In The News (16)

Detailed Turnout Data Shows How Georgia Turned Blue By Nate Cohn, Matthew Conlen and Charlie SmartNov. 17, 2020 Democrats have long dreamed of turning Georgia blue, with young voters and nonwhite voters leading a progressive charge. Now, a blue Georgia is a reality, but with a winning coalition that might have stunned the party not that long ago. ......... Republican candidates won more votes than Democrats in the state’s two Senate contests, even as President Trump was defeated at the top of the ticket. ............ the relatively low Black share of the electorate could mean that Democrats have the potential for a better showing, perhaps even in the two Senate runoffs in January. ............. Over all, Mr. Biden ran well ahead of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 showing in well-educated, wealthy and increasingly diverse precincts around Atlanta, while making relatively few gains elsewhere in the state.  

Groupthink Has Left the Left Blind A constricted view of the world leaves progressives surprised by the world as it is.   ....... Trump once again stunned much of the liberal establishment by dramatically beating polling expectations to come within about 80,000 votes of another Electoral College victory. .......... The old liberal left paid attention to complexity, ambiguity, the gray areas. A sense of complexity induced a measure of doubt, including self-doubt. The new left typically seeks to reduce things to elements such as race, class and gender, in ways that erase ambiguity and doubt. The new left is a factory of certitudes. ......... Trump won a majority of the vote of white women against both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. ......... He also improved his vote share over 2016 with both Latino and Black voters, while losing most of the advantage he previously had with college-educated white males — precisely the demographic his policies had supposedly done most to favor. ............. “Trump did a much better job at understanding Hispanics. Sometimes, Democrats see Hispanics as monolithic.” Latino voters in his South Texas district were particularly turned off by progressive rhetoric about defunding the police, opposition to fossil fuels and decriminalizing border crossings. .......... People are rarely reducible to a single animating political consideration. Nor should they be subject to a simple moral judgment. Motives are complicated ..................  the unemployment rate reached record lows before the pandemic hit   

American health care workers issue a call to arms for wearing masks as the coronavirus pandemic rages across the United States, breaking records nearly every day for deaths — and cases — in state after state. ........... the frustration felt by some of the nation’s health care workers over the refusal of so many Americans to wear masks ..........  It’s a call to arms. “We put our lives on the line daily to keep you safe. So, do something for us. Wear. A. Mask,” the caption reads.  

Hospitals Know What’s Coming “We are on an absolutely catastrophic path,” said a COVID-19 doctor at America’s best-prepared hospital. ........... One unit solely provides “comfort care” to COVID-19 patients who are certain to die. “We’ve never had to do anything like this,” Angela Hewlett, the infectious-disease specialist who directs the hospital’s COVID-19 team, told me. “We are on an absolutely catastrophic path.” ..............  “We’re watching a system breaking in front of us and we’re helpless to stop it,” says Kelly Cawcutt, an infectious-disease and critical-care physician. ............ “I don’t see how we avoid becoming overwhelmed,” says Dan Johnson, a critical-care doctor. People need to know that “the assumption we will always have a hospital bed for them is a false one.” ............. What makes this “nightmare” worse, he adds, “is that it was preventable.” The coronavirus is not unstoppable, as some have suggested and as New Zealand, Iceland, Australia, and Hong Kong have resoundingly disproved—twice. Instead, the Trump administration never mounted a serious effort to stop it. Whether through gross incompetence or deliberate strategy, the president and his advisers left the virus to run amok, allowed Americans to get sick, and punted the consequences to the health-care system. And they did so repeatedly, even after the ordeal of the spring, after the playbook for controlling the virus became clear, and despite months of warnings about a fall surge. .............   UNMC’s preparations didn’t fail so much as the U.S. created a situation in which hospitals could not possibly succeed. “We can prepare over and over for a wave of patients,” says Cawcutt, “but we can’t prepare for a tsunami.” ...........  with the third national surge, “all the trends have gone out the window,” Sarah Swistak, a staff nurse, told me. “From the 90-year-old with every comorbidity listed to the 30-year-old who is the picture of perfect health, they’re all requiring oxygen because they’re so short of breath.” ................  UNMC is struggling not because of any one super-spreading event, but because of the cumulative toll of millions of bad decisions. ..........  When the hospital first faced the pandemic in the spring, “I was buoyed by the realization that everyone in America was doing their part to slow down the spread,”  Johnson says. “Now I know friends of mine are going about their normal lives, having parties and dinners, and playing sports indoors. It’s very difficult to do this work when we know so many people are not doing their part.” The drive home from the packed hospital takes him past rows of packed restaurants, sporting venues, and parking lots. ................ the Midwest has taken entirely the wrong lesson from the Northeast’s ordeal. Instead of learning that the pandemic is controllable, and that physical distancing works, people instead internalized “a mistaken belief that every curve that goes up must come down,” he said. “What they don’t realize is that if we don’t change anything about how we’re conducting ourselves, the curve can go up and up.” ............... some of the people who get infected over Thanksgiving will struggle to enter packed hospitals by the middle of December, and be in the ground by Christmas. .................  Patients with strokes and other urgent traumas aren’t getting the normal level of attention, because the pandemic is so all-consuming. ........... “many of us feel like we haven’t had a day off since this thing began” ........ people with COVID-19 are far sicker than the average patient. In an ICU, they need twice as much attention for three times the usual stay. To care for them, UNMC’s nurses and respiratory therapists are now doing mandatory overtime ............... “I used to be able to leave work at work, but with the pandemic, it follows me everywhere I go,” she said. “It’s all I see when I come home, when I look at my kids.” ............. Long and other nurses have told many families that they can’t see their dying loved ones, and then sat with those patients so they didn’t have to die alone. Lindsay Ivener, a staff nurse, told me that COVID-19 had recently killed an elderly woman whom she was caring for, the woman’s husband, and one of her grandchildren. A second grandchild had just been admitted to the hospital with COVID-19. “It just tore this whole family apart in a month,” Ivener said. “I couldn’t even cry. I didn’t have the energy.”  

In The News (15)

China GDP: Xi Jinping says ‘completely possible’ to double size of economy by 2035, despite foreign hostility China can become a high-income country by 2025 and double size of economy by 2035, President Xi Jinping says Xi also says the country can rely on its domestic market for growth as the world grows less friendly .........  double the size of its economy, as well as per capita income, by 2035

Barack Obama: ‘I could not have a trade war’ with China due to global financial crisis Former US president Barack Obama explains that he was ‘hamstrung’ on dealing with China’s trade policies by global economic meltdown Obama says he ‘had to make sure we did not start a trade war that tipped the world into a depression’, on the back of the global financial crisis of 2008-09 ...... China’s role in the global economic recovery from the crisis, caused in large part by defaults on subprime mortgages in the United States, “hamstrung” his ability to tackle China’s “mercantilist policies that violated international trade rules”, Obama said in remarks made to the The Atlantic, which expanded on similar themes in his new book, A Promised Land.

Abandoning its loose approach to virus controls, Sweden clamps down. “Don’t go to the gym, don’t go the library, don’t have dinner out, don’t have parties — cancel!” .......... While Sweden’s number of Covid-19 deaths still pales in comparison to those of some European countries like Italy or Spain, it is more than 10 times higher than in Finland or Norway. Over the past five days, Sweden has recorded more than 15,000 new infections and Mr. Lofven warned that “it will get worse.”  

The Coronavirus Is Airborne Indoors. Why Are We Still Scrubbing Surfaces? Scientists who initially warned about contaminated surfaces now say that the virus spreads primarily through inhaled droplets, and that there is little to no evidence that deep cleaning mitigates the threat indoors. .......... All over the world, workers are soaping, wiping and fumigating surfaces with an urgent sense of purpose: to fight the coronavirus. But scientists increasingly say that there is little to no evidence that contaminated surfaces can spread the virus. In crowded indoor spaces like airports, they say, the virus that is exhaled by infected people and that lingers in the air is a much greater threat. ............  Hand washing with soap and water for 20 seconds — or sanitizer in the absence of soap — is still encouraged to stop the virus’s spread. ......... Viruses are emitted through activities that spray respiratory droplets — talking, breathing, yelling, coughing, singing and sneezing. .......  the virus could stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhaled — particularly in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation. .......... the coronavirus could spread by air in any indoor setting ........ indoor aerosol transmission could lead to outbreaks in poorly ventilated indoor places like restaurants, nightclubs, offices and places of worship. .......... transmission of infectious respiratory droplets was the “principal mode” .........  coronavirus droplets could spread through air vents in offices  

McDonald’s Is Making a Plant-Based Burger; You Can Try It in 2021 One of those options is plant-based foods, and not just salads and veggie burgers, but “meat” made from plants. Burger King was one of the first big fast-food chains to jump on the plant-based meat bandwagon, introducing its Impossible Whopper in restaurants across the country last year after a successful pilot program. Dunkin’ (formerly Dunkin’ Donuts) uses plant-based patties in its Beyond Sausage breakfast sandwiches. ......... McDonald’s announced last week that it will debut a sandwich called the McPlant in key US markets next year. Unlike Dunkin’ and Burger King, who both worked with Impossible Foods to make their plant-based products, McDonald’s worked with Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat, which makes chicken, beef, and pork-like products from plants.  ......... customizing the items displayed on the drive-thru menu based on the weather and the time of day, and recommending additional items based on what a customer asks for first (i.e. “You know what would go great with that coffee? Some pancakes!”). ......  Drive-throughs, shouting your order into a fuzzy speaker with a confused teen on the other end, and burgers made from beef? So 2019.

China Macro Economy 

In The News (14)

Karl Rove to helm massive GOP fundraising drive for Georgia runoffs Rove is serving as national finance chair for a joint fundraising effort between the NRSC and Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. ......... Haley is also seen as a likely 2024 presidential contender. ....... the fund, which was formed by NRSC chair Todd Young, took in nearly a quarter of its overall goal since it was launched last week. 

I Was a Military COVID Planner. The Vaccine Rollout Is Going to Be a Nightmare. WHAT CAVALRY? Our long winter with COVID could turn into a slog through the spring and summer, even with an effective vaccine. ........... The incoming administration will inherit one of the most daunting challenges any president has ever faced: planning and executing a national mass-vaccination campaign in the middle of a global pandemic. ........... With cases spiking to over 10 million, the virus is everywhere, and spreading deeply into every corner of the country. ............. in 2019, Texas budgeted $17.7 million for infectious disease surveillance, prevention, and epidemiology—and over $400 million for border security. So even when a vaccine is delivered, it will be going to a state that is understaffed and underfunded. .............  The Pfizer vaccine, now the leading contender, will require ultra-cold storage of at least -94 degrees Fahrenheit and two rounds of shots. Another leading vaccine candidate from Moderna also requires cold storage, albeit not to the same extent, according to the company. Typically, hospitals and large clinics have this capability. Small towns lacking even the most basic health clinics do not. .............. An uncoordinated federal roll out of vaccines requiring ultra-cold storage could leave state and local governments competing for resources much like they were competing for PPE earlier in the pandemic. .......... it just isn’t realistic to think the military can replicate the hard work of state and local health-care planners. ....... Instead of a military miracle, it will take nearly flawless coordination between local, state, and the federal government to execute the plan. Our long winter with COVID could turn into a slog through the spring and summer even with an effective vaccine. ...........  One can also hold out hope that a successful vaccination campaign can begin to restore America’s tattered faith in its public institutions. Either way, the people in isolated, underserved communities from rural Texas to hallowed-out manufacturing cities to the overwhelmed Dakotas deserve our best shot.

Fauci says Biden transition is key to quick distribution of Covid vaccine  New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that the "incompetent" Trump administration has not "thought through" the vaccination distribution process. ........  by the end of December, there will be doses of vaccines available for people in the high-risk category from both Pfizer and Moderna ..... "The vaccines are effective. We want to get it approved as quickly as we possibly can. We want to get doses to people starting in December, and then we want to really get the ball rolling as we get into January, February and March," Fauci said.

Why Obama Fears For Our Democracy

‘We could effectively end this pandemic in 2021’ with Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines Both Pfizer and Moderna are using mRNA-based vaccines, a new technology that uses genetic material to generate an immune response.   

In The News (13)

The Pandemic Is Showing Us How Capitalism Is Amazing, and Inadequate Why big business needs big government and vice versa.

What Democrats Are Up Against in Georgia The Senate contenders face not just Republicans but also the state’s political history, which shows that change doesn’t come easy.........  Georgia has almost 160 counties, second in number only to the state of Texas. The story goes that the legislature carved out small counties so that a farmer in a mule-drawn wagon could make it to the courthouse and back in a single day. The real consequence was that under Georgia’s county-unit system, the more rural counties there were, the more leverage they would have against urban interests in Atlanta. ........... The field general of the conservative culture wars of the 1990s was a Georgia Republican, Representative Newt Gingrich, who played a singular role in bringing forth the scorched-earth tactics of the modern Republican Party.  ...........  “One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty,” Mr. Gingrich told the Georgia College Republicans in 1978 during his third, and ultimately successful, race for Congress. “We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around the campfire, but are lousy in politics.”  ......... What Mr. Gingrich pioneered in culture-war politics Mr. Trump has escalated. Two days after Election Day, Donald Trump Jr. was in Georgia at a rally outside Republican Party campaign headquarters, castigating Republicans who did not defend his father’s specious claims of fraud. ............. Two Democratic victories would not only give Democrats control of the Senate but could also help turn the page on Donald Trump’s influence in American politics.

