Saturday, October 10, 2020

In the news, Saturday, September 26, 2020


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SEP 25      INDEX      SEP 27
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Northwest senators on Saturday came out with largely partisan responses to President Donald Trump’s latest nominee for the Supreme Court, either condemning the quick bid to fill longtime liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat or touting potential successor Amy Coney Barrett’s accomplishments, depending on their political party.

President Donald Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on Saturday, capping a dramatic reshaping of the federal judiciary that will resonate for a generation and that he hopes will provide a needed boost to his reelection effort.


It’s not only in the United States where protests against racial injustice are part of the national conversation. A handful of America’s critics has taken note, using recent months’ demonstrations and graphic images of police violence to denounce the country at the United Nations’ gathering of world leaders this year. ... While the tactic of criticizing America for its racial tensions and policies toward Black Americans is decades old, it comes as historians and experts warn that under President Donald Trump, U.S. moral authority and stature around the world has waned.

Using data from dialysis centers across the nation, researchers found that less than 10% of adults had antibodies against COVID-19 by the end of July – which means that “herd immunity remains out of reach,” the study concluded.

In these emotionally fraught times, America needs a balanced view of the demands on police and on a stressed public. It is apparently not what Donald Trump thinks his campaign needs. As the president readily admits, he gets off on jabbing anger buttons. So he’s been blustering about the cities having become hellholes because of you-know-who.


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Saturday, October 3, 2020

In the news, Friday, September 25, 2020


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SEP 24      INDEX      SEP 26
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from DW News (Deutsche Welle)
Broadcasting & Media Production Company in Bonn, Germany

Major banks have allegedly facilitated trillions in money laundering transactions. We shouldn't be indifferent — the revelations in the FinCEN Files concern us all, says DW Editor-in-Chief Manuela Kasper-Claridge.

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from Institute for the Study of War
Nonprofit Organization in Washington, D.C.

The Russian Armed Forces conducted large-scale annual exercises from September 21-26. The Russian Armed Forces conduct large-scale exercises each year in one of its four military districts (Western, Southern, Central, and Eastern) on a rotating basis. The Southern Military District (SMD) is hosting this year’s exercises, dubbed Kavkaz-2020. The exercise involves ground, air, naval, air defense, engineering, logistics, and chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear (CBRN) units in the Caspian and Black Seas, the Caucasus, and near Volgograd in southern Russia. Kavkaz-2020 is a multinational undertaking. Russian units are exercising together with Armenian units in Armenia. Iranian missile boats conducted joint exercises with Russian ships in the Caspian Sea. Chinese personnel were featured prominently in images of planning sessions. Belarusian and Pakistani forces are also participating.  Russian forces are exercising in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, territories illegally seized from Georgia in the 2008 war and annexed to the Russian Federation, as well as in Crimea, illegally seized from Ukraine in 2014 and annexed to Russia.

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from The Seattle Times
LEFT-CENTER,  HIGH,  Newspaper in Seattle, WA

Self-inflicted wounds make Seattle’s business losses worse
The new crime problem affecting citizens and hurting small businesses doesn’t have complex sociological roots. It’s because of City Hall. In addition to lax prosecution, especially of a core of repeat offenders, the mayor and City Council are to blame. Mayor Jenny Durkan appears uncomfortable interacting with the business community and has lost power to an assertive council. That body is obsessed with defunding the police without a viable Plan B. Its membership is stuffed with career activists and pols, with thin business experience at best. No wonder the council is hostile to business. Even the smallest shop is exploitative capitalism. The council’s loudest voices are running a “revolution.”

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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In the news, Thursday, September 24, 2020


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SEP 23      INDEX      SEP 25
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from CNBC
TV Network in Englewood Cliffs, NJ

House Democrats are putting together another coronavirus stimulus plan, which would cost about $2.4 trillion. The chamber could vote on the legislation, which would include unemployment benefits, direct payments, small business loans and airline aid, as soon as next week. Democrats aim to restart stalled aid talks with the White House. 

