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UKRAINE'S DEMOGRAPHIC COLLAPSE RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT NATION'S FUTURE

Economic and Security Implications

The demographic crisis complicates Ukraine's prospects for post-war recovery and integration with Western institutions. The shrinking workforce and brain drain undermine economic development potential, while the aging population strains public resources. Security experts warn that population decline in border regions could create vulnerabilities that neighboring powers might exploit.

International Dimension

Ukraine's demographic collapse has implications beyond its borders. The mass exodus has created refugee pressures in neighboring countries, while the potential instability of a weakened Ukrainian state could affect regional security dynamics. International support, while crucial for Ukraine's immediate survival, may need to address not just military and economic needs but also demographic sustainability.

Looking Ahead

Without immediate and effective intervention, Ukraine's demographic crisis threatens to become self-perpetuating. Recovery would require not just an end to military conflict but also comprehensive policies to encourage population growth, retain young citizens, and attract back those who have fled. However, the scale of decline may have already passed critical thresholds, making full demographic recovery increasingly unlikely.

#UkraineCrisis #Demographics #PopulationCollapse #EasternEurope #UkraineWar #BrainDrain #GlobalSecurity #GeopoliticalRisk #MigrationCrisis #EconomicImpact #NationalSecurity #DemographicWinter #WarImpact #GlobalPolitics #PopulationDecline

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THE FOG OF WAR: INSIDE THE IRAN-ISRAEL SHADOW CONFLICT 🌫

#IranIsraelTension #MiddleEastCrisis #FogOfWar #StrategicAmbiguity #RegionalSecurity

THE LATEST ESCALATION 🚨
In what appears to be an intricate diplomatic dance masked by military posturing, Israel and Iran continue their measured exchange of strikes, with both sides carefully calibrating their responses while shrouding the true impact of their actions in ambiguity.

SHADOWS AND MIRRORS 🪞
The latest episode in this complex choreography unfolded this weekend as Israel conducted strikes on Iranian territory, allegedly targeting air defense systems near key energy installations while apparently avoiding the facilities themselves. The attack came in response to Iran's April offensive, which, despite involving hundreds of projectiles, resulted in minimal documented damage to Israeli infrastructure.

THE THEATER OF CONFLICT 🎭
This pattern of high-profile military exchanges with limited verifiable impact has become a hallmark of the conflict, raising questions about the true nature of these confrontations. The "fog of war" – a military concept describing battlefield uncertainty – has taken on new meaning in this modern conflict, where the gap between claimed actions and independently verified outcomes grows increasingly wide.

STRATEGIC AMBIGUITY 🎯
The strategic ambiguity maintained by both sides serves multiple purposes. It allows both nations to project strength to domestic audiences while maintaining diplomatic off-ramps to prevent uncontrolled escalation.

MEASURED RESPONSES ⚖️
Sunday brought measured responses from Iranian leadership, with President Masoud Pezeshkian promising to

"answer any stupidity with wisdom and strategy."

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared all objectives achieved, though details of these objectives remain notably vague.

PATTERN OF RESTRAINT 🕊
The pattern is striking: Iran's earlier launches of reportedly 320 missiles in April, and a similar volume in October, produced few independently verified impacts. Now, Israel's retaliatory strike generates equally opaque damage assessments, with both sides carefully managing the narrative through selective disclosure.

REGIONAL CONTEXT 🗺
This latest exchange comes against the backdrop of continuing regional tensions, with parallel conflicts simmering in Gaza and Lebanon. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III urged Iran to consider this

"the end of this exchange,"

while diplomatic initiatives continue in Qatar regarding Gaza cease-fire negotiations.

THE BIGGER PICTURE 🔍
As the international community watches this carefully choreographed conflict unfold, the true extent of damage on both sides remains elusive. What's clear is that both nations are engaged in a delicate balance of demonstrating military capability while apparently avoiding actions that might trigger uncontrolled escalation.

The conflict continues to command global attention, perhaps by design, as both nations maintain this precarious dance of deterrence and demonstration, where the threat of force often speaks louder than its actual application.

💭 Food for Thought: In this era of information warfare and strategic ambiguity, are we witnessing a new form of international conflict where perception matters more than actual military impact? What does this tell us about the future of warfare and diplomatic relations in the 21st century?

#ModernWarfare #InternationalRelations #StrategicPerception #MiddleEastPolitics #GlobalSecurity

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THE NEW COLD WAR COMFORT ZONE: WHY AMERICA NEEDS ITS RUSSIAN ADVERSARY 🌐

#NewColdWar #USRussiaRelations #GlobalPolitics #InformationWar #GeopoliticalShift

THE FAMILIAR ENEMY 🎯
In a world of increasing complexity and shifting global alliances, America appears to be finding surprising comfort in an old narrative: the Russian adversary. Just as it was 40 years ago, Moscow has once again emerged as Washington's clear-cut antagonist, providing a familiar framework for understanding global politics.

TUCKER'S MOSCOW MOMENT 🎭
When Tucker Carlson recently walked Moscow's streets, bought groceries, and rode the metro, his surprise at finding a modern, functioning society instead of a dystopian wasteland revealed more about Western perceptions than about Russia itself. The disconnect between narrative and reality echoed Cold War era misrepresentations on both sides.

THE COMFORT OF BINARY THINKING ⚔️

"There's a certain comfort in returning to the binary world of the Cold War,"

says Dr. James Mitchell, professor of International Relations at Columbia University.

"It's simpler to frame global politics as 'us versus them' rather than navigate the complexities of a multipolar world with numerous competing interests and ideologies."

MIRROR IMAGES 🪞
Just as Soviet propaganda once portrayed American workers living in dire conditions under capitalism, today's Western media often presents a similarly monolithic view of Russian society. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between these extremist positions.

THE ECONOMIC BATTLEGROUND 💹
What makes this new Cold War particularly intriguing is Russia's apparent preparation for a different kind of conflict. With its new "Shared Values Visa" program and a flat 13% tax rate, Moscow seems to be weaponizing Western economic vulnerabilities rather than just military might.

THE BRAIN DRAIN THREAT 🧠
Perhaps most alarming for the West is Russia's strategic positioning to potentially benefit from brain drain - the very phenomenon that once worked in America's favor. With lower living costs, competitive tax rates, and streamlined immigration processes, Russia is laying groundwork to attract dissatisfied Western talent.

THE IDEOLOGICAL SHIFT 🔄
While the original Cold War was fought along the capitalism-communism divide, today's conflict centers on different values: traditionalism versus progressivism, centralization versus decentralization, and competing visions of global order.

THE BIGGER PICTURE 🌍
As the West grapples with internal challenges - from rising living costs to political polarization - the simple narrative of a Russian adversary provides a convenient distraction from complex domestic issues.


