3 dead after coaching institute basement flooded in Delhi’s Rajendra Nagar
The search operation is still underway at the spot. A group of students also staged a protest against the MCD at the spot after the recovery of bodies.
Vance rips Harris for questioning his loyalty to America: ‘What the hell have you done?’
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance called out Democratic heir apparent Kamala Harris at a campaign rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota on Saturday. Harris said in a 45-second YouTube video posted on July 16 that Vance would be “loyal only to Trump, not to our country” and a “rubber stamp for [Trump’s] extreme agenda.” JD VANCE GETS SECRET SERVICE CODE NAME ‘BOBCAT,’ JOINS ‘MOGUL’ IN BID TO TAKE WHITE HOUSE Vance countered the Vice President’s attack on his character at Saturday’s joint Trump and Vance rally with his track record of Marine Corps service and small business ownership as well as Harris’ failures in tackling the border crisis. “Now, I saw the other day Kamala Harris questioned my loyalty to this country. That’s the word she used; loyalty. And it’s an interesting word. Semper Fi: loyalty, because there is no greater sign of disloyalty to this country than what Kamala Harris has done at our southern border,” said Vance. The senator from Ohio didn’t stop with Harris’ record as border czar under President Joe Biden’s administration. “And I’d like to ask the vice president, what has she done to question my loyalty to this country? I served in the United States Marine Corps. I went to Iraq for this country. I built a business for this country.” TRUMP SENIOR CAMPAIGN ADVISOR SLAMS LEFT: TAKING VANCE’S ‘CAT LADY’ COMMENTS ‘BLATANTLY OUT OF CONTEXT’ Vance added, “and my running mate took a bullet for this country. So my question to Kamala Harris is, what the hell have you done to question our loyalty to the United States of America?” After the crowd roared with applause, Vance answered his own question. “And the answer, my friends, is nothing. So let’s send a message to the media. Let’s send a message to Kamala Harris. Let’s send a message to every hardworking patriot from Minnesota across the country. We are ready to have President Donald J. Trump back, and we’re going to work our tails off to make sure it happens,” he concluded. A Fox News poll released Friday shows former President Trump with 46% support in Minnesota, and Vice President Harris with 52%. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Former President Trump and Senator Vance are scheduled to give another campaign rally together Tuesday in Henderson, Nevada.
Resurfaced 2023 video shows Kamala Harris arguing young people suffer ‘climate anxiety’
A video of Vice President Kamala Harris arguing that young people are experiencing “climate anxiety” that causes them to rethink major future plans like buying a house or having a family is making the rounds, despite it being nearly a year old. Donald Trump Jr. shared the resurfaced video from September 2023, showing the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate making the statements during her national “Fight for Our Freedoms” college tour. “WATCH: Resurfaced video shows Kamala Harris suggesting that young people should not have children due to climate change,” Trump said in a post on X. “She calls climate anxiety ‘the fear of the future and the unknown of whether it makes sense for you to even think about children.’” When Harris made the college tour stop on Sept. 19, 2023, she was speaking to an audience at the Reading Area Community College in Berks County, Pennsylvania. HARRIS CLAIMS ‘CLIMATE ANXIETY’ HAS YOUNG PEOPLE DOUBTING THE ‘SENSE’ OF HAVING CHILDREN, BUYING HOME She told the crowd the Biden-Harris ticket saw a record turnout of young voters during the 2020 election, inspiring the administration’s initiative toward student loan forgiveness, which recently hit a roadblock in court. “We’re not going to stop fighting for that. Because young people said, we’re not leaving it to other people to decide how we’re dealing with the climate crisis. You know, I’ve heard young leaders talk with me about a term they’ve coined, ‘climate anxiety,’” Harris said, pivoting, “Which is fear of the future and the unknown of whether it makes sense for you to even think about having children, whether it makes sense for you to think about aspiring to buy a home because what will this climate be?” POLLSTER FINDS ‘ASTOUNDING CHANGE’ IN DEMOCRATIC ELECTORATE SINCE HARRIS’ ASCENSION At the time, critics on social media erupted against Harris’ “climate anxiety” claim, arguing Americans are more likely to consider the rising costs of energy, food and housing when making the decision to have children. The Republican-led House Budget Committee has blamed the Biden administration’s economic policies for leading to the most rapid increase in mortgage rates since 1981. A Gallup poll from May found a record low 21% of Americans think it is a good time to buy a home. Despite the original video being nearly a year old, Trump’s repost gained some attention, including from X owner Elon Musk. RAMASWAMY WARNS GOP ON SEVERAL ‘HARD REALITIES’ TO ADDRESS BEFORE CRITICIZING HARRIS: ‘HURTING OUR CHANCES’ “She is an extinctionist,” Musk wrote of Harris. Still, one Democrat gave his two cents in a reply, beginning his post on X with “LOL.” “You guys have nothing on her. She’s referencing the anxiety young people have conveyed to her about the future, for example, having children,” the user wrote. “Dishonest and disingenuous. But why would we expect anything else from the Trump campaign? You guys are PANICKING!” Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