The Evolving Travel ‘Experience’: Virtual, Actual and In Between Socially distanced craft classes, virtual tango lessons, a city tour accompanied by an avatar guide: how experience companies — which now include Amazon — are adapting to the pandemic.

How to Have Better Family Meals 

Biden Can’t Be F.D.R. He Could Still Be L.B.J. He has the power to make transformational progress look like “C’mon Man” common sense. Will he use it? 

How the Polls Got the Election Wrong, According to One Pollster Who Got It Right

COVID-19 Is Out of Control. What Can We Do? We need a one-two punch to knock the virus down and then keep it down.

सहरभरि शंकास्पद संक्रमित उपत्यकाका मेयरहरुलाई गृहमन्त्रीले भने , ‘लकडाउन गर्ने योजना बनाउँदैछौं ।’

Japan’s New Leader Sets Ambitious Goal of Carbon Neutrality by 2050 The announcement, coming weeks after a similar pledge by China, will require a major overhaul of the infrastructure in Japan, which remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

A New Breakthrough Just Brought City-Wide Quantum Communication Into Reach

In The News (12)

Smart Concrete Could Pave the Way for High-Tech, Cost-Effective Roads  Of the 614,387 bridges in the US, for example, 39 percent are older than their designed lifetimes .......... The cost to repair and improve nationwide transportation infrastructure ranges from nearly US$190 billion to almost $1 trillion. ......... These new systems self-monitor the condition of roads and bridges quickly and accurately and can, sometimes, even repair themselves. ............. At an early stage of a crack, for example, self-healing pavement would activate super absorbent polymers to absorb water and produce concrete-like material that fills in the crack. Cracks as small as a few microns could be healed to prevent significant damage by preventing or delaying the later stages of the freeze-thaw cycle.  

You Can Buy This Electric Car for $7,999 in California

Why We Need a Collective Vision to Design the Future of Health

This Coronavirus Surge Does Not Have to Be So Horrific America is entering a difficult period. But the outcome is not foregone. ........... The nation is entering its third, and potentially most dreadful, coronavirus surge. Earlier this month, the daily nationwide case count reached 100,000 for the first time. On Thursday it passed the 160,000 mark. Hospitalizations are at their highest point yet. Unlike previous surges, there is no epicenter. The virus is spreading everywhere. ............ Death isn’t the only bad outcome of contracting the coronavirus. Debilitating symptoms can last for months, and some doctors worry they may lead to permanent disability. Also, lower death rates are contingent on a high standard of care, which will be difficult to maintain across the country as case counts grow. In any case, death tolls are a lagging indicator. ................. “It’s like we survived the Titanic............Now we’re looking at the tip of an iceberg and pretending that the tip is the whole thing.” ........... If Americans want to get the current surge under control through this long, dark winter, they need to skip indoor gatherings, including for the holidays. They need to avoid nonessential travel. They must wear face masks in all public places. They all need to practice social distancing. They need to quarantine when they think they’ve been exposed to the virus and isolate if they get a positive test result, even if no symptoms emerge.  

Here’s How Trump’s Stalling Risks Our National Security I’ve seen my share of presidential transitions. The administration hurts the country by not cooperating with President-elect Biden. ........... Tragically, but not surprisingly, Mr. Trump appears determined to take a final wrecking ball to our democracy and  national security on his inevitable way out the door.

China-Led Trade Pact Is Signed, in Challenge to U.S. The deal sealed on Sunday stands as a potent symbol of Beijing’s growing economic sway in Southeast Asia at a time of uncertainty over Washington’s economic ties with the region.

Before ‘I Have a Dream,’ Martin Luther King Almost Died. This Man Saved Him. The untold story of the patrolman who took charge when the civil rights leader was stabbed in Harlem.

Economic Demands Test Biden Even Before Inauguration With the recovery slowing and coronavirus cases surging, Democrats must decide whether quick action on federal aid is more important than its scale.

Newton’s Daunting Masterpiece Had a Surprisingly Wide Audience, Historians Find The discovery suggests that “Principia” had a stronger impact on Enlightenment science than previous research suggested............ It had a reputation for unreadability. ......... First editions of the Principia, the scholars say, today sell for between $300,000 and $3,000,000 on the black market and at auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s. They estimate that the book’s first edition consisted of some 600 and possibly as many as 750 copies — hundreds more than the 250 or so that historians had previously assumed.

In The News (11)

Was Reagan a Precursor to Trump? A New Documentary Says Yes “The Reagans,” a new Showtime docu-series, presents Ronald Reagan as an early practitioner of dog-whistle politics. But some historians and journalists disagree with that position...............  a glorified actor who won election with a coded racist appeal to white voters ........... The episode opens with 40-year-old footage of Reagan in Mississippi, affirming his support for “states’ rights” at a county fair filled with white voters. ............. his 1980 campaign slogan — “Make America Great Again” .......... the parallels between a movie star and a reality television star, both of whom knew how command the attention of the American public and the media. .............. the notion of Reagan as an early practitioner of dog-whistle politics, a member of the generation of politicians who used coded appeals directed at an attuned audience of white voters. .................. “Reagan is the antithesis of Trump in so many ways,” he added. “He was uniformly courteous and nice and decent to people. Trump, by the way he acts, has made us see that human decency in a political leader is important. Second, he was a compromiser. He always said that he was willing to take half a loaf. He got legislation through because of that.” ..............  the former president’s invocation of states’ rights was halfhearted, buried midway into his speech, inserted at Lott’s suggestion. (And to what end? Reagan barely squeaked by Jimmy Carter in Mississippi.) ................ impressed that this former actor clocked in for the 60-second advertisement at 57 seconds ........... “What was really astonishing to me was seeing how much film there was of Reagan in the act of dog whistling,” Tyrnauer said. “And some of his dog whistles at the time would be considered foghorns today.” ................. The coronavirus crisis is not his first experience with either a pandemic or a president who failed to deal with one: Reagan largely ignored the deadly AIDS epidemic during its early years, and the documentary presents this as one of his most consequential failures as president. ...................... Tyrnauer argues that Reagan has been protected by historians, Republicans and journalists because of his political success and likability.  

