Elections, Elections, & More Elections
October 29, 2024
Hello, readers – happy Tuesday! Today, we’ll be talking about world elections, election threats, taxes in the U.K., air pollution in India, a Halloween heat wave, Elon Musk getting sued, and which billionaires are supporting Trump.
Here’s some good news: A woman who disappeared earlier this month in the rugged mountains of southeastern Australia has been found alive. She is now stable and recovering from a snake bite. Also, Target is rolling out its Thanksgiving meals – at $20, its “traditional Thanksgiving feast” will cost $5 less than last year’s deal.
“Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.” – Frank Herbert
Worldwide Election Check-In
It’s an election year around the globe, and the news cycle isn’t gonna let you forget that. Yesterday, in Georgia (the country), sitting president Salome Zourabichvili – whose job is mainly ceremonial – spoke to a crowd of tens of thousands of protestors gathered outside of the country’s parliament building and denounced the results of Saturday’s parliamentary elections, which the governing Georgian Dream party won with about 55% of the vote. The U.S. and E.U. have called for investigations into the election process, which they claim was riddled with voter intimidation, vote-buying, and interference by Russia. Georgian Dream has become increasingly authoritarian and friendly towards Moscow over the past few years.
Meanwhile, Uruguay is readying for its own election storm next month as its presidential election heads for a runoff. Center-left candidate Yamandú Orsi won about 43.9% of ballots in the country’s first round of voting on Sunday, falling short of the majority needed to avoid the runoff.
In Lithuania, the ruling conservative party lost its mandate in elections held over the weekend. The opposition Social Democratic Party (LSDP) won a strong 52 seats in the country’s parliament, while the incumbent Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) won just 28 – a significant drop from the 49 seats it won in 2020. TS-LKD’s chairman resigned following the election.
A Fiery Election Lead-Up
Things are literally heating up in the U.S. as we close in on November 5. Yesterday, two ballot boxes in the Pacific Northwest were set ablaze in two connected incidents. One fire in Portland, Oregon, only damaged three ballots, but the second incident, in Vancouver, Washington, burned hundreds of votes. The two fires took place just 15 miles apart, and both involved “incendiary devices” placed in or near the ballot boxes. Federal officials are now investigating the incidents, and say they might be connected to another ballot box fire in the Vancouver area, which took place on October 8.
Federal authorities are on high alert for violent domestic threats this election season overall. In a report seen by NBC News yesterday, national security agents warned that extremists influenced by election conspiracy theories might try to influence electoral proceedings leading up to November 5 by targeting political candidates, election workers, or ballot drop boxes with threats of violence. Despite increasingly spiteful rhetoric around elections over the past few years, this year’s report is “not typical election threat intelligence,” said one analyst. “The documents are unmistakably a product of a radically heightened threat environment.”
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Britain’s Budget’s Seen Better Days
- British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says that his country will need to embrace the “harsh light of fiscal reality” when his government’s 2025 budget plan is released tomorrow, but promised that “better days are ahead.” Details regarding next year’s budget remain murky but Starmer has already noted that bus fare caps will rise from £2 to £3 in 2025 and that the government will invest £240 million in getting people back to work.
- In the lead-up to this year’s election, which saw the Labour Party win control of the U.K. government for the first time in 15 years, Starmer promised that his new government would not impose taxes on working people to make the country’s budget work. “Nobody wants higher taxes, just like nobody wants public spending cuts,” he told reporters on Monday. “But we have to be realistic about where we are as a country. This is not 1997, when the economy was decent but public services were on their knees. And it’s not 2010, where public services were strong, but the public finances were weak. We have to deal with both sides of that coin.”
New Delhi, Old Problems
- Air quality in the Indian capital of Delhi — already notoriously bad — has gotten worse over the past couple of days. Last week, air pollution levels rose to over 25-30 times the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended safe limit at multiple locations within the city, and they’re only expected to get worse as the festival of Diwali will see people set off firecrackers starting Thursday. Neighboring states are also expected to start burning crops to clear their fields soon.
- To get ahead of the problem, Delhi’s government has announced a complete ban on buying, making, and storing fireworks, but similar laws have failed to stop air pollution spikes in years past. It’s also put air pollution controls — called a Graded Response Action Plan — into effect, which temporarily bars the burning of firewood and coal as well as non-emergency usage of diesel generators.
