Month: June 2024

The familiar sounds of a rustling, extremely senile brain could be heard on Saturday as the king of mental decay rose out of the log he’d been dwelling in and took to social media for yet another brain-dead meltdown.

What’s it about this time? Well — the cognitively bereft bat out of hell is angry that his debate performance is not being complimented enough. I was fantastic, Old Smeller declared on Truth Social. Why isn’t everyone saying so?

Trump also expressed his jealousy that the media was paying too much attention to Joe Biden, making the orange nutter seethe with frustration. Trump also dishonestly claimed that “unnamed commentators” said Trump had not only nailed it but had had “the greatest debate performance in the long and storied history of presidential debates.”

Here is what this writer will do. Since we can’t depend on our TV moderators, who seem to have caught a new cold called Silence of the Lambs, to fact check, this writer will fact-check Donald Trump.

Let’s go back to the first thing in this article. Trump isn’t getting more compliments on his debate performance. That is because your debate performance SUCKED, Don the con. It sucked, and you should consider yourself lucky to even STAND ON THE SAME STAGE with someone of Joe Biden’s character. You’ ‘re not fit to be in the same room as him, but you were on Thursday, and you sucked bigly.

Next — Trump’s envy over Biden hogging all the attention. Not from THIS media company. Trump, Biden can walk circles around you in your SLEEP. But of course, you envy everything about him, even the attention he gets. You, too, will reach that attention level — at your sentencing coming up faster than the speed of light.

Unnamed commentators declared you had the best debate ever. Perhaps you’re NOT lying about that — maybe these “unnamed commentators” are Steve Bannon, Mike Lindell, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The ONLY people who would say that Donald are crazy are people – not real pundits. YOU possibly had the WORST debate performance ever. By the way, Lady Pelosi deserves an apology for all your lies about her.

So yes, this weekend, we have the anger of an overgrown toenail — sorry — child — to deal with. He’s mad — very mad — and his brain is out of control yet again, sinking into rage, senility, and madness.

The post Donald Trump throws a fit after debate fails to help him any appeared first on Palmer Report.

The familiar sounds of a rustling, extremely senile brain could be heard on Saturday as the king of mental decay rose out of the log he’d been dwelling in and took to social media for yet another brain-dead meltdown.

What’s it about this time? Well — the cognitively bereft bat out of hell is angry that his debate performance is not being complimented enough. I was fantastic, Old Smeller declared on Truth Social. Why isn’t everyone saying so?

Trump also expressed his jealousy that the media was paying too much attention to Joe Biden, making the orange nutter seethe with frustration. Trump also dishonestly claimed that “unnamed commentators” said Trump had not only nailed it but had had “the greatest debate performance in the long and storied history of presidential debates.”

Here is what this writer will do. Since we can’t depend on our TV moderators, who seem to have caught a new cold called Silence of the Lambs, to fact check, this writer will fact-check Donald Trump.

Let’s go back to the first thing in this article. Trump isn’t getting more compliments on his debate performance. That is because your debate performance SUCKED, Don the con. It sucked, and you should consider yourself lucky to even STAND ON THE SAME STAGE with someone of Joe Biden’s character. You’ ‘re not fit to be in the same room as him, but you were on Thursday, and you sucked bigly.

Next — Trump’s envy over Biden hogging all the attention. Not from THIS media company. Trump, Biden can walk circles around you in your SLEEP. But of course, you envy everything about him, even the attention he gets. You, too, will reach that attention level — at your sentencing coming up faster than the speed of light.

Unnamed commentators declared you had the best debate ever. Perhaps you’re NOT lying about that — maybe these “unnamed commentators” are Steve Bannon, Mike Lindell, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The ONLY people who would say that Donald are crazy are people – not real pundits. YOU possibly had the WORST debate performance ever. By the way, Lady Pelosi deserves an apology for all your lies about her.

So yes, this weekend, we have the anger of an overgrown toenail — sorry — child — to deal with. He’s mad — very mad — and his brain is out of control yet again, sinking into rage, senility, and madness.

The post Donald Trump throws a fit after debate fails to help him any appeared first on Palmer Report.