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from DW News (Deutsche Welle)
Broadcasting & Media Production Company in Bonn, Germany

When Syrian President Bashar Assad used military violence against his own people during protests in 2011, US President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on representatives of his regime. The measures targeted wealthy Syrians, including Mahir al-Assad, the president's brother, aiming to ensure that those responsible for the violence would not be able to move their money around the globe. The European Union followed suit shortly after, and sanctions were quickly extended. The regime's access to weapons, to gasoline, to the international financial market was to be blocked. Such targeted sanctions are considered the means of choice for exerting pressure on despots and their associates. But do such sanctions work? There has always been some doubt about that. The FinCEN Files show once again: Sanctions can be circumvented — with the help of banks and a network of offshore companies.

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from HISTORY

Five hundred thirty-seven votes. That's all that separated Democrat Al Gore and his Republican challenger George W. Bush when, on November 26, 2000, three weeks after Election Day, the state of Florida declared Bush the winner of its 25 electoral votes in the race for U.S. president. After a wild election night on November 7, 2000, during which TV networks first called the key state of Florida for Gore, then for Bush, followed by a concession by Gore that was soon rescinded, the results for who would be the nation’s 43rd president were simply too close to call. In the 36 days that followed, Americans learned Gore had won the popular vote by 543,895 votes. But it's winning the Electoral College that counts. As accusations of fraud and voter suppression, calls for recounts and the filing of lawsuits ensued, the terms “hanging chads,” “dimpled chads” and “pregnant chads” became part of the lexicon.

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from HumanProgress.org
Education Website

Our twelfth Center of Progress is Hangzhou in 12th century CE China, during the late Song Dynasty’s so-called premodern “economic revolution” or period of proto-industrialization. With its innovations in printing and manufacturing, it has been said that the “Song came closer to initiating an industrial revolution than any other premodern state.” The Song dynasty, which spanned from 969 to 1276 CE, was a time of dynamism and invention. Through trade and industry, the Song empire became the richest on Earth. The dynastic capital, Hangzhou, was the wealthiest and most populous city in the world. Song-era China became the first country to print paper money, which is far easier to carry in large amounts than metal coins. Hangzhou served as a money-printing center and a hub of innovation and creativity.

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from Institute for the Study of War
Nonprofit Organization in Washington, D.C.

Russia’s military activity in the Western Military District (WMD) is anomalously high during ongoing Kavkaz-2020 exercises in the Southern Military District.  ISW has observed a larger-than-anticipated number of unscheduled Russian exercises in the vicinity of Belarus and throughout the WMD.[i] The Russian Defense Ministry holds annual strategic exercises to test the readiness of Russia’s four main military districts. Each such annual exercise occurs in a different military district in a rotating order and usually precipitates a decrease in military exercises in the other military districts. This year’s “Kavkaz-2020” exercises began on September 15 in the SMD and should have coincided with a decrease in Russian military activity in the WMD.

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from Military Times
and Air Force Times, Army Times, Marine Corps Times, and Navy Times

Ospreys draw eyes over Ukraine during special ops exercises
Air Force CV-22 Ospreys and other aircraft teamed up with the Ukrainian military this week in training exercises, and turned heads as they passed over Kyiv. The Ospreys, as well as MC-130Js, were from the 352nd Special Operations Wing out of RAF Mildenhall, and were taking part in Exercise Fiction Urchin with Ukrainian special operations forces, the wing said in a Facebook post Wednesday. The exercise marked the first time AFSOC Ospreys and MC-130Js have supported the Ukrainian SOF Qualification Course for special operations air-ground integration training, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said in a Sept. 17 release.

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from MyNorthwest.com
Media/News Company in Seattle

The City of Seattle gave a $150,000 contract to Andre Taylor, a former pimp, to offer expertise on de-escalation and alternatives to policing. Taylor has no formal training (or expertise) on de-escalation. Taylor’s role is a “street czar” — a made-up title that hasn’t provided many public victories, since Seattle homicides, arsons, and stabbings are on the uptick. The controversial contract comes to light as the Seattle City Council voted to override Mayor Jenny Durkan’s veto of their three bills to defund the police. A former pimp earns a lucrative contract, but up to 100 officers will be fired.

