This is no ‘British culture war’, just a few rightwing loudmouths whingeing 

From Brexit to diversity, barely a week passes without some new confected outrage making Britain seem more divided than it is

Chaminda Jayanetti Wed 5 Feb 2020

‘Barely a week passes without some new confected outrage, 

followed by thinkpieces chalking it up as another battle of

leave v remain, or open v closed.’ Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

They called the miners’ strike “a civil war without guns”. They could call Britain’s “culture war” a civil war without brains. Barely a week passes without some new confected outrage, either manufactured or amplified by online shock jocks, followed by a slew of thinkpieces chalking it up as another battle of leave v remain, or open v closed.

But this is different to the culture war that has dominated – and damaged – American politics for decades. The American culture wars weaponised the religious conservatism of tens of millions of Americans in order to hold back progressive measures such as abortion provision and gay rights – and keep delivering Republican victories.

By contrast, British politics outside Northern Ireland is freer of religious conservatism, with a broad social and political consensus in favour of gay equality that was once unthinkable. The legal right to abortion, while never secure, is not as fragile as across the Atlantic. Nobody wins votes in Britain by quoting the Bible or claiming the endorsement of God. The vast gulf between the US and UK in these areas still exists.

To be sure, there is a values divide between social liberals and “authoritarians”. This has always existed, but is growing as a driver of voter behaviour as party loyalties fade. Issues such as immigration, crime, social mores and, more recently, sovereignty cleave along this line. Occasionally politicians manage to blur the boundary – Tony Blair tacked to the centre on crime; David Cameron tacked to the centre on gay rights. Brexit aside, the issues at play are, for better or worse, regular features of political debate, even if the spectrum on which they are debated is shifting.

But what passes for a culture war in Britain is little more than a succession of fleeting furies amplified by overpaid loudmouths and circulated via social media, against a backdrop of Brexit into which they are all conveniently merged.


An example is the row about “trigger warnings” at universities. The merits and demerits of giving people notice about possibly upsetting subject matter can be debated. But by their nature these warnings have an impact only on those who choose to be impacted by them. They are, in practical terms, irrelevant to most people – they have no effect on their lives. People who vent about them, especially if they are not at university, are just whinging.

The periodic backlash against diversity in TV and film casting is another whinge – one expressed abusively at times, but at its core a whinge nonetheless. There is no “legitimate concern” at stake here; much of it is driven by racists and misogynists who suffer no impact other than to their chronic fragility.

Indeed, a consistent factor with such whinging is how delicate and sensitive the whingers show themselves to be. For all the bloviating about millennial “snowflakes”, the whingers throw their toys out of the pram at the faintest imagined provocation.


These are whingers. The culture war moniker just hands them a megaphone

The list of whinges is almost endless: people wearing the Remembrance poppy imperfectly; people speaking a foreign language on the bus; insufficient references to “Christmas” or “Easter” in seasonal marketing; straight-laced millennials; “nanny state” attacks on public health information campaigns; “snowflake” labels attached to mental health discussions; frothing about vegans.

This is whinging. These are whingers. The culture war moniker just hands them a megaphone.

The commonality here is that, in each case, the subject matter doesn’t negatively affect anyone – neither the whinger, nor anyone else. That is why this list leans towards the political right – those who criticise discrimination are targeting something that does negatively affect people. But even then, remainers whinging about an innocuously designed Brexit coin are also … well, whinging.

It is easy to miss the social consensus that does exist. The periodic professional windbag spewing forth against Greta Thunberg draws us away from the fact that most people in Britain are concerned about climate change.

The culture wars narrative ascribes the fumings of keyboard warriors to 17.4 million leave voters, most of whom won’t even be aware of the whinge du jour. Even a more widely held whinge – immigrants speaking in their mother tongue – is something most leave voters are either “not very bothered” about or “not bothered at all”.

This misrepresentation is convenient for both left and right, remainers and Brexiters. One side gets to cast all leave voters as bigoted and stupid, while the bigoted and stupid get to pretend they have 17.4m nods of agreement backing them up.

Political figures then use this conflation to claim the legitimacy of the “silent majority” for their own agendas. Britain’s political and media scene has a whole cast of frauds playing fancy dress as the allies of ex-miners from Barnsley; professional blowhards trying to get their shoutfests to go viral online; religious conservatives fantasising that Brexit might bring back the Bible; newspaper columnists chasing the validation of speaking for the masses; the entire existence of Blue Labour. Meanwhile, people in Barnsley have better things to do.

The unexciting truth is this. Britain voted to leave the EU, driven by concerns over immigration, sovereignty, and disaffection among some with the establishment. The Tories won a majority based on delivering Brexit and not being Jeremy Corbyn. Values influenced this – broad brush values that have been part of public opinion for decades. If Corbyn was seen as unpatriotic, it’s because he failed to convince voters he possessed a trait that people require from their leaders in virtually every country on earth.

