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U.S Attorney  Markenzy Lapointe speaks at news conference
Further

Surreal: U.S. Attorney In Charge of Trump Almost Shooting Is Haitian-American and We Are Here For It

Because things right about now can always get weirder, it turns out the Florida U.S. Attorney handling the case of the latest sick white guy inspired by hateful GOP lies about pet-eating Haitians to go hiding in the bushes to take down Trump with an AR-15 is one Markenzy Lapointe - the first Haitian-born American lawyer, and first black guy, to serve as a U.S. Attorney. We love the smell of irony and karma in the morning.

The alleged "assassination attempt," though the perp didn't fire any shots, took place at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course a couple of days after both lying authoritarian scumbags on the GOP presidential ticket re-iterated their claims that "illegal aliens" from Haiti are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, which is def speaking truth to power and house-pets except it's all racist fiction. The migrants are here legally, and no pets have been harmed or consumed in the making of this absurd campaign lie.

That hasn't stopped the two white boys with shit for brains from doubling down on what Vance already conceded on TV is a tall ugly tale, which has now seen Haitians being terrorized, schools receiving at least 33 bomb threats and Springfield officials having to evacuate schools, cancel "CultureFest" and close multiple city offices. After Vance admitted to "creating" his own furry lies, he tried also charging that immigrants are spreading HIV and TB too. Nope. More faux hillbilly lies - about his own constituents, yet.

#OHNoYouDont, said the Ohio-based Red, Wine, and Blue that's organized against the hate and fear. They've now been joined by Lapointe, Haitian-born U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and lead prosecutor of Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon after a Secret Service guy spotted his gun in the bushes where he'd waited 12 hours to claim his 15 minutes of tawdry fame, hopefully taking a moment to thank Trump for revoking gun restrictions for people with mental illness.

Lapointe, 55, was born in Port-au-Prince. He came to the U.S. as a 16-year-old who spoke no English with his mother, a street vendor with no formal education and four other kids; they all shared a cramped two-bedroom apartment in Liberty City. Lapointe worked through high school and skipped his graduation to begin boot camp after signing up for the Marines. A reservist, he was called up to serve in the Gulf War - "I felt a tremendous debt to America (as) an immigrant" - before earning finance and law degrees at Florida State.

Lapointe was nominated by Biden in 2022 and has worked with Jack Smith on the classified documents case; he calls his journey "surreal" and "blessed." Trump might not agree on the blessed part, but he's already fundraising on the latest alleged effort to get rid of him, charging, "There are people in this world who will do whatever it takes to stop us." We can relate. For now, we can also savor the fact of a Haitian immigrant whose job is both to protect and prosecute him. One sage: "Sweet like justice, Karma is a queen."

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A red Tesla is seen parked in Norway
News

'This Is Historic': Electric Vehicles Now Outnumber Petrol-Powered Cars in Norway

In what's believed to be a global milestone, electric vehicles now outnumber gasoline-fueled automobiles on Norway's roads, as the overwhelming bulk of new cars sold in recent months have been battery-powered.

Norway's Road Information Council (OFV) said Tuesday that electric vehicles (EVs) made up 754,303, or 26.6%, of the 2.8 million passenger automobiles registered in the Nordic nation. That's slightly more than the 753,905 registered gasoline-powered vehicles, but far fewer than the 999,715 diesel-burning ones.

Last month, a record 94.3% of all new vehicles sold in Norway were EVs, with Tesla's Model Y as the top seller.

"This is historic. A milestone few saw coming 10 years ago," said OFV director Øyvind Solberg Thorsen. "The electrification of the passenger car fleet is keeping a high pace, and Norway is making rapid strides towards becoming the first country in the world with a passenger car fleet dominated by electric cars."

"But it will take some time before we get there, because there are still 1 million registered passenger cars with diesel engines in the country," Thorsen noted. "The pace we are seeing in the replacement of the passenger car fleet now may indicate that in 2026 we will also have more electric cars than diesel cars."

