'Why now?' Dismay as US considers troop pullout from Somalia

CARA ANNA
Thu, November 26, 2020

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — No country has been involved in Somalia’s future as much as the United States. Now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the Horn of Africa nation at what some experts call the worst possible time.

Three decades of chaos, from warlords to al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabab to the emergence of an Islamic State-linked group, have ripped apart the country that only in the past few years has begun to find its footing. The U.S. Embassy returned to Somalia just last year, 28 years after diplomats and staffers fled.

Somalia faces a tense election season that begins in the next few weeks to decide the presidency and parliament. United Nations experts say al-Shabab, supporting its 5,000 to 10,000 fighters on a rich diet of extorting businesses and civilians, is improving its bomb-making skills. And an ever bigger military force, the African Union’s 19,000-strong AMISOM, has begun its own withdrawal from a country whose forces are widely considered unready to assume full responsibility for security.

It is not clear whether President Donald Trump will order the withdrawal of the some 700 U.S. military forces from Somalia, following his orders for Afghanistan and Iraq, or whether the reported urge will pass before he leaves office in January. But the idea is taken seriously, even as U.S. drone strikes are expected to continue in Somalia against al-Shabab and IS fighters from neighboring Djibouti and Kenya — where al-Shabab carried out a deadly attack against U.S. forces early this year.

The U.S. Africa Command has seen a “definitive shift” this year in al-Shabab's focus to attack U.S. interests in the region, a new report by the Department of Defense inspector general said Wednesday — and the command says al-Shabab is Africa's most “dangerous” and “imminent” threat.

Here’s what’s at stake:

COUNTERTERRORISM

“The first thing ... it’s disastrous for Somalia’s security sector, it just causes that first panic reaction: You know, why now?” said Samira Gaid, a Somali national security specialist who served as senior security adviser to the prime minister and special adviser to the head of AMISOM. “Especially since over the past three and half years in particular the security sector really improved, and we tried to work closely with" the U.S., she told The Associated Press.

Recent progress includes a “war council” between the U.S. and Somali governments, she said, where the U.S. helps to draw up military plans. “We call them Somali-led operations, but really the U.S. is hand-holding us through it."

The U.S. military also trains Somalia’s elite Danab special forces that now number around 1,000, and is providing Danab with air cover and intelligence, Gaid said.

“Danab was expanding, that’s why this is so shocking,” she said. “Is it possible to move forward with that plan now?”

Danab units are now operational in four of Somalia's five member states, the U.S. military says, and they conducted about 80% of the Somali national army's offensive forces in the quarter ending Sept. 30 and “nearly all” operations against al-Shabab.

The Danab forces also serve as a model for how the rest of Somali military forces can develop to be “more meritocracy and less clan-focused,” said Omar Mahmood, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

The loss of U.S. forces is widely seen as a gain for al-Shabab, and for the far smaller presence of hundreds of IS-affiliated fighters in Somalia's north. “From the al-Shabab perspective, they just need to hold out,” Mahmood said, and they might even ask themselves what need there is for any potential Taliban-style negotiations.

Al-Shabab’s messaging has always stressed the extremist group's staying power, national security specialist Gaid said: “These external forces will always leave.” A U.S. withdrawal will play into that narrative.

Gaid said she doesn't see any other country stepping into the U.S. military’s role, though a withdrawal would open space for powers like Russia and China. Somalia also has some 1,500 special forces that have been trained by Turkish troops, she said, but “they don’t benefit from Turkish advisers on the ground.”

SECURITY

Without U.S. forces, al-Shabab “will find it easier to overrun AMISOM, let alone the Somali national army,” Vanda Felbab-Brown, co-director of the African Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution, told an online event this week. And with neighboring Ethiopia’s conflict increasing pressure to withdraw more Ethiopian forces from Somalia, a U.S. troop withdrawal “is really just the worst time.”

The support that U.S. forces give AMISOM is “huge,” Gaid said, including as a key interlocutor with Somali forces. And with AMISOM also drawing down by the end of next year, “it’s a tricky time.”

The U.S. has said implementation of the plan for Somali forces to take over the country's security next year is “badly off track,” said the new report by the Department of Defense inspector general.

Somali forces cannot contain the al-Shabab threat on its own, the report said. They still rely on the international community for financial support, and yet they “sometimes go unpaid for months.”

Maybe a U.S. withdrawal would lead the AMISOM force to adjust its own withdrawal timeline “more realistically,” Mahmood said.

The U.S. has been the most engaged security partner in Somalia “willing to get down and dirty,” he added. But no other country appears to have the willingness to replace what U.S. forces are doing on the ground

And a withdrawal of both the U.S. and AMISOM would risk leaving the impression that “Somalia increasingly can rely less and less on external security partners," Mahmood said.

POLITICAL STABILITY

Somalia is on the brink of elections, with the parliamentary vote scheduled in December and the presidential one in February. What had meant to be the country’s first one-person-one-vote election in decades instead remains limited by disputes between the federal government and regional ones — which the U.S. has said also weakens command and control of Somali forces.

At least keep U.S. forces in Somalia until after the elections, Felbab-Brown wrote this week, warning of possible post-election violence or al-Shabab taking advantage of any chaos.

