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      in US Politics

      Statue of civil rights pioneer Barbara Johns replaces Lee at US Capitol

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      A statue of the civil rights activist Barbara Johns, who played a key role in the desegregation of the public school system, will be installed in the US Capitol, officials said on Monday, replacing one of Robert E Lee, a leader of the pro-slavery Confederacy.Johns was 16 when she led classmates at her all-black Virginia high school in protest of substandard conditions, leading to a lawsuit that was resolved in the US supreme court’s 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision, which declared segregation illegal. The statue, provided by Virginia, will replace one of Lee, a Confederate general during the civil war who owned slaves himself.“The Congress will continue our work to rid the Capitol of homages to hate, as we fight to end the scourge of racism in our country,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said in a statement. “There is no room for celebrating the bigotry of the Confederacy in the Capitol or any other place of honor in our country.”Representative Donald McEachin of Virginia said on Twitter: “I look forward to seeing a statue of Barbara Johns, whose bravery changed our nation, representing Virginia here soon.”Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam, said workers removed the statue from the National Statuary Hall Collection early on Monday morning. Northam, a Democrat, requested the removal. A state commission decided Lee was not a fitting symbol of Virginia and recommended a statue of Johns.Lee’s statue had stood with one of George Washington since 1909 as Virginia’s representatives in the Capitol space. Every state gets two statues.Washington commanded American forces in the revolutionary war and became the first president. Like other Virginian founders and presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe, he owned enslaved people.John Adams of Massachusetts, the second president, did not. He is not represented in the National Statuary Hall collection.Confederate monuments have re-emerged as a national flashpoint since the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck in May this year. Protesters decrying racism targeted Confederate monuments in multiple cities, and some have been taken down.“The Confederacy is a symbol of Virginia’s racist and divisive history, and it is past time we tell our story with images of perseverance, diversity and inclusion,” Northam said.“I look forward to seeing a trailblazing young woman of color represent Virginia in the US Capitol, where visitors will learn about Barbara Johns’ contributions to America and be empowered to create positive change in their communities just like she did.”The presence of statues of generals and other figures of the Confederacy in Capitol locations such as Statuary Hall, the original House chamber, has been offensive to African American lawmakers for many years. Former representative Jesse Jackson Jr, an Illinois Democrat, was known to give tours pointing out the numerous statues.But it is up to the states to determine which of their historical figures to display. Jefferson Davis, a former US senator from Mississippi who was president of the Confederacy, is still represented. So is the Confederate vice-president, Alexander Stephens, from Georgia.A statue of Andrew Jackson, the seventh president, who enslaved people, represents Tennessee. More

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      in US Politics

      US treasury hacked by foreign government group – report

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      Hackers backed by a foreign government have been monitoring internal email traffic at the US treasury department and an agency that decides internet and telecommunications policy, according to people familiar with the matter.“The United States government is aware of these reports and we are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation,” said national security council spokesman John Ullyot.There is concern within the US intelligence community that the hackers who targeted the treasury department and the commerce department’s national telecommunications and information administration used a similar tool to break into other government agencies, according to three people briefed on the matter. The people did not say which other agencies.The hack is so serious it led to a national security council meeting at the White House on Saturday, said one of the people familiar with the matter.The hack involves the NTIA’s office software, Microsoft’s Office 365. Staff emails at the agency were monitored by the hackers for months, sources said.A Microsoft spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The hackers are “highly sophisticated” and have been able to trick the Microsoft platform’s authentication controls, according to a person familiar with the incident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the press.“This is a nation state,” said a different person briefed on the matter. “We just don’t know which one yet.“The full scope of the hack is unclear. The investigation is still in its early stages and involves a range of federal agencies, including the FBI, according to the three people familiar with the matter.The FBI, homeland security department’s cybersecurity division, known as CISA, and US national security agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

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      in Elections

      4 Stabbed and One Shot as Trump Supporters and Opponents Clash

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      State Certified Vote Totals

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    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      As Bids to Overturn Vote Fail, Pro-Trump Demonstrators Stick With Him

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      State Certified Vote Totals

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    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Driving Mr Donald – White House excursion reveals a presidency pushing up daisies

