Bolsonaro In Renewed Attack On Voting System


By AFP News
05/19/22 

Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday renewed his attacks on the country's electronic voting system ahead of October elections in which he will face off against favorite Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro, lagging in opinion polls behind leftist ex-president Lula, has long sought to discredit the voting system in place since 1996, saying last year he would not recognize the election outcome unless the whole operation was replaced.

On Thursday, he told a meeting in Rio de Janeiro: "We cannot have an electoral system over which the shadow of suspicion hangs."

Voters in Brazil cast their ballots electronically at voting stations. But Bolsonaro has long argued for a paper printout to be made of each vote cast, suggesting the absence of a paper trail makes cheating easier.

He has not provided evidence of fraud, and the Superior Electoral Court insists the system is transparent and has never been tainted by irregularities.

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro's comments about the country's electronic voting system have led analysts to fear that he may refuse to accept defeat in a scenario similar to the January 2021 invasion of the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump 

Photo: AFP / EVARISTO SA

Electronic voting allows for same-day election results in the giant country of 213 million people.

Earlier this month, Bolsonaro said his political party would sign a contract with a private company to audit the election.

And this week, he said Brazil could have "turbulent" elections.

"Imagine that on the evening of the vote, one side or the other has the suspicion that the election was not above board. We don't want that," he said on Thursday.

His repeated questioning of the system has prompted the Supreme Court to open an investigation into Bolsonaro.

His comments have led analysts to fear that he may refuse to accept defeat in a scenario similar to the January 2021 invasion of the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump, a hero of Bolsonaro's.

EDF’s UK Nuclear Project Cost Swells, Pushing Start Further Back

Francois de Beaupuy
Thu, May 19, 2022,


(Bloomberg) -- Electricite de France SA’s flagship Hinkley Point C nuclear plant project will cost more than expected and take longer to complete as the pandemic, supply-chain disruptions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine boost the cost of materials and weigh on progress.

EDF now expects the two reactors it’s building in Southwest England to cost between £25 billion ($31.2 billion) and £26 billion, the French energy giant said in a statement Thursday. That’s up from a previous range of £22 to £23 billion.

It’s the fourth budget increase in five years. The company also pushed back the date when the first reactor will produce power by 1 year to June 2027.

“People, resources and supply chain have been severely constrained,” EDF said in the statement.

The two reactors are blazing a trail for a nuclear renaissance in Britain, as the government seeks to boost the country’s energy independence and reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. While rising costs of metals, cement and labor are affecting numerous industries, the revised plan may revive a controversy over how expensive the technology is and whether further holdups are inevitable.

The reassessment comes as EDF is in talks with the UK government to arrange financing for a second UK nuclear plant that would use the same design. Delays and cost overruns may put off investors at a crucial point in negotiations for the proposed Sizewell project. Reactors compete for investor capital with renewables, which provide returns much quicker.

EDF has previously increased the Hinkley Point budget in 2017, 2019 and in January 2021, from an initial estimate of £18 billion when the contract was signed with the U.K. in 2016. The debt-laden French utility has a 66.5% stake in Hinkley Point C and China General Nuclear Power Corp. owns the rest. The cost overruns may force the French company to take on a larger part of the project.

New one year delay at UK Hinkley Point nuclear plant: EDF


PUBLISHED : 20 MAY 2022
WRITER: AFP

Hinkley Point, in southwest England, is Britain's first new nuclear power plant in more than two decades

PARIS - An already-delayed giant nuclear plant in southwest England will open a year later than planned and cost up to pound sterling3 billion more than previously thought, French electricity giant EDF said Thursday.

The total cost of Hinkley Point C, which aims to provide seven percent of Britain's total power needs, had already swelled to as much as pound sterling23 billion and had been due to begin generation in June 2026, already well behind schedule.

Hinkley Point is Britain's first new nuclear power plant in more than two decades.

"The start of electricity generation for Unit 1 is targeted for June 2027, the risk of further delay of the two units is assessed at 15 months, assuming the absence of a new pandemic wave and no additional effects of the war in Ukraine," EDF said in a statement adding that costs were now estimated between pound sterling25 billion ($31 billion, 30 billion euros) and pound sterling26 billion.

EDF said in its statement that there would be no additional cost to British consumers.