According to OFV, there could be as many as 3.1 million EVs registered in Norway by the end of the decade.

"The rate of change in the passenger car units is difficult to predict," Thorsen cautioned. "Economic fluctuations in relation to car taxes, prices, interest rates, and other factors affect new car sales—both for private individuals and companies. And tax changes have a big impact on which cars we choose."

Norway—which is ironically Europe's second-largest oil producer—incentivizes EV purchases with generous tax rebates.

In stark contrast with Norway, electric car sales have been lagging in most of the rest of Europe, where EVs make up just 12.3% of new cars sold, according toThe Guardian.

Experts say that in order for countries to fulfill their obligations under the Paris climate agreement, zero-emission vehicles—which include EVs and hydrogen-powered automobiles—must account for around 40% of the global car and light truck fleet by 2030.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and MIT Energy Initiative forecast in 2021 that the global EV fleet will grow from just over 10 million to 95-105 million by 2030, and 585-823 million by 2050.

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recall notice for boar's head meats
News

Workers Get Boot as Boar's Head Plant Behind Listeria Deaths Shuts Down

About 500 workers lost their current jobs when Boar's Head on Friday announced the closure of the Virginia meatpacking plant behind a deadly listeria outbreak.

A chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, which represents the workers, said in a statement that the closure was "especially unfortunate" given that the workforce was not to blame for the outbreak, which killed at least nine people nationwide.

The UFCW announced that it had reached a deal with the company to allow the workers to transfer to another Boar's Head facility or receive a severance package "above and beyond" what's required by law.

"Thankfully these workers have a union they can count on to always have their backs," the union statement said.

The outbreak caused nine deaths and 57 hospitalizations, and led to the recall of millions of pounds of Boar's Head deli meat. The company has already been targeted in a number of wrongful death and other lawsuits.

Listeria, a bacterial illness, originated from the Boar's Head plant in the small town of Jarratt, Virginia, as genome sequencing tests confirmed in late July. The company said this week that the contamination had come from liverwurst processing and announced it would discontinue the product.

A 2022 inspection of the plant found that it posed an "imminent threat" to public health, according to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) records released this week. At the time, the plant already had "rust, mold, garbage, and insects on the plant floors and walls," The New York Timesreported.

Sarah Sorscher, a food safety expert at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told the Times that "they shouldn't have allowed this company to keep producing ready-to-eat products, lunch meat that's going to go on people’s tables, when they're seeing this level of violation. Consumers had to die before this plant got shut down, really is the bottom line."

More recent USDA records, which were released in late August, also showed wretched conditions at the plant.

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Trump speaks from LA golf course.
News

'Hitlerian': Trump Vows to Deport Haitians Legally in Ohio to Venezuela

U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his attack on the Haitian immigrant community of Springfield, Ohio on Friday when he promised to begin his mass deportation plan there if elected president.

"We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio, large deportations," Trump told reporters at his golf course near Los Angeles, California. "We're going to get these people out. We're bringing them back to Venezuela."

Trump's remarks come despite the fact that most of the immigrants in Springfield are from Haiti and are in the country legally. Trump had previously pledged to deport the 15 to 20 million people who he says are or will be in this country illegally by the time he takes office. Speaking on Friday, he repeated his vow to carry out the "largest deportations in the history of our country," starting in Springfield and Aurora, Colorado, where online rumors have exaggerated isolated incidents of Venezuelan gang activity.

"This is Hitlerian rhetoric," USA Today columnist Rex Huppke wrote on social media in response to Trump's statement. "That's not being hyperbolic. He's dehumanizing legal immigrants, and for some reason saying he'll deport Haitians to Venezuela. I've followed Trump since the beginning. He has devolved to his most base, hateful level, an often incoherent racist."

Schools and city buildings in Springfield have received bomb threats in recent days after Trump and his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance elevated unfounded online rumors that newly arrived Haitian immigrants in the city were stealing and eating pets. One journalist referred to the Trump campaign's rhetoric as "blood libel."