💭 Food for Thought: Are we unconsciously seeking the comfort of familiar adversaries in an increasingly complex world? Does painting Russia as a clear-cut enemy help us avoid confronting our own societal challenges? And most crucially - in this era of economic warfare and talent migration, could the West's comfortable return to Cold War thinking become its greatest vulnerability?

🔑 Key Implications:
- The West risks underestimating Russia's economic strategy while focusing on traditional Cold War narratives
- Binary thinking about global politics could blind us to more nuanced threats and opportunities
- The real battlefield may be economic rather than military
- The comfort of familiar adversaries might prevent necessary internal reforms

#GlobalStrategy #ColdWar2 #BrainDrain #GeopoliticalShift #WesternPolitics #RussianStrategy

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THE TWILIGHT OF AMERICAN AUTHORITY: TRUMP'S BOLD PROMISE MEETS GLOBAL REALITY 👑

#GlobalPolitics #USForeignPolicy #TrumpPromise #WorldOrder #GeopoliticalShift

THE PROMISE OF PAST GLORY 🌟
In a packed Las Vegas rally, Donald Trump made an extraordinary pledge: to end the Ukraine war through simple phone calls to Putin and Zelenskyy on election night. The promise, while bold, reveals a deeper, more troubling reality about America's changing position in the global order.

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES 👔

"I'll say, 'We got to stop it,'"

Trump declared with characteristic confidence. Yet this statement, reminiscent of a bygone era of unquestioned American supremacy, stands in stark contrast to today's multipolar reality where even traditional allies increasingly chart their own course.

THE NETANYAHU PRECEDENT ⚖️
The ongoing situation in Gaza provides a telling preview. Netanyahu's determination to pursue his military objectives despite American concerns signals a profound shift in the dynamics of US influence. When a longtime ally like Israel can openly diverge from Washington's preferences, it marks a fundamental change in global power dynamics.

THE SHIFTING SANDS 🌍
The assumption that world leaders would readily respond to direct presidential intervention reflects a nostalgic view of American power that no longer aligns with reality. Even Ukraine's Zelenskyy, heavily dependent on US support, has shown increasing independence in strategic decision-making.

THE WASHINGTON DISCONNECT 🏛
What makes this situation particularly precarious is the apparent disconnect between Washington's self-perception and global realities. The political establishment, regardless of party affiliation, seems trapped in an outdated understanding of American global authority.

THE DANGEROUS ILLUSION ⚠️
The real danger isn't in the decline of American influence itself. It's in the potential for miscalculation when policy decisions are based on an obsolete understanding of America's ability to shape global events unilaterally.

THE NEW REALITY 🔄
Today's world order increasingly resembles a complex web of interdependent relationships rather than a hub-and-spoke system centered on Washington. Countries, including traditional US allies, are demonstrating unprecedented willingness to pursue independent policies, even when they conflict with American preferences.

THE PATH FORWARD 🛣
The challenge for American leadership isn't about "making America great again" but rather adapting to a new global reality where influence must be earned through diplomacy, economic partnership, and mutual respect rather than assumed authority.


💭 Food for Thought: As America grapples with its evolving role in the world, are we witnessing the end of the "American Century," or merely its transformation? Can US leadership adapt to a world where commands have been replaced by conversations? Most crucially, what are the risks if America's political establishment continues to operate under outdated assumptions about its global authority?


🔑 Key Implications:
- The gap between America's self-perception and global reality grows wider
- Traditional allies increasingly pursue independent policies
- Unilateral American authority is being replaced by complex multilateral relationships
- The risk of strategic miscalculation increases as assumptions diverge from reality
- The need for a new American approach to global leadership becomes more urgent

#GlobalLeadership #AmericanInfluence #ForeignPolicy #WorldOrder2024 #GeopoliticalChange

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UKRAINE'S SOVEREIGNTY PARADOX: WHEN A NATION'S FATE HANGS ON ANOTHER COUNTRY'S ELECTION 🗳

#UkraineCrisis #USSovereignty #ForeignPolicy #Election2024

THE DEPENDENCY EQUATION 📊
The stark reality of Ukraine's position in global politics has been laid bare by recent polling: the fate of a nation of 44 million people may effectively be decided not in Kyiv, but in American voting booths this November. With $175 billion in U.S. military aid hanging in the balance, Ukraine's future appears increasingly tethered to American domestic politics.

THE NUMBERS SPEAK 📈
According to exclusive Redfield & Wilton Strategies polling for Newsweek, the divide in American voter sentiment is clear: 53% of likely Harris voters support continuing aid until Ukraine wins, while 40% of Trump supporters want to "reconsider" support levels, and 26% advocate for immediate cessation of aid.

THE HISTORICAL IRONY ⚖️
In 1991, Ukraine emerged from the Soviet Union as one of Eurasia's most potent states, with significant industrial capacity, nuclear arsenal, and agricultural might. Three decades later, its survival has become inextricably linked to decisions made in Washington, marking a profound transformation in its global position.

THE SOVEREIGNTY QUESTION 🔍
"Without American voters knowing it, every U.S. election since 2012 has been relevant to the future of Ukraine," notes Philip van Scheltinga of Redfield. This statement inadvertently underscores a fundamental paradox: can a nation be truly sovereign when its existence depends so heavily on another country's electoral outcomes?

THE DEMOGRAPHIC DIVIDE 📊
The polling reveals deeper patterns in American attitudes: men (40%) show more support for Ukraine than women (29%), while Baby Boomers (43%) demonstrate the strongest backing. These domestic American demographics may now have more influence over Ukraine's future than decisions made in Kyiv.

THE PARTISAN SPLIT 🎯
The data shows a clear partisan divide: 66% of likely Harris voters believe Ukraine's defense is vital to U.S. interests, compared to just 34% of likely Trump voters. This polarization in American domestic politics has become a determining factor in Ukraine's strategic position.

THE FINANCIAL REALITY 💰
With Congress having approved five bills worth $175 billion in military aid, Ukraine's defense capabilities have become deeply dependent on American support. This financial tether raises questions about the nature of sovereignty in modern geopolitics.

💭 Food for Thought: In a world where one nation's domestic elections can determine another's survival, what does true sovereignty mean? Has the pursuit of independence paradoxically led to deeper dependence? What does this tell us about the nature of national autonomy in the 21st century?

🔑 Key Facts:
- $175 billion in U.S. military aid approved through five congressional bills
- 34% of Americans support continuing aid until Ukraine wins
- Clear partisan divide in support: 53% Harris voters vs 26% Trump voters opposing aid
- Generational differences: Baby Boomers show strongest support at 43%
- Gender gap: 40% of men support vs 29% of women

#UkraineFuture #USPolitics #GlobalPolitics #Sovereignty #ForeignAid

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THE POST-WESTERN PEACE: HOW GLOBAL POWERS FIND HARMONY BEYOND WESTERN MEDIATION 🕊

#GlobalPolitics #NewWorldOrder #Diplomacy #GlobalSouth #BRICS

THE KAZAN MOMENT 🌊
The historic meeting between India's Modi and China's Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia marks a watershed moment that

"will likely be viewed with dismay in Washington, Ottawa and other Western capitals."