Even though U.S. forces don’t provide election security, “our problem is, with the U.S. focused on a drawdown of troops, it would not be focused on how the elections are going politically,” Gaid said.

The U.S. has been one of the most vocal actors on Somalia's election process, she said. “We were all expecting after November that the U.S. would be clear on a lot of stuff. Now it seems we have to wait.”

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Somalia US Troop Withdrawal
U.S. Army Spc. Dominic Deitrick, assigned to the 1-186th Infantry Battalion, Task Force Guardian, Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, seen through a night-vision device, provides security for a 75th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron (EAS) C-130J Super Hercules during unloading and loading operations Friday, June 12, 2020 at an unidentified location in Somalia. No country has been involved in Somalia's future as much as the United States but now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the nation at what some experts call the worst possible time. (Tech. Sgt. Christopher Ruano/Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa via AP)

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Somalia US Troop Withdrawal
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Damian T. Donahoe, deputy commanding general, Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, center, talks with service members during a battlefield circulation Saturday, Sept. 5, 2020, in Somalia. No country has been involved in Somalia's future as much as the United States but now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the nation at what some experts call the worst possible time. (Senior Airman Kristin Savage/Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa via AP)

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Somalia US Troop Withdrawal
A U.S. Army soldier assigned to Site Security Team Task Force Guardian, 1st Battalion, 186th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, provides security for a C-130J Super Hercules from the 75th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron (EAS) at an unidentified location in Somalia Wednesday, June 10, 2020. No country has been involved in Somalia's future as much as the United States but now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the nation at what some experts call the worst possible time. (Staff Sgt. Shawn White/Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa via AP)



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Somalia US Troop Withdrawal
U.S. Army soldiers assigned to the 1-186th Infantry Battalion, Task Force Guardian, Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, provide security for a 75th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron (EAS) C-130J Super Hercules during loading and unloading operations at an unidentified location in Somalia Friday, July 10, 2020. No country has been involved in Somalia's future as much as the United States but now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the nation at what some experts call the worst possible time. (Tech. Sgt. Christopher Ruano/Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa via AP)

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Somalia US Troop Withdrawal
U.S. Army Spc. Kevin Martin, junior sniper, assigned to the 1-186th Infantry Battalion, Task Force Guardian, Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, provides security for a 75th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron (EAS) C-130J Super Hercules during unloading operations at an unidentified location in Somalia Sunday, June 28, 2020. No country has been involved in Somalia's future as much as the United States but now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the nation at what some experts call the worst possible time. (Tech. Sgt. Christopher Ruano/Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa via AP)

Trump set to execute more inmates than any other president - with more due before Biden takes office

Donald Trump is set to become the only president in history to carry out federal executions during the ‘lame duck’ period

Harriet Alexander Wednesday 11 November 2020 

Donald Trump has enthusiastically embraced the death penalty
(Getty Images)

Three death row prisoners are to be executed by the federal government in the window of time before Joe Biden takes office, as Donald Trump continues his unprecedented and enthusiastic embrace of capital punishment.

Mr Trump ordered in July 2019 ordered a resumption of federal executions and this year, on 14 July, the first prisoner was put to death, ending a 17 year hiatus.

His administration has executed seven people so far this year, and expects to execute three more before Christmas - meaning that he will have put more people to death in a single year than any other president.

Furthermore, no president before him has ever executed death row inmates in the “lame duck” period.

Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) said Mr Trump was "out of step with federal practices for more than a century."

"No-one has ever attempted to carry out so many executions at the federal level," he told Newsweek.

"No-one in modern American history has attempted to carry out so many executions in such a short period of time, and no-one has done so in a manner that so closely disregards the rule of law.

The federal death penalty applies in all 50 states and US territories but is used relatively rarely.

In 1972 the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional, in Furman v. Georgia in 1972. They put it back on the books four years later, and most states resumed executions.

It was not reinstated at a federal level until 1988, however, and was then expanded in 1994 to make 60 offences eligible for federal execution - among them treason, espionage, murder involving torture or government officials, and first degree murder.

Now, 28 US states have the death penalty on the books.

In recent years, New Mexico (2009), Illinois (2011), Connecticut (2012), Maryland (2013), New Hampshire (2019) and Colorado (2020) have legislatively abolished the death penalty, replacing it with a sentence of life imprisonment with no possibility for parole.


More than half of US states do not have the death penalty
(Death Penalty Information Center)

George W. Bush was the only other president, since 1988, to order federal executions.

Mr Trump has outpaced Mr Bush, and sparked anger by pressing ahead with highly contentious cases.

On 26 August the only Native American on death row was executed by the federal government, despite objections from many Navajo leaders who had urged Mr Trump to halt the execution on the grounds it would violate tribal culture and sovereignty.

On 8 December the government plans to execute Lisa Montgomery, who will be the first woman federally executed since 1953.

She is a victim of sex trafficking who suffers from psychosis and complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, according to anti-death penalty advocates.

On 10 December they plan to put to death Brandon Bernard for the murder of a Texas couple in 1999, when he was 18.

The last time the US government executed a person as young as eighteen at the time of the crime was in 1952.

The third person to be executed during the “lame duck” period is likely to be Orlando Hall, a Black man sentenced to death by an all-white jury in 1994 for kidnapping, raping, and burying a 16-year-old girl alive in retaliation for a bad drug deal.