Around 12,000 to 15,000 Haitian immigrants have moved to Springfield in recent years, and the overwhelming majority are there legally with temporary protected status.

"The majority of Americans who reject this dark and dystopic vision and the lies courting violence should come together to denounce this outrageous spectacle of hatred and to chart a different direction for our nation."

"It's essential to recognize the larger strategy on display from the Republican Party and their allies," Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America's Voice, said in a statement Friday. "The lies and conspiracies about Haitians are part of a larger volume of anti-immigrant and dehumanizing rhetoric that actively courts political violence."

Cárdenas continued: "In addition to the lies about Haitians, which echo tropes like the antisemitic blood libel, Trump described this nation in increasingly violent and graphic terms... What's the potential response from an unhinged supporter hearing those words and believing those threats? It is violence like the Haitian community is fearful of, and Jewish, Latino, and Black Americans have already experienced in places like Pittsburgh, El Paso, and Buffalo."

Cárdenas also referenced a promise Trump made last Saturday that his mass deportations would be "bloody."

"The majority of Americans who reject this dark and dystopic vision and the lies courting violence should come together to denounce this outrageous spectacle of hatred and to chart a different direction for our nation," Cárdenas said.

Meanwhile, an immigrant rights group in Colorado also spoke up against Trump's deportation threats.

"Trump's fear mongering is as dangerous as it is dishonest," Gladis Ibarra, the co-executive director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said in a statement. "He doesn't care about Aurora or Colorado. He's using us as political pawns to push a racist agenda that paints our entire community in a bad light, and we won't fall for it. Immigrants are our teachers, our neighbors, our parents, and our children. We will not let them be demonized or ripped from our communities."

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Rep. Ilhan Omar
News

Amid GOP Outrage Over Witnesses, Omar Welcomes Hate Crimes Hearing

On the eve of a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about "stemming the tide of hate crimes" nationwide, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on Monday commended the panel's chair, Sen. Dick Durbin, for "hosting this groundbreaking yet overdue" event.

Discrimination against Jews and Muslims has significantly increased in the United States since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel and the U.S.-backed Israeli retaliation on the Gaza Strip, which critics worldwide call genocide. In May, Durbin (D-Ill.) vowed to hold a hearing "in response to the ongoing and persistent rise in antisemitism and other forms of bigotry across the country."

The committee announced last week that it had scheduled a Capitol Hill hearing for 10:00 am Tuesday to "examine how we can better protect Jewish, Arab, and Muslim Americans, and other vulnerable communities from bigoted attacks."

Durbin—who has faced calls from Republican committee members to hold a hearing focused on "the civil rights violations of Jewish students" and "the proliferation of terrorist ideology"—said at the time that "hate crimes are a threat to justice everywhere. Sadly, no community is immune from violent acts of hate. Congress cannot turn a blind eye to it."

"We must stand united against hate in all its forms and reaffirm our commitment to justice, equality, and the protection of all Americans, regardless of their race, faith, or national origin."

Omar (D-Minn.) expressed gratitude for Durbin's broader event, saying Monday that "this vital hearing is a crucial step in addressing the alarming rise of hate crimes across our nation, particularly those targeting Muslim, Jewish, and Palestinian Americans."

"I'm glad this committee hearing will address the rise in hate felt by thousands across the country, I hope this hearing serves as a catalyst for meaningful action," she continued. "We must stand united against hate in all its forms and reaffirm our commitment to justice, equality, and the protection of all Americans, regardless of their race, faith, or national origin."

Omar is an outspoken opponent of Israel's assault on Gaza and U.S. support for it. She fled war in Somalia as a child and is one of only a few Muslim members of Congress—and while in office, she has endured intense racism, sexism, Islamophobia, and death threats. Some of the hate has come from fellow federal lawmakers.

Her praise for the hearing came amid reports that some Republicans and Jewish groups are unhappy with Democrats' witnesses: Arab American Institute executive director Maya Berry and Kenneth Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate.

