Video:  Anderson Cooper’s Interview with Megan Rapinoe!

 

 

 

Dear Commons Community,

Last night CNN aired an interview (see video above) with Megan Rapinoe, co-captain of the U.S. women’s national soccer team, conducted by Anderson Cooper.  Rapinoe articulated well her views on a number of subjects including her team’s World Cup win, her relationship with her brother, and whether or not she and her teammates will be accepting invitations to visit Washington, D.C.   During the interview, Rapinoe  had a searing message for President Donald Trump.

“You have an incredible responsibility as the chief of this country to take care of every single person” in America.   “You need to do better for everyone,” Rapinoe said.

Words of wisdom! 

Tony

Michelle Goldberg:  Jeffrey Epstein Is the Ultimate Symbol of Plutocratic Rot!

Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump in 1997 at Mar-a-Lago

Dear Commons Community,

New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg had a scathing piece on disgraced billionaire Jeffrey Epstein who was indicted on Monday on charges of sexually abusing and trafficking underage girls.  She specifically criticizes those of power and influence who have enabled him to get away with his behavior for decades.  Here is an excerpt.

“On Saturday evening, more than a decade after receiving a sweetheart plea deal in an earlier sex crime case, Epstein was arrested after getting off a private flight from Paris. He has been accused of exploiting and abusing “dozens” of minor girls, some as young as 14, and conspiring with others to traffic them. Epstein’s arrest was the rare event that gratified right and left alike, both because it seemed that justice might finally be done, and because each side has reason to believe that if Epstein goes down, he could bring some of its enemies with him.

Both sides are likely right. The Epstein case is first and foremost about the casual victimization of vulnerable girls. But it is also a political scandal, if not a partisan one. It reveals a deep corruption among mostly male elites across parties, and the way the very rich can often purchase impunity for even the most loathsome of crimes. If it were fiction, it would be both too sordid and too on-the-nose to be believable, like a season of “True Detective” penned by a doctrinaire Marxist.

Epstein socialized with Donald Trump, who in 2002 described him to New York Magazine as a “terrific guy” whom he’d known for 15 years. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” said the future president. In 2000, a porter who worked next door to Epstein’s Manhattan home told a British newspaper, admiringly, “I often see Donald Trump and there are loads of models coming and going, mostly at night. It’s amazing.”

Epstein also hung out with Bill Clinton, who rode on his jet several times. Ghislaine Maxwell, a close companion of Epstein who has been accused of working as his procurer, attended Chelsea Clinton’s wedding in 2010, long after Epstein’s exposure. Following his arrest on Saturday, Christine Pelosi, daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tweeted, “It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated but we must follow the facts and let the chips fall where they may.”

Among the mysteries of the Epstein case are why powerful prosecutors of both parties treated him with such leniency. Alexander Acosta, now Trump’s labor secretary, was the federal attorney who oversaw the deal Epstein received in 2008. Though facing potential federal charges that could have put him away for life, Epstein was allowed to plead to minor state charges instead, an arrangement that was kept secret from his victims. He served 13 months in a county jail, where he got to spend six days a week in his office on work-release. In February, a judge ruled that Acosta’s team’s handling of the case violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. (Naturally, Acosta still has his job.)

After Epstein served his time, he had to register as a sex offender. Inexplicably, the Manhattan district attorney’s office, under Democrat Cyrus Vance Jr., asked a judge to downgrade Epstein’s sex offender status from Level 3, the most serious, to Level 1, the least. The judge, stunned, refused. “I am a little overwhelmed because I have never seen a prosecutor’s office do anything like this,” she said.

In a detention memo submitted on Monday, federal prosecutors outlined some of the evidence seized from a search of Epstein’s house on Saturday night. It included hundreds — possibly thousands — of sexually suggestive photographs of girls who appear underage, as well as hand-labeled compact discs with titles like “Girl pics nude,” and, with the names redacted, “Young [Name] + [Name].”

It seems, at first, astonishingly reckless for Epstein not just to allegedly keep such material, but to keep it in Manhattan, instead of, say, on his private Caribbean island. Maybe, however, it’s simply a sign of how protected he felt. “In my mind there has always been this huge question mark: What is Jeffrey Epstein’s leverage?” Ward said. If we find out, we’ll know just how rotten our rulers really are.”

Epstein was astonishingly protected by people of power and influence.  Rot indeed!

Tony

Fox News’ Shep Smith Cuts in and Does Brutal Fact Check on Trump’s Climate Speech!

 

Dear Commons Community,

Fox News, President Donald Trump’s favorite news network not only cut into his speech yesterday, but it also fact-checked him on live television. 

Trump attempted to tout his administration’s environmental record, but Fox News host Shepard Smith interrupted to say those policies have been “widely criticized by environmentalists and academics.” 

The Fox News host cited a New York Times report that found that more than 80 environmental rules and regulations have been repealed and/or rolled back, including multiple regulations regarding drilling, air pollution and wildlife. 

Then Smith listed some of them (see video below).

Though Trump has frequently touted the glowing coverage he’s received from Fox News hosts such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and is known to be a fan of the “Fox & Friends” morning show, he has lately complained about some of the network’s other figures, including Smith. 

Over the weekend, Trump griped that watching Fox News is “worse than watching low ratings Fake News CNN” and MSNBC, then later took at dig at Smith for hosting “by far their lowest rated show.”

It’s not the news channel’s lowest-rated show, according to the latest numbers, and Smith has more than twice as many viewers as CNN in the same hour.

Go get him, Shep!

Tony

 

New York Grants Congress Access to Trump’s State Tax Returns!

Dear Commons Community,

While the House of Representatives has been sparring with President Trump over releasing his federal tax returns, the New York State Legislature has passed a bill which  was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo yesterday that would allow certain members of Congress access to the President’s state tax returns.  As reported by NBC News.

The bill  requires New York officials to release tax returns of public officials that have been requested by “congressional tax-related committees” that have cited “specified and legitimate legislative purpose” in seeking them.

“(T)his bill gives Congress the ability to fulfill its Constitutional responsibilities, strengthen our democratic system and ensure that no one is above the law,” Cuomo, a Democrat, said in a statement.

The tax bill, which was passed weeks ago by the Democratically controlled state Legislature, makes it easier for New York to turn over the state tax returns of certain public office-holders, along with entities those people control or have a large stake in, that are requested by the leaders of the three congressional tax-writing committees.

The bill is seen as a clear shot at the president, who has refused to release his tax returns. But it’s been met with resistance from the one Democrat who could actually utilize it.

House Ways and Means chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said he won’t request the state returns because he feels doing so would harm his efforts at obtaining Trump’s federal returns. Just this week, Neal sued the IRS and the Treasury Department for those federal returns.

Meanwhile, Cuomo could act soon on another bill that is aimed at Trump

That proposed legislation would allow state prosecutors to pursue charges against certain people even if they had received a presidential pardon. Trump has spoken about the possibility of pardoning those accused or convicted of crimes stemming from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

There will likely be a judicial challenge to these bills by the White House.

Tony

World Cup Title: U.S. – Greatest Women’s Soccer Team of All Time!

Image result for women's soccer world cup final

Dear Commons Community,

Showing grit, guts, and confidences, the American women’s soccer team outlasted the Netherlands 2-0 in yesterday’s World Cup final. The game changed on a Megan Rapinoe penalty kick in the 61st minute before Rose Lavelle added a brilliant goal in the 69th. It was a final that was tough, hard-fought, even bloody at times.  When the game ended,  the victory was not just their fourth World Cup overall, and second consecutive, but very possibly the title as the greatest women’s soccer team of all time.  As reported by the New York Times and Yahoo News.

“They never trailed. They outscored their seven opponents 26-3. They never needed a second of extra time. They led an astounding 442 out of 630 minutes (70.2 percent of the time, a number that may defy belief from future soccer historians).

Essentially, they did everything they promised they would and believed they could when they arrived here and declared that due to their depth of talent they had the first and second best teams in the world.

The Dutch were a game opponent, physical and determined, the reigning European champions. Yet the talent difference on the field was marked. They became just another team for the U.S. to steamroll in a tournament that saw the Americans defeat the teams ranked third, fourth, eighth, ninth and 13th in the world.

The Americans have fielded some all-time great squads, but none can match this level, let alone the sheer depth of ability. In a sport that grows by leaps and bounds every World Cup cycle, they completely overwhelmed this tournament, only mildly pressed by France late in a quarterfinal and England in the semis. Even then, they were at risk of an even scoreboard, not in need of a comeback.

This was a complete show of strength by the United States, a sign of how the country has so many superior athletes playing youth soccer that coach Jill Ellis has an embarrassment of riches to pick from.

“It’s important that our team has confidence,” Ellis said early in the tournament. “I don’t think in any way this is an arrogant team. I think this team knows they have to earn everything, that we’ve got tough opponents like we played the other night still ahead of us and we have to earn every right to advance in this tournament.”

As long as their focus never wavered, neither would the results.

Declaring this the greatest team in history isn’t an affront to the World Cup champions of 1991 and 1999. It is, instead, their legacy. They spawned not just a generation of girls who flocked to the sport (see note below), but the infrastructure of youth leagues and U.S. Soccer development that could handle them, nurture them and turn them into a winning group.

The 2015 World Cup champions were very good, but they weren’t this good, they didn’t control the tournament this easily.

As much as there is endless discussion of the soccer world, which is just now caring about the women’s game, catching up to the Americans, it never really panned out. These other countries, especially the seven European teams that joined the U.S. in the quarterfinals, are all better than ever.”

The Americans are too!

Congratulations – World Cup Champions!

Tony

Note:  My granddaughter, Ali, went to a soccer camp a couple of years ago that was sponsored by Megan Rapinoe.

Ali and Megan Rapinoe

British Ambassador Kim Darroch:  Trump “Inept” and “Risks Ending His Presidency in Disgrace”

 

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Kim Darroch – British Ambassador to the United States

Dear Commons Community,

The Huffington Post is reporting that Sir Kim Darroch described Donald Trump as “inept” and at risk of ending his presidency in “disgrace.” This story was first  reported by the Daily Mail,  the source of which were leaked cables from Sir Kim.

In one excoriating message, seen by the Mail, Sir Kim is said to have written: “We don’t really believe [Trump’s] Administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction driven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept.”

The Foreign Office told the Mail that, like all ambassadors, Sir Kim was paid to express his views candidly and that the leak amounted to “mischievous behaviour.”

Nonetheless, the disclosure of highly sensitive cables between the British embassy in Washington and Downing Street could strain the so-called “special relationship” between the U.K. and the U.S.

It also raises questions about leaks at the heart of government and of the morale of the civil service.

The publication of extracts from the cables on Sunday could also prompt a direct response from Trump himself.

Sir Kim, 65, has been Britain’s “man in Washington” since January 2016, 10 months before Trump’s election victory. He was previously the U.K.’s representative to the European Union and a national security adviser.

Cheerio!

Tony

 

Charter Schools Facing a Reckoning in New York!

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Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times had a featured article in yesterday’s edition written by its education reporter, Eliza Shapiro.  The article provides a review of the charter school movement in New York City and questions whether it has fulfilled its original promise to educate children better than neighborhood public schools.  Here is a an excerpt:

“When the charter school movement first burst on to the scene, its founders pledged to transform big urban school districts by offering low-income and minority families something they believed was missing: safe, orderly schools with rigorous academics.

But now, several decades later, as the movement has expanded, questions about whether its leaders were fulfilling their original promise to educate vulnerable children better than neighborhood public schools have mounted.

When Richard Buery took over last year as the head of policy at KIPP, the nation’s largest charter network, he began to ask the same questions.

He was used to challenging charter schools after years as a top deputy to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is skeptical of the schools.

Mr. Buery, who is black and grew up in East New York, Brooklyn, noticed that black and Hispanic students in KIPP schools were sometimes being disciplined too harshly by their white teachers. The network’s high schools had impressive academic results and graduation rates, but their students then struggled in college. And KIPP executives’ relationships with elected officials were fraying.

In response, Mr. Buery adopted an unusual strategy: He publicly declared that some of the criticism of KIPP — and the charter movement in general — was merited, and announced that KIPP needed to change for it to continue to thrive.

Mr. Buery is part of a growing number of charter school executives to acknowledge shortcomings in their schools — partly in an effort to recast their tarnished image and to counteract a growing backlash that threatens the schools’ ability to influence American public education.

Charter schools now serve about three million children across the country, and have their ardent supporters. But other parentsteachers and students have increasingly voiced frustration with charters, and their protests have been seized by the progressive Democratic politicians who are ascendant in New York and other states.

“The stereotypes of the sector — there’s a reality behind them,” Mr. Buery said, referring to criticism of how charters handle discipline, race and politics. “It’s up to us to demonstrate, visibly, that we are better than the stereotype and striving to be better than what we are.”

KIPP’s internal reckoning has coincided with a moment in which New York’s elected officials and Democratic presidential candidates have turned decisively away from the charter movement. Both groups are eager to please their allies in teachers unions, which have consolidated power over the last year.

The threat to charters is severe in New York City, which is home to more than 100,000 charter school students and was once seen as an incubator within the movement.

Last month, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat who has been a crucial supporter of charters, declared that the State Legislature would not lift a cap on the number of new charters issued citywide. By halting charter growth indefinitely, Albany lawmakers have begun to erode the schools’ foothold in the country’s biggest school system.

At the same time, Mr. de Blasio, who hired Mr. Buery to oversee his signature universal pre-K program, has threatened to make it harder for the schools to advertise to parents and to share space with district schools.

It remains to be seen whether charters’ attempts to change will be abandoned when the politics shift, or whether the new direction will come to redefine the movement.

But as New York’s charters are buffeted by fresh criticism, even the schools’ leaders are broadcasting their mistakes.

Steven Wilson, the chief executive of a Brooklyn-based charter school network, Ascend, scrapped his charters’ rigid approach to discipline after he realized his schools were full of unhappy students and tense teachers. “We wanted to blow all that up,” he said. “We wanted to hear students talking, exchanging ideas, taking intellectual risks. And that was largely absent.”

 “We need to get our own house stronger and better,” said Doug McCurry, a chief executive at Achievement First, which opened a Brooklyn charter school exclusively for students with disabilities in 2017. The network, Mr. McCurry said, cannot be a legitimate alternative to traditional public schools unless it serves all students, including children with special needs.

New York is home to a diverse group of charter leaders, not all of whom agree that changing course is the right way to handle internal criticism and political pressure.

Eva Moskowitz, who runs the city’s largest charter network, Success Academy, has held fast to a model that relies in part on discipline and compliance. That approach has led to extremely high test scores and national accolades — alongside pushback from some families and staff members.

“We listen to our parents and they overwhelmingly support the high standards we set for student conduct,” said Ann Powell, a spokeswoman for Success. Many of New York’s charter networks, including Success, have long waiting lists of parents eager for a seat for their children.

Eventually, Ms. Moskowitz and some other charter school leaders believe, the political pendulum will swing back.

KIPP is still forging ahead with changes — despite, not because of, political headwinds, Mr. Buery said. “I’d hate for anyone to think we’re doing it because of a reaction,” he said. “We’re doing it because it’s the right thing.”

The college graduation rate for KIPP alumni is about 35 percent, above the national average for low-income students but not nearly as high as its founders had envisioned. After years of attempts to help KIPP alumni graduate, the network is proposing new solutions, which it hopes other schools will emulate.

The network has also recently challenged President Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, perhaps the nation’s most prominent charter supporter, for reversing an Obama-era policy aimed at reducing racial disparities in discipline.

So far, New York’s progressive politicians seem unconvinced.

“Entreaties by charters to reform themselves are welcome, but I really think reform has to come from the outside,” said State Senator Brad Hoylman, a Manhattan Democrat who introduced a bill this year that would limit public funding for charters and require the schools to enroll more students with disabilities and children learning English.

“We haven’t seen any of the results of those reforms yet,” he added.

But educators at charter schools say the proof is in the classroom.

“It’s not every day you see a principal who looks like me,” said Brandi Vardiman, the principal of KIPP STAR, a Harlem elementary school, on a recent morning as she passed pictures of students and teachers in Black Lives Matter shirts. About 70 percent of STAR’s staff is black or Hispanic, one of the highest rates of KIPP’s 13 New York schools.

Mr. Buery is part of a push to reverse the norm of mostly black and Hispanic charters in New York being staffed mainly by white teachers. Studies have found that black students who have even one black teacher are more likely to go to college than black students who do not. KIPP hired a chief diversity officer to promote “anti-racist practices.”

Ms. Vardiman created a class for students to learn about the Harlem Renaissance and the effects of gentrification on the neighborhood. She rephrased word problems in math classes: “Instead of, ‘Sally went to the store to buy five apples’, it might be instead, ‘Maria went to the bodega to get three avocados.’”

After Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Mo., in the summer of 2014, Ms. Vardiman held an assembly so kindergarten and first-grade students could discuss the shooting on the first day of school.

“It was like, ‘Are we just supposed to ignore this?’” she thought.

In Bushwick, Brooklyn, Mr. Wilson, of Ascend, walked through one of his network’s schools and remembered when all its classrooms featured a seemingly innocuous but widely feared piece of paper: a green, yellow and red poster resembling a traffic light.

A clip with every student’s name on it would be placed on green at the beginning of the day, to denote good behavior. But if a child called out an answer without raising a hand or fidgeted in their seat, for example, their clip would be moved to yellow, then red.

Ascend, like most charter school networks, embraced a strict set of discipline policies known as “no excuses,” which is based on the idea that punishing minor issues will prevent bigger problems. It wasn’t working.

“The conversation in the bustle of the kids leaving was, ‘What color were you on today?’” said Mr. Wilson. “Not what did you learn, or what excited you, or what did you discover? We thought this was just tremendously sad.”

Ascend jettisoned its discipline code in 2013. Suspensions for elementary school students have since plummeted by 40 percent while test scores have risen by about 35 percentage points in English and math.”

Valuable insights into the state of charter schools in New York! Without a doubt, the association of charter schools with DeVos and Trump has hurt them politically particularly in large cities that lean to the Democrats.

Tony

Democratic Presidential Candidates at NEA Forum – Takeaways!

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, ten Democratic presidential candidates attended a forum at the National Education Association and presented their views on issues for the 2020 election. All agreed that teachers should be paid more, that public schools need more  resources, and that Betsy DeVos is not a very good education secretary.   The NEA is optimistic that one of these Democrats will become president and usher in an administration far friendlier to teachers unions than Trump’s — or Obama’s.  As a reminder, the NEA called on education secretaries from two parties and two successive administrations, DeVos and Arne Duncan, to resign. The forum included former Vice President Joe Biden, former Housing Secretary Julián Castro, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.), Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (Texas), Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.).

Here are four takeaways from the event courtesy of Chalkbeat

The next education secretary must be an educator.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren promised a few months ago — prompted by a Brooklyn teacher — that her education secretary would be a public school teacher.

On Friday, a few more candidates followed her lead. Biden said appointing a teacher would be the first thing he did as president. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, too, said the next education secretary should be an educator, and touted his choice of longtime educators as city schools chancellors. (His predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, tapped non-educators for the role.) California Senator Kamala Harris said the person she nominates “will be someone who comes from public schools,” and promised the audience of union members that they would “be at the table to help me make that decision.”

Despite recent national discussion, integration got scant attention.

A sharp exchange between Harris and former Vice President Joe Biden at last week’s debate brought fresh attention to the issue of school integration. The two candidates have faced questions about the government’s role in desegregating schools on the campaign trail all week.

But it didn’t come up at the NEA forum for either Harris — who has said she supports federal integration efforts, but been short on details — or Biden, who has endorsed federal grants to promote school diversity but said he still opposes court-ordered desegregation efforts.

Senator Bernie Sanders has offered the most detailed ideas for addressing school segregation.

In response to a question about inequality and segregation in schools, Julián Castro said that he had attended — and seen the consequences of — segregated schools, and that he would support efforts to address housing segregation and federal funds for “voluntary busing.”

“Today we’re still grappling with so many of the same issues that we were grappling with 30, 40, 50 years ago,” he said.

There were no other questions about segregation, though — perhaps reflecting the fact that the NEA has not itself prioritized the issue. Asked about segregation in May by Chalkbeat, Eskelsen García quickly pivoted to the issue of charter schools, which make up a minority of the country’s segregated schools.

De Blasio went all out against charter schools.

De Blasio, who has garnered little support in recent polls, took an aggressive stance against charter schools, saying supporting them should be disqualifying for potential Democratic nominees.

“Too many Republicans, but also too many Democrats, have been cozy with the charter schools,” de Blasio said. “Let’s be blunt about it. We need to hold our own party accountable, too. And no one should ask for your support, or no one should be the Democratic nominee, unless they’re willing to stand up to Wall Street and the rich people behind the charter school movement once and for all.”

Moments earlier, he said, “I am sick and tired of these efforts to privatize public education. I know we’re not supposed to be saying ‘hate’ — our teachers taught us not to — but I hate the privatizers and I want to stop them.”

His comments stood out for their tone, even though some of his fellow candidates have also been critical of charters. Sanders, for one, reiterated his call to limit federal funding for charters during the NEA event, also invoking Wall Street.

Beto O’Rourke, the only other candidate who spoke about charters, took a more positive view, saying, “There is a place for public nonprofit charter schools, but private charter schools and voucher programs — not a single dime in my administration will go to them.

The remarks also trod familiar territory for the mayor, who notably once said that the head of New York City’s largest charter network, Eva Moskowitz, shouldn’t be “tolerated, enabled, supported.” But de Blasio has been less than successful at turning that opposition into policy. De Blasio’s desire to limit charters’ access to space in public buildings led to state legislation that blocked him and costs the city millions every year.

Warren criticized high-stakes testing, despite clashing with unions on the issue previously.

Warren, the Massachusetts senator, disavowed “high-stakes testing” and recalled her time as a teacher of students with disabilities.

“This notion that it’s all about testing — that it’s all about what somebody far off in the state capital or far off in the national capital says, here’s what constitutes success and worse yet, here’s what constitutes failure — no, that’s not what education is about,” Warren said.

“Education is what goes on in the classroom; what a teacher has said is the goal. And when a kid gets there, it is a teacher who knows it. We do not need high-stakes testing.”

The comments appear to be a departure for Warren, who in 2015 pushed for the federal education law to include rules that would identify schools where certain subgroups of students had low test scores and hold them accountable for those results. That won the support of many civil rights groups but drew a sharp rebuke from teachers unions, including the NEA, which are more skeptical of the use of test score data.

Barbara Madeloni, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, wrote at the time: “In my conversation with Warren, her concern for traditionally underserved students, which is noble, was distorted by a seeming unwillingness to accept what so many teachers and parents are saying: that the use of testing for accountability is narrow-minded, undermines meaningful teaching and learning, and shifts the focus from the real issues our students and communities face.”

There will be much more to come from the candidates before the election!

Tony

Hong Kong Torn by Protests!

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Dear Commons Community,

Hong Kong’s protests took took a violent turn earlier this week threatening to divide the pro-democracy movement and bring on a backlash from Beijing.   Protesters clashed with riot police officers before an official ceremony to mark the anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty.

When hundreds of thousands marched through the broiling streets of Hong Kong in recent weeks, they posed a serious challenge for the Chinese government. But when some of them stormed the Legislative Council and ransacked the chamber on Monday, they put their movement’s fragile gains at risk.  Here are concerns as expressed by the New York Times Editorial Board yesterday.

“What first set off the latest wave of mass protests was a proposed law that would have allowed extradition from Hong Kong to mainland China. On the surface a legal formality, it was perceived by a large majority of Hong Kongers as yet another surreptitious attempt by the government in Beijing to erode the enclave’s rule of law and autonomy, guaranteed under the “one country, two systems” formula. The protests, by residents of all ages and walks of life, were a powerful and inspiring declaration that people raised in freedom will not easily surrender it.

For China’s hard-line leader, Xi Jinping, the reaction was a humiliating rejection of his basic premise that Western liberties and independent judiciaries are incompatible with the “people’s republic.” Yet so long as the protests were big but peaceful, he seemed content to have his captive media grumble about “Western” incitement and otherwise inform the mainland public as little as possible about what was going on in Hong Kong. The Beijing-backed leader of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, was left to retreat, issuing public apologies and then indefinitely suspending consideration of the contentious legislation.

All that changed on Monday, the day Hong Kong’s Beijing-endorsed officials were to make their annual demonstration of fealty to China at ceremonies marking the anniversary of the handover of sovereignty from Britain to China. A small group of masked protesters broke away from a peaceful march and attacked the legislature, smashing down glass doors, destroying official portraits and spray-painting slogans in the formal chamber. It will be weeks before the legislators can meet there again.

Those masked protesters may well be convinced that peaceful action results only in tactical retreats by a system determined to bring Hong Kong more firmly under the heel of China’s central government. When they stormed the legislature, Ms. Lam had only suspended consideration of the contentious extradition law, and the angry protesters recalled that a 79-day occupation of major thoroughfares in 2014 to demand freer elections, the so-called Umbrella Movement, achieved nothing durable. Among the spray-painted messages in the legislature was one to Ms. Lam: “You taught me peaceful protests are futile.”

Yet they should be asking themselves whether violent protests can possibly be a better answer. The mass demonstrations in Hong Kong’s narrow streets, like the Umbrella Movement before them, had confronted China’s Communists, and China’s people, with the powerful message that people reared in freedom — normal people, not radicals or rebels — do not buy the notion that the rule of law or freedom of speech are affectations of a decadent West that would be harmful in the East.

Further, the sight of Ms. Lam publicly apologizing and finally shelving the extradition law was a demonstration of the moral power of the people, even if the greater struggle with the mainland was certain to continue.

The ransacked Legislative Council, by contrast, gave the authorities an excuse to crack down on all their detractors. China’s government assailed the vandalism as “totally intolerable” and demanded strong countermeasures from Hong Kong authorities.

No doubt the authorities are aware that a crackdown would carry a heavy price in global opinion and potentially drive away the many multinational businesses headquartered there. The protesters, for their part, stand not only to provoke a crackdown but also to forfeit the support of most Hong Kong demonstrators. Both sides need to consider whether violence is the best way forward. It rarely is.”

There is wisdom in the New York Times editorial!

Tony

 

Congressman Justin Amash Quits Republican Party!

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Dear Commons Community,

Congressman Justin Amash celebrated the Fourth of July by declaring his independence from the Republican Party.

“Today, I am declaring my independence and leaving the Republican Party…

…No matter your circumstance, I’m asking you to join me in rejecting the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us,” Amash wrote in a Washington Post op-ed posted yesterday morning. “I’m asking you to believe that we can do better than this two-party system — and to work toward it. If we continue to take America for granted, we will lose it.”

Amash, one of the most fiscally conservative member of Congress, has increasingly been at odds with the GOP. In May, he became the first and only Republican in Congress to call for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. And in June, Amash stepped down from the once-ideologically conservative, now steadily more partisan House Freedom Caucus.

But Amash has always displayed a brand of politics that largely rejected a neat party definition ― whether it be Republican, Democratic or, most accurately, Libertarian.

In his op-ed, Amash quoted extensively from George Washington’s farewell address, in which the first president warns against political parties and calls partisanship the people’s “worst enemy.”

Amash pointed out that Washington said partisanship “opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.”

“True to Washington’s fears,” Amash wrote, “Americans have allowed government officials, under assertions of expediency and party unity, to ignore the most basic tenets of our constitutional order: separation of powers, federalism and the rule of law. The result has been the consolidation of political power and the near disintegration of representative democracy.”

Amash has long shown discomfort with the trajectory of the Republican Party as it abandons its calls for fiscal conservatism in favor of Trump’s high deficits, as it places a sense of security over liberty, authoritarianism over limited government, and nativism, racism and xenophobia over equal opportunity.

Amash began his op-ed by pointing out that his father was a Palestinian refugee whom America welcomed. He said both his parents were Republicans, and he ran for office ― first as a state legislator in Michigan and then as a congressman representing the Grand Rapids area ― as a Republican.

“In recent years, though, I’ve become disenchanted with party politics and frightened by what I see from it,” Amash wrote. “The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to American principles and institutions.”

Amash was already facing a primary challenge from a number of Trump-friendly Republicans, including state Rep. Jim Lower, state Rep. Lynn Afendoulis, former Sand Lake Village Trustee Tom Norton and potentially a number of other businessmen from the area.

He’ll now face reelection as an independent if he decides to try and keep his congressional seat. Amash has also been considering a run for president. “I haven’t ruled anything out,” he said in June.

Congratulations Mr. Amash for staying with your convictions and good luck with your re-election bid!

Tony