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from Reuters
International news agency headquartered in London, UK

Facebook Inc FB.O said on Thursday it has dismantled three networks of fake accounts which could be used by Russia's intelligence services to leak hacked documents as part of efforts to disrupt the upcoming U.S. election. The company said the accounts, which it suspended for using fake identities and other types of “coordinated inauthentic behaviour,” were linked to Russian intelligence and people associated with a St. Petersburg-based organisation accused by U.S. officials of working to sway the 2016 presidential vote. The Russian foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment after normal working hours in Moscow. Russia has repeatedly denied allegations of election meddling and says it does not interfere in the domestic politics of other countries.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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from Zero Hedge
EXTREME RIGHT BIAS, CONSPIRACY-PSEUDOSCIENCE, MIXED, website registered in Bulgaria

Over the past decade, the one common theme despite the political upheaval and growing social and geopolitical instability, was that the market would keep marching higher and the Fed would continue injecting liquidity into the system. The second common theme is that despite sparking unprecedented asset price inflation, prices as measured across the broader economy - using the flawed CPI metric and certainly stagnant worker wages - would remain subdued (as a reminder, the Fed is desperate to ignite broad inflation as that is the only way the countless trillions of excess debt can be eliminated and has so far failed to do so). ... Absent a massive burst of inflation in the coming years which inflates away the hundreds of trillions in federal debt, the unprecedented debt tsunami that is coming would mean the end to the American way of life as we know it. And to do that, the Fed is now finalizing the last steps of a process that revolutionizes the entire fiat monetary system, launching digital dollars which effectively remove commercial banks as financial intermediaries, as they will allow the Fed itself to make direct deposits into Americans' "digital wallets", in the process also making Congress and the entire Legislative branch redundant, as a handful of technocrats quietly take over the United States.

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In the news, Wednesday, September 23, 2020


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SEP 22      INDEX      SEP 24
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from AP (Associated Press)
LEFT-CENTER BIASED, VERY HIGH, News Agency in New York City

President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus was sworn in Wednesday to his sixth term in office at an inaugural ceremony that was not announced in advance amid weeks of huge protests of the authoritarian leader’s reelection, which the opposition says was rigged. One opposition leader called the secretive ceremony “a farce,” and several European countries reiterated that they don’t recognize the results of the election and refuse to regard Lukashenko as the legitimate president. In the evening, thousands of people took to the streets in the capital of Minsk to protest the inauguration and were met with a strong response from police.

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from The Atlantic  Magazine

If the vote is close, Donald Trump could easily throw the election into chaos and subvert the result. Who will stop him? 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.

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from The Guardian (UK)
LEFT-CENTER, HIGH, British daily newspaper published in London UK

'Gales and bullying soldiers': 800-year-old note from pope tells all
Medieval clergymen are usually thought of as pretty tough sorts but an 800-year-old document that has gone on display at Salisbury cathedral suggests the great church’s early leaders were not keen on blustery weather and may have been more than a little intimidated by their neighbours. The document, a papal bull from the 13th-century head of the Catholic church, Honorius III, gave permission for the cathedral to be moved from its site at Old Sarum on the outskirts of modern Salisbury to its sheltered modern position. Pope Honorius stepped in after disgruntled clergy in Salisbury complained their services were being drowned out by the blustery conditions at Old Sarum.

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from Hoover Institution
Nonprofit Organization in Stanford, California

Trump’s History Conference
President Trump’s remarks about the need to “restore patriotic education” at the White House Conference on American History have provoked a flurry of defenses and counterattacks from academic historians. The defenders dispute the notion that their teaching undermines patriotism, contending that any criticisms they might make of the United States are intended to improve the United States, not destroy it. The counterattackers denounce the President for threatening their academic freedom and advancing a version of history that ignores racism and pays too much attention to dead white males. ... The shunning of military history began during the Vietnam era, when students and junior faculty blamed nationalism and militarism for the alleged wrongs of the Vietnam War. Harvard historian Jill Lepore recently observed that the history of the American nation fell into decline among the faculty because “hatred for nationalism drove American historians away from it.” Political history and diplomatic history lost influence, but the field to suffer the most was military history, as it was deemed to be especially closely associated with nationalism and militarism. While not specifically named in this article, two common errors are at the root of historical revisionism: presentism and historian's fallacy.