"During more than two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, the project continued without stopping. This protected the integrity of the supply chain and allowed the completion of major milestones. However, people, resources and supply chain have been severely constrained and their efficiency has been restricted.

"In addition, the quantities of materials and engineering as well as the cost of such activities, including, in particular marine works have risen," it added.

- 'Risky and expensive' -

Britain has a total of 15 nuclear reactors at eight sites around the country, but many of them are now approaching the end of their lifespan.

However, the government wants to maintain the 20 percent of electricity it generates from nuclear to help meet its pledge to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 and tackle climate change.

Critics have focused on the proposed design, which uses a new European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) system that has been beset by huge cost overruns and delays at sites in France and Finland.

Britain's National Audit Office has long criticised the scheme, with the watchdog saying the government has "locked consumers into a risky and expensive project with uncertain strategic and economic benefits".

Launched in 1992 as the pinnacle of French nuclear technology, the EPR was originally developed by Areva in a joint venture with Germany's Siemens, which later withdrew.

Later taken over by EDF, the project called for a plant able to operate for 60 years using pressurised water technology, the most widely-used in reactors around the world.

Similar problems to those at Hinkley have hit EDF's project at Flamanville in western France, although the firm has successfully launched two reactors with Chinese partners in Taishan, China.

US says 'Hotel Rwanda' hero 'wrongfully detained'


AFP

The United States said Thursday it has determined that "Hotel Rwanda" hero Paul Rusesabagina has been "wrongfully detained" by Kigali, which handed him a 25-year prison term.

Rusesabagina, who holds US permanent residence and Belgian citizenship, has denounced Rwandan President Paul Kagame as a dictator and was sentenced by a court on "terrorism" charges.

"The Department of State has determined Paul Rusesabagina is wrongfully detained," a spokesperson for the agency said.

"The determination took into account the totality of the circumstances, notably the lack of fair trial guarantees during his trial," it said.

The designation requires the State Department, which has earlier voiced concern about the case, to work to free him.

Rusesabagina, then a Kigali hotel manager, is credited with saving hundreds of lives during the 1994 genocide and his actions inspired the Hollywood film "Hotel Rwanda."

He has been behind bars since his arrest in August 2020 when a plane he believed was bound for Burundi landed instead in Kigali.

His family in a statement voiced hope that the designation will bring "increased pressure" from the United States on Rwanda to free him.

"Most importantly, Rusesabagina's health is deteriorating, and his family fears that he will die in jail in Rwanda if something is not done by the United States and others to free him," it said.

"He is a 67-year-old cancer survivor who appears to have suffered one or more strokes in recent months," it said, adding that visitors had recently noticed he was experiencing pain in his left arm.

Rusesabagina's family recently filed a $400 million lawsuit in the United States against Kagame, the Rwandan government and other figures for allegedly abducting and torturing him.

Rusesabagina was convicted in September of involvement in a rebel group blamed for deadly gun, grenade and arson attacks in Rwanda in 2018 and 2019.

sct/des

Russia's invasion of Ukraine sets off Latin American fertilizer race




Portuguesa is an agricultural region known as Venezuela's 'granary' 

(AFP/Yuri CORTEZ)

Esteban ROJAS with Latin American bureaus
Thu, May 19, 2022,

The first rainy season downpour in Venezuela's western region of Portuguesa has fallen and now it's time to plant corn, a staple in this South American country known for its traditional arepas.

But just like much of Latin America, the race is on to find enough fertilizer for the crops.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine 10,000 kilometers away has limited the supply of the key agricultural supplement throughout the region.

Some 80 percent of the 180,000 metric tons of fertilizers used annually in Venezuela are imported, mostly from Russia but also from Ukraine and Belarus, according to the Fedeagro union of agricultural producers.

Western sanctions against Russia and Belarus, as well as Ukraine's difficulties in exporting while under siege, has left the whole of Latin America scrambling to find replacements.

Russia is the world's largest exporter of fertilizers with more than 12 percent of the global market, but its sales have been virtually paralyzed by sanctions.


"Thank God we managed to buy Russian fertilizers in business talks in October and November, paid in December and they were able to arrive in February and March," Celso Fantinel, the Fedeagro president, told AFP.