He never denied killing her, but his lawyers insist racial bias and remorse were not taken into account.

Mr Dunham said the ratcheting up of federal executions were also out of step with the views of Americans.

He told Newsweek support for the death penalty has been waning, and cited a recent Gallup poll that found 56 per cent of Americans are in favour of the death penalty, down from 80 per cent in 1994.

The 2019 Gallup survey also showed that 60 per cent of Americans think life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is a more appropriate punishment for murder than the death penalty.

Mr Biden has promised to eliminate the death penalty at a federal level, and try to convince states to take it off their books too.

“Over 160 individuals who’ve been sentenced to death in this country since 1973 have later been exonerated,” his manifesto states.

"Because we cannot ensure we get death penalty cases right every time, Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example.

“These individuals should instead serve life sentences without probation or parole.”

Trump pushing through dozens of last minute policy changes – including use of firing squads

Alex Woodward THE INDEPENDENT
Wed., November 25, 2020

Donald Trump has sought fast-track authorisation for several administration-wide policy changes before he leaves the White House in January, including the use of firing squads and electrocutions in federal executions, according to a report from ProPublica.

The Department of Justice entered a proposed rule change into the federal register in August. It cleared a White House review earlier this month, and the president could authorise the policy before he leaves office.

Federal executions are typically carried about by lethal injection, unless a judge orders a person to death by other means.

According to the proposed rule change, the administration claims that “death by firing squad and death by electrocution do not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment”.

The proposal argues: “In recent US Supreme Court litigation involving Eighth Amendment challenges to execution by lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia and firing squad have been identified as potential alternative methods of execution, including by prisoners themselves, that might – or even must– be used instead of lethal injection, in particular because those methods allegedly carry a lesser risk of pain."

It’s unlikely that the rule could be put into practise – president-elect Joe Biden does not support the death penalty and has signalled that he could seek to eliminate capital punishment for felony convictions and suspend federal executions, which Attorney General William Barr aggressively pursued after he was sworn in last year.

Federal executions resumed for the first time in 17 years in July, following a divided Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for their return. Daniel Lee was killed in Indiana following a conviction for the murder of a family of three in Arkansas in 1996. The Associated Press reporter present for his killing said his last words were "you’re killing an innocent man."

Orlando Cordia Hall was executed on 19 November. In the remaining weeks of the Trump administration, the federal government will kill five more people – Brandon Bernard, Alfred Bourgeois, Dustin Higgins, Corey Johnson and Lisa Montgomery, who will be the first female federal inmate to be executed in decades.

ProPublica reports that the president has sought to finalise 36 major rule chances in the coming weeks, similar to the 35 to 40 changes from under the four previous administrations – so-called “midnight regulations” in the lame-duck period after Election Day and before the incoming president’s inauguration.

In 2017, Republican lawmakers eliminated several rule changes under Barack Obama using the Congressional Review Act, which Democrats may not be able to invoke if the GOP maintains control of the Senate.

This is pending the outcome of two crucial runoff elections in Georgia that could determine whether Democrats win a majority in both chambers, with a Democrat in the executive office.

Mr Trump’s rush to finalise those rule changes would otherwise enshrine conservative policy proposals to ensure almost-certain roadblocks for a Biden administration.

Republicans are right: democracy is rigged. But they are the beneficiaries

Stephen Holmes
Thu, November 26, 2020

The Republican establishment, despite being unfairly advantaged by the skewed composition of the electoral college, by over-representation in the House due to partisan gerrymandering and in the Senate due to equal State suffrage, has been in no hurry to reject Donald Trump’s ludicrous allegation that the American electoral system is rigged to favor Democrats. Sweating the make-or-break Georgia runoffs, the party’s leaders are apparently frightened to cross the mad king, who owns their voters, lest he cause their ratings to plummet as he is doing with Fox News. But Republican complicity with this unprecedented attack on American democracy is not a matter of short-term expediency or fear of reprisals. It is much worse than that. Mitch McConnell and the others are not merely humoring the president until his mania subsides. Trump’s voters are the Republicans’ voters and the Republican party cannot easily cut them, and their deranged conspiracy theories, loose even after 20 January.

This has important implications for how Biden should respond to the incalculable damage Trump has inflicted on the country, including how his Department of Justice approaches the restoration of the rule of law.

The Republican party is deeply committed to the outrageously tilted playing field that allows a minority of voters to choose a majority of senators and, indirectly, a majority of supreme court justices, not to mention the occasional president as in 2000 and 2016. They are an unabashedly anti-democratic party in that sense alone, even if we set aside their brazen efforts at voter suppression and voter intimidation. This is perhaps the main reason why its leaders have proved so reluctant to dissociate themselves from Trump’s specious allegation that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged”. They know that the system is rigged. It is rigged to favor Republicans. And they relish not only the irony of Trump’s audacious reversal of the truth, but also the way it distracts attention from the genuinely unconscionable rigging that gives an American minority the power to impose its will on the American majority.