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from New York Post
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED,  Newspaper in New York

Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia and the widow of Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow, Senate Republicans revealed in their report on the younger Biden’s work in Ukraine. ... The probe also found that Baturina sent 11 wires transfers between May and December 2015 to a bank account belonging to BAK USA, a tech startup that filed for bankruptcy in March 2019. Nine of those 11 wire transfers were first sent to Rosemont Seneca Partners, the investment firm founded by Biden and Chris Heinz, stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry, before being transferred to BAK USA.

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from POLITICO
LEAST BIASED, HIGH, news and opinion website in Arlington, Virginia

The CIA has made it harder for intelligence about Russia to reach the White House, stoking fears among current and former officials that information is being suppressed to please a president known to erupt in anger whenever he is confronted with bad news about Moscow. Nine current and former officials said in interviews that CIA Director Gina Haspel has become extremely cautious about which, if any, Russia-related intelligence products make their way to President Donald Trump’s desk. Haspel also has been keeping a close eye on the agency’s fabled “Russia House,” whose analysts she often disagrees with and sometimes accuses of purposefully misleading her.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

It will be a long recovery for Malden and Pine City residents. Don't forget them just because the flames are out and the smoke is gone.

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In the news, Tuesday, September 22, 2020


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SEP 21      INDEX      SEP 23
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from Columbia Basin Herald
Newspaper in Moses Lake, WA

Local ranchers donate hay, feed in wildfire-stricken areas
Wildfires in Washington are leaving charred land and losses, but some folks are stepping up to help with the immediate needs, such as feeding cows. The need in Okanogan, Douglas and Lincoln counties is critical. With the Cold Springs and Pearl Hill fires in Okanogan County blackening over 400,000 acres and the Whitney Fire in Lincoln County burning over 127,000 acres, every bit helps local ranchers who have lost land and stock to the blazes.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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In the news, Monday, September 21, 2020


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SEP 20      INDEX      SEP 22
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from BBC News (UK)

Leaked documents involving about $2tn of transactions have revealed how some of the world's biggest banks have allowed criminals to move dirty money around the world. They also show how Russian oligarchs have used banks to avoid sanctions that were supposed to stop them getting their money into the West. It's the latest in a string of leaks over the past five years that have exposed secret deals, money laundering and financial crime. The FinCEN files are more than 2,500 documents, most of which were files that banks sent to the US authorities between 2000 and 2017. They raise concerns about what their clients might be doing. These documents are some of the international banking system's most closely guarded secrets. Banks use them to report suspicious behaviour but they are not proof of wrongdoing or crime. FinCEN is the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. These are the people at the US Treasury who combat financial crime. Concerns about transactions made in US dollars need to be sent to FinCEN, even if they took place outside the US. Suspicious activity reports, or SARs, are an example of how those concerns are recorded. A bank must fill in one of these reports if it is worried one of its clients might be up to no good. The report is sent to the authorities.

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from DW News (Deutsche Welle)
Broadcasting & Media Production Company in Bonn, Germany

Leaked documents have yet again exposed the failure of governments to rein in money laundering. It’s no different in Germany, where the financial regulators seem to be struggling to get their act together. Mafia clans, despots, corrupt oligarchs, fraudsters — the list of criminals who channel large sums of ill-gotten wealth into the financial system every day is long. The United Nations estimates that around $5.5 billion (€4.25 billion) of black money are funneled into the legal system every day. The job is aided by large, multinational banks that execute the transfers, even though they are legally obliged to report any suspicious transaction to the authorities within 30 days.

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from Institute for the Study of War
Nonprofit Organization in Washington, D.C.