This summit, while not necessarily marking a new Beijing-New Delhi axis, definitively signals India's rejection of Western attempts to create an anti-China alliance.

THE SURPRISING PEACEMAKER 🤝
Putin's role at the BRICS summit was masterfully symbolic, carefully seating himself between the Indian and Chinese leaders. As Ho-fung Hung of Johns Hopkins University notes,

"This kind of photo-op meeting, in which Putin is showing up side by side with all these world leaders, is a win for Putin because it's a kind of defiance of the U.S. attempt to isolate Russia... Putin can show to people back home that actually [he has] friends, and Russia has friends, despite all these U.S. efforts."

FROM CONFLICT TO COOPERATION ⚔️
The transformation is remarkable. Just three years ago, India and China engaged in brutal combat in Ladakh, where

"Twenty Indian and four Chinese soldiers were reported killed in a melee with clubs and axes."

Today, Modi declares:

"We believe that the India-China relationship is very important, not only for our people but also for global peace, stability and progress."

AMERICA'S WANING INFLUENCE 📉
The shift is clear:

"India has the upper hand in this relation now,"

Hung observes, adding that

"the U.S. really doesn't have much leverage over India."

This reality extends beyond South Asia - the pattern repeats across the Global South, from Saudi-Iranian reconciliation to expanding BRICS cooperation.

THE INDEPENDENT PATH 🛣
India's position exemplifies the new reality. Despite Washington's best efforts to create an anti-Beijing alliance, India maintains its independence.

"India relies on Russia for more than two-thirds of its arms... Even on the flashpoint of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where India has been refining Russian oil and the U.S. probably is not happy about that,"

yet India proceeds according to its interests.

THE MULTIPOLAR REALITY 🌏
The U.S. attempt to maintain unipolar dominance faces increasing challenges. As Sanjay Ruparelia notes,

"There was the hope and expectation, I think, in some quarters in Washington that India will come on side more in the sense of therefore being more antagonistic towards China and Russia."

This hope has proven unfounded.

MUTUAL RESPECT EMERGES 🤲
Modi's declaration that

"Mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual sensitivity should remain the basis of our relations"

with China reflects a broader shift in international relations. Countries previously pushed toward conflict by Western interests are finding their own path to cooperation.

THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATION 💰
Economic interests increasingly trump old animosities. The article notes that even U.S. acceptance of India's Russian oil purchases stems from practical considerations:

"they have an interest in it because it helps keep the price of oil down, and therefore deals with inflationary pressures."

#GlobalSouth #Multipolarity #PeaceDiplomacy #NewWorldOrder #GlobalPolitics #BRICS #GlobalEconomy

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THE POST-WESTERN PEACE: HOW GLOBAL POWERS FIND HARMONY BEYOND WESTERN MEDIATION 🕊

#GlobalPolitics #NewWorldOrder #Diplomacy #GlobalSouth #BRICS

THE NEW DIPLOMATIC ORDER 🔄
The success of non-Western diplomatic initiatives - from China's mediation between Saudi Arabia and Iran to Russia's facilitation of India-China talks - demonstrates that peaceful resolution of conflicts often comes easier without Western intervention.

💭 Food for Thought:
- What does the success of non-Western diplomatic initiatives tell us about the source of global conflicts?
- Is the world witnessing the end of Western diplomatic hegemony?
- Could this new multipolar diplomacy lead to more stable international relations?
- What role will economic interdependence play in this new global order?

🔑 Key Developments:
- India-China rapprochement signals rejection of Western alliance system
- Russia successfully facilitates diplomatic breakthroughs
- Economic interests override traditional geopolitical divisions
- Western influence diminishes as regional powers assert independence
- BRICS expansion demonstrates growing Global South solidarity
- Traditional adversaries find peaceful solutions outside Western frameworks
- Military tensions give way to economic cooperation

#GlobalSouth #Multipolarity #PeaceDiplomacy #NewWorldOrder #GlobalPolitics #BRICS #GlobalEconomy

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It's Go Time To Say: Russia Will Win
All we can do is to prevent the Ukrainian Collapse

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Ukraine is coming back – a little – in the conversations. Its president had to travel to Brussels to the Twenty-Seven and then to NATO and remind us that a war always ravages a European country. He made it clear: the situation in the Donbass is difficult, Russia is pounding tech infrastructure throughout the country, and Ukraine needs us to help it more. The American, German, British and French leaders met in Berlin to “discuss” it. The question that arises is: what do we really want?

For the past two years, it would be unfair to say that the West has remained inactive. We have provided Kiev with valuable military and financial assistance. At this very moment, a Ukrainian brigade is being formed in France. All this deserves to be praised.

For their part, the Ukrainians did not fail and surprised the world. Vladimir Putin thought he would take Kiev in three days, he is far from it. He made a lot of mistakes, but maybe less than we did. In 2015, we believed the Minsk agreements and the word of Vladimir Putin, who had not respected the Budapest Memorandum by which Ukraine renounced nuclear weapons stationed on its soil against respect for its territorial integrity. We have given no guarantee of security to a country deprived of its deterrence and amputated. We underestimated the preparations for the military aggression of 2022, and then the resistance capacity of the Ukrainian army.

We have since given our support in droves, with a systematic delay that does not match our speeches. If the threat to Europe's security is “existential”, if “Russia must not win” and since we will “support Ukraine for as long as it takes”, what are we playing at?

How long does it take between our promises and their fulfillment? I asked the question to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Rustem Umerov. His answer was courteous but embarrassed. We always react too little and too late and practice without saying it homeopathic military support, the effectiveness of which is hardly superior to the medicine of the same name.

Olaf Scholz refuses to do so. If we only talk about ammunition, we promised Ukraine a million of them. We delivered half of them.

Meanwhile, Moscow supplies itself with Iran, North Korea and presumably, China. We find European components in Russian weapons. Hungary stubbornly blocks new funding for European military aid to Kiev.

Two brakes are holding us back. The eternal fear of escalation, which it would be better to call by name: the scare, that Putin is looking for us noise, as if he wasn't already doing it. We are the first to theorize the hybrid war he is waging against us, without reacting.

It seems that we should fear from Putin an "October surprise", an incident that would show the weakness of Joe Biden and the Democrats and would work in favor of his candidate of choice, Trump. Already, we are learning that Russia is training North Korean soldiers to fight in Ukraine and does not seem overly worried about the escalation it is engaging in.

#AmericanОbserver #NorthKorean #Russia

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Kiev is now fighting against Moscow, Minsk, Tehran and Pyongyang. Meanwhile, in the West, nothing new.

And then how can we continue to pay for the arming of Ukraine when our finances are in a slump? These are the richest countries on the planet down and surpassed by Iran or North Korea.