Republican officials are slowly distancing themselves from the embarrassingly delusional president’s refusal to accept the reality of his defeat. But the fact that it is taking them so long reflects a deep truth about the country’s politics, namely that Americans are still fighting the civil war. When Trump and his madcap surrogates cry “voter fraud”, they do not mean fraud in the technical sense of ballot stuffing or the miscounting of legal votes. What they mean is that Democrats have debased the composition of the electorate by making it easier for African Americans in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Milwaukee, the most reliably Democratic voters in the country, to register and vote. Trump would have been elected in a landslide, they imply, if only “real Americans”, meaning exactly who you think, had been allowed to vote.

Nixon’s famous “southern strategy”, crafted with the support of Strom Thurmond, the infamous South Carolina segregationist, suffices to remind us that Republican pandering to white fears of demographic inundation did not begin, and will not end, with Donald Trump. Key to the historical origins of Republican acquiescence in Trump’s efforts to wreck American democracy is his last-ditch and doomed gambit to convince Republican controlled state legislatures in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to replace the pro-Biden delegates to their state’s electoral college with a pro-Trump slate of electors.

Trump’s advisers evidently believe that this anti-democratic maneuver is perfectly constitutional since article II, section 1, clause 2 of the US constitution declares that “each state shall appoint” presidential electors “in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct”. That clause seems straightforward enough until we recall, as Republicans are apparently loath to do, that the framers’ constitution was radically revised by the civil war amendments. In particular, section 2 of the 14th amendment of 1868 was designed to penalize any state that attempted to deny any American citizen “the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for president and vice-president of the United States”. Allowing Republican-controlled state legislatures to appoint the electors would run grievously afoul of this all-important clause. It was bitterly contested in the states of the former Confederacy for the same reason that Trump’s diehard supporters are refusing to accept his defeat. Section 2 of the 14th amendment was seen at the time, and is apparently still seen today, as a betrayal of the racial solidarity of the white majority because crafted to reshape the American electorate by enfranchising African Americans. Shamelessly echoing the South’s post-civil war howls of betrayal, Trump shows why he should forever be remembered as the second president of the Confederacy.

While none of this implies that Joe Biden’s well-meaning appetite for some measure of bipartisanship is completely hopeless, it does suggest that he may be thinking about it in the wrong way. The Republican establishment, as mentioned, is panicked by the prospect of alienating Trump’s voters. But they also have strong reasons, after 20 January, to consign Trump himself to political oblivion. This is the wedge that the president-elect should exploit. After all, the presidential hopes of Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and even Mike Pompeo depend on the current darling of their electorate being swept from the scene. And if his strident voice can be silenced, the party can hope to retreat into its pre-Trump habits of making only the kind of discreet appeals to white resentment acceptable in polite company.

Although Biden says that he wants to restore the rule of law that has been desecrated by the outgoing attorney general, William Barr, he may imagine that the best way to convince at least some Republicans to cooperate with his administration is to close the books on the past by directing his new justice department to let bygones be bygones. But attempting to “heal the soul of the nation” by discouraging a thorough inquiry into Trump’s potential violations of federal law recalls Robert Frost’s definition of a liberal as “a man who can’t take his own side in an argument”.

If retreat from confrontation is what Biden has in mind, he may be underestimating the tacit desire of the Republican leadership to rid themselves of the rabble-rouser who is keeping their electorate hostage. They may well silently but heartily approve if Biden keeps his promise to abstain from interfering with his new attorney general’s efforts to uncover the extent of Trump’s malfeasance in office. Even criminal prosecution, if it comes to that, might be an act of bipartisanship since, by publicly disgracing Trump, it would free a few more Republicans to be occasionally cooperative. This possibility should appeal to a president-elect who, with 80 million voters at his back, is not only willing to reach across the aisle but eager to take his own side’s side in an argument.


Stephen Holmes is professor of law at NYU School of Law and co-author with Ivan Krastev of The Light that Failed: A Reckoning (Penguin 2019)

Rudy Giuliani has tried to subvert the will of the voters before. He did it after 9/11

Nicholas Goldberg
Tue, November 24, 2020

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, left, with President George W. Bush and Fire Commissioner Thomas Van Essen on Sept. 14, 2001. (Doug Mills / Associated Press) 

CHUCK SCHUMER IN BACKGROUND

The problem with Rudy Giuliani isn’t that his mascara runs or that he held a post-election event next to an adult book shop. Nor is it his behavior toward the young woman in the Borat movie or his pinkie ring or the fact that he told his second wife he was divorcing her by announcing it at a news conference.

The problem with the former New York City mayor is that he doesn’t respect elections.

Not only has Giuliani been President Trump's chief accomplice in his outrageous and deceptive efforts to subvert the will of the American people, a role he is continuing to play even as the transition gets underway, but he also fought hard in the aftermath of 9/11 to keep himself in office after his term as mayor ran out.

Let me remind you what happened then.

Sept. 11, 2001, in New York City was a crisp, shockingly clear fall day. When the two World Trade Center towers were attacked, and then collapsed in a cloud of dust, steel and concrete, then-Mayor Giuliani rose to the occasion, emerging from an office two blocks away covered in ash but ready to defend the city. He was calm and commanding in the days that followed, supporting first responders and comforting survivors and speaking effectively for an anxious city. He revived his battered political image, reinventing himself as “America’s mayor.”

