Tag: nation

A message on the side of a bus will inform Brexiteers that Britain has now left the EU while the rest of the country hopes they fall for it again. The original Brexit bus claimed that Britain sent £350 million a week to the EU, money we would be able to spend on the NHS instead. While that message was a load of old bobbins, plenty of people fell for it. That is why a new bus message will tell Brexiteers that Britain has now left the EU while sane and rational people cross their fingers and hope they fall for the same trick again. It appears the scheme is already working as a picture of the bus has been shared over 10,000 times on social media, with Brexiteers leaving celebratory messages. ‘Missed the big news but if it says it on the side of a bus it must be true!’ posted @AreKuntry on Twitter. The Brexit bus will tour Britain until every Brexiteer believes we’ve left the EU, the country will then return to business as usual.

Democrats, of course, have voted for border security funds just not for the wall the President wants. Trump wrongly claims Democrats won't fund border security President Trump claimed that "the federal government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only: because Democrats will not fund border security.” It’s not true that Democrats oppose funding for border security, they just aren't willing to meet Trump’s demand for more than $5 billion in wall funding. Border security has been a cornerstone of Democratic immigration proposals for years. House Democrats voted last week to approve a stop-gap funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security that would not allocate new wall funding, but would maintain the current $1.3 billion in border security money. President Trump claimed tonight that, "At the request of Democrats, it will be a steel barrier rather than a concrete wall." In border argument, Trump misleadingly claims drugs will kill more Americans than Vietnam President Trump claimed "more Americans will die from drugs this year than were killed in the entire Vietnam War." The only drug that is smuggled in higher numbers between legal entry points is marijuana, according to information from Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement Administration. President Trump claimed that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer "has repeatedly supported a physical barrier in the past." However, as long as the government remains shutdown, Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have refused to offer any funding for a border barrier. According to data from Doctors Without Borders, 68.3 percent of migrants and refugees "entering Mexico reported being victims of violence during their transit toward the United States," and nearly one-third of women said they'd been sexually abused.

Above all they voted decisively for change from the elitist Indian National Congress-dominated politics of the past and for a new openness in the hope that Modi would lift the country out of low-level growth and political scandal and corruption. The RSS has thousands of disciplined, ideologically inspired members and many of them have powered the BJP’s election successes. Modi’s huge mandate and the BJP’s absolute majority were thus both a blessing and a burden. Modi’s challenge was to demonstrate unequivocally that he was leading for all of India not just the nationalist forces that supported him. Political empowerment through many political parties and political activism at all levels is a notable achievement since independence 71 years ago. Modi’s BJP government is the first single-party government since 1984. Indeed, there are a number of disturbing developments associated with the RSS, which counts as members Modi, Indian President Ram Nath Kovind, and several ministers including Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma. Other concerns include Modi’s pick for Uttar Pradesh chief minister, a Hindu priest who has incited violence against Muslims, and legislative developments in BJP-controlled states that presume guilt until proven innocent in cases of cow slaughter and urge the enforcement of archaic laws against cattle slaughter (even in Muslim-majority communities). Events since 2014 raise the question of whether the BJP is the new dominant party of Indian politics. The mobilisation of local alliances against the BJP in the national elections of 2019 is a long shot, says Adeney, although this strategy worked at the state level in Bihar in 2015.

End family separation Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to gather in Washington DC today, in what could be one of the biggest protests since the Women’s March in 2017. How to help families separated at the border Read more But it’s not just in the big, traditionally liberal, cities where protests are happening – people have also organized scores of demonstrations in red border states at the heart of immigration battles. Elsewhere, people will gather outside Fargo library, in North Dakota, to protest against Trump, while the Alaskan island of Kodiak – population 6,130 – is holding a rally at the Y intersection downtown. On Thursday almost 600 women were arrested at the Hart Senate building in Washington DC following a protest against Trump’s policies. Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old progressive and former Bernie Sanders volunteer, was outspent 18-1 by Crowley, but triumphed with a grassroots, boots on the ground campaign that offers hope to other leftwing candidates ahead of November’s elections. Read more on Ocasio-Cortez here. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represents the future of the Democratic party | Ross Barkan Read more In Baltimore, meanwhile, the Bernie Sanders-backed leftie Ben Jealous won a crowded Democratic primary. She took on the entire local Democratic establishment in her district and won a very strong victory. More than 50,000 people are planning to attend a demonstration in Trafalgar Square to protest against Trump’s presence, while activists plan to fly a giant “baby Trump” blimp over London during the president’s visit. Trump is slipping into the country for a “working visit” – a step down from a “state visit” – on 13 July, and will reportedly spend only a little time in London, opting instead for the sanctuary of one of his golf courses.

What about Iran? Every time two national teams meet, we don't think what we have become, but what could have been. Russian President Vladimir Putin sat there right next to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the opening game of Russia vs Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, right after the match, Turki al-Sheikh, the head of Saudi Arabia's sports authority, rushed to personally apologise to the crown prince for the loss. Iran is the nation, IR is the state rushing to place itself in front of the nation as the world watches. So, which one has the rightful claim on the name of the country: the actual nation or the fictive state? That universal ritual is rooted in the pain, power and legacy of colonialism - of which the Israeli occupation of Palestine is today a potent reminder. "For many former British colonies," notes Patrick Hutchison in a piece he wrote back in 2009, "sport has a history of serving the colonised people in resisting British rule. However, this control was often flipped on its head and used against the colonizer." That resistance has today shifted from colonial powers to the legacy of state violence they have left behind.

