TDB Top 5 International Stories: Monday 7th November 2016

 

5: Nine Ways the U.S. Voting System Is Rigged But Not Against Donald Trump

DONALD TRUMP IS right — the U.S. voting system is totally rigged!

It’s not rigged against him, though. It’s rigged against people without much money, and people who are members of any number of minority groups.

Some of the rigging is by design, and dates all the way back to the Founding Fathers. Some of it is simply a byproduct of an economic system where the top 0.1 percent have almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. Some falls somewhere in between.

Add it all up, and it constitutes a gigantic obstacle to regular people using their purported power to run our purported democracy.

Here are some of the ways in which the voting system is rigged, few of which are ever discussed in American elections – which some might say constitutes its own kind of rigging.

The Intercept

4: The Tabloids’ Brexit Outrage Is Designed to Troll the UK Into Paralysis

You might have noticed that some sectors of our fearlessly free press have lately started to seem a little unhinged. The Daily Mail, which was always the printed equivalent of somebody’s ranting uncle, is now purple and choking, eyes streaming with frustrated sadism as little white globs of fury fountain from a hideously engorged mouth. The Sun, everyone’s favourite casually violent pub-banter idiot, has gone into a blind and thrashing rage; pint-glasses smash against everything in sight, blood and piss mingle in sticky rivulets down its clothes. The Telegraph and the Spectator are hunched into hideous new hieroglyphs, bent double under the weight of their own sneers; the Express, its world in collapse through darting eyes, is stockpiling weapons and barricading the doors.

Vice News

3: Michael Moore: How I Moved from Supporting Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton for President

With the U.S. election only days away, Michael Moore has released a surprise new film about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton titled “Michael Moore in TrumpLand.” Democracy Now! sat down with the Academy Award-winning filmmaker and talked about how he moved from supporting Bernie Sanders during the primary to now supporting Hillary Clinton. “My hope was that on Tuesday we would have the great decision … between the socialist and the billionaire,” Moore says. On Clinton, he notes: “She is a hawk. She is to the right of Obama. That’s the truth. … We’re going to have to be active.”

Democracy Now

2: Advance into heart of Mosul slows as ISIL fights back

Iraq’s special forces worked to fully push a fiercely resisting ISIL from neighborhoods on Mosul’s eastern edge while bombings killed at least 11 people elsewhere in the country.

The current phase and slower pace highlight the challenges ahead for Iraqi forces as they press into more populated areas deeper inside Mosul, where the civilian presence means they may not be able to rely as much on air raids.

“There are a lot of civilians and we are trying to protect them,” said Lt Col Muhanad al-Timimi. “This is one of the hardest battles that we’ve faced till now.”

Aljazeera

1: Trump’s campaign says Clinton ‘hitting the panic button’ in blue states

A bullish Donald Trump campaign claimed momentum is building as it forces Democrats to defend blue states such as Michigan, New Mexico and Minnesota in the closing hours of the presidential election.

“They would not be sending President Obama back into [Michigan] on the eve of the election if they were not hitting the panic button,” Trump spokesman Jason Miller told reporters in a conference call.

“I remember when they were saying they were going to [red states like] Arizona and Georgia, but they are not going on offense anymore. They are limping toward the finish line.”

The Guardian