ANIMALS DO NOT HAVE BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS THEIR OWNERS DO

Pandemic pet parent remorse: Sudbury rescue group getting so many unwanted dogs it has to turn some away

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Many people got pets during pandemic, but if not trained properly developed behaviour problems

CBC News · Posted: Jul 19, 2021 8:02 AM ET | Last Updated: July 19

An animal rescue group in Sudbury says they're seeing an increase in the number of dogs surrendered to them. Many of the animals were adopted over the pandemic and small bad habits turned into big behavioural problems. (Pet Save Sudbury )

A northern Ontario pet rescue group says it's had to start turning away unwanted dogs that were adopted during the pandemic. 

Many people got pets during the pandemic, but Jill Pessot, director of Pet Save in Sudbury, says if they weren't properly train or socialized it likely led to anti-social behaviour in the dogs, and now their owners don't know what to do with them.

Jill Pessot, director of Pet Save in Sudbury, says they have 8 dogs with behavioural issues, which a 20-year record. Normally that number is 1 or 2. (Jan Lakes/CBC)

Some are posting online to try to sell their unwanted dogs. 

"If you're looking for a dog this year on the net — and there's a bunch of them on there — be careful because there's a reason they're on there. If every [dog] was a perfect dog, they wouldn't be on the internet," she said.

• Scammers taking advantage of rising demand for pandemic puppies

• AUDIO
  Sudbury breeder sees 'boon in busyness' for dog breeders during COVID-19 pandemic

Other owners are surrendering their new pets to shelters or rescue groups like Pet Save

"And now they're coming into rescues because people, number one, couldn't even enlist trainers for a while or didn't know when to enlist that trainer," Pessot said.

There are eight dogs in the Pet Save kennel with behaviour issues, where they normally only have one or two. 

Pessot is getting calls daily about owners wanting to surrender animals to her, and she's having to turn them away.

Patience and proper training helps 

Many pet issues could be solved with patience and a good trainer to help.

Jacqueline Preyde is founder of Canine Intuition Training and Rehabilitation, a dog training service in Sudbury that specializes in behavioural correction. 

• How will your dog handle you returning to your workplace?

• 11 dog training tutorials to help homeschool your pup

Her biggest piece of advice to new dog owners is to crate-train their pooch.

"Crate training is a very useful tool, especially in a time where dogs are very dependent on their owners," she said. "If you create the crate as a safe space it really helps with the transition with then having to leave the home."

Preyde also suggests giving the dog something to lick or chew before you have to leave them at home by themselves. That provides mental stimulation and a distraction.

She warns new dog owners to do proper research on the breed they're considering and methods for correct training, adding there are lots of great resources online.

"When it comes to certain behaviours though, I'm adamant about reaching out to a professional, just because we see a lot more anxiety and reactivity nowadays than we used to," Preyde said. 

"We just see a lot of people that don't understand the magnitude of what a certain breed or what a puppy requires anymore."

 

Opposition calls for COVID-19 vaccine clinics in Alberta schools this fall

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Health minister says current strategy is to vaccinate many eligible people as fast as possible

Michelle Bellefontaine · CBC News · Posted: Jul 19, 2021 

NDP Leader Rachel Notley is calling on the province to get vaccine clinics into Alberta schools this fall. (Alberta NDP )

The Alberta NDP wants COVID-19 immunization clinics in schools when classes resume this fall to ensure more students get their second dose of vaccine as soon as possible. 

According to statistics published by Alberta Health, 63 per cent of Albertans between 12 and 19 have received their first dose of vaccine, but only 38.5 per cent have received their second shot. 

NDP Opposition Leader Rachel Notley says those numbers need to improve, especially now that the more highly contagious delta variant is in the province. She says Alberta's full reopening on July 1 may give many the false impression that a single dose is all that is required to stay safe. 

"We're six weeks away from everybody going back to school, and over half of the people going into those schools do not have their second dose," Notley said Monday. "And what we know is that the second dose is critically important." 

Notley wants the government to run vaccine clinics inside all schools this fall for anyone who wants to get their shot. 

The idea was given a tepid reception by Health Minster Tyler Shandro who was asked about the plan while at an unrelated news conference in Grande Prairie on Monday. 

Shandro said the province may look at school-based clinics when vaccines are approved for children 12 and under. 

He said Alberta's current strategy is to vaccinate as many eligible people as quickly as possible. 

"We want to ensure that our resources are deployed in the best way possible," he said. "We right now want to focus on community partners to be able to provide those vaccines."

 

Rachel Notley is calling on the UCP government to devise a plan to prevent hospital staffing shortages and bed closures as some rural hospitals have had to periodically close or go without ER doctors.

‘Critical staffing shortages in hospitals across Alberta’: Notley

By Emily Mertz Global News
Posted July 19, 2021 3
 

Several Alberta hospitals have been dealing with staffing shortages in their emergency departments, including three of Edmonton’s busiest EDs.

On Friday, Alberta Health Services confirmed 18 treatment beds at the Royal Alexandra Hospital’s emergency department were temporarily closed “due to short-term staffing coverage issues.”

Twelve of those beds were closed for just four hours, AHS said.

“There was no reduction in care for patients in the emergency department during those four hours and EMS was not diverted to avoid the Royal Alexandra Hospital.”


READ MORE: Nurse shortages lead to emergency room bed closures in Alberta: doctor, union

Opposition NDP leader Rachel Notley said Monday that bed closures due to staffing pressures aren’t isolated to the Royal Alex.

“Over the past weeks, we have seen critical staffing shortages in hospitals across Alberta.”

“This has led to bed closures and cancelled surgeries and repeated emergency room closures in the communities of Edson, St. Paul, Boyle, Elk Point, Galahad, Westlock, Fairview, Rocky Mountain House, Cold Lake, Lac La Biche, High Prairie, Slave Lake, Wainwright, Rimbey and Lacombe.

“Here in Edmonton, at the Royal Alex, one of the busiest emergency departments in western Canada, they had to close 18 beds, nearly half its capacity, because there aren’t enough front-line health-care workers to operate safely.”

