phone conversation with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol denounced the military alignment between Moscow and Pyongyang, saying his country will actively take "phased measures" in response.
Yoon's office said the South Korean president had told Rutte he would promptly send officials to facilitate information sharing and take measures to strengthen security cooperation.
Pyongyang has neither denied nor confirmed allegations regarding troop deployments in Russia. Newsweek has reached out to the North Korean embassy in China for comment by email.
Moldovans, Very Narrowly, Choose to Look Toward Europe, Not Russia
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But it was far from the emphatic win hoped for by President Sandu, and her backers in the European Union and the United States.
The closeness of the outcome was such a shock that Vitalie Cojocari, a Moldovan journalist with a pro-European television station in Romania compared it to Britain’s surprise vote in 2016 to leave the European Union. In both countries, he said, the “power of the silent” — voters whose views rarely penetrate a bubble of optimism over Europe — revealed itself at the ballot box.
In more encouraging news for Moldova’s pro-Europe camp, Ms. Sandu won 42 percent of the vote in her bid for re-election. Her closest rival, Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor general who is under investigation for corruption, drew 26 percent.
Marcel Ciolacu, the prime minister of neighboring Romania, a member of NATO and the European Union, said it was imperative that Ms. Sandu win the runoff against Mr. Stoianoglo to make “it increasingly clear” that Russia’s “flame will go out for good in Chisinau!”
Putting a brave face on the narrow referendum win, he sent “congratulations to all Moldovan citizens who have resisted the incredible pressures from Moscow and managed to lead their country to the better side of history.”
Russia, the European Union and Ms. Sandu all cried foul on Monday. The Kremlin, disappointed that the “No” camp did not win — as early results Sunday indicated it might — complained of a “hard to explain” surge of “Yes” votes late in the count and of ballots for Ms. Sandu. The reason for that, however, was that the counting turned late to ballots cast by Moldovans living outside the country, who tend to be younger and more in favor of Europe than Russia.
Moldova had a population of more than four million when it became an independent state with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It currently has a population of fewer than three million but the exact number is not clear because so many people, despairing over their country’s prospects, have emigrated abroad for work but still declare residency in Moldova.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm in Brussels, presented the slim referendum victory as evidence that “despite Russia’s hybrid tactics,” Moldova “is strong and it wants a European future.”
Ms. Sandu, in a post on X overnight, said that “criminal groups” and “foreign forces hostile to our national interest” had used “the most disgraceful means to keep our nation trapped in uncertainty and instability.”
Together, she said, they ”have attacked our country with tens of millions of euros, lies, and propaganda.”
Before the referendum and presidential votes Sunday, Russia conducted a widespread campaign of disinformation and bribery to turn people away from Europe, according to officials in Moldova, the United States and the European Union.
The anti-European Union campaign was openly spearheaded from Moscow by Ilan Shor, a fugitive billionaire and convicted fraudster from Moldova. Mr. Shor, Moldovan officials said, flooded his home country with illicit cash transfers to buy votes and financed a wave of disinformation on social media. Much of that involved warnings that the European Union wanted to brainwash children into turning gay or transgender, exploiting a homophobia that is widespread in many former Soviet countries.
In a message on the eve of voting on X, the only major platform from which he has not been evicted, Mr. Shor described Sunday’s vote as “our last chance” to keep Moldova out of the European Union and protect it from what he has repeatedly derided as a mortal threat to Moldovan values and sovereignty.
As an independent state next to Ukraine that emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union, Moldova has been tugged between East and West for decades, veering between leaders who want to align with Russia and others, like Ms. Sandu, who favored the West. In June the government began membership negotiations with the European Union.
Similar struggles have gripped several other former Soviet republics, including Georgia, where thousands of protesters paraded on Sunday through the capital, Tbilisi, waving European Union and Georgian flags. The protest was organized to rally opposition to the governing Georgian Dream party, which opponents accuse of tilting toward Russia and away from the West, ahead of a pivotal parliamentary election next weekend.
Among those taking part was Georgia’s elected president, Salome Zourabichvili, who favors integration with Europe and has clashed frequently with the separately elected government over the divided country’s direction.
Eager to rally support for Ms. Sandu and her referendum gamble, the United States and the European Union have offered economic support to Moldova, including a package worth about $2 billion announced this month.
Russia has deployed less transparent methods in its efforts to influence voting, focused on mobilizing hostility toward Ms. Sandu and the West among the substantial minority of the population that sees Moscow as a more reliable partner.
Moldova’s potential admission to the European bloc is still many years away, but it has been accelerated by alarm in Western capitals over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a new determination to prevent Moscow from advancing into other former Soviet territories.
