Caricature de MICHAEL RAMIREZ/CREATORS
vendredi 30 août 2019
jeudi 29 août 2019
James Comey est un dangereux exemple pour le FBI
Si James Comey n'a pas à se préparer pour un procès, il a malgré tout été sévèrement blâmé par l'inspecteur général du Département de la justice. Du bonbon pour Donald Trump qui ne manquera pas de souligner la malhonnêteté de l'ancien directeur du FBI.
"The report said it found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys leaked any of the classified information contained in the memos about his personal conversations with President Trump. However, it harshly criticizes him the way for taking the memos home with him and disclosing some of the contents to a friend for the purpose of leaking them to the media and prompting a special counsel investigation."
Caricature Donald Trump surveille l'évolution de Dorian...
Caricature de BILL BRAMHALL/TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY
Les historiens et l'esclavage: que devrait-on enseigner aux Américains?
Très belle série d'essais dans le Washington Post. Enseigne-t-on correctement l'histoire de l'esclavage dans les salles de cours aux États-Unis. Cinq améliorations sont suggérées ici.
"It is not enough either simply to mention one or two enslaved people who escaped to freedom. This has the same effect as narrowly focusing on rebellion. It leaves students thinking that only those who attempted to flee wanted their freedom.
Instead, teachers must spend an equal if not greater amount of time on the subtler ways that African Americans resisted, drawing students’ attention to the everyday acts of defiance that were far more common than rebellion or flight.
Teachers have to talk about how enslaved people tried to minimize the amount of energy they expended toiling in fields by slowing the pace of work, feigning illness, breaking farming implements, injuring animals and sabotaging crops. And how they took for themselves life’s essentials, from food to clothing, which they consumed, shared, traded and sold."
Caricature Trump et Fox News: fin de la lune de miel?
Caricature de Dave Whamond, Canada, PoliticalCartoons.com
Uncle Joe toujours emmêlé dans ses pinceaux
Tous ceux qui s'intéressent à la politique américaine depuis un certain temps savent que Joe Biden cafouille régulièrement, mais ce trait prend des allures inquiétantes depuis le début de sa campagne. Le Washington Post regroupe ici un certain nombre d'anecdotes racontées par Biden et dans lesquelles il mélange les lieux et les dates. Rien pour faire taire ceux et celles qui croient que le vétéran est mûr pour la retraite...
"Biden, 76, has struggled during his presidential campaign with gaffes and misstatements that hark back to his earlier political troubles and have put a spotlight on his age. In 1987, Biden dropped out of the presidential race amid charges that he had plagiarized the speeches of a British politician and others.
One big question facing candidates and voters more than 30 years later is whether President Trump’s routine falsehoods have changed the standards by which other presidential aspirants, including Biden, should be judged. From the beginning of his presidency until the middle of last month, Trump has uttered more than 12,000 false or misleading statements, The Washington Post has found. He has continued to add to that total since then.
Biden has used war stories to celebrate military sacrifice and attack Trump’s version of patriotism, built around ferocity and firepower. The former vice president, like Trump, never served in the military. But Biden’s son Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015, deployed to Iraq as an Army lawyer in 2008, and the candidate ends almost all of his speeches with the refrain: “May God protect our troops.”
Embedded in Biden’s medal story are the touchstones of his long career: foreign policy expertise, patriotism and perseverance through grief."
mercredi 28 août 2019
Trump a-t-il épuisé les Américains?
Depuis deux ans il est impossible de passer une journée sans avoir plusieurs nouvelles, sérieuses ou pas, entourant l'administration Trump ou le président lui-même. Par ces nombreux gazouillis Donald Trump se charge d'alimenter cette tourmente quotidienne relayée par les médias. Si au Québec je sens un désintéressement de cette couverture médiatique, David Ignatius parvient au même constat dans son article de ce matin dans le Washington Post. Ignatius avance que cet épuisement de l'électorat est un indicateur supplémentaire qui pointe vers une défaite du milliardaire en 2020.