People’s attitude to Brexit naturally influences their view of the process of leaving the EU. But outside that, most of the weekly storms and skirmishes that are chalked up to the culture war should instead be understood as rants by bigots and bores. Casting them as some kind of profound conflict makes British society seem more intractably divided than it is, while giving the tedious whingers a political elevation they do not merit.

• Chaminda Jayanetti is a journalist who covers politics and public services

‘Try to stop me’ – the mantra of our leaders who are now ruling with impunity

George Monbiot @GeorgeMonbiot

Trump, Bolsonaro, Modi, Johnson. Across the world, flouting the law has become normalised. We have to stop it


Wed 5 Feb 2020 

‘Like other killer clowns, Trump may now feel he can get away with anything.’ Narendra Modi and Donald Trump embrace at the White House. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP

It is not a sufficient condition for fascism to take root, but it is a necessary one: the willingness of political leaders not only to break the law but to revel in breaking it is a fatal step towards the replacement of democracy with authoritarian terror.

We see this at work in the United States today, where the Republican party’s blatant disregard for the constitution will allow Donald Trump to escape impeachment.

If Trump is elected for a second term, he will test to the limit the potential for wielding unconstitutional power. But the phenomenon is not confined to the US. Several powerful governments now wear illegality almost as a badge of honour.

It’s happening in the UK too. The Brexit vote was secured with the help of blatant illegality

Fascist and prefascist governments share, among others, two linked characteristics: they proudly flout the laws that are supposed to restrain them while introducing new, often unconstitutional laws to contain political opponents or oppress minorities.

In Brazil, outrages against indigenous people, opposition politicians and journalists are encouraged and celebrated at the highest levels of government. Jair Bolsonaro won the presidential election with the help of a judicial coup in which due process was abandoned to secure the imprisonment of the frontrunner, Luiz Inácio da Silva (Lula). Bolsonaro has been photographed embracing two of the suspects in the murder of the leftwing councillor Marielle Franco, and has sought to block corruption investigations into his son Flávio, who allegedly has close links with members of the paramilitary gang accused of killing her.

In response to democratic protests, Brazil’s economy minister has threatened to impose martial law. Bolsonaro has called for the police to execute suspected criminals: “These guys are going to die in the streets like cockroaches – and that’s how it should be.” His racist comments about indigenous people, and curtailment of the agencies supposed to protect them, could help explain a new spate of murders by loggers, miners and ranchers. Human rights groups are urging the international criminal court to investigate Bolsonaro for incitement to genocide.

The investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has published explosive reports about corruption and crime in Bolsonaro’s government, and his husband, the leftwing congressman and Guardian columnist David Miranda, have received repeated death threats, containing details about their lives that only the state could know. Greenwald has now been spuriously charged with cybercrimes.

The far-right Bolsonaro movement wants us dead. But we will not give up
Glenn Greenwald and David Miranda

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after discovering that his alleged association with the 2002 Gujarat massacres no longer appeared to tarnish his name, is laying the foundations for a vicious ethno-nationalism. His new citizenship law deliberately denies rights to Muslims and could render millions of people stateless. People protesting against this act are brutally attacked by the police. Police and armed gangs have raided two Delhi universities, randomly beating up students, to spread generalised terror. In Uttar Pradesh, political opponents are routinely imprisoned without charge and tortured.

Modi has ripped up the constitution to annex Jammu and Kashmir. The police have fired on people protesting peacefully against this illegal action, blinding some of them with shotgun pellets. Political leaders have been arrested and communications shut down. Officials treat this illegality as a brutal joke. Haryana’s chief minister, Manohar Lal Khattar – a close Modi ally – boasts that “now we will bring girls from Kashmir”, as colonial booty.

The president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has bragged of riding around the streets of Davao on his motorbike when he was mayor of the city, shooting people he suspected of being criminals. Since becoming president he has, in effect, turned the police into a giant death squad, empowering them to murder people they believe to be involved in drug crime. Unsurprisingly, this general licence has led to the murders of political opponents, and land and environmental defenders.

Even as he applauds the killing of drug suspects, Duterte jokes about taking illegal drugs to keep himself awake at international summits. Opponents are imprisoned, judges are sacked and replaced, journalists are prosecuted on trumped-up charges. The imposition of martial law on the island of Mindanao is used to crush dissent; objectors are treated as terrorists and murdered.

Like these other killer clowns, Trump may now feel he can do anything. His legal team has in the past suggested he has total immunity, boasting that he could literally get away with murder. A culture of impunity is spreading around the world. “Try to stop me” is the implicit motto in nations ranging from Hungary to Israel, Saudi Arabia to Russia, Turkey to China, Poland to Venezuela. Flaunting your disregard for the law is an expression of power.

