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Scandals, failed assassinations and political rhetoric: Both sides go high and low

Scandals, failed assassinations and political rhetoric: Both sides go high and low

It is a bizarre campaign filled with bullets and blame-shifting. It’s also a campaign packed with gossip and unproven accusations, exaggerations and falsehoods.  Just ask your dog or cat. TRUMP BLAMES KAMALA RHETORIC FOR 2ND ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT AS DEMOCRATS BLAME HIM FOR HAITIANS IN OHIO To have two attempted assassinations against a presidential nominee within six weeks is absolutely chilling. There should be no debate whatsoever. Joe Biden, having made a friendly call to Donald Trump – who said he “couldn’t have been nicer” – should order the Secret Service to protect Trump as if he were president now.  That means the agency would have shut down his West Palm Beach golf course while he played. This should happen immediately. Golf courses are inherently hard to protect because they are large, flat surfaces with almost no place to take cover. A Washington Post editorial agrees with me. Forget the bureaucratic nuances, this is nuts. Had a sharp-eyed agent not spotted the barrel of a gun sticking through a chain-link fence, the shooter, who has a long criminal record, might well have succeeded.  Trump may have nine lives, but we don’t want him losing any more. Unlike his call to tone things down after the near-miss in Butler – which didn’t last long – Trump went on the offensive, telling Fox Digital that the Florida gunman “believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it. Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at.” It’s true that the Democrats have constantly described Trump as a danger to democracy, a would-be dictator who tried to steal an election and would never allow another one. The hostile media have played a prominent role here, routinely likening Trump to Hitler or Mussolini. Trump, for his part, has called his opponents a danger to democracy as well, saying they have weaponized law enforcement against him for partisan reasons.  KAMALA STAYS ON OFFENSE, TRUMP WENT TO PERSONAL ATTACKS, ABC MUCH TOUGHER ON FORMER PRESIDENT And Democrats have tried to flip the script, trotting out a long list of inflammatory comments by Trump since he started running in 2015. In my view, the media have moved on too quickly from the second assassination attempt. But why waste time on a senseless search for “motive,” except for political talking points? Anyone who tries to kill a presidential candidate for the notoriety is by definition a crazy person. JD Vance says that since nobody has tried to kill Harris and Trump has survived two attempts, “I’d say that’s pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric, and needs to cut this crap out.” Vance has been vindicated in another way. I don’t know why Trump brought up the thoroughly debunked tale about “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats” after an influx of 15,000 legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Even Republican Gov. Mike DeWine calls that a false “piece of garbage.” Trump’s running mate has also spread the story, and was accused of prompting the bomb threats that have shut schools and other facilities there for days – something for which no public figure should be blamed. Now we learn that all those calls came from another country in an effort to boost friction in the Ohio town. DEBATE CHALLENGE: THE PRESSURE’S ON KAMALA AS SHE AND TRUMP TRADE FLIP-FLOP CHARGES Meanwhile, I had no intention of bringing up unsubstantiated online rumors against Laura Loomer, the far-right conspiracist who thinks 9/11 was an inside job, because I don’t think a self-described Islamophobe should get more oxygen. But now she’s hit back on her Rumble podcast:   “The media now is accusing me of, you know, having an affair with Donald Trump. Such a salacious lie, so malicious, so disrespectful to Donald Trump and Melania Trump! They’ve taken it so far! “And, you know, if I was a leftist journalist, if I was a Democrat, my God, the media would be up in arms if the Republican media was doing this to a, you know, a left-wing journalist– “My God, they’re misogynist. They’re bullying a woman. They’re trying to, they’re trying to Monica Lewinsky her!” And then she smeared Kamala Harris, saying she had performed oral sex on Willie Brown to get to the top. This was before Brown was San Francisco mayor and the two openly dated for a couple of years in the 1990s, a decade after he had separated from his wife.   So much of our politics now turns on charges and countercharges of misinformation and disinformation. So I find the latest blast from Hillary Clinton almost inexplicable. Yes, she’s promoting her fourth memoir, and in her first interview, with Rachel Maddow, the former first lady, senator, secretary of state and presidential nominee attacked free speech. She called for criminal charges and civil penalties against Americans “engaged” in spreading “propaganda.” What? Who decides where to draw the line between aggressive advocacy and propaganda? Do we want one administration’s Justice Department to make these calls against politicians, activists and journalists aligned with the other party? It will never pass, but even as a bit of messaging, what an assault on the First Amendment right to free speech.

Bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers demand convicted killer’s execution be halted: ‘Serious doubts’

Bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers demand convicted killer’s execution be halted: ‘Serious doubts’

A bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers on Tuesday called on Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, and the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles to stop the execution of a man convicted of killing his two-year-old daughter in 2002. Robert Roberson is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Oct. 17. Prosecutors claimed his daughter, Nikki Curtis, was killed after sustaining injuries caused by being violently shaken. The petition from 84 lawmakers from the 150-member state House as well as medical experts, death penalty attorneys, a former detective on the case and bestselling novelist John Grisham argue that the case was built on faulty scientific evidence in a rare showing of widespread bipartisan support in the Lone Star State against a planned execution, according to The Associated Press. “There is a strong majority, a bipartisan majority, of the Texas House that have serious doubts about Robert Roberson’s execution,” Democrat Rep. Joe Moody said at a press conference at the state Capitol. “This is one of those issues that is life and death, and our political ideology doesn’t come into play here.” SOUTH CAROLINA INMATE LETS LAWYER CHOOSE LETHAL INJECTION FOR EXECUTION AFTER HE WAS FORCED TO PICK METHOD Texas law allows the governor to grant a one-time, 30-day reprieve from execution. But full clemency requires a recommendation from the majority of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which is appointed by the governor. Since Abbott was sworn into office in 2015, he has granted clemency in only one death row case, when he commuted Thomas Whitaker’s death sentence to life in prison an hour before his scheduled execution in 2018. Whitaker had been convicted of arranging a plot that left his mother and brother fatally shot and his father wounded. The lawmakers’ petition argues Roberson’s conviction was based on inaccurate scientific evidence and emphasizes that experts have largely debunked allegations that Nikki’s symptoms were consistent with shaken baby syndrome. “Nikki’s death … was not a crime — unless it is a crime for a parent to be unable to explain complex medical problems that even trained medical professionals failed to understand at the time,” the petition reads. “We know that Nikki’s lungs were severely infected and straining for oxygen — for days or even weeks before her collapse.” Roberson, who has maintained his innocence, took his daughter to the hospital in 2002 after he woke up and found her unconscious with blue on her lips. Doctors at the time were skeptical of Roberson’s claim that his daughter had fallen off the bed while they were sleeping, with some testifying at trial that her symptoms were consistent with the signs of shaken baby syndrome. Many medical professionals now say that doctors diagnose shaken baby syndrome too soon before taking into account a child’s medical history. The medical experts who signed on to the petition include those from Stanford University Medical Center, the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Minnesota Hospital. Roberson’s attorneys said his demeanor was wrongfully used against him, as he is autistic, and that doctors failed to rule out other medical explanations for the infant’s symptoms, including pneumonia. ALABAMA SETS THIRD EXECUTION BY NITROGEN GAS The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals previously halted his execution in 2016. However, last year the court allowed the case to resume, and a new date was set to carry out Roberson’s death. Prosecutors maintain that the evidence against Roberson remains sound and that the science of shaken baby syndrome has not changed as much as the defense argued. Brian Wharton, a former chief of detectives in Palestine, Texas, who helped in Roberson’s prosecution, signed the petition and publicly demanded that the state halt the execution. “Knowing everything I know now, I am firmly convinced that Robert is innocent,” Wharton said. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

How did Hezbollah’s pagers explode in Lebanon?

How did Hezbollah’s pagers explode in Lebanon?