Three Baltic states that were once part of the Soviet empire — Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia — were admitted into the European Union and NATO 20 years ago, a shift that anchored them firmly in the West and helped curb Russian ambitions to return them to rule by Moscow.
In response to the war in Ukraine, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, recommended in June 2022 that Moldova and Ukraine be granted “candidate status,” the first formal step in a process that normally lasts longer than a decade. Georgia was deemed not ready for that status.
Who is the Australian senator who confronted King Charles?
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Australian senator Lidia Thorpe has made headlines around the world after denouncing King Charles following his Parliament House reception speech.
Ms Thorpe, an Indigenous woman from Victoria, has long advocated for a treaty between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians to recognise their autonomy and set right historical wrongs.
Ms Thorpe, a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung mother, grandmother, is a well-known activist for Indigenous causes. Her recent actions, however, have been described as her most high-profile protest to date.
She became the first Indigenous woman to be elected to the Victorian state parliament with Green Party in 2017. While her seat was subsequently lost in 2018, she was preselected to be a senator for the party in the federal government in 2020.
At the time of her swearing into parliament in 2020, she raised her hand in a black power salute. She did so while wearing a traditional possum-skin cloak and holding an Aboriginal message stick.
The stick was covered in 441 marks to represent the deaths of Aboriginal people known to have died following the 1991 royal commission into deaths in custody.
She protested again in 2022 upon her re-election, describing the late Queen Elizabeth II “the colonising Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II” in her oath. Ms Thorpe was then forced to recite her oath again using the correct words.
The causes championed by Ms Thorpe on behalf of Indigenous Australians include the reform of the prison and justice systems, environmental issues and land rights.
Royal news live: Australian senator Lidia Thorpe explains furious outburst after King Charles’s speech
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The Indigenous senator who confronted King Charles has spoken out to explain why she shouted at him after his parliamentary adress.
Senator Lidia Thorpe told the monarch “you are not my king” and demanded a treaty between Australia‘s First Nations and its government on Monday.
Ms Thorpe, an Indigenous woman from Victoria, has long advocated for a treaty between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians to recognise their autonomy and set right historical wrongs.
The independent politician has now said that as current King, Charles should “answer for” the “thousands of massacre sites” in Australia.
She told Sky News hours after her appearance at parliament: “We have our bones and our skulls still in his possession - or in his family’s possession. We want that back.
“We want our land back and we want your King to take some leadership and sit at the table and discuss a treaty with us.”
Charles and Camilla have faced low-key protests during their tour of Australia from supporters of First Nations resistance to colonisation, who have been displaying a banner with the word "decolonise" at a number of events.
U.S. officials say Russia smeared Tim Walz, might stoke post-vote violence
Intelligence officials see Moscow’s hand in a fake video accusing the Democratic vice-presidential candidate of abusing a student years ago.
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U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday said Russians seeking to disrupt the U.S. elections created a faked video and other material smearing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz with abuse allegations and are considering fomenting violence during and after the vote.
The faked content accused Walz of inappropriate interactions with students while a teacher and coach. The posts drew millions of views on social media, falsely tarring the Minnesota governor ahead of Nov. 5.
The officials said the Russian videos were part of the most active attempt by another country to tilt the 2024 election. They added that Russian government agencies and contractors, which generally seek to boost Republican former president Donald Trump’s campaign, are considering trying to instigate physical violence in the fraught period after voters cast their ballots.
“Some of these influence efforts are aimed at inciting violence and calling into question the validity of democracy as a political system, regardless of who wins,” a senior intelligence official told reporters in the latest of a series of background election-threat briefings. Russia is “potentially seeking to stoke threats towards poll workers, as well as amplifying protests and potentially encouraging protests to be violent,” the official added.
This was the first such briefing to raise the specter of violence, and the officials struck a tone of greater urgency in describing the disinformation challenges and their limited abilities to counteract them.
“The point of this is information is power,” the senior official said. “We’ve been trying to get as much information about these tactics, their methods and how they are manifesting out to the American people, so that they can be as informed as possible.” The Russian Embassy did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Referring in part to Iran’s actions against Trump, his campaign’s senior adviser Brian Hughes said: “America’s adversaries around the world all want four more years of weak Kamala Harris: Iran has plotted to assassinate President Trump, hacked his campaign, and sent our documents to Democrats, and Vladimir Putin endorsed Harris for President.”
The intelligence officials drew special attention to the period between Nov. 5 and the Jan. 20 inauguration of the next president, noting that several countries stoked division in 2020 and were likely to again capitalize on objections to the vote-counting, congressional ratification and other steps in the process.