The Kremlin is advancing Union State formalization. State Secretary of the Union State Grigory Rapota – a Russian national – said Minsk and Moscow “reached an understanding” on the need to further develop Union State integration roadmaps on September 20. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s ability to resist Moscow’s efforts to further formalize the Union State is likely degraded. The Kremlin will likely continue pushing for Belarusian constitutional amendments to formalize the Union State. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated Moscow’s support for Belarusian constitutional reforms without providing specific details on September 20. The Kremlin will likely continue leveraging Lukashenko’s vulnerability to integrate Belarus into Russia as ISW assessed.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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In the news, Sunday, September 20, 2020


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SEP 19      INDEX      SEP 21
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from DW News (Deutsche Welle)
Broadcasting & Media Production Company in Bonn, Germany

The FinCEN files are the result of extensive international research on money laundering and financial crime. They show how dirty money is shuffled around the world and how banks fail to stop this flow of money. The unchecked movement of dirty money may not register as an immediate threat in a world beset by headline-grabbing crises. But the consequences are profound, as narcotraffickers, smugglers and Ponzi schemers shift illicit profits beyond the reach of authorities, and despots and corrupt captains of industry swell their own ill-gotten fortunes and consolidate power, aided by the powerful and the banking system. In 2019 the US media outlet BuzzFeed News obtained a large cache of secret US Department of the Treasury (USDT) financial records and shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). These are the FinCEN Files, documents from the USDT's regulatory bureau for safeguarding the financial system — the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Leaked documents shed a light on Deutsche Bank's central role in facilitating financial transactions deemed suspicious. Many of these could have enabled the circumvention of sanctions on Iran and Russia. Germany's largest bank Deutsche Bank is no stranger to scandals. But the leaked FinCEN files suggest the bank was aware it was facilitating suspicious transactions amounting to over $1 trillion dollars, including for a period after it had promised to clean up its act. The FinCEN files are a huge cache of secret reports detailing suspicious financial activity, filed by banks to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the US Treasury Department (USTD). BuzzFeed News obtained the files and shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Over the past 16 months, 400 journalists from 88 countries have been investigating the documents. ... Deutsche Bank accounts for 62% of all Suspicious Activities Reports (SARs) filed to FinCEN in the leaked documents. 


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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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from Sputnik
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED, Broadcasting & Media Production Company out of Moscow, Russia

French President Emmanuel Macron has urged Turkey to restart bona fide talks over the Eastern Mediterranean region, shortly after threatening with sanctions and calling on the European Union to rise jointly against Ankara. Ankara earlier accused France, and the EU at large, of hampering solving problems in the disputed Eastern Mediterranean, where both Turkey and Greece claim energy exploration rights.

It appeared that with the emergence of Coronavirus, Brexit had drifted from the nation’s attention. However, now it has reemerged with a vengeance following the introduction of Boris Johnson’s controversial Internal Market Bill. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears certain to move forward with legislation that has been the subject of considerable acrimony in recent weeks between Britain and the European Union. Despite arguing himself that “the rules-based international order which we uphold in Great Britain is an overwhelming benefit for the world as a whole,” his own government has admitted that the so-called Internal Market Bill will breach international law. Northern Ireland Secretary and Conservative party MP, Brandon Lewis, told MPs in early September that the bill would breach international law in a “very specific and limited way.”

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In the news, Saturday, September 19, 2020


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SEP 18      INDEX      SEP 20
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from CNN

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday due to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer, the court announced. She was 87. Ginsburg was appointed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton and in recent years served as the most senior member of the court's liberal wing, consistently delivering progressive votes on the most divisive social issues of the day, including abortion rights, same-sex marriage, voting rights, immigration, health care and affirmative action. Her death -- less than seven weeks before Election Day -- opens up a political fight over the future of the court. Addressing the liberal justice's death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday evening, "President Trump's nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate."

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from National Geographic

The Constitution established the Supreme Court in 1789, leaving justice confirmation procedure to Congress. Here's how it works—and how it has changed. On September 19, the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg kicked off immediate speculation as to whether President Donald Trump would be able to replace her as his term draws to a close. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to bring Trump’s nominee to a vote—even though just four years prior he had blocked President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland on the grounds that it was an election year.

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from National Review  RIGHT BIAS

Now, while everyone is looking towards science to put right all that’s wrong with the world, it is time to call on the Humanities. To be conservative often consists in being a party pooper. It is not that we enjoy being naysayers, it is just that the world insists on conspiring against all that is good and beautiful. Without Greece there is no beauty. Without Rome there is no language. Humanists have been warning for years that a return to barbarism is in store for Western society if it continues to turn its back on the classical world. Without the Greco-Roman legacy, the whole world would be like Antifa: a collective incapable of connecting without the help of a brick.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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