TRUMP WILL WIN. UNLESS BIDEN GOES. KAMALA HARRIS ON HER OWN BEATS TRUMP. WITH BIDEN TRUMP WINS. How about HARRIS-CLOONEY?

 

George Clooney ain’t a run of the mill movie star:

George Clooney's video diary from Sudan and Chad - Part 1

So I’m bunking with George Clooney in a little room in a guest house here in eastern Chad, near Darfur in Sudan. We each have a mattress on the floor, the “shower” is a rubber hose that doesn’t actually produce any water, and George’s side of the room has a big splotch of something that sure looks like blood.

He’s using me to learn more about Darfur, and I’m using him to ease you into a column about genocide. Manipulation all around  and, luckily, neither of us snores. (But stay tuned to this series for salacious gossip if he talks in his sleep.)

The slaughter in Darfur has continued for six years largely because world leaders have been complacent and preoccupied. In the coming weeks, the International Criminal Court is expected to issue an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for orchestrating the killings  and that will give the world a new opportunity to end the slaughter.

But to seize that opportunity, world leaders will have to summon some of the same moral courage that Darfuris show all the time.

Take Suad Ahmed, who is in the pantheon of my personal heroes. I introduced her to George in her little thatch hut.

Suad, 27, fled from Darfur to a refugee camp in Chad five years ago with her husband and beloved younger sister, Halima, who is now 12  if she is still alive.

Then Sudan dispatched its janjaweed militias into Chad to slaughter members of black African tribes  applying to eastern Chad the same genocidal policies that had already gutted Darfur.

Shortly before I met Suad two years ago, she was out gathering firewood with Halima. A group of janjaweed fired into the air and yelled at them to stop.

Suad, who was married with two children and another on the way, ordered Halima to run back to camp. Then Suad made a decoy of herself and ran loudly in the opposite direction, making sure that the janjaweed saw her.

That night, after the janjaweed had left, the men from the camp found Suad semiconscious in the bush, brutally beaten and raped.

Suad refused medical treatment, for fear that word would get out that she had been raped, and she didn’t even tell her husband, instead saying that she had been robbed and beaten. Yet she revealed the full story to me and allowed me to use her name.

I grilled her to make absolutely sure she understood the dangers of publicity  from stigma and revenge  and finally asked her why she was willing to assume the risks. She replied simply, “This is the only way I have to fight genocide.”

Ever since, in a world that has proved so craven in the face of Sudan’s genocide, Suad’s courage has haunted me. Thus on this trip I tracked her down and introduced her to George and to Ann Curry of NBC News, who for years has borne powerful witness to the madness of Darfur.

Alas, Suad’s latest news isn’t good. Her back, injured in the beating, still pains her. She doesn’t dare go outside the camp to get firewood, so she must buy wood, which leaves the family poor and short of food. Her baby, Abdel Malik, whom she was carrying at the time of the rape, is one and a half years old and was just hospitalized for malnutrition.

The most heartbreaking news concerns Halima. Ten months ago, Halima decided to go back to Darfur to the camp where her parents were living. They had sent messages that they were sick, and that there were too many soldiers around for them to escape to Chad.

So Halima, at age 11, resolved to walk back through janjaweed lines into Darfur to rescue her parents and bring them to safety.

The girl disappeared into the desert.

“I haven’t heard from her since,” Suad said grimly. “I don’t know if she got there, or if she was killed on route.” Suad has spent a fair amount of money trying to call people in the camp to find out news of her sister and parents, but she has found out nothing. We tried with our satellite phones and couldn’t get through either.

This is my 10th trip to Darfur and the area around it, and people always ask how reporters and aid workers keep their sanity among such horrors. Yet the truth is that genocide spotlights not only the worst of humanity, but also the best  the courage and altruism of people like Suad and Halima.

So the most indelible memories I will take back from the region aren’t from my famous roommate on the mattress beside me, but from uncommon heroes like Suad and Halima. We can learn so much from them.

FROM:

The New York Times

Sisters, Victims, Heroes

Nicholas D. Kristof

Feb. 21, 2009

GOZ BEIDA, Chad

***

"Most of the money I make on the [Nespresso] commercials I spend keeping a satellite over the border of North and South Sudan to keep an eye on Omar al-Bashir [the Sudanese dictator charged with war crimes at The Hague]. Then he puts out a statement saying that I'm spying on him and how would I like it if a camera was following me everywhere I went and I go 'well welcome to my life Mr War Criminal'. I want the war criminal to have the same amount of attention that I get. I think that's fair."

al-Bashir was recently reported to have fled Nigeria in an attempt to avoid being arrested on war crimes and human rights violations. Human rights leaders accuse the Sudanese president of committing gruesome atrocities in the Darfur region of the country. 

Clooney's humorous take on the situation shouldn't be mistaken for glibness on the actor's part. The Satellite Sentinel Project, Clooney's spy program, tracks the movements of Sudan's brutal army and attempts to warn civilians in advance of attacks. The 52-year-old was also arrested last March in a protest at the Sudanese embassy in Washington D.C. At the time, Clooney told The Huffington Post that the goal "is the same goal it's been all along and will continue to be and not be accomplished today or anytime in the near future, but it's a job that we have to continually do which is raise attention."