Sept. 11 was also primary day in New York City. A mayoral election was underway. Giuliani was termed out — it was the end of his second term and his time in City Hall was up at the end of the year. More than half a dozen candidates — including Mark Green and Michael Bloomberg, who eventually became the nominees in the general election — were fighting for their parties’ support. Because of the World Trade Center attacks, that day’s primary was put off for two weeks.

Delaying the primary was entirely reasonable. People weren’t going to turn out to vote on a day when the city had been violently terrorized.

But Giuliani saw an opportunity for something else. In the days that followed — as he watched his poll numbers rise — Giuliani and his aides and supporters began hinting that the mayor shouldn’t be required to leave office when his term was up. What the city really needed was an extraordinary three-month extension of his term to help deal with the fallout of the attack and ease the transition for the next mayor. This was a catastrophe after all. Steady leadership was needed. The November election should be canceled.

Or maybe that wasn’t enough. In fact, according to Giuliani and his aides, the 1993 law barring him from serving a third consecutive term should be overturned entirely if his bid for an extension was rejected and he should be allowed to run again. Giuliani even considered trying to get himself on the ballot despite the term limits law. He lobbied the governor and the Legislature to keep him in office.

Trump-like, Giuliani insisted that supporters were “begging me to stay in the run for another term.”

He got some support in the heat of the crisis, but a lot of pushback too. The New York Civil Rights Coalition accused Giuliani of bullying the mayoral candidates and being “disruptive to electoral democracy.” The Democrats in the state Assembly (whose support was necessary for any extension) refused to back his proposal. Frederick A.O. Schwarz, who had served as the city’s top lawyer, said Giuliani had “created the very dangerous idea that we couldn’t survive without him.”

Republican Gov. George Pataki wrote later that Giuliani’s team “pushed the issue” with the governor’s staff for weeks. Pataki finally told Giuliani he would neither support an extension nor cancel the upcoming election.

“Regardless of Rudy’s motivation, regardless of his raw emotions in the situation, he abandoned some of the most basic conservative principles — to follow the law and relinquish power when your term is over, even in times of crisis,” Pataki wrote later.

Sound familiar?

Another opponent of Giuliani’s attempted power grab was his friend Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who advised the mayor to back down. According to ABC News at the time, McCain cautioned Giuliani to “listen to people you trust, not people who have a stake in your decision.”

When it became clear that state leaders would not authorize his continuing on as an unelected mayor, Giuliani gave in. But he appears to have learned nothing from the experience.

Even as he approved starting the transition, Trump refused to concede and may well never do so. His tactics — and Giuliani’s — have undermined the integrity of a legitimate election in the eyes of Americans and deepened the fissures in an already deeply divided country.

It is precisely in times of crisis — whether a terrorist attack or a pandemic — that democracy must show its resilience. Rules, laws and norms, including elections, obviously shouldn’t be tossed aside at the first signs of strain.

That’s a lesson Giuliani should have learned two decades ago when the towers came down.

@Nick_Goldberg

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

A 14-year-old boy drew a portrait of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. He never expected her to see it — then she called.

Sarah Al-Arshani
Wed, November 25, 2020

Vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaking in Washington, DC, on August 27, 2020. ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images

Fourteen-year-old Tyler Gordon drew a portrait of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who inspires him, but he never thought she would actually see it.

His tweet of a time-lapse video of him drawing the portrait went viral.

Harris called him after she saw it.

A teenager from the San Francisco Bay Area who was inspired by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris painted a portrait of her. And while he hoped she would see it, he never expected that she would — or that she would call him.

Tyler Gordon, 14, got a call from Harris after a time-lapse video of him painting a portrait of her went viral. Gordon told Insider that he looks up to Harris who overcame a lot of obstacles to become the first woman vice president-elect — and the first South Asian American and Black woman to hold the title — the way he's had to overcome hurdles in his own life.

"She inspires me and she broke through tons of barriers. I also broke through barriers with my stutter, being in a wheelchair for two years, and being deaf until I was six," he said. "So she just inspires me and also she's from the Bay Area, my hometown. So I feel like I just relate to that.
—Tyler Gordon (@Official_tylerg) November 23, 2020

Gordon, who began drawing when he was 10, said he hopes that Harris can one day have her portrait and that he aspires to someday plaint the official White House portrait. He also harbors dreams of opening up his own art gallery.

After the phone call, he described Harris as "humble," a quality he admires.

"I'm really grateful because she's really humble, actually. When she called me actually today, I was shocked. She thanked me for the painting and told me that I was really talented and bright during the conversation," he said.

He added that during the call, a timer went off for Harris' cornbread and she told him, 'hold on, I gotta check my cornbread,'" which he thought was very personable.

Gordon said that his mom Nicole Kindle initially did not allow him to paint when he first showed interest. It was only after he had a dream where he said God had told him if he didn't use his artistic talent, he would take it away, that he went to his mom crying, who eventually agreed.

Kindle told Insider that she's glad her son didn't let her stand in the way of his passion and that she regretted that she hadn't been as supportive from the get-go.

"He's painted for lots of celebrities and done lots of work, but he's really a humble kid," Kindle said of her son."He just enjoys playing with his twin brother and eating pop tarts, like a normal kid. He still has his chores. He's just a normal kid that has extreme talent, and that's what I love about him. He'd never let it go to his head. He's really humble about it. "

Read the original article on Insider

'She called me!!!!!': Vice President-elect Kamala Harris phones California teen to thank him for painting her portrait


Jessica Flores, USA TODAY
Wed, November 25, 2020

A teen artist from California asked his Twitter followers on Sunday to share his painted portrait of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to improve the chances she'd see it.

