Daily Archives: November 23, 2019

The long and short of it – MaltaToday

Posted: November 23, 2019 at 12:40 pm

This is part of a series of articles celebrating 20 years of MaltaToday

Twenty years might not sound like much in the scale of human history. To be honest, it is not very long even by newspaper standards. In a country that boasts a proud tradition of print media going back to the 19th century, MaltaToday is still a baby trying to take its first steps in a big world.

But 20 years is a very long time when it comes to the amount of change they can bring. When MaltaToday first came out in 1999, Eddie Fenech Adami had just been returned to power after Alfred Sants brief interlude as Prime Minister. The race for EU membership was about to begin in earnest. The introduction of divorce still seemed a near-impossibility in our lifetimes. And he first few boatloads of what would turn into a full-blown immigration crisis had already started arriving. Just look how much Malta has changed in those two decades.

So when my editor asked me to write a retrospective article about my experience with MaltaToday, I replied: Yes, gladly; but you do realise youre asking me write a whole book?

I am afraid I dont have time to do that right now, so instead I shall give an account of some of the experiences I have had in that time: focusing on the ones which I think taught me the most in my career.

I will start with what I consider to be the closest Ive ever been to a real war-zone. The year was 2008. The venue was Valletta. An estimated 14,000 hunters and trappers were marching on the capital, after the European Commission forced the government to close the spring hunting season. And boy, were they pissed off.

In all honesty, it was like the tension building up to the siege of Helms Deep. Even Former Police Commissioner John Rizzo looked a little scared when the first bottles started flying.

At least two journalists got slightly hurt in scuffles that broke out as the crowds dispersed later. I wasnt one of them; but thats probably because no one recognized me as a journalist (I dont look much like my press photo, when its not in my interest to do so).

As I made my way through thick crowds of very, very angry men, I stopped to chat with an old rugby friend of mine, who is also a hunter (yes, I have friends who have different opinions from mine). The conversation started with me telling him: tikxifnix (dont reveal who I am). And he didnt, recognizing that my precaution was warranted.

But then, the entire committee of the hunters organization FKNK marched past: led by former secretary Lino Farrugia, in a particularly foul mood. He nodded at my friend as he walked past then stopped and spun round to look at me.

Pointing at me but talking to my friend, he said very loudly DAK MALTATODAY! Then he stormed off.

The crowd that had hitherto ignored my existence suddenly turned to face me as a body. And Im telling you, its quite a hairy situation for a well-known anti-hunting journalist to find himself in.

Rather than beat me to a pulp, however, the ones who approached me were more interested in talking to me about our difference of views. It is a sensation I have often felt when talking to people who genuinely feel like theyre the good guys, but are being maliciously misrepresented. So I turned on my recorder and took their comments for the article.

As for Farrugia, I later interviewed him and discovered that he didnt seem to hold anything against me personally. He probably didnt even realise that he could quite easily have been responsible for a third injured journalist at that protest. I have since even eaten quail with Farrugia and the rest of the committee; the FKNK once invited the press to a summienata at Buskett, and I went very willingly.

I could say a lot more about this interlude, but that experience taught me that it is possible to have an open channel of communication with people, even if you strongly disagree with their views. I trust I do not need to explain the importance of that, at a time of all-out media war.

Another part of my job that has taught me a lot were all the interviews I have done since I joined the MT staff in 2007. Lets start with former prime minister Dr Alfred Sant. I have interviewed him twice in the living room of his Birkirkara home. The first time I was left waiting a few minutes, and inevitably I found myself poring over his (very impressive) library. What struck me most was that the section reserved for Russian literature Gogol, Dostoevsky, etc. was all in Russian.

When Sant came into the room, I asked him if he had read all those books in the original language. He nodded, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. What followed was a fascinating (but sadly very brief) discussion about Russian literature and history. I wish I could have interviewed him about that, instead of about Maltese politics.

One interview experience that cannot be left out concerns Mario De Marco. This happened shortly after the 2017 election, and again I interviewed him at his house. I was recording him or, more specifically, I thought I was using a new device which I hadnt tested properly. I suppose you can guess what happened next. When I got home and tried opening the file It wasnt there.

I actually had to call him, in a rising state of panic, to ask if we could do it all over again. Any other politician apart from Mario De Marco would have (quite rightly) sent me flying. But he just laughed, said something like Thats the sort of thing that usually happens to me, and accepted to be interviewed again.

This makes me probably the only Maltese journalist to have ever interviewed the same person twice on the same day

On the subject of interviews, I feel compelled to pay tribute to the people I have interviewed who have since passed away. These include Jeremy Bosseivain, the Dutch anthropologist who put Malta on the map with his seminal book Saints And Fireworks in the 1960s. And also Peter Apap Bologna, whom I interviewed at his Sliema home in 2012. I distinctly remember it as one of the most unexpectedly fascinating interviews I have ever done. Apart from being a veritable goldmine of information about the era, Peter also turned out to be witty, charming, intelligent, cultivated and in a word a delight to talk to. On both counts, my only regret is that I will never be able to repeat those experiences again.

From the outset I was reluctant to mention libel, but I cannot look back on my career with MaltaToday and not mention the fact that I was shut down by multiple lawsuits complete with the threat of a garnishee order for daring to ask questions about the relationship between Maltas tuna-penning industry, government and organized crime.

We seem to have quickly forgotten that garnishee orders did not become a problem only recently; people have been trying to shut down MaltaToday for 20 whole years. In this one case, they succeeded because those multiple lawsuits are still, technically, in abeyance.

But those lawsuits were all filed in the civil court. I was less lucky when sued by the prison director and five prison warders, over an article about the results of an investigation into a prison beating. Those lawsuits were filed in the criminal court, and I was therefore prosecuted by the police.

The abolition of criminal libel was in fact one of the many, many issues MaltaToday has campaigned for in its two-decade lifespan. For newspapers are not just about the news; they are also being part of the epochal changes happening in the country.

The job of a journalist also includes covering major events in the country, including election campaigns.

It was difficult to select one incident out of so many. But one experience that certainly stands out took place during the 2013 election campaign. I must say that this is all from memory, so a few of the details may be incorrect; but what Im after now is the gist of what happened. The significance, from the point of view of someone who works for a newspaper.

For my sins, I was appointed to cover the Nationalist campaign. Thats the equivalent of drawing the short straw. Labour events were more fun, because Labour expected to win at the time. So attending a Labour press event was like going to a street party. Going to a PN tat it-tinda meeting, on the other hand, was like being invited to your own funeral.

I cannot even begin to describe the tenebrous atmosphere at a Nationalist Party campaign event in 2013. Lawrence Gonzi knew he was destined to lose by a margin that not even I predicted; so well, you dont exactly expect to be treated to a bottle of champagne, when youre part of a newspaper that exposed a major corruption scandal on his watch (which, strangely, no one ever seems to talk about anymore).

So I knew perfectly well that my presence there was going to be a little irksome to some people. Two of these people kept staring at me (I remember their faces well, and the leering, sinister grin they gave me as I was sitting there trying to do my job but lets not dig all that up again.) My demeanour made it very clear to them that I was aware of their intentions, and that it wasnt going to get in the way of me trying to do with my job. But they persisted, and followed me around the rest of the evening (other journalists have had this worse, I know, I know)

Once the speeches were ended and the crowd was dispersing, Lawrence Gonzi happened to walk past. (Remember, I was not Mr Popular at that event).

Now: this is from memory and I have nothing on record; but the impression I got (and I doubt hed remember this, because for him, at that moment, this would have been just a minor footnote) was that he noticed that two thugs were harassing me. All I will say is this: the look Lawrence Gonzi gave to those two bullies would have withered an entire mountain. Before my eyes, I saw those two guys literally deflate into a puddle on the road.

Now: I could fill the rest of this article with my interpretation of what that meant, but Ill just end on this note: just as I once had to apologise to him (and got criticized even for that), now I have to acknowledge that Lawrence Gonzi showed real leadership that day. Without even speaking a word that I can remember.

The long and short of it is that the work of a journalist can be very hard. Even hair-raising, at times. But it is also highly rewarding.