US and world leaders denounce Paris Olympics opening ceremony’s mocking of Last Supper
Several U.S. and world lawmakers are denouncing the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony, after drag queens and artists made a spectacle of the Leonardo DaVinci painting, the Last Supper, which depicts the last meal Jesus had with his apostles. “Last night’s mockery of the Last Supper was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world who watched the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a post on X. “The war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds today. But we know that truth and virtue will always prevail.” He then referred to the Bible verse John 1:15, which reads, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., also used the social media platform to voice her opposition to the opening ceremony and the people running the show. OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY SPARKS OUTRAGE WITH DRAG QUEENS PARODYING LAST SUPPER: ‘GONE COMPLETELY WOKE’ “The French Olympic Committee has been hard at work taking down videos of their satanic, trans, and occult opening ceremonies claiming copyright laws,” she wrote. “It’s our first amendment right to share these videos and our outright over the anti-Christian Olympic opening ceremonies.” Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini posted a picture of the drag queens over another picture of the Last Supper, criticizing the act. “Opening the Olympics by insulting billions of Christians around the world was a really bad start, dear French,” he wrote. “Seedy.” 2024 SUMMER OLYMPICS: LIVE UPDATES Hungary’s ambassador to the Vatican, Eduard Habsburg, made a reference to the beheading of Marie Antoinette, saying, “…because decapitating Habsburgs and ridiculising central Christian events are really the FIRST two things that spring to mind when you think of [the Olympic Games].” PARIS OLYMPIC FLAME RELAT ROUTE FEATURES 3 DRAG QUEEN TORCH BEARERS While not a lawmaker, Fox Nation host Piers Morgan posted an image of the drag queens lined up along a table, asking, “Btw, what the f – – – was all this about?” “A drag queen mockery of the Last Supper at the Olympics? Would they have mocked any other religion like this? Appalling decision,” Morgan wrote. “Unsurprising fury. Imagine if they’d mocked Islam like this,” he wrote in another post.
Trump calls Kamala Harris’ meeting with Netanyahu ‘terrible and insulting’
Former President Trump called Vice President Kamala Harris’ meeting with the Israeli prime minister “terrible and insulting” Saturday, claiming the White House disrespected the Middle East ally. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with both President Biden and Harris in Washington, D.C., Thursday, “P.M. Netanyahu of Israel had a terrible and ‘insulting’ meeting in D.C. with Kamala Harris, who also refused to preside over Congress during his speech, which is an obligation of the V.P. Rarely has such a thing happened,” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social. NETANYAHU REPORTEDLY UPSET WITH HARRIS OVER VP’S ISRAEL REMARKS AS WHITE HOUSE PUSHES BACK “Her ineptness will greatly prolong the war and delay the hostage release,” the former president continued. “The same people that embarrassed us in AFGHANISTAN with their gross incompetence, are the ones who are telling Israel not to fight any longer with Hamas. Forget October 7th, they say!” The post put the word “insulting” in quotations, but it is unclear if Trump was intending to directly quote the prime minister. Fox News Digital has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment. An Israeli official told Axios Netanyahu was unhappy with Harris mentioning civilian deaths in Gaza and the “dire humanitarian situation there.” VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS’ ABSENCE AT NETANYAHU SPEECH NOT WITHOUT PRECEDENT The White House pushed back against those reports Friday, with one aide telling Fox News, “I don’t know what they’re talking about.” Trump went on to repeat an idea he has conveyed in the past, that he is the only rational candidate for Jewish Americans. He offered the same sentiment about Catholic Americans. “Any Jewish person that votes for Kamala, or a Democrat, should immediately have their head examined. Likewise Catholics, who are being persecuted by this Administration, should not be voting for Radical Left Kamala. VOTE TRUMP 2024. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” The White House meeting came before Netanyahu’s meeting Friday with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman contributed to this report.
Pollster finds ‘astounding change’ in Democratic electorate since Harris’ ascension
A new poll from The Wall Street Journal has found Vice President Kamala Harris neck and neck with Donald Trump after President Biden vacated the Democratic nomination for November’s election. “Only 37% of Biden voters were enthusiastic about him in early July, and now 81% of Harris voters are enthusiastic about her,” Democratic pollster Mike Bocian, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster David Lee, told the Journal. “This is an astounding change.” The former president maintains a 2% lead over Harris in a two-person race, within the Journal’s 3.1% margin of error, indicating Harris has cut into the six-point lead Trump had over President Biden before Biden withdrew from the race last weekend. When the field expands to include Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other independent and third-party candidates, the gap slips to a slender 1% lead for Trump over Harris, 45% to 44%. Part of that shift resulted from the change in voter demographics as she has galvanized Democrats and brought high levels of enthusiasm into the party. NY TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD URGES KAMALA HARRIS TO ‘DO BETTER’ THAN BIDEN IN TAKING QUESTIONS FROM REPORTERS Harris raised $100 million from over 1.1 million unique donors between Sunday afternoon to Monday evening after she announced she would run in place of Biden, marking what her campaign claimed to be the “largest 24-hour raise in presidential history.” The Journal poll does include good news for Trump, however. Republican pollster David Lee pointed out that Trump was trailing Biden in the July 2020 Journal poll by nine points. “Donald Trump is in a far better position in this election when compared to a similar time in the 2020 election,” Lee told the Journal. Voters favor Trump on key issues like the economy, immigration, foreign policy and crime and lean toward Harris on abortion. “Instead of what was shaping up to be a Trump win, America has a real, bona fide race on its hands,” veteran political scientist and New England College President Wayne Lesperance told Fox News Digital this week. “Game on.” HARRIS CAMPAIGN CLAIMS SHE NO LONGER SUPPORTS FRACKING BAN SHE TOUTED IN 2019: REPORT A tied national poll would give Trump an advantage in the Electoral College “given the way the country’s population is dispersed,” according to the Journal. But Harris has yet to pick a vice presidential candidate, with the likes of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz; Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.; and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper likely to shake up those numbers. In Michigan, Harris and Trump remain in a dead heat, according to a Fox News poll released Friday, which marked a three-point shift for Harris, up from Biden’s 46% in April polling. The poll found that men favor Trump by 13 points, while women back Harris by 12. Trump has a two-point advantage with voters over 45 years old, while Harris has a five-point advantage with voters under 35 years old. Whites without a college degree pick Trump by 15 points, and Harris has a three-point advantage among Whites with a degree and voters of color, who back her by 39 points. RAMASWAMY WARNS GOP ON SEVERAL ‘HARD REALITIES’ TO ADDRESS BEFORE CRITICIZING HARRIS: ‘HURTING OUR CHANCES’ The race has tightened in battleground states overall, which will prove welcome news for Democrats who pushed for Biden to drop out on word that polling indicated a collapse in those states. In Minnesota, Harris has a six-point lead, while Trump has a one-point advantage in Wisconsin. The two remain tied in Pennsylvania. Fox News surveys in those battleground states found that Trump is meeting or exceeding his 2020 vote share when put into a two-way race with Harris, with greater support among voters who prioritize the economy and immigration as their top issues. Voters who consider abortion a top issue favor Harris. Harris also enjoys higher favorable ratings than Trump in each state except Michigan, where they remain tied. Fox News Digital’s Dana Blanton contributed to this report.
