| Obama said his first instinct was to 'walk down and smack' GOP Rep. Joe Wilson on the head after he shouted 'you lie' at him during a joint session of Congress Posted: 15 Nov 2020 11:33 AM PST  Obama said that he was "shocked" to have been yelled at by GOP Rep. Joe Wilson from South Carolina during a joint session of Congress in 2009.
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| Muslim activist says American Airlines wrongfully singled her out after she was arrested Posted: 14 Nov 2020 12:07 PM PST  Amani Al-Khatahtbeh reportedly got into a dispute with a white man which later led to the airline contacting the policeA Muslim woman who was arrested on an American Airlines plane on Saturday before its departure from New Jersey said that she was wrongfully singled out following a dispute with a white man traveling in first class.Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, an activist and blogger, described alleged details about the dispute in a Twitter thread about an hour before her apparent arrest, saying it began at a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint in Newark Liberty international airport."I had the craziest experience in TSA this morning. An entitled white man behind me insisted on cutting me in line because I was 'still taking my shoes off'," Al-Khatahtbeh tweeted at 9.18am, before her Charlotte, North Carolina-bound flight. "When I said he could wait like everyone else, he started going off about how he's 'pre check' and 'first class'."At 10.07, she tweeted: "Guys he made a complaint about me and @AmericanAir is attempting to remove me from the flight." She then posted a 15-minute video to Facebook from the airplane in which a police officer eventually tells her she is under arrest."Literally they called the cops on me," she said in the video. "This man in first class made a complaint about me because he cut me in line at TSA and now they literally have police coming to escort me off this flight right now, for no reason, literally taking this man's word over mine."He made me feel uncomfortable, this man sitting in first class. I'm a veiled Muslim woman on this flight and they're taking his word for it."She claimed that she was being removed while the man wasn't.Authorities confirmed that an incident had taken place and officials said she had since been released.The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said: "This morning, the port authority police department received a request from American Airlines personnel at Newark Liberty international airport, who indicated the airline had directed a passenger to deplane from a flight, and that police assistance was needed. Police responded, and briefly took the individual into custody; she has been released. The port authority's independent inspector general has begun an investigation."The port authority said she was charged with delay of transportation and trespass.American Airlines said: "We are aware of an incident that took place during boarding of flight 2029 at Newark Liberty international airport. We are concerned by these allegations and our team is working to understand what occurred."The airline said that the flight did take off, delayed by about an hour. The airline said she was not on the flight. It is unclear whether the man was taken off the plane.TSA said the incident "is not a TSA matter"."No complaint was made by any passengers at the checkpoint. If there was a customer service issue on board the aircraft, that is an airline matter. In situations such as this, TSA has no involvement after a passenger clears the checkpoint and boards a flight," the agency said."The man was directed to the TSA PreCheck® lane. The woman was directed to the non-TSA PreCheck lane, so they went in different directions to be screened."An officer told both passengers to tone down the volume of the conversation," TSA also said.The Council on American-Islamic Relations released a statement on the incident, with Nihad Awad, the Cair national executive director, saying: "The airline must immediately explain why it singled out Amani by contacting the police and ejecting her from a flight based on the word of a man who had allegedly harassed her.""Law enforcement must immediately release Amani from custody and conduct a full and transparent investigation into what happened," said Selaedin Maksut, Cair-New Jersey executive director, in a statement. "Any investigation must look into the conduct of the unidentified man who allegedly sparked this disturbing incident."
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| The U.S. Cardinal Crusading Against the Catholic President-Elect Posted: 15 Nov 2020 02:01 AM PST  ROME—When then-candidate John F. Kennedy gave his landmark stump speech to the Houston Ministers Conference in September 1960, he stressed that he was "not the Catholic candidate for president." He insisted instead, "I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters—and the church does not speak for me."The Plot to Bring Down Pope FrancisTwo months later, JFK was elected the first Catholic president of the United States amid fears that his presidency would be guided by the Vatican and Pope John XXIII and warnings that he might compromise the separation of church and state—none of which happened. Sixty years later, Joe Biden is the second Catholic ever to win the presidency, and this time the criticism isn't from outside the Catholic Church, but from within, with conservative American Cardinal Raymond Burke leading the charge, painting Biden as an anti-Catholic not fit to lead.In the months leading up to the election, Burke was on a campaign of his own, stumping for the thrice-married incumbent President Trump while pleading that Biden is "not a Catholic in good standing" over his views on abortion and birth control. Burke said Biden should not receive communion at Catholic mass and should not tout his faith. "I don't understand why Catholics who are involved in politics can't get this straight in their heads, but they should," Burke told the Catholic Action for Faith and Family association, for which Burke is a spiritual adviser, in an interview that was run by the popular conservative Catholic website Lifesite. "If someone says, 'I'm a devout Catholic,' and at the same time is promoting abortion, it gives the impression to others that it's acceptable for Catholics to be in favor of abortion. And of course, it's absolutely not acceptable. Never has been. Never will be."Biden is not Burke's only target. He has also condemned Pope Francis for his recent remarks on extending civil rights to same-sex couples. Burke, whose office did not respond to multiple requests for comments, accused Francis last month of inciting "error and confusion with words that do not correspond to the constant teachings of the Church," when the pope commented in