On Wednesday, Tyler Gordon learned Harris had seen it. How? She called to thank him.

"I was really shocked," Gordon, 14, of San Jose, told USA TODAY.

On Twitter, Gordon wrote, "She called me!!!!!! @KamalaHarris called ME!!!!"

He said he painted a portrait of Harris because he was inspired by the barriers she broke as the first woman, first Black person and first person of Asian descent to be elected as vice president.

"I, myself, broke a lot of barriers with my stuttering, breaking my hips and being deaf since I was 6," he said. "I feel like she represents that."

@KamalaHarris My name is Tyler Gordon and I'm 14 years old and I live in the Bay Area! I painted this picture of you and I hope you like it!!! Please Rt and tag her so that she can see this. Please!!!@JoeBiden @DouglasEmhoff @SenKamalaHarris @WeGotGame2 pic.twitter.com/X0qtChKBf2
— Tyler Gordon (@Official_tylerg) November 23, 2020

The tweet included a time-lapse video of Gordon painting his portrait of Harris with the Golden Gate Bridge as his background.

"My name is Tyler Gordon and I'm 14 years old and I live in the Bay Area! I painted this picture of you and I hope you like it!!" the tweet says.

Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo helped spread Gordon's message on Twitter.

I’d like to proudly add that the very talented Tyler is a resident of @CityofSanJose ! He’s a wonderful young man who has demonstrated unique strength of character to overcome obstacles in his young life. @ChelseaClinton @KamalaHarris @DouglasEmhoff @WeGotGame2 @JoeBiden https://t.co/4mFhAdsEfe
— Sam Liccardo (@sliccardo) November 25, 2020

Madame Vice President-Elect @KamalaHarris 🇺🇸, check out this beautiful portrait of you by @Official_tylerg! https://t.co/2JrmJoiueG
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) November 25, 2020

Gordon's mother, Nicole Kindle, captured the moment Harris called him in a video.

"I'm overwhelmed with just the magnificence of your artistry," Harris told Gordon. "You really have a gift, my goodness. I was so touched to see it."

Harris, who was born in Oakland, also told Gordon she hopes to meet him one day.

This isn't the first time Gordon's artwork has captured the attention of a high-profile figure. His portraits of celebrities have led him to meet Jennifer Lopez, Alex Rodriguez, Janet Jackson, Kevin Durant and Kevin Hart, he said.

When he grows up, Gordon said he hopes to have his own art gallery and display his work around the world.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: California teen who painted Kamala Harris portrait gets surprise call

Obama says Republicans won votes for Trump by wrongly framing white men as victims

Adam Payne
Thu, November 26, 2020

Barack Obama 

Republicans have wrongly created a narrative where white men see themselves as "victims" who are "under attack", according to Barack Obama.

The former president said this belief was pervasive among many Republican voters despite the fact that it "obviously doesn't jive with both history and data and economics."

"That's a story that's being told and how you unwind that is going to be not something that is done right away," Obama said in a radio interview on Wednesday.

Trump and the Republicans have won millions of votes partly by framing white American men as "victims" who are "under attack," according to former president Barack Obama.

In an interview with the Breakfast Club radio show on Wednesday, reported by The Guardian newspaper, Obama said one of the reasons Trump managed to secure a record-breaking number of votes in his defeat to Joe Biden was that Republicans have created and perpetuated "the sense that white males are victims."

"What's always interesting to me is the degree to which you've seen created in Republican politics the sense that white males are victims," Obama told the Breakfast Club radio show.

"They are the ones who are under attack — which obviously doesn't jive with both history and data and economics.

"But that's a sincere belief, that's been internalized, that's a story that's being told and how you unwind that is going to be not something that is done right away."

Obama said that pushing this narrative helped Trump secure the highest number of votes for any sitting president in American history, despite his administration "objectively" having "failed, miserably, in handling just basic looking after the American people and keeping them safe."

Trump won white men by a margin of around 31% in his 2016 election victory over Hilary Clinton, and performed particularly well among white men in rural areas. Analysis of this month's election indicates that the outgoing president lost ground with this group, though he still defeated President-elect Biden by around 23%.

Rey Del Rio/Getty Images

In his interview on Wednesday, Obama said he understood why some black people and those from other ethnic minorities felt disappointed by what he did for them while in the White House, but insisted that he managed to improve their conditions significantly despite the constraints of Congress.

"I understand it [the disappointment] because when I was elected there was so much excitement and hope, and I also think we generally view the presidency as almost like a monarchy in the sense of once the president's there, he can just do whatever needs to get done and if he's not doing it, it must be because he didn't want to do it," he said, adding that unlike Trump, he didn't break the law and disregarded the constitution in the pursuit of his agenda.

Watch Obama talk about race and politics



"The good news for me was I was very confident in what I had done for Black folks because I have the statistics to prove it," Obama said.

He warned that Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would face similar struggles in implementing their own policies if the Democrats did not win two upcoming runoff elections in Georgia. Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are being challenged by Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock respectively.