Padma Lakshmi: Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris Moved Me to Tears Imagine how wide the ripples of impact can be when a woman of color is vice president. ...........  When I first came to this country at age 4 from India, walking around New York City, I was excited to see all kinds of people — with different colors of skin, styles of dress and ways of moving through the world. But slowly I became aware of a different world, through magazines and TV, where almost everyone was white. ........... I figured out how to navigate the time a boy called me the N-word when I was 11; and navigate the times I auditioned for acting roles in my 20s, only to be told they weren’t “going ethnic”; and navigate the times in my 30s when I didn’t know to negotiate full credit for my work. ............... Over the summer, I learned that Ms. Harris’s mother’s family comes from the same city in India as my family. Her grandparents lived right around the corner from mine in the Besant Nagar area of the city of Chennai. Our grandfathers might have strolled together in the same walking group of retirees on Elliot’s Beach. ...................  President Trump’s attacks on women, on people of color and on immigrants feel personal to us. As he allows a pandemic to run rampant in our country and even threatens our democracy, it feels like a betrayal that so many Americans persist in supporting him. His vitriol encourages those who hate us. In comments under my Instagram and Twitter posts, people frequently tell me, “Go back to your country.” .............. The Trump era she is ending empowered people to show their racism nakedly, in slights and jeers and acts of violence.  

I WON THE ELECTION!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2020

😳 Wow! Apparently I just survived my first NYC Tornado pic.twitter.com/cx82tnEdoo

— MichaelWilliamG (@MichaelWilliamG) November 16, 2020

Barack Obama: One election won't stop US 'truth decay' https://t.co/NhgpQQVBAX

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) November 15, 2020

Hey @ossoff 👋🏾! Ready to KEEP Georgia blue? pic.twitter.com/FK3aWyFt9K

— Reverend Raphael Warnock (@ReverendWarnock) November 15, 2020

A Republican Senate Would Be Bad for Business What’s bad for America would be bad for corporations, too. ...........  Corporate interests appear to imagine that they will flourish under a Biden presidency checked by Republican control of the Senate. ......... Divided government is all too likely to mean paralysis at a time when we desperately need strong action. ..........  Despite the vaccine news, we are still on track for a nightmarish pandemic winter ........... I’m not sure how many people realize just how ruinous a prospect we’re facing for the next few months. .......... By the time Biden is finally inaugurated we may well be having the equivalent of a 9/11 every day. .........  In addition to bringing death as well as long-term health damage for many survivors, the exploding pandemic will bring immense economic hardship. ............ What we need, clearly, is a very large-scale program of disaster relief, providing families, businesses and, not least, state and local governments with the help they require to avoid financial ruin until a vaccine arrives. And you might think that a Republican Senate would be willing to work with the Biden administration on such an obviously necessary program. That is, you might think this if you’ve been hiding in a cave for the past 12 years. ..................  The good news is that the misery will abate when we finally have widespread distribution of a vaccine. In fact, we’ll probably see a sharp jobs recovery late next year. .................  We desperately need to spend trillions on repairing our crumbling infrastructure, caring for our children and meeting the urgent need for action against climate change. .......... given where we are, divided government would mean paralysis in a time of crisis, which could very well be catastrophic for everyone. The truth is that even in its own interests, the big money should be rooting for Democrats in those Georgia runoffs.

 

In The News (10)

Are Cities Our Greatest Invention?  the cities that spread across the Indus Valley in today’s Pakistan were watery Edens: They had no temples or palaces but granaries, assembly halls and systems for sewage and water that may instead have been the sacred centers of the communities’ lives. ................. Hell was Babylon, or what it stood for — the “original Sin City,” rife with the unsavory aspects of urbanity decried since at least 2000 B.C. A line from the Hebrew Bible might easily have appeared in a recent political ad: “Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!” Ditto the 18th-century writing of Jean-Jacques Rousseau describing the city as “depraved by sloth, inactivity, the love of pleasure.” .............. Dinocrates of Rhodes imposed a grid of streets on the anarchy of the Greek public space, making Alexandria encyclopedic; irregular Athens, by contrast, was “spontaneous and experimental.” When Romans conquered the world, they brought their built environment with them, like a subdivision to the wilderness. Bathing, Wilson argues, made the barbarous clean, Roman and urban. ..................  The author links Baghdad’s messier, more organic development with a dynamism that generated some of the ideas it took Europe centuries to comprehend. .........  Into the 1600s, Amsterdam made a kind of meta-trade of urbanization, with the government connecting corporations, banks and merchants to create the world’s first securities market and its attendant financial devices. Forwards and futures, hedges and margin-buying were inventions Amsterdamers classified as windhandel, or trading in the wind, as opposed to trading something tangible. .................   Friedrich Engels called Manchester’s poor neighborhood “Hell upon Earth.” Ideologues that came to be known as the Manchester School believed their free trade policies would lead to a world harmony that — spoiler alert! — has yet to arrive. ......................   Tenochtitlan, bigger than Paris in the 1500s ............... Crucial to Lisbon’s conquest of land and bodies were the papal bulls that granted Portugal the right to, in 1455, take slaves and then, in 1493, to “discover” land — lay claim, in other words, to territory inhabited by non-Christians. .................  in a chapter titled “Annihilation,” which compares Hitler’s destruction of Warsaw to the American bombing of Tokyo. In landscapes of horrific violence, the most damaged communities find creative ways to survive.   

Abby Phillip Is Next-Gen CNN In an election dominated by fast-talking policy dudes, her deliberate commentary and context stood out. ..........  And while “Donald Trump’s political career began with the racist birther lie,” she continued, “it may very well end with a Black woman in the White House.” ............ and asked Mr. Trump if he hoped Mr. Whitaker would tamp down on the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. “What a stupid question that is,” he said. “What a stupid question. I watch you a lot, you ask a lot of stupid questions.” ............. “He insults a lot of people and a lot of the time, the insults aren’t true.” 

The Post-Presidency of a Con Man Out of office, Trump might seem a lot less formidable.  .......... It’s hard to tell whether Donald Trump is attempting a coup or throwing a tantrum. ...........  most of the money is actually going to a PAC, Save America, that “will be used to underwrite Mr. Trump’s post-presidential activities.” ........ Trump is considering starting a digital media company to undermine Fox News, which he now regards as disloyal. ............ and will be a favorite for the party’s nomination in 2024. ........ “If he runs in 2024, he’ll certainly be the front-runner, and then he’ll probably be the nominee.” ........... he’s personally on the hook for $421 million in debt, most of it coming due in the next four years. If a long fight with the I.R.S. goes against him, he could owe at least $100 million more. ...........  There are several examples of once-formidable right-wing leaders reduced to footnotes after leaving office.

