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In politics, it is never about what they say it is about. What are the heated debates on man made climate change, school climate strikes and the recent Fargo City Hall meeting featuring Greta Thunberg knock-offs urging the city to support a city-wide climate emergency declaration, really about?

...the climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and political will. Colonial, racist and patriarchal systems of oppression have created it and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all, said Greta Thunberg.

The interesting thing about the Green New Deal, is it wasnt originally a climate thing at all. Do you guys think of it as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy-thing, said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs then chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti.

Socialism has failed around the world. It has killed tens of millions of its own citizens with its cultural revolutions and genocides. Witness the history of Russia, Germany, N. Korea, Cuba and Venezuela and todays China, which has imprisoned one million Muslims in re-education camps and threatens students in Hong Kong with tear gas, beatings and jail.Nevertheless, the Red River Valley Democratic Socialists of America co-sponsored the Friday, Sept. 20 school climate strike featuring competing bullhorns and images of the Earth melting like ice cream and signs threatening 11Years, The Wrong Amazon is Burning, and Tick-Tock Doomsday Clock.

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Then the RRVDSA libels me for raising questions in my Dec. 3 letter to the editor about the City Hall meeting, branding me a liar, leach, coward and lawyer helping scumbag bankers rip homeowners off, in Zac Echolas Dec. 4th letter to the editor.

Socialists will not surrender the climate change propaganda and the tool it gives them to achieve their real goals and Echolas attempt to silence me proves the point of my 12/3/19 letter, that those who think they are saving the world will have no respect for other viewpoints.

Know what this is really about, know who is behind it, watch for ongoing proof; but most of all, speak up and spare the children. They should be in school.

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Letter: Those pushing climate change theories are really pushing socialism - INFORUM

Delegates clad in red T-shirts designed for the occasion, rose up while singing the name of the man they call their commander-in-chief: Julius Malema. They moved to the stage where their leaders were sitting and knelt before them, hands raised, singing in praise. The Economic Freedom Fighters congress, dubbed the National Peoples Assembly, feels like a mixture of politics and cult, where Malemas word is the gospel of ultimate truth.

Perhaps the singing fighters were still infused with the spirit of Christian musician Dr Tumis rendition of You Are Here, which had them rocking with their arms raised to the heavens before Malemas speech. Ironically, moments before, Malema denounced personality cults.

***

On Saturday, 14 December, the six-year-old EFFs second congress officially kicked off in the Nasrec Expo Centre, the exact spot where the ANC had its big elective gathering two years ago. In 2014, the EFFs first conference took place at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, following the ANCs congress of 2012. Its hardly a coincidence. The EFF, an expelled splinter of the ANC, has been selling itself as a more authentic version of the governing party and this project continued at their congress this weekend.

Its happening roughly 18 months before South Africas next local government election, and Malema set his party firmly on a socialist path in front of an audience that included trade unionists Zwelinzima Vavi and Joseph Mathunjwa. Malema seemed undeterred by the wholesale rejection by voters in the United Kingdom this week of this very ideology, but then, South African political dynamics are very different.

The EFF is gunning boldly for the socialist gap that some in the ANC believe former businessman Cyril Ramaphosas presidency is creating. The theme for the congress is emblazoned in yellow on the red banner hanging on the stage: Consolidating the ground towards socialist power.

First, Malema laid the foundations:

We are here as the representatives of the poor and the downtrodden, united by our love for our people, and our determination to unchain them from their inhumane realities. He described how, in South Africa, the scars of colonialism and apartheid live on. The failure to undo the ownership patterns of our economy and the failure to give back the land to our people has resulted in our people having political rights, but no economic freedom.

In the presence of diplomats from nine embassies and representatives of EFF structures from six other countries, including Lesotho, Namibia and Liberia, and in the presence of his old chum, former Robert Mugabe minister and aspiring Zimbabwean president Saviour Kasukuwere, Malema went on to blame capitalism for many of Africas ills, such as the spread of disease and suffering, and landlessness. The wars that are taking place are a result of capitalism and capitalist greed! The subdivision of Africa into small incapable states is a direct result of capitalism and capitalist greed, he said.

