Hate

Election Day is one week from today. I am ready for this election season to be over. I am thinking that a post-election secondary storyline is going to be how bad the polls were. I think folks know what I am talking about. We will see.

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Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver remarks this evening from the Washington D.C. site where Donald Trump launched the insurrection on January 6, 2021. I will be watching.

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The featured photo is the racist who dropped hate bombs on Puerto Rico at Sunday’s Hate Rally held at Madison Square Garden.  

Thanks to Donald Trump and some irresponsible media, we have way too much hate in our politics. CNN certainly deserves its share of credit for promoting hate. This happened last night on CNN. See this from the Daily Beast:

Right-wing personality Ryan Girdusky was unapologetic in his first comments since being booted from CNN after suggesting a Muslim co-panelist was a terrorist on Monday night. Girdusky was removed and later banned from CNN after his appearance on NewsNight in which he told journalist Mehdi Hasan, “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” after a discussion surrounding Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally went off the rails. The quote is a reference to recent pager bombings in Lebanon that killed at least 42 people. Hasan had expressed support for Palestine when Girdusky made the verbal jab. The comment sent shockwaves across the live panel, and Girdusky was ultimately removed, while Hasan chose not to return to the panel after a commercial break. CNN later confirmed Girdusky was gone for good, saying in a statement, in part, “There is zero room for racism or bigotry at CNN or on our air.” Despite apologizing on air during the confrontation, Girdusky had fewer apologies later. “You can stay on CNN if you falsely call every Republican a Nazi and have taken money from Qatar-funded media. Apparently you can’t go on CNN if you make a joke. I’m glad America gets to see what CNN stands for,” he wrote in a post on X.

CNN’s Abby Phillips was hosting the show last night and after they went to a commercial break, here is what she said:

We’re back here, and before we get started, I just wanna address what happened in the last segment. First, I want to apologize to Mehdi Hasan for what was said at this table. It was completely unacceptable. When we get this discussion started, you’ll see that Ryan is not at the table. There is a line that was crossed there, and it’s not acceptable to me. It’s not acceptable to us at this network. We want discussion. We want people who disagree with each other to talk to each other.

But when you cross the line of a complete lack of civility, that is not going to happen here on this show. It’s a heated time. We’re in the middle of a political season. We are eight days from a presidential election. But we can have conversations about what is happening in this country without resorting to the lowest of the lowest kind of discourse. Want to address that.

And I want to apologize to the viewers at home because we wanna be able to hear each other. We wanna be able to talk to each other. And we plan to do that in this next segment.

This Girdusky fella has White Supremacists ties. Why invite him on the air in the first place. Commentary gave up on CNN a while back. CNN is not sincere. They keep bringing on election deniers and folks that promote the hate movement. Oh, well.

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Here is refreshing political news from People:

Barbara Pierce Bush, the daughter of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush, spent part of her weekend in Pennsylvania campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris with just days to go before the 2024 presidential election.

“It was inspiring to join friends and meet voters with the Harris-Walz campaign in Pennsylvania this weekend,” Barbara, 42, shares in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE on Tuesday, Oct. 29. “I’m hopeful they’ll move our country forward and protect women’s rights.”

Barbara’s Republican father served as president from 2001 to 2009. Her mother, former first lady Laura Bush, 77, broke with the party’s stance in 2010 by saying she supports same-sex marriage and abortion. At the time, Laura said abortion should “remain legal, because I think it’s important for people, for medical reasons and other reasons.”

Here is the entire People read: George W. Bush’s Daughter Barbara Pierce Bush Endorses Kamala Harris: Exclusive.

Barbara Pierce Bush’s politics are 180 degrees from her cousin P, that’s for sure. It is good to see some Bushes with their heads right.

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This fella deserves to be put in prison. Disgusting. See this from AP:

BOSTON (AP) — The owner of two Boston-area pizza shops convicted of forced labor for using physical violence and threats of reprisal or deportation against employees living in the country illegally has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison.

Stavros Papantoniadis, 49, of Westwood — the owner of Stash’s Pizza, a Massachusetts pizzeria chain — was sentenced Friday in federal court to 102 months in prison, one year of supervised release and ordered to pay a $35,000 fine.

Papantoniadis forced or attempted to force six victims — five men and one woman — to work for him and comply with excessive workplace demands through violent physical abuse; threats of violence and serious harm; and repeated threats to report the victims to immigration authorities for deportation, according to prosecutors.

In June, a jury convicted Papantoniadis of three counts of forced labor and three counts of attempted forced labor. Papantoniadis has remained in custody since his arrest in March 2023.

A lawyer for Papantoniadis said he’s pursuing a new trial and an appeal.

“Although the judge saw fit to sentence him slightly beneath the guidelines, we are disappointed in the length of the sentence,” Carmine Lepore said in an email. “The sentencing guidelines applicable to this case are more appropriate for human traffickers and sexual servitude defendants.”

And this:

Papantoniadis thinly staffed his pizza shops, and deliberately hired workers without immigration status to work behind the scenes, for 14 or more hours per day and as many as seven days per week, investigators said.

To control the undocumented workers, he made them believe that he would physically harm them or have them deported and monitored them with surveillance cameras. When Papantoniadis learned that one victim planned to quit, he choked him, causing that victim to flee the pizza shop.

When another worker tried to leave and drive away from one of Papantoniadis’ pizza shops, Papantoniadis chased the victim down Route 1 in Norwood, Massachusetts, and falsely reported the victim to the local police to pressure the victim to return to work at the pizza shop, prosecutors said.

Here is the entire read: Pizza shop owner sentenced to 8.5 years for threatening workers | AP News.

What a scumbag.

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In this century, there have been four World Series sweeps. The Red Sox swept the Cardinals in 2004, the White Sox swept the Astros in 2005, the Red Sox swept the Rockies in 2007, and the Giants swept the Tigers in 2012. The Dodgers could very well sweep this evening.