a documentary that he supported legal rights for gays. "To speak of a homosexual union, in the same sense as the conjugal union of the married, is misleading, because there can be no such union."The pope did not respond directly to Burke's criticism of himself or the president-elect, but he did call Biden Friday to congratulate him. In a readout of the call, which was confirmed by the Holy See press office, the Biden-Harris transition team said Biden "thanked His Holiness for extending blessings and congratulations and noted his appreciation for His Holiness' leadership in promoting peace, reconciliation, and the common bonds of humanity around the world." The two then discussed shared interests including "caring for the marginalized and the poor, addressing the crisis of climate change, and welcoming and integrating immigrants and refugees into our communities."The difference between the pope's reaction to Trump and Biden could not be more stark with the pope and Trump clashing on a number of occasions. In February 2016, Francis said anyone who wants to build walls is "not Christian" when asked about the southern border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Francis also criticized Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord and expressed concern over when Trump undid President Obama's move to restore trade and travel with Cuba.Steven Millies, associate professor of Public Theology and director of The Bernardin Center, Catholic Theological Union, has studied Catholicism in the American political spectrum for 30 years. He points to other up-and-coming Catholics in the Democratic Party including Julián Castro, Ted Lieu, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as beacons of light. He says the Biden presidency provides a moment of "opportunity to promote the diversity of Catholic social teaching rather than seeing it through the preeminent, singular lens of abortion."To be clear, Francis is not an advocate of abortion, and it may be this issue that divides the two if Biden takes decisive action to protect women's reproductive rights, though it is already clear that Francis has more tolerance for Biden than Catholics like Burke.Millies says today's church under Pope Francis is not the same as it was under Pope John XXIII when the first Catholic president was sworn in six decades ago. "The Catholic Church today is very different from the one to which JFK belonged," he says. "The church is more diverse, but it is also shrinking rapidly. And, increasingly, the Catholic Church is a body at war with itself. Biden is a different sort of Catholic for this moment." In short, Biden is a Pope Francis kind of Catholic.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? 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| K-pop fans are protesting a pro-Trump rally by flooding the #MillionMAGAMarch hashtag with pictures of pancakes Posted: 14 Nov 2020 02:41 AM PST  Shea Depmore urged her Twitter followers to post pictures of pancakes instead of counter-protesting in person at the Million MAGA March.
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| AOC asks if it’s ‘too socialist’ to want more stimulus relief for Americans Posted: 14 Nov 2020 08:55 AM PST  Meanwhile, lawmakers in Washington remain at a standstill on additional stimulus spending to prop up workers and the economy, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) of New York isn't happy about it. The Democratic representative took to Twitter to plead that Americans are in need of another stimulus check, rent forgiveness and mortgage relief, among other requests, to address the ongoing health crisis and offset an unstable economic environment.
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| Fauci predicts the US can return to 'relative normal' in 2021 if majority of people take a vaccine Posted: 15 Nov 2020 07:44 AM PST  Fauci warned that a successful vaccine does not mean Americans should abandon other measures like mask-wearing or practicing social distancing.
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| Palestinians torn as Israel seeks Gulf tourists in Jerusalem Posted: 14 Nov 2020 11:15 PM PST  When the United Arab Emirates agreed to normalize relations with Israel, the Palestinians decried the move as a "betrayal" of both Jerusalem, where they hope to establish the capital of their future state, and the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the city's holiest Muslim site. "There will be some benefits for the Palestinian sector of tourism, and this is what I'm hoping for," said Sami Abu-Dayyeh, a Palestinian businessman in east Jerusalem who owns four hotels and a tourism agency.
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| Gordon Brown: Scotland needs to 'heal' from coronavirus before any second independence referendum Posted: 15 Nov 2020 08:07 AM PST  Scotland needs to "heal" the devastation wrought by coronavirus before another independence referendum is staged, Gordon Brown has said after the SNP's Westminster leader said it must be held in 2021. The former Prime Minister argued this was "not the right time at all" as Scotland is in the middle of a pandemic and a deep recession, which could have a long-lasting economic impact. Amid intense controversy over whether Boris Johnson will allow Nicola Sturgeon to have another vote, Mr Brown argued the real question was whether one "should" happen at the current time. His intervention came after Ian Blackford, the SNP's Westminster leader, said his party "must" plan for a second independence referendum in 2021. Mr Blackford predicted another separation vote would happen next year, despite Boris Johnson's refusal to hand over the necessary powers, and apologised to nationalists for it not happening in 2020. But Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, said it "beggars belief" that the SNP Commons leader was arguing that "as lives and livelihoods continue to be lost, Scotland needs yet more division, chaos and uncertainty."
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| Cuomo threatens Trump with legal action over vaccine distribution plan Posted: 15 Nov 2020 11:14 AM PST  NEW YORK — Gov. Andrew Cuomo repeated his threat to sue the Trump administration as he invoked Martin Luther King, Jr. during Sunday remarks about the COVID outbreak at historic Riverside Church in Manhattan. "The Rev. Dr. King, who spoke in this magnificent church, said of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhumane because it often results in ...
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| Letters to the Editor: The message from Prop. 15's failure? Leave Prop. 13 alone Posted: 15 Nov 2020 03:00 AM PST  The business community wants tax loopholes that violate the intent of Prop. 13 to be closed, but not in the way Prop. 15 would have done.