FROM:

Huffington Post UK

George Clooney Spends Nespresso Paycheck On Spy Satellite To Keep Tabs On Omar Al-Bashir

The Wild Way George Clooney Is Spending His Paycheck

By 

Kia Makarechi

31/07/2013 02:40pm BST

Updated August 1, 2013

🎶 Bye-bye Aileen bye-bye Aileen you’re on Don’s dump list now.🎵

“Jack Smith quickly delivers REALITY CHECK to Judge Cannon”

When Trump figures out that Judge Cannon unintentionally screwed him she goes on his enemies list. 

 

In Coatesville, Chester County PA WE DID CHANGE OUR FUTURES AT THE BALLOT BOX. CHESTER COUNTY DEMOCRATS replaced the FINANCED BY DRUG MONEY CHESTER COUNTY REPUBLICANS who CONTROLLED US WITH FEAR.

Former Chester County DA Joe Carroll said “A man was murdered in a room with 8 people and no one saw anything.” The murder was at the former VFW in Coatesville's East End. 

He discovered that Coatesville drug dealers would find out that someone from Coatesville went to the Chester County Courthouse before they got back home. Not only the person giving information about a murder, but their family & entire extended family would be threatened. 

Joe rehabbed a house in Coatesville & invited anyone to stop by for a conversation. We began to solve the murders in Coatesville. 

At the Clerk of Courts Office at the Chester County Courthouse I asked to see Richard Legree’s criminal record. 25 minutes later as I was walking in my back door a man knocked on my front door. 

He said “Don’t go looking into Richie’s records.”

Nobody but the people in the courthouse knew I was at the courthouse.

***

“Members of the crowd react as the shooter at Trump's Pennsylvania rally opens fire. Veterans Ken Harbaugh and Mike Breen both spent time in countries torn by civil conflict, and discuss what it will take to prevent political violence in America from spiraling out of control.”

Republican politicians advocating for violence as often seen in their political ads firing assault weapons could backfire in unimagined ways to bring violence to their doorstep. 

POLITICAL VIOLENCE FEEDS INTO FASCISM. ONLY THE PRACTICE OF DEMOCRACY BY VOTING CAN BRING POLITICAL CHANGE BENEFICIAL TO ORDINARY PEOPLE.

My only disagreement with Ken Harbaugh and Mike Breen is that the Republican Party’s shift to violence didn’t happen this July. 

Violence became Republican Party policy during the Obama 08 Campaign. 

The near miss of an apparently untrained sniper’s bullet only made the world aware of that basic shift from democracy to terrorism among the leadership of the Republican Party. 

I was greeted by a uniformed security guard when I walked into the Coatesville Obama Headquarters.  There were around the clock security guards posted at the Obama Campaign Headquarters in Coatesville and each staffer had some sort of personal security. I believe that the same thing happened at all the Obama Campaign Headquarters in Chester County and even some nearby counties.

FROM:

Thursday, September 30, 2010

I never was told the reasons for the high security at the Obama Campaign Headquarters in Coatesville.

KID with AR-15 MISSED TRUMP by ¼ INCH? meh. CONSISTENT USE OF AR-15s in REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES ADS & REPUBLICAN ENDORSED JAN 6TH STORMING THE CAPITAL MADE POLITICAL VIOLENCE ORDINARY! THIS IS NEWS: Criminal Investigation-JUSTICE THOMAS

 New York Times

Democrats Seek Criminal Investigation of Justice Thomas Over Travel and Gifts

The senators said the Supreme Court justice’s failure to disclose lavish gifts and luxury travel showed a “willful pattern of disregard for ethics laws.”

By Maya C. Miller

Reporting from WashingtonJuly 9, 2024

A woman in our photo group at a nature center went to Poland to visit relatives. In a castle she was told to be careful. No glass in the windows. In feudal times falling out of windows was SOP for assassins. Assassins not elections decide who would be king.

The basic fact that kings had tasters & constant threat of murder by their own family members is lost on Federalist Society Supreme Court members and those clamoring to serve at King Donny’s Whitehouse. 

If England was a democracy back in Shakespeare’s day all his plays would be variations of A “Midsummer Night's Dream.”

And I might add that assassination by falling out of windows is not a Putin thing, it’s as old as Russia. 

But Federalist Republicans believe kings are really cool and democracy should die. 

There’s a main takeaway for the Secret Service’s allowing a bullet to come within a centimeter of exploding Donald J. Trump’s head.

If you run for office any office local or national in America in 2024 understand that no matter what party you choose the best security you can afford ain’t enough to insure you won’t be murdered. 

When my friends David DeSimone-R, Bill Chertok-D & Ingrid Jones-D were Coatesville City Council members, Coatesvillle PD made sure they got home safely. David got a remote starter for his truck. R-PA Rep.Tim Hennessey’s Office Manager sold crack.