Malema presented socialism as a solution to these ills, but said it would not be authoritarian socialism with forced collectivism and disrespect of the individual.

We are not going to dance vosho the same, he added in a rare off-the-cuff joke. The EFFs socialism doesnt ascribe to despotism, a one-party state and a cult of personalities.

Socialism is not some huge bureaucracy that disregards rights and freedoms of individuals. People would not have to render private non-exploitative property, such as houses, cars, and clothes to the state, or share their underwear with anyone another unscripted quip.

It is, however, about ending the private ownership of the means of production, [such as] mines, huge farms, monopoly industries. Its the kind of socialism that does away with private property, owned by individuals and used to make a profit, like banks and factories.

Socialism to us primarily means that we should collectively develop the productive forces and make sure that all people have equal access to economic sustainability and have the basic needs, Malema said.

There should be free education, water and sanitation, housing and electricity, health care, and development that benefits everyone in short, economic freedom. EFF socialism would also include democracy, human rights, peace and stability, said Malema. Even though land redistribution without compensation got a prominent mention, it wasnt a central theme. Ordinary voters, it became clear ahead of the elections in May 2019, are more concerned about jobs than about land or even ideology.

The congress, however, isnt directed so much at voters as it is at the EFF gallery and friends/supporters within the ANC. Malema went on to position the EFF as the kingmakers they want to be seen as. When the previous administration [of Jacob Zuma] tried to undermine our country through the [Gupta] family criminal syndicate, we did everything in our power to remove their puppet, and it is evident now that he was replaced with a more dangerous capitalist establishment, which is working in alliance with all-white political organisations, he said.

We carry the obligation to remove the sitting government from political power because they are dismally failing. We send a strong caution that if the current administration hands over power to unelected people, their president, like their former president, will not finish the term of office.

This threat to remove Ramaphosa closely aligns with the reported aspirations of the lobby aligned to ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule ahead of that partys mid-term national general council in 2020. Malemas sentiment that Ramaphosa was deliberately creating crises in state-owned enterprises to privatise them, is shared, too, by radical economic transformation (RET) forces in the ANC.

Malema framed Ramaphosa as part of a bigger problem. The ruling party has presided over a false macroeconomic policy which was based on a misdiagnosis of South African capitalism, said Malema, without mentioning the governing ANC by name.

They assumed they could implement solutions in South Africa that are cooked in European experiences. Malema spoke in a negative light about the compromises made by the ANC in 1994, and about the false unity that followed. Malema described Ramaphosa who was elected ANC leader at Nasrec almost exactly two years before as a puppet of the white capitalist establishment.

Although Malemas political report included most of the tried and tested formulas about economic freedom that pushed the EFFs one million votes in 2014 up to 1.8 million five years on, it was the first time Malema has ever positioned the party so explicitly and extensively as a socialist one. To put it in perspective: in the partys founding manifesto adopted at its July 2013 gathering under the Leninist theme of What is to be done?, the word socialism isnt mentioned at all, although the EFF is characterised as a radical, leftist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movement. Even in its 2019 general elections manifesto, socialist is mentioned only once, in the intro, when the EFF is described as a revolutionary socialist economic emancipation movement.

Malemas address to the delegates about 4,000, according to the EFF was mostly a serious one, also outlining the partys work in Parliament and in the municipalities where it was, until recently, partners of the minority DA governments.

Colourful jokes like those about Alexandra residents stealing the cheese out of Sandton fridges first told at his last ANC Youth League conference in 2011 did not feature this time. Malema stuck strictly to the all-English written script and instead remarked about the contrast between the concentration camp called Alexandra and the luxury that is called Sandton.

There was clapping and laughing only when he paused after each section in his report to lift his bottled water with a cheers to the audience. Instead of water in bottles which would have been too expensive for the thrift-conscious EFF leadership the ordinary delegates had plastic cups and water fountains.

