All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

It’s official: Democrat Conor Lamb wins Pennsylvania special election in major upset

It’s official: Democrat Conor Lamb wins Pennsylvania special election in major upset:

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In a stunning upset, Democrat Conor Lamb won an incredibly close special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, beating out Republican candidate Rick Saccone in a deeply conservative district the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rated R+11.

The race stretched into Wednesday midday, when CNN reported Lamb was in the lead with 627 votes, with 100 percent of precincts reporting. State law does not mandate a recount in district-level elections.

Conventional wisdom suggested that Saccone — a candidate who once declared himself “Trump before Trump was Trump” — would do well in a district that turned out in droves for President Donald Trump in 2016. But in recent weeks, Republicans were in full panic mode, dumping more than $9 million into the race. Lamb’s victory shows they were right to be so worried.

And it wasn’t just Republicans who feared losing this district — it was Trump himself.

In many ways, PA-18 was emblematic of Trump’s presidential success story; the president carried the district by 20 points in 2016, along with much of the rest of western Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was one of the blue-collar Rust Belt states he was never supposed to win but won anyway, in a stunning rebuke to Hillary Clinton.

Along with Wisconsin and Michigan, the Keystone State carried Trump to victory on Election Day 2016. It’s a story he often recounts at rallies, including the one he held for Saccone in Moon Township, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

Voting for Saccone is exactly what the president wanted his supporters to do. Trump cared enough about Saccone winning that he joined him on the campaign trail multiple times and sent Vice President Mike Pence and members of his family, including son Donald Trump Jr. and daughter Ivanka Trump, to stump.

He even pushed a controversial announcement on steel and aluminum import tariffs so it would land a week before the special election.

None of it worked.

Trump voters ended up either staying home or proving they could just as easily cast their votes for a Democrat with the right message, especially when Trump wasn’t the candidate on the ballot.

Conor Lamb won a district Democrats weren’t supposed to be competitive in

On its face, Tuesday’s special congressional election in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania was supposed to be a breeze for the GOP. The Cook Political Report rated the district R+11, due in part to partisan gerrymandering that the state Supreme Court recently ruled unconstitutional.

Political analysts in the state agreed that the district’s gerrymandering was part of the reason it was supposed to be impossible for Democrats to win. This is a seat that used to be so solidly Republican that Democrats didn’t even bother competing in it.

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For the record, there are 119 GOP held districts that are LESS RED THAN THIS DISTRICT.

Keep this up, keep voting, and canvassing in every district and every race, hold them accountable for their traitorous and inhumane actions.

For the first time, we have a Democratic challenger in every single district, even the deepest red ones.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre closed to protest ‘abhorrent’ municipal bill

PNN / Bethlehem

In an unprecedented move, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City was closed on Sunday, and will remain closed indefinitely in protest of municipal legislation that would allow Israeli authorities to expropriate Church land.

The heads of the churches who jointly manage the Church of the Holy Sepulchre announced the closure outside of the church on Sunday.

Copies of their written statement called the ‘Church Land’s Bill’ a ‘flagrant violation of the existing status quo’ that ‘breach(es) existing agreements and international obligations which guarantee the rights and privileges of the Churches, in what seems as an attempt to weaken the Christian presence in Jerusalem.’

‘The systematic campaign of abuse against Churches and Christians reaches now its peak as a discriminatory and racist bill that targets solely the properties of the Christian community in the Holy Land,’ the statement continued.

The religious leaders, representing the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, The Custody of the Holy Land, and the Armenian Patriarchate, likened the legislative measures to the ‘dark periods’ in Europe in which Jewish land was often subjugated and expropriated.

The bill in question concerns land that was sold by the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches since 2010.

Previously, the land, which amounts roughly 50 hectares and containing more than 1,000 housing units, was leased to the Jewish National Fund by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate for housing purposes.

The decision made by the Greek Orthodox authority to sell the land complicates the matter, and drew the ire of the Christian community in Israel and Palestine.

The new bill proposes that should any land leased by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to the JNF or to any other party be sold, it would be assumed by the state who will compensate whoever makes the purchase.

The bill would grant the state ultimate authority over lands sold by the church.

The bill is set to be presented before a ministerial comity on Sunday.

Ben & Jerry’s Maker Ditches London HQ For Sole Dutch Base

News
Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods multinational whose vast stable of brands includes Dove, Knorr and Ben & Jerry’s, has opted to have its sole headquarters in the Netherlands rather than Britain, ending a dual structure that goes back nearly 90 years.
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Contributed Author: 
MIKE CORDER and PAN PYLAS, Associated Press
Topics: 

Donald Trump admits making up ‘facts’ in trade meeting with Justin Trudeau

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US president told donors ‘I had no idea’ when he complained to Canada’s prime minister over (non-existent) trade deficit

Donald Trump bragged that he made up facts in a meeting with the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, according to an audio recording obtained by the Washington Post.

The US president – notorious for making false claims on countless issues – admitted he told Trudeau that America has a trade deficit with its neighbour when he “had no idea” if that was true.

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Trump Organization ‘negotiated with sanctioned Russian bank in 2016’

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Claim is contained in memo by Democratic lawmakers investigating possible collusion between Trump campaign and Kremlin

Donald Trump’s private company was “actively negotiating” a business deal in Moscow with a sanctioned Russian bank during the 2016 election campaign, according to a memo by Democratic lawmakers investigating possible collusion between the campaign and the Kremlin.

Related: House committee led by Trump ally says campaign did not collude with Russia

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Peter Thiel: Europe is cracking down on Silicon Valley out of ‘jealousy’

Legitimizer of neo-nazis, white supremacists, right-wing nuts via Paypal fundraising and selling hate material!! More money stolen via Paypal employees through cyberfraud than almost any other source.

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PayPal co-founder says regulators envy industry’s success in US: ‘There are no successful tech companies in Europe’

European regulators are clamping down on Silicon Valley companies because they are “jealous” of the success of the technology industry in the US, according to PayPal co-founder and investor Peter Thiel.

Speaking about the looming threat of regulation for these companies, Thiel said that the “threat is probably greater in Europe” and there are “good reasons and bad reasons”.

Continue reading…