🚨 Just Announced 🚨

The Supreme Court ruled today that Texas SB-4 law is constitutional which grants Txs the right to detain, arrest, and expel anyone crossing the Texas border illegally

Big round of applause 👏 folks

The majority on the Scotus acting like one....

(6-3) ⚖️ pic.twitter.com/cRQG1DQ8qJ

— Chicago1Ray 🇺🇸 (@Chicago1Ray) May 28, 2024

!chuds !nooticers

/r/LeopardsAteMyFace : https://old.reddit.com/r/LeopardsAteMyFace/comments/1d2mh7z/dems_in_fullblown_freakout_over_biden/

/r/StupidPol: https://old.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1d2lhrv/politico_dems_in_fullblown_freakout_over_biden/

A pervasive sense of fear has settled in at the highest levels of the Democratic Party over President Joe Biden's reelection prospects, even among officeholders and strategists who had previously expressed confidence about the coming battle with Donald Trump.

All year, Democrats had been on a joyless and exhausting grind through the 2024 election. But now, nearly five months from the election, anxiety has morphed into palpable trepidation, according to more than a dozen party leaders and operatives. And the gap between what Democrats will say on TV or in print, and what they'll text their friends, has only grown as worries have surged about Biden's prospects.

“You don't want to be that guy who is on the record saying we're doomed, or the campaign's bad or Biden's making mistakes. Nobody wants to be that guy,” said a Democratic operative in close touch with the White House and granted anonymity to speak freely.

But Biden's stubbornly poor polling and the stakes of the election “are creating the freakout,” he said.

“This isn't, ‘Oh my God, Mitt Romney might become president.' It's ‘Oh my God, the democracy might end.'”

Despite everything, Trump is running ahead of Biden in most battleground states. He raised far more money in April, and the landscape may only become worse for Democrats, with Trump's hush-money trial concluding and another — this one involving the president's son — set to begin in Delaware.

The concern has metastasized in recent days as Trump jaunted to some of the country's most liberal territories, including New Jersey and New York, to woo Latinx and Black voters as he boasted, improbably, that he would win in those areas.

While he's long lagged Biden in cash on hand, Trump's fundraising outpaced the president's by $25 million last month, and included a record-setting $50.5 million haul from an event in Palm Beach, Florida. One adviser to major Democratic Party donors provided a running list that has been shared with funders of nearly two dozen reasons why Biden could lose, ranging from immigration and high inflation to the president's age, the unpopularity of Vice President Kamala Harris and the presence of third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“Donors ask me on an hourly basis about what I think,” the adviser said, calling it “so much easier to show them, so while they read it, I can pour a drink.”

The adviser added, “The list of why we ‘could' win is so small I don't even need to keep the list on my phone.”

On the day after news broke that Biden had trailed Trump in fundraising last month, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey raised the pressure on donors as she introduced the president to a crowd of 300.

The cluster of fundraising events Biden attended in Boston that day were expected to bring in more than $6 million for his political operation. But Healey said that wasn't good enough.

“To those of you who opened up your wallets, thank you,” said Healey, a Democrat in her first term. “We'd like you to open them up a little bit more and to find more patriots — more patriots who believe in this country, who recognize and understand the challenge presented at this time.”

Laughter rippled through the room. But Healey's voice turned serious. With unusual urgency for Healey, the governor implored the room of high-dollar donors and local Democratic leaders to “think long and hard” about the stakes of the election.

There have been few moments in Biden's term as president that haven't been second-guessed, and his aides have made sport of sneering at grim predictions, compiling dossiers of headlines and clips in which the president was underestimated. Biden campaign aides and allies point to some positive polls, including in the battlegrounds, and Trump's comparative lack of campaigning and infrastructure in the key states, including staff, organizing programs and advertising.

A Biden campaign adviser granted anonymity to speak freely stressed that the president's team never made any indication that Trump's hush-money trial would help — or hurt — him. Instead, the adviser contended that Trump will be forced to defend cutting back abortion rights, attacking democracy and advancing corporate interests as president.

“Trump's photo-ops and PR stunts may get under the skin of some very serious D.C. people as compelling campaigning, but they will do nothing to win over the voters that will decide this election,” Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz told POLITICO. “The work we do every day on the ground and on the airwaves in our battleground states — to talk about how President Biden is fighting for the middle class against the corporate greed that's keeping prices high, and highlight Donald Trump's anti-American campaign for revenge and retribution and abortion bans — is the work that will again secure us the White House.”

