Argentina: Milei's veto of $15 pension raise upheld

The Lower House of Argentina's Congress voted to uphold President Javier Milei veto overturning a $15 pension increase that had been approved by both chambers.

Overturning the veto would have required a special majority of two thirds of deputies (85 votes needed to uphold the veto). Ultimately, 87 voted against overturning and 153 in favor, while eight abstained.

Most of the opposition voted for the raise when it was first debated; but some deputies from the center-right UCR party changed their position - including one, Pedro Galimberti, who resigned after being revealed to have accepted a lucrative government contract in dollars.

On August 22, the Senate approved a pension formula reform that the Lower House had passed in June. The new law established a hike of AR$15,000 (US$15) and guaranteed to prevent retirees’ income from falling behind inflation - which, while slowing, remains at 237%.

Congressman Germán Martínez, leader of the Peronist opposition Unión por la Patria caucus, argued that Argentina could afford the pensions raises. “All the calculations that we and the Congress budget office did […] said that it was absolutely sustainable,” he told the C5N news channel.

“Today, La Libertad Avanza [Milei’s coalition] didn’t know how to defend a president who never said that he would impose austerity measures on pensioners, and who is now managing for 30 in every 100 pesos that he cuts to be paid for by retirees.”

Outside Congress, protesters gathered to demand Milei’s veto be overturned. After the vote, police used tear gas and water cannon against the demonstrators. Previous protests by pensioners in recent weeks have likewise been met with a violent police response.

At: https://buenosairesherald.com/politics/milei-set-to-get-major-win-as-deputies-convene-to-debate-veto-of-pension-raise

Argentina's National Gendarmerie - a militarized police force controlled by the president - quashed protests by retirees and left-wing activists in Buenos Aires on Wednesday.

Far-right President Javier Milei had vetoed a $15 emergency hike passed by Congress for the $307 minimum standard pension collected by over half of retirees - around a third of the poverty line.

Sergio Mendes, Grammy-winning Brazilian music legend, dies at 83

Sergio Mendes, the celebrated Brazilian musician whose 1966 hit “Mas Que Nada” made him a global superstar and helped launched a long, Grammy-winning career, has died after months battling the effects of long COVID. He was 83.

The death Thursday of the Brazilian pianist, songwriter and arranger was confirmed in a statement by his family.

Mendes was born in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro’s sister city, and studied classical music at a conservatory before joining jazz groups.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began playing Bossa Nova as the genre was heating up in Rio’s nightclub scene with Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto and others.

In 1962, they traveled to New York for a Bossa Nova festival at Carnegie Hall. During the trip, Cannonball Adderley invited Mendes to collaborate on the album “Cannonball Adderley and The Bossa Rio Sextet,” leading to his first American record, “The Swinger from Rio,” after signing with Atlantic Records.

At: https://apnews.com/article/sergio-mendes-obituary-brazil-bossa-nova-4eccfe92f2868249c2d7975e666428ec

Legendary Brazilian composer Sergio Mendes, 1941-2024.

I take on fraudsters and scammers for a living. Take it from me: Tim Sheehy is one of them

Have you ever met someone who calls themselves a “successful businessman,” but lost his company $77 million, is being sued by former employees for allegedly stiffing them out of their pay, fraudulently certified his company as a socially disadvantaged business to try to win government contracts, prompted his biggest investor to cash out of the company and abandon their stake in it, and has had multiple board members resign from his company on his watch – all while paying himself fat multimillion-dollar bonuses?

Maybe you haven’t met him in person, but you’ve certainly heard of him. His name is Tim Sheehy, and he’s running for the United States Senate.

At: https://dailymontanan.com/2024/08/31/i-take-on-fraudsters-and-scammers-for-a-living-take-it-from-me-tim-sheehy-is-one-of-them/

Confidence man: Tim Sheehy greets supporters outside of a rally in Bozeman on August 9.

Infant and newborn deaths increase nearly 13% following Texas abortion ban

Texas' infant mortality rate - 5.72 per 1000 live births - was similar to those in Chile, Iran, and Romania.

And that was in '22. Rates in '23 were likely even higher.

Jesse Ventura EXPLODES on Republican lies against Tim Walz

About Walz: "E-9s are not operational anymore."

About the Iraq War: "That's the question that should be asked: why was the Guard being sent to foreign countries?"

"Had Bush wanted the Minnesota National Guard in Iraq, I would've refused - and can you imagine a draft dodger like Bush relieving a Navy frogman like me from command?"

'The fever is breaking': DeSantis-backed school board candidates fall short in Florida

Source: AP

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign to expand his conservative education agenda in Florida schools didn’t quite go the way he wanted on Tuesday.

Of the 23 school board candidates that DeSantis endorsed this cycle, preliminary results show more of them appeared to lose their election races than win them.

Unofficial vote tallies show 11 candidates backed by the governor lost on Tuesday, including some incumbents in conservative-leaning counties. Meanwhile, six of DeSantis’ preferred candidates won their races and six were poised to advance to a November runoff after no one in their contests cleared 50% of the vote.

Those runoffs could still go in DeSantis’ favor.

Read more: https://www.kron4.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-the-fever-is-breaking-desantis-backed-school-board-candidates-fall-short-in-florida/

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs the Parental Rights in Education bill - widely known as the "Don't Say Gay" law - in 2022, at the height of his political power.

A weak performance in school board elections on Tuesday, however, suggest that Florida voters may be souring on DeSantis' extreme agenda.

Thank You, America

Thank you, Joe!

Argentina's Milei dissolves investigation unit that helped find appropriated children from dictatorship era

President Javier Milei issued a decree on Wednesday dissolving a special unit that conducted investigations within the National Identity Commission (CONADI).