Biden to push for constitutional amendment next week to reverse Trump immunity decision: report
President Biden is set to propose several changes to the U.S. Constitution on Monday to make good on his promise to reform the Supreme Court, according to a report. In a reversal from the president’s longstanding resistance to changes to the high court, Biden said on Wednesday that Supreme Court reform would be among his top priorities for the remainder of his term in office. Biden announced Sunday that he would not seek re-election after mounting pressure from Democratic Party officials who asked him to step aside after his widely panned debate performance in June. The president is expected to propose setting term limits for justices on the Supreme Court, which would require a constitutional amendment, and establishing an enforceable code of ethics, which could be enacted by Congress, Politico reported. BIDEN TO ANNOUNCE SUPPORT FOR MAJOR CHANGES TO SUPREME COURT AMID OUTRAGE OVER RECENT DECISIONS: REPORT Biden is also likely to voice support for a constitutional amendment that would limit immunity for presidents and certain other officeholders after the court ruled in July that presidents cannot be prosecuted for “official acts” during their time in office. The court’s ruling stemmed from a case concerning former President Trump. The framers of the Constitution intentionally made it difficult to amend. A two-thirds majority of both the House and the Senate needs to pass any proposed amendment, which is then sent to the states for ratification. It must be approved by three-fourths — 38 — of the 50 states to become the supreme law of the land. “This decision today has continued the court’s attack in recent years on a wide range of long-established legal principles in our nation, from gutting voting rights and civil rights to taking away a woman’s right to choose, to today’s decision that undermines the rule of law of this nation,” Biden said in public remarks after the court handed down its opinion. TRUMP IMMUNITY CASE: SUPREME COURT RULES EX-PRESIDENTS HAVE SUBSTANTIAL PROTECTION FROM PROSECUTION Politico reported the specifics of the proposal have not been finalized and could still change. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Biden said Supreme Court reform is “critical to our democracy” in an Oval Office address Wednesday explaining his decision to drop out of the 2024 election. HARRIS VS. TRUMP: 100 DAYS FROM ELECTION, IT’S A DRAMATICALLY ALTERED PRESIDENTIAL RACE “Over the next six months, I’ll be focused on doing my job as president. That means I’ll continue to lower costs for hard-working families, grow our economy. I’ll keep defending our personal freedoms and our civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose. I’ll keep calling out hate and extremism, make it clear there is no place, no place in America for political violence or any violence ever, period. I’m going to keep speaking out to protect our kids from gun violence, our planet from climate crisis, is the existential threat,” Biden said. “And I will keep fighting for my for my cancer moonshot, so we can end cancer as we know it because we can do it. And I’m going to call for Supreme Court reform because this is critical to our democracy, Supreme Court reform. You know, I will keep working to ensure America remains strong and secure and the leader of the free world.” Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
Martyr Biden, Saviour Kamala
Washington has never seen a week quite like it. On Sunday, President Joe Biden took himself out of the presidential race. By Tuesday, his vice president, Kamala Harris, had picked up the torch and was on the campaign trail. The pace at which this story has unfolded across the US media has left liberal commentators gasping for air. They quickly dispensed with their criticism of Biden for selfishly clinging to power and started eulogising him for his selfless change of heart. What is next now that Harris is the presumptive nominee? Contributors: Alex Shephard – Senior editor, The New RepublicSabrina Siddiqui – White House reporter, The Wall Street JournalAkela Lacy – Politics reporter, The Intercept On our radar In Bangladesh, there has been a heavy-handed response to protests centring on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, her government and corruption. Meenakshi Ravi looks at the media restrictions and communications blackout imposed by the state. For months – even years – much of mainstream US media downplayed or ignored the obvious – the unmistakable signs of Biden’s cognitive decline. One commentator who can fairly say he dissented from mainstream opinion and saw this coming is Cenk Uygur. The host of The Young Turks spoke with us about why the liberal media got it wrong on this story. Featuring Cenk Uygur – Co-creator and host, The Young Turks Adblock test (Why?)