1:46Alberta health-care support staff presented with 4% wage cut

“Over the weekend, we learned that another of Edmonton’s busiest hospitals, the Grey Nuns, will be periodically closing its endoscopy unit over the next few weeks and transporting emergency patients who need that service when the unit is closed, to other hospitals,” Notley said.

Covenant Health confirmed the endoscopy unit at the Grey Nuns Community Hospital “will operate at 80 per cent outpatient capacity” for the next two weeks “as a result of staffing coverage issues due to pre-approved staff vacations and unexpected absences for non-COVID-related medical concerns.

“No other departments within the Grey Nuns are facing service impacts of this nature.”

AHS said 11 spaces at the University of Alberta Hospital emergency department were closed for 12 hours overnight and reopened at 8 a.m. Monday.

AHS said the ED remained open “for all patients needing emergency care as usual,” “there was no reduction in care for patients in the emergency department” and “EMS was not diverted to avoid the UAH and Stollery.”


READ MORE: ‘Burnout is real’: COVID-19 pandemic takes mental health toll on health-care workers

AHS issued two notices on Friday, advising of two other staffing shortages.

There will be no physician overnight (from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. daily) at the St. Theresa General Hospital emergency department in Fort Vermillion from July 19 to July 31, AHS said. Nursing staff will provide assessments and triage patients in the ED and refer them to the Northwest Health Centre in High Level, if needed. EMS calls will be re-routed to the Northwest Health Centre (81 kilometres away) during this time.

Also, the Sacred Heart Community Health Centre in McLennan was without an on-site emergency department physician over the weekend, AHS said. EMS calls were re-routed to High Prairie Health Complex (50 km away), Peace River Community Health Centre (80 km away) or Valleyview Healthcare Centre (90 km away), AHS said.

“This is a dangerous situation,” Notley said.

“The closures are happening because people are leaving.”

She slammed the UCP’s plan to cut Alberta nurses’ salaries, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling it “disrespectful, demoralizing and damaging.”

READ MORE: Alberta nurses call government-proposed 3% salary rollback ‘a kick to the gut’

The opposition leader said the premier and health minister need to keep hospitals open and “abandon these plans to cut the wages of the Albertans who work in them.”

Notley said in other regions, bonuses are being used to encourage health-care workers to stay on and keep working. In Alberta, however, they’re looking at long-term salary rollbacks, she said.

2:04 Facing COVID-19 staffing crunch, hospitals offer cash bonuses to new nurses – Jun 16, 2021

“These folks who work in health care have gone through career-level high marks for stress and anxiety and emergency,” Notley added.

“Having gone through that, it’s shocking that their reward is to be told they’ll earn less afterward.”

Health Minister Tyler Shandro said the NDP continues to politicize issues, “lie about our response to the pandemic” and “what’s happening in the province.”

“That’s their track record,” he said at a news conference Monday.

READ MORE: Health care job vacancies in Canada are soaring despite COVID-19 demand. Here’s why

Shandro said AHS has done great work dealing with the pressures exacerbated by the pandemic.

“AHS has done an amazing job in being able to make sure resources are deployed, to make sure people are getting the critical care they need, surgeries are happening… They’ve done an amazing job acting dynamically as the situation changes across the province,” the health minister said.

2:08 COVID-19 claims life of Calgary health-care worker who friends say ‘died a hero’ – Jan 5, 2021

In a statement to Global News Monday, AHS spokesperson James Wood said “any Albertan who is in need of acute care will get care.”

Wood said changes to service aren’t new and it is common for resources to be adjusted, especially in the summer, to align with staffing levels.

“Temporary bed closures are only done as a last resort and we work to ensure patients continue to receive safe, high-quality care.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact through staff redeployment and a depletion of the available pool of casual staff, which is being seen across Canada.”

AHS also said the staffing shortages are due to vacation time being taken by staff who worked extremely hard over the last 17 months.

“Staff are taking well-deserved vacation time and we thank them for their incredible efforts through the waves of the pandemic in Alberta to date.”

Recruitment efforts continue, Wood said.


“AHS is working on recruitment plans that are targeted to fill current vacancies by the end of August and September.

“AHS continues to aggressively recruit physicians for rural areas. New physicians have recently been recruited in McLennan, Falher, Valleyview, Barrhead, Grande Prairie, Fort McMurray, Cold Lake and St. Paul.”

2:00 NDP accuse health minister of lying about how many doctors were planning to leave Alberta – Oct 1, 2020

While staffing challenges were expected, Alberta has worked hard to recruit health-care workers to the province, Shandro said.

“We have 1,000 more nurses than we had a year ago, so we are recruiting more.”

“We have net — month over month, quarter over quarter, year over year — more positions, more nurses because we continue to show not just the rest of the country but the rest of the world that Alberta is an amazing place not just to come to work and serve residents in your profession but also a great place to raise your children.”

© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Shandro says NDP exaggerating health-care shortages, Notley calls bed closures 'very real'


Adam Lachacz

CTVNewsEdmonton.ca 

Digital Journalist

Published Monday, July 19, 2021

Alberta Minister of Health Tyler Shandro speaks at a press conference in Calgary on May 29, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh


EDMONTON -- The minister of health in Alberta says the NDP is “lying” and exaggerating claims about shortages in health-care staff in the province leading to temporary service level reductions.

Tyler Shandro was asked by reporters about staffing shortages at health-care facilities across the province at a media availability Monday.

Multiple hospitals across the province have faced bed closures and staff shortages. Earlier this month the Royal Alexandra hospital – the largest in Edmonton – closed six beds in their emergency room.

On Friday, another 12 beds were closed at that facility until receiving morning staff relief.

Additionally, Fort Vermillion’s St. Theresa General Hospital emergency department announced on Friday that it would have no overnight physician coverage temporarily until the end of the month.

McLennan’s Sacred Heart Community Health Centre had limited physician coverage over the past weekend.

On Saturday, the Grey Nuns Hospital in Edmonton reduced nurse service levels at their endoscopy unit due to “unforeseen medical leaves of several staff in rapid succession.”

