Patrick's Notebook

by Barton Gellman

Editor’s Note: This story appears in the November issue of The Atlantic; it was published early on their website because of its urgency.

There is a cohort of close observers of our presidential elections, scholars and lawyers and political strategists, who find themselves in the uneasy position of intelligence analysts in the months before 9/11. As November 3 approaches, their screens are blinking red, alight with warnings that the political system does not know how to absorb. They see the obvious signs that we all see, but they also know subtle things that most of us do not. Something dangerous has hove into view, and the nation is lurching into its path.

The danger is not merely that the 2020 election will bring discord. Those who fear something worse take turbulence and controversy for granted. The coronavirus pandemic, a reckless incumbent, a deluge of mail-in ballots, a vandalized Postal Service, a resurgent effort to suppress votes, and a trainload of lawsuits are bearing down on the nation’s creaky electoral machinery.

Something has to give, and many things will, when the time comes for casting, canvassing, and certifying the ballots. Anything is possible, including a landslide that leaves no doubt on Election Night. But even if one side takes a commanding early lead, tabulation and litigation of the “overtime count”—millions of mail-in and provisional ballots—could keep the outcome unsettled for days or weeks. » Read the rest of this entry «

By Celine Castronuovo

Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama now hold the top spots for most admired man and woman in the world in the British data firm YouGov’s annual poll released Tuesday.

Barack Obama ousted Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates from the most admired title for the first time since YouGov started conducting the survey in 2014. Gates now holds second place for most admired man, followed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in third.

Michelle Obama is ranked number one for women for the second year in a row. Angeline Jolie, who previously held the top spot, was ranked second in Tuesday’s survey, followed by Queen Elizabeth II.

According to YouGov, the 2020 study was the largest conducted thus far, with more than 45,000 people in 42 countries and territories surveyed. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Heidi Schlumpf

Likely Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett

Editor’s note: This is a profile of the “People of Praise” group, originally written in 2018, when Amy Coney Barrett’s name was on a list of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees. With the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Barrett’s name is once again on President Donald Trump’s list of prospective nominees.

It has taken Coral Anika Theill 30 years to heal from the physical and emotional abuse she says she suffered while a member of People of Praise, one of several “covenanted communities” that grew out of the Catholic charismatic revival in the 1970s.

And now she’s worried because a woman deeply involved in the group is on a short list of nominees to the highest court in the land. Judge Amy Coney Barrett is reportedly a member — and likely a “covenanted” member — of People of Praise, which means she has entered into a marital-like promise of commitment to other members. The group’s leader said “a pretty high fraction” of the 1,700 adult members are covenanted.

Theill describes her five years in the group’s branch in Corvallis, Oregon, as a period of suffering under conservative ideology, strict gender-role divisions that emphasized women’s submission, and secrecy toward outsiders. When she asked too many questions, she was shunned and eventually left the group.

“It still traumatizes me to this day,” said Theill, who changed her name after leaving her husband, who initially remained in the group. » Read the rest of this entry «

from FITSNews.com

Here we go again, people …

As libertarians, we view the institution of slavery as among the most despicable chapters in our shared human history. It was a fundamental deprivation of freedom … and while we do not believe erasing our history will do anything to assuage it, we certainly acknowledge the necessity of coming to grips with certain ingrained legacies.

And making sure our society never reverts to these legacies the future …

Having said that, we have a commitment to calling out racist behavior wherever we see it … no matter its origin or its intended target.

As we noted in a recent post, we cannot call a society “fair” or “equal” in which racism is “tolerated on the one hand … but condemned on the other.”

Which is why it falls to us to report on allegations against Chester, S.C. city councilwoman Angela Y. Douglas. According to multiple sources familiar with the situation, Douglas recently posted numerous images to her Facebook page that glorified the enslavement of white people by blacks. » Read the rest of this entry «

written by Peter Stone

On August 13, a day after President Donald Trump again charged that Democrats’ efforts to expand mail-in voting due to the pandemic will create “the greatest rigged election in history,” U.S. Attorney General William Barr too made unfounded and conspiratorial-sounding claims. Barr told Sean Hannity on Fox News that Democrats’ drive seeking to expand mail-in voting could raise “serious questions about the integrity of the election,” were “grossly irresponsible,” and “reckless.”

That was hardly the first time they seemed to agree. In a July House Judiciary hearing and in a June interview with Fox News, Barr joined Trump in his monthslong and spurious attacks on voting by mail. He told Fox that voting by mail “absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud,” adding, without evidence, that “right now a foreign country could print tens of thousands of counterfeit ballots.”

Citing Barr’s words in one tweet, Trump then upped the ante: “MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES,AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!”

“Barr has admitted he has no evidence of widespread mail-voting fraud,” former federal prosecutor and former senior official at Homeland Security Paul Rosenzweig told me. “All he is doing is trying, unsuccessfully, to give Trump a basis for challenging the election. This is not the job of the Attorney General.” » Read the rest of this entry «

written by Jonathan Cook

A street in Jenin, West Bank, 2011

When the Palestinian actor Mohammed Bakri made a documentary about Jenin in 2002 – filming immediately after the Israeli army had completed rampaging through the West Bank city, leaving death and destruction in its wake – he chose an unusual narrator for the opening scene: a mute Palestinian youth.

Jenin had been sealed off from the world for nearly three weeks as the Israeli army razed the neighbouring refugee camp and terrorised its population.

Bakri’s film Jenin, Jenin shows the young man hurrying silently between wrecked buildings, using his nervous body to illustrate where Israeli soldiers shot Palestinians and where bulldozers collapsed homes, sometimes on their inhabitants.

It was not hard to infer Bakri’s larger meaning: when it comes to their own story, Palestinians are denied a voice. They are silent witnesses to their own and their people’s suffering and abuse.

The irony is that Bakri has faced just such a fate himself since Jenin, Jenin was released 18 years ago. Today, little is remembered of his film, or the shocking crimes it recorded, except for the endless legal battles to keep it off screens. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Darmi Msarko

“This is the most important election in history. And you are the most dangerous president in the history of our country. That’s why you’re going to lose,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders during Trump’s remarksProtests surround White House as president delivers lie-filled RNC nomination speech

“For almost 10 hours this week, President Trump and his allies used the unfiltered platform of a national political convention to paint a portrait of two Americas that do not exist,” White House reporter Toluse Olorunnipa writes in The Washington Post. “In one — a misrepresentation of life under Trump — the coronavirus has been conquered by presidential leadership, the economy is at its pre-pandemic levels, troops are returning home, and the president is an empathetic figure who supports immigration and would never stoke the nation’s racial grievances.” The other grossly “mischaracterizes” Democratic rival Joe Biden’s proposals.

“While all political confabs involve some level of spin and revisionism,” Olorunnipa adds, “the Republican National Convention this year has stood out for its brazen defiance of facts, ethical guidelines, and tradition, according to experts on propaganda and misinformation.” » Read the rest of this entry «