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#blake

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Chuck Darwin

♦️DNC Chair #Jaime #Harrison,
a former corporate lobbyist and South Carolina party chair who was tapped to be chair by Joe Biden,
-- is not running for another four years in his position.

Two candidates for DNC chair have announced:

first was former Maryland Gov. #Martin #OMalley, a former commissioner of the Social Security Administration,

then Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman #Ken #Martin, a vice chair of the DNC.

Others considering runs include Wisconsin Democratic Party chair #Ben #Wikler;

Democratic strategist #Chuck #Rocha;

former DNC vice chair #Michael #Blake, of New York;

former Chicago mayor #Rahm #Emanuel;

and Michigan state Sen. #Mallory #McMorrow.

Another name in the mixis former Texas Rep. #Beto #ORourke.

readsludge.com/2024/11/26/a-fi

Sludge · A Fight for the Soul of the DNCWith the race for DNC chair underway, we spoke with reform-minded DNC members on banning “dark money” in Democratic primaries and ways for the party to reconnect with voters.
Continued thread
Public
Chuck Darwin

Attendees, with white-and-red gift bags and lanyards, knew to be closelipped when approached by hotel interlopers
or by the Times reporter, who was not invited to the closed-press festivities.

But a copy of the agenda listed remarks by several tech billionaires, including the Anduril co-founder #Palmer #Luckey and the venture capitalist #Marc #Andreessen, who spoke about his support for deregulating technology
and the mixed reaction in Silicon Valley to his endorsement of Mr. Trump, according to attendees.

There were tech up-and-comers, too:
Donald Trump #Jr. announced at the welcome dinner that he was entering venture capital.

And days before the president-elect chose Robert F. #Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary,
Mr. Kennedy spoke extensively about his public-health work to a standing ovation.

Ms. #Wiles also led a session on “2024 Election Analysis,” where she gave a preview of Mr. Trump’s first days as president.

“It’s the domestic ‘Davos in the desert,’” said the Rockbridge backer #Omeed #Malik, referring to the annual business conference in Riyadh, and Donald Trump Jr.’s new business partner.

➡️Rockbridge began with more humility.

Back in 2019, Mr. #Vance, then best known as the author of “Hilbilly Elegy,” and a conservative media figure named #Chris #Buskirk began informally hosting a series of small dinners
that would eventually become called Rockbridge.

The group drew early support from the venture capitalist #Peter #Thiel and eventually caught the attention of Donald J. Trump, who spoke at a few meetings.

Once in the fall and once in the spring, Rockbridge began to gather at places like the Four Seasons in Palm Beach, Fla.,
or the Ritz-Carlton in Dallas for three days of political panels and business networking.

Speakers included people like #Tucker #Carlson; the Thiel protégé #Blake #Masters; the casino mogul #Steve #Wynn; the investor #David #Sacks; and #Woody #Johnson, the billionaire owner of the New York Jets.

Not all attendees have politics at the top of their mind.

Some are primarily interested in business, seeing Rockbridge as a conservative-tinged version of the elite Sun Valley conference.

#RockbridgeNetwork#RebekahMercer#ElonMusk
Public
Chuck Darwin

Top Vance aide worked for far-right consultancy with extremist links

A senior aide to Donald Trump’s running mate, JD #Vance, once worked for a far-right political consultancy that touts its capacity for “#clandestine #actions” and has links to a network of extremist groups and think tanks, the Guardian can reveal.

#Parker #Magid was recently appointed as Vance’s press secretary
His employment history links Vance and his circle to elements of the extremist right far outside the mainstream of American politics.
Vance’s staffer links him to 🔸Beck & Stone🔸 (B&S) and its subsidiary political consultancy 🔸Knight Takes Rook🔸 ( #KTR ).
The brand consultancy with a business address in New York is close to Vance allies including the far-right #Claremont #Institute,
the serial Arizona political candidate #Blake #Masters and the
“#counter-#revolutionary” magazine IM–1776.

B&S was founded in 2014, according to statements by its founders, #Andrew #Beck and #Austin #Stone. Initial company filings in Florida date from April 2015. Its current Florida filings give an address that is a UPS store in New York City.

Beck, also 🔸a Claremont co-founder🔸, is closely involved with the ♦️Society for American Civic Renewal♦️ ( #SACR ), a secretive invitation- and men-only fraternal lodge that has been the subject of extensive previous reporting in the Guardian.
theguardian.com/us-news/articl

The Guardian · Revealed: top Vance aide worked for far-right consultancy with extremist linksBy Jason Wilson
Continued thread
Public
Chuck Darwin

The next morning,
wrecked,
I put on sweatpants and a hoodie
and tried to smuggle myself out of the hotel without having to talk to anyone.

I gave my chit to the valet and looked around to find Vance and Yarvin standing there waiting for cars.

“How do you guys feel?” Yarvin asked.

Vance was wearing a hoodie too and looked like I felt.
“I feel horrible,” he said.
“Not good.”

Yarvin asked what I’d thought of everything.

I said it would take a long time for me to figure that out.

We all shook hands,
and they waved as I got into my car and we all resumed our usual battle stations in the American info-wars.

#Kyle#Rittenhouse#Unabomber
Continued thread
Public
Chuck Darwin

“We are in a late republican period,”
Vance said later,
evoking the common New Right view of America as Rome awaiting its Caesar.

“If we’re going to push back against it, we’re going to have to get pretty wild,
and pretty far out there,
and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.”

“Indeed,” Murphy said. “Among some of my circle, the phrase ‘extra-constitutional’ has come up quite a bit.”

I’d asked Vance to tell me, on the record, what he’d like liberal Americans who thought that what he was proposing was a fascist takeover of America to understand.

He spoke earnestly. “I think the cultural world you operate in is incredibly biased,” he said
—against his movement and “the leaders of it,
like me in particular.”

He encouraged me to resist this tendency, which he thought was the product of a media machine leading us toward a soulless dystopia that none of us want to live in.

“That impulse,” he said,
“is fundamentally in service of something that is far worse than anything,
in your wildest nightmares,
than what you see here.”

He gave me an imploring look,
as though to suggest that he was more on the side of the kind of people who read Vanity Fair than most of you realize.

If what he was doing worked, he said,
“it will mean that my son grows up in a world where his masculinity
—his support of his family and his community,
his love of his community
—is more important than whether it works for fucking McKinsey.”

At that, we called it,
and the crowd of young men who wanted to talk to him immediately descended on the couches.

People kept bringing drinks, and there was a lot of shit talk, and it went on late.

I remember thinking at one point how strange it was that in our mid-30s
Vance and I were significantly older than almost everyone there,
all of whom thought they were organizing a struggle to change the course of human history,
and all of whom were now going to get sloppy drunk.

#Kyle#Rittenhouse#Unabomber
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