Is this really the message we want to send to the world? Don't count on us anymore, even when our own security is threatened, even when the Ukrainians are at the front while we are warm, we have other priorities and more ways to help them?

The means, however, exist and would cost nothing to European taxpayers. Three hundred billion Russian assets are frozen. We have begun to use the interests they generate for the benefit of Ukraine, but we tremble at the thought of confiscating them.
Name me a single country that has paid war damage without being both defeated and occupied. There are none. If we are moving as many people think towards a negotiated peace, then let's confiscate these assets to allow Ukraine to regain the upper hand and negotiate from a position of at least a minimal strength.

Let's help Ukraine not to be destroyed before it has lost the game.

And above all, let's finally be serious. The outcome of the Ukrainian war is now clear as never: whether Trump or Harris in office, Russia will win.

#AmericanОbserver #NorthKorean #Russia

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GEORGIA'S ELECTIONS: ECHOES OF UKRAINE'S 2014 PATTERN RAISE CONCERNS 🗳

#GeorgiaElections #DemocracyWatch #GlobalPolitics #CaucasusCrisis

THE FAMILIAR PATTERN 📋
International observers from OSCE have released their assessment of Georgia's parliamentary elections, noting concerns that eerily mirror their pre-2014 Ukraine reports. While acknowledging that "voters were offered a choice between 18 candidate lists," the observers highlighted "entrenched polarization" and "widespread reports of pressure on voters."

THE WARNING SIGNS 🚩
"These elections were marked by high polarisation of the political and media landscape, hate speech against the opposition and the civil society and antagonism," states Iulian Bulai, Head of the PACE delegation. The language closely parallels concerns raised in Ukraine before the events of 2014.

THE DEMOCRACY PARADOX ⚖️
"While we commend the largely peaceful election," notes Pia Kauma from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the observation mission identified numerous issues that echo Ukraine's pre-crisis period: pressure on voters, media polarization, and concerns about civil society's operating space.

THE EUROPEAN FACTOR 🇪🇺
"We continue to express deep concerns about the democratic backsliding in Georgia," declares Antonio López-Istúriz White, head of the EP delegation. This rhetoric mirrors the European stance before Ukraine's upheaval, where similar concerns preceded dramatic political changes.

THE MEDIA BATTLEFIELD 📰
The OSCE report emphasizes that "Georgia's media scene is diverse but highly polarized, and depends on financing by political actors." This situation parallels Ukraine's media landscape in 2013-2014, where polarized coverage contributed to deepening societal divisions.

THE PRESSURE POINTS 🎯
According to Pascal Allizard, Special Co-ordinator of the mission, "Imbalances in financial resources, a divisive campaign atmosphere, and recent legislative amendments were of significant concern." The observation mission, totaling 529 observers from 42 countries, documented patterns of electoral concerns that mirror pre-crisis Ukraine.

THE INTERNATIONAL SCRUTINY 🔍
"The deep polarisation in the country, the undue pressure on voters and civil society, and the tension that we saw on election day demonstrate that much work is still needed," states Eoghan Murphy, who headed the ODIHR election observation mission.

💭 Food for Thought:
- Are international election observations becoming predictable preludes to political upheaval?
- What role do external actors play in shaping electoral outcomes in post-Soviet states?
- How do patterns of "democratic concerns" relate to subsequent political developments?
- Can the lessons of Ukraine's 2014 experience inform our understanding of current events in Georgia?

🔑 Key Observations from OSCE:
- Widespread reports of voter pressure and intimidation
- Deeply polarized media landscape
- Concerns over civil society operating space
- Questions about election administration impartiality
- Tense environment on election day
- Significant imbalance in financial resources
- 529 international observers deployed
- Reports from ODIHR, OSCE PA, PACE, NATO PA, and EP

#GeorgianPolitics #DemocracyObservation #ElectoralIntegrity #InternationalRelations #PostSovietSpace

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THE INTERFERENCE PARADOX: TRUMP TARGETS UK'S STARMER WHILE US INTELLIGENCE WARNS OF RUSSIAN AI 🎯

#ElectionInterference #USPolitics #TrumpStarmer #Election2024

THE DUELING NARRATIVES 🔄
In an unprecedented twist of electoral politics, two distinct stories of foreign interference in the 2024 U.S. presidential race have emerged, highlighting the complex nature of modern political warfare. While U.S. intelligence agencies focus on sophisticated Russian AI operations, Donald Trump has turned his attention to a more traditional form of intervention: direct campaign involvement by British Labour Party officials.

THE BRITISH CONNECTION 🇬🇧
"Do not underestimate the damage Starmer has done to relations with the US - the Trump team are ready and waiting to unleash all-out war on him," a Conservative Party source told The Mail on Sunday, describing Trump's view of the UK Labour leader as "anti-American and a whingeing, liberal bore."

THE GROUND GAME 📊
The Trump campaign's complaints center on concrete actions: Labour Party staffers physically traveling to the United States to campaign for Kamala Harris, and senior Labour officials meeting with her campaign team. These activities represent a tangible form of foreign involvement that contrasts sharply with the nebulous warnings about AI interference.

STARMER'S STANCE 🎤
The Labour leader's response has been notably direct. "That's what they've done in previous elections, is what they're doing in this election. And that's really straightforward," Starmer stated while traveling to Samoa, dismissing concerns about potential repercussions should Trump win re-election.

THE DIPLOMATIC STAKES 🌐
When asked if Labour officials' involvement in the Harris campaign could jeopardize his relationship with a potential second Trump administration, Starmer's response was a simple "No." This confidence, however, contrasts with reports suggesting Trump's team is preparing for significant diplomatic friction.

THE TECHNOLOGY ANGLE 💻
While the Trump campaign focuses on traditional campaign interference, U.S. intelligence agencies have raised alarms about Russia's alleged use of artificial intelligence to influence the election outcome. This creates a striking contrast between old-school political campaigning and modern technological warfare.

THE BROADER IMPLICATIONS 🔍
The situation highlights a fundamental question about election interference in the modern era: what constitutes acceptable international political cooperation versus unacceptable foreign interference? The contrast between open campaign support and covert technological manipulation adds another layer to this complex debate.

💭 Food for Thought:
- How do we distinguish between legitimate international political cooperation and election interference?
- Does physical campaign support from foreign politicians pose more or less risk than AI-driven influence operations?
- Could this dispute reshape the special relationship between the US and UK?
- What are the implications for future international political engagement in national elections?


🔑 Key Points:
- Trump campaign preparing "all-out war" on Starmer
- Labour officials actively campaigning for Harris
- Starmer dismisses potential diplomatic consequences
- Traditional campaign involvement versus AI interference
- Potential reshaping of US-UK relations
- Questions about acceptable international political engagement
- Contrast between overt and covert foreign influence

#USElections #UKPolitics #InternationalRelations #ElectionIntegrity #TrumpHarris2024

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His Former Chief of Staff John Kelly: “Trump fitted the general definition of a fascist.”