"If the Republicans win those two seats, then Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will not be able to get any law passed that Mitch McConnell and the other Republicans aren't going to go along with," he told host DJ Envy.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Ilhan Omar underperformed Biden by more than perhaps any House Democrat thanks to a 3rd party candidate and well-funded GOP rival

Eliza Relman Wed, November 25, 2020

Rep. Ilhan Omar speaks during a news conference outside of the U.S. Capitol on January 27, 2020 in Washington, DC. Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images

Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, handily won a second term this month, but underperformed President-elect Joe Biden by more than perhaps any other Democratic candidate in the country.

There are a slew of factors that likely impacted Omar's race, including a third party on the ticket, a supremely well-funded Republican opponent, and the fact that she was virtually guaranteed to win reelection.

But Democratic operatives and Minnesota politicos told Insider that Omar's underperformance was largely in line with down-ballot Democrats across the state, who underperformed Biden, particularly in the suburbs.


Rep. Ilhan Omar, a progressive Minnesota Democrat, handily won a second term this month, but underperformed President-elect Joe Biden by more than perhaps any other Democratic candidate in the country.

While Biden won 80% of the vote in Minnesota's fifth congressional district — one of the most progressive in the country — the outspoken congresswoman won 64%, a 14-percentage point drop from her 2018 election.

There are a slew of factors that likely impacted Omar's race, including a third party on the ticket, a supremely well-funded Republican opponent, and the fact that she was virtually guaranteed to win reelection. But Democratic operatives and Minnesota politicos told Insider that Omar's underperformance was largely in line with down-ballot Democrats across the state, who underperformed Biden particularly in the suburbs.

A pro-marijuana alternative and a well-funded Republican

Experts chalked up much of Omar's underperformance to pro-marijuana legalization third parties, which recently achieved major party status and made it onto the ballot this year. The pro-cannabis candidate in Omar's district won 10% of the vote, most, if not all, of which pollsters say would have gone to Omar.

Donna Victoria, a Democratic pollster, called the third-party candidate the "single biggest factor" in Omar's underperformance. She said many voters likely felt compelled to vote for Biden given how competitive Minnesota's presidential race was expected to be, but may have felt more confident in casting a symbolic third-party vote in Omar's race as she was virtually guaranteed reelection.

"I don't think it's a very sexy answer, I think it's a structural answer," Victoria told Insider. "With Trump insisting he was going to win Minnesota, you weren't going to risk skipping Biden."

Tim Lindberg, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, said Omar was hurt most by the pro-marijuana third-party, which siphoned votes from Democrats across the state, and the significant money and negative messaging leveraged against her. Like fellow progressive freshman congresswomen of color, who call themselves the "Squad," Omar has attracted outsize national attention — and vilification — over the last few years.

"Whether it was the more xenophobic, racist kind of messages - 'go back to your country,' or whether it was more of a message of corruption or of nepotism, she was really targeted because of her role as part of the Squad and as a lightning rod for Republicans everywhere, but also for President Trump," Lindberg said.


—Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 25, 2020

Her reelection race reflected that dynamic: Omar's Republican opponent, Lacy Johnson, raise almost double the amount of money she did -- $10.1 million to Omar's $5.4 million.
In 2018, Omar's Republican opponent spent just $23,000. 

Suburban ticket-splitting

Down-ballot Democrats in Minnesota particularly underperformed Biden in the suburbs.

Minnesota was at the center of the nationwide protests for racial justice and against police brutality. It was George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police in May that sparked months of Black Lives Matter protests, some of which involved rioting and violence.

Some moderate Democratic voters were likely put off by Omar's call to dismantle the Minneapolis police department, criticism of her campaign payments to her husband, and a series of anti-Semitic remarks she's made. Omar also attracted a well-funded moderate primary opponent, whose attacks likely stuck with some portion of Democratic voters.

Blois Olson, a Minnesota-based political communications strategist, pointed to Biden's success and Omar's lackluster support in the wealthy Minneapolis suburb of Edina — a longtime bastion of country club Republicans that flipped blue nearly a decade ago. Olson argued Omar's underperformance in Edina is an indication that some suburban voters were turned off by Omar's more progressive politics and polarizing profile.

"One of the takeaways is, Democrats can't go that far or they will begin to lose the suburbs quickly," Olson told Insider. "She's a bridge too far for upper middle class suburban voters."

Supporters attend a campaign event with Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden, at Utepils Brewery on October 3, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

But across the state, Republican state legislative candidates won down-ballot even when the same voters picked Biden over Trump.

This came as voter turnout in Minnesota jumped by about 11 percentage points to a staggering 80% this year — the highest turnout of any state in the country in a year when more Americans voted than ever before.

Biden did much better against President Donald Trump in Minnesota than Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Biden won the Midwestern state by about seven percentage points — a nearly six point swing against Trump from 2016, when Hillary Clinton won the state by 1.5 points.

Biden ran up his lead in Omar's district, which had among the highest turnout of any in Minnesota.

Omar's spokesperson, Jeremy Slevin, told Insider that Biden's large lead in Hennepin County had much to do with the Omar campaign's get out the vote effort.

Slevin said Omar's general election campaign devoted nearly all of its manpower and resources to boosting turnout for Biden. The campaign primarily worked with the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, knocking doors even while most Democratic campaigns across the country halted door-knocking during the pandemic.