The minister maintained on Monday that staffing reductions are temporary and that they are resulting from residual pressure from the COVID-19 pandemic and seasonal vacations.

“I understand the NDP are going to – as they’ve done for the last year and a half – hypercriticize issues and quite frankly lie,” Shandro said, “about our response to the pandemic and lying about what is actually happening in the province.

“AHS has done an amazing job in being able to make sure that resources are deployed, and to make sure that people get critical care that they need throughout the province,” he added. “Surgeries are happening as they need throughout the province. They’ve done an amazing job acting dynamically as the situation changes throughout the province.”

When asked if Alberta is attracting health care workers to the province, Shandro said recruitment targets were being met.

“We have a thousand more nurses than we had a year ago,” he said. “We are recruiting more. Month over month, quarter for quarter, year over year, we have more physicians, more nurses because we continue to show Alberta is a great place to live.

“Everybody wants to come to Alberta because it is an amazing place to live.”

BED CLOSURES ARE 'VERY REAL': NDP

Rachel Notley told CTV News Edmonton in a statement that the bed closures and staff reductions are "very real."

“These bed closures are publicly reported by AHS," she said. "They are very real, and they are putting Albertans at risk. It’s disgraceful that Tyler Shandro continues to gaslight Albertans and refuse to accept responsibility for his ongoing failures as Health Minister.”

Notley added that the health-care staff shortages are creating a “dangerous situation.”

“We have repeatedly called on Tyler Shandro to take action, but all he has offered Albertans is excuses and finger-pointing,” the leader of the official opposition said. “Let’s be clear: we are here because Jason Kenney acted last and acted least in the second and third waves."

Notley called on Shandro to create a plan to keep Alberta’s hospitals open, without reductions in service.

“Our healthcare heroes are burnt-out and patients who are arriving much sicker than before because their conditions have been left unaddressed for a year and a half.”

The Sea Is Not Made of Water by Adam Nicolson review – of mollusc and men

Digging deep: Adam Nicolson in Argyllshire. Photograph: Sarah Raven

This lyrical dive into rock pools illuminates the interconnectedness of all natural habitats
Alex Preston
Mon 19 Jul 2021 

There’s a WTF moment about a third of the way through Adam Nicolson’s new book, The Sea Is Not Made of Water. The first chapters largely follow in the footsteps of his last book of nature writing, The Seabird’s Cry, applying the same characteristic form of lyrical scientific investigation into the creatures of the rock pool that he’d deployed on the birds of the cliffs and wide oceans. The opening section of this book is called Animals and we leap from sand hopper to winkle to prawn, understanding the complex interconnectedness of these underexamined lives, learning a new and perspective-altering fact on every page. Then, all of a sudden, there’s a chapter on the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus.

It’s a segment of exquisite beauty, a bravura act of writing that seems not only to provide a model for the rest of this book, but changes the way you understand the whole dizzying Nicolson oeuvre. This is a writer who has moved from memoir to literary criticism to nature writing via The Mighty Dead, one of the best books on Homer ever written. In his chapter on Heraclitus, Nicolson reads a rock pool through the work of the great philosopher, bringing to the crucible of tidal life “a systemic understanding whose wholeness relies on its union of opposites”. We begin to understand that the thread that links Nicolson’s books is precisely this – a philosopher’s wish to provide a way of comprehending the place of the individual in a vast and shifting world, the quest for a good life, the search for new answers to old questions.

The chapter on prawns makes us consider whether invertebrates have a consciousness, a right to dignity in life and death

The Sea Is Not Made of Water takes the reader on several journeys. First, there is the contemporary story of Nicolson, in his 60s, deciding to dig rock pools on the shore near his wife’s family home in Argyllshire. Nicolson writes off for official permission for his project and is slightly wounded to receive a response saying that he ought not to have bothered, as “they do not appear to be any different to anything built by local children during the holidays”. Undeterred, Nicolson seizes his pickaxe and waterproof cement and sets to work. The first pool fails – it is too far out of the water – but the next ones don’t, and are soon full of scintillating life.

With life comes drama. There’s the slow-motion battle between two anemones – red foot and blue foot; there’s the self-sacrifice of young winkles so that their elders can escape (“the winkles speeded up from about an eighth of an inch a minute to about half an inch a minute, running for the hills”); there’s the remarkably tender, week-long lovemaking of green crabs. The chapter on prawns is one of the best, doing for the cockroaches of the sea what David Foster Wallace did for their big brothers in his wonderful essay Consider the Lobster, making us consider whether invertebrates have a consciousness, a sense of self, a right to dignity in life and death.

The real journey of The Sea Is Not Made of Water occurs in its second and third parts, though. We come to recognise that the chapters on rock pools have only been a rehearsal, a study for what is to come. From the Lilliputian intimacy of the rock pool we spool out to chapters on the tides and the formation of rocks – vast in space and time, vertiginous in their scope and ambition. The last part of the book provides a history of the humans who inhabited this wild and rocky Scottish shore from pre-history to the present, with Nicolson applying the same sympathetic scientific curiosity to these lives that he gave to the winkles. “Life is tidal, full of loss and arrival, a thing that makes and ebbs,” he writes at one point, and this is what we take away from the book – that we are all in rock pools, knitted within complex systems. We are part of nature, not separate from it.

Here’s an idea: the best books are never only, or even mainly, about the subject they claim to be about. The novelist John Barth said something like this when asked what kept people turning pages. “The question ‘Who am I?’ is what ultimately motivates the reader,” he said. The greatest literature – and this unique and terribly moving title is great literature indeed – reaches beyond itself to speak to us of the most profound and essential things. Spending time in Nicolson’s rock pool will change your life and the way you view the lives of others.

The Sea Is Not Made of Water: Life Between the Tides by Adam Nicolson is published by William Collins (£20). 