The Special Investigation Unit of the Disappearance of Children as a Result of State Terror had been devoted to searching for the estimated 300 to 500 lost children of people who were forcibly disappeared during the last dictatorship in Argentina (1976-83) - which has also helped in hundreds of other lost identity cases.

The commission was created in 1992 and later ratified by law in 2001. The investigation unit was launched in 2004 during the progressive Néstor Kirchner administration.

Human rights organization Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo issued a statement calling the decision “a new attack” against the search for their grandchildren who were appropriated during the last civic-military dictatorship, saying that it “favors impunity” for the repressors.

Some 133 sons and daughters of disappeared dissidents - most of them born in captivity and sold to mainly right-wing families with contacts in the fascist Jorge Videla regime (1976-81) - have been identified and located since democracy returned in 1983.

At: https://buenosairesherald.com/human-rights/milei-dissolves-investigation-unit-that-helped-find-dictatorship-era-appropiated-children

The president of Argentina's renowned Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo human rights group, Estela Barnes de Carlotto, smiles last year at Miguel Santucho - the 133rd and most recent individual the group helped identify as the child of dissidents "disappeared" during the last dictatorship (1976-83) or the repressive Isabel Perón administration (1974-76) that preceded it.

The far-right Javier Milei administration has repeatedly undermined efforts to locate the remaining such abductees - estimated at around 200 more.

The visit last week of six legislators from Milei's far-right party to a group of incarcerated Dirty War perpetrators - and Congress' refusal to sanction said visit - has further spotlighted Milei's sympathy with the fascist last dictatorship, many of whose ruinous economic policies the president has adopted.

Argentina's intelligence agency denounced for having spent 80% of a $102 million supplemental - in three weeks

Argentine Congressman Maximiliano Ferraro, of the centrist Civic Coalition, denounced the country's State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE) for having already spent 80% of the 100 billion pesos ($102 million) supplemental earmark decreed to the agency by far-right President Javier Milei on July 23rd.

"In just three weeks, 80% of the 100 billion pesos assigned to reserved and secret expenses of the Intelligence Secretariat were spent - funds that the Government assigned itself by way of a decree. These funds are being used without control or any legal justification, with absolute discretion," Ferraro warned.

The spending spree comes as the rest of the federal budget is subjected to unprecedented cutbacks of some 32% in real terms during the first half of 2024 - with the broader economy in a deep "Mileise" recession partly as a result.

"They are squandering 3 million dollars a day on espionage. This, in addition to being dangerous, is deeply immoral," Ferraro lamented.

SIDE gig

Milei, a week earlier, decreed the overhaul of the former Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) into a secretariat directly under his orders by decree, granting the agency more hierarchy and power.

It was likewise returned to a State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE) designation - the disgraced agency that operated between 1946 and 2001.

Officially run by a high-school graduate, Sergio Neiffert, SIDE is in fact controlled by Neiffert's close friend: presidential advisor and former right-wing internet troll Santiago Caputo.

The 39 year-old is a third cousin of Milei's freewheeling Finance Minister, Luis Caputo - whom Milei appointed despite his central role in the 2018 foreign debt "Macrisis" collapse.

The namesake of the 2018 debt crisis, former President Mauricio Macri, had similarly classified most AFI budgets as "reserved" - culminating in the 2019 d'Alessio scandal involving an AFI (and CIA) asset, Marcelo d'Alessio, and a far-reaching extortion and shakedown scheme brought down when his last would-be victim, organic berry farmer Pedro Etchebest, recorded their conversations.

At: https://www-politicargentina-com.translate.goog/notas/202408/60288-denuncian-que-la-side-ya-gasto-el-80-de-los--100-mil-millones-extra-de-fondos-que-le-dio-javier-milei.html?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Smile, you're on camera: Presidential propagandist Santiago Caputo takes a selfie with far-right Argentine President Javier Milei (second from right) and other officials during one of Milei's numerous visits to the U.S. earlier this year.

The young erstwhile internet troll is now unofficially in charge of Argentina's intelligence agency - which was recently returned to its disgraced SIDE designation by decree, as well as placed under closer presidential control.

Milei similarly expanded its budget by over $100 million - which the agency, with its history of corruption, cover-ups and warrantless eavesdropping, has already spent $80 million of in merely three weeks.

The nation's best hackers found vulnerabilities in voting machines - but no time to fix them

Organizers and participants at the DEF CON Voting Village found cyber vulnerabilities in everything from voting machines to e-poll books; but there is no time before the November elections to fully implement their findings.

In one sense, it’s the normal course of events: Every August, hackers at the DEF CON conference find security gaps in voting equipment, and every year the long and complex process of fixing them means nothing is implemented until the next electoral cycle.

But Election Day security is under particular scrutiny in 2024.

That’s both because of increasing worries that foreign adversaries will figure out how to breach machines, and because President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of widespread fraud in 2020 undermined confidence in the vote among his supporters.

As a result, many in the election security community are bemoaning the fact that no system has been developed to roll out fixes faster and worrying that the security gaps that get identified this year will provide fodder for those who may want to question the results.

“As far as time goes, it is hard to make any real, major, systemic changes, but especially 90 days out from the election,” said Catherine Terranova, one of the organizers of the DEF CON “Voting Village” hacking event.

She argued that’s particularly troubling during “an election year like this.”

At: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/12/hackers-vulnerabilities-voting-machines-elections-00173668

An elderly voter votes in Los Angeles this March.

The annual DEF CON Voting Village cybersecurity summit has been warning of - and demonstrating - voting/tabulating device vulnerabilities for a decade.