US Politics

Washington, November 25The Inter-state Commerce Commission ruled to-day that racial segregation on inter-state trains and passenger buses must end by January 10, 1956. It also ruled that segregation of inter-state travellers in public waiting-rooms is unlawful.These two rulings put an end to the “separate but equal” doctrine which had guided the commission’s rulings for many years. Two months after the commission was established in 1887 it had its first case on racial discrimination. It then held that segregation would be most likely to produce peace and order and to promote “dignity of citizenship” in the United States.In to-day’s opinion the commission said that “it is hardly open to question that much progress in improved race relations has been made since then.” When the Supreme Court outlawed compulsory segregation in state schools it ruled that segregation in itself excluded the concept of equality and imposed an inferior status on these American citizens. It is this new concept which has now prevailed with the commission.In to-day’s ruling the commission said:“The disadvantage to a traveller, who is assigned accommodations or facilities so designated as to imply his inherent inferiority solely because of his race, must be regarded under present conditions as unreasonable. Also, he is entitled to be free of annoyances, some petty and some substantial, which almost inevitably accompany segregation even though the rail carriers, as most of the defendants have done here, sincerely try to provide both races with equally convenient and comfortable cars and waiting rooms.”Commissioner Johnson, of South Carolina, in a dissenting opinion, said “It is my opinion that the commission should not undertake to anticipate the Supreme Court and itself become a pioneer in the sociological field.”Precautions in GeorgiaIt should be understood that to-day’s rulings apply only to travel between states. The rulings have no effect on travel within a Southern state. Mr Eugene Cook, Attorney-General for Georgia, said he would try to use all legal procedures to maintain racial segregation “on travel within Georgia itself.” He conceded the difficulties because it is often hard to separate inter-state travellers from those travelling within the state alone. However, he had asked his legal staff to study this problem while giving first priority to Georgia’s continued resistance to a unified public school system in the state.The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People also tried to have the commission end segregation in the lunch room at the Union Station in Richmond, Virginia. The commission said that this room was operated under lease by the Union News Company, which is not itself engaged in transportation, and therefore does not come within the commission’s jurisdiction. The commission also dismissed a complaint against the Texas and Pacific Railway Company because the evidence failed to show that the case involved inter-state travel.Ten years ago, the commission authorised Southern Railways to serve Negro passengers in the dining-car behind a curtain in seats reserved exclusively for them. This method of segregation aroused intense public criticism and it was finally outlawed by the Supreme Court in 1950. To-day’s rulings are a notable advance of those started by the Court in 1950. More

Barack Obama has said part of the reason more than 73 million Americans voted to re-elect Donald Trump in the election was because of messaging from Republicans that the country was under attack – particularly white men.
In an interview with the radio show the Breakfast Club on Wednesday to promote his new memoir A Promised Land, Obama said Trump’s administration, which he did not name directly, ‘objectively has failed, miserably, in handling just basic looking after the American people and keeping them safe’, and yet he still secured millions of votes
Obama: Republicans portraying white men as ‘victims’ helped Trump win votes More