It’s happening in the UK too, though so far on a smaller scale. The Brexit vote, which eventually enabled Boris Johnson to take office, was secured with the help of blatant illegality. The government intends to carry out a legislative cleansing of Romany Gypsies and Travellers, knowing that this offends our own Equality Act, and is likely to lead to a case before the European court of human rights. It’s almost as if it welcomes the confrontation.

These are experiments in absolutism. They don’t amount to fascism in their own right. But in conjunction with the elevation of preposterous and desperate men, the denigration of minorities and immigrants, political violence, mass surveillance and widespread mockery of liberalism and social justice, they suggest that some countries, separately and together, are beginning to head towards the darkest of all political places.

The normalisation of impunity is possibly the most important step towards authoritarian rule. Never let it be normal.

• George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

WOMEN ARE THE PROLETARIAT

Feminist economics: the obstacles US women face under capitalism

Guardian US’s new series reveals the dilemmas women face in a nation in which parity in pay, political representation and more remain out of reach
Supported byAbout this content


Noa Yachot and Nicole Clark

Wed 5 Feb 2020 06.00 GMTLast modified on Wed 5 Feb 2020 06.42 GM

Illustration: Sarah Mazzetti/The Guardian


Why does it cost more to be a woman than a man in so many spheres of American life? Why is America’s treatment of mothers so out of sync with other developed nations? Why do women have less free time than men? And why do women face so much pressure to spend money and time on grooming, from eyebrow waxing to makeup?

These are the some of the questions we’ll explore in Feminist economics, our new series revealing the myriad obstacles women face under American capitalism. Parity in pay, political representation, household obligations and more remain well out of reach, and the disparities are frequently exacerbated when gender bias intersects with racial discrimination.

Our launch stories today reveal how a lack of paid parental leave is forcing women to make almost impossible choices about whether to stay pregnant, and whether salary transparency is a solution to gender wage inequity. We’ll also report on the cost of breastfeeding, whether the gig economy is working for women, and the toll taken by endless pressures to beautify – as well as on the women who are asking whether life has to be this way.

By some accounts, the American economy is working better than ever for women. They now hold more payroll jobs – 50.04% – than men according to the last jobs report. They make up a majority of the college-educated workforce and earn more than 57% of bachelor’s degrees.

But should we be celebrating?

Lifetime healthcare costs are a third higher than for men, one in four women are forced to return to work two weeks after childbirth, a transgender woman might see her income drop by one-third after transitioning, and only one Fortune 500 company is headed by a woman of color.

If time is money, then here, too, women are behind. Many readers won’t be surprised to learn that American women spend an average of two hours more a day than men on household labor and care work.

On top of the time devoted to managing their households, adult women spend an average of nearly an hour a day on their appearance. They don’t do so frivolously: grooming habits have been found to disproportionately boost women’s salaries, and women who wear makeup are perceived to be more competent.


Women may be rising in workforce numbers, but the gender pay gap, perhaps the most widely recognizable measure of inequality, holds steady. Women make about 85 cents to the dollar made by white men. It’s worse for black women, who make about 61 cents for every dollar made by white men. Education isn’t always the answer: black women with advanced degrees earn less than white men with bachelor’s degrees.

Oxfam has estimated that unpaid labor performed globally by women and girls is worth more than $10.8tn annually – three times the size of the world’s tech industry. Yet unpaid labor – the backbone of a functioning society, which keeps us fed and sustains our children and elders – isn’t just unremunerated, but uncounted. Gross domestic product (GDP), the dominant indicator of economic health and guide for government policy, only measures paid labor, effectively making invisible the unpaid labor of women.

In recent decades, feminist economics has emerged as an academic discipline to address the roots of gender inequality and promote policies that take half the world’s population into account. Doing so effectively, however, requires challenging some popular assumptions about how the economy works.

Gender disparities are often explained as matters of personal choice, “like women choosing to go into professions that happen to be paid less”, says Dr Kate Bahn, a feminist economist and the director of labor market policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

In modern America, however, women have not necessarily chosen how value is apportioned in the economy. It’s past time, many argue, that they had an equal say.

‘I'm not a robot’: Amazon workers condemn unsafe, grueling conditions at warehouse

Amazon WORKERS NEED A UNION

Employees under pressure to work faster call on retail giant to improve conditions – and take their complaints seriously

Michael Sainato Wed 5 Feb 2020 

 A worker at a fulfillment center at the 855,000 sq ft 

Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island. 

Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images


Rina Cummings has worked three 12-hour shifts every week at Amazon’s gargantuan New York City warehouse, called JFK8, on Staten Island since it first began operations in late 2018. As a sorter on the outbound ship dock, her job is to inspect and scan a mandated rate of 1,800 Amazon packages an hour – 30 per minute – that are sent through a chute and transported on a conveyor belt before leaving the facility for delivery.