The pro-Palestinian student movement is alive and well
University campuses across the United States are quiet as the school year ended more than a month ago: most encampments have been cleared, campus protests have been discontinued and the mainstream media have all but forgotten about student-led demonstrations. The spirit and the cause, however, are very much alive. And that is because the encampment movement was not the start of the struggle towards Palestinian liberation, nor was it its end. Rather it was a pivotal shift, as it made the general public aware of the complicity of elected officials and public institutions in the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people. It also expanded and solidified the solidarity network of the Palestinian movement well beyond its usual supporters. Whereas, before, pro-Palestinian protests were overwhelmingly attended by Palestinians and other Arabs, there is now a whole community of new allies that have been introduced to the Palestinian cause and show up at events. Americans across socioeconomic and racial backgrounds now believe that Palestinian life has value, that it is not anti-Semitic to say Palestine, and that Palestinians – like all other people – have inalienable rights to life and self-determination. Given that the impact of the student encampments has gone way beyond the confines of university campuses, it cannot be undone with the suppression of the protests. Pro-Palestinian action has continued mostly off-campus and taken a variety of different forms: from local protests to teach-ins and conferences to various modes of mobilisation, including online. At the end of May, just as the school year was wrapping up, the Palestinian Youth Movement, along with a number of other organisations, held a three-day conference in Detroit, Michigan. Thousands gathered to learn more about the role of technology in apartheid, solidarity with labour unions, and the importance of media in shifting the Palestinian narrative. “We will be here, in the streets, on our campuses, in our classrooms, in our workplaces, every day until Zionism is defeated and until the total liberation and return of our people,” read the final statement of the conference. A few days later, an estimated 100,000 – many of them students and youth – converged on Washington, DC to denounce the Biden administration’s unconditional support for Israel. Protesters held up a 2-mile-long red banner symbolising President Joe Biden’s non-existent red line, which has allowed the Israeli government and army to commit unimaginable atrocities in Gaza. And most recently, thousands of youths, students, and allies gathered again in Washington, DC to protest against the visit to the US and the speech of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the US Congress. Although he is the architect of a genocide and a war criminal with a likely arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, his address was met with applause from members of Congress from both parties. As he spewed lies about his genocidal war on Gaza, American youth made clear their rejection of this political farce and of the US government’s complicity in the Palestinian genocide. There has also been mobilisation to defend and support those who still face charges over their participation in encampments and occupations. According to The Appeal, a nonprofit news outlet, more than 3,000 students have been arrested for their involvement in campus protests against the genocide of Palestinians. While charges in many cases have been dropped, in others local prosecutors have decided to push forward with them, which could have serious consequences for the accused. The way this has been done has also illustrated how the Palestinian issue ties to various layers of injustice within the US and why so many non-Arabs have joined our cause. In the case of the 22 people arrested at the City University New York (CUNY) and slapped with criminal charges, observers pointed out early on that those detained in the wealthier Columbia University in similar circumstances only faced misdemeanour charges. In June, the Manhattan district attorney dropped felony charges against 12 CUNY students and staff but pressed forward with the cases of 10 community members, who are mostly Black people and working-class. People have rallied in their defence, trying to bring more attention to this injustice and the clear attempt by the authorities to come after the most vulnerable among us. Much is also being done on other fronts, not just on university campuses and in the streets. One area of particular note is boycotting. We know that boycotts have historically been successful in putting political pressure on occupying countries: they contributed to the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, helped Algerians during their war of independence against the French, and put pressure on the Dutch economy during the Indonesian National Revolution against Dutch imperial rule. The Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment (BDS) movement picked up significantly over the past nine months and its efforts are bearing fruit. We have seen global sales of companies on the boycott list slump significantly, which has affected their valuation. McDonald’s shares have fallen by more than 7 percent, and Starbucks – by 17 percent. In some countries, the boycotts have been so effective that they have sent corporations into a frenzy. In Bangladesh, after sales fell by 23 percent, Coca-Cola released an advertisement denying any links to Israel, which spectacularly backfired. In US cities like Dearborn, where the Arab population makes up half the city, places like Starbucks and McDonald’s are all but empty, with local businesses being supported like never before. Elsewhere in the US, where the Muslim and Arab-American communities are smaller, students and youth are at the forefront of the BDS movement, spreading the word through social media and actively promoting the boycott of corporations complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Students also know the power of voting, and not voting. Since the start of the genocide last year, various political strategies have been deployed to ensure that our demands are heard. The “Abandon Biden” and “Listen to Michigan” campaigns were launched to convince voters to respectively withhold their vote or send a “warning” vote to Biden by voting uncommitted. Many youths and students participated in