Rallying behind Stacey Abrams, the Democratic politician, voting rights activist and romance author, American romance novelists have helped raise nearly $400,000 to help elect two Democratic senators in Georgia.Now, Abrams herself has joined the “Romancing the Runoff” fundraiser, and has donated a copy of the first of her eight published romance novels–one signed with both her real name, and her pen name, Selena Montgomery.“I’m privileged to be one of you,” Abrams wrote on Twitter, praising the romance authors’ “amazing” fundraising efforts.Abrams’ work fighting against suppression of black voters and organizing voter registration efforts is widely credited with helping Joe Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia in more than a quarter century. Democrats have said her work was “pivotal” in flipping Wisconsin and other battleground states.Thank you @RomancingRunoff for your amazing efforts. I’m privileged to be one of you. For the cause, I’d like to throw in an autographed copy of my first novel, Rules of Engagement, in the rare hardback version. Both Selena & Stacey will sign. 😉https://t.co/32aiezmJmW— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) November 25, 2020
Since election day, Abrams has not stopped fighting: a January runoff between two pairs of Democratic and Republican candidates in Georgia will determine whether Republicans maintain control of the US senate – and have the votes to block Democrats and the incoming Biden administration from enacting any substantial new policy agenda.In the week after the election, Abrams helped raise $3.6m in just two days to help campaigns for the Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock as they fight re-matches in a runoff election against the incumbent Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.Meanwhile other American romance novelists, many of whom have active social media platforms, began organizing to auction off romance-novel related items to support the Democratic candidates through donations to the New Georgia Project, Black Voters Matter, and Fair Fight, the voting rights group Abrams founded.“Democracy only thrives when every vote can be cast and counted, and we are fighting to help dismantle the legacy of voter suppression in Georgia,” the four bestselling authors who organized the auction said in a statement.Political activism is not a new development in the American romance writing community, which has been fighting fierce battles over entrenched racism in the publishing industry, as well as within their own industry trade group, the Romance Writers of America, for years.But the Georgia fundraising effort is also a testament to romance novelists’ pride in Abrams, who has continued to tout her work as an author of romantic suspense, even as she has become a star in national Democratic politics and a bestselling author of political nonfiction, including her memoir, Lead from the Outside.When writers who got their start publishing romance novels move on to more prestigious genres, “they sometimes back away from romance, like it’s this dirty secret in their past: ‘Oh, I don’t write those kinds of books any more,’” the author Courtney Milan, one of the auction’s organizers, said. “Stacey Abrams has never once done that to us.”“She’s not playing the game of trying to advance where she is by denigrating where she’s been,” Milan said. “She’s very clear that she doesn’t think any apologies are needed, which they aren’t.“I revel in having been able to be a part of a genre that is read by millions and millions of women, in part because it respects who they are,” Abrams told Entertainment Weekly in an interview in 2018, when she was campaigning to be governor of Georgia.Asked by the Washington Post how she would respond to people who made fun of the romance genre, Abrams wrote: “Telling a well-crafted story is hard. Full stop. Regardless of genre, good writing is good writing”. She added that she was “honored to be in the company of extraordinary writers.”The “Romancing the Runoff” auction had grown past its initial goal of raising $20,000, Milan said, as a wide range of authors and romance fans donated thousands of items, including first editions of romance novels, including the first Harlequin novel published by a black author, Sandra Kitt’s Rites of Spring; one-on-one sessions for writing advice, a chicken recipe from Dame Barbara Cartland, and handmade crafts, such as a “blue wave” crocheted scarf to a hand-embroidered sampler reading “F*ck the GOP”.The fantasy and science fiction novelist Neil Gaiman also joined the effort, donating a signed collector’s edition of one of his novels that sold for $4,590.A spokesperson for Fair Fight did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment about the Romancing the Runoff fundraiser beyond Abrams’ tweet.Milan said she had “no clue” how much money the copy of Abrams’ own signed romance novel might raise for the Georgia election, but she expected it would “easily be four figures”.Hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent on political advertising in Georgia in the weeks before the runoff election on 5 January, NBC News reported this week, with at least $46m already spent since election day. More

Donald Trump has pardoned Michael Flynn, his first national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts with a Russian official.Trump announced the long-expected pardon in a tweet.“It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon. Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving,” Trump said. Trump is expected to offer pardons to a number of key aides before he leaves office on 20 January.He has already commuted the sentence of longtime aide Roger Stone, like Flynn, campaign manager Paul Manafort and adviser George Papadopoulos convicted under special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.Stone was sentenced to more than three years in prison, after being found guilty of obstruction, lying to Congress and witness intimidation. His conviction stands.Flynn had not been sentenced.The retired general was a trusted Trump surrogate on the campaign trail in 2016. But he served just 24 days in the White House before Trump fired him for lying to Vice-President Mike Pence about a conversation in which he told Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak Moscow should not respond to sanctions imposed by the Obama administration.As part of a deal with Mueller, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. He became a cause célèbre among Trump supporters, who claimed he was victimized by the Obama administration and entrapped by the bureau.In January this year Flynn sought to withdraw his guilty plea, prompting a drawn-out legal battle between the presiding judge and the Department of Justice during which Trump repeatedly voiced his support.Flynn was represented by Sidney Powell, a lawyer recently ejected from Trump’s lawsuits challenging results in his election defeat by Joe Biden after she voiced wild conspiracy theories.Debate also swirls about whether Trump will try to pardon himself – a move that would be historically unusual, but which if successful could only apply to federal issues and not cases at state level.As the Department of Justice points out, a presidential pardon still implies guilt.A pardon is “granted in recognition of the applicant’s acceptance of responsibility for the crime”, the DoJ says, “and established good conduct for a significant period of time after conviction or completion of sentence.“It does not signify innocence.” More

