If Barack Obama was America’s first Facebook president, and Donald Trump its first Twitter president, then Kamala Harris, should she win, is poised to become our first TikTok president, and not merely because her campaign has proven more skillful than her opponent’s at utilizing the platform.
I think it wise to just vote and ignore the polls and pundits, many of whom are dealing from the bottom of the deck and bluffing. I’d also ignore those doomsters who claim on the basis of the 2020 election that it will be stolen. Sure, as I note below, there has been and will be a lot of cheating, but the Republicans are getting better at monitoring it and reducing it. Sure, the press is lying again, but as I show below, the legacy media has blown its credibility and alternate content providers are capturing audiences away from them.
As the major presidential candidates proclaim their faith credentials in the final days of the election, it’s noteworthy that Kamala Harris got her big boost into politics from a lover who was a close ally of the cultic mass murderer Jim Jones.
In 1978, Jones led more than 900 followers to their deaths in the jungles of Jonestown, Guyana, by having them drink poisoned juice. It was one of the darkest days of the revolutionary after-life of the 1960s in America.
Back in those far-off days when colour TV was still brand-new and expensive, my grandfather saw a newspaper advert for a series of special screens which, if you only placed them over the top of your usual TV, the spiel said would immediately and miraculously render the image in full Technicolor for a fraction of the price of a new machine. Sending off for it, he was disappointed to receive a packet full of flimsy rectangles of various-coloured cellophane which you were supposed to stick to the set so that it looked like everything on it was suddenly being viewed through the prism of a single different hue of the rainbow. If he had only thought to pin the brown one up over an early 1950s BBC Jane Austen adaptation, he could have invented Bridgerton seven decades early.
Joe Biden was visiting Pittsburgh while nearby JVP protesters demanded a ‘ceasefire’ that would save Hamas. One of the protesters was Talya Lubit, a recent college graduate, who told the media, “We’ve been begging and pleading for a ceasefire for six months now.”
h/t Patti Jo
Commonwealth leaders concluded last week’s summit in Samoa by announcing that Britain should commit to reparations for its role in the transatlantic slave trade.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer had tried to refocus the summit around ‘future-facing’ challenges such as climate change. His chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was more blunt. She told the BBC last week that ‘We’re not going to be paying out the reparations that some countries are speaking about’. Yet in the end, it was to no avail. A day later, the 56 heads of government, including Starmer, signed a letter agreeing that ‘the time has come’ for a ‘meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation’ about Britain paying reparations.
The modern American bureaucratic state revealed itself in all its absurd glory last week, not through some grand policy initiative or sweeping regulation, but through the tale of a squirrel known as “P’Nut.” In an era of endless crises — migrant surges, shrinking police forces, rising urban crime, housing shortages — New York state marshalled its considerable resources toward a singular mission: dispatching 10 agents to conduct an extensive raid targeting a rescue animal with a social media following.
A Lebanese ship captain abducted by Israeli special forces may have been acting as a double agent.
Imad Ahmaz, described by the Israeli military as a “senior Hezbollah operative”, was extracted from a residential building in Batroun, 20 miles north of Beirut, in Lebanon, on Friday.
At least 12 naval commandos from Shayetet 13 – Israel’s version of the Royal Navy’s Special Boat Service (SBS) or the US Navy’s SEALs – were involved in the dramatic raid, which was launched from an unknown location in the Mediterranean sea.
The executive director of the Giller Prize privately told authors that she was working to end the Giller’s financial partnership with its lead sponsor, Scotiabank, amid growing controversy surrounding the bank’s ties with an Israeli arms manufacturer.
But despite behind-the-scenes assurances from Elana Rabinovitch that the foundation responsible for the literary award was planning to “extricate” itself from Scotiabank, the organization appeared to abruptly change direction, publicly doubling down on the partnership, which began in 2005.
Not just a Canadian thing …
Purging Jews From the Arts
Sally Rooney is a clarifying figure in the literary world. She does not go for complexity or nuance, and she doesn’t like to leave herself open to interpretation. Rooney has now written the same novel four times, likely to avoid any possible confusion over what it is she wants to say. And rather than hide behind some disingenuous claim of “just anti-Zionism,” she does things like oppose her last novel’s translation into Hebrew, an act of overt hostility to Jews and only Jews.
h/t Patti Jo
“A silent majority of the Sikhs do not want to have anything to do with Khalistan. They just don’t speak out because they’re afraid of violence and violent repercussions,” reports Ujjal Dosanjh, as a Sikh living in Vancouver, B.C.
The call for a separate Sikh homeland in Punjab, India — to be called Khalistan — has been brewing since the 1930s, when British rule in India was nearing its end. Although the movement now has marginal support in India, it has taken wings in Canada and escalated into the present derailing of relations between two friendly Commonwealth democracies, India and Canada.
This mess is on Trudeau.
He provided a safe haven for Khalistan militants in exchange for Sikh votes never thinking there might be repercussions.
Not that he cares.
Kamala Harris’ appearance on Saturday Night Live instantly drew comparisons to Hillary Clinton‘s ill-fated performances on the show in previous elections.
The vice president laughed throughout her skit with Maya Rudolph on Saturday’s episode, putting on a similarly giggle-filled performance to Clinton in 2008 and 2016.
Kamala Harris SNL skit DIRECTLY copied Trump’s from 2015.
Can she do ANYTHING original at all? https://t.co/RX3zMprYfo pic.twitter.com/wwbdVJgig1
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) November 3, 2024
Michael Moore Pleads with Nonvoters to Back Kamala: ‘Just as a Favor for Me’
Michael Moore is pleading with non-voters to back Vice President Kamala Harris. “Just as a favor for me,” he said.
“Can I ask that you do it just as a favor for me? It really is that important to me,” Moore implored non-voters in a Saturday blog post, adding, “There is, honestly, too large of a part of me that believes we may be truly at our end.”
OMG!
“Kamala did what Kamala always does. She put her head down and went to work.” – Doug Emhoff
One of the greatest unintentional admissions of all time pic.twitter.com/au7Smr1FaG
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 3, 2024
h/t Mauser
Reality according to the CBC.
A majority of black Canadians were born outside the country, with most arriving after 1971, according to newly released data from Statistics Canada.
Blacklock’s Reporter says these findings contrast with federal claims that income disparities in black communities stem primarily from Canada’s legacy of slavery and systemic exploitation.
Do you have an exit strategy for leaving the US if Trump wins?
This woman is working on it. pic.twitter.com/KFg5Oak0bT
— Dr. Jebra Faushay (@JebraFaushay) November 2, 2024
If there is one thing I’ve learned in my time writing this column, it’s that readers, especially those who read regularly, would rather I be direct, precise and dead wrong, than prevaricating, wishy-washy and possibly correct.
So here goes.
Donald Trump is going to win the 2024 U.S. presidential election. On election night. Decisively.
Many at Blackie’s Star must be in tears at this moment for publishing such Blasphemy.
My gut says landslide. Hope it’s not gas.