Notably, when Stern was with the American Jewish Committee, he helped craft the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. He has since accused right-wing groups of "weaponizing" it in their efforts to conflate criticism of Israeli government policies and practices with anti-Jewish bigotry.

Describing both Berry and Stern as "at odds with Jewish communal leaders," Jewish Insiderreported:

In his opening statement to the committee, obtained by Jewish Insider ahead of Tuesday's hearing, Stern will testify that "advocating for genocide against anyone of course should be robustly condemned; but the mere expression of such ideas (whether intended as such or heard as such) should be countered, not as a matter for discipline."

Stern will also say that it is a good thing that David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, did not face any disciplinary action when he spread Nazi propaganda on Louisiana State University's campus as a student in 1968. "This would have allowed him to claim the status of martyr, and changed the subject to his right to speech as opposed to the content of his hate," Stern will say.

"Berry's written testimony focuses primarily on hate crimes data and reporting, and federal enforcement of hate crimes laws," according to Jewish Insider. The outlet added that the Republican witness Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, "is set to express support for the IHRA definition."

In response to Jewish Insider editor in chief Josh Kraushaar's social media post sharing the report, Center for International Policy executive vice president Matt Duss said, "Translation: testimony from Ken Stern and Maya Berry, who are both widely respected authorities on these issues, makes it harder to use this hearing as part of the campaign to suppress pro-Palestinian activism."

While this will be the first Senate hearing on hate crimes since last October, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has held multiple, mostly focusing on campus anti-genocide protests. Critics have argued that the lower chamber's events have pushed university administrators to enable violent law enforcement crackdowns on students demonstrating against Israel's assault on Gaza.

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Francesca Albanese
News

UN Experts Warn Israel Risks 'Pariah' Status Over Gaza Genocide

United Nations human rights experts warned Monday that Israel risks becoming an international "pariah" over its ongoing assault on Gaza—for which it is on trial for genocide at the world body's International Court of Justice.

The special rapporteurs—who are appointed by the U.N. but do not speak on its behalf—condemned Israel's human rights violations against Palestinians, as well as its blatant disregard for international law and multiple rulings from the ICJ.

These include an advisory opinion that the 57-year Israeli occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid that must immediately end, and orders for Israeli forces to avoid genocidal actions in Gaza and to immediately halt the Rafah offensive.

George Katrougalos, the U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion of democratic and equitable international order and a former Greek foreign minister, said during a press conference that the "first obligation" for harmonious relations between nations "is for everybody to respect the United Nations rules."

"This is not happening in the case of Israel," Katrougalos noted.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian relief says that around 200 of its staff members have been killed in more than 450 Israeli attacks on agency facilities since October. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed while seeking shelter under the U.N. flag.

Overall, more than 146,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October. Almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced, and Israel's "complete siege" has caused widespread starvation—sometimes deadly—and sickness throughout the coastal enclave.

Comparing the international community's reaction to Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Israel's war on Gaza, Katrougalos stressed that "we cannot anymore stand this kind of double standards and hypocrisy."

"I trust that the progressive and democratic citizens of Israel would not let their country become a pariah like South Africa [had] become during the times of apartheid," he added. South Africa is leading the genocide case against Israel at the ICJ.

Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, said that "I think it's unavoidable for Israel to become a pariah in the face of its continuous, relentless, vilifying assault of the United Nations, on top of millions of Palestinians."

"Shockingly, in the face of the abyss reached in the OPT... most member states remained inactive at best, or [are] actively aiding and assisting Israel's criminal conduct," she continued.

"Should there be a consideration of its membership as part of this organization, which Israel seems to have zero respect for?" Albanese added.

Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, warned that "we are blowing up the United Nations if we don't react" to Israel's human rights violations.

Arrojo-Agudo added that, as with starvation, Israel is using deprivation of water as a "weapon" and disavowed Israel's claim that Hamas—which led the October 7 attack on Israel—has "completely mismanaged water in Gaza."

The special rapporteurs' remarks came as representatives of U.N. member states gathered in New York for this year's annual General Assembly. General debate sessions are set for next week.

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