Trump Floats Improbable Survival Scenarios as He Ponders His Future There is no grand strategy. President Trump is simply trying to survive from one news cycle to the next. 

‘Women’s Work’ Can No Longer Be Taken for Granted New Zealand is pursuing a century-old idea to close the gender pay gap: not equal pay for equal work, but equal pay for work of equal value. ......... Instead of “equal pay for equal work,” supporters of pay equity call for “equal pay for work of equal value,” or “comparable worth.” They ask us to consider whether a female-dominated occupation such as nursing home aide, for instance, is really so different from a male-dominated one, such as corrections officer, when both are physically exhausting, emotionally demanding, and stressful — and if not, why is the nursing home aide paid so much less? ................ the gender pay gap remains a feature of nearly every economy on earth. ............. caring for elderly people was just as demanding and dangerous as better-paid jobs mostly performed by men, including, notably, prison guards .......... other female-dominated occupations, including midwives, social workers and school support staff ........... Economics 101 says wages are set by the intersection of a supply curve and a demand curve — if demand for say, data scientists is high, and there aren’t enough of them to fill the available roles, data scientists will have more pricing power over their wages. But in the real world (and, sometimes, in Economics 201), most people recognize that wages encapsulate a host of other factors: monopoly and monopsony (buyer’s monopoly) power, the quirks of a given firm or institution, and, most relevant to pay equity, social beliefs about the relative value of a job. These social beliefs inevitably intersect with biases like racism and sexism, which then manifest in ways both formal and informal. ............... Most job evaluation methodologies ignored what the sociologist Arlie Hochschild called “emotional labor” — adjusting one’s feelings in order to competently perform a job ................ pay equity, when done properly, challenges us to think deeply and objectively about a job and its components. This can be a messy process, one that requires unlearning decades of bias about gender and work, as well as political good will and a spirit of collaboration. ............  What skills are being deployed to, say, deal with someone who is angry and doesn’t want to be there, and several hours later, with someone who is needy and crying, all while maintaining meaningful boundaries? To describe this capacity to navigate “these emotionally complex situations — how to be both emotionally present but not emotionally enmeshed,” as Ms. Ross put it, the group eventually came up with the term “emotional dexterity.” .............  hesitated to classify “listening” as a skill, arguing that anyone can listen ..............  active listening entails not just hearing, but also picking up on what goes unsaid, the way things are said and what that means in context .............. air traffic controllers, for example, “operate within a highly codified environment,” which reduces the need for interpersonal skills.) ..................  problem-solving skills, physical demands, interpersonal skills and emotional demands .................  many social workers found the analysis of their work “more valuable” than the pay raise itself ................ Several New Zealanders pointed to the unanimous vote on the pay equity law as an important sign of where the public had moved on the issue. .......... The thing that so many of today’s most underpaid and essential workers have in common is simply that they are women. ............   New Zealand’s experience in the coming years will serve as an experiment in what happens when an entire society, led by a feminist prime minister, decides, in effect, to say yes. 

In The News (9)

Powerful Aide to Boris Johnson Quits in Britain, Report Says Dominic Cummings, who masterminded the Brexit campaign in 2016 and helped vault Mr. Johnson into office, resigned amid fierce infighting. 

London Police to Recruit 40% of Officers From Minority Backgrounds The Metropolitan Police also announced a review of all road traffic stops, as Commissioner Cressida Dick acknowledged that her force was “not free from racism or discrimination.” ......... The London Metropolitan Police will aim to hire 40 percent of new recruits from Black, Asian, and other minority backgrounds by 2022, Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Friday ......... the Metropolitan Police should be more inclusive; work more closely with local communities; and gain the trust of minorities, who are treated differently than white Londoners.  ....... Mr. Khan said that the Black Lives Matter protests this summer had highlighted the need to change the perceptions of the police ....   the goal was for 16 percent of the force to be from minority backgrounds by 2022, and 28 percent by 2030 ......... officers will also review footage from body cameras to identify potential patterns in the use of stop-and-frisk tactics, and how de-escalation methods could be used more frequently. 

How Exercise Might Affect Immunity to Lower Cancer Risk Working out may enhance the immune system’s ability to target and eradicate cancer cells, a study in mice suggests. ...........  highly active people were found to be much less likely to develop 13 different types of cancer than people who rarely moved.   

Trump Remade His Party and the World He transformed both the Republican coalition and the way other countries see America. His legacy will be with us for generations.  

Stacey Abrams on minority rule, voting rights, and the future of democracy In 2020, democracy is on the ballot.

Why Trump is suddenly replacing Pentagon officials with loyalists It seems scary, but the answer may be simpler than you think.

Ecocide: Should killing nature be a crime?

My Daughter’s New Friends (and Their Parents) Are Terribly Racist What should we do? 

घरघरमा ‘अनियन्त्रित’ फैलिएको कोरोना संक्रमण : कहाँ चुक्यो नेपाल ? अब गर्ने के ? कतै वरदान त कतै अभिशाप बन्यो लकडाउन, के यो समयको बर्बादी मात्रै हो ?

Why Polling Missed The Mark Again

Election Showed a Wider Red-Blue Economic Divide Some partisan differences were scrambled, but places with brighter future prospects swung toward Biden.

Biden Wants to Be the Climate President. He’ll Need Some Help From Xi Jinping. The U.S.-China relationship is at its lowest point in a half century, but there are also converging interests on global warming.........  Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi, though, are locked in a very difficult relationship that makes climate cooperation a bit like a couple in divorce court trying to plan their child’s wedding. ............. The countries represent the two biggest economies, two leading military powers and the two biggest sources of the climate problem, together producing 40 percent of the greenhouse gases that currently go up into the atmosphere and heat the planet to dangerous levels. ............ and nudging other major emitters — India, Indonesia, Russia, and Brazil — to do their part. .......... There’s conflict over trade. China’s human rights abuses are hard for Washington to ignore, and growing nationalist sentiment in both countries makes diplomacy politically tougher. ........ climate change offered Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi a real opening to work together. .......... could spur healthy competition over clean energy technology and, in turn, drive down prices of renewable power for the rest of the world. ............. China would have to peak its carbon emissions by 2025, five years earlier than the country has promised, and phase out coal by 2040 in order to keep global temperatures close to the upper limits laid out in the Paris Agreement. ............. China’s addiction to coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, which supplies the bulk of the country’s electricity despite its expansion of solar and wind power. ............. Four of the world’s top coal-plant builders are Chinese. 