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Women Aren’t in the Constitution. What Would Change If They Were? – VICE

Posted: at 12:40 pm

The nearly century-long fight to pass a constitutional amendment that would establish explicit protections against sex discrimination under the law has gained renewed momentum in the last couple of weeks, following a blue wave in Virginia and a subsequent move from Congress.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee passed a resolution that would remove the deadline on the Equal Rights Amendment, an amendment to the United States Constitution that would guarantee Americans equal protections under the law regardless of sex. The deadline for states to ratify the amendment expired in June 1982, with just three states short of the 38 necessary to amend the Constitution.

But between 2017 and 2018, two more state legislaturesNevada and Illinoishave voted to ratify the amendment, and when Virginia Democrats won back control of the state legislature earlier this month, it created the conditions for the state to become the 38th and final supporter of the ERA, making it viable once again.

Now, 96 years after the ERAs initial proposal, some say the amendment is largely symbolic: Women have made significant gains over the last century, and, for the most part, U.S. federal lawon its faceno longer permits blatant discrimination against them. Viewed in this way, the ERA is a modest proposal, intended only to rectify the fact that the architects of our countrys foundational legal document didn't include women in it. Yet others argue thatwhile yes, it may function as a powerful symbolthe ERA still has the potential to radically transform the way women are treated by the legal system, and address the obvious societal inequalities that still exist between men and women.

Women were intentionally left out of the Constitution, and in those several hundred years since weve seen a culture that is premised to some degree on the idea that women are second-class citizens, said Jessica Neuwirth, the president of the ERA Coalition. The ERA says that, at the highest level of our law, women and men are equal citizens. I think that will have a tremendous impact.

The ERA is a constitutional amendment that was introduced by the suffragist Alice Stokes Paul in 1923, just three years after states ratified the 19th Amendment. As it was originally conceived, the ERA read: Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.

Later, in 1943, the wording changed slightly to read as it does now: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

It also seeks to expand the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment formed after the abolition of slavery. Although Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped establish the precedent that the amendment pertains to sex too, ERA advocates say the language of the 14th amendment is still too narrow to fix the gaps in the legal system.

"The 14th amendment has not really been effective because its related to state action; a lot of the discrimination were dealing with is in the private sector," Neuwirth said.

Gender-based violence. ERA advocates argue that the amendment would have the greatest effect on the way gender-based violence is litigated in court. While currently, victims of domestic violence and sexual assault can appeal their cases through legal system, they can only go so far: In 2000, the Supreme Court struck down a provision of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which allowed victims of gender-based crimes to sue their attackers in federal court. The ERA could help fill in this gap in the law and give women one more avenue for seeking justice under the law.

Workplace discrimination. The ERA may also have a positive effect on pay inequity and pregnancy discrimination. On paper, both are illegal, but experts say hidden loopholes have made the law easy to skirt. There are laws that provide everyone should be given equal pay for equal work, Neuwirth explained. But one legitimate factor that can legally affect your pay is what you were paid at your last job. Well, who gets paid less? Neuwirth said the ERA could help break women out of this vicious circle that allows companies to lawfully pay them less for the same job.

And when it comes to pregnancy discrimination, it still remains the case that employers can, in effect, refuse to make accommodations for pregnant employees: In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that pregnant employees must demonstrate that an employers demands impose a significant burden on them, and that the employers reason for imposing the burden is not sufficiently strong in order for their employers behavior to be considered discrimination. That means if a company doesn't make many accommodations for non-pregnant employees, then it doesn't have to accommodate pregnant workers either.

Will the ERA fix all of these things? Not necessarily; its not an immediate fix, Neuwirth said. But right now, the law isnt working and thats because of the way its been interpreted. Thats why we need another framework.

Abortion. The ERAs potential impact on abortion rights remains one of the most contentious aspects of the amendment. Some Republican lawmakers have claimed that the ERA would provide the basis for rolling back abortion restrictions. Reproductive rights advocates vehemently insist thats not the case, some going so far as to say the ERA has nothing to do with abortion. But there may be a sense in which there is a kernel of truth to each sides argument. While the ERA wouldnt provide people with a constitutional right to abortion Roe v. Wade already does thatit could provide lawyers with another legal framework to argue against restrictions in court.

The right to abortion has been framed as a privacy issue and that allows for that fact that states can take an interest in the status of the fetus once its viable, said Kelsy Kretschmer, an assistant professor at Oregon State University with expertise on the ERA. The ERA could instead frame abortion as equality for women under the law, and that would be a very important shift in the legal conversation around abortion.

Kretschmer said she understands why, strategically, ERA advocates would want to keep abortion out of discussion of the amendment. In the 1970s, Phyllis Schlafly and her conservative allies used abortion to sow opposition to the ERA, falsely claiming that the amendment would repeal all and every kind of anti-abortion laws that we now have. Schlafly also used the specter of same-sex marriage, women in combat, and the collapse of the nuclear family to foment fear over the amendment.

It does seem reasonable that advocates for the ERA would like to keep it as straightforward as possible, Kretschmer said. But in 2019, with much of the blatant discrimination against women in the law has been expelled, the final frontier of womens equality may be fighting for these subtler forms of discrimination, she argued, abortion restrictions among them.

The battles that remain to be won are the ones that treat women differently because of ideas about what role they play in society, Kretschmer continued. If youre not going to fight those battles, I dont know what the point of the ERA is.

The House Judiciary Committees decision to lift the ERA deadline is just the first step in what could be a somewhat protracted effort to get the amendment ratified. While Virginias new Democratic majority all but guarantees the amendment will make it to the floor for a vote in favor of ratification, even if the U.S. House and Senate both vote to get rid of the 1982 deadline (a tall order given that Republicans currently control the Senate), there is still some ambiguity as to whether that means the ERA will become part of the Constitution.

First off, in the 1970s, five states rescinded their ratification of the amendment: Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Tennessee. When ERA advocates attempted to dispute their rescissions in 1982, appealing a case up to the Supreme Court, justices refused to hear the case because they said the ERAs expired deadline made the matter moot.

Still, theres some precedent when it comes to the court permitting an expired deadline on a constitutional amendment: In 1939, in a case related to a proposed amendment about child labor, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress has the final determination of the question whether, by lapse of time, its proposal of the amendment had lost its vitality before being adopted by the requisite number of legislatures.

ERA advocates could use this case to advance their cause, but it could be contentious.

The Supreme Court has held that an amendment that has [an expired] deadline can be valid, but it has never had the opportunity to decide what would happen if three-quarters of the states ratify it and the only thing standing in the way is the deadline, said Linda Coberly, the chair of the ERA Coalitions legal task force. It seems clear that there will be litigation over that issue.

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The extraordinary race-blindedness of the transformationists – OPINION – Politicsweb

Posted: at 12:40 pm

James Myburgh says the liberals are not the ones in denial about the poisonous effects of 'race' and 'racism'

Over the past few weeks there has been much strange commentary by the transformationists in response to the Democratic Alliances recent pivot back towards liberal non-racialism. One of the strangest claims of all, however, is that liberals pretend that race suddenly doesnt matter or claim that it is irrelevant in understanding where South Africa is today.

The liberal position has always been that race certainly does matter: It is a poison. It is also highly relevant to understanding our current predicament, given the fantastic damage done by the racial policies of the transformationists in pursuit of their ideal of perfect demographic representivity - to the countrys institutions and economic prospects post-1995.

One of the great difficulties of engaging race conscious people in debate is that you are questioning not just a point of view, or an opinion, or even an ideology, but their entire view of the world. This is especially so once their racial ideology is actually put into practice, and then progressively extended into all areas of life. They dont believe, in other words, that their view is just one of many different ways of looking at the world, they believe it is the only correct and legitimate way of looking at the world.

This syndrome whereby race consciousness blinds a person to reality, while making them think their racially distorted view of the world is the only true one, can be best described as racial blindedness. It was certainly characteristic of white attitudes through the apartheid period. As older white South Africans will remember statutory racial preferment is like a free lunch served with the knowledge that someone else has had to go hungry. It is at once both psychologically affirming and morally discomforting.

While people may become quickly very wedded to being on the inside track racially they deal with this moral discomfort by developing this blindedness to the negative effects on others. "One of the most remarkable facts," C.W. de Kiewiet wrote of South Africa in 1964, "is the manner in which the great range of discriminatory laws and the severity of their application to [black] Africans are masked and submerged. They seem to exist at a lower level of comprehension and significance, like automobile accidents.

The great role the liberals performed through this period - in the press, universities, parliament, and in the reports and surveys of the South African Institute for Race Relations for example - was in always bringing to the surface, documenting, and contesting, all the cruelties and absurdities of apartheid-era racial discrimination. The quality of the liberal critique was quite astounding at times. De Kiewiets own Anatomy of South African Misery, published in 1957, is an extraordinary piece of political writing, up there with any of George Orwells essays.

The liberal view was that racial discrimination was destructive not just to those it was applied against, but to the common good as well. Non-racialism meanwhile meant the abolition of racial discrimination. For instance, the 1962 handbook of the Liberal Party stated that it was a non-racial party, with non-racial policies. It believed that non-racialism is the only sure foundation for a multi-racial society of such complexity as ours, and that our problem can only be dealt with by people of all groups working together.

It stated that the colour bar, then entrenched in job reservation laws as well as the practices of white unions, results not only in the exclusion of non-white people from many skilled occupations, but also in the existence of excessive differences between skilled and unskilled rates of pay. In the long run, the colour bar benefits neither black nor white workers. It stifles ability and kills incentive. The partys policy was to abolish the colour bar by repealing existing restrictive legislation and by making discrimination on grounds of colour illegal. Opportunities for advancement must depend on merit alone.

In exactly the same year the emerging ANC/SACP leadership, that took over from Albert Luthuli, adopted a quite different programme in the form of the National Democratic Revolution. This envisaged the imminent seizure of power by armed force, the imposition of a vigorous and vigilant dictatorship, and strong discriminatory measures in favour of black Africans to ensure that all institutions were rapidly made representative of the overall population. Advancement under the NDR would depend on a combination of race and political reliability. If the ANC/SACP had managed to seize power, as they intended, they would have been able to implement this programme back then with the backing of the Soviet bloc. One of the main political models for communists at the time being what Sukarno and his allies in the PKI had achieved in Indonesia with their anti-imperialist policy in 1957/58.

The failure of the ANC/SACP to seize power as planned meant that the liberation movement was only able to come to office through a negotiated settlement, thirty years later. This was after the National Party government itself had abolished the colour bar in the early 1980s, and following the collapse of Communism, and the Soviet Union. As its strategy documents made clear the ANC always remained firmly committed to achieving the objectives of the national democratic revolution once it had finally worked its way into power. The implementation phase, as described here, began in 1996. Since then South Africans have lived under a hegemonic liberation movement fanatically dedicated to a programme of racial transformation the enforcement of pure racial proportionality at all levels and in all fields of life, from childrens sports teams, to the judiciary, to Eskom.

The measure of any government, especially one that has been in power for decades, is not just what the state of the country is, but what it could have been, had different policies been followed. In a February 2000 speech the Democratic Partys finance spokesperson, Ken Andrew, stated that his party believed that sustainable job creation should be the Number One priority of economic policy in South Africa today. South Africa can and must get its economic growth rates up to 6% or more per year, otherwise we will not succeed in reducing unemployment and poverty. We dare not settle for less.

Bottle-necks on our growth path, he noted, are shortages of foreign reserves and skilled labour. Neither are insurmountable obstacles. What we need is more foreign direct investment, growing exports and rapid privatisation to reduce government debt and to increase our foreign reserves by billions of Rands, and a deliberate campaign to increase the supply of skilled people in our country by going out and attracting skilled immigrants and by channelling resources into developing skills within our society ranging from basic literacy through artisan training to tertiary education.

One of the consequences of the colour bar was that it created an unnatural skills shortage in South Africa, that could only be filled through the immigration of skilled workers from Europe. In the late 1970s such immigration dried up and this placed an acute constraint on economic growth, and the ability of the country to provide sufficient employment to a rapidly growing (black) population. The sudden realisation of this was one of the main drivers of belated efforts at reform within the Afrikaner establishment.

Yet the primary yardstick by which the transformationists have measured their success over the past two decades is the degree to which they have rid the state, parastatals and private sector of high level (minority) technical, engineering and managerial expertise. This has resulted in an exodus of skilled people not just from these institutions, but from the country. Not even the ANCs old idols in the German Democratic Republic were this insane when it came to economics. As Markus Wolf notes in his memoirs the reason why his government built an antifascist protective barrier around West Berlin in 1961 was precisely to put a stop to the huge exodus of skilled people from East to West Germany at the time. As he explains the rationale, the GDR was hemorrrhaging its workforce, losing people who had cost money to train and whose contribution living standards would sink further. I felt that we were swimming through mud.

The efforts to transform the economy meanwhile, by forcing companies to hand over their shares to a politically connected elite, has been a massive deterrence to both domestic and foreign investment. As have recent efforts to accelerate the transformation of property ownership through the push for Expropriation Without Compensation. It goes without saying the ANCs policies to transform education from cadre deployment to right sizing to OBE to Sadtufication - have been a disaster for the quality of schooling for the black and Coloured poor.

How would South Africa look today though if these race denying liberals had got their way and the post-apartheid government had prioritised economic growth, and achieved the goal of 6% economic growth per annum by 2001? Holding all else equal the economy would now be three times the size that it was in 2000, and GDP per capita almost twice what it is today.

According to StatsSA there were 12,3m people in employment in South Africa in 2000. There were 3,7m unemployed, and another 1,5m discouraged work seekers, so 5,3m people unemployed on the expanded definition. Today StatSA estimates that 16,3m people are employed. The number of unemployed though has risen to 6,7m, and the number of discouraged work seekers to 2,7m. There are 9,4m people in other words who would like to work but are jobless. If a rapidly growing economy had generated job growth of 3% per annum since 2000 there would have been 21,6m people in employment today in South Africa, 5m more than there now actually are. If 4% job growth per annum had been achieved the country would be close to full employment.

Transformationists have been in political office in South Africa since 1994, and in control of the state and parastatals since 1996. They have always made up a considerable majority on the Constitutional Court since its establishment, and also managed to elbow their way into dominant positions in the media and the universities. Liberal proposals for positive change have been ignored, and their warnings disregarded. Publicly critiquing transformation has been career limiting, if not career death, in many fields.

Yet somehow racial transformation is like the Schrdinger's catof public debate in the English-language media. On the one hand, it is still said to be a non-negotiable, moral imperative; something that should be extended to all remaining areas of South African existence. To question its utility is to invite violent denunciation. On the other hand, when one examines the lively debate around the causes of the current South African predicament, transformation suddenly disappears. If it is referred to at all it is through cryptic and misleading euphemisms like affirmative action and redress. We are apparently all meant to believe that this totalitarian policy, pursued over two decades by an electorally dominant liberation movement, in control of almost all levers of power, has absolutely nothing at all to do with the current countrys economic or institutional malaise.

This is obviously a ridiculous position, but not quite as ridiculous as then pretending that it is the liberals who are the ones in denial about the effects of race and racism.

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HAMMER: On Chick-Fil-A, Political Tribalism, And The Need For National Solidarity – The Daily Wire

Posted: at 12:40 pm

Earlier this week, erstwhile culinary icon of Southern-inspired cultural conservatism Chick-fil-A kowtowed to the hectoring bullies of radical LGBT activism and announced that it would henceforth refrain from donating to such deeply polarizing and horrifyingly conservative Christian organizations as the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Apparently, a mere organizational affiliation with Christianity in the year 2019 suffices to incite homophobic or transphobic smears from the secularist outrage mob.

Far be it from me to tell a private company that it has made a poor business decision, but the reality is that Chick-fil-A has all but assuredly made a poor business decision. As many in the commentariat class have pointed out, Chick-fil-As business model has only increasingly flourished as the Lefts attacks against it have contemporaneously amplified. The predictable result of Chick-fil-As corporate cowardice will only be the alienation of the companys core supporters and the failure to appease its insatiable foes on the Left.

As Spencer Klavan aptly put it at The American Mind, The attack on Chick-fil-A makes plain that radical leftists are not in this for a compromise, or an equitable live-and-let-live solution. Destruction, not dtente, is the goal. Indeed. And against this backdrop of leftist/secularist cultural hegemony, overly defensive calls for pluralism and procedural tolerance are woefully inadequate responses for those of us on the political Right.

The latest Chick-fil-A imbroglio is, of course, a downstream symptom of an upstream cause: The utterly toxic politicization of all facets of our day-to-day lives. As Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro argued in his syndicated column this week, this is a deeply pernicious trend. The fraying of the American social fabric, already a years- or decades-long phenomenon, continues to worsen unabated. A nation where warring political tribes not only consume different media, but eat different chicken sandwiches and wear differing clothing lines, is a country destined for bitter strife, at best or internecine violence, at worst.

Americans of good faith all ought to agree that we should notwant to live in a country where such an anodyne institution as a chicken sandwich chain elicits this level of hostility, and engenders this level of politicized passion, due to its Christian-inspired donative proclivities.

The question for conservatives, amidst this debilitating backdrop of politicized bifurcation, a widening economic and cultural chasm between the classes, and metastasizing crises of hyper-individualistic atomism and despondency, is how best to proceed as a political movement. The republic often seems to be falling apart at the seams, and it is incumbent upon all of us in the political and commentariat classes to think very hard about what it is we can do to plot a salutary path forward. Above all else, that path forward must focus on how best to heal our politys fractious wounds and concomitantly re-inculcate a sense of proud Americanism.

It ought to be obvious that live-and-let-live-style classical liberalism a political movement centered around the conservation of certain Enlightenment-era procedural norms, and not around the conservation of substantive moral or cultural norms is bothpolitically wantingand woefully inadequate to confront the crises of our times. Rather, a resurgent, forward-looking conservatism simply must better account for a human nature that, contra Ayn Rand, is inherently inimical to radical individualism. Human nature yearns for communitarianism for inclusion in what Edmund Burke famously called the little platoon[s] of society. Yet the sclerotic and morally bankrupt reality of contemporary American political life presents us, as New York Post Op-Ed Editor Sohrab Ahmari put it this week at First Things, with a bipartisan abolition of solidarity.

Conservatives simply must become more willing to rethink outmoded Reagan-era orthodoxies and to discard the anachronistic bromides of what some now dub Conservatism, Inc. As Ahmari framed it, the human nature reality for both leftists and libertarians/procedure-centric classical liberals is that the longing for solidarity can never be permanently repressed.

It is past time to make this pursuit of solidarity a core underlying basis of our conservative political agenda. To be sure, filling out the substantive details of this solidaristic, assimilationist, nationally cohesive conservative agenda what many of us might call national conservatism remains a work in progress. Here is how I briefly outlined parts of the agenda, back in July:

National conservatism means a politics concretely focused on the mutually interdependent bonds of human loyalty upon which a society ultimately depends as opposed to the atomization espoused by hyper-individualistic doctrinaire libertarianism. National conservatism means a politics focused on national solidarity and reinforcing the shared customs, traits, norms, and mores that establish America not merely as an idea but also as a tangible people as opposed to the existential scourge of divisive multiculturalism. National conservatism means viewing America as a nation-state with an economy as opposed to viewing America as but one border-less abstraction within a globalized economy. National conservatism means the articulation and advancement of all domestic and foreign policy alike through the lens of national self-interest as opposed to policy advancement based on transnational considerations or the needs of foreigners. National conservatism means a hardened immigration system that prioritizes cultural assimilation above all else as opposed to a laxer immigration system that prioritizes the cheap labor needs of the Fortune 500. National conservatism means a foreign affairs approach premised on narrow alliances with like-minded, self-sufficient nations who share Americas core national security concerns as opposed to a foreign affairs approach premised on a tendentiously moralistic, sovereignty-undermining transnational agenda. National conservatism means a world order of sovereign nation-states as opposed to the soft tyranny of the unelectable transnational bureaucrats in Turtle Bay and Brussels. National conservatism means a domestic affairs approach that, while undoubtedly market-oriented, resists the vestigial temptation to shirk the levers of political power as a means to advance the conservative cause in the realms of Big Tech, higher education, and other private spheres that increasingly pose just as dire a threat to our way of life as does over-zealous Big Government itself. National conservatism means a conservatism that works for the American heartland and for all rungs of the economic ladder as opposed to a purist anti-regulation agenda that merely speaks for the economic interests of the bi-coastal elite.

There are many erudite conservative critics of this prospective political model. I share some of their concerns. And it is true that policy wonks must dedicate substantial time to fleshing out more of the intricate details. But I also do not see a viable alternative path forward. America will regain its sense of national solidarity its sense of patriotism and of communitarian belongingness in the greatest nation-state in the history of the world or it will eventually wither and die. I, for one, am hoping for the former.

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HAMMER: On Chick-Fil-A, Political Tribalism, And The Need For National Solidarity - The Daily Wire

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First and last: Why there won’t be a replacement for Kurt Volker? – 112 International

Posted: at 12:40 pm

U.S. State Department Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker

But this article is not about Trump, it is about the former State Department special representative Kurt Volker, who recently left his post and is also involved in the impeachment inquiry. Most likely, Volker will no longer be replaced, and his position will be eliminated altogether. The reason for this decision is obvious - work in Ukraine becomes too toxic and jeopardizes the reputation of the politician. This is reported by Foreign Policy.

No Normandy "Five"

"The position of U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, formerly held by Kurt Volker, the first senior official to step down in the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, will likely be discontinued altogether, according to current and former U.S. officials," so begins the Foreign Policy article.

"The responsibilities of Volkers role are expected to be taken up by other State Department officials whose portfolios include Ukraine," the article reads. "This move leaves Kyiv without a clearly designated U.S. diplomat to watch its back in talks as new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pushes for peace five years into a simmering war in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk that has killed more than 13,000 people," journalists wrote.

The magazine quotes the director of the New Europe Center Alyona Getmanchuk, who says that the abolition of the post of special representative is "the signal, to put it mildly, is not encouraging, but quite expected: the U.S. presence in peace negotiations on Donbas is approaching zero."

Further Foreign Policy notes that there simply will not be anyone who wants to take Volkers chair, given how threatening the work on the Ukrainian direction has become. Those who were involved in it and testified to Congress in the case of impeachment were faced with pressure from the lawyers of the Department of State. In addition, their career was damaged or even destroyed.

American journalists recall: Volker was appointed to the post by then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in July 2017. This move, like Volker's newly created position, was seen as a sign that "the US presidential administration is serious about Ukraine and shares the hope that it can activate the peace process just when the Western capitals begin to feel tired of Ukraine."

However, all hopes were dispelled when Volker got into the investigation of Trump case. He himself noted that "can no longer be effective in his role," and voluntarily resigned. Its unfortunate that the US role in the diplomacy of Ukraine and Russia was completely leveled by scandal. This takes the United States off the playing field at a crucial moment on the eve of a possible Normandy Four summit, says Andrew Weiss, vice president of the Carnegie Fund.

How Trumps impeachment put an end to Volkers Ukrainian career

But how is Volker involved in the Trump scandal? In early November, the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled transcripts of testimony from former State Department spokesman Kurt Volker and U.S. ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland. They were involved in the impeachment process of US President Donald Trump.

Volker is charged with the following. Allegedly, "the day after Trumps telephone conversation with Zelensky, which took place on July 25," he went to Kyiv with a very specific mission.

"The mission was to strengthen" the demands of President Trump", that is, the actual blackmail of Ukraine, to which Trump resorted in conversation with Zelensky, according to the World Tribune. It was recalled that Trumps desire for Ukraine was to more actively investigate allegations against Joseph Bidens son in exchange for Americas military assistance.

Volker himself categorically rejects this version of events. He notes that he did not want to return to Ukraine at all until all the electoral passions subsided, and planned his trip not earlier than autumn. And when he nevertheless went to Kyiv, there was only one goal - to congratulate the new government on the victory.

Noting this, Volker turned to the rather unpleasant characteristics of President Donald Trump. He said the Trump administration was "obsessed with dirtying an opponent, not a fight against corruption in general." This is reported by The Guardian.

At the same time, the newspaper notes that its correspondent managed to ask Trump whether "the US military assistance was really tied to the Biden investigation"? And he answered: "No."

And therefore it is obvious that one of the two defendants in the scandal - Trump or Volker - is telling a lie. Moreover, Volker testifies that Trump "showed a very deeply rooted negative look at Ukraine." And that Volker himself tried to do everything possible and impossible to prove to Trump that "the new government of Ukraine is different (from the previous one) and that it is necessary to meet with President Zelensky." Trump gave up reluctantly, but agreed to arrange a meeting," the Liberty Nation wrote.

"All American officials involved in Ukraine sought to see this (changes in domestic politics, ed.) precisely because it would be an important step in convincing Trump that Ukrainians are serious about eradicating corruption that has long plagued their country." Liberty Nation notes.

But the aforementioned Gordon Sondland changed his previous testimonies and at a Congressional hearing de facto confirmed that blackmail by the American president had taken place. "I now recall that I spoke separately with Mr. Yermak (Andriy Ermak - Zelenskys assistant), and I said that the resumption of US assistance is unlikely to happen until Ukraine makes a public anti-corruption statement, which we discussed in for weeks, "the BBC quotes Sondland.

Thus, it turns out that the truth is still on the side of Kurt Volker. But, despite this, the former special representative is twice injured. He lost not only job in Ukraine, but also the leadership of the McCain Institute analytical center in the USA. McCain's widow asked him to leave the Institute. Kurt is a good person, said Cindy McCain. But what happened "cast a shadow on the Institute and cast a shadow on what we are doing and what we are working for. So, the time has come," Mrs. McCain said.

Thus, a clash with Ukrainian realities turned out to be fatal for Kurt Volker. Even if he did not play up to Donald Trump in his attempt to push the leadership of Ukraine, but, on the contrary, stopped him in every possible way.

Insidious "Javelins"

However, the same American media claim that Kurt Volker also has his sins. At one time, he did not play the good and bad cop with Trump, but was on the same team with him, according to Politico.

Its article says Volker could influence Trump when it came to the supply of Javelin missiles to Ukraine. The US president did not immediately agree to such a supply, but in the end gave the go-ahead. Not without the help of Volker, who was actively pressing on him. And its clear why. After all, Volker at that time held positions in the BGR Group, large lobbying firm as well as in the above-mentioned McCain Institute. These structures had financial ties with Raytheon, which manufactures Javelin systems and which earned millions on Trump's decision.

At one time, the Ukrainian editorial office of Radio Liberty asked the Javelins question to former US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst. Journalists were interested, in particular, whether the contract for the supply of weapons could be disrupted due to an investigation by Politico. "I think some interesting details may come up here, but on the whole it will not transfer into a big topic that could somehow affect Ukrainian events and policies regarding Ukraine," Herbst replied.

He regretted that Kurt Volker had completed his activities in Ukraine, but at the same time added that there is someone to replace Volker, even not officially.

"I think its not good that Volker left. I would like him to keep this position. I would like him to do his job, as before, because he was really in his place. But, you know, in Kyiv there is a temporary attorney, a very talented person - William Taylor, and Ukraine will be able to share its concerns with him. William is constantly on the phone with Secretary of State Pompeo. There are good people who are the curators of Ukraine in the Department of State, and they can convey information to Secretary of State. Knowledgeable people work in the US Security Council. Therefore, I think there will be no problems. But then again, of course, it would be better for everyone if Kurt retained this position, "Herbst said.

Who is William Taylor?

Formally, the post of special representative of the US State Department in Ukraine was founded in 2017. But its prototype existed before. In fact, Victoria Nuland - the former Commissioner of the US State Department for Europe and Eurasia - played the role of Volker when he himself was "not yet in the project." She did not went to the front. But there was Euromaidan.

Everyone remembers how, in early February 2014, a telephone conversation between Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador to Ukraine, Jeffrey Payette appeared on YouTube. The interlocutors discussed the situation around the protests in Ukraine and the possibility of resolving the political crisis. On the record you can hear how a voice similar to the voice of Nuland, commenting on the role of the EU, says: Fuck the EU.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was very offended by this "Fuck" on Nuland. (It will take some five years, and Merkel will have a new reason for resentment - already because of the conversation between Trump and Zelensky, where the role of Europe was also exposed in a rather unsightly light.)

It is also interesting that, talking with Payette, Nuland noted that she did not see Vitali Klitschko (at that time the leader of the presidential ratings) in the "Ukrainian government." Actually, he didnt get there, because after the famous coffee party in Vienna with the participation of oligarch Dmitry Firtash it was decided to promote Petro Poroshenko as president.

Did Americas reluctance to see Klitschko in the top of Ukrainian leaders influenced such a situation? All this is a long and complicated story, which, at first glance, has nothing to do with Kurt Volker, but perfectly illustrates the significance of a person delegated by the United States to look after Ukraine.

As for William Taylor mentioned by Herbst, now he holds the position of US Charg d'Affaires in Ukraine. Taylor, 72, was once the US ambassador to Ukraine (2006-2009). And he perfectly oriented in the annoying Ukrainian realities. Recently, his correspondence with Kurt Volker appeared on the web. There are Taylors rather serious doubts: should he return to Kyiv again?

Taylor says deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs George Kent warned him that there are "two snake nests: one in Kyiv, the other in Washington." And judging by the context of the conversation, Taylor does not express any disagreement with this assessment.

True, not the current power, but the previous one was meant under the Ukrainian "snake nest". That is, we still do not know what assessment Taylor would give to the current situation in Ukraine. But in any case, he now works in Kyiv. "Good man" and "curator" of Ukraine in the State Department, as John Herbst would say. That is, the story to be continued? ..

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The issue of mental health in the workplace – Open Access Government

Posted: at 12:40 pm

This is based on a recent report.

According to the Special Eurobarometer produced by the European Commission, almost one in ten Europeans struggles with mental health issues. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that the costs related to mental health in the workplace for the European economy can go up to USD 140 billion per year.

According to the Belgian HR provider Securexs yearly analysis, the number of employees being absent in Belgium has significantly and systematically increased every year starting from 2001. During 2018, out of 100 employees, seven were sick on an average workday. It is mainly long-term sickness (i.e. illness or incapacity lasting more than one year) that has led to this worrying evolution. This increasing problem of long-term sickness is caused by the aging of the Belgian workforce due to the abolition of early pension schemes and burnout and mental health problems.

Despite these figures, it has taken a long time for mental health at work to get the attention it deserves. Not so, however, in Belgian law.

As early as 2002, the Belgian legislator acknowledged that the wellbeing of employees is not just derived from physical health and safety measures and introduced the concept of psychosocial wellbeing in the so-called Act on the Wellbeing of Employees in the Workplace. A chapter was included in this act that focussed on three forms of so-called psychosocial risks: violence, harassment and sexual harassment at work.

Since then, employers have been obliged to implement measures to prevent violence, harassment and sexual harassment occurring in the workplace. Every employer must appoint a special prevention counsellor, specialised in psychosocial issues in the workplace and implement a global (five-year) and yearly action plan including internal reporting procedures. As the special prevention counsellor is usually an external expert, many companies will also appoint an internal person of trust.

Victims of violence, harassment or sexual harassment can also bring a complaint before the employment court to obtain an injunction to stop the unacceptable behaviour or claim damages from the harasser and/or the employer who did not take sufficiently effective measures.

In 2014, the scope of the Act on Wellbeing was extended, and employers now have to ban any type of psychosocial burden at work.

This means prevention plans should also focus on measures to improve mental health at work and the internal reporting procedures and legal remedies are also accessible for employees suffering from health problems following stress or burnout.

In view of the increasing number of employees with mental health problems, it was anticipated that this legislative change would lead to an increase in court cases. But this is not the case: after five years the number of cases on psychosocial risks at work is still rather limited and mainly deal with harassment at work.

However, we have seen an increase in cases on discrimination. Belgian law not only protects against discrimination based on disability but also on the employees health circumstances. Under general employment law, an employee can be validly dismissed during a period of sickness or health problems. Employees will, however, increasingly go to court to claim damages based on discrimination or for a manifestly unreasonable dismissal when they are dismissed during a period of sickness or during a period of reinstatement after sickness.

Although Belgian courts are still quite reluctant to grant damages on these grounds, employers should be careful. In general, Belgian courts will accept that employers can have valid reasons to dismiss an employee who suffers from mental health problems, such as the need to deal with organisational problems resulting from the absence or the need to replace an employee who is not motivated and not performing well. However, they should be able to provide clear evidence of the justification.

There is no case law yet on the question of whether a long-term mental problem such as burnout could qualify as a disability, leading to an even stronger protection for employees. However, we expect this to follow soon for mental health in the workplace.

Swiss employers can, in principle, validly terminate an employees contract during a period of sickness or health problems (after a certain period of time has expired). However, employers also have the obligation to take the necessary measures to safeguard the safety and health (both physical and mental) of their employees, including an obligation to prevent harassment and sexual harassment.

In this context, case law has ruled that a dismissal motivated by an absence resulting from illness or a reduction in the employees performance or motivation may be considered as unfair (leading to the payment of an indemnity) if this absence or performance reduction is caused by a breach of the employers own above-mentioned obligations. Employers are not entitled to invoke the consequences of their own breach of contract as a justification for termination.

In the UK, all employees who have a disability are protected by discrimination law. A disability covers serious long-term health conditions and includes mental health conditions and illnesses that are controlled by medication or treatment. Stress is not in itself a medical condition but prolonged exposure to unmanageable stress is linked to psychological conditions such as anxiety and depression, as well as physical effects such as heart disease, back pain and migraines (which can be protected).

In addition, there is a risk of a personal injury claim where an employee suffers from a recognised psychiatric illness (for example, clinical depression) as a result of the employers negligence, and that psychiatric illness was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the employers negligence. Reputedly stressful jobs do not qualify for special treatment, although they do put the employer on notice that a problem may be more likely to arise.

According to Italian law, employers have the obligation to employ a certain quota of disabled employees proportionally to their workforce. This quota also includes employees with psychosocial or mental health issues. Italian law provides that there is a legal obligation on employers in Italy to ensure a healthy and safe work environment in general, but there are no specific provisions relating to mental health. However, burnout and stress-related conditions are considered in risk evaluations at work. There is increased focus and attention from scholars, the media and in general discussions about quality life at work.

Contributing members to this article include:

Inger Verhelst of Claeys & Engels in BelgiumPascal Giorgis of Schneider Troillet in SwitzerlandLucy Lewis of Lewis Silkin in The United KingdomLea Rossi of Toffoletto De Luca Tamajo e Soci in Italy

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Yang Doesn’t Add Up – The Nation

Posted: at 12:38 pm

Andrew Yang spoke during the NCAAP Economic Freedom Presidential Town Hall on November 2, 2019. (Reuters Pictures / Brian Powers/The Register, Des Moines Register)

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The most striking moment so far in Andrew Yangs unlikely yet resilient presidential bid came in the fourth Democratic debate, when someone else was asked about Yangs signature issue. Addressing Elizabeth Warren, moderator Erin Burnett said, You wrote that blaming job loss on automation is a good story, except its not really true. So should workers here in Ohio not be worried about losing their jobs to automation? The candidates response was a slurry of by golly, gee, and I have a plan to fix that sloganeering that focused on legitimate concerns about trade policy as it has affected industrial workers but never got around to answering the question. Warren wasnt wrong to criticize the giant multinational corporations whove been calling the shots on trade. Its just that she seemed to be giving a 1993 answer to a question about 2023.Ad Policy

That gave Yang a narrow opening to plead with his fellow Democrats to start thinking about the future. Senator Warren, he said, Ive been talking to Americans around the country about automation. And theyre smart. They see whats happening around them. Their Main Street stores are closing. They see a self-serve kiosk in every McDonalds, every grocery store, every CVS. Driving a truck is the most common job in 29 states, including this one3.5 million truck drivers in this country. And my friends in California are piloting self-driving trucks. What is that going to mean for the 3.5 million truckers or the 7 million Americans who work in truck stops, motels, and diners that rely upon the truckers getting out and having a meal? Saying this is a rules problem is ignoring the reality that Americans see around us every single day.

So I understand that what were all looking for is how we strengthen Americas middle class, replied Warren, who then explained her plan to extend the solvency of Social Security. She never got to the automation question, except to say, I want to understand the data on this. That should have put the spotlight back on Yang, a 44-year-old entrepreneur who can point to so many studies on how automation already has displaced workers and will continue to do so that his campaign slogan is MATH. Instead, following the common practice of 2020 Democratic debate hosts, Burnett shut the conversation down just as it got interesting.

When I asked Yang a few weeks later about the exchange with Warren, he said, That was surprising to me, given that she is one of the better, I believe, thinkers in the Democratic Party on many of these types of issues. The moment when the themes of his campaign finally hit the national stage was very edifying and a little bit disappointing, frankly, he admitted. A first-time candidate running whats been described as a pirate ship campaign, Yang worries that our political process is not really well designed for us to get into the weeds on what the data look like in automation and many other subject areas. MORE FROM John Nichols

As someone who has written a great deal about the future of work, and about how automation influences politics, I share his frustration. Like Yang, I believe Donald Trumps reactionary politics fills a void created by the Democrats failure to wrestle with next-economy issues. Yet I dont believe Yang is wrestling with those issues as ably as tech-savvy members of Congress, like Representative Ro Khanna, or progressive leaders in the UK and Germany.

What worries me is that Yangs gimmicky campaignin the third Democratic debate, he announced a scheme to select 10 families at random and give each of them $1,000 a month over the course of a year to illustrate his flagship universal basic income (UBI) proposalis better at identifying problems than solving them. When I put this concern to him, he pushed back, arguing that his approach is showing results. Hes been on the cover of Newsweek. Polls put him in the middle of a crowded pack (and closer to the top among young voters), even if hes far behind the candidate he said he favored in 2016, Bernie Sanders. Yang raised $10 million in the last quarter, enough to staff up and launch a slick $1 million ad buy in Iowa, with commercials produced by the same consultants who aided Sanders in 2016. Andrew Yangs campaign, declares The Week, has gone mainstream.

But is Yang ready for prime time? He has staked his campaign on an old ideaproviding every adult American with that $1,000-per-month Freedom Dividendthat would cost a lot ($2.8trillion each year, according to the Tax Foundation) and would be offset by a potentially regressive value-added tax on consumption, a commendable financial transactions tax, and the hope that giving away money would stimulate economic growth. Great progressive thinkers like the late Erik Olin Wright have long argued for UBI as a response to automation-related displacement, but so, too, have government-hating libertarians. Yang identifies himself as a progressive and said he favors human-centered capitalism. But his plan sounds a little libertarian when his campaign website explains his UBI proposal this way: Current welfare and social program beneficiaries would be given a choice between their current benefits or $1,000 cash unconditionallymost would prefer cash with no restriction. I asked Yang about the progressive-versus-libertarian debate. We can do a best-of-both-worlds approach, he replied. Im certainly not one of these ultraconservative types who wants to dismantle every social program on the books. I think that we need to lay a foundation in the form of those dividends and then see what the additional problems are and try to solve those as well.

Thats too vague and unsettling for those of us who believe that if UBI is tried in a big way, it must be associated with a muscular social welfare state. Also worrisome is the Yang campaigns argument that the Freedom Dividend fits seamlessly into capitalism and can support and preserve a robust consumer economy. Im not sure thats a worthy goal, but I am sure that this response to automation is too casual and ill-defined.

Yang has earned his moment. I agree with author Martin Ford when he says, Andrew Yang, and his warnings about the impact of AI and automation, should be taken seriously. But Yang still hasnt quite reached the solutions stage of the debate.

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Inside the Beltway: Voters now leery of media obsession with impeachment – Washington Times

Posted: at 12:37 pm

The news media has an appetite for the impeachment hearings against President Trump and it appears that many journalists are not attempting to quell that craving. This trend is not lost on voters, who must bear witness to relentless coverage that is often repetitive and loaded with the anti-Trump narrative of the day or strategic buzzwords like collusion and bribery.

It is most interesting to note that 6-out-of-10 voters now agree that the impeachment hearings are more important to the media than to voters. Even 44% of Democrats agree with that. So says a new Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted after the first week of hearings ended.

Yes, well. See more numbers in the Poll du Jour at columns end. Meanwhile, the pollster also finds that public interest in the impeachment proceedings is on the wane.

As investigators look to continue making their case for impeachment to the public, support for the inquiry has ticked down over the past week, notes the poll analysis. Its all a matter of inching down and ticking up or words to that effect.

The survey, which has tracked support and opposition for the inquiry each week, found that support for the investigation inched down 2 percentage points to 48% from 50% while opposition to the inquiry ticked up 3 percentage points to 45% from 42%, the analysis said.

Voter opposition to the impeachment inquiry is at its highest point since Morning Consult and Politico began tracking the issue, says Tyler Sinclair, Morning Consults vice president. A key driver for this shift appears to be independents. Today, 47% of independents oppose the impeachment inquiry, compared to 37% who said the same one week ago.

EXPLAINING DEMOCRATIC EXTREMES

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has a tidy explanation for the endless, inventive but ineffective efforts by some Democrats to impeach President Trump and ultimately remove him from office.

What youre faced with here is a Democratic Party desperately committed to destroying the president. They dont care what the arguments are. They dont care what the facts are. They have an absolute deep, passionate need I would argue a pathological need to try to destroy the president, even if, in the process, they cripple themselves, Mr. Gingrich tells Fox News.

ZOLTAN ISTVAN, TRANSHUMAN CANDIDATE

Is there room for one more in the 2020 presidential race? The Democratic Party more or less launched 24 White House hopefuls. The GOP, of course, has President Trump, plus a few hopefuls who run as Republicans on their own terms.

One of those candidates declared his intent just 24 hours ago: that would be transhumanist Zoltan Istvan whose campaign motto is Upgrading America. For the uninitiated, he believes the nation will improve through radical technology and scientific ideas.

You might know me as a Silicon Valley futurist, a transhumanist advocate, or the Science Candidate. Ive written books on science and technology, hundreds of articles youd find in outlets such as The New York Times, Vice, and Business Insider, and Ive campaigned to end the idea of death, Mr. Istvan says in his 20-point public campaign message, found at Zoltan2020.com.

He is a former writer for National Geographic and a self-described fiscal conservative who worries that China will surpass the U.S. in such areas as artificial intelligence, genetic editing and neural prosthetic development.

Mr. Istvan who lives near San Francisco, is married to a medical doctor and is the father of two ran for president in 2016 as a Transhumanist Party candidate, and for California governor as a Libertarian. This time, campaign manager Pratik Chougule says he is running as a new type of Republican politician who backs universal basic income, free college and believes in licensing parents to ensure they are ready to raise their children.

Mr. Istvan also favors nearly open borders and the use of drones to prevent mass shootings, among other things.

So far, he will appear on the New Hampshire presidential primary ballot, and hopes to increase his public profile. The press has begun to notice.

Meet the cyborg whos running against Donald Trump for president. Zoltan Istvan, a leader of the transhumanist movement to merge humans with technology, is challenging Trump with a plan for America thats beyond radical, notes CNET.com zeroing in on the candidates ideas about abortion.

Within 10 years, I expect artificial wombs to improve to be able to handle fetuses around 16 weeks, which would give many women a third choice. There are 50 million abortions a year. No longer will one have to be pro-choice or pro-life, but one can also say: Id like to give my child up for adoption via an artificial womb, Mr. Istvan told the news organization.

FOXIFIED

Fox News Channel has enjoyed its highest-rated week of the calendar year and remains No. 1 in the cable realm throughout the day, besting ESPN, Hallmark Channel and other non-news rivals. As it has done for close to 18 consecutive years, Fox News has aced its direct competition, drawing 2.8 million prime-time viewers last week, according to Nielsen Media Research compared to 2 million for MSNBC and 1 million for CNN.

Sean Hannity continues to be the ratings dynamo with an average 4.4 million viewers, followed by Tucker Carlson who attracted 4 million. For those who might wonder, Mr. Hannity has trounced MSNBCs Rachel Maddow Show in total viewers for 36 consecutive weeks.

And of note: ratings for Life, Liberty and Levin with host Mark Levin on Sunday nights have risen by 45% among the much-coveted 25-to-54-year-old demographic, and by 16% among viewers in general according to Nielsen.

POLL DU JOUR

60% of U.S. voters agree that the impeachment inquiry is more important to the media than it is to voters; 78% of Republicans, 61% of independents and 44% of Democrats agree.

29% overall say the impeachment is not more important to the media than it is to voters; 16% of Republicans, 23% of independents and 45% of Democrats agree.

11% overall are undecided about the importance of the hearings; 6% of Republicans, 16% of independents and 11% of Democrats agree.

58% of voters overall are following media coverage of the impeachment inquiry; 57% of Republicans, 49% of independents and 67% of Democrats agree.

41% overall say they are not following the media coverage of the hearings; 42% of Republicans, 51% of independents and 33% of Democrats agree.

Source: A POLITICO / MORNING CONSULT poll of 1,994 REGISTERED U.S. VOTERS conducted NOV. 15-17.

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High Seas Season 2: Release date, plot, cast, trailer, and everything you need to know about the Spanish mur – MEAWW

Posted: at 12:36 pm

Since the first season aired in May 2019, High Seas, also called Alta Mar in Spanish, has caught the attention of fans of murder-mysteries. And within months it has added to Netflixs portfolio of foreign-language shows. Packed with drama, suspense, thrill, and high tension, the Spanish series is just on point with its entertainment quotient. Set in the backdrop of 1940s Spanish culture, the spectacular and grand setting makes the series a delightful visual treat.

High Seas Season 1 dropped on Netflix on May 24, 2019, with eight episodes. Season 2 of the series will drop another eight episodes on November 22, 2019.

High Seas follows the story of sisters Carolina and Eva Villanueva, who embark on a journey from Spain to Brazil on a luxury cruise. And in the course of their travel across the high seas, they discover some dark secrets within their family accompanied by disturbing events, murders, conspiracy and a lot more than they had expected. Season 1 explores the beginning of Eva and Carolinas journey aboard the luxury vessel, heading to Spain from Brazil, along with 1600 passengers. From accidentally injuring a young woman to being key suspects of her murder, the sisters get entwined in unexpected conspiracies, family secrets, and uncanny events onboard that spin their lives out of control. The first season saw endless twists and turns of characters and their motives, peppered with some tension-filled moments like Carolinas wedding, weaved into a murder plot. Taking off from where they left off season 1, season 2 promises a joyride through the vintage grandeur of the elite Spanish family. As the journey continues, more dirty secrets of the Villanueva family unravel, while Eva and Carolina try to protect themselves from being swept away by the dangerous events.

The ensemble cast of High Seas presents some of the most recognized names in Spanish entertainment. Jose Sacristan features as the captain of Barbara de Braganza, the luxury cruise liner, where all the drama unfolds.

Ivana Baquero

Ivana Baquero plays the character of Eva Villanueva. Eva is recognized for her roles in Pans Labyrinth and The Shannara Chronicles. In 'High Seas', she plays the role of the seemingly smarter, even though not as extrovert as her sister, Eva, steals the heart of the officer played by Jon Kortajarena, thus getting roped into the case further. As one of the lead characters on the show, Ivana will be back with more drama and suspense in season 2.

Jon Kortajarena

Model and actor Jon Kortajarena plays Nicolas Vasquez, the Chief Officer of the ship.Jon shot to fame with his modeling stints with leading fashion brands like Just Cavalli, Versace, Giorgio Armani, Bally, Etro, Trussardi, Diesel, Mangano, Lagerfeld, Pepe Jeans but notably, H&M, Zara, Guess and Tom Ford. In 'High Seas' he plays the character of the officer aboard the luxury cruise ship who digs into the murder of a mysterious woman, while he also steals Eva's heart. His role has remained quite significant to the plot throughout season 1 and he will be back in Season 2.

Other cast members include Daniel Ludh, Alejandra Onieva, Laura Pratts, Manuela Velle, and Eloy Azorin.

The mystery-drama-thriller is directed by Carlos Sedes who also serves as the executive producer for the show. The concept was developed by Ramon Campos and Gema R. Neira. The show for Netflix is produced by Campos, in association with Teresa Fernandez Valdes.

Sneak a peek at the grander, bolder, and more exciting all-new season of High Seas. Hold on to what you can, a storm is coming with waves of great changes. The second season of #AltaMar docks on November 22.

Get ready for another binge-watching session as Netflix drops all eight episodes of the original Spanish series on November 22, 2019.

Money HeistMurder on the Orient ExpressEliteCable GirlsGran Hotel

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High Seas Season 2: Release date, plot, cast, trailer, and everything you need to know about the Spanish mur - MEAWW

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Lawless Ocean: The Link Between Human Rights Abuses and Overfishing – Yale Environment 360

Posted: at 12:36 pm

The high seas remain an often-dystopian realm where the scant laws that do exist are frequently ignored. This has led to overfishing, illegal dumping, and other environmental abuses that are closely linked to human rights violations aboard thousands of vessels.

By IanUrbina November20,2019

There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the worlds oceans: Too big to police and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation of the marine life below the surface and the humans working the boats above it.

Consider the perils facing the tens of millions of people working aboard one of thousands of illegal fishing vessels on the high seas. At least one ship globally sinks every three days. Private security forces operating at sea are a $20 billion business, and when these mercenaries kill, governments rarely respond because no country holds jurisdiction in international waters. And what transcends all borders are the compounding environmental threats imposed by humans.

The urgency of this crisis is real. Operating with virtual impunity on the high seas, fleets from Spain, China, South Korea, Taiwan, and other countries are at the heart of an illicit seafood trade that generates an estimated $160 billion in annual sales. The trade in illegal fish has grown over the past decade as improved technology stronger radar, bigger nets, faster ships has enabled fishing vessels to plunder the oceans with remarkable efficiency.

Stories from these depths together formed The Outlaw Ocean, a New York Times series and book, that took me more than five years to report on every continent and every ocean. My reporting revealed the disturbing reality of a floating world that connects us all, a place where anyone can do anything because no one is watching. For all its breathtaking beauty, the ocean is also a dystopian place, home to dark inhumanities.

I met a Cambodian migrant, who had been shackled by the neck on a trawler catching fish destined for American shelves. Captive at sea for three years, this Cambodian was an all too common example of a wider problem known as sea slavery that ensnares tens of thousands of men and boys on fishing boats each year globally.

In the case of Thailand, where this abuse is common, men or boys from surrounding countries such as Laos, Cambodia, or Myanmar are often offered a job in construction or some other lucrative industry by a human trafficker. This trafficker typically tells the potential worker that they can help the worker get into the country and that the debt incurred during passage will be settled up later. The worker soon finds out that he is not in fact destined for a job in construction, but is going to work on a fishing boat. When he arrives at port, the debt the worker accrued is used to sell him to the fishing boat captain. Sometimes these boys and men are kept captive at sea for several years before they escape or are released.

Off the coast of South Africa, I shadowed a Tanzanian stowaway who, discovered at sea by an unwitting and angry fishing boat crew, was sent overboard on a makeshift dingy and left to die in the middle of the ocean, hundreds of miles from land as a storm approached. This grim phenomenon, known as rafting, has become a more common way to dispose of migrants and stowaways, especially in the wake of new rules imposed after September 11 and recent anti-immigration policies that have raised penalties for captains who arrive in port with unplanned guests onboard.

Crew members on a Korean fishing boat being arrested by Sierra Leone fishery inspectors in 2017 after illegal fishing gear was found onboard. Pierre Gleizes / Greenpeace

At another point during my reporting, I embedded on a roach-infested Thai purse seiner, where 40 trafficked Cambodian boys worked 20-hour days, barefoot, rain or shine, on a slippery deck, just one misstep from disaster. That first night I tried to sleep on the floor as most do. I was soon awakened by rats crawling across my legs, dozens more scurrying all around me and the rest of the crew. Long-haul fishing isnt just the worlds most dangerous profession, its also in many places the most gruesome.

In the South Atlantic, I joined the longest law-enforcement chase in nautical history. A vigilante conservation group called Sea Shepherd was attempting what no government had been willing to do. These advocates were trying to stop a ship that for nearly a decade had fished illegally and largely unobstructed in Antarctic waters, profiting to the tune of more than $76 million. Even though Interpol had placed this illegal ship on its so-called Purple Notice list essentially an arrest-on-sight list no one with the authority or responsibility to act did so.

The bottom line is that this realm, which happens to cover two-thirds of the globe, is home to an assortment of extra-legal actors. They range from traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, to elusive poachers and vigilante conservationists, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves, and cast-adrift stowaways. Many of these actors flourish in the absence of governance. And, importantly, many of the more urgent problems they are countering or creating involve an interplay between human rights and environmental abuses.

Combating these issues is complex. Most commercial fishing occurs offshore, out of view and reach of authorities. Vessels often change their name, call sign, or flag to avoid detection. The global economy has also become accustomed to tangled and convoluted supply chains where it is very difficult if not impossible (perhaps by design) to discern whether forced labor is being used to move goods across the ocean or catch the fish that ends up on our dinner plates. Globalization has allowed companies to rely on more international and tangled supply chains so as to tap cheaper ingredients and labor. The consequence is savings for consumers, but, if we are honest, we also have to admit permitting the abuses that allow for these cheaper prices be they a failure to pay workers anything close to appropriate wages, or a decided policy of unsustainable fishing that is destined to cause stocks to collapse.

We are all the beneficiaries of the lawlessness on the high seas, where 90 percent of all the products we consume come by way of ships, and the commercial channels are usually unbothered by the government and, therefore, rules. We have been able to access impossibly cheap products that arrive to our shelves with incredible speed. We are deeply dependent on the ocean: 50 percent of our oxygen comes from the ocean, and in some coastal communities in Africa and Asia, 70 percent of the protein people consume comes from the sea. All of these types of abuses, whether theyre human rights abuses, or environmental crimes, stem from a core problem, which is a lack of governance at sea, especially on the high seas.

There are three ways in which misbehavior happens offshore routinely and with impunity: too few rules, a lack of enforcement, and insufficient awareness of what is happening there. All of these problems are also connected in the sense that they occur with a certain tacit complicity from all of us who live on land.

Author Ian Urbina boarding a fishing boat off the Philippines while investigating the mysterious death of a deckhand. Adam Dean for the New York Times.

Seafood may be having its moment of reckoning, not unlike what occurred previously with blood diamonds, sweat-shop garments, and dolphin-free tuna, where companies and consumers say that they are willing to accept higher prices for goods that can actually be traced from bait to plate. Admittedly, because the sea is so far from inspectors and watchful eyes, it will be difficult for companies to track their products better and publicly prove that abuses are not baked into their production process. But if the will is there, spurred by consumer demand, companies and governments can accomplish this level of accountability and transparency.

If countries were serious about combating human rights, labor, and environmental abuses at sea, they would step up legal protections, at-sea patrols, and, most especially, inspections when ships dock. Broadly speaking, there need to be more rules, more proactive enforcement of those rules, and more awareness of what is happening out there.

A global ban on fishing on the high seas? The time is now. Read more.

It would also be perilous to ignore the way that environmental abuses contribute to and derive from human rights and labor crimes. When considering solutions, it seems prudent to consider not just the fish but also the fishers. It is often ill advised to push policy fixes that help to ensure that a fish hasnt been caught using illegal gear or ensuring that it hasnt been pulled from water where its forbidden, without also ensuring that the people doing the actual fishing were not sea slaves.

When it comes to this woefully out-of-sight, out-of-mind realm, solutions exist to many of the most vexing challenges, particularly illegal fishing and human trafficking. More often, however, what has been missing is the political and societal will to tackle these issues now.

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