‘It’s chilling what is happening’: a rightwing backlash to Biden takes root in Republican states

Joe Biden still preaches the unity gospel but Republican legislators across the country are following a different text. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstoc

Biden may be president but Republican-controlled states are busy introducing reams of legislation that is anything but progressive

Ed Pilkington@edpilkington

THE GUARDIAN

Mon 19 Jul 2021

 In his inaugural address in January, Joe Biden promised to use his presidency to “restore the soul of America”. He would unite the nation, defuse “anger, resentment and hatred”, and lead Americans back to a world where they treated “each other with dignity and respect”.

Six months later, Biden is still preaching the unity gospel, and regularly assures his fellow Americans that “there’s not a single thing we aren’t able to do when we do it together”.

Drive 1,400 miles west from the White House, to Dallas in Texas where Brianna Brown lives, and there’s little evidence of politicians working together that she can see. As an African American fourth-generation Texan, Brown has been assailed since Biden came into office by a whirlwind of regressive laws emanating from the Republican-controlled state legislature.

The explosion of extreme rightwing legislation rammed through by Texas Republicans this session – culminating on Monday with the dramatic flight of Democratic lawmakers from the state in an attempt to prevent the passage of the latest voter suppression law – has left Brown feeling apprehensive and insecure.

She thinks about her own family’s long struggle for voting rights now threatened once again, is fearful about being accosted in the street by armed men legally bearing arms without a permit, bothered about what might happen to her when she next joins a peaceful protest, and worried about the fallout of a renewed push to build a wall along the Mexican border.

Top of her list of concerns is the Republican bill to make it even more difficult to vote – in a state that already makes it harder to vote than any other in the nation. Brown recalls how she once heard her grandmother having to remind herself that her vote was no longer conditional on the poll tax – a ruse once commonly used in the south to disenfranchise Black people.

“That was my grandmother!” Brown said. “To say that people fought and died for our right to vote – that’s personal for me.”

Brown is spooked about another new law set to come into effect in September that effectively tries to turn ordinary citizens into anti-abortion bounty hunters. It offers a $10,000 reward to anyone who successfully sues a fellow Texan for helping a woman seek an abortion beyond six weeks of pregnancy.

“It is chilling that this is happening,” she said.

Bobby Caldwell, 87, of Houston, listens during a prayer rally against Republican bills that would make it harder to vote at the capitol in Austin, Texas, last week. Photograph: AP

As co-executive director of the Texas Organizing Project that seeks to empower Black and Latino neighborhoods, she is concerned too for the transgender men, women and children who are bearing the brunt of Republican intolerance in a state in which more anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been promoted by Republicans this session than in any other. “This is an assault on people who are on the margins,” she said.

And there’s more. Much more. There’s the order by the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, to all state agencies to block Biden’s efforts to combat climate change; the new law that punishes any Texas city that has the audacity to cut police budgets; the $1,000 fines that will be imposed on anyone requiring Covid masks to be worn in public schools; the gun law that allows Texans to carry handguns with no training and without a permit.
Walking around as a Black person, the feeling is that this can easily escalateBrianna Brown

Brianna Brown is not feeling Biden’s vision of Americans doing things together. She is feeling the wrath of a Texan Republican party that since Donald Trump’s defeat in the presidential election last November has taken its animus to a whole other level.

“When I leave the house with my two-year-old daughter, I now carry with me two phones: a work phone, and a personal phone,” she told the Guardian. “I make sure I always carry both because I never know when I might need to call for help. The Republicans have incited their base. There are a lot of white people out there who feel very emboldened. Walking around as a Black person, the feeling is that this can easily escalate.”

Nor is Brianna Brown alone.

Across a vast swath of the American heartlands, the anti-Biden backlash is being replicated in Republican-controlled statehouses in what Ronald Brownstein has described in the Atlantic as a “collective cry of defiance”.

In some instances, the challenge to Biden is explicit. At least nine Republican-controlled states, Texas included, have passed laws banning the enforcement of federal firearms statutes in a blatant attempt to frustrate the president’s ambition to tackle the nationwide scourge of gun violence.

Twenty-six states have put a stop to the extra $300 a week in unemployment support that the federal government has extended through the pandemic, suggesting that they care more about resisting Biden’s economic agenda than about giving a helping hand to their own. The latest to do so, Louisiana, has the worst poverty rate in the US bar Mississippi – with one in five of its citizens below the poverty line.

In other cases, Republican-dominated legislatures have invested in hot-button social issues, aggressively targeting minority communities and other groups for attack. At least 15 states have between them enacted 90 measures to restrict access to abortions – a record number. Thirty-three states have pumped out 250 anti-LGBTQ+ bills, and five have allowed firearms to be carried without a license in a major loosening of gun laws.

The backlash so far this year has also involved virulent rightwing efforts to suppress the vote of Democratic-leaning demographics, especially people of color. In the first six months of the year, about 17 states have enacted 28 new laws that will restrict access to the ballot box, according to the Brennan Center, and more are certain to follow.

The welter of voter suppression measures is not only striking in its own right, it is indicative of one of the great driving forces of this year’s seismic eruption of toxic rightwing legislation. American politics is no stranger to Republicans responding fiercely to Democrats gaining control of Congress and the presidency – Newt Gingrich turned partisan obstructionism into an art form when Bill Clinton was in the White House, while Barack Obama’s victory as the first Black president gave rise to the Tea Party.

Kenny Wolfam open carries a pistol and wears a ‘Trump 2020’ T-shirt while counter-protesting a ‘Moms Demand Action’ protest in response to a new Texas gun law at Buffalo Bayou Park in Houston, Texas, last month. Photograph: Mark Felix/AFP/Getty 

But the accent in 2021 on tampering with and tamping down the vote is a sharp departure from past form, both in its ferocity and in its extremism. The new trend is evident not just in attempts by states like Texas to erect additional hurdles to voting that especially affect African American and Latino communities.

Most sinisterly, bills have been introduced that would grant state lawmakers the power to overturn the legitimate will of the people in a contested presidential election. They would empower themselves to supplant their own winner – the electoral equivalent of a coup.

For Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, the attack on elections and the very machinery of democracy sets the current Republican fury apart. “This is different. Republicans at state level have moved from pursuing conservative economic policies to pushing measures designed to cripple the opposition and undermine democracy.”