“Russia, Iran and China are better prepared to exploit opportunities in the post-Election Day period, in part because of the lessons drawn from the 2020 election cycle,” the senior official said.
Some of the required post-election procedures have tight timing, a vulnerability the officials said other countries might seek to exploit. Foreign adversaries could also claim fraud based on faked evidence or exaggerated conclusions from minor occurrences.
According to a recently declassified intelligence memo released Tuesday, Russian actors have already claimed that there may be voting fraud by immigrants, something officials from both major parties have not found at scale.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz appear locked in a virtual dead heat with Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio).
The officials offered no estimation of what impact the faked content has had but said they expected further such initiatives from Russia. The State Department on Friday announced a reward of up to $10 million for information about the identities and location of employees at Russian media operation Rybar, which was founded by the late Kremlin-backed mercenary leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin. The department said the operation ran social media campaigns on X with the hashtags #StandwithTexas and #HoldtheLine, as well as the channel #TEXASvsUSA.
As for the effort aimed at Walz, one official said, “Based on newly available intelligence, the intelligence community assesses that Russian influence actors created and amplified content alleging inappropriate activity committed by the Democratic vice-presidential candidate earlier in his career.” The officials all spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.
Intelligence officials said analysts examined materials associated with the fake content about Walz over the weekend and concluded that the content was consistent with a pattern of Russian disinformation aimed at undermining the Democratic ticket.
The senior official said Russian operatives have sought to use videos in which people speak directly into a camera and make them go viral on social media.
“This type of tactic is consistent with Russian efforts we have previously noted,” the official said.
In one video, a man who identifies himself as “Matthew Metro” and claims to have been a student of Walz decades ago at a Minnesota high school speaks into the camera with fabricated allegations of abuse, officials said. Millions of people have viewed the video on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Some of the details matched the biography of the real Matthew Metro, who now lives in Hawaii and said he was not the person in the video, The Washington Post reported this week. Metro, who did attend the high school where Walz was employed, said that Walz never taught him and that the allegations in the video were false.
Intelligence officials reiterated that operatives in Russia, Iran and China have been the most active in attempting to sow disinformation related to the U.S. elections and warned that some efforts might grow more pronounced after Election Day. They said Russian influence actors could seek to use disinformation campaigns to foster doubts about the electoral outcome — especially if Trump loses — and potentially try to foment protests or violence. They warned Iran also could be active in trying to stoke violence.
Some foreign actors “will remain committed to trying to undermine American democracy, stoke societal unrest and help their preferred candidate,” the official said.
After losing to President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump claimed victory, perpetuated false claims of widespread voter fraud and encouraged supporters to challenge the election results, including in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump has not committed to accepting the outcome of this year’s election and has suggested it may not be fair.
Трамп обвинил британских лейбористов во вмешательстве в выборы в США
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За две недели до выборов президента США штаб кандидата Дональда Трампа подал в Федеральную избирательную комиссию США жалобу, в которой обвинил правящую в Британии Лейбористскую партию во вмешательстве в выборы в США на том основании, что ее активисты помогают вести кампанию сопернице Трампа Камале Харрис.
«Британцы идут!» — так озаглавлено заявление штаба Трампа о подаче жалобы. В самом заявлении и тексте жалобы авторы напоминают о событиях Войны за независимость 1775–1783 гг., в которой американские колонии сражались с британской армией.
«Крайне левая Лейбористская партия вдохновляет Камалу на опасную либеральную политику и риторику. В последние несколько недель она рекрутировала и послала своих членов вести кампанию Камалы в критически важных штатах, пытаясь повлиять на наши выборы», — говорится в заявлении.
Штаб Трампа подразумевает, что Лейбористская партия оплачивает работу своих волонтеров на выборах в США, что запрещено американскими законами. По имеющимся у Би-би-си сведениям и согласно информации, опубликованной другими СМИ, лейбористы отправились в США как частные лица и работают бесплатно — а это законом не запрещено.
В тексте жалобы штаб Трампа просит Федеральную избирательную комиссию немедленно расследовать «грубое иностранное вмешательство в президентские выборы 2024 года в форме явного незаконного вклада иностранцев в кампанию, сделанного Лейбористской партией Соединенного Королевства».
В жалобе штаб Трампа ссылается на сообщения нескольких ведущих газет США и Британии о помощи лейбористов Камале Харрис и на пост высокопоставленной сотрудницы Лейбористской партии Софии Патель в сети Линкдин — «сейчас, очевидно, удаленный», как пишут авторы жалобы.