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| A secretive Republican group called Amish PAC ended the election cycle with money in its pocket Posted: 15 Nov 2020 09:05 AM PST  The PAC is funded in large part by three major GOP donors whose connections to the Amish community are not apparent
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| Biden's chief of staff pick expects him to campaign in Georgia ahead of Senate runoffs Posted: 15 Nov 2020 10:49 AM PST  Democrats in Georgia have said they'd prefer for President-elect Joe Biden to focus on the White House transition and send surrogates like former President Barack Obama to actively campaign for Democratic Senate candidates John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both of whom are gearing up for January runoffs against Republican incumbents that will seal the fate of the upper chamber. One of Ossoff's advisers, for instance, told Politico earlier this week that the best thing Biden can do is avoid getting into a fight with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whom he may have to work closely with in the future should the GOP hold the Senate, and "restore faith in the presidency" while "the worst thing to happen is if it gets partisan in D.C. again."But Ron Klain, Biden's pick to be White House chief of staff, told NBC's Chuck Todd during Sunday's edition of Meet the Press that the president-elect will likely travel to Georgia to campaign for Ossoff and Warnock ahead of the vote.> Klain also said Biden would likely travel to Georgia to campaign for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock ahead of the Jan. 5 run-offs.> > -- Tyler Pager (@tylerpager) November 15, 2020Ossoff, for his part, had nothing but praise for Biden and said he thinks there's a whole lot of enthusiasm for the president-elect in Georgia that will feed into the Senate race, so perhaps he's on a different page than his aforementioned adviser. > Georgia Democratic senatorial candidate Jon Ossoff tells @martharaddatz there's "massive enthusiasm" for Joe Biden in Georgia amid Senate runoffs.> > "We're excited to be part of it. We recognize that these races in Georgia have national implications." https://t.co/RzvHrua3iC pic.twitter.com/mP80PMFtSo> > -- This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 15, 2020More stories from theweek.com 7 scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's refusal to concede Trump is reportedly 'very aware' he lost the election but is putting up a fight as 'theater' Texas senator suggests it's too soon to declare Biden the winner because Puerto Rico is still counting votes
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| Shepherd Bushiri: Preacher flees South Africa ahead of fraud trial Posted: 15 Nov 2020 10:01 AM PST  The self-styled prophet says he skipped bail and left South Africa because he had received death threats.
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| SpaceX says 'all systems are go' to launch NASA's longest, most ambitious astronaut mission yet on Sunday night Posted: 15 Nov 2020 09:13 AM PST  NASA this week certified SpaceX's rocket and spaceship. Weather permitting, the company will launch its Crew-1 astronaut mission at 7:27 p.m. ET.
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| How the Armenian Genocide’s Legacy Explains a Conflict on Pause Posted: 14 Nov 2020 03:30 AM PST  For Armenians around the world, the recent one-sided peace deal to end the conflict involving the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh must be seen through the lens of history. And that history is stitched together by widespread persecution and mass suffering over hundreds of years. It is a history that includes the first genocide of the 20th century, when more than 1.5 million Armenians were systematically exterminated by the Ottoman Turks, an event Turkey still denies to this day. Framing today's conflict over land gravely misses the point.Armenians see these latest acts of aggression by Turkey vis-à-vis Azerbaijan as a continuation of genocide and a threat to their very existence. In some ways, history is repeating itself. Regardless, these events further underscore why recognition of the Armenian genocide and the war over Nagorno-Karabakh are not mutually exclusive.To fully understand why this decades-old conflict suddenly reignited, one must examine the rise of authoritarianism in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. During his rule, Erdogan has sought to increase Turkey's regional influence and on many occasions has glowingly talked about resurrecting the Ottoman Empire, all while styling himself as a modern-day sultan.During the Trump administration, Erdogan has tried to stretch that influence from the Aegean Sea to the South Caucasus. It is one of the reasons that Turkey has been a staunch supporter of Azerbaijan in the latter nation's efforts to retake Nagorno-Karabakh. With the two nations bound by strong cultural, ethnic, and historic ties, Turkey has vowed to help Azerbaijan on the battlefield or at the negotiating table. However, Erdogan's belligerent and hostile behavior has only reminded Armenians of their terrible past.Since the conflict erupted last month, Turkey has armed and sent Syrian mercenaries, including Islamic terrorists, into the region to help Azerbaijan fight Armenians where there have been confirmed reports of war crimes and atrocities. We've seen this before. A hundred years ago, Ottoman Turks enlisted the help of Kurds, who participated in massacres of Armenians and played a vital role in the Armenian genocide. It is as if Erdogan has turned to the Ottoman Empire's playbook.There's no denying Turkey's role in fueling the fire in Nagorno-Karabakh through its reckless actions and rhetoric. But Ankara's ongoing campaign to deny the Armenian genocide has also helped it there. Denial has helped establish a level of insouciance from countries such as the United States, Great Britain, and Israel, thereby allowing Turkey to continue to act with impunity. Thus it can, for example, provide Azerbaijan with drones that are indiscriminately killing innocent civilians and destroying cultural centers and churches that have stood since long before Azerbaijan became a country.For far too long, the West has turned a blind eye to Turkey's egregious behavior. There is a reason that more journalists sit in Turkish prisons than anywhere else in the world, and that Ankara regularly tops the annual lists of human-rights violations. Turkey's considerable success in refusing to acknowledge its historical role in the Armenian genocide makes Ankara today believe that it can do what it wants without consequences. It is why Erdogan felt compelled to challenge the United States to impose sanctions on his country for its involvement over Nagorno-Karabakh and launched a personal attack on French president Emmanuel Macron.These recent actions by Erdogan did not happen overnight. Ankara has been trying to shape U.S. foreign policy for years concerning Turkey and the Armenian genocide. As part of an effort to sow doubt about the veracity of the Armenian genocide, Turkey has embarked on a years-long campaign to block any U.S. legislation that formally acknowledges it. For the most part, Turkey has successfully used the cover of NATO and realpolitik to convince lawmakers that recognizing the Armenian genocide is not in the political interests of the United States. When Congress finally passed a nonbinding resolution last year that formally affirmed recognition, Ankara officially responded by calling the bill political theater. There were even multiple reports that President Trump tried to thwart the resolution on the Senate floor to appease Erdogan.It should not surprise us, then, when we see Turkey's wanton disrespect for the rule of law and aggressive behavior in its actions in Nagorno-Karabakh. In many ways, we have allowed it to happen, and have even encouraged it. We have only ourselves to blame.It is often said that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It is also often said that denial is the last stage of genocide. That is why recognition of the Armenian genocide goes hand in hand with a real resolution of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenians know all too well what happens when this type of aggression goes unchecked. Until Turkey comes to terms with its past, we can expect Ankara to continue its quixotic quest to revive the Ottoman Empire.