However, Fantinel said they are still short by about a third of their needs -- but the weather waits for no-one, and there is no time to find alternatives.

As it is "we're producing 30 percent of our capacity" due to Venezuela's economic crisis that saw the country suffer eight years of recession and four years of hyperinflation, said Ramon Bolotin, president of the PAI independent agricultural producers.

"Even so, there aren't enough fertilizers for this 30 percent."

"Chemical fertilizers are essential," he said, for a country where three percent of the 30 million population works in agriculture "to feed the other 97 percent."

"We'll work with what we have ... although in some places they will need to underdose."

- Massive shortage -

For Venezuelan farmers, it is yet another headache in a country already suffering fuel shortages due to the collapse of its vital oil industry.

In Portuguesa, an agricultural region known as Venezuela's "granary," petrol station queues stretch for kilometers.

Venezuela's farming sector was expecting to sow 250,000 hectares of corn, 50,000 of rice, 60,000 of sugarcane and 70,000 of other products such as coffee and cacao, according to Fedeagro.

The fertilizer shortfall is a massive obstacle. One hectare of corn crops can produce 10 tons of harvest, but that figure can fall to as low as three or four tons if the conditions are not right.

The whole of Latin America faces the same issue, particularly its two agricultural giants.

Last year, Brazil imported almost 81 percent of the 40.5 million tons of fertilizer it used, and 20 percent of that came from Russia, according to the government.

Argentina imported 60 percent of its 6.6 million tons, of which 15 percent came from Russia.

Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru are also, to a greater or lesser extent, dependent on Russian fertilizers.

In March, Ecuador President Guillermo Lasso said his government would subsidize fertilizer imports due to the "increase in the price of agricultural materials" sparked by the international crisis.

Horst Hobener, a corn grower in Turen, Portuguesa, told AFP prices have risen 120 percent in a matter of months.

- Alternatives sought -

The collapse of Venezuela's oil industry has affected the petrochemical industry, which in the past covered the internal demand for fertilizers.

"This has been felt a lot," said Fedeagro vice-president Osman Quero.

"In the last three years we have been sourcing the fertilizers ourselves" through intermediaries.

Farmers have asked the government to reactivate its petrochemical complex in the northern Carabobo state, which has been semi-paralyzed since 2017.

According to state oil company PDVSA, it has the capacity to produce 150,000 metric tons of nitrogenous and phosphate fertilizers a year.

Russian fertilizers used by farmers in Turen are made up of 10 percent nitrogen, 26 percent phosphorus and 26 percent potassium.

"We have two fundamental ingredients: urea (nitrogen) and phosphorus and we would only need to import potassium chloride," said Fantinel.

They are exploring other options but the global shortfall has meant many exporters have suspended sales due to their own domestic needs.

Ruben Carrasco from the Lima Chamber of Commerce told AFP that Russia is looking for ways to use third parties such as Norway to return to the market.

"Who knows, maybe next year other alternative sources will be tried," said Bolotin.

erc/jt/bc/des

Ontario Liberal candidate a long-time employee of U.S. coal polluter

Bryan Passifiume 

POSTMEDIA

As the Ontario Liberals vow to legislate limits on industrial pollution and further green energy policy throughout the province, one candidate in a key Windsor-area riding has spent the past 25 years working for an American energy company that largely relies on coal-fired power plants.


Photo of DTE Energy's St. Clair Power Plant across the St. Clair River from Ontario.

Running in the hotly-contested riding of Essex for the Ontario Liberal Party, Manpreet Brar’s official biography lists her as an “information technology professional” for a Michigan-based “Fortune 500 company for the last 24 years,” as well as an employee of an energy company boasting over “2.2 million customers.”

Online professional directories list Brar as an employee of DTE Energy, a 136-year-old power generation corporation that operates four coal-fired power plants along the Canada-U.S. border.

Once the heart of the American car industry and part of the industrial manufacturing belt that dominated the northeastern United States, pollution and industrial contamination in the Detroit-area remains a serious environmental issue.

According to DTE’s own data , just under 58 per cent of the company’s electricity is generated using coal — followed by nuclear (28 per cent,) natural gas (8.95 per cent,) and less than one per cent for oil and hydroelectric generation.