More Mixed Nuts
- UK far-right activist Tommy Robinson jailed for 18 months (CNN)
- Philippine ex-President Duterte says he kept a ‘death squad’ as mayor to kill criminals (AP)
- NATO confirms North Korean troops deployed in Russian war on Ukraine (ABC)
- The leaders of India and Spain launch India’s first private military aircraft plant (AP)
- Former Bolivian president Evo Morales says his car was hit by gunfire in attempted assassination (CNN)
Middle East Mixed Nuts
- Israel bans UNRWA, the U.N. relief agency for Palestinian refugees (NBC)
- Netanyahu says targets struck in Iran were “industrial death factories” aimed at harming Israel (AP)
- Once a refuge, southern Lebanese city of Tyre empties as airstrikes rain down (Guardian)
- Scoop: Yellen and allies urge Netanyahu not to crater Palestinian economy (Axios)
A Record-Breaking Week (Not In A Good Way)
- Climate change just got a little spookier. This week, the U.S. is expected to set about 100 new daily record high temperatures, with yesterday’s temps hitting 15 to 25 degrees above average across the Great Plains and into parts of the South and Midwest.
- Today, those temperatures will head east before going into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Halloween. According to Climate Central, October nights have warmed in 89% of 242 U.S. cities analyzed by 3.3 degrees Fahrenheit on average since 1970.
A Different Problem With Buying Votes
- Elon Musk’s $1 million sweepstakes has been under scrutiny since it began last week, but someone’s finally doing something about it. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner filed a civil lawsuit against Musk and his pro-Trump group, America PAC, yesterday. Most of the pushback against the giveaway focused on the legality of vote-buying, but Krasner went a different route.
- “America PAC and Musk are lulling Philadelphia citizens – and others in the Commonwealth (and other swing states in the upcoming election) – to give up their personal identifying information and make a political pledge in exchange for the chance to win $1 million,” the lawsuit alleges. “That is a lottery. And it is indisputably an unlawful lottery.”
More Nuts In America
- Bad Bunny shows support for Harris after comedian makes offensive comment about Puerto Rico at Trump rally (CNN)
- Americans in Puerto Rico can’t vote for US president. Their anger at Trump is shaping the race (AP)
- Second Washington Post writer quits over failure to back Kamala Harris (Guardian)
- Virginia asks US Supreme Court to reinstate removals of 1,600 voter registrations (AP)
- Some billionaires, CEOs hedge bets as Trump vows retribution (WaPo, $)
Billionaires Make Some Business Calls
- Election coverage has even taken over the Loose Nuts section! The horror. With the weekend’s news regarding Amazon founder Jeff Bezos blocking the Washington Post’s plan to endorse Harris for the presidency, we figured it’s time to take stock of the top tech CEOs and their presidential leanings heading into November.
- According to Trump (not the most reliable source), things aren’t looking so good for the Dems. The former president claims that many of Silicon Valley’s most influential billionaires have reached out to him in recent days, with some surprise names blessing the list of Trump’s call history. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos (after last weekend’s debacle) are expected on the list, but Trump also claims that Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Google’s Sundar Pichai have paid him calls recently.
- “I actually got a call from Sundar, Sundar, who’s great, from Google, he’s a great guy, very smart. The head of Google,” said Trump at a rally on Sunday. “And he said, ‘Sir, I just want to tell you, what you did with McDonald’s was one of the single biggest events we’ve ever had at Google.’” Google had no comment when asked about the call. “[Tim Cook] said something that was interesting,” Trump also claimed at a rally earlier this month. “He said they’re using that to run their enterprise, meaning Europe is their enterprise.” I said, ‘That’s a lot … But Tim, I got to get elected first, but I’m not going to let them take advantage of our companies—that won’t, you know, be happening.’” Apple didn’t have a comment either.
More Loose Nuts
- Timothée Chalamet crashes his own look-alike contest after police shut down crowded event (AP)
- Jon Stewart extends ‘Daily Show’ hosting gig through end of 2025 (CNN)
- Rare dime bought by Ohio family and hidden for decades sells for over half a million dollars (CBS)
- Shanghai puts a stop to spooky season (NBC)
Team Thoughts
Kayli – Billionaires + Trump = <3
Marcus – Sometimes you’ve gotta make some tough calls (literally) to stay in business, I guess…