Information obtained and reviewed by VOA indicates that absentee voting events were held on Friday in at least half of the 33 venues displayed on a list of U.S. ballot stations published online by Iran’s interests section office in Washington.

But the voting operation also suffered setbacks, with three of the listed venues canceling their voting events on Friday under pressure from Iranian American activists and protesters who oppose Iran’s authoritarian Islamist rulers.

Organizers responded to two of the cancelations by updating the list of ballot stations to show last-minute switches to alternate venues.

The most prominent absentee voting site was Washington’s Iranian interests section office, where a VOA Persian reporter observed about 35 people arriving to vote in a nine-hour period. Dozens of protesters shouted at the voters, accusing them of supporting an Iranian government that oppresses its people and legitimizing a sham election whose only candidates were loyalists of Iran’s supreme leader.

In addition to Washington, VOA assessed that voting events were held at 18 sites on Iran’s list of ballot stations. VOA obtained verbal confirmations in Friday phone calls to staff at 12 hotels on the list and vetted activists’ images of the other six venues.

The 12 hotels included four Hilton properties in Lincoln, Nebraska, Long Island City, New York, Milpitas, California and Seattle, Washington; four Hyatt properties in Dallas, Texas, Fort Lee, New Jersey, Houston, Texas and Raleigh, North Carolina; two Marriott properties in Cleveland, Ohio and Mesa, Arizona; an IHG property in Chicago, Illinois; and the Savai Hotel in Overland Park, Kansas.

Social media videos indicated that two additional hotels hosted ballot stations despite hotel staff saying they had no knowledge of such activity.

Multiple videos posted to X and sent to VOA by activists showed an entrance to one hotel, Hilton’s DoubleTree in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where several Iranians could be seen standing outside and exiting the building as activists in the parking lot verbally berated them for participating in the election. 

A DoubleTree manager contacted by phone and informed of the videos maintained that the hotel was not being used as a ballot station.

The other hotel, Choice Hotel’s Comfort Inn Sandy Springs in Atlanta, Georgia, appeared in a mobile phone video posted to X. An activist holding the phone walked into the hotel and entered a function room serving as a ballot station, interacting with the Iranian attendants before apparently being told to leave. 

A hotel staff member who answered the phone said he had “no idea” about the event.  

Two other ballot station venues were seen in social media images showing that voting activity had taken place for several hours before being canceled in the face of protests. Organizers relocated one of the venues to a third ballot station.

Activists outside the Ontario Airport Hotel & Conference Center in California were seen shouting at several Iranians who showed up to vote on Friday morning before the hotel canceled the event at around 11 a.m. local time. A staff member who answered the phone confirmed the cancelation, which prompted the venue’s removal from an updated version of Iran’s ballot station list.  

Another group of activists outside The Congregational Church of Weston in Massachusetts were seen in a video posted on X. The activists jeered at a car leaving the site and cheered when a police officer told them that organizers were preparing to shut down the ballot station.

An updated Friday version of Iran’s ballot station list showed the Weston venue was replaced by an Islamic center in Milford, Massachusetts. A photo posted to X showed an Iranian voting notice on the center’s front door, indicating that it also was used as a ballot station.

A sixth venue where voting activity appeared on social media was an office building of Easterns Automotive Group, a used car dealership in Sterling, Virginia. A video posted to X showed a man walking up to the entrance as a guard opened the door, which displayed an Iranian election notice.

A review of Friday updates to Iran’s ballot station list showed the Sterling venue replaced the nearby Hilton McLean Tysons Corner hotel, which had been listed earlier as a ballot station before its station number was removed from the list. Siamak Aram, an activist with the National Solidarity Group for Iran, told VOA that his group had contacted the hotel to urge cancelation of the voting event. A hotel staffer who answered the phone confirmed that the event was not on Friday’s schedule.

Iran’s ballot station list contained another three hotels and an event hall for which there were no confirmations of voting activity from staff contacted by phone and no social media images of such events found by VOA. They included a Hilton hotel in Rancho Cordova, California, an IHG hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Biltmore Hotel Oklahoma and The Rose Court event hall in Tampa, Florida.