Они приводят скриншот поста. Подлинный ли он, Би-би-си не известно. В нем Патель будто бы объявляла набор добровольцев на вакантные 10 из 100 мест в команде, которая отправляется работать на выборах в четырех штатах: Северной Каролине, Неваде, Пенсильвании и Вирджинии. Этим десяти, которых искала Патель, предстояло ехать в Северную Каролину.
Заявки в скриншоте поста предлагается слать на адрес электронной почты, название которого переводится как «лейбористы за Харрис».
Позже, как говорится в жалобе, британская газета Telegraph сообщила, что 2 августа Патель разослала сотрудникам аппарата Лейбористской партии имейл, в котором спрашивала, есть ли желающие «помочь нашим друзьям за океаном избрать первую женщину-президента» и призывала «показать этим янки, как выигрывать выборы»
Штаб Трампа отмечает, что, согласно законам и постановлениям Федеральной избирательной комиссии, иностранцы могут участвовать в предвыборных кампаниях в США, но им запрещено получать за это деньги и руководить мероприятиями в рамках кампаний.
В публикации Telegraph, на которую ссылается штаб Трампа, говорилось, что волонтеры от Лейбористской партии должны будут взять отпуск, сами купить билеты в США и арендовать машины, а Демократическая партия только обеспечит их жильем.
По имеющимся у Би-би-си сведениям из аппарата Лейбористской партии, партия не оплачивает работу своих активистов на американских выборах — они отправились туда как частные лица.
Как отмечает редактор Би-би-си по Северной Америке Сара Смит, в факте сотрудничества Лейбористской партии Великобритании с Демократической партией США нет ничего нового — они делают это давно, регулярно и открыто, как и британские тори с республиканцами.
Putin disrupting food aid for Gaza by attacking Ukraine ports, says Starmer
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Keir Starmer has accused Vladimir Putin of disrupting food supplies to Gaza after British intelligence suggested Russia had stepped up its attacks on Ukrainian ports.
Starmer said it was clear the Russian president was “willing to gamble on global food security” after several grain ships en route to developing countries were damaged by Russian strikes.
Military intelligence published by the UK government overnight concluded that Russia had increased its attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure in the Black Sea.
Between 5 and 14 October at least four merchant vessels were struck by Russian munitions, according to the intelligence assessment. The strikes are believed to have delayed a vessel carrying vegetable oil destined for the World Food Programme in Palestine.
Ships loaded with grain destined for Egypt, two vessels carrying corn and WFP shipments bound for southern Africa were also affected, in some cases as collateral damage in strikes on port infrastructure.
“Russia’s indiscriminate strikes on ports in the Black Sea underscore that Putin is willing to gamble on global food security in his attempts to force Ukraine into submission,” the prime minister said in a statement.
“In doing so, he is harming millions of vulnerable people across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, to try and gain the upper hand in his barbaric war.”
Starmer and Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, were urged at a meeting with British-Palestinian families on Tuesday to set up evacuation and resettlement schemes and take tougher measures against Israel’s restrictions on aid entering Gaza.
Health officials in the north of the Gaza Strip have warned they are running out of supplies to treat patients amid a renewed three-week-old Israeli offensive there.
The Palestinian families called for a British personnel presence at border crossings in Gaza to ensure that inspections are carried out quickly and that aid flows unrestricted.
Israel says aid has increased since the US government warned in a leaked letter earlier this month that arms supplies would be restricted unless 300 aid trucks entered Gaza a day. The UN said in mid-October that aid shipments to the embattled territory were at their lowest level in months.
The Biden administration has complained of delays to US-funded aid at crossing points into Gaza and said the flow of supplies had dropped by more than 50% since last March when Israel promised to allow more deliveries.
Meanwhile, the UK government announced a £2.26bn loan to Ukraine this week paid for with the interest accumulated on sanctioned Russian sovereign assets. It forms part of a commitment the UK made at the G7 summit in June.
The Russian strikes on merchant vessels coincide with Ukraine’s harvest season. Ukraine’s food and grain exports, conducted largely via the Black Sea, had recovered roughly to prewar levels this year after Kyiv introduced a special shipping corridor along the western coast and forced the Russian surface fleet back with an audacious series of drone attacks.
Before the war Ukraine was the world’s seventh largest exporter of wheat, much of it bound for countries in the Middle East, the largest producer of sunflower oil and a supplier of other critical foodstuffs. But Russia has repeatedly tried to impose a maritime blockade to strangle Ukraine’s economy.
Starmer said Russia was “intensifying attacks on areas of Ukraine that support the global south with much-needed food”.