"Data gives a hint of this Trump fatigue. His popularity remains low, with just a 41.5 percent average approval rating, according to the website FiveThirtyEight, and it hasn’t budged much for the past year. Trump’s tweets get less than half as many interactions (retweets plus likes) as they did in early 2017, according to an analysis by the analytical firm CrowdTangle, cited in May by Axios.
And Trump’s Twitter impact is less than the public furor (and his 63.6 million official followers) suggests. A recent Gallup poll found that only 8 percent of U.S. adults who have a Twitter account say they follow Trump’s account and only 4 percent say they regularly read it.
William Barr en conflit d'intérêt? Il ne semble plus y avoir aucune gêne
Une fois de plus l'administration Trump joue avec la notion de séparation des pouvoirs. Règle générale le responsable de la justice et le président ne sont pas particulièrement proches et on a la décence de respecter le fait que la justice doit être exempte d'influence de la part de l'exécutif. Oui, il y a eu des exceptions à cette pratique, mais rarement a-t-on défié les conventions à ce point. Après être intervenu à quelques occasions pour défendre Donald Trump dans le dossier de l'ingérence russe, William a décidé d'organiser une petite fête pour son patron et cette fête se déroulera... À l'Hotel Trump de Washington. Est-ce illégal? Il semble que non, mais ça me semble assez indécent. Ajoutons à ce dossier le fait que le président lui-même souhaite organiser le prochain G7 à son club de golf le "Doral" en Floride. Officiellement Trump ne gère plus ses propriétés, mais les profits vont tout de même dans ses poches.
"Barr’s decision to book his boss’s hotel marks the latest collision between Trump’s administration and his business, which the president no longer operates but from which he still benefits financially.
Trump said Monday that he was likely to hold next year’s Group of Seven international summit at his golf resort in Doral, Fla. Already the federal government and GOP campaigns have spent at least $1.6 million at his properties since he entered office, according to a Post analysis, though the actual figure is likely to be higher because of the difficulty of obtaining up-to-date records."
mardi 27 août 2019
La popularité de Donald Trump en baisse dans tous les états pivots.
La campagne présidentielle est encore loin et les Démocrates ont encore beaucoup de temps pour trébucher, mais de plus en plus d'indicateurs pointent vers le départ de Trump en 2020. Je le répète de plus en plus souvent, mais les Démocrates ont leur sort entre leurs mains.
"Both Republican and Democratic campaign aides privately acknowledge that they expect the election to be razor-thin in many of these states, just as it was in 2016.
However, the Trump campaign is betting on the Republican National Committee's data prowess and the size of the Democratic field to give them the upper hand, even with Trump's approval rating underwater in nearly every key state.
Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee's director of battleground state communications, David Bergstein, tells Axios that the Trump campaign "doesn't have a realistic argument about their map," noting that a Republican hasn't won in many of the states the campaign is targeting in over a decade."
Procédure de destitution: la pression augmente encore
Image Common dreams
On a beaucoup parlé de la possibilité d'une récession et du G7 récemment, mais le débat autour de la pertinence de lancer une procédure de destitution contre Donald Trump divise toujours les Démocrates. Plus le temps passe et plus la balance penche vers les partisans de la destitution. Si certaines pressions s'exercent entre les élus, elles ne se limitent pas aux seuls membres du congrès.
"Voters across the country — from California to Pennsylvania to Massachusetts — grilled House Democrats on the potential impeachment of President Donald Trump at a series of events this month, regardless of whether they support or oppose the drastic measure."
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/27/democrats-impeachment-townhalls-2020-1475728
lundi 26 août 2019
Caricature ingérence russe et élection 2020: une solution simple!
Caricature de Bob Englehart, Middletown, CT
Elizabeth Warren moins révolutionnaire en privé qu'en public? Elle tente de rassurer les décideurs du Parti démocrate.