Hacker added: “The Republican party used to be anti-Democratic, now it’s anti-democratic.”

The rocket fuel propelling the emergence of a fundamentally anti-democratic strain in Republican politics is Trump and his big lie that the election was stolen from him. The defeated president continues to peddle the falsehood, inciting his supporters with the potent belief that the current occupant of the White House is an impostor.

Either you believe, or pretend to believe, that Trump won the election, or you will be destroyed  

Jacob Hacker

“Trump has broken a fundamental norm that politicians don’t refuse to accept the legitimacy of a free and fair election, and that has been hugely empowering,” Hacker said. “He has turned it into a loyalty test – are you with or against us? Either you believe, or pretend to believe, that Trump won the election, or you will be destroyed.”

In his new book with Paul Pierson, Let Them Eat Tweets, Hacker describes what he calls the “doom-loop” of rising outrage that now has the Republican party in its grip. Politicians stoke anger by assaulting a plethora of targets – Black people, immigrants, transgender youth, women seeking abortions, BLM protesters, critical race theory – to fire up the base.

Voters in turn get riled up, baying for the blood of anyone who crosses Trump or steps out of line. Party leaders duly respond by stoking up more outrage – and so the “doom-loop” turns and intensifies.

This tendency is quite consciously embraced by the party leadership. The New York Times unearthed a memo from Jim Banks, a Congress member from Indiana and chairman of the Republican Study Committee, in which he regurgitated frenzied exaggerations about critical race theory and concluded: “We are in a culture war. My encouragement to you is lean into it. Lean into the culture war.”

Such clear signs of a coordinated national resistance should not obscure the fact that today’s torrent of Republican anger has been a long while in the baking. Vote View, an academic research project, has tracked party ideology over time and found that while the Democratic party has moved gradually to a more overtly liberal stance, the shift by Republicans has been much more dramatic.

Since the 1970s the party has moved sharply to the right, increasingly aligning itself with white voters resentful of the civil rights movement, evangelical Christians and the cultural issues now so beloved of the leadership. Long before Trump burst on the scene, Vote View was recording that the Republican party was projecting its most conservative ideology in a century.

A Trump-Pence re-election sign and flags are displayed in rural central Pennsylvania. People of similar political allegiance tend to cluster together even at the neighborhood level. Photograph: Paul Weaver/Pacific Press/Rex/Shutterstock

You can’t understand such a rush to the right without considering demographic changes that have radically altered the face of American society over the same modern period. Ryan Enos, a social scientist at Harvard, has carried out groundbreaking research that shows that voters are now more segregated according to their partisan loyalties than they are by racial group.

“We think of America as a very racially segregated society. But we were surprised to find that Democrats are even more likely to live around Democrats, and Republicans with Republicans – and that drills down even to the level of neighborhoods.”

Partisanship has become a social identity, meaning that our sense of ourselves is linked to our party

Lilliana Mason

The physical segregation of voters has been matched by hardening political identities. Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins, has studied the self-identity of the American voter, discovering that over the past four decades it has become ever more tied to party allegiance.

“Partisanship has become a social identity, meaning that our sense of ourselves, who we are in the world, and even our sense of status is linked to our party. That’s who I am, and my emotional state is connected to whether my party is winning or losing,” she told the Guardian.

Mason’s research has found that between 1972 and 2016, not only have the two main parties moved sharply apart in conservative and liberal directions, but their supporters have also separated out in terms of race.

“Whites are moving very far towards the Republican party, and Blacks are moving very far towards the Democratic party. That divide increased by about three times over those years,” she said.

Throw partisan ideology and racial resentment into a pot, and the result is a fevered political climate in which elections are increasingly seen as existentially important. “We are clearly having a battle over social hierarchy and white patriarchy,” Mason said.

The US Capitol, 6 January 2021. An increasing number of Republicans endorse violence as a means of advancing political goals, polling has found. Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

In her upcoming book with Nathan Kalmoe, Radical American Partisanship, Mason reaches some alarming conclusions based on a series of surveys conducted over several years. Since 2017, the proportion of voters who think that physical violence against the opposite party could be at least a “little bit” justified has increased markedly.

The trend is especially stark for Republicans. When asked whether violence was justified were the Democrats to win the presidential races in 2020 or 2024, the proportion of those who assented leapt from 20% shortly before last November’s election to almost 30% in February.

Throw the big lie into the pot, and the bubbling stew of anger and hatred begins to boil over. Just after Biden became president-elect, Mason held another survey of voters and was chastened by what she learned.

Republicans who subscribed to the calumny that the election was stolen were far more likely to endorse violence to advance their political goals. If that’s the view of a significant chunk of the American people, Biden has a job on his hands.

Walmart told to pay woman with Down’s syndrome $125m for unfair dismissal

Wisconsin employee Marlo Spaeth wins discrimination lawsuit but Walmart says amount will be reduced to $300,000

Walmart spokesperson Randy Hargrove said the company was reviewing its legal options, as ‘the EEOC’s demands were unreasonable’. Photograph: Edgard Garrido/Reuters


Maya Yang
Mon 19 Jul 2021 1

A jury in federal court in Wisconsin ordered Walmart to pay $125m in punitive damages to a former employee with Down’s syndrome in a disability discrimination lawsuit, US employment officials announced.

Marlo Spaeth, who began working as a sales associate in 1999, was fired by the retail giant in 2015 for what they said was excessive absenteeism after she repeatedly asked Walmart to return her to normal work hours.

Spaeth, who consistently received positive performance reviews, originally worked from noon to 4pm. But after Walmart implemented a computerized scheduling system in November 2014, she was required to work from 1pm to 5.30pm.

The new schedule caused Spaeth difficulty owing to her disability and she struggled to keep up with the new routine. Because of Spaeth’s need for a rigid schedule, her lawsuit said, if she did not have dinner at the same time every evening, she would get sick.

According to her lawyers, Spaeth asked for her start and end times to be adjusted back to her original schedule. Despite her pleas, Walmart fired her in July 2015 for excessive absenteeism.