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| 'You want a Prime Minister's spouse who's interested rather than doesn't care' Posted: 14 Nov 2020 10:43 AM PST  As a former Tory communications director and ministerial aide, Carrie Symonds has both strong views on her party, together with the powerful network that comes from a decade working at the heart of the Conservatives. This weekend, a series of toxic claims and counterclaims about the role of the Prime Minister's fiancee in the departure of two of Boris Johnson's most senior aides have raised questions about the influence that Ms Symonds's views (and friends) have on the workings of No 10 Downing Street. Just days ago, Dominic Cummings (see below), Mr Johnson's chief aide, and Lee Cain, his communications director, were ousted from No 10 after the Prime Minister heard claims that he and Ms Symonds had been the subject of hostile briefings. Their departure came after a major row over the appointment of Allegra Stratton, a longstanding acquaintance of Ms Symonds, as the Prime Minister's new chief spokesman, despite the firm advice of Mr Cain. Ms Symonds went on to insist that Mr Johnson should not appoint Mr Cain as chief of staff, with sources claiming that she was supported by figures such as Munira Mirza, the head of the Prime Minister's policy unit. Ms Mirza has told friends that the claims about her involvement are untrue. This weekend, senior sources said that Ms Symonds's influence on Mr Johnson's work as Prime Minister had appeared to grow steadily since the Prime Minister's hospitalisation with Covid-19 in April. However, a senior insider claimed that Ms Symonds appeared "determined" to play a significant role in the workings of the Government, "and that's the heart of the problem." The source said she clearly had strong views about "wholesale change at No 10", adding that the former Tory communications director is perceived as "wanting to run the Government by WhatsApp from the flat." Another source said Ms Symonds used the No 11 flat "as a sort of private office". The flat above No 11 Downing Street that Ms Symonds shares with Mr Johnson and their baby Wilfred has become the centre of intrigue for No 10 staff who have, since last summer, observed a steady stream of familiar faces paying social visits to the Prime Minister's fiancee, while the official cogs of government turn downstairs.
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| California governor went to party, violated own coronavirus rules Posted: 15 Nov 2020 09:37 AM PST 
For months, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has pleaded with residents to resist socializing with friends and relatives. Turns out, he's the one who couldn't resist.
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| Booming population helped Dems in Georgia. Mississippi's 'brain drain' is keeping it red. Posted: 14 Nov 2020 01:30 AM PST  Political experts say Mississippi won't see nail-biter elections, especially at the nation level, anytime soon — thanks in part to stalled population growth.
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| A Florida man says he was 'trying to toughen' up an 8-year-old by bringing him along on a crime spree Posted: 15 Nov 2020 11:14 AM PST  Ernest McKnight III, 36, told authorities that he "was trying to toughen him up" when asked why the child was with him.
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| Video shows 'USPS whistleblower' was not alone when swearing to affidavit alleging mail-in ballot fraud Posted: 15 Nov 2020 02:38 PM PST  A video obtained by Business Insider shows that at least two other men were present when Richard Hopkins made his affidavit.
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| Column: The Georgia Senate runoffs could make all the difference. But is electing a Democrat possible? Posted: 15 Nov 2020 03:03 PM PST  As money comes pouring in from Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and election ads saturate the state, will will there be a backlash from Georgia voters?
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| Storm Vamco hits Vietnam as Philippines rescues survivors Posted: 15 Nov 2020 05:28 AM PST  High winds uprooted trees and blew roofs off buildings as the powerful storm battered Vietnam.
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| "The Reagans" shows how the Gipper paved the way for political actors pretending they aren't racist Posted: 15 Nov 2020 12:30 PM PST  Showtime's series about the Reagans' rise to power covers well-known ground but falls prey to the stardom narrative
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| Ga. Democratic Senate hopeful Jon Ossoff holds drive-in rallies 'to set the right example' Posted: 15 Nov 2020 09:27 AM PST 
Democrat Jon Ossoff held an outdoor drive-in rally in an Augusta, Ga., parking lot Friday with more than 200 people, nearly all of whom were wearing masks and amply socially distanced. In an exclusive interview with Yahoo News, Ossoff spoke about the contrast of the Republican Senate candidates and their packed indoor rallies that put everyone in attendance at risk of COVID-19.
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| Erdogan calls for Cyprus to be permanently split in two at controversial picnic in no-man's land Posted: 15 Nov 2020 08:15 AM PST  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday he favours a permanent division of Cyprus into two states. The comments were made during a visit to the breakaway Turkish-held north of the island, decried as a "provocation" by the internationally-recognised Greek-speaking south. It marks a further setback to hopes for an eventual reunification of the Mediterranean island which is split between EU member the Republic of Cyprus, which controls the island's southern two thirds, and the north occupied by Turkey since 1974. "There are two peoples and two separate states in Cyprus," said Mr Erdogan. "There must be talks for a solution on the basis of two separate states." During his visit, Turkish jets left vapour trails in the sky in the shape of the star and crescent of the Turkish flag - mirroring a huge flag painted decades ago on a rocky mountainside in the north. Mr Erdogan's visit to the Turkish-held statelet recognised only by Ankara comes amid heightened tensions on the island and in the Eastern Mediterranean and was condemned as a "provocation without precedent" by the Republic of Cyprus.
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| The Dakotas are ‘as bad as it gets anywhere in the world’ for Covid-19 as governor finally mandates masks Posted: 14 Nov 2020 01:37 PM PST  The states had largely dodged big outbreaks during the spring and summer
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| Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville botches history facts, including three branches of government Posted: 13 Nov 2020 10:09 PM PST  Tommy Tuberville botched several basic historical facts in an interview, such as misidentifying the three branches of government.