But is it the EU itself that’s the problem, or the way national politicians and governments put policies into action? Is this what EU citizens really want? Five myths about the refugee crisis – podcast Read more Look at the facts: the number of migrants arriving in Europe by sea has dropped spectacularly – in Italy, by over 70% compared to last year. There is no large-scale migration crisis in Europe now. From 1950, the road to Europe was built one step at a time. But instead, national egotism has morphed into the twin tigers of nationalism and populism, and citizens looking to Europe to fulfil the needs not met by their governments (security, jobs and welfare) have become frustrated. For many people Europe embodies hope for their personal future, as well as for their country: the hope that “Europe” will be able to do more and govern better than national elites. Within the EU’s complex and now strained institutional set-up it is often the member states who take the decisions: this happens within the European council of leaders and ministers, in a qualified-majority voting system. Take the Maastricht treaty. Its social ambitions seem to have vanished, just as its principles on asylum have been hammered by national leaders.

Portland Press Herald Remember when they used to say “All politics is local”? Forget about all politics being local — local politics isn’t even local anymore. And that’s what we saw in this year’s primaries in Maine. Unlike the 2010 primary, when Republicans ran an ideologically diverse group of seven candidates that included four moderates, there were only four candidates this year, all competing to be the next Paul LePage, who was Trump in Maine before Trumpism became a thing. In his Election Night victory speech he declared, “North, south, east and west, it’s about all of us, it’s about Mainers and we are going to take our state back!” It’s a strange thing for a Republican to say, when a two-term Republican governor lives in the Blaine House, and his party has controlled at least one body of the Legislature for six of the last eight years. But Moody later explained that he was talking about the out-of-state special interest groups that he says are behind referendum campaigns to increase school funding, bump up the minimum wage, expand Medicaid, legalize marijuana and introduce ranked-choice voting, which all received majority support from voters at the polls. Unlike Moody, she didn’t get more than 50 percent of the first-place votes in her primary, but she is going into the ranked-choice runoffs with a lead of about 5,000 votes. There are more women running for office this year than at any time in our history, both nationally and in Maine, and most of them are Democrats. Any Democrat would have a hard time in this governor’s race because the two parties will share the field with two independents, both former Democrats, and without the benefit of ranked-choice voting. But if there is going to be a Democratic governor in Maine next year, it won’t be because of their bond packages or their tax policies or any of the usual issues that dominate state campaigns.

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Millions of Americans were stunned and incredulous on Monday after learning of a possible incident of bias at Fox News Channel. At a time when so many American institutions have been under attack, the possibility that Fox, one of the nation’s most respected news organizations, might be susceptible to hidden agendas was too much for many to take. In interviews across the country, Fox viewers expressed disappointment, confusion, and shock that a news network known for its exacting standards had imperilled its hard-earned reputation for fairness. “I’m devastated by this,” Carol Foyler, a viewer from Scottsdale, Arizona, said. “If we can’t trust Fox News, who can we trust?” Tracy Klugian, a viewer from Akron, Ohio, said that he had been “walking around in a state of disbelief” since he learned of possible bias at the network. “I’m trying to be strong, but it’s tough,” he said. “I know I speak for a lot of people when I say that today was the day that America lost its innocence.” But some Fox viewers, like Harland Dorrinson, of Topeka, Kansas, warned of a “rush to judgment” against Fox, urging people to remember the network’s stellar record of journalistic accomplishments. “Whenever there was a national emergency, whether it was Benghazi, Hillary’s e-mails, or Obama’s birth certificate, Fox News was there,” he said. “One little mistake doesn’t wash all that away.”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Millions of Americans on Tuesday marvelled at Donald J. Trump’s ability to transform the former C.E.O. of ExxonMobil into a figure deserving of their sympathy. Across the country, Americans expressed amazement that Rex Tillerson, who presided over the nation’s largest oil company and has an estimated net worth of three hundred million dollars, is now someone they find themselves pulling for. “Rex Tillerson made tens of millions of dollars a year while ordinary consumers like me suffered from high gas prices,” Tracy Klugian, a hardware-store clerk in Lansing, Michigan, said. “Having said that, no one deserves to be treated the way he was today.” “ExxonMobil had an egregious record for environmental damage and human-rights violations around the world,” Carol Foyler, a school counsellor in Santa Rosa, California, said. “Still, your heart has to go out to him.” As for Tillerson, he bid a gracious farewell to his associates at the State Department and announced that, even though his government career was at an end, he would never stop trying to harm the world as a private citizen.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a televised event that many deemed unnecessarily cruel, millions of Americans were briefly reminded on Monday that they once had a President. Unsuspecting Americans who turned on cable news Monday morning were suddenly assaulted with the memory of a time when the country’s domestic affairs, international diplomacy, and nuclear codes were entrusted to an adult. CNN, one of the networks that televised the event, immediately said that it regretted doing so, and acknowledged that reminding Americans that they recently had a President had caused widespread bereavement and distress. “CNN deeply apologizes for the error,” a network statement read. “It will never happen again.” Compounding the cruelty of the televised event, the networks lingered unnecessarily on a speech that only served to remind viewers that the nation once had a President who rigorously obeyed rules of grammar and diction. Finally, the reminder that the country recently had a chief executive who loved and respected his wife was deemed “too much” by many viewers, who felt compelled to change the channel. “It was horrible,” Carol Foyler, a viewer who was traumatized by the broadcast, said. “It’s like when you stumble on a photo of an ex on Facebook and they unfortunately look amazing.”