Barack Obama said part of the reason 73 million Americans voted to re-elect Donald Trump in the election was because of messaging from Republicans that the country, particularly white men, are under attack.In an interview with the radio show the Breakfast Club on Wednesday to promote his new memoir A Promised Land, Obama said Trump’s administration, which he did not name directly, “objectively has failed, miserably, in handling just basic looking after the American people and keeping them safe”, and yet he still secured millions of votes.“What’s always interesting to me is the degree to which you’ve seen created in Republican politics the sense that white males are victims,” Obama said. “They are the ones who are under attack – which obviously doesn’t jive with both history and data and economics. But that’s a sincere belief, that’s been internalized, that’s a story that’s being told and how you unwind that is going to be not something that is done right away.”Later, one of the show’s hosts, DJ Envy, asked Obama how he responds to criticism from Black people and other communities of color who don’t believe he did enough for them as president.“I understand it because when I was elected there was so much excitement and hope, and I also think we generally view the presidency as almost like a monarchy in the sense of once the president’s there, he can just do whatever needs to get done and if he’s not doing it, it must be because he didn’t want to do it,” Obama said.Envy challenged Obama, making the case that Trump has behaved in exactly that way.“Because he breaks laws or disregards the constitution,” Obama said. “The good news for me was I was very confident in what I had done for Black folks because I have the statistics to prove it.”Obama continued to highlight how his policies saw Black people’s incomes rise, poverty drop and access to healthcare increase.“The issue is sometimes we just didn’t go around advertising that because again the goal here is to build coalitions where everybody is getting something so they all feel like they have a stake in it,” Obama said. “But a lot of my policies were targeted towards people most in need. Those folks are disproportionately African American.”Obama also spoke about the role of the public and Congress in making change. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, blocked much of the Obama administration’s efforts in the Republican-controlled Senate in the final years of his presidency.A similar fate could be awaiting President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris, Obama warned. It is unknown which party will control the Senate until the results are in from two runoff elections in Georgia scheduled for 5 January.“If the Republicans win those two seats, then Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will not be able to get any law passed that Mitch McConnell and the other Republicans aren’t going to go along with,” Obama said.That was one of the only mentions Obama made of the incoming president, who sparked controversy on social media in May after an interview with the Breakfast Club where he said: “If you have a problem figuring out if you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”Later that day, Biden apologized: “No one, no one, should have to vote for any party based on their race, their religion, their background.” More

Donald Trump’s bid to retake the presidency in 2024 has been launched – by two comedians.“We got the domain DonaldJTrump2024.com,” comics Jason Selvig and Davram Stiefler, AKA The Good Liars, wrote on Twitter.A TikTok video scored to Loser by Beck showed the site, which was headlined “I lost the 2020 election” and included the subheadings “Trump Lost”, “Trump is a Loser” and “Trump Lost the Election”.Trump lost the electoral college to Joe Biden by 306-232, a score he said was a landslide defeat when Hillary Clinton was on the wrong end of it in 2016. Trump is also losing the national popular vote by more than 6m ballots, a contest he lost to Clinton by nearly 3m.Trump belatedly allowed the transition to proceed but has not formally conceded, as he continues to mount legal challenges to results in key states. He has won one such case – but lost 36.Fundraising efforts nominally for such legal efforts have been shown to benefit Trump’s post-White House political career. Many expect him to declare another run for president soon.A banner on the DonaldJTrump2024.com website read: “Click here to donate to a PAC that has nothing to do with my legal defence team!”Selvig and Stiefler offered to give the president the domain name “if you tweet ‘My name is Donald Trump and I lost the 2020 election by A LOT. I am a loser. SAD!’”As of Wednesday lunchtime Trump had not done so, despite having plenty of phone time on a day officially free of public engagements.Selvig and Stiefler are not the only people seeking to punk the president with online pranks. As of Wednesday, the domain loser.com directed users to Trump’s Wikipedia page. A satirical site presenting a notional Trump presidential library, meanwhile, was flourishing.At djtrumplibrary.com, users can enjoy a visually impressive site which promises among other attractions a “Covid Memorial”, a “Wall of Criminality” and an “Alt-Right Auditorium”. Users are also offered use of a “Hall of Enablers” (among those honoured are senators, governors and the media) and a “Criminal Records Room” in which to study “Tax Evasion 101”.According to Fast Company, the library was “designed by a New York-based architect who wishes to remain anonymous [but who] holds little back in turning the most controversial and divisive moments of Trump’s time in office into biting commentaries on his policies and personality.”There is even a “Grift Shop”. As well as offering “Grab a Pussy Cookies” and “Notes of a Stable Genius” notebooks, the site offers a chance to donate to progressive causes. One potential beneficiary is Raphael Warnock, one of two Democrats looking to win runoff elections in Georgia in January, thereby regaining the Senate. More