Biden supporters who remain optimistic say they'd rather be him than Trump, before rallying around abortion and issues of reproductive rights, which Rep. Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat, called “a fundamental game-changer.”

“We have to run a campaign, where honestly, we drive home the message that Donald Trump takes us back to the 19th century. Biden takes us further into the 21st century,” Kildee said.

He did not remark on whether such a campaign is being run, or run to his satisfaction.

“A lot can happen between now and then,” acknowledged Rep. Ann Kuster, a Democrat from New Hampshire, who is retiring after the fall election. She, too, pointed to eroding abortion rights under the conservative-led Supreme Court remade by Trump. “I know a significant number of voters are going to be motivated by the Dobbs decision.”

But Democratic critics of the campaign's approach — while agreeing that abortion should be a winning issue — said they're challenged when pressed by friends to make the case for why Biden will win.

“There's still a path to win this, but they don't look like a campaign that's embarking on that path right now,” said Pete Giangreco, a longtime Democratic strategist who's worked on multiple presidential campaigns. “If the frame of this race is, ‘What was better, the 3.5 years under Biden or four years under Trump,' we lose that every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”

In the swing state of Michigan, Democratic state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky suggested Biden's standing is so tenuous that down-ballot Democrats can't rely in November “on the top of the ticket to pull us along.”

“In 2020, there was enough energy to get Donald Trump out and there were other things on the ballot that brought young people out in subsequent elections.”

She said, “That's not the case this time. I worry that because we've had four years with a stable White House, particularly young voters don't feel that sense of urgency and might not remember how disastrous 2017 was right after the Trump administration took over.”

Whatever the Biden campaign has been doing over the past two months — and it's a lot of activity, including $25 million in swing-state ad spending, according to AdImpact — it has had only a limited effect. According to FiveThirtyEight, Biden's average job-approval rating on March 7, the date of his State of the Union Address, was 38.1 percent. As of Friday, it's 38.4 percent.

And his standing against Trump has also changed little. On April 22, the day Trump's criminal trial began, the presumptive GOP nominee held a 0.3-point lead in national polls, according to FiveThirtyEight. Trump is up about a point since then, currently leading Biden by 1.4 points in the FiveThirtyEight average.

Asked about polling, Munoz said: “The only metric that will define the success of this campaign is Election Day.”

Trump, meanwhile, has already started his incursion into safe blue states. His campaign's psychological warfare in New York, California and New Jersey — where House districts will determine control of Congress' lower chamber — is spiking Democrats' already-elevated blood pressure.

“New York Democrats need to wake up,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. “The number of people in New York, including people of color that I come across who are saying positive things about Trump, is alarming.”

Biden's weaker numbers bear that out. A Siena College poll released Wednesday showed Biden leading Trump in New York by only 9 points — 47 to 38 percent among registered voters. Four years ago, Biden won the state by 23 points. The president is under water with every demographic delineated in the poll — other than Black voters. Fifty-three percent of Latinx and 54 percent of whites reported having an unfavorable opinion of him. To that end, Biden released TV and radio ads in the Empire State on Thursday, ahead of Trump's campaign rally in the Bronx.

Levine has been something of a Paul Revere in New York, sounding alarms two years ago when a Trump-aligned Republican gubernatorial candidate, Lee Zeldin, appeared to be gaining on Kathy Hochul, the moderate Democratic incumbent. Hochul narrowly held him off.

“I'm worried it's going to be a 2022 situation, where everyone wakes up in the last seven weeks and has to scramble,” Levine said of his state, which hasn't swung to the GOP since Ronald Reagan in 1980.

This cycle, Democrats also have to contend with the war in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which has deeply divided their ranks and contributed to a sense of chaos. Rep. Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat known for his ardent defense of Israel, was similarly concerned for his party, though he pointed to the higher cost of groceries and goods that started during the pandemic and has yet to abate.

“The greatest political challenge confronting the president starts with an “i,” but it's not Israel, it's inflation,” Torres said. “The cost of living is a challenge that we have to figure out how to manage.”