Though Spaeth’s termination letter said she could be rehired, Walmart refused to do so when she requested it. The jury found that Walmart turned down the request “because of her disability or because of their need to accommodate her disability”, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

“The jury here recognized, and apparently was quite offended, that Ms Spaeth lost her job because of needless – and unlawful – inflexibility on the part of Walmart,” said Gregory Gochanour, the EEOC’s Chicago regional attorney.

In addition to the $125m in punitive damages, the jury awarded Spaeth $150,000 in compensatory damages for emotional pain and mental anguish. Walmart said the verdict would be reduced to $300,000, which under federal law is the statutory maximum for punitive and compensatory damages.

Walmart spokesperson Randy Hargrove said the company was reviewing its legal options, as “the EEOC’s demands were unreasonable”.

“We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind, and we routinely accommodate thousands of associates every year,” Hargrove said.

“We often adjust associate schedules to meet our customers’ expectations and while Ms Spaeth’s schedule was adjusted, it remained within the times she indicated she was available.”

THERE IS NO SUCH A THING 

AS A UNION BOSS 

UNION BOSS is one of those right wing terms that was inserted into the media in the eighties, by conservative and business spokespeople opposed to unions. The use of pejorative Boss recognises this no one likes a Boss or the Boss unless its The Boss; Bruce Springsteen. And there is the rub, the mouthpieces of the corporate bosses our employers equates our elected representative off the shop floor as the same as the guy in head office.

 Journalists who shill in the business, being lazy when they are not colluding with like minded politicians and lobbyists, picked up the term and used it. In this case the Sun newspaper chain in Canada used it because of its right wing ideology. With nineties and the hard shift to the right the term Union Boss was picked up by all media outlets and used, it is rare to hear it not being used to describe an elected officer of a union.

The current attack on unions is by right wing politicians in Canada and the USA who support the  Right To Work anti union lobby. As this article explains there are BIG differences between

Canadian Labour Law and American Labor Law, something these imported anti union advisers and lobbyists did not understand in the early years of their entering Canada to provide their services and as part of the Right Wing Republican and Conservatives opposition to unions period. 

This lobby tries to get unions out of the workplace before they even sign up enough members, since the seventies they have provided employers who think they may be unionized, with training programs on how to keep unions out, threatening employees etc. Never of course would they suggest better pay, benefits and a grievance procedure might solve the problem.

All of this is based on these labour advisers saving the real BOSS money. 

They include professional union busters who also provide scab protecting thugs during strikes, these thugs, private security for the strike breaking firm, are treated by cops like they are cops when in fact they have no more power to arrest or harass anyone than you or I. But they sure do have snappy cargo pant black military jump suits, helmets, pepper spray, yep looks like someone in authority. But strip them of the uniforms and they are just thugs this baseball bats, whom the cops are obliged to treat as that.

Of course they rarely do that anymore. With lack of replacement worker legislation in Canada scabs, as they are known as, are allowed to cross picket lines, because this is dangerous the employer, boss, hires thugs to protect the scabs from the righteous indignation of those who are walking a picket line with no pay and benefits, to make it better. Of course the scab is a temporary worker, hoping for a quick buck and maybe a job but that will never happen unless the union is busted like it was during the infamous Calgary Herald Strike. 

The President of the union local and the other union officers, are elected by the dues paying members to represent them at an annual General Meeting open to all initiated members. Because in Canada we use the Rand formula once a union is certified the bargaining agent for the workers, dues are taken off each paycheck automatically whether you are for the union of not. Because of this automatic dues check off members are then signed up at the first meeting, sworn in (take an oath) to mutually support each other, and now have all the rights and responsibilities of a union member.

The most important responsibility of union members is to attend the monthly general meeting.

Union members make the decisions in a union local by attending monthly meetings just like any service club here all decisions are made motions passed, etc. The union uses Roberts Rules of Order to operate by. In Canada we use a Canadian Parliamentary Rules of Procedure, similar to Roberts.

Unions are far more democratic than any corporation. Which are not democratic institutions

Boss also implies giving orders, which employers do, workers elect fellow workers to represent them against the boss

"Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers," Trump said in a tweet. "No wonder companies flee country!"The president-elect followed up with another tweet accusing union leaders of not doing enough to save the jobs that were threatened. "If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana," Trump wrote. "Spend more time working-less time talking. Reduce dues."

References:

Canada's Unions Still Have Majority Support, Poll Finds

Canadians' Attitudes On Unions (2013)

Canadians' Attitudes On Unions (20
EUGENE PLAWIUK
2019

Rights group in Russia shuts down amid government crackdown

FILE - In this Wednesday, June 9, 2021 file photo, Russian lawyer Ivan Pavlov arrives to attend a court session after speaking to the media at Moscow Court, in Moscow, Russia. A rights group in Russia announced Sunday July 18, 2021, that it was shutting down, citing fear of prosecution of its members and supporters after Russian authorities blocked its website for allegedly publishing content from an "undesirable" organization. The Team 29 association of lawyers and journalists specializing in treason and espionage cases and freedom of information issues said Sunday that Russian authorities accused it of spreading content from a Czech non-governmental organization that had been declared "undesirable" in Russia. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

MOSCOW (AP) — A rights group in Russia announced Sunday that it was shutting down, citing fear of prosecution of its members and supporters after Russian authorities blocked its website for allegedly publishing content from an “undesirable” organization.

The Team 29 association of lawyers and journalists specializing in treason and espionage cases and freedom of information issues said Sunday that Russian authorities accused it of spreading content from a Czech non-governmental organization that had been declared “undesirable” in Russia.

The group’s website was blocked Friday, even though it rejected the accusations, and its lawyers said they believed the government’s next step could be to prosecute members and supporters.

“In these conditions, continuation of Team 29′s activities creates direct and clear threat to the safety of a large number of people, and we can’t ignore that risk,” the group said, adding that it would take down all of its online content in order to avoid any risks and that its lawyers would continue representing their clients in a personal capacity.

Team 29 shutting down comes as pressure mounts on opposition supporters, independent journalists and human rights activists in Russia ahead of September’s parliamentary election. The vote is widely seen as an important part of President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to cement his rule ahead of the 2024 presidential election. The 68-year-old Russian leader, who has been in power for more than two decades, pushed through constitutional changes last year that would potentially allow him to hold onto power until 2036.

In recent months, Russian authorities have increased the pressure on independent news media, designating two popular independent outlets, Meduza and VTimes, as “foreign agents” and outlawing the publisher of the Proekt investigative media outlet, while also listing its journalists as “foreign agents.” VTimes shut down shortly after that.

Last month, a Moscow court outlawed organizations founded by imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny by labeling them extremist. The ruling barred people associated with Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption and his sprawling regional network from seeking public office. Many of Navalny’s allies had planned to run for parliamentary seats in Russia’s Sept. 19 election.

Team 29, including its prominent lawyer Ivan Pavlov, was involved in defending Navalny’s foundation in court. In April, Russian authorities launched a criminal case against Pavlov, who is also representing a former Russian journalist accused of treason in a high-profile case, accusing him of disclosing information related to a police investigation.

Breivik survivors keep fighting for their vision of Norway


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FILE - In this Sunday, July 24, 2011 file photo, women carry flowers as they arrive for a memorial service at Oslo Cathedral in the aftermath of the bombing and shooting attacks on Norway's government headquarters and a youth retreat, in Oslo. On the ten-year anniversary of Norway’s worst peacetime slaughter, survivors of Anders Breivik’s 22 July assault worry that the seam of racism that nurtured the anti-Islamic mass-murderer is re-emerging.Most of Breivik’s 77 victims were teen members of the Labor Party Youth wing - idealists enjoying their annual camping trip on the tranquil, wooded island of Utoya. Today many survivors are battling to keep their vision for their country alive. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)

STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — On the 10th anniversary of Norway’s worst peacetime slaughter, survivors of Anders Behring Breivik’s assault worry that the racism which nurtured the anti-Islamic mass murderer is re-emerging in a nation known for its progressive politics.

Most of Breivik’s 77 victims on July 22, 2011, were teen members of the Labor Party — idealists enjoying their annual camping trip on the tranquil, wooded island of Utoya, in a lake northwest of Oslo, the capital. Today many survivors are battling to keep their vision for their country alive.

“I thought that Norway would positively change forever after the attacks. Ten years later, that hasn’t happened. And in many ways, the hate we see online and the threats against people in the Labor movement have increased,” said Aasmund Aukrust, then-deputy leader of the Labor Youth Wing who helped organize the camp.

Today he’s a national lawmaker campaigning for a nationwide inquiry into the right-wing ideology that inspired the killer.

Aukrust ran from the bullets flying through the forest then lay hidden for three terrifying hours while he saw friends murdered nearby. A vocal proponent of properly reckoning with the racism and xenophobia in Norway, Aukrust has been the target of online abuse, including receiving the message that “we wish Breivik had done his job.”

The victims of the Utoya massacre came from towns and villages throughout Norway, turning a personal tragedy into a collective trauma for many of the country’s 5.3 million inhabitants. Survivors were joined by a shaken population who were determined to show that Norway would become more — not less — tolerant and reject the worldview that motivated the killer.

A decade later, some survivors believe that collective determination is waning.

“What was very positive after the terror attacks was that people saw this as an attack on the whole of Norway. It was a way of showing solidarity,” said Aukrust. “But that has disappeared. It was an attack on a multicultural society. And though it was the act of one person, we know that his views are shared by more people today than they were 10 years ago.”

Breivik struck at Labor Party institutions he believed were aiding what he called the “Islamization” of Norway. Dressed as a policeman, he landed on Utoya, shooting dead 69 members of the youth wing and injuring scores more. He had earlier murdered eight people in a bomb attack at government buildings in Oslo.

“It wasn’t random that it was our summer camp that was attacked. The hatred was against us because of our values of openness and inclusiveness,” said Sindre Lysoe, a survivor from Utoya who is now the general secretary of the Labor Party’s Youth Wing.

“After Utoya, it was too hard for many people to go back to politics. For me and for society, it was very important to raise up again and fight back through more of the good work we knew we could do,” he said. “Before 22 July, politics was important, afterwards it became about life and death.”

After hearing about the Oslo bombing on the “darkest day of all of our lives,” he remembers his friends telling each other they were in the safest place on earth. Within minutes, the gunfire and screaming began on the island. Today Lysoe spends a lot of his time warning young people about the dangers of right-wing extremism.

In the years following the attack, Norway’s security police, the PST, continued to rank Islamists as more likely to carry out domestic terrorism than right-wing extremists.

But after the New Zealand mosque attacks in 2019 killed 51 people, and a copycat attempt by Norwegian shooter Philip Manshaus just outside Oslo later that year in which the killer’s sister died, Norway’s security police changed its annual assessments. It now ranks the two forms of extremism at the same danger level.

“As we progressed into 2013 and 2014, European migration and IS became the prisms that we saw terror through. Norway went back to a narrative of extremism being largely foreign,” said Bjoern Ihler, who escaped the bullets by swimming in frigid waters around the island to safety.

“There is a failure in self-reflection. We are missing the fact that Anders Breivik and Manshaus were Norwegian, but also so were a lot of the extremists throughout the last decade that should have been caught by our social system,” he said.

Since the July 22 attacks, Ihler has become an expert in countering radicalization, founding the Khalifa-Ihler Institute for Peace Building and Counter Extremism, advising European Union and chairing a panel at the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism.

Planning the attack from his mother’s home in Oslo, Breivik tapped into an online ecosystem that demonized Islam and cast in doubt Europe’s Christian future. Ihler, who has spoken with scores of reformed extremists, says these internet echo chambers need to be exposed to different voices.

“Regardless of ideology, the reasons they went into radical environments are all somewhat similar. It’s about finding identity and a space where you find belonging. Whether it is Islamists or far-right extremists, the fundamental problem they have is living in environments with diversity,” he said. “The tricky part is helping them build comfort with that diversity.”

Ihler still believes in the power of traditional Norwegian values such as democracy and rehabilitation in solving societal problems.

Breivik struck at all of these, testing not only the country’s commitment to tolerance and inclusiveness but also to nonviolence and merciful justice. Yet he still benefits from a justice system that favors rehabilitation over vengeance.

While his sentence can be extended if he is still considered dangerous, Breivik is serving his 21 years in a three-room cell with access to a gym and computer games, luxuries that would be unthinkable even for minor criminals in other countries.

“It is right that he is treated humanely,” said Ihler. “We don’t want to go down the same route of violence. We need to keep on showing people that there are better ways of dealing with the issues we have.”

Ben & Jerry’s to stop sales in West Bank, east Jerusalem

By WILSON RING and JOSEF FEDERMAN

FILE — In this March 23, 2010 file photo ice cream moves along the production line at Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, in Waterbury, Vt. Ben & Jerry's ice cream said Monday, July 19, 2021, it was going to stop selling its ice cream in the occupied Palestinian territories. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot, File)

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Ben & Jerry’s said Monday it was going to stop selling its ice cream in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and contested east Jerusalem, saying the sales in the territories sought by the Palestinians are “inconsistent with our values.”

The announcement was one of the strongest and highest-profile rebukes by a well-known company of Israel’s policy of settling its citizens on war-won lands. The settlements are widely seen by the international community as illegal and obstacles to peace.

The move by the Vermont-based ice cream company drew swift reproach from Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former leader of the West Bank settlement movement who called it “an immoral decision and I believe that it will turn out to be a business mistake, too.”

The company informed its longstanding licensee — responsible for manufacturing and distributing the ice cream in Israel — that it will not renew the license agreement when it expires at the end of next year, according to a statement posted on the Vermont-based company’s website.

The Ben & Jerry’s statement cited “the concerns shared with us by our fans and trusted partners.”

The company did not explicitly identify those concerns, but last month, a group called Vermonters for Justice in Palestine called on Ben & Jerry’s to “end complicity in Israel’s occupation and abuses of Palestinian human rights.”

“How much longer will Ben & Jerry’s permit its Israeli-manufactured ice cream to be sold in Jewish-only settlements while Palestinian land is being confiscated, Palestinian homes are being destroyed, and Palestinian families in neighborhoods like Sheik Jarrah are facing eviction to make way for Jewish settlers?” the organization’s Ian Stokes said in a June 10 news release.

In a Monday statement, the organization said Ben & Jerry’s actions did not go far enough.

“By maintaining a presence in Israel, Ben & Jerry’s continues to be complicit in the killing, imprisonment and dispossession of Palestinian people and the flaunting of international law,” said the Vermont group’s Kathy Shapiro.

The Israeli foreign ministry called Ben & Jerry’s decision “a surrender to ongoing and aggressive pressure from extreme anti-Israel groups” and the company was cooperating with “economic terrorism.”

“The decision is immoral and discriminatory, as it singles out Israel, harms both Israelis and Palestinians and encourages extremist groups who use bullying tactics,” the ministry said in a statement. It also called on Ben & Jerry’s to withdraw its decision.

While Ben & Jerry’s products will not be sold in the settlements, the company said it will stay in Israel through a different arrangement. But doing so will be difficult. Major Israeli supermarket chains, the primary distribution channel for the ice cream maker, all operate in the settlements.

Founded in Vermont in 1978, but currently owned by consumer goods conglomerate Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s has not shied away from social causes. While many businesses tread lightly in politics for fear of alienating customers, the ice cream maker has taken the opposite approach, often espousing progressive causes.

Ben & Jerry’s took a stand against what it called the Trump administration’s regressive policies by rebranding one of its flavors Pecan Resist in 2018, ahead of midterm elections.

The company said Pecan Resist celebrated activists who were resisting oppression, harmful environmental practices and injustice. As part of the campaign, Ben & Jerry’s said it was giving $25,000 each to four activist entities.

Aida Touma-Sliman, an Israeli lawmaker with the Joint List of Arab parties, wrote on Twitter that Ben and Jerry’s decision Monday was “appropriate and moral.” She added that the “occupied territories are not part of Israel” and that the move is an important step to help pressure the Israeli government to end the occupation.

The West Bank and east Jerusalem were captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. Some 700,000 Israeli settlers now live in the two territories — roughly 500,000 in the occupied West Bank and 200,000 in east Jerusalem.

Israel treats the two areas separately, considering east Jerusalem as part of its capital. Meanwhile, Israel considers the West Bank as disputed territory whose fate should be resolved in negotiations. However the international community considers both areas to be occupied territory. The Palestinians seek the West Bank as part of a future independent state, with east Jerusalem as their capital.

Israel in recent years has become a partisan issue in Washington, with many Democrats — particularly of the party’s progressive wing — growing increasingly critical over a number of Israeli policies, including settlement construction, and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s close ties with former President Trump. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has been an outspoken critic of Israel.

The BDS movement — shorthand for a grassroots, Palestinian-led movement that advocates boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israeli institutions and businesses — applauded Ben & Jerry’s decision as “a decisive step towards ending the company’s complicity in Israel’s occupation and violations of Palestinian rights,” but called upon the company to do more.

“We hope that Ben & Jerry’s has understood that, in harmony with its social justice commitments, there can be no business as usual with apartheid Israel,” a statement read.

The Israeli government says the BDS movement masks a deeper aim of delegitimizing or even destroying the entire country.

The Yesha Council, an umbrella group representing the roughly 500,000 Israelis living in West Bank settlements, said “there’s no need to buy products from companies that boycott hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens because of the place they choose to live.” It said Ben & Jerry’s decision “brought a bad spirit to such a sweet industry” and called on Israelis to buy locally produced ice cream this summer.

Ben & Jerry’s move on Monday may not be the final chapter in the saga. Airbnb announced in 2018 that it would stop advertising properties in Israeli settlements. Several months later, after coming under harsh criticism from Israel and a federal lawsuit by Israeli Americans who owned property in the settlements, the company reversed its decision.

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Federman reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press reporters Lisa Rathke in Marshfield, Vermont, and Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem contributed to this report.