We are raiding the Audio Long Reads archives and bringing you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.
This week: For 25 years, invoking this vague and ever-shifting nemesis has been a favourite tactic of the right – and Donald Trump’s victory is its greatest triumph. By Moira Weigel

How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

Read the text version here More

Going on 40 years I’ve been writing columns about giving thanks, and this year I mean it: thank God that America stood up for democracy again.
This year is among the worst. Pandemic is our parlance. Covid runs wild over Iowa while its government stands back and does little. The president thumbs his nose at the virus and at the rule of law, skirted impeachment thanks to feckless senators, and would steal a win through a faithless electoral college, if he could.
But he can’t.
The people spoke. They elected Joe Biden with the most votes ever, and by a convincing margin, as a rebuke to it all. It was a vote for Biden – made by millions, in hopes of good will – but it was as much an act of revulsion for what Donald Trump represents.
Biden promised to govern with fairness and decency. People endorsed a middling approach with a split Congress. They demand that government gets along somehow. Fair enough. There’s wisdom in that vote.
It was a record turnout. So many have lamented a lack of civic engagement for good reason. Our local school board elections typically muster 10% turnout. This year, however, the people were engaged. Especially in Iowa, where they came out in awful weather, young and old, to hear Julián Castro or John Delaney campaign during the run-up to the caucuses. Dr Jill Biden, first lady in waiting, talked education to a handful of folks at Better Day Café. It was something to behold. We had a ringside seat.
Trump and company tried to keep people from voting. They tried to slow down the mail. They tried to sow fear that the system was rigged. But the people came out the first day they could and stood in line for hours, if necessary, to make sure their vote counted. County election officials, no matter their politics, tried to make it as safe and smooth as possible and it was, for the most part. That, too, was something to behold.
The judicial system worked. Judges appointed by Republicans threw out Trump’s efforts to suppress or overturn the vote. A score of lawsuits filed following the election, claiming unspecified fraud, were dismissed. Chief Justice John Roberts has held the center and protected the judiciary’s independence under great trial over the past year.
None of this was destined. It could have gone the other way. The attorney general tested whether there were limits and discovered them when his field offices told him no fraud was to be found in the balloting. The military brass wanted nothing to do with any of it.
The Republican secretary of state in Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, stood up for the integrity of the system. So did the FBI and CIA directors and the head of cyber-security, who got the boot from Trump for vouching for a safe vote. So did the Republican governor of Maryland. If only Republican senators would have stood up with them to get Trump to move on. Democracy isn’t perfect. But when Trump personally asked Michigan Republican legislative leaders to rig their electoral college delegation, they refused. When it counted, people stood up. That is no small feat.
It should never have gone this far. Now we know. About a third of Americans think Biden stole the election and that Rudy Giuliani should be allowed to practice law. Many of us were suckered by Trump and wised up. Most of us voted for sanity and a little bit of respect.
Mainly, the people demonstrated that liberty means something. They knelt in the park for Black lives that are not fully free. They objected to caging families at the border. They demanded their franchise as citizens. It could not be denied.
From time to time this year, I had my doubts. Iowa voted for Trump, after all. It was too close for comfort in Wisconsin. The rants and ravings still echo in the crazy chambers of social media. Pray Biden will have a way of defusing things. Actually, he already has. Reporters asked the president-elect the other day about Trump refusing to allow an orderly transition. Biden stopped and thought, and just said that Trump is reckless. He left it at that. Lord, what a relief in restraint. I give thanks. Democracy prevails.
Art Cullen is editor of The Storm Lake Times in north-west Iowa, where he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. He is a Guardian US columnist and author of the book Storm Lake: Change, Resilience, and Hope in America’s Heartland More