Some delegates left the venue during Malemas speech to gather outside, News24 reported, as Malemas speech stretched to over an hour. According to point 18 in the gatherings rules of engagement document given to each delegate: No delegate will be allowed to sleep during the proceedings of Assembly Plenary session and commissions.

Why would Malema take such trouble to outline the EFFs socialism? Its two-fold. On the one hand, it would align the party more closely with the ANC, but on the other, he was likely also aiming to create more unity in his party.

We should all desist from undermining our ideological tools of analysis because it will undermine the cohesion and coherence of the EFF, Malema warned. Without ideological tools, the EFF would go nowhere and only be concerned with common and current affairs and issues.

Malema included a quote by Burkina Fasos former president (1983-1987) Thomas Sankara, saying that a soldier without proper ideological and political training is a potential criminal. The outcome of the partys leadership contest this weekend is likely to reveal who Malema was taking aim at with this. DM

Daily Maverick was denied accreditation to the EFFs National Peoples Assembly. See Daily Maverick statement here.

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Malemas opening address: A socialist gospel according to the men in red - Daily Maverick

With out shyness! Yuliett Torres wore a brief so quick that she challenged censorship It leaves you breathless! Yuliett Torres is targeted on her private model as an teacher.

Yuliett Torres has been in comparison with Kim Kardashian herself for the very tight outfits she makes use of and the rearguard that simulates that of the socialite.

Though the Mexican mannequin doesnt have a lot qualification when making her publications, with clothes that train every part and trigger sensation.

Yuliett shocked her greater than 4.eight million followers just a few days in the past with a postcard the place she poses in a blue gown that appears a measurement much less and boasts a neckline that stands out with a gap and the shirt that has been unbuttoned.

However Torres drove netizens loopy with a summer time outfit the place she wears a brief so quick that it solely covers half of her rear. She accomplished the look with a sleeveless shirt.

The publication already exceeds 149 thousand likes and in it the health teacher wrote: these sunny days that by no means finish and their followers agree.

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Yuliett Torres Wore A Shorts That She Challenged Censorship - Sunriseread

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, D-N.J., who has opposed the impeachment of President Trump for months, is planning to jump to the Republican Party. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag hide caption

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, D-N.J., who has opposed the impeachment of President Trump for months, is planning to jump to the Republican Party.

Updated on Dec. 16 at 9:22 a.m.

A conservative-leaning Democrat from New Jersey who defied his party in opposing the impeachment of President Trump is expected to switch parties and become a Republican.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a first-term Blue Dog Democrat who represents a swing district in southern New Jersey, intends to change parties after some of Van Drew's internal polling showed that he was becoming increasingly unpopular in his purple district, according to a senior Democratic aide.

As reports of Van Drew jumping to the GOP began to surface, President Trump thanked him on Twitter, calling Van Drew "very smart." News of the departure prompted several of Van Drew's staff members to resign en masse. In a letter to Van Drew's chief of staff, they said the congressman's decision "to join the ranks of the Republican Party led by Donald Trump does not align with the values we brought to this job when we joined his office."

Van Drew was one of two Democrats who defected from their party in October in voting against formalizing the impeachment inquiry into Trump.

The district he represents, New Jersey's second congressional district, is a battleground section of the state that in 2016 voted for Trump by a slim margin.

Van Drew's decision to join the Republican ranks illustrates the challenging political calculus facing moderate Democrats who represent counties with significant numbers of Trump supporters ahead of next week's House vote to impeach the president. Some Democrats in these swing counties worry that a near party-line vote to impeach Trump could backfire for Democrats in the November election.

The House on Wednesday is expected to vote on two articles of impeachment against Trump for allegedly attempting to enlist Ukraine to help with his 2020 re-election bid. Democrats say they have the votes to approve the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over the Ukraine pressure campaign. After passing in the House, the proceedings will move to the Republican-controlled Senate for a trial, where lawmakers are expected to acquit the president of any wrongdoing.