Hundreds of pagers belonging to the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah have simultaneously exploded across Lebanon. At the time of publishing, at least nine people have been killed and 2,750 wounded, according to security services and the Lebanese health minister. Pagers are small communication devices used commonly before mobile phones became widespread. The devices display a short text message for the user, relayed by telephone through a central operator. Unlike mobile phones, pagers work on radio waves, the operator sending a message by radio frequency – rather than the internet – unique to the recipient’s device. It is thought that the basic technology used in pagers as well as their reliance upon physical hardware means they are harder to monitor, making them popular with groups such as Hezbollah where both mobility and security are paramount. Pager [GettyImages] What happened? The series of explosions began at about 4:45pm and lasted for around an hour. Casualty numbers are still being confirmed. One eight-year-old girl has been confirmed among the dead. Mohammad Mahdi Ammar, the son of Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar,  has also been reported killed. Hezbollah confirmed that two of its fighters had been killed. Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad told Al Jazeera: “About 2,750 people were injured, … more than 200 of them critically” with injuries mostly reported to the face, hands and stomach. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was also injured in the explosions. Lebanese Civil Defense first-responders carry a man who was wounded when his handheld pager exploded in the southern port city of Sidon on September 17, 2024 [AP Photo] Who carried out the attack? Many people, including Hezbollah, are pointing to Israel. Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in a mostly low-level exchange of fire over the Lebanon-Israel border since October 8, the day after Hamas-led attacks on Israel killed 1,139 people, saw about 240 taken captive and set off Israel’s war on Gaza. Recently, Israeli politicians and media have increasingly talked of military action against Lebanon to drive Hezbollah back from the border to allow for the return of about 60,000 Israelis evacuated right after the attacks began. “We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression,” Hezbollah said in a statement, adding that Israel “will certainly receive its just punishment for this sinful aggression”. Despite a similar condemnation from Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary, Israel itself – in keeping with previous situations – remains tight-lipped. Why didn’t similar blasts occur in Gaza? According to Hamza Attar from the Department of Defence at King’s College in London, “They cannot use the same method in Gaza because Hamas is very cyber-aware compared to Hezbollah. “They are very capable when it comes to telecommunications,” he said of Hamas, stressing the efforts the group goes to to encrypt communications. “They don’t use phones or cellphones. They have their own network and internet and communication and don’t need anything above ground,” he said. We still don’t know. Some speculation has focused on the radio network that pagers rely on, suggesting that it may have been hacked, causing the system to emit a signal that triggered a response within the already doctored pagers. “What I think happened [is that] every Hezbollah [member] who was at a specific level was attacked,” data analyst Ralph Baydoun told Al Jazeera. Civil Defense first responders transport a man injured in the pager blasts to Al Zahraa Hospital University Medical Center in Beirut on September 17, 2024 [Hussein Malla/AP] He also suggested that Israel would not need to know the names of whoever received the corrupted signal but it could gather valuable intelligence after the detonations. “If they had the satellites on, … they would know the names and locations of all operatives who were attacked … immediately when [they asked] for help. They would disclose [their] locations,” he speculated. Other analysts, such as former British army officer and chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, suggested that Hezbollah’s pagers may have been tampered with along the supply chain and “wired to explode on command”. If the pager’s lithium battery was triggered to overheat, this would kick-start a process called thermal runaway. Essentially,  a chemical chain reaction would occur, leading to an increase in temperature and eventually the battery’s violent explosion. However, triggering that chain reaction within multiple devices that have never been connected to the internet is far from straightforward. “You have to have a bug in the pager itself [so that] it will overheat as a result of certain circumstances,” Baydoun said, speculating that those circumstances would most likely be a trigger introduced into the pager through doctored code. Adblock test (Why?)

US downplays ability to prevent escalation after Lebanon pager explosions

US downplays ability to prevent escalation after Lebanon pager explosions

Washington, DC – The United States has said it does not want to see further escalation between Israel and Hezbollah after the Lebanese armed group blamed Israel for a series of deadly, coordinated handheld pager blasts. But the administration of US President Joe Biden, which remains Israel’s top military and diplomatic backer, on Tuesday also sought to downplay its ability to tamper tensions between the pair. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday afternoon, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington was not involved in the apparent attack and was not given prior notification that it would occur. “I will say that our overall policy remains consistent, which is, we do want to see a diplomatic resolution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah,” Miller said. “We are always concerned about any type of event that may cause further escalation.” But when pushed on whether the Biden administration’s influence – the US provides Israel with $3.8bn in military aid annually as well as staunch diplomatic support – could be used to prevent a wider war, Miller said that was “not just a question for the United States”. “Of course, it’s a first … order question to Israel. It’s a question to Hezbollah, but is a question to all of the other countries in the region about what type of region they want to live in,” he said. “So the United States is going to continue to push for a diplomatic resolution.” Miller’s remarks come as rights advocates have urged the Biden administration to apply pressure on Israel to end its war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians since early October and decimated the coastal Palestinian enclave. Analysts have repeatedly accused Washington of acting as both an “arsonist and firefighter” by continually refusing to leverage US military aid to its “ironclad” ally despite the risks that a prolonged Gaza war could lead to a wider regional escalation. Hezbollah, which has been exchanging cross-border fire with Israel since the war in Gaza began, blamed Israel for Tuesday’s pager blasts and pledged that it would get its “fair punishment”. The Israeli army has yet to comment on the explosions. The Lebanese health minister said at least nine people were killed, including an eight-year-old girl, when the pagers exploded across Lebanon. About 2,750 people also were injured, including 200 in critical condition. Asked about the apparently indiscriminate nature of the explosions, Miller at the US State Department declined to comment directly on what happened. However, he said that, broadly speaking, the US position is that “no country, no organisation should be targeting civilians”. ‘Mud in their face’ The explosions took place as the Biden administration continues to say it is pushing to broker a Gaza ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian faction that governs the territory. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was travelling to the Middle East for the latest meeting with mediators. “President Biden doesn’t have a whole lot of time, the US election is less than 60 days away,” Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett reported from Washington, DC. “So if [the Lebanon explosions] are something that Israel is in fact responsible for, this is certainly discouraging to the United States.” The deadly blasts also came less than a day after White House adviser Amos Hochstein met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push for de-escalation along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. Following the meeting, Netanyahu’s office released a defiant statement saying Israelis would not be able to return to evacuated areas along the Lebanon border “without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north”. Ramy Khoury, a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut, called the Israeli response to the US appeal “par for the course”. “The Israelis routinely not only neglect what the Americans tell them, but throw mud in their face,” Khoury told Al Jazeera. “The Americans have very limited capabilities in terms of their diplomatic action. They’ve focused more on military support for Israel and sanctions against Israel’s foes.” Khoury added that US “diplomatic efforts are not taken very seriously by most people in the region” due to the country’s unconditional support for Israel. “The US should be a huge diplomatic actor,” he said. “But it is clearly on the side of Israel and everything it does has to fit into the priorities of Israel.” Adblock test (Why?)