The remaining nine venues on the ballot station list included four Islamic centers in Detroit, Michigan, Manassas, Virginia, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Portland, Oregon. The others were a landscaping company in Buffalo, New York, and four Virginia and Maryland locations that a mobile voting station was slated to visit during the day.  

The addresses of all the U.S. ballot stations besides Iran’s interests section office only began to appear online as voting began on Friday morning. In almost all cases, the addresses were displayed as street names and numbers, without the venues being named. The entire list was deleted on Saturday.  

“The Islamic Republic and its agents understand that the regime is deeply unpopular in the Iranian diaspora, whose members are channeling the voices of their Iran-based compatriots calling for regime change,” said Jason Brodsky, policy director of U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, in a VOA interview.

“The regime and its agents fear the Iranian diaspora because of its organizing power, so they want to keep this U.S. voting activity as quiet as possible to prevent embarrassing situations in which their fellow Iranians denounce the election for the sham that it is,” Brodsky said.

Soran Khateri of VOA’s Persian service contributed to this report. 

Ghazouani, who is seeking reelection on a pledge of providing security and economic growth, obtained 55% of votes, according to provisional results from over 80% polling stations, the country’s independent electoral commission said on Sunday afternoon. His main rival, anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid, received 22.4% of votes, the commission said, with a turnout of almost 55%.   

The full results are expected on Sunday evening but Ghazouani, a former army chief and the current president of the African Union, has a comfortable lead.   

Although his opponents accused him of corruption and mismanagement, he remains popular among Mauritanians who see him as a beacon of stability. The vote is taking place in a particularly tense regional climate, with Mauritania’s neighbors shaken by military coups and jihadi violence.   

Mauritania is rich in natural resources including iron ore, copper, zinc, phosphate, gold, oil and natural gas. It is poised to become a gas producer by the end of the year, with the planned launch of the BP-operated Greater Tortue Ahmeyin offshore gas project at the border with Senegal.   

Yet almost 60% of the population lives in poverty, according to the United Nations, working as farmers or employed in the informal sector. With few economic opportunities for young people at home, many are attempting to reach Europe, and some are even trying to get to the United States through Mexico.   

“The last word belongs to the Mauritanian voters,” Ghazouni said after voting in Ksar, a suburb of the capital. “I commit myself to respecting their choice.”   

Saturday’s vote unfolded peacefully, according to observers.   

“Nothing has been detected so far and the CENI has not received any complaints,” said Taghioullah Ledhem, the spokesman for CENI, the country’s independent electoral commission. But some opposition candidates held a different view.   

Biram Dah, who came second in the vote according to the provisional results, warned on Sunday against “an electoral coup d’état for the benefit of Ghazouani, who was defeated by voters.”   

During a press conference on Sunday morning, Biram accused the electoral commission of fraud by giving Ghazouni thousands of votes “added out of nowhere.”   

“We are going to oppose this electoral hold-up,” he said. “I ask Ghazouani to respect his solemn commitment to comply with the will of the people.” 

Information obtained and reviewed by VOA indicates that absentee voting events were held on Friday in at least half of the 33 venues displayed on a list of U.S. ballot stations published online by Iran’s interests section office in Washington.

But the voting operation also suffered setbacks, with three of the listed venues canceling their voting events on Friday under pressure from Iranian American activists and protesters who oppose Iran’s authoritarian Islamist rulers.

Organizers responded to two of the cancelations by updating the list of ballot stations to show last-minute switches to alternate venues.

The most prominent absentee voting site was Washington’s Iranian interests section office, where a VOA Persian reporter observed about 35 people arriving to vote in a nine-hour period. Dozens of protesters shouted at the voters, accusing them of supporting an Iranian government that oppresses its people and legitimizing a sham election whose only candidates were loyalists of Iran’s supreme leader.

In addition to Washington, VOA assessed that voting events were held at 18 sites on Iran’s list of ballot stations. VOA obtained verbal confirmations in Friday phone calls to staff at 12 hotels on the list and vetted activists’ images of the other six venues.

