22 July 20
We are blessed with supporters, readers, community members who sustain Reader Supported News month in and month out. But for some reason, only when it becomes clear that the organization is absolutely desperate.
That’s something that we really want to move away from. For the sake of the organization and the community that we serve.
In solidarity.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
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21 July 20
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "Joe Biden addressed the Million Muslim Votes organization on Monday. In the context of the extreme hatred for Muslims of the Trump administration and the wider Trump movement, his remarks were crucially significant but probably won't be noticed on cable news."
Biden said in part,
“I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith. I wish we talked about all of the great confessional faiths– it is one of the great confessional faiths. And what people don’t realize–and one of my avocations is theology — is that we all come from the same root here in terms of our fundamental basic beliefs.Biden in essence gave a lay homily or sermon about tolerance and hate in today’s America. He began by urging that something about Islam be taught in American schools. Of course, US public schools seldom touch religion, including the History of Religions, because of the separation of religion and state. But there has been a lively movement for the teaching of World History, and the history of Muslims is the history of one fifth of humankind, so that would be a good rubric for it. Alas, it is often an elective, and I don’t know how widely it is offered. I took such a class when I was in High School and it obviously made a big impact on me.
You’re doing what has never been done before– you’re registering turning out one million Muslim voters this November. It matters. Your vote is your voice. Muslim American voices matter to our communities, to our country. But we all know that your voice hasn’t always been recognized or represented or gotten the recognition it deserves. And that’s your right as a citizen. What you’re doing is making a real difference.
[Eulogizes the late Rep. John Lewis and advocacy for voting rights for all.] “It was no surprise that when Trump announced the Muslim ban in his first week in office, John went directly to Hartsfield Int’l Airport in his home district in Atlanta to demand answers of immigration officials. They wouldn’t tell him how many people were being detained. Know what his answer was simply? We don’t we just sit down and stay awhile.”
[Urged new legislation for restoration of Voting Right Act.] Muslim communities were the first to feel Donald Trump’s assault on black and brown communities in this country with his vile Muslim ban. That fight was the opening barrage in what has been nearly four years of constant pressure and insults and attacks against Muslim American communities […and other minorities … ]. Donald Trump has fanned the flames of hate in this country across the board… under this administration we have seen an unconscionable rise of Islamic-phobia, and incidents including kids being bullied in school and hate crimes in our communities. He’s named people with a history of open Islamic-phobia — open, straightforward, who have no business serving in high positions in our government, to key leadership roles in our Department of Defense and the Agency for International Development. It is not only an insult to our values, it weakens our standing in the rest of the world . . . he is making a mockery of what we stand for.
I want to work in partnership with you, make sure your voices are included in the decision-making process.”
People on my social media feeds have wondered what Biden meant by calling Islam one of the great confessional religions. My guess is that this is terminology he imbibed from his Catholic upbringing and reading in theology. He probably meant by it a distinctive set of beliefs that adherents must acknowledge. This Swiss site talks about Protestants and Catholics as “confessions” and says such confessions were seen in 19th century German thought to be instrumentalized for political solidarity. Muslims “confess” that there is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet. This European sense of confession overlaps with what Americans would just call a denomination. Because of its French colonial heritage, Lebanon is a country of such “confessions” (Christian, Sunni, Shiite, Druze), and confessional identity shapes politics there.
He underlined the common Abrahamic origins of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, though he did not use the term “Abrahamic.” As a liberal Irish Catholic, Biden is probably influenced by Vatican II and its religious tolerance (it admitted that some of the light that shines in Christianity is also present in Islam). American Catholics can go either way when the contemplate the increasing hatred of Muslims. They can identify with the Muslims, having themselves been victims of Protestant intolerance. Or they can pile on, like Steve Bannon, and use right wing Catholicism as a stick to beat Muslims with. Biden is among the former.
Biden’s remarks incorporated Muslim-Americans as one thread into the national fabric. He depicts them as the first to feel the full force of Trumpian hatred and prejudice, which, however, is also aimed at other minorities. The Muslim Americans, he said, were in the vanguard of feeling the discrimination that would lead to their children being constantly bullied, and to hate crimes against their communities (under Trump, many mosques have been burned down).
For Biden, all Americans are suffering under Trump, and Muslim-Americans are exemplary in being his first and most exploited victims, via the “vile” Muslim Ban, which Biden vows to undo.
Which side are these guys on again? (photo: John Rudoff/Sipa USA)
Elliot Hannon, Slate
Hannon writes: "Protests in Portland have been punctuated by horror stories of unidentified federal agents in military garb snatching protesters off the streets in Oregon."