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| Rebekah Mercer is funding Parler, the social-media app touted by Republican politicians and pundits that conservatives are flocking to Posted: 14 Nov 2020 11:41 PM PST  Mercer, who has funded conservative causes, said she and Parler CEO John Matze founded the platform "to provide a neutral platform for free speech."
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| Trump's refusal to concede is just the latest gambit to please Republican donors Posted: 14 Nov 2020 10:00 PM PST  Millions who should be ranged against the American oligarchy are distracted and divided – just as their leaders want * Biden reaches across the aisle – is he walking into a trap?Leave it to Trump and his Republican allies to spend more energy fighting non-existent voter fraud than containing a virus that has killed 244,000 Americans and counting.The cost of this misplaced attention is incalculable. While Covid-19 surges to record levels, there's still no national strategy for equipment, stay-at-home orders, mask mandates or disaster relief.The other cost is found in the millions of Trump voters who are being led to believe the election was stolen and who will be a hostile force for years to come – making it harder to do much of anything the nation needs, including actions to contain the virus.Trump is continuing this charade because it pulls money into his newly formed political action committee and allows him to assume the mantle of presumed presidential candidate for 2024, whether he intends to run or merely keep himself the center of attention.Leading Republicans like the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, are going along with it because donors are refilling GOP coffers.> The president-elect aspires to find a moderate middle ground. This will be difficult because there's no middleThe biggest beneficiaries are the party's biggest patrons – the billionaire class, including the heads of the nation's largest corporations and financial institutions, private-equity partnerships and hedge funds – whom a deeply divided nation serves by giving them unfettered access to the economy's gains.Their heist started four decades ago. According to a recent Rand study, if America's distribution of income had remained the same as it was in the three decades following the second world war, the bottom 90% would now be $47tn richer.A low-income American earning $35,000 this year would be earning $61,000. A college-educated worker now earning $72,000 would be earning $120,000. Overall, the grotesque surge in inequality that began 40 years ago is costing the median American worker $42,000 per year.The upward redistribution of $47tn wasn't due to natural forces. It was contrived. As wealth accumulated at the top, so did political power to siphon off even more wealth and shaft everyone else.Monopolies expanded because antitrust laws were neutered. Labor unions shriveled because corporations were allowed to bust unions. Wall Street was permitted to gamble with other people's money and was bailed out when its bets soured even as millions lost their homes and savings. Taxes on the top were cut, tax loopholes widened.When Covid-19 hit, big tech cornered the market, the rich traded on inside information and the Treasury and the Fed bailed out big corporations but let small businesses go under. Since March, billionaire wealth has soared while most of America has become poorer.How could the oligarchy get away with this in a democracy where the bottom 90% have the votes? Because the bottom 90% are bitterly divided.Long before Trump, the GOP suggested to white working-class voters that their real enemies were Black people, Latinos, immigrants, "coastal elites", bureaucrats and "socialists". Trump rode their anger and frustration into the White House with more explicit and incendiary messages. He's still at it with his bonkers claim of a stolen election.The oligarchy surely appreciates the Trump-GOP tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks and the most business-friendly supreme court since the early 1930s. But the Trump-GOP's biggest gift has been an electorate more fiercely split than ever.Into this melee comes Joe Biden, who speaks of being "president of all Americans" and collaborating with the Republican party. But the GOP doesn't want to collaborate. When Biden holds out an olive branch, McConnell and other Republican leaders will respond just as they did to Barack Obama – with more warfare, because that maintains their power and keeps the big money rolling in.The president-elect aspires to find a moderate middle ground. This will be difficult because there's no middle. The real divide is no longer left versus right but the bottom 90% versus the oligarchy.Biden and the Democrats will better serve the nation by becoming the party of the bottom 90% – of the poor and the working middle class, of black and white and brown, and of all those who would be $47tn richer today had the oligarchy not taken over America.This would require that Democrats abandon the fiction of political centrism and establish a countervailing force to the oligarchy – and, not incidentally, sever their own links to it.They'd have to show white working-class voters how badly racism and xenophobia have hurt them as well as people of color. And change the Democratic narrative from kumbaya to economic and social justice.Easy to say, hugely difficult to accomplish. But if today's bizarre standoff in Washington is seen for what it really is, there's no alternative. * Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US
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| In pictures: Diwali celebrations around the world Posted: 14 Nov 2020 10:04 AM PST  The festival of light is celebrated with candles and fireworks by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains worldwide.