According to a poll conducted by his campaign, only about 24% of likely voters in Van Drew's district said he should be re-elected, with nearly 60% saying they wanted another Democrat in the seat. Those figures raised fears that he was especially vulnerable to a Democratic primary challenger, the senior Democratic aide said.

Support from top Democrats in the state was also collapsing. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Wednesday accused Van Drew of choosing "his political career over our Constitution."

Murphy added: "Despite knowing full well that the President has abused the powers of his office, he's now willing to enable Donald Trump just to try to salvage his own election."

But Republican National Committee spokeswoman Mandi Merritt said Van Drew flipping parties shows the political risk of backing impeachment.

"Even Democrats know this entire impeachment witch hunt is a sham," Merritt tweeted. "It is clear that in today's rabid Democrat Party, moderates need not apply."

Multiple attempts to reach Van Drew and his spokeswoman for comment were not returned.

NPR's Susan Davis contributed to this report.

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House Democrat Who Opposed Impeachment Plans To Switch To The Republican Party - NPR

For the past two months, television ads across central Virginia have sounded a lot like President Trumps Twitter feed.

A rigged process. A sham impeachment. No quid pro quo. But Pelosis witch hunt continues, an ad from the Republican nonprofit group America First Policies cried, as images of Abigail Spanberger, who represents the region in Congress, flickered onscreen.

Like many of her fellow freshmen Democratic colleagues, Ms. Spanberger has faced a barrage of attack ads from the Republican National Committee, nonprofit groups and super PACs aligned with President Trump.

During the roughly two months that the impeachment inquiry has been underway, Mr. Trump and his Republican allies have flooded the airwaves, spending more than $16.7 million on ads critical of the impeachment effort. A vast majority of those ads attack House Democrats rather than defend the president, according to Advertising Analytics, an ad tracking firm.

Democratic groups are not fighting back directly and are choosing instead to focus mainly on other issues like health care. They are spending just $5.4 million on television ads specific to impeachment. Instead, the most prominent Democratically-funded message on television at this moment is this: Mike Bloomberg for President.

The former New York mayor is spending more than $109 million, primarily on biographical TV ads across the country and an additional fraction of that on Facebook and Google ads, all without mention of the drama unfolding in Washington this week.

He is investing some resources in impeachment: Mr. Bloomberg pledged a week ago to donate $10 million to the House Majority PAC to help defend House Democrats, which is nearly twice what Democrats have spent already.

Online, the Trump campaign has been dominating the impeachment discussion, with $2.3 million on Facebook alone ranking as the most money invested in digital impeachment advertising, though a coalition of Democratic groups, led largely by Tom Steyers campaign, have come close to matching Mr. Trump online, according to data analysis from Bully Pulpit Interactive, a Democratic consulting firm. Some have gotten creative, however. Mr. Bloombergs campaign, for instance, began advertising off Google searches of the word impeachment this week. The top result on Google was a link to Mr. Bloombergs website.

If all Republicans want to talk about is impeachment, the Democratic advertising effort postures an alternate reality where the only thing on peoples minds in Washington is health care, drug costs and fighting for better wages.

The disparity in ad spending reflects the political dilemma facing so many Democrats. Loath to make impeachment appear anything other than a constitutional principle, Democrats are hesitant to use aggressive persuasion tactics to make their case for supporting impeachment. They are instead revisiting popular themes that succeeded in the midterms.

Aside from Mr. Steyer, the deepest pocketed Democrats right now presidential candidates have barely run any advertisements around impeachment. The Biden campaign announced a new ad on Tuesday to run ahead of impeachment proceedings, but makes no mention of impeachment.

The bulk of Republican ads avoid 2020 entirely. They have been aimed more at pressuring the members themselves to vote against impeachment, and not at furthering an anti-impeachment narrative in key swing states. Still, in the past few days virtually every Democrat who was targeted has come out for impeachment.

For most House Democrats, not even a year removed from expensive midterm campaigns, dipping into their cash reserves this early is a risky move. Running in 2020, during a presidential election, is likely to drive up advertising costs. So they are left without a robust defense against a well-funded coalition of Republican super PACs and the Trump campaign.

For Republicans, you want to get on offense against Democrats, you want to press their issues and define them early, said Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist and former communications director at the National Republican Congressional Committee. He noted that for House races, the ability to attack early can be key in a presidential year. The airwaves get cluttered, put your message in now.

National polling on impeachment has remained largely unchanged in recent weeks, reflecting the deep polarization in the national political arena. Only two Democrats have publicly announced their opposition to impeachment so far (and one, Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, is planning on switching parties after doing so). A third Democrat came out for impeachment on one of the articles but not the other.

There is no evidence at this point that the Republican spending is working, said Meredith Kelly, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. There really has not been significant movement in support for the impeachment inquiry nationally and within the battlefield, everyone appears to be holding steady in their corners.

The torrent of negative advertising on Democrats breaks down along two key lines of attack: that the impeachment is driven by a far-left conspiracy against the president, and that the new Democrats in Washington traded in their 2018 midterm promises to fight for health care and better jobs for a singular focus on impeachment.

Progressive icons like Senator Bernie Sanders and Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar are often front and center in the negative ads, despite not playing central roles in the impeachment process. The favorite foils of Mr. Trump and the modern Republican Party are depicted, often falsely, as describing the impeachment effort as a means of preventing Mr. Trumps re-election.

For example, 18 different ads from the American Action Network, a Republican nonprofit that has spent $5.4 million on TV ads so far, all begin with an appearance of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez on CNN where she warns of foreign interference in the 2020 election, and hopes for preventing a potentially disastrous outcome from occurring next year.

But the ads clip her words, making it sound like the potentially disastrous outcome is referring to Mr. Trumps re-election, as a narrator intones now its crystal clear, their partisan impeachment is a politically motivated charade.

The Republican National Committee, which has spent $2.3 million on impeachment ads targeting 14 different House Democrats, has decried the impeachment as broken promises by Democrats, who instead of fixing health care and lowering drug prices have abandoned their platform to focus solely on going after Mr. Trump.

Its a message that Republicans were using in the midterm elections, long before impeachment became a reality.

Mr. Gorman, the former Republican congressional committee strategist, said that the strongest performing advertisements in 2018 aside from individual opposition research were about removing the president.

The best uniform hit against Democrats was that they were going to go to Washington and just impeach the president, he said.

The central Democratic response, led by $3.6 million from House Majority Forward has been to rebut those claims, running positive ads about the targeted Democrats and their efforts on health care, drug prices and increasing jobs.

What if you knew the cost of medication before you left the doctors office? one ad from House Majority Forward asks. Elissa Slotkin wrote the bill to do just that, defending the Central Michigan representative who has been a primary target for Republicans.

Ms. Kelly noted that reminding voters of winning topics from 2018 was precisely the message Democrats should use to defend themselves, and that the Republican advertising efforts didnt appear to be persuading any Democrats to change their mind.

They are all able to say that while they may be recognizing that no one is above the law and pushing forward this impeachment inquiry and ultimately voting to impeach, its not stopping them from working on legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs, or working with President Trump to sign the trade deal, Ms. Kelly said.

One of the biggest Democratic super PACs, Priorities USA, has also chosen to focus its advertising on issues such as health care and drug pricing and not on impeachment. And last week the House delivered on drug pricing, passing ambitious legislation to lower the rising cost of prescription drugs by empowering the federal government to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical manufacturers.

A few Democratic groups are focusing on the drama in Washington this week. Need to Impeach, the Democratic super PAC founded by Mr. Steyer before he announced his candidacy for president, has spent just under $1 million on television ads targeting Republican Senators Joni Ernst, Susan Collins and Martha McSally. The message, from a Democrat: Put country over party and follow through on impeachment.

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Republicans Attack House Democrats on Impeachment, and Democrats Change the Subject - The New York Times