Patrick's Notebook

by Caitlin Johnstone

If you voted for Biden, fine. Now do what you know is right and start throwing haymakers at the new head of the fascist empire

Well the post-election battle rages on, with rank-and-file Democrats freaking out that Trump will remain in office by force (spoiler: he won’t, he’ll leave office peacefully like his predecessors) and rank-and-file Republicans freaking out that Biden will enslave them to communism (spoiler: he won’t, he’ll enslave you to end-stage imperialist neoliberalism like everyone else).

There are accusations of cheating and shenanigans on both sides, and at this point I honestly don’t know how to care about any of it. Like what am I supposed to say? “Oh no, you mean the fake election for two fake candidates is really fake??” One corporate war whore is as good as another. Let Raytheon pick the winner for all I care.

Anxiety remains high, with mass media going out of its way to play up civil unrest fears as protests and counter-protests erupt across the country. I’ll just reiterate what I said before the election: any violence as this thing unpacks will only benefit the powerful, will be used to justify authoritarian agendas which serve the powerful, and will in all probability have been instigated by the powerful. There are situations in which one can argue that intelligent application of force by the citizenry could have good results, but dying over what oligarch crony gets to rule you isn’t one of them. Please be smart and stay safe.

All that said, the election itself is now over. Which means the lies that people on the true political left have been telling themselves in order to psych themselves out for a painful Biden vote must now be dispensed with. “I voted against fascism” is a common mantra I’ve been seeing around social media lately, and it is one such lie. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Lauren Aratani

Sharice Davids, left, and Deb Haaland

The 117th Congress will have a record number of Native American women after voters elected three to the House of Representatives.

Democrats Deb Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo member representing New Mexico, and Sharice Davids, a Ho-Chunk Nation member representing Kansas, both retained their seats after becoming the first Native American women elected to Congress, in 2018.

They are joined by Yvette Herrell, who is Cherokee. Herrell, a Republican, beat the Democratic incumbent Xochitl Torres Small for her New Mexico congressional seat.

The wins for Herrell and Haaland mean that New Mexico will be the first state to have two indigenous women as congressional delegates. The state also became the first to elect women of color as all three of its delegates in the US House of Representatives.

According to a Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) report, 18 indigenous women were running for congressional seats this year – a record in a single year. Native American women made up 2.6% of all women running for Congress this year, the highest percentage since CAWP started collecting data in 2004.

There have been four Native Americans in the US Senate and a handful of indigenous US representatives. All were men until Haaland and Davids were elected in 2018. » Read the rest of this entry «

by David Smith, The Guardian

It seemed like a desperate last stand from a fearful strongman who can feel power slipping inexorably away.

The US president on Thursday returned to the White House briefing room, scene of past triumphs such as that time he proposed bleach as a cure for coronavirus and that other time he condemned QAnon with the words “They like me”.

Trump offered a downright dangerous and dishonest take on this week’s election that current vote counting trends suggest he will lose. It was possibly an attempt to intimidate and deter TV networks from declaring a winner in the next few hours.

It also risked inciting protests and violence from supporters encouraged to view Joe Biden as an illegitimate president-elect.

Sombre and downbeat, Trump made false claims from a prepared statement ( is that better or worse than ad-libbing lies?) » Read the rest of this entry «

By Ezra Rosser

It appears as if Joe Biden has a good chance of being the next president. And that is a win and an important win after Donald Trump’s four-year assault on decency and on the Office of the President. But the story of this election — the closeness of it despite the horror of this administration and of the Republican politicians who debased themselves by not fighting back against the emperor with no clothes — is also a story of loss.

Prior to last night, one could imagine a blue wave sweeping across the country. If Biden wins, books will be written that focus on how he won, but the real story is that it was even a contest. Trump won in 2016 despite, or because, of the Access Hollywood tape and his seemingly vile displays of xenophobia. If we were a decent society, if Americans cared about other Americans, 2020 should not have been a contest.