"We didn't campaign for ourselves after the primary," Slevin said. "Biden vastly overperformed Clinton in 2016 and we're proud of that. That's what our goal was. Our goal wasn't to pad our numbers."

Olson credited Omar, who endorsed and campaigned with Sen. Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary, with the surge in turnout in Minneapolis.

"That's what she did, she delivers the grassroots," Olson said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Biden Promises Bill Providing Pathway to Citizenship for 11 Million Illegal Immigrants in First 100 Days


Zachary Evans  NATIONAL REVIEW
Wed, November 25, 2020



Joe Biden vowed on Tuesday to send a bill to the Senate that would set up a path to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants.

The president-elect’s team has already indicated that Biden will attempt to overturn much of President Trump’s immigration agenda, including reinstating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and rescinding the Remain in Mexico policy.

“I will send an immigration bill to the United States Senate with a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people in America,” Biden told NBC’s Lester Holt.

Such a bill would likely be dead on arrival if Republicans hold on to their Senate majority. Georgia senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are both facing runoffs on January 5, and if one of them wins, Republicans will hold 51 seats in the chamber. However, if Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff both win the runoffs, the Senate will be tied 50-50, allowing vice president-elect Kamala Harris to serve as the tie-breaker.

Biden also plans to implement a 100-day freeze on deportations before reinstating Obama-era guidance that limits deportations to criminal offenders.

Once Biden takes office, his administration will likely be preoccupied with vaccine distribution and economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. While the Biden administration will eventually attempt to overhaul Trump’s immigration agenda, the process will still take time.

The Trump administration had an extraordinary preoccupation with immigration issues and they invested an enormous amount of attention and single-minded focus on immigration,” Doris Messiner, a former immigration official, told CBS earlier this month.. “An administration that wants to undo those changes would have to devote a similar amount of time and effort — and arguably more, because you don’t want to just be undoing things.”

More from National Review

Biden to Rescind Major Trump-Era Immigration Restrictions through Executive Orders

Biden Promises Zero Deportations in First 100 Days of Office

NAACP releases report on Breonna Taylor case

Tonya Pendleton THE GRIO
Thu, November 26, 2020

Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron showed a pro-police bias in his presentation of the case to the grand jury, according to the NAACP

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has released a report that revealed new findings in the Breonna Taylor case. The report entitled “Justice Denied: An Overview of the Grand Jury Proceedings In The Breonna Taylor Case” said that Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron showed a pro-police bias in his presentation of the case to the grand jury.

On Sept. 23, jurors declined to charge two of the three officers in the Taylor raid which took place on March 31. Acting on a ‘no-knock’ search warrant, the officers entered Taylor’s residence after midnight. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, a legal gun owner, fired a warning shot at the officers coming into their apartment and they returned fire, killing Taylor.

Breonna Taylor and Kenneth Walker (Credit: Taylor family)

Only one officer, Brett Hankinson, who was fired for not following proper police procedures in June, was charged. He was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment for shooting blindly in to Taylor’s apartment building, thus endangering the other residents. That meant that none of the officers in the raid were found to be liable in Taylor’s death.

Read More: Something is fishy about Daniel Cameron and the Breonna Taylor case

NAACP LDF report said Cameron “did not make a fair and comprehensive presentation to the grand jury about the involved officers’ conduct that led to Ms. Taylor’s killing, but instead displayed an inappropriate bias in favor of the officers.”

Protesters carried signs in support of justice for Breonna Taylor on September 23, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois. Across the country, protesters have taken to the streets after the grand jury’s decision to only charge one Louisville Metro Police officer in the raid in which Taylor was killed. (Photo by Natasha Moustache/Getty Images)

The NAACP also said that Cameron did not provide grand jurors with video or audio evidence that was taken at the scene, nor did he explain why the evidence wasn’t made available. And perhaps most damning, the report said that the grand jury testimony that had a heavy impact on the trial, came from one witness, whose testimony was contrary to the accounts of multiple other witnesses.


The Louisville Courier Journal · BT Sept. 21 – 1.MP3

In October, CNN reported that three grand jurors came forward anonymously to say they didn’t believe they were presented with enough information to fairly determine the facts of the case. One, who CNN identified as a white male on a call with the media, said that there was an “uproar” when jurors realized that no murder charges would be possible.

“Was justice was done? No, I feel that there was there’s quite a bit more that could have been done or should have been presented for us to deliberate on,” said grand juror 1, the white male.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron stands on stage in an empty Mellon Auditorium while addressing the Republican National Convention on August 25, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A second grand juror, a Black male, expressed his feelings about the proceedings, which line up with the findings of the report.

“We were open the whole time to listen to everything they presented, and it would have been nice if they had presented every charge, but they only presented those three charges, ” said the second grand juror.

The third juror concured that they had no other charges, aside from wanton endangerment, to consider.

Read More: BLM leader in Breonna Taylor protests fatally shot in carjacking

The report concluded by requesting, in line with the wishes of Taylor’s family, that another grand jury be convened so as to include other charges for consideration. The report recommends that the governor put into law the appointment of a special prosecutor in cases involving “potential criminal wrongdoing” by law enforcement to avoid any possibility of partiality in those cases.