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| Black Lives Matter Is Challenging Sweden’s Myth of a Post-Racial Paradise Posted: 15 Nov 2020 02:00 AM PST  It's been four months since anti-racism protests filled Europe's boulevards and parks, toppling statues of enslavers and colonizers like Edward Colston and Belgium's King Leopold II, and prompting larger conversations around anti-Blackness on the continent. But even as the swells of crowds with raised fists have left the streets, the cause of the protests remains. Black lives still hang in the balance, and now activists are moving from marches to ideological battles in classrooms, boardrooms, and online spaces.In Ireland, that means shifting focus onto the need to dismantle Direct Provision. France has been grappling with not only police brutality towards Black and Muslim people but attitudes toward minorities from France's former colonies in Africa and ideas on colonialism in general, including questions of returning stolen artifacts to former colonies. And in Sweden— which has traditionally seen itself as a post-racial paradise—the first step is getting the country to admit to its own racist structures, past and present.Since protests spread across Sweden in early June, ugly truths about its racialized history have been seeping into public spaces. Despite the country being considered one of the least racist in the world, police biases and Afrophobia are rife, and Sweden's past involvement with the cross-Atlantic slave trade and racist pseudo-science is ignored or erased.Protests in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö this summer were met with police backlash for breaking the COVID-19 limit of 50 people to a public gathering. More than 2,000 people took part in the Gothenburg protest, raising their voices against the deep-rooted racism that underpins much of Swedish society. Nontokozo Tshabalala and Aron Zahran, activists and mobilizers from the BLM protest in Gothenburg, say the first step is to get Swedish society to acknowledge that there is a racism problem in the country, which they say the white population loves to ignore."They pretend that the issue isn't there. Sweden only ended slavery after pressure from the U.K. and international players, and even then King Gustav III said that no Swede has ever had any part in the slave trade, which is a blatant lie and feeds Swedish denialism," says Zahran.Sweden, long considered a socialist utopia and a bastion of human rights by the global left, is not post-racial—nor does it have a compassionate police force. Historically, the country participated in the processes that have come to define racist systems all over the world: Sweden's Caribbean colony of Saint Barthélemy (now the French overseas territory of St. Barth) was active with slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries. Scandinavian involvement in the slave trade is often overlooked but Sweden was one of the last countries in Europe to abolish slavery, a full 14 years after the U.K. The country's colonization of the Caribbean island is still taught in its schools as a practice in benevolent leadership.The country was also a cradle for the pseudoscience of race biology, with Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus being the first scientist to divide people into biologically-defined races—definitions that were meant to justify the discrimination of people of color around the world for centuries. Scientific racism played a large role in the definitions cited by South Africa's former government to set up the system of apartheid, which has since been deemed a crime against humanity. Linnaeus, known in Sweden as the father of taxonomy, is celebrated all over the country but there have been calls to remove his statues, calling him the father of racial division. However, many Swedes see this as an affront to the country's heritage and protected the statue in Stockholm from possible vandalism earlier this year.The Swedish State Institute for Racial Biology in Uppsala continued to take a leading role in research dealing with racial eugenics well into the 1930s and facilitated the implementation of forced sterilization laws, which pertained to certain groups of people with "unwanted" genes, such as people of mixed race, the Swedish Romani population, and the indigenous Sámi people. The aim was to prevent "ethnically inferior inhabitants" from having children. This research paved the way for the Nazi party's 1933 Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases, eradicating those seen as lacking "racial hygiene." These laws were only completely abolished in the 1970s, despite the practice of sterilization being universally declared criminal and barbaric after the 1946 Nuremberg Trials.Even so, modern-day Sweden likes to brush over these issues of the past, in a poignant example of the problem of nationalism in Europe today: racism is not deemed a mainstream problem. It is instead seen as an expression of extremism, where there are only good people or Nazis. The right-wing Swedish Democrat party, which was founded by a Nazi sympathizer and which now holds 13 percent of the country's parliament, is treated as a national anomaly rather than a growing threat. Scandanavia's neo-Nazi party, the Nordic Resistance Movement (Nordfront), is still painted as a national joke, even after 2019 attacks on Jewish cemeteries across Scandinavia on the 81st anniversary of Kristallnacht.Activists Zahran and Tshabalala say the largest hurdle for BLM in Sweden right now is educating white Swedes on their own history. This is the country where former prime minister Olof Palme said in 1965: "Democracy is firmly rooted in this country. We respect the fundamental freedoms and rights. Murky racial theories have never found a foothold here. We like to see ourselves as open-minded and tolerant." It's a popular sentiment, one that pretends racist ideology was never coddled in the heart of Swedish society in the arms of Linneaus and his ilk.Despite Sweden's self-professed tolerance, there still seems to be a pattern of discrimination and exclusion in Swedish society, as well as Europe more broadly: the "us" vs. the foreign "them." While national minorities such as the Sámi, Roma, and Jewish people have a long history of being excluded from the Swedish nation, people of color are most evidently discriminated against in every major arena of society, such as the housing and job markets. "If your name is not Swedish, you are less likely to get an interview," says Zahran. "Black Swedes are paid less, need a higher level of education to enter certain positions, and are less likely to be accepted into Swedish society." Tshabalala adds that while all of this is true, Swedes maintain a self-righteous attitude that the country doesn't see color. Nevertheless, urban areas are spatially segregated along racial lines, with people of color concentrated to low-income housing projects. Many of these areas are considered "problem areas" by the police, and the media (and public) quickly latched onto the term "no-go zone," implying that those areas are lawless, with little attempt made to cover up the reason why they're known as such.Amid Spreading George Floyd Protests in Europe, a Question: Do Black Lives Matter Less in France? Although few modern Swedes are descendants of enslaved people, over one-quarter of all Swedish citizens have heritage from outside Scandinavia, including approximately 350,000 Afro-Swedes, most of whom arrived in the past 50 years. "If you are a first-generation Swede, with your parents having been born elsewhere, it's the same as having Finnish or Norwegian parents—but they are seen as citizens, whereas Black Swedes are always, no matter whether we are born here, seen as foreign," says Zahran. For Black Swedes, structural racism is apparent from racially-motivated hate crimes, police and security profiling, to discrimination in everyday society. "Oftentimes," Zahran says, "security forces quietly belong to growing