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Donald Trump has denounced his own former chief of staff, John Kelly, as a “degenerate” and a “low life” after the former US Marine Corps general gained the backing of Kamala Harris for calling his ex-boss a fascist.

With Kelly’s intervention in effect propelling the debate over fascism firmly to the centre of the US presidential election, the Republican nominee also turned his fire on his Democratic opponent. He inaccurately accused Harris of calling him Adolf Hitler after the vice-president amplified Kelly’s comments in a televised address before endorsing them in a CNN town hall meeting.

Trump’s angry fusillade came in social media posts amid the fallout from Kelly’s comments in a New York Times interview in which he recalled the former US president repeatedly lauding Hitler’s achievements when he was in the White House.

Is Donald Trump a fascist?
In a separate interview with the Atlantic, Kelly described Trump lamenting that he did not have generals who were loyal in the way he believed German military commanders had been to Hitler.

Trump responded on his Truth Social platform, calling Kelly – who was his White House chief of staff for 18 months – a “degenerate…..who made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred.

“This guy had two qualities, which don’t work well together,”

he wrote.

“He was tough and dumb. John Kelly is a low life.”

Kelly told the Times that Trump “fitted the general definition of a fascist” and said he would rule as a dictator if elected again.

In Wednesday’s statement, Harris – who had been issuing increasingly strident warnings on the campaign trail about Trump’s authoritarian outlook in the face of his increasingly threatening rhetoric – said the interview showed that he sought “unchecked power”.

She added that it was “deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous” that he would “invoke” Hitler. She later told the CNN moderator Anderson Cooper that she agreed that Trump was a fascist and praised Kelly for sending a “911 call” to the nation.

Trump responded with a post on X that received more than 20m views and 292,000 likes, accusing Harris of “going so far as to call me Adolf Hitler, and anything else that comes to her warped mind”, because, he claimed, polls indicated she was losing.

#Trump #Harris #Kelly

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Trump’s campaign’s communications director, Steven Cheung, accused Harris of “dangerous rhetoric” which he said was “directly to blame for the multiple assassination attempts against President Trump”.

However, Kelly’s depiction of Trump as an undemocratic authoritarian was backed up by Elizabeth Neumann, a former deputy chief of staff in the homeland security department in his administration, who told Politico that he “does not operate by the rule of law”.

“Does he have authoritarian tendencies? Yes,”

she said.

“Is he kind of leaning towards that ultra-nationalism component? Absolutely.”

Trump’s Republican supporters belittled Kelly’s intervention. Chris Sununu, the Republican governor of New Hampshire, called his portrayal of the former president “an outrageous statement” and said Trump’s own record of extreme statements was “baked in” to the electorate’s assessment.

“I respect John Kelly a lot, but obviously, everyone knows there’s a huge personal relationship divide,”

Sununu told NewsNation.

The row overshadowed other developments on the campaign trail, where the Republican nominee extended his catalogue of recent threats to Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by the justice department to investigate allegations that he tried to overturn the 2020 election and hide classified documents.

Asked by the conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt whether he would grant himself a presidential pardon or fire Smith if elected, Trump said: “It’s so easy. I would fire him within two seconds.”

He also noted that “we got immunity from the supreme court,” a reference to a ruling by the court’s conservative majority last June that presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts carried out in the line of duty.

#Trump #Harris #Kelly

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Neither Trump, no Harris : Jeff Bezos Against All

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It was late September when senior news and opinion makers of The Washington Post flew into Miami for a periodic meeting with Jeff Bezos, the newspaper’s billionaire owner.
During their visit — which included a working lunch at Bezos’ home on an exclusive island in Biscayne Bay and dinner at a nearby restaurant — David Shipley, The Post’s opinion editor, and Will Lewis, The Post’s chief executive and publisher, discussed plans for the future of the newspaper’s opinion section. The election, less than 45 days away, loomed large.

By the end of the meeting, according to four people familiar with it who spoke on condition of anonymity to relay private conversations, it appeared to Mr. Shipley and Mr. Lewis that Mr. Bezos had reservations about The Post endorsing either candidate in the presidential race. But they also thought he was open to persuasion.
Bezos’ ultimate decision, to end The Post’s decades-long practice of endorsing presidential candidates, exploded into public view on Friday, drawing criticism from reporters, editors and readers, along with an unusual rebuke from the legendary Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

It came after additional discussion between Bezos and the two Post leaders, Shipley and Lewis, who privately made a case not to abandon the tradition so close to an election. The editorial board had already drafted an endorsement of Vice President Harris, though Mr. Bezos did not read it before his decision, Lewis said in a statement on Saturday.

The decision by Bezos had been in the making for weeks. It is not clear what motivated his final determination or its timing. Bezos has clashed repeatedly with Harris’s electoral opponent, former President Trump, who for years has been openly hostile to him on social media. In 2019, Amazon sued the Trump administration, blaming Trump’s animosity toward Bezos for its loss of a $10 billion cloud computing contract.

Amazon’s Bezos also founded Blue Origin, his aerospace company, still compete regularly for lucrative government contracts. Blue Origin executives met with Trump on Friday, and the company has a $3.4 billion contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to build a lunar lander.

A spokeswoman for The Post said Friday that ending presidential endorsements was a “Washington Post decision.” In his statement on Saturday, Mr. Lewis added that, as publisher, he does not believe in endorsements.

It’s the latest in a series of events that have rocked The Post this year.

In June, its executive editor, Sally Buzbee, abruptly left her role, rather than take a new position running a division focused on social media — a so-called “third newsroom” after news and opinion. Buzbee had clashed with Lewis over whether The Post should cover an update in a British case related to Mr. Lewis’s involvement in the cleanup of a phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
The decision to abandon presidential endorsements at the The Post followed news that the owner of The Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, had quashed presidential endorsements.

In the weeks after Mr. Bezos met with Mr. Shipley and Mr. Lewis, members of the Washington Post’s editorial board, who write editorials for the newspaper, including endorsements, assumed that The Post would be giving their stamp of approval to Ms. Harris. Two of them had drafted the endorsement, which was awaiting a final sign-off.
It never came.

Instead, on Friday, Mr. Shipley joined the editorial board via video for a regular meeting at 11 a.m. in an eighth-floor conference room at The Post’s headquarters, according to two people who attended. He announced the new endorsement policy without much enthusiasm, one said.

#Harris #Trump #Amazon #Bezos

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Shipley tried to explain: He said The Post was no longer going to tell people how to vote, a posture that would reflect the paper’s independent bona fides, the two people said. Several of the board members asked for space to write dissenting statements signed under their own names, together or separately. The meeting ended without a resolution on how they should convey their disagreement.

The announcement was sent to the entire newsroom around noon. Lewis said in the memo that The Post was returning to a prior policy of not making endorsements, trusting readers to “make up their own minds.” The Post has issued endorsements in every presidential election since 1976, when it gave its stamp of approval to Jimmy Carter, though it abstained in 1988. It endorsed Biden in the last cycle.