All that should have mattered was the Democratic primary. It should not have mattered that democrats went for the safe choice, the center, establishment choice, because the option offered by Republicans, an incumbent president intent on destroying the basic fabric of the country, should have been rejected by broad swaths of the country. The books that should be written place Trump exactly where he wants to be — at the center of the narrative.

How is it that so many voters looked at the last four years and thought, “I want more of that”? The administration’s abject failure to deal with the COVID19 pandemic should have been enough for Biden to win 70-30. Amid a pandemic, one would have thought at least that many Americans would want an adult steering the ship. » Read the rest of this entry «

from Taipei Times

APPEAL REJECTED: Hsieh had not shown sufficient commitment to competitions, the ITF said, citing her absence from the Fed Cup and the 2016 Olympic GamesTaiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei reacts during her women’s singles first-round tennis match against Austria’s Barbara Haas at the French Open in Paris on Sept 28

Taiwan’s chance to win a medal in tennis at the Tokyo Olympic Games suffered a major blow after women’s doubles world No. 1 Hsieh Su-wei was ruled ineligible for the Games by the sport’s governing body.

The 34-year-old Hsieh announced in a Facebook post that the International Tennis Federation (ITF) had rejected her appeal to gain eligibility for next year’s COVID-19-delayed Olympics.

Hsieh said that even though her ranking qualified her for the Games, she was deemed ineligible due to “a mistake involving the Fed Cup” held in March.

Hsieh is ranked No. 66 in women’s singles and No. 1 in women’s doubles. Players ranked among the top 56 in singles and top 10 in doubles are eligible to compete at the Tokyo Olympics.

Although ranked outside the top 56 in singles, Hsieh’s ranking would have been enough to gain her entry into the singles draw, as no more than four players from the same country can qualify. » Read the rest of this entry «

By John W. Whitehead

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”—George Orwell

The American people remain eager to be persuaded that a new president in the White House can solve the problems that plague us.

Yet no matter who wins this presidential election, you can rest assured that the new boss will be the same as the old boss, and we—the permanent underclass in America—will continue to be forced to march in lockstep with the police state in all matters, public and private.

Indeed, it really doesn’t matter what you call them—the Deep State, the 1%, the elite, the controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—so long as you understand that no matter which party occupies the White House in 2021, the unelected bureaucracy that actually calls the shots will continue to do so.

In the interest of liberty and truth, here are a few hard truths about life in the American police state that will persist no matter who wins the 2020 presidential election. Indeed, these issues persisted—and in many cases flourished—under both Republican and Democratic administrations in recent years. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Martin Pengelly

Progressive congresswomen of colour have made national names for themselves since 2018Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley

All four members of the progressive “squad” of Democratic congresswomen have handily won re-election.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan will return to their seats in the US Congress. The four women of color, who championed ambitious climate action, healthcare for all Americans and other progressive causes while enduring frequent racism and derision from Donald Trump, will no longer be newcomers to Capitol Hill.

“Our sisterhood is resilient,” Omar tweeted.

“Serving New York-14 and fighting for working-class families in Congress has been the greatest honor, privilege and responsibility of my life,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Thank you to the Bronx and Queens for re-electing me to the House despite the millions spent against us, and trusting me to represent you once more.”

Ocasio-Cortez had been expected to easily win re-election, but like other congressional Democrats was watching hopes that the party would expand their majority wane. After Republicans flipped two House seats in Miami-Dade county – where a majority of the voters are Latino – she lamented that Democrats and Joe Biden had not done more to galvanize Latino voters.

“Tonight’s results … are evolving and ongoing,” the New Yorker wrote, “but I will say we’ve been sounding the alarm about Democratic vulnerabilities with Latinos for a long, long time. There is a strategy and a path, but the necessary effort simply hasn’t been put in.

“We have work to do.” » Read the rest of this entry «