Today's News (2020/7/19): Everything Else edition
And finally.
----- 1 -----
The United States Needs a New Foreign Policy
The global order is crumbling, domestic renewal is urgent, and America must reinvent its role in the world.
William J. Burns
14 July 2020
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/united-states-needs-new-foreign-policy/614110/
It’s tempting to draw sweeping conclusions about what geopolitics will look like after the pandemic. Some argue that we’re witnessing the last gasp of American primacy, the equivalent of Britain’s 1956 “Suez moment.” Others argue that America, the main driver of the post-Cold War international order, is temporarily incapacitated, with a president drunk at the wheel. Tomorrow, a more sober operator can swiftly restore U.S. leadership.
There is a lot we don’t know yet about the virus, or how it will reshape the international landscape. What we do know, however, is that we have drifted into one of those rare periods of transition, with American dominance in the rearview mirror, and a more anarchical order looming dimly beyond. The moment resembles-in both its fragility and its geopolitical and technological dynamism-the era before World War I, which triggered two global military convulsions before statecraft finally caught up with the magnitude of the challenges. To navigate today's complicated transition, the United States will need to move beyond the debate between retrenchment and restoration, and imagine a more fundamental reinvention of America’s role in the world.
...
We live in a new reality: America can no longer dictate events as we sometimes believed we could. The Trump administration has done more damage to American values, image, and influence than any other in my lifetime. And our nation is more divided by political, racial, and economic tensions than it has been in generations. But even so, assuming we don’t keep digging the hole deeper for ourselves at home and abroad, we remain in a better position than any other major power to mobilize coalitions and navigate the geopolitical rapids of the 21st century.
----- 2 -----
Simon Marks
twitter.com/SimonMarksFSN
14 July 2020
https://twitter.com/SimonMarksFSN/status/1283152445594570753
Trump says of Hong Kong "we just lost a competitor" and predicts America "will do a lot of business" because of his presumption that Hong Kong is about to collapse as a financial hub.
[SEE ALSO, SAME PERSON, THREADING BROKEN/CONFUSING:
https://twitter.com/SimonMarksFSN/status/1283152604835524611
Trump says he has signed Executive Order ending preferential treatment for Hong Kong. Hong Kong "will now be treated the same as mainland China".
]
----- 3 -----
Couple who held guns on Black Lives Matter protestors sued to keep gays out of their neighborhood
Personal injury lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey love to use the court system as a tool for intimidation.
By Bil Browning Monday, July 13, 2020
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/07/couple-held-guns-black-lives-matter-protestors-sued-keep-gays-neighborhood/
...
Described as “almost always in conflict with others,” the couple sued the neighborhood trustees for not enforcing the written rules for living in the gated community. One of those required “single family” residences.
The McCloskeys, according to neighbors, didn’t want gay couples living in the area. Mark McCloskey insisted it wasn’t anti-gay because straight unmarried couples would also be banned, but same-sex marriage was still illegal in Missouri at the time.
...
In 2013, [Mark McCloskey] destroyed the Jewish Central Reform Congregation’s honeybee hives that were just outside of his mansion’s walls and left a note claiming responsibility and threatening legal action if the temple didn’t clean up the mess quickly. The congregation had planned to harvest the honey and pick apples on the property for Rosh Hashanah as part of a school project.
“The children were crying in school,” Rabbi Susan Talve said. “It was part of our curriculum.”
----- 4 -----
Seeing ‘Black Lives Matter’ written in chalk, one Yakima County town declares it a crime
July 16, 2020
By Mike Baker
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seeing-black-lives-matter-written-in-chalk-one-yakima-county-town-declares-it-a-crime/
SELAH, Yakima County - First came the warning: A police officer in the small city of Selah told a group of young people that if they continued drawing “Black Lives Matter” chalk art on the sidewalk in front of City Hall, they would be charged with a crime.
Then came the pressure washer.
As the 10 protesters covered parts of their artwork with their bodies, a city worker walked between them, spraying away the exposed parts of their messages and sending tubs of chalk tumbling into the street. The young activists, wet from the washing, watched in silence and held up signs that were outside the reach of the pressure washer.
“Hate has no home in Selah,” one of them said.
The standoff last week was just one of a growing series of conflicts between conservative leaders of Selah, a community with only a few dozen Black residents, and young people from a wide range of backgrounds who believe the city is long overdue for a conversation about race.
As Black Lives Matter events spread from urban centers to thousands of smaller communities around the country, town officials who saw little reason to explore percolating racial prejudices are finding themselves confronted by residents who have decided it is time to step forward.
In Selah, city officials profess to be perplexed about the sudden activism. The city administrator, Don Wayman, said he did not see any racial issues to address, calling the Black Lives Matter movement “devoid of intellect and reason” and characterizing the activists as a “mob.”
----- 5 -----
McConnell has ‘given up’ on Trump’s re-election and is making plans to handcuff Biden: columnist
July 17, 2020
By Tom Boggioni
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/mcconnell-has-given-up-on-trumps-re-election-and-is-making-plans-to-handcuff-biden-columnist/
In a column for the Washington Post, longtime political observer Paul Waldman pondered the fact that Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both know that the economy is headed for another collapse due to the coronavirus pandemic unless Congress comes up with another stimulus package - and yet they seem in no hurry to avert the fall.
Viewing their intransigence, Waldman admits it “seems like a crazy question to ask, they face an electoral catastrophe that might be mitigated by easing America’s economic pain,” but they seem more interested in small political victories rather trying to stop the inevitable downward spiral if they don’t step in and agree to another massive bail-out.
In the case of Trump, the columnist said the president is hampered by his “combination of ignorance and his own peculiar personality flaws,” and “simply doesn’t understand what the country needs.”
McConnell, he suggests, has other reasons.
----- 6 -----
A proposed anti-trans rule would let homeless shelters judge who’s a woman
The Housing and Urban Development proposal instructs shelters to try to spot trans women by height, facial hair, and Adam’s apples.
By Katelyn Burns Jul 17, 2020
https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/7/17/21328708/proposed-anti-trans-rule-homeless-shelters-judge-women
[EDITOR: Anti-trans activism is always, always about policing women and femininity. Always.]
A proposed Housing and Urban Development rule would allow federally funded homeless shelters to judge a person’s physical characteristics, such as height and facial hair, in determining whether they belong in a women’s or men’s shelter, according to a copy of the rule’s text obtained by Vox. Advocates say this ultimately targets both trans women and cisgender women with masculine features, which could force them into men’s shelters and put them at risk for harm.
The proposed rule, first announced by HUD in a press release issued on July 1, would essentially reverse the Obama-era rule that required homeless shelters to house trans people according to their gender identity. While the new rule would bar shelters from excluding people based on their transgender status, it would also allow shelters to ignore a person’s gender identity - and instead house them according to their assigned sex at birth or their legal sex. In other words, a trans woman can’t be turned away from a shelter for being trans, but she can be forced to go to a men’s shelter.
Dylan Waguespack, a spokesperson for True Colors United, an advocacy group that focuses on supporting LGBTQ homeless youth, told Vox in early June that HUD Secretary Ben Carson is “talking out of both sides of his mouth.”
“They are trying to put forward this narrative in which transgender people are protected from discrimination, but in fact, when you read the proposal itself, it does the exact opposite,” he told Vox. “It creates unsafe conditions and unsafe barriers to housing and services for trans people in the midst of a global pandemic.”
----- 7 -----
Angela Sterritt
twitter.com/AngelaSterritt
19 July 2020
https://twitter.com/AngelaSterritt/status/1284938582545686528
Queen Charlotte Lodge representative tells Haidas "There’s no RCMP here, there's no Coast Guard here,if someone gets hurt, it's going to be a real problem....now respect me, or do you know how to do that?"
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
----- 8 -----
Crowd of protesters marches through downtown Seattle and Capitol Hill; police report arrests, vandalism
July 19, 2020 at 5:16 pm Updated July 19, 2020 at 9:29 pm
By Mike Carter
Seattle Times staff reporter
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crowd-of-protesters-marches-through-downtown-seattle-and-capitol-hill-police-report-arrests-vandalism/
A crowd of protesters marched through downtown Seattle and Capitol Hill on Sunday afternoon, according to social media and police reports.
Two in the crowd were arrested outside the Seattle Police Department’s West Precinct downtown after “demonstrators threw rocks, bottles and other items at officers,” police said. SPD said one officer had been taken to the hospital.
Protesters marched and shouted “No Justice! No Peace” and called for defunding of the SPD. There were reports of vandalism and damage near Amazon’s headquarters and on Capitol Hill, including at the department’s West Precinct and the Municipal Courthouse. Social media and live stream videos showed broken windows at an Amazon Go store and at a Starbucks.
At one point, a phalanx of police vehicles could be seen on social media and traffic cameras gathered near Ninth Avenue and Pike Street, close to the department’s East Precinct.
Also posted to ソ-ラ-バ-ド-のおん;
comments at Dreamwidth. Please comment there.
- The United States Needs a New Foreign Policy
- Trump says of Hong Kong "we just lost a competitor"
- Couple who held guns on Black Lives Matter protestors sued to keep gays out of their neighborhood, destroyed Jewish temple's educational beehive project
- Seeing ‘Black Lives Matter’ written in chalk, one Yakima County town declares it a crime
- McConnell has ‘given up’ on Trump’s re-election and is making plans to handcuff Biden: columnist
- A proposed anti-trans rule would let homeless shelters judge who’s a woman
- Queen Charlotte Lodge representative threatens Haida representatives in the water
- Crowd of protesters marches through downtown Seattle and Capitol Hill; police report arrests, vandalism
----- 1 -----
The United States Needs a New Foreign Policy
The global order is crumbling, domestic renewal is urgent, and America must reinvent its role in the world.
William J. Burns
14 July 2020
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/united-states-needs-new-foreign-policy/614110/
It’s tempting to draw sweeping conclusions about what geopolitics will look like after the pandemic. Some argue that we’re witnessing the last gasp of American primacy, the equivalent of Britain’s 1956 “Suez moment.” Others argue that America, the main driver of the post-Cold War international order, is temporarily incapacitated, with a president drunk at the wheel. Tomorrow, a more sober operator can swiftly restore U.S. leadership.
There is a lot we don’t know yet about the virus, or how it will reshape the international landscape. What we do know, however, is that we have drifted into one of those rare periods of transition, with American dominance in the rearview mirror, and a more anarchical order looming dimly beyond. The moment resembles-in both its fragility and its geopolitical and technological dynamism-the era before World War I, which triggered two global military convulsions before statecraft finally caught up with the magnitude of the challenges. To navigate today's complicated transition, the United States will need to move beyond the debate between retrenchment and restoration, and imagine a more fundamental reinvention of America’s role in the world.
...
We live in a new reality: America can no longer dictate events as we sometimes believed we could. The Trump administration has done more damage to American values, image, and influence than any other in my lifetime. And our nation is more divided by political, racial, and economic tensions than it has been in generations. But even so, assuming we don’t keep digging the hole deeper for ourselves at home and abroad, we remain in a better position than any other major power to mobilize coalitions and navigate the geopolitical rapids of the 21st century.
----- 2 -----
Simon Marks
twitter.com/SimonMarksFSN
14 July 2020
https://twitter.com/SimonMarksFSN/status/1283152445594570753
Trump says of Hong Kong "we just lost a competitor" and predicts America "will do a lot of business" because of his presumption that Hong Kong is about to collapse as a financial hub.
[SEE ALSO, SAME PERSON, THREADING BROKEN/CONFUSING:
https://twitter.com/SimonMarksFSN/status/1283152604835524611
Trump says he has signed Executive Order ending preferential treatment for Hong Kong. Hong Kong "will now be treated the same as mainland China".
]
----- 3 -----
Couple who held guns on Black Lives Matter protestors sued to keep gays out of their neighborhood
Personal injury lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey love to use the court system as a tool for intimidation.
By Bil Browning Monday, July 13, 2020
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/07/couple-held-guns-black-lives-matter-protestors-sued-keep-gays-neighborhood/
...
Described as “almost always in conflict with others,” the couple sued the neighborhood trustees for not enforcing the written rules for living in the gated community. One of those required “single family” residences.
The McCloskeys, according to neighbors, didn’t want gay couples living in the area. Mark McCloskey insisted it wasn’t anti-gay because straight unmarried couples would also be banned, but same-sex marriage was still illegal in Missouri at the time.
...
In 2013, [Mark McCloskey] destroyed the Jewish Central Reform Congregation’s honeybee hives that were just outside of his mansion’s walls and left a note claiming responsibility and threatening legal action if the temple didn’t clean up the mess quickly. The congregation had planned to harvest the honey and pick apples on the property for Rosh Hashanah as part of a school project.
“The children were crying in school,” Rabbi Susan Talve said. “It was part of our curriculum.”
----- 4 -----
Seeing ‘Black Lives Matter’ written in chalk, one Yakima County town declares it a crime
July 16, 2020
By Mike Baker
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seeing-black-lives-matter-written-in-chalk-one-yakima-county-town-declares-it-a-crime/
SELAH, Yakima County - First came the warning: A police officer in the small city of Selah told a group of young people that if they continued drawing “Black Lives Matter” chalk art on the sidewalk in front of City Hall, they would be charged with a crime.
Then came the pressure washer.
As the 10 protesters covered parts of their artwork with their bodies, a city worker walked between them, spraying away the exposed parts of their messages and sending tubs of chalk tumbling into the street. The young activists, wet from the washing, watched in silence and held up signs that were outside the reach of the pressure washer.
“Hate has no home in Selah,” one of them said.
The standoff last week was just one of a growing series of conflicts between conservative leaders of Selah, a community with only a few dozen Black residents, and young people from a wide range of backgrounds who believe the city is long overdue for a conversation about race.
As Black Lives Matter events spread from urban centers to thousands of smaller communities around the country, town officials who saw little reason to explore percolating racial prejudices are finding themselves confronted by residents who have decided it is time to step forward.
In Selah, city officials profess to be perplexed about the sudden activism. The city administrator, Don Wayman, said he did not see any racial issues to address, calling the Black Lives Matter movement “devoid of intellect and reason” and characterizing the activists as a “mob.”
----- 5 -----
McConnell has ‘given up’ on Trump’s re-election and is making plans to handcuff Biden: columnist
July 17, 2020
By Tom Boggioni
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/mcconnell-has-given-up-on-trumps-re-election-and-is-making-plans-to-handcuff-biden-columnist/
In a column for the Washington Post, longtime political observer Paul Waldman pondered the fact that Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both know that the economy is headed for another collapse due to the coronavirus pandemic unless Congress comes up with another stimulus package - and yet they seem in no hurry to avert the fall.
Viewing their intransigence, Waldman admits it “seems like a crazy question to ask, they face an electoral catastrophe that might be mitigated by easing America’s economic pain,” but they seem more interested in small political victories rather trying to stop the inevitable downward spiral if they don’t step in and agree to another massive bail-out.
In the case of Trump, the columnist said the president is hampered by his “combination of ignorance and his own peculiar personality flaws,” and “simply doesn’t understand what the country needs.”
McConnell, he suggests, has other reasons.
----- 6 -----
A proposed anti-trans rule would let homeless shelters judge who’s a woman
The Housing and Urban Development proposal instructs shelters to try to spot trans women by height, facial hair, and Adam’s apples.
By Katelyn Burns Jul 17, 2020
https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/7/17/21328708/proposed-anti-trans-rule-homeless-shelters-judge-women
[EDITOR: Anti-trans activism is always, always about policing women and femininity. Always.]
A proposed Housing and Urban Development rule would allow federally funded homeless shelters to judge a person’s physical characteristics, such as height and facial hair, in determining whether they belong in a women’s or men’s shelter, according to a copy of the rule’s text obtained by Vox. Advocates say this ultimately targets both trans women and cisgender women with masculine features, which could force them into men’s shelters and put them at risk for harm.
The proposed rule, first announced by HUD in a press release issued on July 1, would essentially reverse the Obama-era rule that required homeless shelters to house trans people according to their gender identity. While the new rule would bar shelters from excluding people based on their transgender status, it would also allow shelters to ignore a person’s gender identity - and instead house them according to their assigned sex at birth or their legal sex. In other words, a trans woman can’t be turned away from a shelter for being trans, but she can be forced to go to a men’s shelter.
Dylan Waguespack, a spokesperson for True Colors United, an advocacy group that focuses on supporting LGBTQ homeless youth, told Vox in early June that HUD Secretary Ben Carson is “talking out of both sides of his mouth.”
“They are trying to put forward this narrative in which transgender people are protected from discrimination, but in fact, when you read the proposal itself, it does the exact opposite,” he told Vox. “It creates unsafe conditions and unsafe barriers to housing and services for trans people in the midst of a global pandemic.”
----- 7 -----
Angela Sterritt
twitter.com/AngelaSterritt
19 July 2020
https://twitter.com/AngelaSterritt/status/1284938582545686528
Queen Charlotte Lodge representative tells Haidas "There’s no RCMP here, there's no Coast Guard here,if someone gets hurt, it's going to be a real problem....now respect me, or do you know how to do that?"
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
----- 8 -----
Crowd of protesters marches through downtown Seattle and Capitol Hill; police report arrests, vandalism
July 19, 2020 at 5:16 pm Updated July 19, 2020 at 9:29 pm
By Mike Carter
Seattle Times staff reporter
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crowd-of-protesters-marches-through-downtown-seattle-and-capitol-hill-police-report-arrests-vandalism/
A crowd of protesters marched through downtown Seattle and Capitol Hill on Sunday afternoon, according to social media and police reports.
Two in the crowd were arrested outside the Seattle Police Department’s West Precinct downtown after “demonstrators threw rocks, bottles and other items at officers,” police said. SPD said one officer had been taken to the hospital.
Protesters marched and shouted “No Justice! No Peace” and called for defunding of the SPD. There were reports of vandalism and damage near Amazon’s headquarters and on Capitol Hill, including at the department’s West Precinct and the Municipal Courthouse. Social media and live stream videos showed broken windows at an Amazon Go store and at a Starbucks.
At one point, a phalanx of police vehicles could be seen on social media and traffic cameras gathered near Ninth Avenue and Pike Street, close to the department’s East Precinct.
Also posted to ソ-ラ-バ-ド-のおん;
comments at Dreamwidth. Please comment there.