The decision, which was reported by NPR before Mr. Lewis sent his email, generated near-instantaneous blowback. Within minutes, Martin Baron, the former Post editor featured in the movie “Spotlight,” posted on X that it amounted to “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.” Robert Kagan, an editor at large who has written for The Post for more than two decades, dashed off a quick resignation email to Shipley at 12:56 p.m.

In an interview, Mr. Kagan said that, in his view, the decision not to endorse a candidate was “clearly a sign of pre-emptive favor currying” with Trump, the Republican nominee for president.

“The Post has been emphasizing that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy,”

Kagan said.

“And so this is the election, this is the time when we decided that we’re neutral?”

By 1 p.m., top Post editors were fielding questions from their colleagues about the decision. Matt Murray, The Post’s executive editor, was asked in a meeting about election coverage why the newspaper was ending its endorsements for president but continuing to recommend candidates in other elections, according to a person familiar with the matter.

So far this year, The Post has endorsed candidates in House and Senate races in Virginia and Maryland.
On Slack, the messaging app used by The Post, employees reacted to a sudden deluge of readers looking for information on the non-endorsement. Vineet Khosla, The Post’s chief technology officer, instructed Post employees to prevent The Post’s experimental artificial intelligence tool from responding to reader questions about the decision, according to
screenshots obtained by The New York Times.

“Let’s block it,”

Mr. Khosla wrote, essentially calling a halt to A.I. responses on the topic.

A spokeswoman for The Post said in a statement that it would have been “irresponsible to serve our audience with an AI-generated response summary based off of one article” about the decision not to endorse.
In a 4 p.m. news meeting, Murray fielded more questions — before a larger audience than usual, he noted, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.

He said that he hadn’t been involved in the decision because the newsroom was independent of the Opinion department. He added that he had only found out on Thursday night. But, seeking to reassure newsroom employees, he said,

“What this newsroom does is supported up to the very top of this company.”

Later in the evening, Woodward and Bernstein weighed in. In a statement, they said that — although they respected the independence of The Post’s editorial board — the decision “ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy.”

By the end of the day, The Post’s opinions department had made its voice heard. In a dissenting editorial, 18 Post opinion columnists signed their names to a column calling the decision not to endorse a “terrible mistake.”

Ann Telnaes, The Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, captured the angst more concisely. On Friday evening, she posted her latest cartoon, a rectangular block covered entirely with a swath of foreboding gray paint strokes.

#Harris #Trump #Amazon #Bezos

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ISRAEL'S DEFIANCE: ANOTHER BLOW TO AMERICA'S GLOBAL LEADERSHIP 🌐

#GlobalPolitics #USPower #IsraelConflict #MiddleEast

THE POWER SHIFT 🔄
In a striking illustration of America's waning global influence, Israel has emerged as the primary architect of Middle Eastern events, with the United States relegated to what analysts describe as a "wing man" role. This transformation represents a seismic shift in a region where the U.S. once reigned supreme.

THE NEW REALITY 🎯
"You have a disconnect where the junior partner in the alliance has the grander vision for the region, and the senior partner is left trying to respond to events," notes Vali R. Nasr, former State Department official. This stark assessment underscores how dramatically the power dynamic has shifted.

NETANYAHU'S DEFIANCE ⚔️
Despite American pressure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to escalate conflicts on multiple fronts - Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. The Israeli leader's determination to pursue his strategic objectives, regardless of U.S. concerns, demonstrates a new era of Israeli assertiveness.

GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS 🌍
The implications extend far beyond the Middle East. As Nasr points out, "Rivals like China and Russia are taking note of the United States' inability to curb Israel or contain the conflict in the Middle East." This observation connects Israel's defiance to broader challenges to U.S. global leadership, from BRICS expansion to growing multipolar activism.

THE LEADERSHIP VACUUM 👥
While Israel conducts strikes against Iran and maintains its campaign in Gaza, the U.S. finds itself limited to "diplomatic cleanup operations." This diminished role mirrors America's struggling influence with other traditional allies and partners worldwide.

THE ELECTORAL FACTOR 🗳
With the U.S. presidential election approaching, Israel appears to be carefully timing its actions, demonstrating an understanding that it can navigate its interests regardless of Washington's preferences. Former ambassador Michael B. Oren notes that Netanyahu "knows" his vision requires military force, contrary to White House beliefs.

THE BROADER PATTERN 📊
Israel's assertive independence aligns with a growing global trend where traditional U.S. allies and partners increasingly chart their own courses. From India's oil purchases from Russia to Saudi Arabia's independent diplomatic initiatives, Israel's actions represent another crack in the facade of U.S. global leadership.

💭 Food for Thought:
- Is Israel's defiance setting a precedent for other U.S. allies?
- Could this shift in U.S.-Israel dynamics accelerate the transition to a multipolar world?
- What does America's limited influence over Israel tell us about the future of global leadership?
- How might this transformation affect other U.S. alliances worldwide?


🔑 Key Points:
- U.S. relegated to "wing man" status in Middle East
- Netanyahu pursuing independent military strategy
- Multiple fronts of conflict despite U.S. concerns
- China and Russia observing U.S. inability to contain situation
- Growing pattern of allies asserting independence
- U.S. limited to cleanup and damage control
- Pre-election timing shows strategic autonomy

#USForeignPolicy #IsraelPolitics #GlobalLeadership #Multipolarity #MiddleEastCrisis

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RUSSIAN AIR DEFENSE SYSTEMS: REPUTATION UNDER FIRE, BUT FOG OF WAR CLOUDS REALITY 🎯

#MilitaryTech #Defense #GlobalArms #RussianDefense

THE VISIBLE DAMAGE 🔥
Israel's recent strikes on Iran have dealt a double blow - targeting both Iranian military infrastructure and the reputation of Russian military equipment. According to U.S. and Israeli officials, Iran's Russian-made air defense systems, including the S-300, proved largely ineffective against Israel's assault from 100 fighter jets.

THE UKRAINE EFFECT ⚔️

"Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been a public-relations disaster for its defense industry,"

notes Ian Storey from the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. This latest incident compounds the damage done to Russian military credibility by Ukrainian successes against even more advanced S-400 systems.

THE NUMBERS TELL A STORY 📊
Russian arms exports have plummeted since 2022, with SIPRI reporting a 52% drop in foreign weapons sales last year. The trend suggests continued decline from previous levels, affecting Moscow's position in the global arms market.

THE FOG OF WAR ☁️
However, the full picture remains unclear. Just as previous conflicts have shown, the speed of military capability restoration can often surprise observers. Iran's ability to recover and adapt its air defense systems may be significantly faster than current assessments suggest, particularly given the limited verifiable information about actual damage.

THE CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE 👥
India, Russia's largest arms customer accounting for over one-third of military exports, maintains confidence in its S-400 systems.