Just got a tornado warning... in Manhattan pic.twitter.com/7MdDD0qgNq

— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) November 16, 2020

2020 Shows Why the Electoral College Is Stupid and Immoral It doesn’t just distort presidential elections. It infects the entire political process. 

In The News (8)

Stacey Abrams on minority rule, voting rights, and the future of democracy In 2020, democracy is on the ballot.

Why Trump is suddenly replacing Pentagon officials with loyalists It seems scary, but the answer may be simpler than you think.

Ecocide: Should killing nature be a crime?

My Daughter’s New Friends (and Their Parents) Are Terribly Racist What should we do?

Google Photos is ending free unlimited storage in 2021 — so what are your options?  all photos uploaded before June 1 next year will still be available under the free unlimited storage option. ....... Google Photos, which has more than 1 billion users, has offered free unlimited storage for high-quality photos (read: compressed) for users across platforms. ........ Photos hosts more than 4 trillion pictures and videos, with users uploading 28 billion every week. It added that while media uploads would count towards your 15GB free data cap, 80 percent of users won’t reach that limit for 10 years.  ......... Luckily, the Big G said that it’ll roll out a new storage management tool for Google Photos next year, so that you can easily clear up images that might not be worthy. .......... Plans start from $1.99 per month for 100GB of storage ...... Then there’s Dropbox, which offers 2TB space for an annual plan of $9.99 per month for individuals. ....... Google Photos’ unlimited storage has been a beloved feature all across the world.

Fauci: COVID-19 won’t be pandemic ‘for a lot longer’ thanks to vaccines

Wearing a mask isn’t just about protecting other people, the CDC says. It can help you — and might prevent lockdowns. As part of a push for stronger messaging, the agency acknowledged masks work both as ‘source control and personal protection’ ........... Masks are neither completely selfless nor selfish — they help everyone. ............  the widespread wearing of face coverings can help prevent the need for national lockdowns. ...........  the more people wearing masks in the community, the greater the individual benefit. ........... “Wearing a mask blocks you from inhaling potential virus-containing particles in the air.......But most of the benefit to a mask is to block particles coming out of people who don’t know they are infected from exposing others.” ..........  Masks create a barrier that stops some of the droplets from flying outward when someone breathes, talks, sings or coughs. ......... in experimental conditions, simple fabric masks blocked about three-fourths of the particles expelled by coughing volunteers.........  masks can filter out the types of incoming particles able to carry virus .......... personal protection for the mask-wearer is not absolute. “The real benefit is when all of us do it, that’s how we bring down the viral load of covid-19 in communities”  .............  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in late June putting on a mask was the “single most important thing you can do” until vaccines were available. ......... conservatives are strongly motivated by a personal responsibility to care for themselves. ...............  laboratory, epidemiological and population-based studies all showed “very substantial benefits” of mask-wearing .............. science suggests face coverings “of higher thread count, more than one layer, and those that employ ‘electrostatic filtration’ like surgical masks” provide the best protection. ............ the dose of virus that people are exposed to may impact the seriousness of disease ..............  face coverings could filter enough droplets to lead to asymptomatic or mild illness in some cases — and lead to some immunity.    

In The News (7)

Media Condemns Biden For Baseless Claim That Nation Will Come Together Once Election Over Blasting the former vice president for spreading misinformation at this perilous time for democracy, media figures across the political spectrum condemned Joe Biden Friday for his baseless claim that the nation will come together once the election was over. ................  This is America, you don’t just say things like that.  

Crying Eric Trump Asks Father If They Poor Now 

Pfizer reveals vaccine breakthrough

The future of the MBA

US Election: The latest updates

Dr. Fauci says Pfizer's reported 90% vaccine efficacy rate is 'extraordinary'

Orange County shuts down all DMV offices because of COVID-19 outbreak She advised residents to consider any public site in Orange County as a potential site of COVID-19 exposure, due to a persistent increase in newly diagnosed COVID-19 cases throughout the county. 

Clots, Strokes And Rashes. Is COVID-19 A Disease Of The Blood Vessels?

Operation Warp Speed's Logistics Chief Weighs In On Vaccine Progress 

Nearly 80% of Americans say Biden won White House, ignoring Trump's refusal to concede - Reuters/Ipsos poll

Trump Is Fundraising For Legal Help Fighting A ‘Stolen’ Election. Nearly All The Money Is Actually Going Elsewhere.  the formula was changed to funnel most of the money into Trump’s new leadership PAC called Save America. ........... “Donors who are giving in response to this urgent fundraising message to help defend the integrity of our election are actually helping fund Trump’s post-presidential political vehicle” ........  In the fine print of the fundraising blasts, it lays out that 60 percent of the contributions will first go to the new PAC, up to the maximum contribution of $5,000. The remaining 40 percent goes to the RNC up to the maximum $35,500. If that first 60 percent of the donation exceeds $5,000 the remnants go to the campaign’s “recount account”; if the 40 percent exceeds the $35,500 RNC maximum, only then does it go to the RNC’s legal defense fund. “Not a penny is dedicated to a legal expense account unless donors have maxed out their contributions to the first two committees, $5,000 to the leadership PAC and $35,500 to the RNC” .......... Calling leadership PACs “notorious” for being abused as slush funds, Ryan predicted that Trump will keep the coffers full by teasing a possible 2024 run, all the while finding ways to funnel money back to his businesses and family members. ........... “This is a way that he can fleece his supporters to support his own lifestyle for the next few years regardless of whether he even runs in 2024” ........... “The prohibition on the personal use of campaign funds also does not apply to leadership PACs — so leadership PAC funds could be used to pay the legal fees Trump will incur after he leaves office”  

Biden-voting counties equal 70% of America’s economy. What does this mean for the nation’s political-economic divide?

In The News (6)

Schumer: ‘Now we take Georgia, then we change the world’ Two runoff elections could decide the balance of power in the Senate ..........  Republican Sen. David Perdue will face off on January 5 against Democrat Jon Ossoff after finishing ahead 49.78% to Ossoff’s 47.9%. Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler will compete against Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock. Loeffler finished with 25.94% of the vote and Warnock finished with 32.89%. Loeffler was sharing GOP votes with the well-known Rep. Doug Collins and fended off three other Republican candidates. Warnock topped six other Democrats who also competed for the seat. ................  After the Democrats maintained control in the House and won the presidency, Republicans are framing the Georgia races  as the last stand between the country and a socialist Democratic agenda. ................. Meanwhile, Democrats have made the pitch that in order for Biden to be effective in fighting the coronavirus, improving health care and rebuilding America's economy, he'll need Democrats in charge of both the House and Senate.  