He said Biden should focus on issues around affordability and continue to tout his success in capping insulin costs in areas with high rates of diabetes, like his Bronx district.

“The election is more competitive than it should be, given the wretchedness of who Donald Trump is,” he said. “In a properly functioning democracy, Donald Trump should have no viable path to the presidency. The fact of a competitive race is cause for concern.”

Trump has railed against blue-state officials, starting with the justice system in New York. In California, he dispatched his daughter-in-law, Lara, and one of his sons, Eric, to hold up the West Coast's Democratic heavyweight as a cautionary tale.

“I'm sorry you have to live in communism,” Eric Trump said Wednesday at the Stampede, a country music venue in Temecula, an inland community between Los Angeles and San Diego. Trump casually dismissed California Democrat Gavin Newsom as the nation's “worst governor.”

“Make no mistake,” Trump said, “there is a war happening in this country.”

The elder Trump is set to appear in early June at the San Francisco fundraiser hosted by tech investor David Sacks and his wife, Jacqueline, a clothing brand executive, along with venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya.

Palihapitiya's past political donations run the gamut, from Elizabeth Warren to a super PAC supporting Kennedy Jr. He also gave to the recall committee against Newsom in 2021 and briefly considered running for governor. Silicon Valley's red pilling has brought even more unwanted national attention on issues of open-air drug use, homeless encampments and gangs of thieves who ransack retail stores across the Bay Area.

And as in New York, California Democrats are bracing for more incoming from Trump.

“San Francisco has changed with the taxpayers, the job creators, the tech CEOs who want to engage with the city and its politics,” said Harmeet Dhillon, the RNC committee member from California.

Dhillon was reflecting on her run-ins with Democrats in the city, where she spent years leading the local GOP before her law firm represented Trump in legal fights to remain on state ballots. Few Democrats are willing to confide in Dhillon about their fears, she conceded, but no one is sharing a sense of enthusiasm for Biden, either.

“The most diplomatic thing I hear from Democrats is, ‘Oh my God, are these the choices we have for president?'”

🔥BREAKING: Robert De Niro gets hilariously HECKLED by Trump supporters as he tries bashing him across the street from the courthouse! THIS IS PRICELESS!😂👇 pic.twitter.com/9dxkaG07Vb

— Michelle #FJB (@MichelleRM68) May 28, 2024

https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1d2e9yw/canada_pledges_more_visas_for_gazans_says_its/

https://old.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/comments/1d1uh2e/trudeau_government_announces_fivefold_increase_in/

https://old.reddit.com/r/QuebecLibre/comments/1d1x014/le_gouvernement_trudeau_annonce_quintupler_le/

Trudeau government announces fivefold increase in number of visas for Palestinians

Canada's immigration minister has announced a major increase to the number of visas available for Palestinians in Gaza.

Marc Miller said this morning that applications for the “temporary resident visa” program will be expanded from 1,000 to 5,000.

He said in a statement that his government is “deeply concerned about the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Gaza.”

The visas allow Palestinians who live in Gaza and are related to a Canadian citizen or permanent resident to move to Canada.

The program also extends to people related to a citizen or permanent resident who isn't yet in the country but who intends to live in Canada.

When these people enter Canada, they are permitted to stay for up to three years on the visa.

Gaza's government, the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas, launched a war against Israel on Oct. 7 last year when it massacred over 1,000 people, most of them civilians, during an invasion of its neighbour.

The group also kidnapped hundreds of people, including children and seniors.

Israel has since struck back, leading to an unknown number of deaths. Hamas claims more than 36,000 people have died in Gaza since it attacked Israel.

“While movement out of Gaza is not currently possible, the situation may change at any time,” Miller said in his statement.

“With this cap increase, we will be ready to help more people as the situation evolves. Our focus remains on keeping families together.”

He added: “Canada continues to put forward the names of those who have passed preliminary screening to local authorities to secure their exit from Gaza.”

Miller has recently been under fire from some Palestinian and Muslim groups in Canada. He and the Trudeau government have been accused of failing to act as promptly or as generously as they did when Ukraine was invaded by Russia in 2022.

He is set to provide a briefing about the visas today when he appears before the House of Commons immigration committee.

His department has said 179 visas have been issued under the Gaza program so far, but doesn't know how many people, if any, have since come to Canada.