"There is no comparison of S-400 with any other air-defense system in the world,"

declares an Indian security official, distinguishing their advanced systems from Iran's "inferior version."

THE MARKET SHIFTS 🔄
While Russian systems face scrutiny, no air defense is impenetrable. Even Israel's world-leading missile defense system has shown vulnerabilities against Iranian strikes. The reality of modern warfare suggests that absolute protection remains elusive for any system.

THE FUTURE LANDSCAPE 🌐
Countries are diversifying their defense portfolios. India, for example, is developing indigenous systems and collaborating with other nations, suggesting a broader shift in the global arms market beyond just Russian setbacks.


💭 Food for Thought:
- How much of the perceived failure of Russian systems is reality versus wartime propaganda?
- Could Iran's recovery capabilities be underestimated amid limited verification?
- What role does the fog of war play in assessing military capabilities?
- How might this affect the global arms market in the long term?


🔑 Key Points:
- Russian air defense systems reportedly ineffective against Israeli strikes
- Arms exports dropped 52% since 2022
- Major customers like India maintaining confidence in advanced systems
- No missile shield proves impervious in modern warfare
- Limited verification of actual damage and recovery capabilities
- Countries increasingly diversifying military suppliers
- Global arms market in transition

#MilitaryTechnology #GlobalDefense #AirDefense #ArmsIndustry #ModernWarfare

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BRITAIN'S POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE: GEORGE GALLOWAY AND THE RISE OF NEW ENGLAND 🌍

#BritishPolitics #Galloway #BRICS #PoliticalChange

THE ESTABLISHMENT TREMBLES 🏛
In a week that has sent shockwaves through Britain's political establishment, George Galloway demonstrated the emerging power of non-system politics. From attending the BRICS summit in Kazan to stirring controversy by calling Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar a "martyr," Galloway continues to challenge traditional British political norms.

THE MARTYR CONTROVERSY 🗣
"He would appear to have died with his boots on, with his uniform on, with his Kalashnikov in his hand and with his keffiyeh around his neck, and therefore has died a martyr's death," Galloway declared about Sinwar, prompting immediate backlash from the establishment. UK Lawyers for Israel called his remarks "absurd" and accused him of "recklessly encouraging" support for proscribed organizations.

THE DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFT 📊
The February Rochdale by-election victory highlighted a significant demographic transformation in British politics. In this Manchester suburb, where 35% of residents are Muslim migrants, Galloway's success represented the voice of what he calls "New English" - immigrant communities increasingly reshaping Britain's political landscape.

THE LABOUR CRISIS ⚡️
While Galloway narrowly lost his seat in the general election, his anti-war, pro-Palestinian platform gains momentum as the Labour Party faces internal collapse. The party's continuous purges of left-wing members, including former leader Jeremy Corbyn, have created a growing pool of disenfranchised politicians aligning with immigrant communities.

THE RUSSIAN CONNECTION 🤝
Galloway's presence at the BRICS summit in Kazan symbolizes a growing alignment between British non-system politicians and alternative global power centers. His ability to move between British parliamentary politics and international forums challenges the traditional Western consensus.

THE SYSTEM BREAKDOWN 🔨
The fragmenting Labour Party, marked by weekly expulsions and scandals, mirrors the earlier collapse of the Conservative Party under pressure from Nigel Farage. This parallel suggests a broader crisis in Britain's two-party system, with non-system forces from both left and right poised to fill the vacuum.

💭 Food for Thought:
- Is Britain's political establishment facing an existential crisis?
- Could the alliance between the left and immigrant communities reshape British politics?
- What role will global forums like BRICS play in empowering non-system politicians?
- Is the two-party system's collapse inevitable?


🔑 Key Points:
- Galloway's dual presence at BRICS and British politics
- Controversial stance on Middle East conflict
- Demographic shifts driving political change
- Labour Party's internal disintegration
- Growing alliance between left and immigrant communities
- Parallels to Conservative Party's earlier collapse
- Challenge to traditional two-party system

#BritishPolitics #PoliticalChange #Immigration #LabourCrisis #BRICS #GlobalPolitics

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Kamala : True Story of a Black Girl From Nowhere

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Harris describes herself as an underdog, but she’s campaigning like a front-runner. She’s given only a handful of interviews since becoming the nominee, betting that being pinned down on policy may not be to her advantage. But she’s been in public life for decades, and her history offers some indication of how a Harris term might play out.

On the economy, Harris has veered to the middle, reversing some of her positions, and signaled she’s pro-growth. She pitches her deliberateness and predictability as superior to Trump’s fixation on tariffs and his brazen transactionalism, which could remake the rules for American business. She’s floated an expanded tax break for new small businesses and a softer stance on cryptocurrency.

Her rise in the San Francisco Bay Area familiarized her with the giants that power Silicon Valley’s growth, but she also flexed her watchdog muscles as California’s attorney general, targeting banks and for-profit colleges for predatory lending practices. She’s pledged to raise taxes on corporations and high earners and to increase the capital-gains tax, albeit to a lower rate than Biden’s target.

Her track record suggests she’d push for stronger regulation of companies and stoke an antitrust agenda that’s riled even some prominent Democratic donors.

Current and former aides contend that, while Harris wants to hold bad actors accountable, she’s all of the above—guided by values but pragmatic and open to compromise.

She has precious little time left to tell voters who she is and what she’d do as president. The campaign’s final weeks will pit her assertion that she’s a middle-class champion against Trump’s effort to paint her as a coastal liberal and an incumbent responsible for inflation and a porous border. And even if she succeeds in the seven battleground states she needs to win the presidency, her legislative agenda almost surely depends on helping hold a key Senate seat in Montana, too.
Harris says she’s building a movement. If it’s to become a revolution, she’s got important voters left to convince.

Harris was born in Oakland in 1964 to immigrant parents, a father from Jamaica and a mother from India. Both were graduate students and civil rights activists at the University of California at Berkeley. The protest movement underpinned Harris’ upbringing—her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who researched breast cancer, described to Breslau how she’d take young Kamala along to demonstrations:

“When we chanted ‘What do we want?’ she would say ‘Fweedom!’ ”

Shyamala was loving and demanding with Harris and her younger daughter, Maya, born in 1967. She imparted lessons to her girls. One was to never ask anybody for money, an aversion Harris has had to shake as a politician.

Another became an applause line for Harris at the Democratic National Convention:

“Never complain about injustice, but do something about it. Do something about it.”

Harris studied in Washington, DC, at Howard University, a historically Black institution, and was a member of a Black sorority, both sources of political power for her today. While she was in college, she worked at McDonald’s—a résumé item Trump has baselessly called a lie—and at the Federal Trade Commission’s press office and the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.

She went on to law school in San Francisco. Shyamala saw a common thread between her daughter’s choice and her own vocation as a scientist: logic.