The goal of the agents’ presence and the authority under which they are operating has been unclear, other than it serves the president’s authoritarian taste for strongman bullying and his need to do something, anything, to revive his reelection hopes. Having conceded defeat to the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump needs a straw man enemy to prop up and spar with over the next several months in hopes of scaring Americans into thinking there is a greater threat to their safety and prosperity than the actual president himself. Stirring up a hornets’ nest is what Trump’s after, and in the Portland protests he clearly senses an opportunity to cause disorder, which he can use to contrive a national response. As such, Trump said he is planning to send similar federal agents into multiple American cities, all under Democratic leadership.
“I’m going to do something—that, I can tell you,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Because we’re not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these—Oakland is a mess. We’re not going to let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats.” The rhetoric harkens back to Trump’s 2016 run, where he spun tales of American carnage—real and imagined—and claimed that amid the disorder, he alone could fix it. “This is worse than anything anyone’s ever seen,” Trump continued Monday. “And you know what? If Biden got in, that would be true for the country. The whole country would go to hell.” An expected 150 agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations division are reportedly being sent to Chicago, where, the New York Times reports, they are “expected to be in the city for at least 60 days to help combat violence and would be under the direction of the Justice Department.”
The generalized increase of blunt force in response to nothing in particular is part of a wider ratcheting up of the government’s response to sporadic protests lingering after weeks of powerful nationwide demonstrations. In addition, “the Department of Homeland Security has authorized its personnel to collect information on protesters who threaten to damage or destroy public memorials and statues, regardless of whether they are on federal property, a significant expansion of authorities that have historically been used to protect landmarks from terrorist attacks,” the Washington Post reports. “The new guidance was issued as department personnel have been dispatched to police and detain people protesting police violence, itself an untraditional role for a department set up to secure borders and transportation systems.”
Members of the Illinois National Guard work at the COVID-19 test site at South Suburban College in South Holland, July 2, 2020. (photo: Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune)
'Flying Blind': US Failure to Report Vital COVID-19 Data Is Hobbling Response
Ed Pilkington, Guardian UK
Pilkington writes: "The United States is failing to report vital information on Covid-19 that could help track the spread of the disease and prevent the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans, according to the first comprehensive review of the nation's coronavirus data."
READ MORE
Ed Pilkington, Guardian UK
Pilkington writes: "The United States is failing to report vital information on Covid-19 that could help track the spread of the disease and prevent the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans, according to the first comprehensive review of the nation's coronavirus data."
READ MORE
Mothers raise their fists as they support a protest against racial inequality in Portland, Oregon, on Monday. (photo: Daily Mail)
Linda Givetash, NBC News
Givetash writes: "Dozens of women wearing yellow linked arms to form a protective 'wall of moms' around Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon, on Sunday as the protesters clashed with federal law enforcement."
“Feds stay clear, moms are here!" protesters chanted outside the federal courthouse in Portland on Sunday.
Video from the scene showed crowds chanting “Feds stay clear, moms are here!" and "Feds go home!" before protesters toppled a fence erected around the federal courthouse. Federal agents fired back with what appeared to be tear gas and flash bangs, the video showed.
Hundreds of people had gathered for the demonstrations, blocking roads, Portland police said in a statement early Monday. They said dozens of others "tampered" with the courthouse fence.
“The crowd was very celebratory when the fence first came down,” freelance journalist Garrison Davis told NBC News by phone after reporting from the rally. “There was a lot of cheering.”
Once the fence was down, police said dozens of people carrying shields, helmets, gas masks, umbrellas, bats and hockey sticks approached the doors of the courthouse before federal law enforcement dispersed the crowd shortly before midnight.
Portland police said none of their officers were present, nor did they engage with the crowds or deploy gas.
The Department of Homeland Security couldn't be immediately reached for comment about the involvement of federal agents in Sunday's events.
In an earlier statement regarding Saturday's protests, the department described the demonstrators as "violent anarchists" who were "assaulting federal officers and damaging federal property."
Portland has seen sustained protests following the killing of George Floyd, the Black man whose death in custody in Minneapolis triggered global demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism.
Tensions have escalated in recent weeks, particularly after one protester was critically injured when an officer with the U.S. Marshals Service fired a less-lethal round at his head on July 11.
Sunday's protests began with a rally by a group called Moms Against Police Brutality, said Davis, the freelance journalist. Some members of the group, who are self-described as the Wall of Moms on social media, had been out at protests the previous night as well.
Some of the women were there because their children had been tear-gassed in earlier protests over recent weeks, Davis said.
“There’s definitely some parents and teens out there together,” he said.
