Shocked by Brexit, we launched the first party for the Erasmus generation | Colombe Cahen-Salvador

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The vote to leave the EU made me take action. We now have Volt, a party offering a different kind of politics

Before Brexit I never thought deeply about Europe. I benefited from the European Union, studied its shortcomings and achievements, yet it had always seemed to be a given. But 23 June 2016 changed everything. On the morning of Britain’s vote to leave the EU I was on the phone to my partner, Andrea Venzon, and felt devastated. I grew up in France and studied law in the UK. Andrea and I had always planned to move to London some day. It just made sense: I’m French, he’s Italian, and we’d first met there. We represent the generation who have been able to study across Europe as part of the Erasmus scheme. Suddenly we had to rethink everything. I was 22.

During that call, Andrea said something that struck me: “Let’s stop complaining and actually do something.” Since bad politics had brought us here, good politics might be the answer. He had the right idea: to start a progressive, pan-European movement. We called it Volt: a word that’s understood across borders and shows we want to bring new energies to Europe.

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Wednesday Open Thread | Meet Ben Jealous

Meet Ben Jealous – the Democratic Nominee for Governor of Maryland.

If you can give, please do. Even if you can’t, pass this info onto others.

Meet Ben.

Ben Jealous is a civil rights leader, community organizer, investor in startups for good, educator, former investigative journalist and a Rhodes Scholar who has spent his life bringing people together to get big things done.

He specializes in building diverse coalitions for change and holding government leaders accountable to the needs of everyday people.

Ben’s Maryland roots go back generations. His grandparents lived in Baltimore, where Ben’s grandfather worked on the B&O Railroad and his grandmother at Planned Parenthood. Ben’s mother grew up in the McCulloh Homes public housing complex in West Baltimore and helped to integrate Western High School in 1954 as a member of the NAACP’s Youth and College Division. Ben’s father was one of a small number of white men jailed during the Congress of Racial Equality’s efforts to desegregate Baltimore’s downtown business district.

Ben grew up spending summers in West Baltimore and has lived in Maryland throughout his career as a civil rights leader and businessman.

Ben has extensive experience as a non-profit executive, serving as the past president of the Rosenberg Foundation, and the founding director of Amnesty International’s U.S. Domestic Human Rights Program.

At age 35, Ben was named the youngest ever National President and CEO of the NAACP. During the depths of a national recession, Ben guided the NAACP through an unprecedented era of growth, nearly doubling the organization’s revenue in just five years. Online activists grew from 175,000 to more than 600,000 while donors increased from 16,000 individuals per year to more than 120,000. The NAACP’s membership increased three years consecutively for the first time in 20 years under Ben’s leadership.

 

Ben used his background as a community organizer and executive to press the NAACP forward in expanding and protecting the civil rights of all Americans. The NAACP opened national programs focused on education, health and environmental justice and worked on issues related to the economy and voting rights.

In 2013, Ben was named Marylander of the Year by the Baltimore Sun because of the role he played in leading the effort to abolish the death penalty, helping assure the effort to pass marriage equality was successful, chairing the effort to pass the DREAM Act, and expand voting rights.

Ben JealousThroughout his NAACP tenure, Ben worked with governors from California to Iowa, developing plans to help end mass incarceration and expand civil rights, and helped to pass numerous landmark pieces of legislation during President Obama’s first term in office.

As a community organizer Ben helped lead successful campaigns to abolish the death penalty for children, stop Mississippi’s governor from turning a public historically black university into a prison, and pass federal legislation against prison rape.

While working as a journalist in Mississippi, Ben’s investigations were credited with helping save the life of a white inmate who was being threatened for helping convict corrupt prison guards, free a black small farmer who was being framed for arson, and spur official investigations into law enforcement corruption.

Ben JealousBen currently works as an investor for Kapor Capital, an investment firm that invests in companies working to create progressive social change. At Kapor, Ben manages the firm’s Baltimore office where he has invested in several Maryland companies working to make our state stronger.

Ben is a graduate of Columbia and Oxford University and comes from a long line of activists. He is also the proud father of two children who attend public schools.

Elon Musk calls Thailand diver ‘child rapist’ in latest baseless attack

Needs some superglue to hold himself together – narcissists often do.

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Tesla CEO, who previously called Vernon Unsworth a ‘pedo’, has faced widespread backlash over his comments

Elon Musk has escalated his baseless attacks against a British diver, claiming without evidence that the man who helped rescue children from a cave in Thailand was a “child rapist” in an email to a reporter.

The embattled Tesla CEO faced widespread backlash in July when he first called the diver Vernon Unsworth a “pedo” in a tweet – an unfounded claim against a man who was part of the international team that freed 12 young footballers and their coach from the Tham Luang cave complex. Musk, who had unsuccessfully attempted to assist the rescue mission, eventually apologized to Unsworth.

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Tony Blair has ‘friendly, positive meeting’ with Italy’s Matteo Salvini

He would – always ready to sell out himself or his country.

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Far-right minister believed to have discussed Azerbaijani gas pipeline project with ex-PM

Tony Blair has held a meeting with the Italian far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, during which the pair are believed to have discussed controversial plans to extend a gas pipeline from Azerbaijan to southern Italy.

The Italian minister had previously said he was willing to hear the former British prime minister’s views on the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, an Azerbaijan-backed project on which Blair has worked as a consultant since 2014.

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Trump to chair UN security council meeting on Iran | World news | The Guardian – it will be the height of clownishness 

President will highlight Iran’s ‘violations of international law’ during gathering this month, US ambassador Nikki Haley said

Source: Trump to chair UN security council meeting on Iran | World news | The Guardian

Canada PM indicates he will not bend on key NAFTA demands at talks | Reuters

Trudeau made clear, however, he would insist on keeping the so-called Chapter 19 dispute-resolution mechanism that Washington wants to scrap. “We will not sign a deal that is bad for Canadians, and quiet frankly, not having a Chapter 19 to ensure the rules are followed would be bad for Canadians,” he said. He also said existing protections that ban U.S. media firms from buying Canadian cultural industries such as television stations and newspapers must be maintained.

Source: Canada PM indicates he will not bend on key NAFTA demands at talks | Reuters

Why are no Israeli officials refusing to meet with Duterte? | +972 Magazine

In the past two years, Duterete’s security forces have purchased significant amounts of Tavor assault rifles, Galil and Gilboa rifles, Negev machine guns, and Masada pistols. The firearms purchases are set to assist Duterte in keeping his murderous promises. During his presidential campaign, he pledged to kill 100,000 people during his first six months in office, and in October 2016, he said people can expect 20,000 to 30,000 more casualties. “Yad Vashem,” Israel’s Holocaust memorial center, hosted Duterte on Monday, even though he is a mass murderer who has threatened to implement martial law, and who has compared himself to Hitler. The tour facilitators at “Yad Vashem” will explain the rise of the totalitarian government in Germany, the dehumanization of Jews, and the extermination process to him. Absurdly, the remembrance center rejected a request to cancel Duterte’s visit, claiming that they are merely obeying the orders of the Foreign Ministry. Yet there is no legal prohibition on defying the protocol . Is it possible that not a single employee at “Yad Vashem” has the conscience to refuse to cooperate with this shameful visit?

Source: Why are no Israeli officials refusing to meet with Duterte? | +972 Magazine

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