5: Is Trump’s Rise a Result of America Declaring War on Institutions That Make Democracy Possible?
In his new book, scholar Henry Giroux examines “America at War with Itself.” From poisoned water in Flint and other cities to the police deaths of African Americans to hatemongering on the presidential campaign trail, Henry Giroux critiques what he believes is a slide toward authoritarianism and other failings that led to the current political climate and rise of Donald Trump. Giroux is the McMaster University professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest.
Democracy Now
4: What We’ve Learned From the Wikileaks Clinton Campaign Emails So Far
Last Friday, Wikileaks began rolling out what the infamous anti-transparency group has been calling “The Podesta Emails,” emails, communications stolen (very possibly by the Russians) from the email account of Hillary Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta. During the 2016 campaign, Julian Assange’s organisation has been a clearinghouse for anti-Clinton document dumps, and Assange has trafficked in a few Clinton conspiracy theories. But the emails, whatever their source, seem to be genuine and have provided, if not an election-deciding “October surprise,” a window into how political operative types talk behind closed doors—and have given critics of Clinton more than a few “I told you so” moments.
Wikileaks, as is its style, seems not to have done much in the way of curation, simply dumping the emails out in a searchable database that journalists have been combing through in search of stories. It also occasionally tweets out highlights from the emails, though sometimes there really isn’t much there. “HRC vs Clinton Cash: Communications Director tells HRC ‘we got a few stories placed… we are also leaking… to the press,'” Wikileaks tweeted breathlessly last weekend, describing a routine PR response to a negative book.
Vice News
3: Israel suspends UNESCO ties over al-Aqsa resolution
Israel has suspended cooperation with UNESCO a day after the United Nations cultural body passed a resolution that sharply criticised Israeli policies around the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, while supposedly rejecting Jewish ties to the holy site in occupied East Jerusalem.
The resolution condemned Israel for restricting Muslims access to the site, and for aggression by police and soldiers. It also referred to Israel as an “occupying power”.
“This is an important message to Israel that it must end its occupation and recognise the Palestinian state and Jerusalem as its capital with its sacred Muslim and Christian sites,” said Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Aljazeera
2: Aide Planted Anti-Bank Comments in One Paid Clinton Speech to Throw Reporters Off the Scent
A TOP AIDE calculatingly inserted a passage critical of the financial industry into one of Hillary Clinton’s many highly-paid speeches to big banks, “precisely for the purpose of having something we could show people if ever asked what she was saying behind closed doors for two years to all those fat cats,” he wrote in an email posted by Wikileaks.
In late November 2015, campaign speechwriter Dan Schwerin wrote an email to other top aides floating the idea of leaking that passage, which had come in a speech Clinton gave to Deutsche Bank in October 2014 in return for $260,000.
“I wrote her a long riff about economic fairness and how the financial industry has lost its way,” for that purpose, Schwerin wrote. “Perhaps at some point there will be value in sharing this with a reporter and getting a story written. Upside would be that when people say she’s too close to Wall Street and has taken too much money from bankers, we can point to evidence that she wasn’t afraid to speak truth to power.”
The Intercept
1: Donald Trump’s collapse has Democrats eyeing once safe Republican seats
At the end of a devastating week for Republican election hopes, many Democrats felt that all that was left to do was refer to Michelle Obama’s emotional evisceration of Donald Trump and shrug: “What she said.”
“The speech that she gave, I think put into words what so many people are feeling,” Hillary Clinton told Ellen DeGeneres, after urging a landslide victory on 8 November as a “rebuke of all the bigotry and bullying”.
“If you want to hear the best case for Hillary Clinton, if you want to hear the very real stakes in this election, I would advise you to link up to Michelle’s speech from earlier today in New Hampshire,” added her husband Barack in Ohio before focusing on the state’s Senate race instead.
Not long ago, it would have looked like complacency. But in the seven days since a video emerged of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, even many Republicans concede the US election race has changed out of all recognition.
The Guardian