Trump Jr. calls out '2024 GOP hopefuls' for 'total lack of action' in ballot-counting fight Some Republicans have panned Trump's rhetoric 

Democrats are in position to 'take a sledgehammer' to the South's red wall: Juan Williams 'This is radical,' he said ........ After the 1964 Civil Rights Act, President Lyndon B. Johnson famously said that the South was going to be Republican "for a generation.” ......... Southern politics has been solid red for most of the last 50 years. But thanks to the implosion of the Republican Party under President Trump, Democrats are in position to take a sledgehammer to the red wall that has been the basis of Republican strength in Congress. Over the last month, polls put Democrats within striking distance of flipping U.S. Senate seats in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and even Mississippi (Mississippi!)." 

Juan Williams: Democrats rise in the New South Southern politics has been solid red for most of the last 50 years. .......... Trump’s history of stirring racial division is also a driving force in getting moderate white voters to be open to supporting black candidates. ........ Those white voters, often younger people who have moved to the South in recent years, are more likely than older white southerners to know Blacks, Latinos and Asians as neighbors and co-workers. ......... The glue to bind this new political alliance is a message of racial peace coming from moderate, educated candidates, both black and white, who can’t be easily caricatured by Republicans as crazy left-wingers. ........... “White residents now make up fewer than three in five voters in Georgia, and a wave of migration to the Atlanta area over the past decade has added roughly three quarters of a million people to the state’s major Democratic stronghold.” 

Jill Biden will be historic first lady: Just call her ‘Professor FLOTUS’  she continued teaching at Northern Virginia Community College during the eight years she served as second lady ........... She intends to be the first FLOTUS in the role's 231-year history to pursue her career and keep a paying job while living in the White House and serving as first lady. ............. “The beauty of (being FLOTUS) is that you can define it however you want," she told Vogue in July 2019. "And that’s what I did as second lady – I defined that role the way I wanted it to be. I would still work on all the same issues. Education would be right up there, and military families. I’d travel all over this country trying to get free community college.” .............. "I don’t like to see my son attacked, and certainly I don’t like to see my husband attacked, but to me, these are distractions," she said. “This election is… about the American people....The American people don’t want to hear these smears against my family.” ............. Biden, 69, has a bachelor's degree and two master's degrees, and a doctorate of education from the University of Delaware, which she earned in 2007 under her original name, Jill Jacobs. ............ "Teaching is not what I do. It's who I am," Biden said in a pre-speech tweet. .................... At least initially, most of her students were unaware of the full identity of "Dr. Biden" as either a U.S. senator's wife or as second lady, according to an interview with Vogue in March. She asked Secret Service agents to dress like college students and sit unobtrusively out in the hallway, on laptops, and it worked. .................. Biden, born in Hammonton, New Jersey, and raised in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, was getting divorced when she met her husband (she married Bill Stevenson after graduation from high school but they had drifted apart by their junior year at the University of Delaware). .............  According to the story, the then-U.S. senator from Delaware, a widower with two young sons who had lost his wife and baby daughter in a car accident, saw her picture in an ad (she did a little local modeling), and sought her out; their first date was in spring 1975. ............. “Jill is always grading papers,” Obama said. “Which is funny because I’d forget, ‘Oh yeah, you have a day job!’ And then she pulls out her papers and she’s so diligent and I’m like, ‘Look at you! You have a job! Tell me! Tell me what it’s like!’"

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Biden’s Win, House Losses, and What’s Next for the Left The congresswoman said Joe Biden’s relationship with progressives would hinge on his actions. And she dismissed criticism from House moderates, calling some candidates who lost their races “sitting ducks.” ..............  we aren’t in a free fall to hell anymore ............. Every single candidate that co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat. We also know that co-sponsoring the Green New Deal was not a sinker. Mike Levin was an original co-sponsor of the legislation, and he kept his seat. ...............  the thing is, I’ve been unseating Democrats for two years. I have been defeating D.C.C.C.-run campaigns for two years. That’s how I got to Congress. That’s how we elected Ayanna Pressley. That’s how Jamaal Bowman won. That’s how Cori Bush won. ............. if you’re not spending $200,000 on Facebook with fund-raising, persuasion, volunteer recruitment, get-out-the-vote the week before the election, you are not firing on all cylinders. ............. If you’re not door-knocking, if you’re not on the internet, if your main points of reliance are TV and mail, then you’re not running a campaign on all cylinders. .................. We need to do a lot of anti-racist, deep canvassing in this country. ............ There’s a lot of magical thinking in Washington ............ So the D.C.C.C. banned every single firm that is the best in the country at digital organizing. .................  this anti-activist sentiment .............. Before the election, I offered to help every single swing district Democrat with their operation. And every single one of them, but five, refused my help. And all five of the vulnerable or swing district people that I helped secured victory or are on a path to secure victory. And every single one that rejected my help is losing. And now they’re blaming us for their loss. .................  the history of the party tends to be that we get really excited about the grass roots to get elected. And then those communities are promptly abandoned right after an election. ..............  so it’s going be really hard after immigrant youth activists helped potentially deliver Arizona and Nevada. It’s going to be really hard after Detroit and Rashida Tlaib ran up the numbers in her district. ..............  If the party believes after 94 percent of Detroit went to Biden, after Black organizers just doubled and tripled turnout down in Georgia, after so many people organized Philadelphia, the signal from the Democratic Party is the John Kasichs won us this election? I mean, I can’t even describe how dangerous that is. ................. The last two years have been pretty hostile. Externally, we’ve been winning. Externally, there’s been a ton of support, but internally, it’s been extremely hostile to anything that even smells progressive. ............... Or are they going to just kind of double down on this smothering approach? And that’s going to inform what I do. .............. Is there a universe in which they’re hostile enough that we’re talking about a Senate run in a couple years? ..............  the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere — they’re probably the same.

I hope every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities. pic.twitter.com/E4GYfr2QoO

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) November 8, 2020

I had the privilege of being part of a volunteer team who phonebanked Nepali-speaking registered voters in swing states...

Posted by Anil Jung Shahi on Saturday, November 7, 2020

In The News (5)

Meet the contenders for Biden’s Cabinet The president-elect is expected to nominate a mix of progressives, moderates and even a few Republicans as he seeks to satisfy a broad coalition. 

The Election That Broke the Republican Party By lashing themselves to the president’s desperate conspiracies of fraud, GOP officials have undermined their own legitimacy.  