neo-Nazi groups." The fact that the Danish neo-Nazi politician Rasmus Paludan's followers felt comfortable enough to enter the country to burn copies of the Qu'ran near one of the city's mosques in August shows the complacency toward racism in Sweden. "This is what we are dealing with," says Tshabalala.Both Tshabalala and Zahran point out that racism extends to the Swedish criminal justice system. "Whiteness is so embedded in Swedish culture and even the human rights realm, that it's seen as okay when a Black woman's rape case is thrown out of court because there was lack of evidence," says Tshabalala, citing the attitudes towards immigration and sexual violence, a correlation often used by the right-wing Swedish Democrats in the argument against immigration and giving asylum to refugees. There have also been many cases of violence with racist overtones, such as Stockholm security guards abusing a 12-year-old boy of Somali descent in the Kista Galleria shopping center and a pregnant Afro-Swedish woman at Hötorget's underground station.The left in the U.S., such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, often speak of the "Nordic model" as an example of democratic socialism, but the reality is that the model is slowly moving closer to that of America, especially in its income inequality, which has increased faster than any other country in the world. Increasingly neo-liberal policies have affected working-class Swedes and they have disproportionately impacted racial minorities in larger cities like Stockholm and Malmö, where it is now common to see primarily Black neighborhoods emerging that are low-income and underdeveloped, much like in the U.S.Swedish police may not carry guns, but that doesn't stop police brutality, and Tshabalala says the target demographic in racial profiling is Black Swedes. In a recent report by criminologist Leandro Schclarek Mulinari, minorities tell of how they are harassed by police and security guards with violent and intimidating methods, all based on their appearance. Mulinari also details over-policing in Black areas, with police disproportionately targeting Black and minority Swedes through "selective policing," despite higher self-reported drug usage in majority-white neighborhoods. "Yet Swedish people brush these facts aside like it's not a problem," says Zahran. "The first goal is to educate and get people to admit this thing exists."The BLM movement in Sweden is not just asking to reform the police, but also for a redistribution of resources, to invest in communities overlooked by white politicians and a society run by and for white people. Eradicating ignorance is the only way to get there. "Advertising and creative industries need to change perceptions about Black people. We need Black faces, Black voices, and Black representation," says Tshabalala. "And we need to keep BLM on the agenda. We can't wait for the next person to become a statistic. We don't want someone to die to have to move the fight forward."Zahran says the fact that Sweden has an equality minister who is getting involved with the movement is a positive step forward, but there's still such a long way to go. While corporations are falling over themselves to be "BLM friendly," the movement is still busy with the groundwork in education and awareness. "We need to target industry and the consumer culture because Sweden is so consumer-driven. Whiteness in these spaces keeps the status quo," says Tshabalala. "We also need to get more representation in NGO and human rights spaces, because we can't have white people heading up foundations aimed at Black empowerment."Still, BLM has not lost momentum in Sweden, according to the activists. They both agree that the key is to keep that energy going and not get distracted from the goal even though the protests are over. Where BLM Sweden is at right now is trying to change public perceptions of Black people and empower others to do the same. "BLM gave Black people and allies the impetus to effect change," says Zahran, "and that's where we are: pushing forward, taking each issue step by step."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Bulgaria says to block EU accession talks with North Macedonia Posted: 15 Nov 2020 10:22 AM PST |
| New indictment in Tim Norman’s murder-for-hire plot Posted: 14 Nov 2020 01:20 PM PST  According to the Riverfront Times, a fourth person has been indicted in the murder-for-hire case against Timothy Norman of the Sweetie Pie's restaurant in St. Louis. In August, Norman was arrested and given federal charges for his involvement in the 2016 shooting death of his 21-year-old nephew Andre Montgomery.
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| Tropical Storm Iota, 30th storm of historic season, could strengthen into major hurricane Posted: 14 Nov 2020 03:36 PM PST |
| Tucker Carlson apologized on-air for making a false accusation of voter fraud in Georgia Posted: 14 Nov 2020 02:24 PM PST  The Fox News host alleged that a dead man in Georgia voted in the election, when in reality it was the man's 96-year-old widow who had voted legally.
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| In Wyoming, a Covid surge, a struggling energy economy and thriving haven for the rich Posted: 15 Nov 2020 03:00 AM PST  As the state becomes the superrich's go-to, residents are out of work and dealing with a massive spike in case numbers.
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| Ex-Obama official suggests Biden should pack as much as he can into executive orders Posted: 14 Nov 2020 10:20 AM PST  Former President Barack Obama's chiefs of staff want President-elect Joe Biden to embrace his executive authority once he's in office, NPR reports.Denis McDonough who served in the role during Obama's second term told NPR that President Trump "has demonstrated ... an enormous amount of leeway for the president to institute executive action on things like immigration and energy and climate policy" and "there's no reason" the president-elect "should not use the authority that's available to him."Meanwhile, Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, argued Biden, despite his fondness for working across the aisle in Congress, should fit as much of his agenda as he can into his executive orders because "the fewer things you have to clog up the legislative pipeline with allows you to concentrate your political capital in that legislative front."Should Biden heed this advice, which seems likely at least when it comes to certain issues, it would dash the already tenuous hopes of those who want the president-elect to initiate a scaling back of the office. Read more at NPR.More stories from theweek.com 7 scathingly funny cartoons about Trump's refusal to concede Trump is reportedly 'very aware' he lost the election but is putting up a fight as 'theater' Texas senator suggests it's too soon to declare Biden the winner because Puerto Rico is still counting votes
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| Letter from Africa: Culture clash over Nigeria's rival alphabets Posted: 14 Nov 2020 05:11 PM PST  A court case of the use of Arabic script on the local currency reveals deep cultural and religious divides.
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| India to fly in medical staff, ramp up testing amid rising cases in Delhi Posted: 15 Nov 2020 09:14 AM PST  India will fly doctors in from other regions, double the quantity of tests carried out and ensure people wear masks in efforts to contain the coronavirus spread in the capital New Delhi, Home Minister Amit Shah said on Sunday. While India's daily increase in cases has been under the 50,000 mark for eight straight days, around half its record peak, the city state of Delhi has recorded over 7,000 cases a day over the last five days - a record level. "Delhi has witnessed a huge surge in daily active cases which is likely to worsen over next few weeks," India's Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said in a tweet on Sunday.