DTE’s renewable generation capacity sits at just under 10 per cent — mostly consisting of wind generation but also one per cent or less using biomass, solar or wood.

Regional averages across all power plants in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin put coal generation at 36 per cent, followed by nuclear at 28 per cent and 26 per cent for natural gas.

DTE’s sulfur dioxide emissions last year amounted to about three lbs. (1.3 kilograms) per megawatt hour, well above the regional average of 1.16 lbs. per megawatt hour.

DTE also generated around 1,000 lbs. more carbon dioxide per megawatt hour than the regional average, and 1.31 lbs. of nitrogen dioxide per megawatt hour last year — above the 0.82 lb. generated by other plants.

A byproduct of burning sulfur-rich fossil fuels, long-term exposure to even small amounts of environmental sulfur dioxide can be hazardous to human health.

Two years ago, DTE agreed to begin reducing emissions at their southeast Michigan coal-fired power plants as part of a settlement with the EPA that stemmed from a 2010 lawsuit filed by the U.S. government for violations of the federal Clean Air Act.

As part of that settlement, DTE will install pollution controls on its coal-fired Belle River, River Rouge, St. Clair and Trenton Channel power plants, invest $5.5 million to replace older diesel school and municipal transit buses with newer, cleaner models, and $1.8 million in civil litigation penalties.

Upon completion, these programs should reduce annual sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by around 125,000 metric tons.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the Detroit area had failed to meet air quality standards imposed to limit sulphur dioxide emissions.

This determination, the EPA said in a news release, puts the U.S. governmental agency on the road towards developing a federal plan to reduce emissions after a successful 2016 lawsuit by U.S. Steel overturned mandates from state regulators to draft plans to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions.

Ontario’s last coal-fired power plant, Thunder Bay Generating Station, went off-line in early 2014 — the fulfillment of policy enacted in 2002 by then-Premier Ernie Eves to make the province Canada’s first to do away with coal generation.

Former Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne later introduced legislation banning coal from ever again being used for power generation in the province.

The Ontario Liberals’ 2022 platform takes credit for Ontario’s coal plant shutdown, claiming a 24 per cent reduction in carbon emissions and subsequent reductions in cases of asthma and daily smog alerts.

The party pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, and reach net-zero by 2050 — in addition to halving existing methane pollution levels and investing $9 billion in green energy jobs.

“We’ll require high-emitting industries, which create up to 30 per cent of Ontario’s total carbon pollution, to cut their emissions further by strengthening the Emissions Performance Standards in line with our 2030 target,” read the Liberal platform’s chapter on eliminating carbon emissions.

Canada must be ‘vigilant’ about race replacement conspiracy threat: minister



Amanda Connolly - 

Global News

Canadians must be on their guard for hatred spreading online that can lead to violence, including the race replacement conspiracy theory, says Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino.

His comments to the House of Commons public safety committee come as the conspiracy theory and far-right proponents of it are facing intense criticism following a massacre at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store on Sunday by an apparent white supremacist.

The majority of those killed were Black.

Police say the mass shooting is being investigated as both a federal hate crime and a case of racially motivated violent extremism. According to The Associated Press, the 18-year-old alleged shooter had repeatedly visited websites espousing white supremacist ideologies and race-based conspiracy theories.

“Words matter. Hate can lead to violence. The 'great replacement theory' is a conspiracy that is being driven by white supremacists and is leading to violence, not only in Buffalo but in Canada," Mendicino said. "And we all have to be vigilant.”

Read more:

What is white replacement theory? Police probe conspiracy’s role in Buffalo shooting

Mendicino had been asked what more the government can do to force social media companies to remove content such as material promoting race replacement conspiracies.

NDP MP Alistair MacGregor said the continued spread of the content online shows social media companies are failing to enforce their terms of service when left to their own action.

Read more:

Canadians need to step up to tackle online hate — even with ‘crazy uncles’, says expert

“We’ve got to be sure we’re putting in place the tools that are necessary to prevent these crimes, these awful crimes, from occurring in the first place," Mendicino said, adding that governments need to work together with stakeholders and companies to find solutions.

At the core of the conspiracy known as race replacement or white replacement theory is the baseless claim that governments and other actors around the world are working to replace white citizens and diminish their political power by bringing in growing numbers of more diverse immigrants.

Canadian racism, homegrown extremism also in focus after Buffalo mass shooting

Typically associated with fringe elements online, the conspiracy is gaining traction in more mainstream society as far-right personalities and actors propagate it to wider audiences on a range of social media platforms, cable programming and websites.

It is part of the spectrum of far-right conspiracies raising growing concern among police and national security agencies, prompting them to focus in on the threat posed by ideologically motivated violent extremism.

The term, often shortened to IMVE, refers to a broad swath of anti-immigrant, anti-government, antisemitic, and anti-women extremist ideologies with overlapping and deep roots in white supremacy.

IMVE is a major concern for Canadian national security authorities.

Read more:

Canada’s spy service boosts attention to ‘ideological’ domestic extremism

Global News reported in March that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service now devotes almost as much attention to “ideological” domestic extremism as it does to religiously motivated terrorism, marking a paradigm shift in the spy agency’s priorities.

Documents reviewed by Global News suggest CSIS has gone from closing its right-wing extremism desk in 2016 to spending almost as much time and resources tracking “ideological” domestic extremism as religious terrorist groups like Daesh and al-Qaeda in 2021.

David Vignault, director of the spy agency, said extremists are using anger over the pandemic to recruit new followers and adherents, and fuel violence.

— with a file from Global's Alex Boutilier.

Cohen: How the United States became the Republic of Death

On May 12, the United States marked a grim milestone: one million people have died of COVID-19 since 2020.


© Provided by Ottawa Citizen

A young girl visits the makeshift memorial to victims of the May 15 mass shooting at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

Andrew Cohen - 

On May 15, 10 people were killed in a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York.

To observe the first, President Joe Biden ordered flags at the White House to fly at half-mast. Congress observed a moment of silence. Politicians expressed anger and sadness.

To observe the second, Biden went to Buffalo, where he was, as always, the nation’s mourner-in-chief. The president remembered the dead and comforted the bereaved. Politicians expressed anger and sadness.

Both had a ritual about them. Among Americans, they came with a sense of inevitability — a collective sigh and a shrug — as if viruses and guns are the natural order of things. Carnage was unfolding as it does in different ways in the United States, a fate regretted and accepted.

This has made the U.S., metaphorically, a nation of mourners, eulogists, crepe-hangers and undertakers. Americans are comfortable with death whether it comes from a pandemic or a regime of gun violence.

Eventually, COVID-19 will disappear, followed by another murderous malady from another corner of our borderless world. The U.S. may, or may not, treat it differently than it has this crisis.

Gun violence, though, will not disappear. In fact, it may well increase in a country today buying almost three times the number of guns it did in 2000. With more guns (400 million) than people (334 million), with economic anxiety rising, we can expect Americans to continue killing each other like nowhere else on Earth.

What is it about the American character that is in love with night? Why is the country willing to accept levels of death from disease and guns? In the world’s most affluent nation, comfortable with technology and innovation, why is this? These are questions for moralists and theologians. One historian of the Civil War, which claimed more lives (600,000) than all others in the nation’s history, called America “ the republic of suffering .”

Of course, Americans don’t have to die in the numbers they have from COVID-19. Other countries had far fewer deaths because they managed the pandemic differently. They closed borders, stayed home, wore masks, welcomed vaccines.

These are some of the reasons Canada has about one-third the death rate of the United States. Canadians were more willing to embrace preventive measures, however slow, clumsy and imperfect; Americans were not.

This isn’t because we are morally superior. It means, as a society, we were ready to defer to institutional authority and embrace the common good. Whatever our skepticism and distemper, public health mattered more than individual freedom.

One analysis of the relative success of Australia in handling the pandemic — it’s had one-tenth the death rate of the U.S. — notes “a lifesaving trait that Australians displayed from the top of government to the hospital floor, and that Americans have shown they lack: trust, in science and institutions, but especially in one another.” Many Americans do not trust science, their institutions, or their leaders. Out of faith or philosophy, they refuse to act prudently. This explains why the number of official deaths is a million and probably far more.

The same goes for gun violence: other countries won’t tolerate what the U.S. does. The shooting in Buffalo was one of more than 200 so far this year in which four or more people were wounded or killed, following 693 such shootings last year. In Canada, which is contemplating more stringent gun control, gun violence is lower. The same goes for Japan, Europe and other industrialized countries.

In the U.S., the reasons are the constitutional right to own guns and the ease of access to them that courts and politicians embrace. Most of all, though, it is the impulse to violence, whether it is Will Smith slugging Chris Rock at the Academy Awards or misanthropes like the one in Buffalo who walk into supermarkets, churches or movie theatres and start shooting.

Once the seat of life and liberty, the United States is now the Republic of Death.

Andrew Cohen is a journalist, professor at Carleton University and author of Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History.

THEY SUPPORT THE NDP

FIRST READING: Youth are fleeing the Liberals (but they still detest the Tories)

© Provided by National Post

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes a selfie with a supporter, after the Liberals won a minority government, at the Jarry Metro station in Montreal,September 21, 2021.

Tristin Hopper - 

TOP STORY

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is hemorrhaging youth support as young people increasingly lose faith in the Liberals’ ability to tackle skyrocketing rises in living costs. But even as the Tories aggressively position themselves as the party of affordability, they’re still not moving the needle for many voters under the age of 40.

New polls this week by Nanos Research show the Liberals enjoying just 22 per cent support among 18- to 29-year-old voters. It’s a massive dip from their usual 34 per cent share in the demographic, and it means the Liberals are in the rare position of being behind even the Conservatives in terms of voter intentions among the under-30 set.

While Nanos numbers have shown a bit of an uptick for the Conservatives among young people, most of those “dislocated” voters — the ones who are abandoning the Liberals — seem to be throwing in their lot with the NDP. And that’s if they plan to vote at all.

This is most apparent regarding housing affordability, one of the most weighty issues for millennials and Gen Z.

In a separate Nanos poll conducted recently, a clear plurality of under-35 voters (32.6 per cent) trusted the NDP most to deal with the housing affordability crisis. Only 20.4 per cent thought the Tories were most likely to help them afford a home — although it was still far ahead of the 11.8 per cent scored by the Liberals.


© Nanos ResearchThe responses to a poll question about which federal parties were best suited to address housing affordability.

As a rule, conservative parties — even really popular ones — consistently score dismal results among Canadian under-35 voters.

Right now, Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford is cakewalking to re-election and even receiving unprecedented endorsements from provincial labour unions. But young people are the worst single demographic for Ford’s Progressive Conservatives.

According to the most recent Leger poll on Ontario voter intentions, just 22 per cent of 18- to 34-year-old voters intend to cast a vote for Ford — compared to 32 per cent the Liberals and 30 per cent for the Ontario NDP.


© LegerOntario voting intentions as of May 18.


Even in Alberta — one of Canada’s most consistent bastions of federal Conservative support — provincial elections would be utterly swept by Rachel Notley’s NDP if they were decided by Albertans under 30.

Just days before Jason Kenney won an easy majority for his United Conservative Party in 2019, polls were still showing that the province’s under-35s wanted a second NDP majority.

As the Conservative leadership race continues on towards a final voting date in September, the campaign of frontrunner Pierre Poilievre has been defined by an unusually youth-centric agenda.

Poilievre, who at 42 is the youngest contender in the race, has outlined a detailed strategy to bring down housing prices via increased construction and deregulation. In campaign speeches, Poilievre often says he is fighting for the “32-year-old in their parents’ basement who can’t afford housing.”

Back in April, the polling firm Abacus showed Poilievre’s introductory campaign video to a cross-section of Canadian voters. The three-minute video included Poilievre’s contention that an entrenched elite was forcing young Canadians into insecure housing and employment.

What most surprised pollsters was how much the video resonated among older millennials. Six of 10 in the 30 to 44 age group agreed with Poilievre, and a majority of those polled said they would be inclined to vote for a Poilievre-led Conservative party.

Poilievre’s rise in the race hasn’t appeared to drive any noticeable youth support to the Tories. In the most recent Leger poll of voter intentions, under-35 voters still had the Conservatives in a distant third place (23 per cent against 33 for the NDP and 30 for the Liberals).

But a clear plurality of that same cohort said that if they had to pick a favourite Tory leader, it would be Poilievre.


© Twitter/Jonathan KayIn an Ontario election defined by terrible campaign slogans, the Ontario Moderate Party deserves special consideration. Also, the party may not be all that moderate after all: Their platform includes price controls on fuel and has a miniature rant against “failed vaccines.”

THIRD WORLD USA
'Twitter philanthropy' reveals chasms in social safety net


Single father Billy Price was already struggling to make ends meet before someone broke into his Michigan storage unit, stole his identity and ruined his credit.



Price filed a police report, and then tweeted about it to Bill Pulte, a multimillionaire who he'd heard uses Twitter to give money to those in need.

“They took nearly everything, including everything that my grandpa gave me before he passed,” Price tweeted last month, only to be met with silence. “On top of that we’re about to be homeless, it’s like the weight of the world. Please help us.”

Price, 35, recently moved from Illinois to Michigan to maintain joint custody of his 5-year-old son Maddox. Price is living at an extended stay Kalamazoo hotel while he searches for a place to live, but he's worried that between his bad credit, his dwindling savings and his lack of employment he won’t qualify for anywhere that isn’t a “slum.”

“I really don’t want that for my son,” said Price, who lost his landscaping job during the pandemic and has relied on odd construction jobs and day-trading cryptocurrency to make money over the past year.

Practically every minute of every hour, someone sends a tweet to Pulte, a 33-year-old private-equity investor and heir to the mammoth PulteGroup homebuilding company.

A grieving mother needs $800 to retrieve her young daughter’s ashes. A Texas man needs help paying off more than $60,000 in credit card debt. A family of four is about to lose its house.

People send photos of their eviction notices, tearful videos of their empty refrigerators, screenshots of the paltry sums they have in their bank accounts.

And, nearly every day, Pulte responds. He gave $500 to a man who sent a video of his missing teeth. He gave $125 for a woman to pay for gas so she could make the long drive to her brother’s funeral.

It’s all part of what Pulte calls “Twitter philanthropy” – a concept of direct giving in which Pulte and others offer immediate financial support to a tiny percentage of the thousands who reach out every day over social media.

“I call them hand-ups, not handouts,” said Pulte, who has grand visions of disrupting the traditional philanthropy model by using social media to help form an online army of donors to help people in crisis.

For Timi Gerson, vice president and chief content officer at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Pulte’s generosity is laudable, but she said it’s turned into a “grotesque Hunger Games” in which desperate people compete to get noticed while struggling to survive in a “broken system” that has “deeply unequal access to health care and housing and services.”

Online direct giving is nothing new – for years, people have used sites like GoFundMe to get money for medical expenses, funeral costs and other unforeseen bills.

But Pulte’s approach is nearly instantaneous. Within seconds, on a whim, he can send a follower life-changing money: his largest single donation so far is $50,000, according to his records of the more than $1.2 million he has spread among more than 2,200 followers over the past three years. In that time, his follower count has skyrocketed from around 35,000 to 3.2 million.

Gerson appreciates the “immediacy and the transparency” of Pulte’s approach but she said it’s ultimately far too little to achieve meaningful change, comparing the situation to the old tale of the Dutch boy who kept his finger in a leaking dike to try to prevent his town from flooding.

“Endless fingers in the dike aren’t going to solve anything if the dam wall is crumbling. You’ve got to fix the structure,” Gerson said. “If you want to effectively solve the deeper problem, you’ve got to fund groups and organizations that are looking at things systemically.”

Pulte agrees that systemic change is needed, but bristles at the notion that government and giving to large philanthropic organizations is the answer, saying such approaches come with large overheard costs, as well as “corruption, fraud and abuse.” The very fact that so many people are reaching out to him is proof that not enough action is being taken, he said.

“Government should be doing it,” Pulte told the Associated Press. “But in the absence of government, we have to step up and help people who are dying of cancer, who can’t afford their diabetes insulin pump, who don’t have teeth.”

And it isn’t always Pulte who is fronting all the money. He also works with TeamGiving.com to promote causes – often medical procedures – that his own followers, members of #TeamPulte, can rally behind and chip in to help.

In the long term, Pulte said he is trying to build a huge network of donors in which the TeamGiving community can vote on where to aim funds.

“I think that that in many ways could be just as good, if not better than Social Security or Medicaid,” Pulte said, although he admits, “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“The biggest thing I want to solve is how do I make it a movement that’s sustainable beyond me? Because I’m just one person. I’m just one millionaire. I’m not able to solve all the issues.”

One person Pulte has helped is Callie Coppage, a 32-year-old single mother who tweeted a photo of herself and her infant son to Pulte on Feb. 27, saying she had just left an abusive relationship and needed support for her two kids.

The next day, as she was braiding hair inside her home, $7,000 suddenly arrived from Pulte via Cash App.

“It felt like I had a godparent who had just swooped in and helped my life get back on track, saying, ‘Here, I’m going to look out for you,’” she told the AP.

Coppage said she immediately put the $7,000 to use, paying off insurance bills, buying a better car – she said her ex took her old one – as well as new car seats and shoes for her kids.

But as overjoyed as she was to receive the money, Coppage said she also was greeted by the dark side of Twitter philanthropy. Her Cash App was immediately inundated with messages from strangers requesting money — an experience that Coppage said made her empathize with Pulte.

“There was a point where I kind of felt a little bit greedy because I wanted to help, but, knowing my circumstance, $7,000 was just the perfect amount that I needed – it wasn’t as if I’d won $1 million. And then how do you even choose?”

Pulte said a few volunteers help him sort through the countless requests he gets each day.

He admits that some of the recipients are probably scammers, but says he and his team work to try to ensure that he’s sending money to people who really need it.

“We’ve gotten a lot better at understanding who is for real and who is not,” said Pulte, who said a traditional charity might spend 20% or 30% on overhead. “If we help 90% of people and 10% of them are scams, I’ll take those odds any day.”

For Price, he continues to regularly tweet his story to Pulte, even though the only responses he ever receives are from scammers trying to trick him into revealing his bank information. He's also applied for various government housing loans — he says there's a huge waiting list — and started a GoFundMe page, though that too has yet to gain traction.

“My focus has been on getting out of this struggle," Price said. "And when all of your focus goes to that, you know, how can you enjoy your life? That’s not a life you want to live.”

R.j. Rico, The Associated Press

Ex-Trump Official Quits GOP, Says Republican Party Is Now A Threat To America

Ed Mazza
Tue, May 17, 2022,

A former Homeland Security official in the Trump administration who later turned into one of the former president’s critics has quit the Republican Party, saying the GOP can’t be saved.

Miles Taylor, who was the agency’s deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, wrote on Twitter:



Taylor also linked to an editorial he wrote for NBC News:

“In the wake of the mass shooting in Buffalo on Saturday, it’s become glaringly obvious that my party no longer represents conservative values but in fact poses a threat to them — and to America,” he wrote.

Taylor was referring to the white supremacist who shot and killed 10 at a Buffalo grocery store and specifically targeted Black people. The alleged shooter reportedly wrote a manifesto referencing “great replacement theory,” a conspiracy theory that claims Democrats are trying to replace white Americans with people of color. That theory has been shared in Republican circles, and embraced by figures such as Fox News host ― and self-confessed liar ― Tucker Carlson.

Miles Taylor, who was Homeland Security’s deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, also admitted to writing the 2018 “Anonymous” op-ed in The New York Times saying there were people within the Trump administration who were working against the then-president.

 (Photo: Alex Brandon via Associated Press)

Miles Taylor, who was Homeland Security’s deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, also admitted to writing the 2018 “Anonymous” op-ed in The New York Times saying there were people within the Trump administration who were working against the then-president. (Photo: Alex Brandon via Associated Press)

Taylor noted that a poll last year found nearly half of Republicans agreed with sentiments of the “great replacement theory.”

“The Republican Party — which branded a violent insurrection in the nation’s capital as ‘legitimate political discourse’ — is poisoning Americans’ minds and supplanting respectful disagreement with loaded-gun rhetoric,” he wrote.

Although good people remained in the party, Taylor urged them to quit, too, “until it is rehabilitated or a suitable alternative is created.”

Taylor’s time in the DHS involved Donald Trump’s infamous policy of separating migrant children from their families. Taylor later told Telemundo that he regretted not denouncing it at the time.

He publicly came out against Trump in 2020 and said he would vote for Joe Biden. He has also admitted to writing the 2018 “Anonymous” op-ed in The New York Times that claimed there were people within the Trump administration who were working against the then-president.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.