‘The only ones not paying for Boeing’s mistakes is Boeing':

laid-off supply workers voice their anger

Workers such as Cummings helped Amazon achieve its best ever Christmas this year. Faster shipping drove Amazon’s revenues to $87bn for fourth quarter of 2019, adding another $12.8bn to founder Jeff Bezos’s $128.9bn fortune. Amazon has just signed a deal to take another 450,000 sq ft of warehouse space on the island to speed delivery to its New York-area consumers.

But while New York customers, and Amazon’s shareholders, may be happy, some workers are not. In November, as the holiday rush got into full swing, Cummings was one of 600 workers at the Amazon warehouse who signed and delivered a petition to management calling on Amazon to improve working conditions.

The petition called on Amazon to consolidate workers’ two 15-minute breaks into a 30-minute one. Workers say it can take up to 15 minutes just to walk to and from the warehouse break room. Workers also called for Amazon to provide more reliable public transit services to the warehouse. They also called attention to reports of high injury rates at the facility there, which were found to be three times the national average for warehouses, based on the company’s injury reports to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Cummings first became involved with Amazon worker organizing efforts after witnessing several cases where, she claims, her colleagues were treated unfairly – and the safety concerns she works through during her own shifts at Amazon.
A worker sorts through items and places orders 

at the Amazon fulfillment center on Staten Island. 

Photograph: Kathy Willens/AP

“There are days I say I’m just at the mercy of God,” said Cummings. She said the only changes Amazon implemented after the high injury report was published was to install video monitors around the warehouse that tell workers safety is the company’s number one priority.

“There has been no real change. There are still injuries. They were saying the report is not accurate, but it’s just a way for them to avoid responsibility,” she said.

Cummings said injuries are common among her colleagues, and she often experiences close calls. A few weeks ago, a pin sticking out of the conveyor belt tore off one of her work gloves, almost taking her hand with it. She also said some packages that drop on to her conveyor belt from the chute are either too large to be on it or improperly packaged, so the package’s contents burst open on the belt, which she said recently injured one of her colleagues.

When packages, especially envelopes with liquid, burst on the conveyor belt, Cummings often has to stop the belt to clean up the mess, but is still expected to hit her hourly rate. She’s been written up once for missing her rate because several of these incidents happened in the same week.

“People get fired regularly,” she said. “It just takes two or three write-ups, depending on the severity. You can get fired for anything.”

Cummings has impaired vision and is required by law to receive disability accommodations for her job. But she said new managers consistently try to place her in other departments she is unable to do the work in.

“I had a manager ask me: are you sure you can’t see?” said Cummings. Her mobility counselor sent Amazon a detailed email with suggestions on safety improvements, such as painting safety lines in the warehouse brighter colors and installing yellow safety strips on all stairs. But Cummings said all the suggestions were ignored.

An Amazon spokesperson said the company has a comprehensive medical accommodations process.

Raymond Velez worked as a packer at the Amazon JFK8 warehouse from October 2018 to November 2019. He was required to pack at a rate of 700 items per hour. He said workers are regularly fired for missing rates.

“That’s all they care about. They don’t care about their employees,” Velez added. “They care more about the robots than they care about the employees. I’ve been to Amcare [the company’s on-site medical unit] a couple times for not feeling well, and you’d get an aspirin and sent back to work.”

Juan Espinoza, who worked as a picker at the Amazon Staten Island warehouse, quit because of the grueling working conditions.

‘They don’t care about their employees. 

They care more about the robots than they

 care about the employees.’ 

Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images

“I was a picker and we were expected to always pick 400 units within the hour in seven seconds of each item we picked,” said Espinoza. “I couldn’t handle it. I’m a human being, not a robot.”

Ilya Geller, who worked as a stower, told of the pressure workers face from being surveilled by computers to ensure productivity rates are met.

“You’re being tracked by a computer the entire time you’re there. You don’t get reported or written up by managers. You get written up by an algorithm,” said Geller. “You’re keenly aware there is an algorithm keeping track of you, making sure you keep going as fast as you can, because if there is too much time lapsed between items, the computer will know this, will write you up, and you will get fired.”


An Amazon spokesperson told the Guardian in an email: “Like most companies, we have performance expectations for every Amazonian and we measure actual performance against those expectations.”

The spokesperson said coaching is provided to under-performing workers.

Jimpat Lacewell started working at Amazon in Staten Island in November as a sorter, but quit after three days because it reminded him of prison – not least because of the 20-minute wait to get through security in and out of the facility.

“I would rather go back to a state correctional facility and work for 18 cents an hour than do that job,” Lacewell said. “I’m sure Mr Bezos couldn’t do a full shift at that place as an undercover boss.”

Other Amazon workers at the New York City warehouse were reluctant to speak on the record for fear of retaliation, but also reported unaddressed safety concerns and frequent worker injuries.

“I’ve been out of work twice in the past year due to knee pain,” said an Amazon order picker. They explained their second injury was a result of their manager ignoring medical restrictions from surgery on his right foot.

Another order picker said they are constantly dealing with chronic lower back pain and knee pain due to the job.

“I take Tylenol or Aleve two to three times a week,” the worker said. “Almost every night when I wake up, I have really bad, sharp, needle-like lower back pain. I’ve had to use my paid time off a lot just to recover or work half days.”

An Amazon associate who transferred to the New York City warehouse to help train the new workers said they transferred to a different warehouse because their safety concerns and suggestions were repeatedly ignored by upper level managers.

“It has terrible safety for powered industrial truck (PIT) operators and pedestrian traffic, which is why I left,” said the worker.

“I reported several violations to safety there – only to get brushed off and pushed aside.”

They characterized the PIT lane as a highway for equipment such as forklifts and electric pallet jacks.


'They know us better than we know ourselves': how Amazon tracked my last two years of reading

An Amazon spokesperson said the company recently installed guard rails across the dock at JFK8 to eliminate all pedestrian interaction with the PIT lane.

The spokesperson added: “It’s inaccurate to say that our FCs are unsafe and any effort to paint our workplaces as such based on the number of injury recordings is misleading given the size of our workforce. While many companies under-record safety incidents in order to keep their rates low, Amazon does the opposite – we take an aggressive stance on recording injuries no matter how big or small.

“We believe so strongly in the environment provided for fulfillment center employees, including our safety culture, that we offer public tours where anyone can come see for themselves one of our sites and its working conditions first-hand.”

Taunts, groans and walkouts: Trump stokes division with cascade of lies

State of the Union address

The president’s State of the Union address was the speech of a man who thinks he can get away with anything

David Smith in Washington@smithinamerica Wed 5 Feb 2020  
 

DEMOCRAT Female members of Congress wearing white, 

hold up three fingers for the HR3 health care bill as

 Donald Trump talks about healthcare during his

 State of the Union address.

 Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Nancy Pelosi’s hands told the story of a nauseating night in Washington.

As Donald Trump took his place at the front of the House chamber for his third and possibly final State of the Union address, the House speaker and most senior Democrat in Congress reached out for a handshake, only to be rebuffed.


State of the Union: Pelosi expresses her disdain as Trump pitches for re-election

Seventy-eight minutes later, Pelosi, as she often tends to, got her revenge by ripping up her copy of the president’s speech while still in her position on the dais.

You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Pelosi was the mastermind of Trump’s impeachment in this very chamber just weeks ago, staining his record in future school textbooks for all time.

But somehow, with seven of the Democrats who had pressed the impeachment case against him as impeachment managers glaring up at him from a prominent position, the president, like Bill Clinton before him, managed to resist using the “i” word throughout his speech. That, at least, was a departure from his gloves-off campaign rallies.

Yet Trump being forced to suppress his id was somehow even worse. The tension, grievance and resentment seething below the surface was almost palpable. The president’s tissue of lies and partisan swipes left Democrats heckling, throwing up their hands or walking out of the chamber in despair.

The Democratic side contained a sea of women wearing white suit jackets in honour of the suffragist movement. The Republican side was a sea of dark suits and white faces. It has been like this since Trump first addressed a joint session of Congress in 2017. But each year feels progressively worse and more hopelessly polarised than the one before.

Tuesday felt worse than ever. Poison was in the air.

After all, Democrats had just deployed the ultimate constitutional weapon, impeachment. But in less than 24 hours, Trump is set to be acquitted by the Senate after a “trial” with no witnesses. Both sides have come to believe that defeat in the 2020 election will be an existential catastrophe. The president, meanwhile, has come to believe he is indestructible.

Critics said moving the US embassy to Jerusalem would end in disaster but he believes he got away with it. They said killing Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, would end in disaster but he believes he got away with it – and he turned it into a State of the Union applause line.

Above all, he pressured Ukraine to investigate a political rival if it wanted US military aid and, in less than 24 hours, is about to get away with that too when the Senate acquits him. A former White House official told the Axios website recently: “I swear to God, this guy is the luckiest SOB that’s ever lived.”

Now, more than ever, Trump can throw caution to the winds and act with impunity, fearless of retribution.

This is always the busiest night of the year for the nation’s factcheckers, but Trump delivered a State of the Union address overflowing with untruths, for example promising to protect patients with pre-existing conditions at the very moment his administration is in court trying to take those protections away,

He also pulled off a stunt that even the Trump of three years ago might have hesitated over. Right there, in front of the hallowed chamber packed with senators, representatives, supreme court justices and guests including Nigel Farage, he announced the presidential medal of freedom – America’s highest civilian honour – for talkshow host Rush Limbaugh.


Pelosi rips up Trump's speech in response to divisive State of the Union address

Limbaugh, who revealed this week that he is suffering from advanced lung cancer, is notorious for countless sexist, racist and homophobic comments. His song “Barack the Magic Negro” claimed that President Obama “makes guilty whites feel good” and that Obama is “black, but not authentically”. Limbaugh once described a woman who wanted her university to alter its health insurance to cover contraception as a “slut” and “prostitute”.

Yet Trump, a regular on Limbaugh’s show, declared: “Rush, in recognition of all that you have done for our nation, the millions of people a day that you speak to and that you inspire, and all of the incredible work that you have done for charity, I am proud to announce tonight that you will be receiving our country’s highest civilian honor.”

When the president asked his wife, Melania, to hang the medal around Limbaugh’s neck there and then, Democrats audibly gasped and groaned in disbelief. Katie Hill, a former congresswoman who had returned to the chamber, tweeted: “Oh FFS Rush Limbaugh getting the Medal of Honor is a low I sure wasn’t expecting.”
Fred Guttenberg, father of Parkland school shooting victim 

Jaime Guttenberg, is ejected after shouting during 

Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. 

Photograph: Tom Brenner/Reuters

Not for the first time, they remained riveted to their seats, stony-faced, as Republicans rose, cheered laddishly and applauded long and hard. “Thank you, Rush!” shouted one man. Here it was, impeachment revenge: not so much about honouring Limbaugh as goading liberals. Trump is the master of finding a wedge issue and hammering it like a tent peg.

Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, recently published a book titled Triggered. It’s all about “owning the libs”. No tweet caught it better than Republican strategist Andrew Surabian: “Forcing a room full of Democrats to have to watch Rush Limbaugh receive the medal of honor is the greatest own the libs moment in American history and I loved every second of it.”

But perhaps the hero of the night was Fred Guttenberg, who lost his 14-year-old daughter in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting. Forced to listen as Trump promised to defend gun rights and offered nothing to curtail future massacres, Guttenberg yelled out from the public gallery and was forcibly removed by a plainclothes police officer.

As the presidential cascade of lies continued, it was a sobering reminder of all that is at stake in November’s election.

Play Video
Donald Trump's State of the Union address 2020 – video highlights

GREAT TV UPDATED
Nancy Pelosi explains why she ripped up Trump’s 

speech after State of the Union address

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) seemed unimpressed by President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday.

After the speech was over, Pelosi tore up what appeared to be a copy of the speech with the president standing right in front of her.

The two leaders also declined to shake hands as Pelosi announced the president to the congress.
Trump appears to snub Pelosi at State of the Union

Pelosi also omitted the words “high privilege and distinct honor,” which are often used when referring to the president.

State of the Union: Pelosi rips up Trump's speech behind him
AND OF COURSE WE GOT A SNOWFLAKE RESPONSE

FROM THE GOP

‘It made me angry’: Ted Cruz blows up at ‘disgusting’ Nancy Pelosi 

for ripping up Trump’s speech

In her full statement about the State of the Union, Nancy Pelosi said Trump “gave no comfort” to families looking for better healthcare options and was “not truthful” about his healthcare policies.

Alayna Treene(@alaynatreene)

.@SpeakerPelosi statement on Trump's SOTU address pic.twitter.com/5buQYyeYhqFebruary 5, 2020

“Next week, when the President presents his budget, the American people will see the stark reality of his agenda,” Pelosi said. “A federal budget should be a statement of our national values, and the President has sadly shown that he does not value the good health of the American people.

Hundreds of Salvadorans deported by US were killed or abused, report reveals

Human Rights Watch says 138 Salvadorans were murdered from 2013 to 2019 and 70 others were abused or sexually assaulted

ROGUE STATE CRIMINAL NATION AMERIKA

Fleeing a hell the US helped create

Nina Lakhani Wed 5 Feb 2020 
 

A Salvadoran family migrants start their journey towards the 

United States in San Salvador on 20 January 2020.

 Photograph: Marvin Recinos/AFP via Getty Images

At least 200 Salvadoran migrants and asylum seekers have been killed, raped or tortured after being deported back to El Salvador by the United States government which is turning a blind eye to widely known dangers, a new investigation reveals.

How the US helped create El Salvador’s bloody gang war

Human Rights Watch has documented 138 deported Salvadorans murdered by gang members, police, soldiers, death squads and ex-partners between 2013 and 2019. The majority were killed within two years of deportation by the same perpetrators they had tried to escape by seeking safety in the US.

The report, Deported to Danger: United States deportation policies expose Salvadorans to death and abuse, also identifies more than 70 others who were subjected to beatings, sexual assault and extortion – usually at the hand of gangs – or who went missing after being returned.

El Salvador, the most densely populated country in Central America with just over 6 million citizens, has one of the world’s highest rates of homicide and sexual violence. In addition, almost 11,000 people were registered missing during the last decade - more than the number of people who disappeared during the 1979-1992 civil war.

Authorities are largely ineffective in protecting the population from this violence, which is often perpetrated by street gangs which have 60,000 or so members across the country.

Extrajudicial executions, sexual assaults, enforced disappearances and torture have also been perpetrated by state security forces with almost total impunity.

Amid widespread terror and impunity, the number of Salvadorans fleeing has soared, with asylum applicants in the US increasing by almost 1,000% in five years to 60,000 in 2017, according to UN figures.

The dire security situation is well documented, but despite this, the US continues to deport Salvadorans to face abuse and even death, according to HRW.

For instance, 17-year-old Javier escaped gang recruitment in 2010 and sought asylum in the US where his mother Jennifer had already fled. His asylum application was rejected, and Javier was deported in early 2017, aged 23. Four months later he was killed by members of the Mara Salvatrucha-13 gang.

Inmates, members of the MS-13 gang, wait in their cell

 to be transferred from the Chalatenango penitentiary, 

in Chalatenango, El Salvador, on 27 December 2019.

 Photograph: José Cabezas/Reuters

“The United States has to have known this was happening because the cases were publicly reported and more importantly because Salvadorans make it clear in asylum applications that this is their reality. But this reality is ignored or not believed by US authorities,” said Elizabeth Kennedy, co-author of the report.

International law prohibits the US from returning anyone to a country where they face serious risks to their lives or safety.

About three-quarters of the 1.2 million Salvadorans living in the US without citizenship lack papers or hold a temporary legal status making them vulnerable to deportation. Between 2014 and 2018, the US deported 111,000 Salvadorans, and granted asylum to just 18.2% of applicants – the lowest rate in the region.

Deportations – and violence against deportees – is not a new phenomenon. But the approval of asylum claims plummeted since the Trump administration rolled out a series of hostile policies including Remain in Mexico – officially known as Migration Protection Protocols – and imposed tight restrictions on gender-based and gang-related grounds for asylum.

“The attack on asylum is unique in the Trump administration, which has put even more Salvadorans – and others – at risk of deportation, and made it much less likely that they are able to even present their case to get effective protection,” said Kennedy.

HRW researchers tracked and verified hundreds of press reports, and conducted 150 interviews with deportees, surviving family members, government and security officials, and US immigration attorneys.

The actual number of killings and attacks is probably significantly higher than reported as most crimes in El Salvador go unreported, state violence are covered up, and it’s too dangerous for journalists to enter some neighbourhoods.

Alison Parker, managing director of HRW’s US programme and co-author of the report, said: “Salvadorans are facing murder, rape and other violence after deportation in shockingly high numbers, while the US government narrows Salvadorans’ access to asylum and turns a blind eye to the deadly results of its callous policies.”

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Fact-checking the economic claims in Trump's State of the Union speech

Donald Trump used his State of the Union address to hail the performance of the US economy under his stewardship, but was everything he said true? Also today, we hear from French companies worried about disruption to supplies from the factories shuttered by the Chinese coronavirus quarantine.

Hong Kong records first coronavirus death amid medical workers' strike

Issued on: 04/02/2020 

A local medical worker holds a placard reading "strike" in Chinese near Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong Feb. 3, 2020 as they demand the city close its border with China. 

© Anthony WALLACE / AFP Text by:FRANCE 24Follow

Hong Kong reported its first death from the China coronavirus Tuesday as hospitals cut services due a strike by medical workers demanding the border with mainland China be completely shut. The toll in the mainland meanwhile continued to mount with 425 deaths and more than 20,000 confirmed infections announced Tuesday.

All but two of Hong Kong's land and sea crossings with the mainland were closed at midnight after more than 2,000 hospital workers went on strike this week with as many as 9,000 medical workers expected to join a bigger walkout Tuesday to demand closure of the border with China.

Hong Kong's Hospital Authority said it was cutting back services because “a large number of staff members are absent from duty” and “emergency services in public hospitals have been affected.”

The mainland's latest figures of 425 deaths and 20,438 confirmed infections of the new coronavirus were up from 361 deaths and 17,205 cases the previous day. Outside mainland China, at least 180 cases have been confirmed, including two fatalities, in Hong Kong and the Philippines.

The patient who died in Hong Kong was a 39-year-old man who had traveled to Wuhan, the mainland city that has been the epicentre of the outbreak, before being hospitalised. The Hospital Authority said Tuesday he had existing health conditions but did not give details.

Most cases of the illness have been mild, but most who died have been older people with other ailments such as diabetes or heart disease.

China has struggled to maintain supplies of masks to filter out the virus, along with protective suits and other key articles, as it seeks to enforce temperature checks at homes, offices, shops and restaurants, require masks be worn in public and keep more than 50 million people from leaving home in Wuhan and neighbouring cities.

WHO chief says complete China bans not needed

China is facing increasing international isolation due to restrictions on flights to and from the country, and bans on travellers from China.

Despite calls from Hong Kong residents for a complete shutdown, World Health Organisation chief
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday there was no need for measures that "unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade" in trying to halt the spread of the virus.

"We call on all countries to implement decisions that are evidence-based and consistent," Tedros told the WHO executive board, reiterating his message from last week when he declared an international emergency.

EU sends equipment to China

China meanwhile has struggled to maintain supplies of masks to filter out the virus, along with protective suits and other key articles, as it seeks to enforce temperature checks at homes, offices, shops and restaurants, require masks be worn in public and keep more than 50 million people from leaving home in the epicentre, Wuhan, and neighbouring cities.

To help meet demand, the European Union office in Beijing said member states have shipped 12 tons of protective equipment to China, with more on the way.

On Monday, China's President Xi Jinping presided over a special meeting of the top Communist Party body for the second time since the crisis started, saying “we have launched a people's war of prevention of the epidemic.” Xi threatened punishments for those who neglect their duties will be punished, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Other countries are continuing evacuations and restricting the entry of Chinese or people who have recently traveled in the country. A plane carrying Malaysians from Wuhan arrived in Kuala Lumpur and the 133 people on board were to be screened and quarantined for 14 days, the maximum incubation period for the virus.

Taiwan on Monday flew home 247 of its citizens from Wuhan and had sent three passengers for treatment after they were found to have fever or sore throats. The other passengers are being quarantined at medical facilities for the next two weeks.

Germany's Lufthansa became the latest international airline to suspend flights to China, and several countries are barring Chinese travelers or people who passed through China recently.

Patients transferred to new Wuhan hospital

In Wuhan, patients were being transferred to a new 1,000-bed hospital that officials hope will improve isolation to stem the virus's spread. It was built in just 10 days, its prefabricated wards equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment and ventilation systems. A 1,500-bed hospital also specially built for patients infected with the new virus is due to open within days.

With no end to the outbreak in sight, authorities in Hubei and elsewhere extended the Lunar New Year holiday break, due to end this week, well into February to try to keep people at home and reduce the spread of the virus. All Hubei schools are postponing the start of the new semester until further notice, as are many in Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere.

Chinese scientists said they have more evidence the virus originated in bats. In a study published in the journal Nature, Shi Zhen-Li and colleagues at the Wuhan Institute of Virology reported that genome sequences from seven patients were 96 percent identical to a bat coronavirus.

On Tuesday, the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said a 42-year-old South Korean woman tested positive for the virus, days after she returned from a trip to Thailand with chills and other symptoms.

It is South Korea's 16th case. Thailand has confirmed 19 cases, mostly Chinese tourists but also in a Thai taxi driver.

A passenger on a Japanese-operated cruise ship tested positive after leaving the vessel while it was in Hong Kong, and Japanese officials were conducting medical checks on the more than 3,000 people on board Tuesday.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and REUTERS)

Exclusive: Iraqi Kurdistan PM Barzani warns 'great possibility' of IS group returning

THE INTERVIEW © FRANCE 24
By:Marc PerelmanFollow

In an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24, Masrour Barzani, Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, warned "there is a great possibility for ISIS (the IS group) to come back" and urged the international community to take action

Barzani claimed the IS group had more members now than it did in 2013 when it was about to create its "caliphate".

He also said the terrorist group was taking advantage of the security "vacuum" in areas disputed between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurds and called for the resumption of full security cooperation between the two respective parties.

Speaking to FRANCE 24's Marc Perelman, the Iraqi Kurdistan PM Masrour Barzani expressed his support for US troops remaining in Iraq and said he would be open to allowing the US to deploy Patriot anti-missile systems. He said he was very worried about the escalating tensions between the US and Iran but refused to comment on the US killing of Qassem Soleimani, noting, however, that while "Iran is our neighbour, the United States is our friend".

He criticised Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, for recently declaring that his father Massoud Barzani begged Soleimani to come to the rescue when the IS group was marching towards Kurdistan in 2014.

Barzani also lamented Turkey's "invasion" of northern Syria, saying it was not helpful and it risked changing the demographics on the ground.

He voiced cautious hope that the new Iraqi prime minister, Mohammad Allawi, would be more successful than his predecessor, noting that it was urgent to respond to the demands of the protesters.

Barzani further said it was up to the Iraqi people to decide whether early elections should be held.