“Russia has no respect for the norms and laws that govern our international system,” the prime minister said. “Not only was their illegal invasion a blatant attack on the principles of the UN charter, but the way they have executed their war in Ukraine shows no respect for human life, or the consequences of their invasion across the world.”
The UK government has announced that a British factory will start producing artillery barrels for Ukraine from 2027 as part of a wider agreement between the UK and Germany.
The plant will be run by Germany’s Rheinmetall, using steel from the UK supporting 400 jobs, and will be the first time artillery barrels have been made in the UK for a decade.
Britain and Germany Agree on New Defense Pact as Russia Threat Rises
The two governments said they will coordinate more on defense, with British and German troops conducting joint military exercises on NATO’s eastern border.
Britain and Germany have agreed to strengthen military cooperation and develop sophisticated weapons in a move that reflects growing concern in Europe over global security threats, particularly from Russia.
Under the terms of the pact, the two countries will coordinate more on mutual defense, with British and German troops conducting joint military exercises on NATO’s eastern border with Russia, and protecting vital underwater cables that carry data beneath the North Sea. German P-8 planes — which can detect and destroy submarines — will operate from an air base in Scotland.
John Healey, Britain’s defense secretary, described the deal as “a milestone moment in our relationship with Germany” and said it would bolster European security.
Ahead of a signing ceremony in London on Wednesday, Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, said in a statement that the countries could not afford to “take security in Europe for granted. Russia is waging war against Ukraine, it is increasing its weapons production immensely and has repeatedly launched hybrid attacks on our partners in Eastern Europe.”
Both countries say that their deal will strengthen the European component of NATO, the mutual defense alliance of which they are members. It comes at a time of growing nervousness in European capitals about the security implications of a possible victory for Donald J. Trump in next month’s U.S. presidential election — particularly with regard to continuing America’s support for Ukraine.
Mr. Trump alarmed Western allies in February by saying that he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries that didn’t pay enough into the alliance, comments that threatened to undermine the collective defense clause under which all NATO members agreed to regard an attack on one as an attack on all.
The U.S. Navy’s P-8 Poseidon patrol and reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea last year. Similar German P-8 planes will operate from an air base in Scotland.Credit...Ted Aljibe/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Germany’s ambassador to Britain, Miguel Berger, told the British station Times Radio that strengthening the trans-Atlantic relationship and NATO had “always been fundamental” for German politicians. “But given the challenges we are facing, and if you look also at what we hear from the U.S. Congress, from the U.S. administration, there is also a clear expectation that we strengthen our own capacities in Europe, that we strengthen the European pillar within NATO. That is what we are doing by expanding that cooperation.”
The British government, which struck a defense deal with France in 2010, said in a statement that the new pact with Germany “will complete a triangle of agreements” between Europe’s most capable armed forces.
“It’s a good thing to be doing,” said Anand Menon, a professor of European politics at King’s College London, but “it’s not an answer to Europe’s security problems in and of itself.” He noted that obstacles remained to coordination among Western allies within NATO, and some member states had not done enough to increase their military spending.
Britain, which is no longer a member of the European Union, is not part of that bloc’s efforts to integrate its defense industrial base either, creating another impediment to collaboration on weaponry, Professor Menon said.
“If we wanted to prepare ourselves for a second Donald Trump presidency we should probably have started doing so around the time that the first one started,” he added.
The symbolism of a pact between two nations that fought two bloody global conflicts in the 20th century is also meant to underscore a determination to respond to Russian aggression.
The government said the deal will give Ukraine a new offensive capability by enabling German Sea King helicopters to be armed with modern missile systems. Britain will also increase support for German and Polish-led efforts to supply armored vehicles to Ukraine, while Germany will support Britain and Latvia in providing drones.
An MK41 Sea King helicopter landing on a frigate in Rostock, Germany, last year.Credit...Clemens Bilan/EPA, via Shutterstock
After Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Germany embarked on a policy known as Zeitenwende, or turning point, designed to build up its defense capabilities and take a tougher approach to Russia.
Britain’s relations with its European allies came under acute strain during the bitter disputes that followed Brexit but, since winning a general election in July, Keir Starmer, the new Labour prime minister, has worked hard to improve ties.
In addition to the pact with Germany, Britain wants to negotiate a new security agreement with the European Union — something the 27-nation bloc had pressed for unsuccessfully during the Brexit negotiations.
Under the so-called Trinity House Agreement — named for the London location where a signing ceremony is set to take place on Wednesday — Britain and Germany will aim to work together to develop new deep-strike weapons that can travel farther with more precision than current systems, including Storm Shadow.
British officials say that the plan paves the way for a new artillery gun barrel factory to be opened in Britain and for the two countries to work on developing new drones.
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