How to be a statesman, in 4 mins. https://t.co/37PkmGis6Y

— Fareed Zakaria (@FareedZakaria) November 7, 2020

71,000,000 Legal Votes. The most EVER for a sitting President!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020

"Relieved" is exactly the right word! https://t.co/ZncxI7aCc2

— Prof. Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) November 7, 2020

this dog sure has some moves
(jukin copyright management) pic.twitter.com/A5hVy3h5kM

— Humor And Animals (@humorandanimals) November 7, 2020

In The News (4)

Fight for Senate majority boils down to Georgia https://t.co/I97yqchDpQ pic.twitter.com/FEOTCDpNQe

— The Hill (@thehill) November 6, 2020

Fight for Senate majority boils down to Georgia The dual runoffs, with the Senate majority on the line, would set the stage for a nail-biting finish to an already chaotic, historic election year, with millions already set to pour into the state. ............. The dynamic will put Georgia at the center of the political universe for roughly the next 60 days with two races that are already being nationalized. Multiple officials who will be involved in the race declined to put a price tag on the runoff, but one GOP official didn’t rule out that it could top $100 million. .............  Winning both Georgia Senate races if they go to runoffs will be tough. ........ the path for Democrats would rely heavily on high turnout in Atlanta and the suburbs. ........... “If there are any Republicans out there that think this is going to be a cake walk, I think they should pay more attention to the fight that’s happening right now at the presidential level and understand what’s coming”

Stacey Abrams lauded by Democrats for mobilising black voters in Georgia Voting rights activist credited as architect behind grassroots efforts to turn state ‘blue’ ......... It was an endorsement in February from Jim Clyburn, the veteran black Democratic congressman, that resurrected Joe Biden’s flailing presidential primary campaign.  ..........  “As Democrats chart a course forward as a party, the first person they should turn to is Stacey Abrams.” ..........  Voter registration figures, early voting data and county-level election results suggest similar patterns helped Mr Biden edge out Mr Trump in other battleground states, notably Pennsylvania and Michigan. ..................... a surge of black people signing up to cast ballots in the wake of the killing of George Floyd at the start of the summer. ......... “The truth of the matter is when democracy needed recalibration, it was the most consequential voting bloc in American history.” 

Trump Moves Into the Burn-It-Down Phase The president’s White House press conference showed that he knows his reelection prospects are fading, and he’ll try anything to keep power. .............  Trump is a showman who prizes presentation above everything else, who watches his interviews with the sound off, who critiques appearances with precision, who famously mocks his opponents as “sleepy” and “low energy.” When Trump goes back to watch his performance tonight, he’ll see a salesman who wasn’t selling. ......... On Fox News, John Roberts described Trump’s remarks as the words of a man who was losing and trying to hold on to power. Even the loyal New York Post described the president as “downcast” and his charges as “baseless.” The talkers on CNN were even more withering: Jake Tapper deemed the appearance a disgrace. “We knew the president wasn’t going to lose gracefully, if he lost,” he told viewers. “But frankly, watching him flail like this is just pathetic.” Trump’s lone nominal defender on the network, former Senator Rick Santorum, said the president’s accusations were without merit and “dangerous.” Anderson Cooper likened the president to “an obese turtle on his back, flailing in the hot sun.”  .......... Among conservatives, there is already talk of asking Republicans in the Pennsylvania state legislature to overrule the popular will and submit their own electors on Trump’s behalf. 

Georgia preps for war with Senate majority on the line Both parties are getting ready to dump millions into the two Senate runoffs.  

In The News (3)

Even If Joe Biden Wins, He Will Govern in Donald Trump's America The 2020 election did not go according to plan for the Democrats. It was a far cry from the sweeping repudiation of Trump that the polls had forecast and liberals craved. After all the outrage and activism, a projected $14 billion spent and millions more votes this time than last, Trump’s term is ending the way it began: with an election once again teetering on a knife’s edge, and a nation entrenched in stalemate, torn between two realities, two orientations, two sets of facts......  the congressional Republicans who enabled him instead notched unexpected gains ....... The GOP appeared likely to retain the majority in the Senate and cut into the Democratic House majority, defying the polls and fundraising deficits. Republicans held onto states such as Florida, South Carolina, Ohio and Iowa that Democrats had hoped to flip. They cut into Democrats’ margins with nonwhite voters, made gains with Latinos in South Florida and the Rio Grande Valley, and racked up huge turnout among non-college-educated white people, while halting what many conservatives feared was an inexorable slide in the suburbs. ......... “Democrats always argued, ‘If more people voted, we would win,’” says GOP strategist Brad Todd, co-author of The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics. “Well, guess what? Everybody voted, and it didn’t help the Democrats. There is a multi-racial, working-class ethos that is animating the new Republican coalition.” ........... he will be governing Trump’s America: a nation unpersuaded by kumbaya calls for unity and compassion, determined instead to burrow ever deeper into mutual antagonism. Win or lose, Trump has engineered a lasting tectonic shift in the American political landscape, fomenting a level of anger, resentment and suspicion that will not be easy for his successor to surmount ..............  The COVID-19 pandemic has just entered its worst phase yet, rampaging across the country virtually unchecked. The economic fallout from the virus continues to worsen without new federal aid. ..............  something is completely rotten in the foundations of our democracy ........  our identity crisis continues. ....... He made little alteration to his bull-in-a-china-shop attitude, even though the hellscape he raged against was now one that unfolded on his watch. ......... Biden shattered campaign-finance records—his campaign hauled in $952 million, dwarfing the incumbent by more than $300 million ...... “These Trump rallies and Trump parades and all those kinds of things, they don’t strike me as the type that would be answering a polling call” ................. “He’s still going to be the leader of the party and the biggest voice, and he’ll at least flirt with the idea of running again. It’s going to continue to be a populist, grievance-fueled party.”  

US election 2020: Why racism is still a problem for the world's most powerful country  It's the mindset that led President Woodrow Wilson, in office from 1913 to 1921, to oversee the re-segregation of multiple federal agencies. This is the same president who publicly backed the Ku Klux Klan. It's the mindset that at the turn of the 20th Century saw the vilification of black people as wide-eyed "happy negroes" content with their lot as poor share croppers and shoe shiners. ..................  African Americans don't have that luxury. The past is the present, the racism is the same. ......... A big issue in the campaign was urban crime and the Clinton administration's controversial 1994 Crime Bill that critics say increased mass incarceration and led to the disproportionate jailing of tens of thousands of black men. Joe Biden helped get that legislation on the books, and his involvement has come back to haunt him. ..............  the fear of a bad encounter with the police lives in the mind of every African American.