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| ‘An environmental injustice’: Residents sue after town injects chemical used to treat spas in drinking water Posted: 15 Nov 2020 09:29 AM PST  Attorneys say local residents 'suffered at the hands of the city, the state and the manufacturer' of a chemical used to treat pools and spas
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| The US military is getting a new pistol. Here are the sidearms it's carried into battle since first taking on the British Posted: 15 Nov 2020 03:30 PM PST  The military has distributed more than 100,000 M17 and M18 handguns, the latest in a long line of sidearms that US troops have carried into battle.
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| Trump faces growing pressure to start transition as Covid surges across US Posted: 15 Nov 2020 10:07 AM PST  * White House yet to open contacts with incoming Biden team * Incoming chief of staff stresses need to liaise on vaccinations * US politics – live coverageThe White House is coming under growing pressure from President-elect Joe Biden, as well as senior Republicans and health experts, to allow transition talks to begin amid a terrifying surge in coronavirus cases that is pushing hospital systems across the US to the brink of collapse.As Donald Trump insisted he would not concede defeat – despite tweeting that Biden "won" last week's election – Ron Klain, Biden's chief of staff, said on Sunday it was essential that a "seamless transition" begins quickly, given the severity of the pandemic.He told NBC's Meet the Press Biden's Covid advisory panel remains hamstrung from talking to US government health officials including the White House taskforce led by Vice-President Mike Pence.Under transition rules routinely followed for the past 60 years, a letter of "ascertainment" declaring Biden the winner of the 3 November election should by now have been issued by the General Services Administration (GSA), authorising communication between the outgoing and incoming administrations.But with Trump still refusing to concede, as he lies repeatedly on Twitter about a "stolen election", no such letter has been produced."Unfortunately until we get that GSA ascertainment that authorises us to contact government officials we can't have any contacts," Klain said.> Trump's Twitter feed doesn't make Joe Biden president or not president, the American people did that> > Ron KlainKlain, whose approach to coronavirus carries weight given his successful marshalling of the federal response as "Ebola tsar" in 2014, said the block on communications was especially damaging around preparations for a vaccine. Hopes soared this week when Pfizer/BioNTech announced its candidate was 90% effective in protecting people from the infection.The White House has said some 20m doses of the vaccine could be ready for distribution to vulnerable populations such as older people in nursing homes by the end of December.Biden's transition team will meet Pfizer and other producers this week, Klain said. But he added: "The bigger issue is the mechanism of manufacture and distribution – getting this vaccine out. Vaccines don't save lives, vaccinations save lives – it's a giant logistical problem."Trump's Twitter feed doesn't make Joe Biden president or not president, the American people did that. What we want to see is the GSA issue that ascertainment so we can meet vaccine officials."The note of urgency and frustration evident from Biden's chief of staff reflected the intensity of a coronavirus crisis that is surging in all parts of the US. Friday saw records shattered with 184,000 new cases. Deaths are increasing in 31 states, the toll fast approaching a quarter of a million.The lack of transition talks is not only hampering preparations for a vaccine. It is also preventing Biden's administration-in-waiting from gaining up-to-the-minute information on stockpiles of essential protective equipment for health workers, including gloves and masks.A Guardian/Kaiser Health News investigation, Lost on the Frontline, has identified at least 1,375 health workers who have died in the US from Covid-19.The chorus of demands on the Trump administration to begin cooperating with Biden, despite the president's increasingly perverse refusal to admit defeat, has been joined by a number of senior Republicans. Among them on Sunday was John Bolton, Trump's former US national security adviser.Bolton told ABC's This Week that by making it as difficult as possible for the incoming administration, Trump was acting "ultimately to the country's disadvantage, certainly in the national security space and I think given the coronavirus pandemic and the effective distribution of the vaccine. We need a transition and we should proceed with it as quickly as we can."Mike DeWine, the Republican governor of Ohio, which is struggling with a devastating rise in infections, told CNN's State of the Union: "We know now that Joe Biden is president-elect and that transition for the country's sake is important. We need to begin that process."Dr Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious diseases official and a member of the White House taskforce, joined the calls for the transition blockage to be lifted.Asked by CNN's Jake Tapper if a normal transition would be to the benefit of public health, were he and other experts allowed to work with the Biden team, he replied: "Of course, that's obvious. Of course it would be better if we could starting working with them."As the calls mount for Trump to get out of the way, the president himself has been virtually silent on the public health disaster swirling around him. According to Fauci, Trump has not attended a meeting of the coronavirus taskforce for "several months".The last time Trump physically sat in on the discussions was at least five months ago, the Washington Post reported.Apart from spreading falsehoods about the election, Trump spent the weekend playing golf at his course in Sterling, Virginia.Though the death rate from Covid-19 remains lower than its April peak, there are fears that fatalities will also rise when hospitals become overrun. That point is getting close in several states throughout the midwest, including Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.Michael Osterholm, a member of Biden's Covid-19 advisory board, gave NBC a chilling vision of what could lie ahead."My worst fear," he said, "is what we saw in other countries, where people were literally dying in the waiting room of emergency rooms after spending 10 hours waiting to be seen."That will start to happen, the media will start reporting it, and we will see the breadth and depth of this tragedy."
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| Rep. Jim Jordan on the integrity of the election Posted: 14 Nov 2020 06:42 PM PST  Rep. Jim Jordan weighs in on Trump vowing to challenge alleged' voter fraud' as legal fight continues.
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| Fears that the 'Garden of England' could be littered with bags of excrement left by 7,000 truckers caught in Brexit border gridlock Posted: 14 Nov 2020 01:48 AM PST  The government said it would install roadside toilets in Kent for truck drivers whose journeys could be delayed for up to two days.
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