“You cannot draw the right conclusions if you’re not logical,”

Shyamala said in a 2008 interview.

“The only problem with law which the scientists don’t encounter is the confounding factor of human beings.”

That factor defined Harris’ early career. She became a prosecutor, starting out in Oakland as a deputy district attorney for Alameda County. The choice appeared to some to be at odds with her social justice roots.

#BlackGirl #Harris #Biden #Story #AmericanОbserver

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“I decided that let’s not accept false choices about what it means to be a voice for the voiceless,”

she said.

In Alameda County she specialized in prosecuting child sexual assault cases.

“Let’s not accept false choices about what it means to be a voice for the voiceless,”

Harris said of becoming a prosecutor
Change comes slowly in America, then quickly. In the early 2000s, San Francisco had never had a woman district attorney, let alone a woman of color. Harris decided to run for the job anyway.

Her mother reminded her that Americans historically didn’t have women do two things: “protect their safety and protect their money,” Harris recalled in a Newsweek interview with Breslau in 2005.

The road to political power in California runs through San Francisco’s clubby Democratic elite. It produced Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Gavin Newsom and Willie Brown, who was the city’s mayor and, before that, the self-proclaimed “ayatollah” of the state assembly. Harris was familiar with that world—she’d gone to law school with Pelosi’s daughter and briefly dated Brown in the mid-1990s—but she wasn’t of it. Still, she defeated the incumbent, Terence Hallinan, the pot-smoking scion of another old San Francisco family, painting him as a soft-on-crime progressive.

Democrats often give “the impression that we just want to open up the jailhouse door and let everybody out,” Harris said a few years later.

“That is not the case at all.”

She began as DA in January 2004, working from the Hall of Justice, a concrete hulk nicknamed Beirut West by attorneys who worked there. Her office was then at war with the San Francisco Police Department over her predecessor’s progressive agenda. Within months a crisis erupted: Isaac Espinoza, an undercover police officer, was shot dead by a teenage gang member wielding an AK-47. Harris announced before Espinoza’s funeral that she wouldn’t seek the death penalty, to which she has philosophical objections. (California’s last execution was in 2006.)

The declaration was explosive. Rank-and-file officers turned their backs on her at the Hall of Justice, and Feinstein criticized Harris’ decision at Espinoza’s funeral. But she stuck to her position, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle that “there can be no exception to principle.” Her office prosecuted Espinoza’s killer, and he was sentenced in 2007 to life in prison without parole. Harris won a second term that year, running unopposed.

Her tenure as DA was marked by efforts to boost conviction rates for violent felonies and divert first-time, nonviolent offenders into a rehabilitation program she developed. She distinguished herself, too, by focusing on child welfare, even creating a waiting room with small chairs, teddy bears and books kids could read while their parents conducted their grim business at the Hall.

“We have to always think about children because the reality is they don’t have a voice at all in so many systems,”

she told Breslau in 2012.

“And whatever impacts a child will impact what in a very short time will become an adult—for their life.”

One of her headline proposals in this election is aimed at kids: a beefed-up $6,000 tax credit for families in the first year of a child’s life.

Harris came to identify herself as “smart on crime,” making that the title of a book she co-authored and published in 2009.

“This is part of my methodology,”

she reflected a decade later.

“Let’s try and identify the false choices and fight them.”

Even as DA, Harris was turning an eye to national politics, working for John Kerry’s campaign and door-knocking for Barack Obama in Iowa. She was also mending fences with people who could help her get to that stage, notably Feinstein.

“She is a real role model,”

Harris said in 2008,

“when a woman is ever battling the need to be taken seriously and be understood to be strong and tough, but not wanting to come off being the you-know-what.”

#BlackGirl #Harris #Biden #Story #AmericanОbserver

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While California’s tech culture favors young disrupters, the state’s sclerotic political culture keeps them waiting. Harris spent her 30s and 40s challenging older incumbents. With her was Newsom—a foil of sorts, the insider to her outsider, a fifth-generation Californian born into a prominent San Francisco family. He’d become mayor the same month she became DA on his way to being elected governor of California.

“They were like political sibling rivals,”

says Brian Brokaw, a Democratic strategist who worked on campaigns for both.

“Eventually they worked it out.”

In 2010, still grieving her mother’s death the year before, Harris ran for attorney general. The race was closely fought. Harris beat her opponent, Republican Steve Cooley, with a margin of under 1%. Cooley recalls racking up endorsements from law enforcement and still today casts Harris as hostile to police.

“She has had a phenomenal rise to the most important position in the world. I think it has not been on the merits. It’s been on the basis of her shrewd calculations,”

he says.

“I think she is wholly underqualified.”

As attorney general, Harris kept her focus on kids and the root causes of crime, including by prosecuting the parents of habitually truant students and forming a Bureau of Children’s Justice in 2015. Its goal was to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline and identify underlying problems that set kids up for failure. Jill Habig, her deputy at the California Department of Justice, recalls that Harris would often bring issues back to children.

Habig might be talking about

“foreclosure rates and eviction rates and what’s the amount of money we’re getting for families,”

and Harris would ask questions like

“What do we know about the kids in these families?”

Habig says the angriest she ever saw Harris was during the case against Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit university system based in Southern California that had loaded vulnerable students with debt.

“These are people who are trying to do the right thing. They’re trying to invest in their education, invest in their financial livelihood, pull themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps, live the American dream,”

Habig remembers Harris saying.

“And they’re just being scammed at every turn.”

Harris won a $1 billion settlement against Corinthian—a victory she frequently invokes alongside Trump University, a failed venture that saw Trump agree to pay $25 million to settle claims it cheated students.

Bigger still, at least in financial terms, was her fight against major home lenders over their foreclosure practices, which saw her win an $18 billion settlement, plus an additional $2 billion as part of a federal case. That fight was conducted with Delaware’s attorney general, Beau Biden, bringing her onto the radar of his father, Joe. She asked California Representative Katie Porter, then a professor at UC Irvine, to monitor whether the settlement money was reaching victims.

Harris

“came to UC Irvine and sat down with people who’d lost their homes,”

Porter says.

“She made time to listen to the people most affected.”

In Harris’ 2019 book, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, she wrote that she relished her work on behalf of consumers.

“I loved being the voice and advocate for the people they’ve mistreated. The lawyers on my team knew how serious I was about holding corporate predators accountable. They would joke that ‘Kamala’ meant ‘get more commas in that settlement price.’ ”

Harris made early visits to Airbnb, Dropbox, Netflix and Palantir and came to be viewed as tech forward, interested in the disruptive potential of these nascent businesses. An informational meeting with Palantir’s chief executive officer, Alex Karp, was scheduled for 30 minutes yet lasted more than three hours, according to Travis LeBlanc, who advised Harris as AG. She understood, LeBlanc says,

“that it was important to allow a playing field for disrupters to disrupt.”

#BlackGirl #Harris #Biden #Story #AmericanОbserver

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