I followed Bill home. At the time R-Rep.Tim Hennessey’s Coatesville Office Manager Lisa Johnson was a crack manufacturer/dealer. 

Looking at a video of the DJT shooting my son remarked that they, followers of Trump, don’t know to get down when shooting starts. 

In Coatesville we know to drop to the floor.

We’ve been dealing with violence around election time for decades in Coatesville PA. Violent elections are a new thing for nationwide politics.

RollingStone

Trump Responds to Rally Shooting, Says He Was ‘Shot With a Bullet’

By Nikki McCann Ramirez

July 13, 2024

 

“Why's he laughing?”-“He got the joke.” Coworkers about me in a restaurant. I was about 50. I’m near 81. Won't happen now. Wouldn’t hear it. I know a man who could run a marathon but he'd get lost. Everybody knows someone with dementia. Biden has that look.

 

UPDATE:

TRUMP'S ENTIRE CAMPAIGN IS CENTERED TO ATTACK JOE BIDEN.

"One of the two principals tasked with returning Trump to the White House, LaCivita had long conceived of the 2024 race as a contest that would be “extraordinarily visual”—namely, a contrast of strength versus weakness. Trump, whatever his countless liabilities as a candidate, would be cast as the dauntless and forceful alpha, while Biden would be painted as the pitiable old heel, less a bad guy than the buatt of a very bad joke, America’s lovable but lethargic uncle who needed, at long last, to be put to bed."

FROM: 

The Atlantic

Trump Is Planning for a Landslide Win

And his campaign is all but praying Joe Biden doesn’t drop out.

By Tim Alberta

July 10, 2024

“Making small talk with the current and former presidents while preparing for a photo, the donor said that she and Obama shared a brief joke that Biden initially seemed to miss. The current president only attempted a retort ‘in a barely audible voice’ after the photo was over and others had moved on, she said.

“The media … has done an abominable job of prioritizing what’s important and what’s not. We are on the brink of going down the road of a dictatorship. That is more important than anything else … We’re in 1933, we’re not 1938, we have the chance to stop the train.” - Jennifer Rubin

 

Biden campaign staff and allies have characterized the criticism as unfair and retroactive second-guessing, pointing to the president’s travel and his stamina through the roughly three-hour long event. They note, too, that the Kimmel portion of the evening was open to the media.

‘Several reporters were present for the President’s interview with Jimmy Kimmel at the L.A. fundraiser,’ Lauren Hitt, a campaign spokesperson, said in a statement. “None of them reported out anything like this at the time.”

The donor said she and her husband were asked by friends after the event about Biden’s condition and “struggled to answer them honestly,” fearful of eroding Biden’s support.

‘We were worried that if we told the truth — that President Biden was stiff, slow and dare we say it, fragile — that we risked losing their support for the president,” said the donor. “It was painful to be deceptive. Now, we realize we were not alone in withholding what we experienced.”

Another donor said he focused on what he considered the evening’s high points, such as Biden’s rousing slam on the Supreme Court’s recent rulings.

‘You want to believe in the possible,’ he said.

The fundraiser appears to have been a breaking point for Clooney. In an op-ed in the New York Times on Wednesday, he wrote that he loved and supported Biden — but that he believed Biden should drop out of the race, in part because of what he had observed at the event…”

“Biden ‘gave us a bunch of malarkey, and I’m really pissed,’ said Ari Emanuel, CEO of entertainment conglomerate WME, speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival the day after the debate. Emanuel — whose brother, Rahm, was picked by Biden to be ambassador to Japan — suggested that donors should stop giving to the president’s campaign. The Biden campaign or White House hasn’t contacted him since his criticism, Emanuel said in an interview Wednesday.

‘Let’s go with the bullpen please. Let’s go with relief,’ Damon Lindelof, the producer and showrunner behind TV shows ‘Lost,’ ‘The Leftovers,’ and ‘Watchmen,’ wrote in a column for Deadline last week, calling for a “DEMbargo” on donations until Biden drops out.

Clooney’s column in the New York Times this week went further, calling on Democrats in Congress to speak out and help push for a new nominee.

‘The dam has broken. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth,’ Clooney wrote.

Other Biden supporters at the fundraiser have stayed with the president. Hahn, who performed at the event, joked about calls for Biden to drop out of the race when she guest-hosted Kimmel’s show on Monday.

“Here’s the thing: I would vote for a skeleton over Donald Trump,” she said.

“In fact,” she said, “I may literally be voting for a skeleton.”

Tyler Pager, Aaron Schaffer, Shawn Boburg and Michael Kranish contributed to this report.

MORE AT:

Inside the glitzy fundraiser where Biden lost George Clooney

At the June 15 event at L.A.’s Peacock Theater, some donors said this week that they noticed Biden seemed slow. He seemed frail. As he greeted donors lined up for photos, he trailed off or spoke too quietly in small talk conversation to be heard.

Dan Diamond

July 12, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT