My main opponent. Democrat Adam Smith, has been a warmongering politician for nearly three decades. He voted for the Iraq War in 2002, a multi-year war that took the lives of a million Iraqi people. He also supported bipartisan military assaults on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. He voted for tens of billions of dollars for the genocide in Gaza. The shameful reality is that Smith is is not the only warmongering Democrat — 173 House Democrats have voted to fund the Gaza genocide, including many members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Electing more Democrats preparing to be team players who maintain the status quo is not going to help build an antiwar movement that can end the genocide, the war on Iran, and the U.S.-funded Israeli assault on Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq.

"I see the bar which is killing me all the time, irritates me. But if we just want to have fun we should erase that bar"- @GMJuditPolgar The queen has spoken!! 👑 #noengines

Hilarious chess video from @Chessentials_ youtube.com/watch?v=En10PFWs… Loved it!!!

Remember, algorithms will always push the most negative images of black people. I’m a rapper and my organization has been sending books to prison for years! We just sent 1200 this month. If you’d like to support our work retweet and join us for $1/month 🤎Patreon.com/nonamebooks

It’s my 12th birthday ! I cannot believe it’s been that long since the CCC opened its doors. It’s been a journey, so I’d like to share a quick reflection as I am waking up this morning. It may come across as a bit direct, so please forgive me in advance. ------------------------------ Reflection: When I was a teenager, my dad once took me to a chess club that met in a restaurant.If you’ve spent time around chess clubs, you know the scene: church-basement energy, and a few grumpy regulars. My dad walked in, looked around, and quietly (or not so quietly if you ask my mom!) decided he wouldn’t be bringing me back. He didn’t see a sport. He saw disorganization. Something that looked like it wasn’t worth his son’s time. That moment stuck with me. Over time, I realized something important which became a driving value of mine: if a parent who wants to support their child feels uncomfortable walking into a chess club, chess has already lost. Everything we’ve built at the Charlotte Chess Center comes back to that idea. We stopped pretending chess had to live in borrowed spaces and organized with a lower standard. We built a community in a way that treats everyone who walks through the door as someone we serve. Over the years I’ve watched a lot of trends come and go. Programs promising to produce xxxx GMs, platforms trying to gamify the soul out of chess, millions raised and dumped into speculative projects artificially flooding cash into the ecosystem only to then go away once the ideas fail, leaving holes in the community and reducing trust. Chess is a niche community built on simple principles: consistency, trust, and culture. You can copy tournament formats and programs, but culture isn’t something you can duplicate. The CCC isn’t a pop-up model. We’re here 24/7/365 providing year-round infrastructure for the chess community. Consistency builds trust. Trust builds culture. Culture builds community. I often hear discussions about the “Chess Capital.” For me, New York City will always hold that cultural title. The history there is incredible. But Charlotte has become something different: a true grassroots chess community. With no sponsors or significant contributions, Charlotte has become the city for chess players, by chess players. In 2013, about 450 unique rated players played a rated game in Charlotte across all affiliates. Today, the CCC alone brings in over 2,700 unique rated players every year. Compare that to more “famous” clubs like St. Louis or the Mechanics’ Institute, which hover around 1,200 unique players per year. We have the largest number of players per capita in the country. While we may not be the self proclaimed “chess capital”, we are the city for all chess players. To be clear, there are others who are building their own communities and cultures, and we aren’t the only ones doing meaningful work. There are too many to name, but I have great respect for Impact Coaching Network in NYC and our neighbors at the Columbia Chess Club (SC). As for me, my days of serious tournament play are mostly behind me, at least until the World Senior 📷. But chess is still part of my daily life. I play online games every day, follow major events, and stay deeply connected to the game because I believe the people leading chess communities should genuinely love the game. To this day, I still show up every Tuesday for TNA to give a guest lecture and review members’ games. I don’t have to do that anymore, but I still do. It’s personal. It’s one of the last threads connecting me to the very beginning, back when we were just a handful of players meeting at the Asian Library before the Charlotte Chess Center was even an idea. I never imagined employing 60 staff members or running one of the largest chess communities in the country. When my dad walked into that chess club years ago, he decided it wasn’t a place worth bringing his son. Twelve years later, thousands of players walk through our doors every year. We built the kind of chess community I wish had existed when I was a kid. We’ve built a community where a kid can start in Coach Geoff’s fundamentals class and grow all the way to Grandmaster without leaving their hometown. Our team brings together the administration, education, and tournament organization that makes that dream a reality. That wasn’t supposed to be possible at all, but especially for a city like Charlotte, but we proved that it is. We didn’t build a brand. We built a community.

Today’s song releases in ten minutes, and I’ve got another coming Wednesday! Its first verse is the only one to ever get me into the second round at Flow Lounge: Noone youtu.be/pQdEsXHWhEo?si=FTDH… via @YouTube

A new song I’ve worked on for two years, Superstar, premieres tomorrow: youtu.be/rVIt2os4ORc?si=28mG… via @YouTube

Agreements between ICE and local law enforcement agencies increased by 950 percent last year. New York state has a Democratic Governor, @GovKathyHochul, and a Democratic Party majority in both houses of the New York State Legislature. On top of that, EIGHT of the State Democrats are from the Democratic Socialists of America. AND YET, NINE Memorandums of Agreement were signed with ICE last year in New York state alone. As a result, thousands of New York immigrants have been detained by ICE. This is one of countless instances that totally discredit the idea that somehow electing more Democrats is the way to defeat Trump. In fact, Trump and Trumpism have gone on the rise not because the majority of the working class is moving rightward, but because they are angry at both parties. The Democratic Party is not the so-called lesser evil. The Democrats and Republicans are together the two most powerful parties of global capitalism. They both created ICE, have funded ICE, have funded imperialist wars and the genocide in Gaza, and have carried out a war on the working class. We need a new party for working people.

The Democrats are sitting at the table.

“Please get the truth out about our son.”

Having just written a book about this and talked to a LOT of Democratic officials, consultants, and pundits, I can assure you that neither Cory Booker nor the police training and surveillance industry he’s advertising think that more money for ICE “training” and tech would remotely address any problem that any person of good will has with what ICE is doing. What you are seeing here from Booker is the most craven and cynical counterinsurgency designed to preserve the key structures while tricking low information liberals into thinking people in power care and are “doing something.”

This is beyond parody: Maria Machado gave her Nobel Peace prize to Donald Trump for bombing, invading, and stealing her country’s oil.

I will say this far in advance so that y'all don't try to bully me into voting for him because "electability" or whatever: I will not, under any circumstances vote for Gavin Newsom. PERIOD. I don't care who he's running against. Vote for him during the primary at your own risk.

The folks who think that Democrats are going to fight back against Trump and Republicans are just as propagandized as MAGA. Democrats don’t fight back against Republicans. They collaborate with them.

It's not that the Democratic Party isn't fighting hard enough, it's that they're literally on the wrong side.

A country where a private Gestapo force is executing people in the streets should absolutely not be allowed to host the world cup or the Olympic Games 🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️

This seems like a good thing to support; consider it: