Op-Ed: Babies prewired to read — Evolutionary adaption at top speed?
By Paul Wallis 

Columbus - The idea of adaptive evolution is pretty simple. It just got a bit more complex with the finding that newborn babies arrive fully equipped to learn to read. This is truly fascinating new science, and very important.

Researchers at Ohio State University conducted studies of newborn infants to discover a pre-existing, ready-to-go area of the brain receptive to learning to read. This part of the brain is called the visual word form area (VWFA). This part of the brain is directly connected to the wider language network.

The VFWA is also right next to the critical facial recognition part of the brain. This may be significant, as facial recognition is a high-function social area of the brain, as is language.
The working theory is that recognition of words and faces have similar properties. This is a spatial resolution issue. Detailed recognition of a face or a word both require the ability to distinguish identifying elements.

Reading as an evolutionary adaptive process

Reading and written language are derived from arguably the most critical of all human adaptive development – Language. That’s more than a bit interesting because the oldest known written language dates back a bit more than 3000 years, a sneeze in time in evolutionary terms.

It’s well known that the brain adapts over time to its practical needs. The brain rewires itself and develops in a very practical, survival-based, way. Even brain damage can be bypassed by creative rewiring.

…But the finding of preloaded to read babies implies a very different ballpark. This add-on to the basic brain profile suggests a very highly adaptive evolutionary capacity.

There’s another, much less obvious, factor in play in this situation. Reading also generates visualization. You create your own images. You can visualize the characters in a book from descriptions, or your own mental preferred images, for example.

These images are similar to “hardcopy” visual imagery from the eyes. They require similar amounts of information to generate images. So the required neurology to deliver these images has to be pretty much the same.

Therefore… Has human adaption developed prewiring to learn to read as a natural evolutionary role? If so, it’s a perfectly good adaptive option. Not being able to read and get information is a real handicap in both ancient and modern societies.

It should also be noted that the brain also develops an equally practical ability – The ability to discard information. It’s well known that visual advertising, for example, is largely blocked out by the conscious mind. Maybe the vital reading/learning process, jumpstarted by this prenatal hardwiring, is the baseline system for all the skills to be developed?

Written languages have only been around for about 3400 years. If so, 3400 years is a pretty quick turnaround for evolutionary adaption of this type. Reading is the mental equivalent of an opposed thumb, in many ways. It allows handling and processing of information, indirect (non-physical- experience-based) sourcing of information, and critical thinking.

This is more than a bit of a gigantic jump from the more basic generational, purely natural selective development view of evolution. It’s an indirect type of evolution, a catchall for a quite different environment from the classical picture of physical evolution.

A few questions which should be rhetorical but can’t be:

• Does reading add such a huge range of skills-learning capacity? Yes.

• Does the ability to learn to read expand brain function capabilities? Yes.

• Is reading an all-purpose skill suitable for just about any situation or information needs? Yes.

• Is the inability to read a major social, therefore evolutionary disadvantage? Yes.

The point of this exercise in stating the obvious is to emphasize that the evolutionary development of the human brain would need to be pretty agile. To install a whole new data management system, with a neurological setup, in a few thousand years is very fast indeed. It’s also fair to call this new ability a “targeted” evolutionary adaption.

Bear in mind:
• Literacy wasn’t the top of the list of skills for nearly all of the last 3000 years in most societies. Not many people could read until relatively recently, say, 200 years ago.

• Numeracy skills, on the other hand, another form of reading, were essential for all societies to handle that other survival asset, money. Maybe it’s numeracy first, literacy second?

• The reading adaption actually seems to be extrapolated from practical skills needs dating back that far.

• The neurological adaption itself couldn’t be much more useful. It covers the entire modern must-have skill sets for everyone.

The question now is “What don’t we know about evolution?”

How does the human brain rewire itself that quickly to adopt a whole range of future skill sets which became survival essentials?

Does human evolution pick up “live” evolutionary needs through skills? It’d explain quite a lot about this remarkable wiring in infants if so. (This is similar to the general theory of getting used to an environment. The body also gets a lot of adaptive information from food, microbiota, etc. This would be roughly the same approach.)

How does this become a standard-issue human brain function for newborns?

Ever get the feeling we may be staring at something incredibly obvious?

This opinion article was written by an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of DigitalJournal.com

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/science/op-ed-babies-prewired-to-read-evolutionary-adaption-at-top-speed/article/580469#ixzz6ccdRfPSo

Magic: The Wizard of Oz successfully stored and retrieved on DNA
BY TIM SANDLE OCT 30, 2020 IN SCIENCE

Using DNA as a robust storage medium continues to advance. In a new attempt to showcase the technology, researchers have succeeded in storing 'The Wizard of Oz,' translated into Esperanto - with accuracy and efficiency.

The aim of the study was to perfect techniques intended to harness the information-storage capacity of intertwined strands of DNA, as a durable storage medium. Though this demonstration, the researchers were able to encode the entirety of the data and then retrieve the information with complete accuracy. Moreover, the application was found to be long-lasting and compact.

READ MORE: Extracting DNA from museum pieces to reveal secrets

It has previously been established that a strand of DNA preserved in glass could keep data in a readable state for over 2 million years if kept in an optimal environment. This can be natural DNA or synthetic. With the latter, synthetic biology can be used to engineer cells with "molecular recorders".

The follow-on questions are with how much data and can these data be retrieved and uncoded accurately?

This was the question that researchers from University of Texas at Austin, were keen to answer. According to Professor Ilya Finkelstein: "The key breakthrough is an encoding algorithm that allows accurate retrieval of the information even when the DNA strands are partially damaged during storage."

The researchers demonstrated this capability by using the novel 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' by L. Frank Baum, first published in 1900. To demonstrate information retrieval from DNA, the team subjected the DNA containing the text to high temperatures and extreme humidity. These environmental stressors did not damage the DNA in terms of data retrieval.

Other properties of DNA are inspiring scientists.In one case, technologists are attempting to replicate the remarkable ability of DNA to self-repair. This aspect, until fairly recently, has been a mystery to scientists, and yet it just might hold the key to developing self-repairing computers.



Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/science/magic-the-wizard-of-oz-successfully-stored-and-retrived-on-dna/article/580005#ixzz6ccac375Y

Record fires ravage Brazil's Amazon and Pantanal regions
By AFP 1 hour ago in World

A record high number of fires scorched Brazil's Amazon and Pantanal wetlands last month, official data showed on Sunday, as deforestation and climate change wreaked havoc on some of the planet's most valuable ecosystems.

The Amazon rainforest has been described as the Earth's "lungs" due to its role in producing almost 10 percent of the world's oxygen.

The Pantanal further south is one of the world's largest tropical wetlands and a biodiversity paradise that extends across Brazil's borders into Paraguay and Bolivia.

A volunteer throws water to control a fire in the Pantanal, Brazil
Mauro Pimentel, AFP/File

The number of fires typically fall in October as the Amazon approaches the rainy season.

But Brazil's National Institute of Space Research (INPE) on Sunday recorded 17,326 fires in the Amazon in October, more than double the number seen in the same month in 2019.

Satellite imagery showed close to 100,000 fires in the first 10 months of 2020, more than were seen in the whole of last year.

The INPE also detected almost 3,000 individual fires in the Pantanal, a new monthly record since data collection began in 1998.

Amanaci, an adult female jaguar that had its paws burnt during fires in Pantanal, recieves stem cell treatment at the Nex Institute NGO, in Corumba de Goias, Goias State, Brazil
EVARISTO SA, AFP/File

The region -- 23 percent of which is estimated to have gone up in smoke this year -- has seen a record-breaking 21,115 fires so far this year, more than double the number registered in all of 2019.

Experts and environmental NGOs blame the worsening fires on Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, a climate change skeptic who supports opening both regions to logging and farming.

Some fires are the result of burning to prepare the land for livestock, despite a 120-day ban on the practice imposed in July.

"With deforestation rates increasing in recent years, warnings by researchers were ignored by the government: deforestation and fire go together," said Mariana Napolitano, the head of the science program at World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Brazil.

"After deforesting the jungle, the offenders set fires to clean up the accumulated organic material... at the end of the month, with the arrival of the rains, the pace of the fires seems to be slowing down, but we can hardly depend on climate factors," she said.

"What happened in the dry season in the Amazon and Pantanal cannot be repeated."

Climate change has also played a role in the fires, with a team of international researchers warning this year that rising global temperatures posed a "critical threat" to the Pantanal's delicate ecosystem.

President Bolsonaro has denounced a campaign of "disinformation" about the Pantanal and the Amazon, even blaming local indigenous people and activists for setting the fires.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/record-fires-ravage-brazil-s-amazon-and-pantanal-regions/article/580485#ixzz6ccYn0DtP

Pandemic is taking a heavy toll on oil and gas companies

By Karen Graham Oct 30, 2020 

Already struggling with weak prices from oversupply, the pandemic is taking a heavy toll on the oil industry. The International Energy Agency (IEA) says the impact on investments in the oil industry will continue to be felt for years to come.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic will end up having long-term impacts on the petroleum industry that could be felt for years to come. The IEA suggests that in 2020, so far, oil majors have made spending cuts averaging about 35 percent in response to the effects that the coronavirus pandemic is having on demand.
The IEA notes that this spending slump is just in upstream oil and gas, reports Oilprice.com. According to an update earlier this month in its World Energy Investment report, this is part of a wider trend of investment cuts in the energy industry.
Exxon Mobil = on Friday - reported a third-quarter loss of $680 million, along with revenues dropping to $46.2 billion, down from $65.05 billion during the same quarter last year.
“This is a business that’s made a billion dollars a quarter on average from 2011 to 2018 and it’s had a rough go,” said Peter McNally, global sector lead for industrials, materials and energy at Third Bridge, a research firm, .reports the Charlotte Observer.
As CTV News Canada notes, Exxon wasn't the only oil company to report a loss on Friday. Chevron reported losses of $207 million after turning in a profit of $2.9 billion last year. It brought in $24 billion in revenues, down from $35 billion during the same period last year.
"It's not going well," McNally said. "You have to squint at some of the things to find things that are good." And the third quarter was an improvement compared with the last when oil futures crashed below zero. Exxon and Chevron lost a combined $9 billion.
And speaking of the IEA's forecast of pandemic impacts affecting the oil industry for years, the agency points out that there has already been a 45 percent cut in investments by U.S. shale oil companies this year - combined with a 50 percent jump in financing costs.
When all is said and done - we come down to a keyword - uncertainty. As long as the coronavirus pandemic surges around the globe, and countries are again resorting to lockdowns, the petroleum sector will not be the only one to feel its effects, reports CTV News.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/business/pandemic-is-taking-a-heavy-toll-on-oil-and-gas-companies/article/580369#ixzz6ccX3pTUt

New Zealand gets tattooed Maori foreign minister,   gay deputy PM
BY NEIL SANDS (AFP) 

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern unveiled what she called an "incredibly diverse" cabinet Monday that includes New Zealand's first openly gay deputy prime minister and a foreign minister with a Maori facial tattoo.

The centre-left leader revamped her ministerial line-up in the wake of a landslide election victory, saying her second-term priorities were responding to Covid-19 and promoting economic recovery.

Ardern appointed Grant Robertson as deputy prime minister, making him the first openly gay person to hold the role.

Women and the Maori community are also strongly represented in the 20-member cabinet, including new Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta, who has a moko kauae -- a traditional female Maori tattoo on the chin.

While expressing pride at her cabinet's diversity, Ardern also said appointments were made on merit.

"It is both a cabinet with huge merit and talent, which also happens to be incredibly diverse," the 40-year-old said.

"I think it's an important point to make -- these are individuals who have been promoted for what they bring to the cabinet, they also reflect the New Zealand that elected them."

Robertson, 49, has long acted as Ardern's right-hand man -- he controlled the government's purse strings as finance minister during her first term and was chief strategist of her election campaign.

The deputy's role -- which he will hold along with the finance and infrastructure portfolios -- formalises his position and will see him become acting prime minister when Ardern is overseas.

- 'Fantastic relationships' -

Asked about the significance of having a gay man as her second in command, Ardern said Robertson was selected for his leadership abilities, not how he identified.

"One of the amazing things about New Zealand is that we are often in a space where these questions become secondary," she said.

Mahuta, the first woman to become New Zealand foreign minister, was elected to parliament in 1996 but got the traditional tattoo in 2016 at the urging of her daughter.

The distinctive decoration is unique to her, although it has design elements specific to her iwi, or tribe. The male moko covers the entire face.

At the time, Mahuta said the tattoo was a way to both honour her ancestors and reduce stigma surrounding an aspect of Maori culture that many New Zealanders have associated with crime and gangs.

"She's someone who builds fantastic relationships very, very quickly and that is one of the key jobs in a foreign affairs role," Ardern said of her new chief diplomat.

Maori and Pacific islanders comprise just under a quarter of the population but are vastly over-represented in statistics on crime, poverty and prisons.

Ardern said it was simply a coincidence that her ministers for justice, courts, domestic violence, corrections and the police came from these communities.

"My focus was just (choosing the) best person for the job," she said.

Ardern won the October 17 election campaigning on New Zealand's success containing coronavirus and her cabinet includes a new role of minister for Covid-19 response, filled by former health minister Chris Hipkins.

She said the change would allow Hipkins to focus on issues such as border control and managed isolation, without distraction from the wider health portfolio.

While Ardern won the election with an absolute majority, meaning her Labour Party can govern alone, she also appointed two Greens lawmakers to ministries outside the cabinet.

One Greens co-leader, James Shaw, will become climate change minister and the other, Marama Davidson, will have a portfolio focusing on preventing family and sexual violence.

The government will be sworn in on Friday.



Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/new-zealand-gets-tattooed-maori-foreign-minister-gay-deputy-pm/article/580477#ixzz6ccVCmvxS

Government of Canada supports phase 1 trial for COVID-19 vaccine

Providence Therapeutics, a Canadian biotechnology company, has announced that the federal government of Canada will support its Phase 1 Clinical trials for a COVID-19 vaccine. This is an important step in the fight against the coronavirus.

BY TIM SANDLE 

Providence Therapeutics announced in August that its vaccine has produced better neutralizing antibody responses than those reported by many other mRNA vaccine manufacturers. With the new announcement and governmenal support, the company can now move forward with its promising research.

In relation to the coronavirus, mRNA vaccines work by triggering the human body into producing some of the viral proteins itself. These vaccines work by using mRNA, or messenger RNA, which is the molecule that essentially puts DNA instructions into action.

The support takes the form of National Research Council funding. Other companies receiving the $23 million support are:
Immunovaccine Technologies Inc. (Dartmouth, N.S.)
Entos Pharmaceuticals (Edmonton, Alta.)
Glycovax Pharma (Montreal, Que.)
Symvivo (Burnaby, B.C.)
Biodextris Inc. (Laval, Que.)

According to Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, the investment is a "Testament to Canada’s commitment to evidence-based solutions to fight the global COVID-19 pandemic. As we continue to safely restart our economy, we will do whatever it takes to protect Canadians from COVID-19 and build a country that is healthier and safer for everyone."

Providence has been developing a vaccine over recent months and the science company continues to undertake animal trials in advance of moving towards Phase 1 clinical trials (which will involve people). The biotech group is expected to start these trials within weeks, as soon as Health Canada approval has been granted.

Phase 1 clinical trials involve a small subject group and they seek to find out about side effects, and what happens to the treatment once it is in the human body.

Each vaccine candidates needs to go through pre-clinical and clinical trials. The regulatory body, Health Canada reviews the evidence of safety, efficacy, and manufacturing quality, for each potenital drug product.



Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/science/government-of-canada-supports-phase-1-trial-for-covid-19-vaccine/article/580138#ixzz6ccSGiRki

As Europe's governments lose control of Covid, revolt is in the air

Fears of civil unrest grow as people across the continent no longer trust leaders to protect them during the crisis



Julian Coman
The Observer
Europe
Sun 1 Nov 2020 

 

Hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters gather in Paris to protest against the latest measures adopted by the French government. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

As the second wave of Covid-19 filled hospital wards across Europe last week, and countries inched reluctantly towards varying degrees of partial lockdown, television schedules were cleared to allow leaders to address weary nations.

Announcing a 6pm curfew for the country’s restaurants and bars the Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, called for national unity. “If we all respect these new rules during the month of November,” he said, “we will succeed in keeping the epidemiological curve under control. That way we will be able to ease the restrictions and move into the Christmas festivities with greater serenity.”

Speaking from the Elysée, a sombre Emmanuel Macron decreed a new national lockdown, lasting until at least 1 December, and warned France the new wave of infections was likely to be “deadlier than the first”. In Belgium, where Covid is spreading faster than in any other European country, the new prime minister, Alexander De Croo, hoped “a team of 11 million Belgians” would pull together to follow tighter regulations.

In tone and spirit, the messages echoed those delivered in March, when shock and fear led populations to rally round leaders and consent to restrictions unknown outside wartime. Eight months on, that kind of trust and goodwill is in short supply.

Europe, once again, is the centre of the global pandemic, accounting for almost half the world’s infections last week. But as desperately needed financial support fails to materialise, and track and trace systems fail to cope with the surge, there is public exasperation and, in some cases, open rebellion. On Friday evening, protestors threw molotov cocktails at police in Florence, in the latest outbreak of social unrest following Conte’s new rules.

Pino Esposito, a Neapolitan barber, is one of those who has lost faith in the orders coming from the top. In his home city, Esposito is leading a group of small businessmen in a campaign against the new restrictions. “We are protesting,” he says, “because all European governments, including ours, have found themselves unprepared for the second wave. Since March they were saying that, in October or November, the second wave would come and that it would be even more serious.

“But no preparation has been put in place for our schools, the health system, jobs, or the providing of incentives. And the financial support we were promised is not there to access. But businesses must have it if they are to stay closed and staff need unemployment money immediately.”

Across the continent, there is similar evidence of people facing dire economic hardship and psychological exhaustion. Earlier this month, a study from the World Health Organization reported widespread apathy and reduced motivation to follow public health guidance. The emotional toll of Covid-19 has been compounded by a growing scepticism in the capacity of governments to truly get on top of a crisis that is destroying people’s livelihoods as well as threatening their health.

According to the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, the continent’s partial economic recovery in the summer and early autumn was “unequal, uncertain and incomplete”. As the second wave hits, she said in a recent interview, “it now risks being extinguished.”

 Protesters gather at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to demand financial assistance during the second wave of the pandemic. Photograph: Maja Hitij/Getty Images

From Milan to Manchester, and Marseille to Madrid, that prospect has sparked a wave of revolts. After the spring lockdown was eased, the subsequent patchwork of regulations and restrictions hit some workers, and regions far harder than others. The Spanish government’s decision to declare a six-month state of emergency has led to angry protests across the country and a bitter row with the conservative regional government of Madrid, which has accused it of overstepping its powers.

The mayors of nine cities, including Barcelona, Lisbon, Prague and Milan, have by-passed their national governments to write directly to the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, demanding access to the €750bn (£676bn) EU recovery fund. In Germany, where a partial lockdown beginson Monday, thousands of workers and employers in the arts and hospitality industries marched in Berlin last week, demanding greater financial support. Freelancers across the continent have fallen through the cracks of state support for those unable to work

.
Riot police fire tear gas during a protest against the latest Covid restrictions in Italy. Photograph: Claudio Furlan/AP

In Italy, a tipping point appears to be disturbingly close. Angry demonstrations erupted in Naples just over a week ago, after a local curfew was imposed. The protests were followed by civil disorder in Milan and Turin, where luxury stores were looted. “I think this is only the beginning”, says the Italian journalist and author of Gomorrah, Roberto Saviano. “In the first lockdown, Italians were united in the idea that this was an wholly novel emergency; a situation that any government would find difficult to deal with. Now they feel deceived.

“They’ve been told that things were going well, that we were winning. But their savings have been used up, they can see the problems with a testing system that isn’t working, and there is confusion and disagreement between the scientists. People have started to lose faith in the capacity of institutions to save them.”

There will be unrest across Europe. It will come because the centre isn’t holding any more

Roberto Saviano

(THE CENTRE WILL NOT HOLD, MERE ANARCHY IS UNLEASHED UPON THE WORLD....WB YEATS) 

A poll following last week’s mini-riots found that over three-quarters of Italians believe there will be more violence in the streets this winter.

“There will be unrest across Europe too,” says Saviano. “It will happen in different ways and with different catalysts, but it will come because the centre isn’t holding any more. We are a world away from the mood in March when it was a case of ‘we must follow the rules and protect ourselves or we will perish.’ Now some people think, well, I’m going under anyway if I can’t survive economically.”

The geographer Christophe Guilluy, whose books have charted the growing social divisions between provincial and metropolitan France, is similarly pessimistic about sustaining a mood of unity. Over the summer, local leaders in Marseille complained bitterly that a nighttime curfew and mask regulations had been imposed from Paris without due consultation. Macron’s move to a new lockdown, believes Guilluy, is already creating new divisions, as those with sufficient means insulate themselves from the worst of what is to come. On Thursday evening, huge traffic jams built up as Parisians attempted to flee the capital and head for second homes before a 9pm curfew. “The Parisians who have fled to their second homes,” he says “are running the risk of infecting inhabitants of provincial and rural areas. They have been very badly received.

“Inequalities between classes and between regions have been exacerbated by the pandemic. The truth is, social and cultural tensions have rarely been so acute in France, but the political classes are attempting to mask them by appealing to a sense of republican unity.”

Political rivalries and ambitions that pre-date the pandemic are also complicating the response to the second wave. In Belgium – where overwhelmed hospitals in Liège have asked Covid-positive medical staff to keep working – concerted action was stymied by high-profile disputes between politicians from the Flemish-speaking north and the Francophone south. The country has now locked down until mid-December. But the minister-president of Flanders, Jan Jambon, had previously claimed tough action was necessary only in Wallonia. By the time of his U-turn last week, 600,000 Belgians were believed to be spreading the virus.

“From May through June and right up until recently, you have seen a growing polarisation of opinion in public debate,” says Dave Sinardet, a political scientist from Saint-Louis University in Brussels. “The virologists would push for tougher measures, but there was a growing lobby for keeping the economy more open. So in September, when the infection rate was rising sharply, there was still a reduced level of restrictions. There’s a lot of criticism of the people who were giving that advice.”

The obvious failure of the country’s track and trace system is contributing to a sense of disillusionment with the management of the crisis. “There is frustration and a feeling that businesses such as cafes and restaurants did a lot, and the government didn’t do enough,” says Sinardet.

'It's the final blow': businesses angry at Italy's new Covid rules

Boris Johnson will on Thursday add England to the list of European nations shutting down for a second time. According to Germany’s finance minister, Olaf Scholz: “November will be the month of truth”, in the battle against the second wave of Covid. But the indicators are that the struggle could go either way. The pace and intensity of the surge in infections has taken governments by surprise and left them looking unprepared. Public buy-in to a renewed lockdown, may need a step-change in the level of support and solidarity governments are prepared to offer. The financial cost will be enormous, but the price of inaction could be much higher.

In a column for La Stampa last week, the philosopher and former mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, wrote: “A social crisis has been added to the public health one… [the crisis] is creating differences in income and living conditions which are completely incompatible with what we mean by a ‘democracy’. Are we aware of this? Up to now, I don’t think so. But there isn’t a moment to lose.”

The stakes were dramatically high before the first lockdown in March. They may be even higher now.

Additional reporting by Angela Giuffrida

A win for Joe Biden would only scratch the surface of America’s afflictions
John Mulholland

Donald Trump has inflicted misery on his country, but its problems do not stem from the past four years alone; they run centuries deep

Sun 1 Nov 2020 

Illustration: Dom McKenzie.

On 18 September, the first day of early voting in the US, Jason Miller, a house painter from Minneapolis, became, according to the Washington Post, one of the first people in the country to vote. He cast his vote for Joe Biden, saying: “I’ve always said that I wanted to be the first person to vote against Donald Trump. For four years, I have waited to do this.” Close to 90 million people have already voted in the US and it is on track to record the highest turnout since 1908.

We can thank Donald Trump for that, a man who attracts fierce loyalty from his supporters but who energises his opponents in equal measure. The country has been fixated by the White House occupant for the past four years. But there is a danger that progressives and liberals invest too much faith in Trump’s departure and too little in what will be needed to fix America. 

Getting rid of Trump might be one thing, fixing America is another.

If the president loses, there will be much talk of a new normality and the need for a democratic reset. Hopes will be voiced for a return to constitutional norms. There will be calls for a return of civility in public discourse and a healing of the partisan divide that scars America. All of that is as it should be. But it ought to come with a recognition that America was broken long before it elected Trump and his departure would be no guarantee that the country will be mended. Many of the systemic issues that afflict the US predate Trump.

His ugly and dysfunctional presidency has distracted from many of the fundamentals that have beset America for decades, even centuries. But they remain stubbornly in place. If he does lose, America will no longer have Trump to blame. Two two-term Democratic presidents over the past 30 years have not significantly affected the structural issues that corrode US democracy and society, and race is always at their heart. The past few months have drawn further attention to the systemic racism and brutality that characterise much policing. But racism in the States is not confined to the police. In fact, it is not confined at all.

 Michelle Obama, Melania and Donald Trump and Barack Obama at Trump’s inauguration on 20 January 2017. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch/EPA

When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, there was talk about a post-racial America. But in 2016, at the end of Obama’s eight-year term, the non-partisan thinktank the Pew Research Center estimated that the median wealth of white households in the US was $171,000 (£132,000). This was 10 times the median wealth of black households ($17,100). This was a larger gap than in 2007, the year before Obama was elected.

Trump can be blamed for exacerbating racial tensions and giving succour to white supremacists but the racial wealth gap runs deeper than his term of office. As the non-aligned Brookings Institution said this year: “Gaps in wealth between black and white households reveal the effects of accumulated inequality and discrimination, as well as differences in power and opportunity that can be traced back to this nation’s inception.” The country, post-Trump, could choose to turn its attention to school segregation, but that seems unlikely. As Elise Boddie, a law professor at Rutgers University, and Dennis D Parker, from the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote in the New York Times in 2018: “No one is really talking about school segregation anymore. At the height of school desegregation, from 1964 through the 1980s, high-school graduation rates for black students improved significantly.” Boddie and Parker estimated that school segregation in Michigan, New York, Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey is now “worse than in the former Confederacy”. Other research confirms that school segregation is higher than it has been in decades.

Then there’s income inequality, which has surged in the past 40 years (including during 16 years of Bill Clinton and Obama) from technological change, globalisation and the decline of unions and collective bargaining. Pew estimates that income inequality in the US increased by 20% between 1980 and 2016. The non-profit, non-partisan thinktank the Economic Policy Institute estimates that CEO compensation in America has grown 940% since 1978. Typical worker compensation rose 12% during that time. 

Racism in the States is not confined to the police. In fact, it is not confined at all.

But at the heart of a broken America is its system of democracy. As Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of How Democracies Die, wrote: “Our constitution was designed to favour small (or low-population) states. Small states were given representation equal to that of big states in the Senate and an advantage in the Electoral College. What began as a minor small-state advantage evolved, over time, into a vast over-representation of rural states.”

All states are represented by two senators. So a citizen of California with a population 40 million (which is 39% white) is represented by two senators – as are the 570,000 people who live in the state of Wyoming (which is 92% white). This means that voters in older, rural and majority-white states are significantly over-represented in both the Senate and presidential elections. This may explain the fact that out of nearly 2,000 people who have served in the Senate since 1789 only 10 have been black.

It will only get worse. According to author Ezra Klein: “By 2040, 70% of Americans will live in the 15 largest states. That means 70% of America will be represented by only 30 senators, while the other 30% of America will be represented by 70 senators.”

The electoral college allows, indeed facilitates, such distortions as the Republicans being able to win the White House in 2000 and 2016 despite losing the popular vote. They control the Senate despite polling fewer votes. Then there is widespread gerrymandering and voter suppression aimed mostly at poorer communities and people of colour, which the Guardian has highlighted in a year-long series. Klein has neatly summarised the problem thus: “One of the biggest problems with American democracy is that it’s not democratic.”

None of these systemic issues – or myriad others – which disfigure the US is on the ballot on Tuesday. But will they remain in place long after the election? Removing Trump would be a start, but some of the scourges that afflict America have lasted 400 – the first enslaved people arrived in 1619 – not four years.

•John Mulholland is Editor of Guardian America and former Editor of the Observer

North Carolina’s Police Attack on Election Marchers Had a Long History Behind It

A racist sheriff and a system of voter suppression meet in a cloud of pepper spray.

By JULIA CRAVEN OCT 31, 2020
THE SLATEST

Early voting in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Thursday. Alex Wong/Getty Images

On Saturday, Alamance County sheriff’s deputies and city police pepper-sprayed a crowd of about 200 people who were peacefully marching to the polls in Graham, North Carolina, without warning and on slim reasoning. Graham police claimed that protesters didn’t have the adequate permits to close off the road, while the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office said that the march was shut down out of “concerns for the safety of all.”

If it is at all difficult to understand how a police department could act so heinously—particularly when children and elderly community members are present within the crowd—then it’s important for one to grasp the context that the law enforcement operates within.

This is the second time since 2016 that Alamance County has made national news for its treatment of voters. In 2017, 12 residents, most of whom were Black and on parole or probation for felony charges, were charged for illegally voting in the 2016 election. If someone is convicted of a felony in North Carolina, they lose their right to vote for the entirety of their incarceration and until any parole or probation has concluded—another key method of voter suppression in the state.

“There is no doubt that in North Carolina’s history, felony disenfranchisement legislation was enacted by legislators as a way to keep African Americans from voting and participating in democracy,” Orville Vernon Burton, the Judge Matthew J. Perry distinguished professor of history at Clemson University, told WRAL in July.

While it’s up to the local district attorney to bring charges in these cases, police—particularly sheriffs, who wield an astounding amount of power within their jurisdictions—have a critical role in setting the tone for the prosecutions.

Voter intimidation is an omnipresent concern in North Carolina, a state that has tried to prevent Black and brown voters from casting ballots with “surgical precision” since Reconstruction. During the late 1800s, a high-level white supremacist campaign in North Carolina went to extreme acts of violence—including massacring Black residents in Wilmington—in order to regain political power within the state. Less outwardly violent voter suppression tactics have cropped up in the state following the Supreme Court’s weakening of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby v. Holder, such as North Carolina’s infamous voter ID law and gerrymandering so precise that every district in the state had to be redrawn.

Prior to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Black people across the South were at risk of being arrested by police on Election Day for minor crimes by officers hoping to deter voters from casting ballots. In recent years, there have been complaints about suspiciously timed arrests and traffic stops involving Black residents on Election Day.

In North Carolina, “the sheriff’s office is a creation of the state constitution. The sheriff’s office is on the same hierarchical tier as the governor’s office,” explained Dawn Blagrove, executive director of the Carolina Justice Policy Center, to WUNC in May. “So you need to know what they think, where they stand policy-wise, and what type of culture they’re going to create in your county.”

Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson, who has held the position for almost 18 years, has a record defined by racism and intimidation. As the 2004 general election approached, Johnson announced that he would send deputies to the homes of all new registrants with a Hispanic-sounding name to investigate whether they were citizens. He claimed that undocumented people were registering to vote at local Division of Motor Vehicles offices with falsified documents. (The Justice Department sent election monitors to Alamance in 2004, 2008, and 2012.)

Johnson has a history of making incredibly racist statements about immigrants—including egregious, nonsensical claims that it’s socially acceptable to sexually assault underage girls in Mexico. The sheriff has been vehement about incarcerating “criminal immigrants,” or “taco eaters,” who are coming into the country to “victimize our children, our citizens, with drugs, murders, rapes, robberies, you name it.” In early 2019, he told the Alamance County Board of Commissioners that undocumented “criminals” were “raping our citizens in many, many ways.”

Beyond his rhetoric, Johnson has used his office to wreak havoc on immigrant communities in Alamance. The sheriff’s office was sued by the Justice Department for an alleged pattern of abusive enforcement against Latinos, including charging Latino drivers with traffic violations at least six times as often as non-Latino drivers. (A district court dismissed the suit, and it was then settled in lieu of an appeal, with the sheriff’s office agreeing to implement a “bias-free policing plan” and other reforms.) Johnson has also advocated for higher policing budgets in order to crack down on immigration, and used money from the $3.6 million the county received from housing Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees in 2019 to give out bonuses to his staff.

This summer, as citizens were demanding the removal of a Confederate statue in Graham, the sheriff’s office announced that the city’s police department would not be granting permits to protesters. When an activist asked Johnson why he and his deputies were “breaking the law” by forgoing North Carolina’s mask mandate, he replied: “Ma’am, you’re breaking the law. We know you’re a member of antifa.”

Trump adviser falsely claims Democrats could "steal" electoral votes

Orion Rummler


WATCH https://tinyurl.com/y29skxyc

Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller falsely claimed on Sunday that Democrats would try to "steal" electoral votes after election night if President Trump appears to be ahead, signaling a coming legal fight over mail-in ballots that are counted after Nov. 3.

Reality check: Electoral College votes are not awarded until December, and no state ever reports its final count on election night — despite Trump's insistence that the election should end on Nov. 3 and that the courts should not allow ballots to be counted in the days following.

The big picture: Amid massive early turnout, Americans are expected to vote by mail in record numbers this election — and polling has found that more Democrats than Republicans said they would mail ballots.

Many of those votes won't be counted by election night, as states process more mailed ballots than they ever have before.

That delay could mean that Trump will appear to lead on election night, which would shift as more Democratic votes are tallied.

Trump has baselessly accused Democrats of trying to "steal" the election by pointing to efforts that expand voting access, such as extending mail-in ballot deadlines in Pennsylvania and building an in-person voting center in the California suburbs.

Between the lines: Trump has repeatedly declined to say whether he would accept the results of the 2020 election if he loses to Joe Biden.

He told reporters in September that he believes the Supreme Court may have to decide the result, after claiming that the only way he can lose the election is if it is "rigged."

The Trump campaign is reportedly raising money to continue ballot fights into mid-December, per the New York Times.

What they're saying: "If you speak with many smart Democrats, they believe that President Trump will be ahead on election night, probably getting 280 electoral, somewhere in that range," Miller said on ABC's "This Week."

"And then they're going to try to steal it back after the election. We believe that we will be over 290 electoral votes on election night.

"So no matter what they try to do, what kind of hijinks or lawsuits or whatever kind of nonsense they try to pull off, we're still going to have enough electoral votes to get President Trump re-elected."