Bolivia braces for turmoil as antigovernment protesters begin march

Bolivia braces for turmoil as antigovernment protesters begin march

A simmering political battle between former allies is threatening to boil over into an all-out struggle for power after Bolivia’s popular and controversial former leftist president, Evo Morales, called on supporters to take to the streets in protest against current President Luis Arce. Morales announced a weeklong “March to Save Bolivia” on Monday after Arce accused him on national TV of trying to overthrow his government in a coup attempt. Antigovernment protesters blocked roads on the outskirts of the capital, La Paz, on Tuesday, calling for Arce’s resignation due to his mismanagement of the economy. Supporters also blocked roads leading to Lake Titicaca, shared by Bolivia and Peru and a popular tourist destination. “It’s an incompetent government that we have, and it won’t solve the economic crisis,” said Pablo Merma, a peasant leader of the so-called Red Ponchos, rebel Indigenous activists from the high plains, who was among the protesters. Morales: a disgraced former strongman Bolivia’s political and economic crisis, sparked by fuel shortages and dwindling foreign currency reserves, has caused some Bolivians to grow nostalgic for the disgraced former strongman who famously reduced poverty while in office. Although Arce was Morales’s former economy minister and his candidate in Bolivia’s 2020 elections, the erstwhile allies began vying for power after Morales returned from exile seeking to make a political comeback. Alleged coup attempt Over the past year, the Arce-Morales rift has polarised Bolivia, tainting the country’s politics and creating a sense of turmoil that soldiers sought to seize upon in June in a bizarre supposed coup attempt. Speaking to reporters, Morales encouraged the international community to follow his near 200km (124-mile) march along a highway from the southeast village of Caracollo to La Paz. “The march is the response of a people fed up with their unthinking government, which has maintained absolute silence in the face of the crisis, corruption and the destruction of stability,” Morales wrote on the social media platform X. Morales made his appeal to Bolivia’s farmers, miners and peasants on Monday after an unprecedented televised speech by Arce late on Sunday, in which he lambasted his former mentor. Arce accused Morales of trying to sabotage his administration and undermine democracy, escalating a high-stakes power struggle that has pushed Bolivia to the brink. “Enough, Evo!” Arce exclaimed on state TV. “Until now, I have tolerated your attacks and slander in silence. But putting the lives of people at risk is something I cannot tolerate.” Bolivian former President (2006-2019) Evo Morales Ayma (C) waves during the so-called ‘March to Save Bolivia’ -against his former ally, leftist leader Luis Arce- in Caracollo, province of Oruro, 200 km south of La Paz, Bolivia, on September 17, 2024. [Aizar Raldes / AFP] “Democracy at risk” Arce, who has faced a series of mounting crises with his governing party riven by disagreements, alleged that Morales’s attempts to mobilise support and run against Arce in next year’s presidential election were “putting democracy at risk.” “You are threatening the entire country,” Arce said, claiming that Morales sought to return to power by “means fair or foul”. His dramatic speech in the Andean nation of 12 million dredged up the chaos and bloodshed of 2019, when Morales ran for an unconstitutional third term and won. After accusations of fraud led to mass protests, Morales resigned under pressure from the army, in what his supporters call a coup. At least 36 people were killed in the ensuing crackdown by security forces. Morales, who served as Bolivia’s first Indigenous president from 2006-2019, was extremely popular until he tried to bypass the constitution and seek a fourth term. Ever since the constitutional court last year barred the charismatic leader from the race, coca cultivators, Indigenous tribes and workers have come to his defence with street protests, marches and road blockades. Another protest leader, Ponciano Santos, warned Arce that the social movement would hold him responsible for whatever happened on Tuesday. “If you tear gas us, if you interfere with our march, the government will fall,” Santos told reporters. Adblock test (Why?)