À quelques reprises j'ai affirmé que du côté des candidatures plus progressistes celle d'Elizabeth Warren effrayait moins que celle de Bernie Sanders. Si Bernie a privilégié son mouvement avant le parti et qu'il s'est timidement rallié à Hillary Clinton en 2016, Elizabeth Warren a démontré à de multiples occasions qu'elle sait jouer en équipe. Si son discours est toujours aussi flamboyant devant les foules de partisans, elle tente maintenant de rassurer les autorités du parti qui lui préfèrent jusqu'à maintenant Joe Biden. Contrairement au sénateur du Vermont elle ne fait pas une révolution ou une prise de contrôle hostile, mais bien une évolution significative. Se prépare-t-elle déjà à assouplir ses positions pour l'emporter dans certains états pivots?
"The outreach is not just an effort to avoid the confrontational approach Mr. Sanders took in 2016, when he inveighed against party insiders and the committee itself, which he correctly believed was favoring Hillary Clinton. Ms. Warren is also trying to allay concerns among Democrats that, as a progressive candidate proposing sweeping change, she may not have enough mainstream appeal to compete with President Trump in the general election."
Un nombre significatif de Républicains ne se représenteront pas en 2020
Il y a déjà une douzaine de représentants républicains qui préfèrent ne pas mener une nouvelle campagne en 2020. L'intérêt de cette statistique réside dans le fait que plusieurs de ces élus seraient inconfortables avec le statut de minorité à la chambre, la démographie évolue et elle n'avantage pas les GOP et le contrôle qu'exerce Donald Trump sur sa formation politique crée un malaise de plus en plus évident. Il y a encore quatorze mois avant l'élection, mais les Démocrates auront l'occasion de faire des gains significatifs s'ils jouent bien leurs cartes.
"Again, no two House retirements are exactly the same -- and all of them are influenced by personal factors. But when this many House Republicans in these districts announce this early that they aren't running again (and they aren't running for any higher office) it's a telling indicator of the fact that all is not well for congressional GOPers."
Dix-neuf états et le District of Columbia poursuivent l'administration Trump
La poursuite vise la nouvelle réglementation qui permet maintenant de détenir des familles de migrants, donc des enfants également, pour une période prolongée. La période de détention de mineurs était auparavant de vingt jours. La charge est menée par la Californie et son attorney general Xavier Becerra. Ce dernier en est à une treizième poursuite contre l'administration et chaque cause était liée à l'immigration.
"The case will ultimately be brought in front of California federal Judge Dolly Gee, who has already refused to grant President Trump's request to change the decades-old Flores settlement to allow families to be detained together longer than 20 days."
La manière Trump étonne toujours au G7
Si être imprévisible peut parfois présenter des avantages, pas certain que ce soit un atout majeur pour le président américain dans l'ensemble des dossiers. Bien malin qui peut dégager des lignes fortes ou une véritable stratégie planifiée quand on effectue le bilan de la présence de Donald Trump au G7. Bien souvent le président dit une chose et son contraire dans une même journée.
"From China and Iran to climate change and North Korea’s weapons testing, Trump spent the summit dancing between positions that endeared himself to his fellow leaders and positions that faithfully represented his “America First” approach — leaving observers to wonder whether he was keeping his options open, or simply making decisions on the fly without advance planning.
Never was the dithering more evident than during Trump’s interactions with French President Emmanuel Macron. The host of this year’s summit has positioned himself as a champion of multilateralism, offering a sharp contrast to Trump’s economic nationalism and scorn for global coordination."
Bernie Sanders et Elizabeth devancent Joe Biden selon un sondage Monmouth University
Un sondage qui pointe vers une grande volatilité des appuis. On imagine le désarroi des stratèges démocrates qui souhaitent la victoire de Biden. Kamala Harris peine toujours à se démarquer et elle termine au quatrième rang assez loin des meneurs.
"“The main takeaway from this poll is that the Democratic race has become volatile,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “Liberal voters are starting to cast about for a candidate they can identify with. Moderate voters, who have been paying less attention, seem to be expressing doubts about Biden. But they are swinging more toward one of the left-leaning contenders with high name recognition rather than toward a lesser known candidate who might be more in line with them politically.”
The Monmouth poll is the first major national poll all year to show a candidate other than Biden in the lead. It differs from some surveys conducted over similar time periods. A CNN/SSRS national poll, conducted Aug. 15-18, showed Biden at 29 percent, significantly ahead of Sanders (15 percent) and Warren (14 percent)."
dimanche 25 août 2019
Washington les esclaves et les Indiens: doit-on faire disparaître une fresque d'une école de San Francisco?
En s'inspirant de la technique de Diego Rivera le peintre Victor Arnautoff va réaliser une fresque (treize tableaux, 1936) sur la vie de George Washington sur les murs du San Francisco high school. On peut y voir Washington devant la dépouille d'un "indien" ou encore commander à ses esclaves. Le conseil d'administration considère maintenant que l'oeuvre est offensante et comme la technique utilisée rend les couleurs permanentes on a songé pendant un moment à appliquer de la peinture pour la cacher. On souhaite maintenant la dissimuler. Non seulement cette saga permet un éclairage sur certaines contradictions du premier président, mais elle pose une fois de plus la question de la sauvegarde d'oeuvres réalisées à autre période. L'artiste tentait à l'époque de présenter Washington sous un angle différent, mais aujourd'hui des représentants des minorités se disent profondément troublés de devoir passer tous les jours devant ces murs qui entretiennent des préjugés tenaces.
"Native American and black students, teachers and parents have never stopped complaining about the murals. They say the images reinforce stereotypes, make it harder to learn and traumatize students who have no choice but to view them day in and day out. At a recent school board meeting, a current student said she was sick of hearing classmates say, “I’ll meet you at the dead Indian.”
Last year, there were about 2,000 students at the high school; 100 identified as African American, Native American, Alaska Native or Pacific Islander, according to state data. The majority — more than 60 percent — were of Asian descent.
In December, the school board convened a “Reflection and Action Group” to evaluate the history of the murals and decide if they had a future. After four public meetings, the group recommended the murals be “removed,” even though that’s impossible. Half a dozen local activist groups endorsed the decision.
In June, the school board voted unanimously — student experience came first, and the murals would be digitally archived and painted over."
Joe Walsh affrontera Donald Trump pour l'investiture républicaine
On a fait bien peu de cas de la candidature de l'ancien gouverneur du Massachusetts Bill Weld et la candidature de l'ancien représentant Bill Waslh ne semble pas déchaîner les passions. Les chances de détrôner Donald Trump semblent bien minces pour le moment.
"Walsh isn't the only conservative candidate looking to take on Trump. But any of the three possible Republican contenders would be a long shot against the President, who, according to Gallup, has an 88% approval rating among Republican voters.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld announced in April that he would challenge Trump, telling CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead" that it would be a "political tragedy" and he would "fear for the republic" if the country had Trump as President for a second term.
Former Rep. Mark Sanford told CNN's Brianna Keilar on "CNN Right Now" in July that he is considering mounting a challenge to Trump in 2020, with plans this month to explore a possible candidacy. The South Carolina Republican has planned visits to key early-voting states New Hampshire and Iowa."
Donald Trump peut-il obliger les compagnies américaines à quitter la Chine?
Dans un récent gazouillis le président américain à ordonner aux compagnies américaines de quitter la Chine et de produire aux États-Unis. Si on a d'abord relevé le ton autoritaire du président, on s'est ensuite demandé s'il avait le pouvoir d'imposer sa volonté. Une fois de plus une déclaration du président nous oblige à relire la constitution et la législation qui en découle. En 1977 (International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977) on a déterminé que le président est le mieux placé pour déterminer un état d'urgence économique. Cet état d'urgence lui permet une bonne marge de manoeuvre face aux entreprises, mais le congrès doit également intervenir. Si on a déjà eu recours à cette loi, l'appliquer dans le contexte actuel serait inédit. Je n'aborde même pas ici les retombées pour les entreprises et les consommateurs américains.
"The law was passed to define and restrain presidential power, which until then had been interpreted expansively under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917. It has served ever since as the main source of authority for presidents to impose sanctions on countries or individuals in response to specific national security threats, such as the Iranian hostage crisis that began in 1979.
As of March 1, presidents had declared 54 emergencies under the law, of which 29 were still active, according to the Congressional Research Service. Presidents have used it to target international terrorists, drug kingpins, human rights abusers, cyber attackers, illegal arms proliferators and multinational criminal organizations.
Presidents invoked the law when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, when Serbia sent troops into Kosovo in 1998 and when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Among the countries targeted have been international outliers like North Korea, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Congo and Venezuela.
Using it in a trade dispute with a country like China would be a drastic departure. But Mr. Trump could make the argument that China constitutes a national security threat through the theft of intellectual property or its military buildup in the South China Sea."
"Stand your ground" à l'épreuve en Floride: l'accusé condamné
Il y a un peu plus d'une semaine je mentionnais cette cause en Floride. Un homme blanc s'en remettait à la loi qui lui permet d'utiliser une arme s'il se sent menacé. Il avait abattu le petit ami d'une femme avec qui il se disputait alors que l'homme, noir, n'était pas armé. Même après avoir invoqué la légitime défense, le juge a mentionné la loi "stand your ground" dans son jugement. En condamnant le tireur le juge contribue à ce que désormais on déplace le fardeau de la preuve vers le tireur.
"Drejka, who did not testify, said in an interview with detectives played for jurors that he “always” carried his gun and had a “pet peeve” about the illegal use of handicapped parking, according to the Associated Press. He said he often scoured for handicapped stickers and placards at the convenience store, and authorities say he accosted a truck driver over the same spot earlier.
Prosecutors said Drejka should have called police rather than escalate the situation on his own last July.
“He is a parking lot vigilante,” prosecutor Scott Rosenwasser said Friday during closing arguments, the AP reported.
Prosecutors accused Drejka of manslaughter — unlawful killing — rather than first- or second-degree murder, which involve premeditated violence or killing without regard for human life. The jury deliberated for more than six hours, at one point turning to the judge with confusion over the much-discussed stand-your-ground law, before weighing in at 10:41 p.m., according to the Tampa Bay Times."
vendredi 23 août 2019
Caricature guerres commerciales: toujours aussi faciles à gagner?
Caricature de Dave Whamond, Canada, PoliticalCartoons.com
Caricature santé mentale et armes à feu: LA cause
Caricature de Clay Bennett - Washington Post Writers Group and Cartoonist Group
Caricature l'Amazonie brûle: une catastrophe au-delà des frontières...
Caricature d'Arcadio Esquivel, Costa Rica
David Koch meurt à 79: la fin d'une époque?
"What David and Charles Koch did starting in the mid-2000s was the equivalent of building not just one permanent store but an entire block of them. In this, they were helped -- mightily -- by the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that allowed political actors like them to spend more freely on efforts to directly advocate for their preferred policies and politic.
Rather than throwing their considerable wealth -- they are both billionaires -- at fly-by-night political operations, they built their own from scratch, with an eye not toward short-term gains but to affecting longer-term changes in the culture. So, it wasn't just a single quasi-political organization. There were think tanks to incubate libertarian ideas that the Koch favored. There were various foundations to influence public policy outside of the context of campaigns. It was a one-stop political and policy shop, a sort of shadow Republican Party but crafted in the libertarian molds of the Kochs and entirely controlled by them.
That wasn't the only thing that the Koch brothers did differently. While most outside groups up until Americans for Prosperity's formation had dumped all the money they raised into TV ads, the Koch brothers instead focused far more on building grassroots infrastructures -- focusing, again, on sustainability rather than immediate success. By the 2016 election, Americans for Prosperity had state directors in 34 states, according to the New Yorker's Jane Mayer."
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/23/politics/david-koch-charles-koch-brothers/index.html
mardi 20 août 2019
The 1619 project: la droite américaine dénonce le projet du New York Times
Il y a quelques jours le New York Times lançait un projet audacieux porté par la journaliste Nikole Hannah-Jones. On propose ici une version différente de l'histoire américaine en modifiant même la date de la fondation du pays. On situe donc le commencement non pas en 1776 avec la déclaration du 4 juillet, mais bien avec l'arrivée des premiers Africains à entrer en Virginie. De multiples aspects de l'histoire du pays sont analysés sous l'angle de la contribution forcée ou volontaire des premiers esclaves et de leurs descendants. Si cette perspective est intéressante, et à mon avis nécessaire, mais elle ne plaît pas à bien des observateurs, principalement aux politiciens ou aux citoyens de droite ou d'extrême-droite. Le Washington Post s'intéresse ici à ces réactions.
"The project was deeply researched and fact-checked with the assistance of a panel of historians. Elements of it were conducted in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, a venerable pillar of American learning. It’s a serious work of popular history that starts America’s clock four centuries ago. (The Washington Post published its own reckoning with 1619.)
What followed was 250 years of brutal slavery the United States, then a century of de facto apartheid rule. Hannah-Jones, 43, stresses that she is part of only the first generation of black Americans born in a country where it was not legal to discriminate against them.
But this reframing proved all too much for an assorted cast of American conservatives. Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker of the House, blasted the Times for printing “propaganda.” President Trump echoed the talking points of right-wing media, decrying the “zero credibility” paper’s “Racism Witch Hunt.” And conservative pundit Erick Erickson lamented the “racial lenses” that the project deployed to look at a history of black subjugation.
For right-wing nationalists, there’s little room for the recognition of fundamental evil, of an original sin, in the founding myth of the nation. A commentator for the far-right Federalist website complained that the project’s goal was to “delegitimize America and further divide and demoralize its citizenry."
Caricature Richard Williams 1933-2019: le père de Roger Rabbit n'est plus
Caricature de Milt Priggee, Oak Harbor, WA
Caricature présidentielle 2020: des options?
Caricature de Dave Whamond, Canada, PoliticalCartoons.com
Les États-Unis vaincus militairement par la Russie et la Chine? Inquiétudes chez quelques experts
"The report warns that given current trends and Russian and Chinese efforts to bolster their own military capabilities, "the US military could suffer unacceptably high casualties" and "might struggle to win or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia."
"The United States is particularly at risk of being overwhelmed should its military be forced to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously," it adds.
The Pentagon issued a statement saying it "welcomes the release of the report by the Commission," saying that the report "affirms the strategic direction set out on the National Defense Strategy, as well as its key priorities."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/14/politics/us-defense-strategy-risk/index.html
"Super-agers": Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders et Elizabeth dans un groupe sélect
" But Olshansky points out that presidential candidates are probably healthier than the average U.S. citizen — and will likely live longer than the average as a result. People who have good health care, are more highly educated, and have pensions generally live longer.
“They all belong to a sub-group of the population that is privileged. And privileged sub-groups tend to live longer and better than the average,” Olshansky said. “Despite Bernie Sanders perhaps claiming otherwise, he’s part of the 1 percent. Actually, it’s more like one-one-hundredth of one percent.”
Olshansky said the older candidates could belong to a group of what are called “super-agers,” people who live into their 80s but show a mental sharpness as if they were in their 50s or 60s.
Emily Rogalski, a Northwestern University neuroscientist and associate psychiatry and behavioral sciences professor who specializes in studying super-agers, said it’s exceedingly difficult to “determine someone’s cognitive abilities simply by knowing someone’s chronological age.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/20/joe-biden-old-age-1468635
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