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      It was a jarring few minutes of seeing the world through Donald Trump’s eyes and indulging his fantasies.
      As the White House pool reporter on Saturday, taking a turn to shadow the US president for print media outlets, the Guardian found itself at the back of Trump’s motorcade, rolling out of the executive mansion grounds and on to Pennsylvania Avenue.
      At 10am the dozen black shiny vehicles with flashing blue and red lights were greeted by a sight seldom seen in Washington, a Democratic bastion: hundreds of Trump supporters, cheering and clapping, whistling and whooping, punching the air and hailing their idol as if he had in fact won a glorious victory over Joe Biden.
      What a difference from the previous Saturday when Trump returned from a round of golf to be jeered and booed by denizens of the capital who had just learned that he had been fired by the electorate. Some foreign observers compared that scene to Paris after the liberation or a Middle East autocracy that had overthrown its dictator.
      But a week later, with Trump adding election defeat to the coronavirus disaster and climate crisis as truths that must be denied, supporters – among them far-right groups including the extremist Proud Boys – poured into town to endorse his baseless claims that the election was stolen from him.
      Attendees at the “Million Maga March”, a number as inflated as Trump’s estimation of his inauguration crowd, swarmed the motorcade as it made its stately progress down Pennsylvania Avenue, which in its time has witnessed inaugural parades and funeral marches, suffragists and the Ku Klux Klan.
      Some punched the air; others took pictures with phones. Many sported clothes patterned in red, white and blue, like the stars and stripes. Outside the Willard Hotel, a man proudly wore a t-shirt that declared “I’m deplorable” – a reference to Hillary Clinton’s disparaging remark about Trump supporters that he and they never let go. Biden’s glancing reference to “chumps” never stuck in the same way.
      Among the signs being waved were “Best prez ever” and “Stop the steal”. Among the numerous flags were “Trump 2020: Keep America great”; “Trump 2020: No more bullshit”; “All aboard the Trump train!”; “Women for Trump”; and “Trump 2020: Pro-life, Pro-God, Pro-gun”. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Voting proceeds smoothly across US despite fears of unrest

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      Across America millions of people went to the polls amid an election campaign fraught with anxiety over the prospect of voter intimidation and the chance of civil unrest after a historically divisive election.But as polls started to close on the east coast of the US, reports from across the country reflected a day of peaceful voting with only sporadic reports of incidents of intimidation or misinformation or technological problems with voting machines.The leader of a group of 42,000 legal volunteers deployed for the election said so far there had not been “major, systemic problems or attempts to obstruct voting”.Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said early voting, voter education efforts and earlier litigation had made for “a relatively smooth election day across the country”.The committee operates the Election Protection hotline, which provides information and assistance to Americans who encounter problems while voting. Clarke said there was an increase in complaints about voter intimidation and electioneering compared to past elections, but those problems were at a smaller, less intense scale than had been expected.“While we have seen these complaints, in many instances they are lone wolfs, individuals, maybe two people, but not large groups that would otherwise have a stark chilling effect on the electorate,” Clarke said. “And I think many voters this season have come out determined.”Clarke cautioned that this could be the “calm before the storm,” and that the committee was bracing for issues over whether absentee ballots were properly handled and counted in the coming days. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Eerie quiet in Washington as capital digs in for a tempestuous election night

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      [embedded content]
      Downtown Washington on election day had the feel of a city digging in for a siege. The White House and the Treasury were surrounded by a high steel fence and in the surrounding blocks, businesses and apartment buildings had covered every square foot of exposed glass with plywood.
      The wealthier and more cautious had laid down sandbags to hold wooden buttresses that in turn held the plywood in place, and the city centre began to empty out in the mid-afternoon. The grid of streets and avenues were eerily free of traffic.
      On Black Lives Matter Plaza, a legacy of the last skirmish in the nation’s capital, an advance guard of the expected army of protesters had taken up positions by the White House fence, which was festooned with anti-Trump placards.

      Derek Torstenson was sitting against the barricade encouraging those around him to vote without fear of intimidation.
      He had crossed the Potomac early from Virginia, as a protective measure. After the confirmation of Donald Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, to the supreme court in October, a moment of triumph savoured by the president, his supporters tore down all the Black Lives Matter posters on the plaza, and Torstenson wanted to make sure it did not happen again.
      “I’m here to protect the fence,” he said. “It’s not just a fence any more. It’s about memories of black people and about Trump also.”
      He saw no way Trump would vacate the building behind him voluntarily and so he expected a battle of popular wills to be played out in the court, and on the streets.
      “I think Joe Biden will win. But Donald Trump always said, live on the news, that he is going to refuse to transfer power. He already has his lawyers around in case that happens, and that’s why we are all going to gather here tonight, so that we can let him know that if you lose – you lose. You can’t challenge an election. That doesn’t happen.”
      A few hundred metres south-east along Pennsylvania Avenue, some more modest barriers had been set up outside the old US post office building which since 2016 has been the Trump International hotel, the other Washington hub of a family empire spanning business and politics with no real divisions between the two.
      Trump International is where foreign dignitaries and US business executives come to stay if they are seeking an audience with the president. It is where ambitious administration officials hold their office parties, helping bolster the Trump Organization.
      In recent months, an opposition group has projected the climbing death toll from coronavirus against the hotel facade and it is likely to be targeted again, as a symbol of the open corruption of the Trump era in the aftermath of the election.
      Trump had been planning to watch the results from the hotel, but he cancelled that plan, instead summoning 400 of his closest supporters to the White House for a party that, whatever the outcome of the election, is bound to become the latest in a string of coronavirus super-spreader events hosted there.
      The White House and Trump International are two outposts in an overwhelmingly hostile city – only 4% of DC residents voted for Trump in 2016 – which are destined to be flashpoints if the battle for power drags on after the election. Depending on how that battle ends, they could provide the setting for Trump’s last stand on the political stage. More