The 12 hotels included four Hilton properties in Lincoln, Nebraska, Long Island City, New York, Milpitas, California and Seattle, Washington; four Hyatt properties in Dallas, Texas, Fort Lee, New Jersey, Houston, Texas and Raleigh, North Carolina; two Marriott properties in Cleveland, Ohio and Mesa, Arizona; an IHG property in Chicago, Illinois; and the Savai Hotel in Overland Park, Kansas.

Social media videos indicated that two additional hotels hosted ballot stations despite hotel staff saying they had no knowledge of such activity.

Multiple videos posted to X and sent to VOA by activists showed an entrance to one hotel, Hilton’s DoubleTree in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where several Iranians could be seen standing outside and exiting the building as activists in the parking lot verbally berated them for participating in the election. 

A DoubleTree manager contacted by phone and informed of the videos maintained that the hotel was not being used as a ballot station.

The other hotel, Choice Hotel’s Comfort Inn Sandy Springs in Atlanta, Georgia, appeared in a mobile phone video posted to X. An activist holding the phone walked into the hotel and entered a function room serving as a ballot station, interacting with the Iranian attendants before apparently being told to leave. 

A hotel staff member who answered the phone said he had “no idea” about the event.  

Two other ballot station venues were seen in social media images showing that voting activity had taken place for several hours before being canceled in the face of protests. Organizers relocated one of the venues to a third ballot station.

Activists outside the Ontario Airport Hotel & Conference Center in California were seen shouting at several Iranians who showed up to vote on Friday morning before the hotel canceled the event at around 11 a.m. local time. A staff member who answered the phone confirmed the cancelation, which prompted the venue’s removal from an updated version of Iran’s ballot station list.  

Another group of activists outside The Congregational Church of Weston in Massachusetts were seen in a video posted on X. The activists jeered at a car leaving the site and cheered when a police officer told them that organizers were preparing to shut down the ballot station.

An updated Friday version of Iran’s ballot station list showed the Weston venue was replaced by an Islamic center in Milford, Massachusetts. A photo posted to X showed an Iranian voting notice on the center’s front door, indicating that it also was used as a ballot station.

A sixth venue where voting activity appeared on social media was an office building of Easterns Automotive Group, a used car dealership in Sterling, Virginia. A video posted to X showed a man walking up to the entrance as a guard opened the door, which displayed an Iranian election notice.

A review of Friday updates to Iran’s ballot station list showed the Sterling venue replaced the nearby Hilton McLean Tysons Corner hotel, which had been listed earlier as a ballot station before its station number was removed from the list. Siamak Aram, an activist with the National Solidarity Group for Iran, told VOA that his group had contacted the hotel to urge cancelation of the voting event. A hotel staffer who answered the phone confirmed that the event was not on Friday’s schedule.

Iran’s ballot station list contained another three hotels and an event hall for which there were no confirmations of voting activity from staff contacted by phone and no social media images of such events found by VOA. They included a Hilton hotel in Rancho Cordova, California, an IHG hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Biltmore Hotel Oklahoma and The Rose Court event hall in Tampa, Florida.

The remaining nine venues on the ballot station list included four Islamic centers in Detroit, Michigan, Manassas, Virginia, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Portland, Oregon. The others were a landscaping company in Buffalo, New York, and four Virginia and Maryland locations that a mobile voting station was slated to visit during the day.  

The addresses of all the U.S. ballot stations besides Iran’s interests section office only began to appear online as voting began on Friday morning. In almost all cases, the addresses were displayed as street names and numbers, without the venues being named. The entire list was deleted on Saturday.  

“The Islamic Republic and its agents understand that the regime is deeply unpopular in the Iranian diaspora, whose members are channeling the voices of their Iran-based compatriots calling for regime change,” said Jason Brodsky, policy director of U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, in a VOA interview.

“The regime and its agents fear the Iranian diaspora because of its organizing power, so they want to keep this U.S. voting activity as quiet as possible to prevent embarrassing situations in which their fellow Iranians denounce the election for the sham that it is,” Brodsky said.

Soran Khateri of VOA’s Persian service contributed to this report.