The vast majority of people living in Gaza cannot leave the territory since both of its land neighbours – Israel and Egypt – have sealed their borders.

Its sea and air space, meanwhile, are both controlled by Israel.

!nonchuds

!neolibs

I hate that my brain thinks this way now but the free part of the article doesn't say, but so much of the anti lgbt and antisemitism in Europe seems to come from immigrants, were they ethnically French?

Remember to hate yourself if you notice basic patterns !nooticers

Young AfD politician convicted after publishing gang r*pe statistics in connection with Afghan migration

A member of Germany's right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has had her conviction for incitement to hatred upheld on appeal, after using official statistics to warn that Afghan immigrants are disproportionately liable to commit sexual violence against women and girls.

The crime committed by Rotenburg AfD leader Marie-Thérèse Kaiser was to respond publicly to news that Afghan migrant workers would be relocated to Hamburg by citing figures which she claims show Afghani males are disproportionately involved in the perpetration of serious sexual offences in Germany.

The original offence took place in August 2021, a few weeks before the country took to the ballot box for federal elections and state elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, when Kaiser wrote on social media: “Afghanistan refugees; Hamburg SPD mayor for ‘unbureaucratic' admission; Welcoming culture for gang r*pe?” The 27-year-old politician went on to warn about the threat posed to women by “culturally alien masses”.

!chuds !neolibs

https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1d0vyh7/leaked_national_service_plans_dont_rule_out/

Leaked National Service plans don't rule out arresting teens for not taking part

Tory plans to bring back mandatory national service are in chaos after a leaked briefing paper suggested young people could be arrested for not taking part.

Rishi Sunak has announced that all 18-year-olds will be forced to take part in his proposed new programme. Young people would be given a choice between a full-time placement in the armed forces for 12 months or spending one weekend a month for a year "volunteering," in their community.

The Mirror has seen an internal Tory briefing paper on the policy that does not rule out arresting youngsters if they fail to take part.

In a Q&A section of the document, it asks: “Will you arrest people who don't comply?” The response is: “It is right that those who contribute to our system are duly rewarded, and those who refuse receive none of the benefits. The Royal Commission will explore an appropriate incentives regime.”

Ministers have attempted to quickly backtrack as the policy descended into shambles this morning. Home Secretary James Cleverly insisted 18-year-olds would not be sent to jail if they refused. Asked on Sky News whether the consequences of resisting the compulsory scheme could involve a prison term, he said: "No, there's going to be no criminal sanction. There's no one going to jail over this."

The Conservatives have said they would establish a Royal Commission bringing in expertise from across the military and civil society to establish the details of what they described as the "bold" national service programme. The party said this commission would be tasked with bringing forward a proposal for how to ensure the first pilot is open for applications in September 2025.

After that, it would seek to introduce a new "National Service Act" to make the measures compulsory by the end of the next Parliament, the party said. It estimates the programme will cost £2.5 billion a year by the end of the decade and plans to fund £1 billion through plans to "crack down on tax avoidance and evasion".

The remaining £1.5 billion will be paid for with money previously used for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), which is a package to support charities and community groups, the Tories said.

The Prime Minister said: "This is a great country but generations of young people have not had the opportunities or experience they deserve and there are forces trying to divide our society in this increasingly uncertain world. I have a clear plan to address this and secure our future. I will bring in a new model of national service to create a shared sense of purpose among our young people and a renewed sense of pride in our country.

"This new, mandatory national service will provide life-changing opportunities for our young people, offering them the chance to learn real world skills, do new things and contribute to their community and our country."

Opposition critics have dismissed the plans as unserious. Labour pointed out that David Cameron introduced a similar scheme - the National Citizen Service - when he was prime minister. Lord Cameron's announcement had no military component to it, instead encouraging youngsters to take part in activities such as outdoor education-style courses as part of his "Big Society" initiative.

A Labour spokesman said: "This is not a plan - it's a review which could cost billions and is only needed because the Tories hollowed out the armed forces to their smallest size since Napoleon. Britain has had enough of the Conservatives, who are bankrupt of ideas, and have no plans to end 14 years of chaos. It's time to turn the page and rebuild Britain with Labour."

A party source mocked the plans, saying that under the Tories it would be “maths to 18 and then straight off to war”.

