Common Dreams:
"Maduro Victory Shows Democratic Bolivarian Socialism Continues in Venezuela. The faith of the president's supporters in the Bolivarian project is a testament to the real achievements of the socialist government in weathering the 936 sanctions placed on the country by western governments and turning adversity into opportunity.
Shortly before midnight on 28 July, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that — with 80 percent of the over 20 million votes counted — the trend was irreversible: Nicolás Maduro had been re-elected president of Venezuela.
According to the CNE, Maduro received 51.2 percent of the vote, while his primary opponent, the little-known Edmundo Gonzales, received 44.02 percent. With that result, it was clear that the Venezuelan majority chose to continue the project of Bolivarian socialism introduced by Hugo Chavez at the end of the nineties. Recognizing the economic turn-around of the last two years and proud of their achievements in building 5.1 million housing units, securing food sovereignty, and deepening communal democracy, Venezuelans re-elected Maduro for a third six-year term.
A former ambassador to Argentina, the opposition candidate Gonzales replaced far-right leader Maria Corina Machado as the candidate of the Unity Platform after Machado was disqualified from running. Machado has long been an outspoken critic of Chavismo, supporting US sanctions and advocating foreign intervention in the country. In 2018, she asked Benjamin Netanyahu for military assistance in dismantling the Maduro government. Machado has close ties in the United States. In 2009, she was a Yale World Fellow. On June 23, 2024 she spoke at a National Endowment for Democracy awards ceremony in Washington, DC. She has been nicknamed the new 'iron lady' after her idol Margaret Thatcher."
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/venezuela-election-results-2024
-->Coverage of the recent elections had a winner, Democratic Bolivarian Socialism, and one loser, the free press in the United States. It is laughable that the entire American media would have the same opinion on Maduro. Our media standards are so low, that enemies of the US Empire are never given a fair break.
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The Guardian UK
"In August 2023, an executive at Israel Bonds – an organization that sells Israeli bonds to fund that nation’s government and buttress its military – emailed the Ohio state treasurer’s office a sales pitch: could the state of Ohio buy a batch of Israeli bonds for $5m? In less than 40 minutes, the treasurer’s office approved the purchase, bringing Ohio’s Israeli bond purchases to a total of $35m for that year.
The fast deal was made between parties that were on exceptionally friendly terms, according to a trove of emails and other records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). And it was not the only matter being discussed with Israel Bonds. At the same time that the Ohio treasurer, Republican Robert Sprague, allocated millions in state funds to the bond purchases, he was also making arrangements with the bond seller’s business development team to join an exclusive guided trip to Israel, scheduled for later that year. ...
The more than 2,000 pages of emails and other records obtained by the ICIJ, largely through records requests, offer an unprecedented glimpse inside Israel Bonds’ extensive efforts to court public officials in the US while delivering highly personalized sales pitches in a stream of pro-Israel messaging. The documents show how some officials who buy these bonds have gained access to an often-glitzy world that includes gala dinners, cocktail celebrations and private meetings with top Israeli leaders and senior military officials – and how these dealings with Israel Bonds sometimes blurred the lines between private life and official business."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/25/us-officials-israel-bonds-ethics
-->How deeply the Israel Lobby is involved in our financial sector. And all these bribes make sure that US retirement funds are paying for the genocide in Gaza. No national coverage of this scam in our nation's media.
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The Guardian UK:
"Israeli airstrikes hit two schools and a hospital complex in Gaza on Sunday, killing at least 30 people, amid reports of heated disagreements between US and Israeli leaders about a possible ceasefire deal. Inside Israel, a Palestinian stabbed two people to death in a city near Tel Aviv, adding to tensions as the country braces for Iran’s response to the assassinations of key allies this week. ...
Israeli airstrikes on two schools in Gaza City killed at least 25 people sheltering there on Sunday, and another attack on the courtyard of al-Aqsa hospital killed at least five people and set the tents of displaced people on fire.
-->The steady genocide of the Palestinians goes on and on. The NYT doesn't even think it is newsworthy enough to report. So holocausts happen, especially when our nation's media is so closely controlled by the Military Industrial Complex.