As Venezuela’s election nears, opposition figures face Maduro’s repression
Maracaibo, Venezuela – The journey from the Venezuelan capital of Caracas to the coastal city of Maracaibo should only take about nine hours. For Maria Corina Machado, however, it took closer to 12. Machado, a popular opposition leader, had hit the road in the final days of Venezuela’s presidential race to campaign on behalf of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the candidate hoping to unseat President Nicolas Maduro. But as she travelled between cities, Machado noticed government forces had blocked the roads. Gas stations were mysteriously closed along her route. Machado has grown accustomed to such obstacles, though. As she explained at a news conference at her party headquarters in Maracaibo on July 24, she sees the obstructions as the last gasp of an authoritarian government struggling to maintain its grip on power. “This is a confession from a regime that knows it is defeated,” Machado said, as she cited yet another example: efforts to deny accreditation to citizens wishing to act as poll monitors. “But just like we have overcome all these obstacles, we’re also going to overcome this one.” On Sunday, Venezuelans head to the polls to vote for the presidency. But Maduro, the socialist president who has been in power since 2013, has struggled in the polls, trailing Gonzalez by wide margins. An opposition victory could bring nearly a quarter century of socialist rule to a close. Opposition leaders like Machado, however, warn that Maduro will not leave office without a fight. They anticipate the Maduro government will continue to sabotage their efforts — even if it means subverting democracy at the ballot box. Presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia greets the crowds in Maracaibo, Venezuela, ahead of a rally [Mie Hoejris Dahl/Al Jazeera] Haunted by hurdles Machado, however, is no stranger to Maduro’s tactics. The 56-year-old, a former member of Venezuela’s National Assembly, was once a frontrunner in the presidential race herself. Last October, she swept the opposition primary with 92.5 percent of the vote. The Democratic Unitary Platform — the main opposition coalition — declared her its nominee for the presidency. But Maduro’s allies in government sought to bar her from holding office, accusing her of having supported US sanctions, being involved in corruption and losing money for Venezuela’s foreign assets. In January, Venezuela’s Supreme Court upheld the ban: Machado was effectively ousted from the race. She has been barred from air travel, too. Machado has nevertheless sought to rally voters on behalf of her replacement, Gonzalez. One of her recent campaign events in Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second largest city, drew an estimated 200,000 spectators, according to Vente Venezuela, her political party. But she remains a target, as does Gonzalez. Ahead of last Tuesday’s rally in Maracaibo, Venezuelan national police detained six people for arranging sound systems and transport for her team. Their equipment was ultimately confiscated. Machado and her team had to make do without a sound system, sometimes yelling to be heard over the crowd. But her voice was largely swallowed up in the din. Even members of her campaign have faced harassment. Since March, five of her staffers have sought refuge at the Argentinian embassy in Caracas to avoid arrest. They have been coordinating Machado’s campaign remotely from within the embassy walls. Just last week, Machado’s security chief was also arbitrarily detained in what Machado described as “a kidnapping”. He was released the following day. In addition, her campaign vehicles were vandalised, and their brake hoses were cut. Motorcyclists accompany Maria Corina Machado’s caravan of cars as she travels between cities [Mie Hoejris Dahl/Al Jazeera] Her team has grown accustomed to bringing hoses and jerrycans of fuel on the road whenever they travel, just in case the government forces gas stations along the route to close. “It is not a typical campaign,” Oliver Lopez Cano, a campaign staffer, told Al Jazeera. Still, Machado told Al Jazeera in a private conversation after the Maracaibo rally that she has received unexpected support as Maduro’s popularity tailspins. For years, motorcycle groups known as “motorizados” used to prowl the streets, harassing members of the political opposition. But Machado said some of the motorcyclists have switched sides, fed up with the economic and political instability under Maduro. “All the motorcyclists used to be chavistas,” Machado explained, using a term that refers to followers of Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor and mentor. She described how thousands of motorcyclists — mostly men — have helped protect her campaign as she navigates across the country. Even at government roadblocks, security forces sometimes hesitated to obstruct her progress when they saw the motorcyclists she travels with, Machado said. “They went from being a threat to being a shield.” Crowds gather in Maracaibo, Venezuela, to hear opposition leaders speak ahead of Sunday’s election [Mie Hoejris Dahl/Al Jazeera] Targeting the grassroots But opposition leaders are not the only individuals facing government backlash. Critics accuse the Maduro government of attacking low-level political workers and even small business owners for their association with the opposition. In the three weeks since the start of the campaign season on July 4, the Venezuelan human rights organisation Foro Penal has documented 149 cases of politically motivated arbitrary detention. One of those cases involved a man named Aldo Roso Vargas, an activist from Voluntad Popular, an opposition party. He was arrested en route to an opposition campaign event in Caracas earlier this month, charged with attempting to destabilise the electrical system. Gonzalo Himiob Santome, co-founder and vice president of Foro Penal, said examples like Roso’s are an illustration of how far the Maduro government is willing to go to stay in power. “The government’s intention is to intimidate anyone who shows closeness to the opposition movement in one way or another,” Himiob said. Even restaurant owners and chauffeurs who have served opposition figures have reportedly faced intimidation from the government and its allies. That was the case for the Plaza Real Grill in San Cristobal, the capital of Venezuela’s Tachira state. Cesar Perez Vivas, the brother of the grill’s owners, said that Venezuelan tax