!britbongs

INCOMPETENCE: @ElonMusk built more than 50K EV chargers at a total cost of $1.1B. Biden's $7.5 billion effort to build EV charging stations began in 2021 resulting in 7 or 8 completed chargers or .2 stations per month. Watch as this CBS reporter laughs in @PeteButtigieg's face. pic.twitter.com/c8gTQBZTkA

— @amuse (@amuse) May 26, 2024

The governing Mises Caucus faction of the Libertarian Party spent two years gearing up for a presidential race in which their preferred candidate could not handle a high-profile post-Trump-speech rebuttal slot because he was too high after eating a gummy. https://t.co/m2nFxXPANP

— Matt Welch (@MattWelch) May 26, 2024

Smartest contrarian thinks that "you shouldn't get way too high to give a speech before your speech" = against all recreational drug use.

"United we stand, divided we fall. Indict our president, you'd better indict us all"

The scene outside the Trump rally in the Bronx.

Footage by @NJEGmedia pic.twitter.com/EvE5ugP8nZ

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 23, 2024

https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1d05v27/labour_would_allow_16yearolds_to_vote_in_future/

Labour would allow 16-year-olds to vote in future general elections

Party intends to lower voting age within first year if it wins power on July 4

Labour is looking to introduce votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in its first year in government if it wins the election.

The party is closely studying how Scotland and Wales lowered the voting age and believes there is no reason why lowering the national voting age for general elections would need to take longer.

Sir Keir Starmer pledged to extend the franchise to younger voters in September with no indication of how quickly the policy would be implemented should it win the election. Party sources now say that while there is yet no commitment that the policy will be in the King's Speech, it is nonetheless expected to be enacted quickly. “I would be extremely surprised if it wasn't in the King's Speech,” one said, describing the legislation needed as “extremely straightforward”.

About 1.5 million people under the age of 18 would be given the vote in general elections under plans agreed by Labour in the final draft of its national policy forum. It would be the largest change to the electorate since 1969, when the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18.

The party is looking to the example of Scotland and Wales and believes a similar time frame for enactment is possible. Scotland has already lowered the voting age for local and Scottish parliament elections to 16 and Wales has done so for local and Welsh parliament elections.

The process of lowering the age in both was swift. In Scotland, it took less than six months from Scotland being handed the power to reduce the age to the passage of legislation. Researchers at Sheffield and Edinburgh have found that the move resulted in young voters being more likely to turn out as they grew older.

In Wales, where the Labour-run government has been consulted by the party in Westminster on how a nationwide extension could work, the two pieces of legislation both passed no more than a year after being introduced.

!britbongs

New degrowther idea just dropped in the UK:

Instead of making it legal to build more housing, they're just gonna... checks notes... reallocate the spare bedrooms in "under-occupied" houses. pic.twitter.com/Ei7IA7gh1Z

— Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) May 22, 2024

!neolibs !britbongs

South Africa is one of a handful of countries along with the United Kingdom that is significantly poorer than it was a decade ago: its GDP per capita has declined from $8,800 in 2012 to $6,190 in 2023.

!britbongs

An incredible 47 per cent of South Africans rely on social grants as their primary source of income, a measure of both the relative success of the government's welfare programme and the economic disasters of the past decade.

MK's platform is a mix of Zuma's sense of personal victimhood, Zulu nationalism, opposition to constitutional rule, nationalising strategic industries, ending South Africa's green energy policies, the creation of a new upper house for indigenous kings and queens (a decolonial House of Lords), as well as the expropriation of all land without compensation by the state and for it to be under the custody of traditional leaders.

@kaamrev @sneedman !africans

Reasonable response sitting at -3 at time of reporting.

With a reply of it's a good thing, chud.

I will pay 2000DC, cash on the barrelhead, for gigacute twink /u/Independent-Low-2398 's permaban.

The Trump VP audition reaches a new humiliating low. Elise Stefanik, self-described "Ultra MAGA" congresswoman, goes to the Knesset and blasts Biden, demands support for Israel "without conditions," warns Oct. 7 could happen in the US, and touts her strong partnership with Trump pic.twitter.com/WERcxIVxiS

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) May 19, 2024

name one piece of legislation Republicans have ever passed that benefits black people

Dixiecrats in shambles

The Bronx is MAGA country!