The clashes on Sunday followed comments by the city's mayor blaming federal police for "escalating the situation."
"Their presence here is actually leading to more violence and more vandalism," Mayor Ted Wheeler said on CNN. "They're not wanted here. We haven't asked them here. In fact, we want them to leave."
The dispute over the presence of the federal agencies is set to play out in the courts.
On Friday, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. She alleged that federal law enforcement officers sent to Portland to suppress protests violated the Constitution by unlawfully detaining and arresting demonstrators without probable cause.
In the lawsuit, Rosenblum has asked for a restraining order to prevent agents with Homeland Security, U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Protection Service from making any further arrests.
President Donald Trump defended his administration in a tweet on Sunday saying the government is "trying to help Portland, not hurt it." He also blamed local leadership for having "lost control of the anarchists and agitators."
Staff of the House of Representatives review Illinois' Electoral College vote report in January 2017. (photo: Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
A Definitive Case Against the Electoral College
Sean Illing, Vox
Illing writes: "One of the biggest problems with American democracy is that it's not democratic."
READ MORE
Sean Illing, Vox
Illing writes: "One of the biggest problems with American democracy is that it's not democratic."
READ MORE
Protesters hold a sign that reads 'The longer you stay, the more devastation to the country, please resign' as they take part in an anti-government demonstration in Bangkok. (photo: Aiden Jones/AFP)
Thailand Sees Largest Anti-Government Protests Since 2014 Military Coup
Sammy Westfall, VICE
Westfall writes: "The youth-led protests appear to have taken a page from Hong Kong's highly decentralized pro-democracy movement last year, one expert said."
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Sammy Westfall, VICE
Westfall writes: "The youth-led protests appear to have taken a page from Hong Kong's highly decentralized pro-democracy movement last year, one expert said."
READ MORE
A polar bear stands on sea ice on the North Pole. (photo: Arterra/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)
Polar Bears Could Be Nearly Gone by 2100, Study Finds
Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch
Rosane writes: "If world governments don't act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, most polar bear populations will not survive the century, a new study has found."
Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch
Rosane writes: "If world governments don't act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, most polar bear populations will not survive the century, a new study has found."
Polar bears, who rely on Arctic sea ice to hunt for seals, have long been a symbol of the impacts of the climate crisis. As the ice melts, they lose the ability to sustain themselves.
"Polar bears are already sitting at the top of the world; if the ice goes, they have no place to go," lead study author and University of Toronto Scarborough biologist Péter Molnár told BBC News.
But the study, published in Nature Climate Change Monday, is the first to predict when and where Arctic warming will threaten the bears' survival, The Guardian reported.
"It's been clear for some time that polar bears are going to suffer under climate change," Molnár told The Guardian. "But what was not fully clear was when we would expect major declines in the survival and reproduction of polar bears that could ultimately lead to their extirpation."
To answer this question, scientists looked at two emissions scenarios: business as usual and a more moderate option in which emissions peak in 2040 before starting to fall, according to The New York Times. Under the business-as-usual model, all populations of polar bears would be wiped out by 2100, except for the bears living in Canada's northernmost Queen Elizabeth Islands, The Guardian reported. But even under the moderate scenario, most populations were likely to suffer reproductive failure by 2080, the study found.
"The study shows clearly that polar bears are going to do better with less warming," University of Alberta polar bear expert Andrew Derocher, who was not involved with the study, told The New York Times. "But no matter which scenario you look at, there are serious concerns about conservation of the species."
Polar bears can fast for months at a time when sea ice melts in the spring and summer. The researchers made their predictions based on how long male bears could reasonably fast and survive and how long females could reasonably fast and raise their young compared with how long different parts of the Arctic are projected to be ice free through 2100.
They assessed 13 of 19 polar bear populations, or around 80 percent of the roughly 25,000 bears remaining. Bears in Canada's Archipelago ecoregion were not assessed because it is hard to estimate future sea ice in the area's islands and channels, according to The Guardian.
If nothing is done to reduce emissions, bears in Canada's southern Hudson Bay and Davis Strait could fail to reproduce by 2040 while most bears in Alaska and Russia could be at risk by 2080. The polar bear population in western Hudson Bay has already shrunk around 30 percent since 1987.
"Showing how imminent the threat is for different polar bear populations is another reminder that we must act now to head off the worst of future problems faced by us all," study coauthor and chief scientist of Polar Bears International Dr. Steven Amstrup told BBC News. "The trajectory we're on now is not a good one, but if society gets its act together, we have time to save polar bears. And if we do, we will benefit the rest of life on Earth, including ourselves."
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