The right wing tin foil hats are out in the wake of the Quebec City terrorist attack

What to do when the narrative you want to be true turns out not to be? On the anti-Islamic fringes of the Canadian right it seems it is then always time to turn to those Kellyanne Conway "Alternative Facts"!

After the horrific -- and now very clearly anti-Islamic -- terrorist hate crime committed at a Quebec City mosque on Sunday night there was, for a short period of a few hours, some confusion as to who the police thought might be involved.

Quebec police took two men into custody. One of the two was Mohamed Belkhadir who was identified as being an immigrant from Morocco. As a result of this fact, as The Intercept noted:

Almost immediately, various news outlets and political figures depicted the shooter as Muslim. Right-wing nationalist tabloids in the UK instantly linked it to Islamic violence...
...White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer exploited the attack to justify President Trump’s ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. “It’s a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant and why the President is taking steps to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to our nation’s safety and security,” Spicer said at this afternoon’s briefing when speaking of the Quebec City attack.

Likewise on the Canadian right there were those who made similar comments.

Later it turned out that the Quebec police had made a mistake and that Belkhadir was an innocent witness who had been at the mosque, had tried to render assistance to victims and had been apprehended when he tried to flee police as he did not realize he was being approached by police officers as opposed to possible attackers.

Quebec police determined that Belkhadir was not involved and released him. Police then announced that it was only the other person who had been arrested -- a white nationalist right wing extremist named Alexandre Bissonnette -- who is now alleged to have been the shooter. Belkhadir has been totally cleared.

These sorts of initially mistaken media and police reports, arrests, statements, and eyewitness comments are, of course, incredibly common in the chaotic aftermath of such terrible crimes and while they sadly are then used by conspiracy theorists as "proof" of a cover-up it makes perfect sense they would occur. The CBC explained why it initially reported the names of both Belkhadir and Bissonnette, then took both names down when the police announced they were not both culpable until finally posting Bissonnette's name as the alleged perpetrator when the police clarified matter. There is nothing nefarious about this -- there was an investigation that established that a person that the police had thought might be involved was not.

But this, of course, upended the notion that rather than being a racist attack on Muslims it was actually a terrorist attack by Muslims.

So it was time for the tin foil hats to come out.

The increasingly Alex Jonesesque commentator and Toronto Sun columnist Tarek Fatah took to Twitter to raise the specter of a cover-up!

Seriously. This would also presumably mean that the Quebec police are part of this plot trying to cover-up a "MuslimOnMulsim" terror attack because of their long established, deep solidarity with people of the Islamic faith. That "seems" very believable.

And, needless to say, Rebel Media had to get in on the act. Ezra Levant and crew sent "journalist" Faith Goldy to Quebec City to file a report "Quebec Terror: Blame Trump, Ignore Witnesses" that talks about reports of "second shooters", claims to ask all the challenging questions, etc and to assure readers that "unlike the mainstream media, we’ll follow the FACTS — wherever they lead."

This is pretty disgraceful.

And who has got one of the banner advertisements right above these Rebel Media dispatches from the deluded?

Given what some of her supporters were saying on her Facebook page after the attack, she might want to reconsider.  

Update: It turns out that Rebel Media is actually using the Quebec Mosque attack to fund raise so that their "reporter" can continue to sow doubts and to allegedly find out "What’s really going on at the mosque in Quebec City?" 

How grotesque is that? Even by Rebel Media's staggeringly low standards, it is pretty revolting.

Twitter, Basic Income, Kaepernick, Disney & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List January 1 - 8

This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.



This list covers the week of January 1 - January 8. It is in order of date of the article's release.




1) Basic Income: Progressive Dreams Meet Neoliberal Realities

John Clarke, Socialist Project

Up until now, the concept of Basic Income (BI) has enjoyed a greater history of being proposed than of being implemented. We may well be approaching a period, however, when this changes. The Ontario Government is holding consultations on setting up a BI pilot project. The Legislature in another Canadian Province, Prince Edward Island, has agreed to test out a version of BI. Pilot projects are also impending in Finland, the Netherlands and Scotland.

Read the full article.

2) Israeli officials back shoot-to-kill policy of Palestinian suspects, says Human Rights Watch

Harriet Agerholm, Independent

Leading Israeli officials have been encouraging soldiers and police officers to kill Palestinians suspected of attacks regardless of whether lethal force is necessary, according to a new report by a leading human rights organisation.

Read the full article.

3) Jason Kenney to climate change denier: “the climate’s been changing since the beginning of time”

Press Progress

What does Jason Kenney really think about climate change?

He proposes to do nothing about controlling greenhouse gas emissions, his campaign manager is a prolific climate change denier (an opinion shaped, in part, by the planet Neptune) plus Kenney has his own creative opinions about carbon dioxide

Read the full article.

4) Why to take hate seriously 

Errol Louis, New York Daily News

I note with great sadness and alarm that a band of Nazi thugs has announced plans to hold an “armed protest” this month with the explicit goal of harassing and intimidating the Jewish community of Whitefish, Mont.

Read the full article.

5) I’ve left Twitter. It is unusable for anyone but trolls, robots and dictators

Lindy West, The Guardian

I deactivated my Twitter account today. It was more of a spontaneous impulse than a New Year resolution, although it does feel like a juice cleanse, a moulting, a polar-bear plunge, a clean slate (except the opposite – like throwing your slate into a volcano and running). One moment I was brains-deep in the usual way, half-heartedly arguing with strangers about whether or not it’s “OK” to suggest to Steve Martin that calling Carrie Fisher a “beautiful creature” who “turned out” to be “witty and bright as well” veered just a hair beyond Fisher’s stated boundaries regarding objectification (if you have opinions on this, don’t tweet me – oh, wait, you can’t); and the next moment the US president-elect was using the selfsame platform to taunt North Korea about the size and tumescence of its nuclear program. And I realised: eh, I’m done. I could be swimming right now. Or flossing. Or digging a big, pointless pit. Anything else.

Read the full article.

6) Carrie Fisher's last Harrison Ford story isn't romantic, it's tragic

Tasha Robinson, The Verge

In the wake of Carrie Fisher’s unexpected death at age 60, her new memoir, The Princess Diarist, is an unexpectedly emotional read. But the emotions aren’t grief and nostalgia so much as alarm and sympathy. Early in the book, she tells a thoroughly appalling story that she presents as a cheery little romp. In London for the filming of 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope, Fisher attends George Lucas’ birthday party, where she’s “essentially the only girl” in a room full of hard-drinking crew who are loudly whinging that they’d rather shoot in “a nice remote location… where there’s no bloody shortage of strange but friendly quim.”

Read the full article.

7) Obama’s Administration Sold More Weapons Than Any Other Since World War II

Farid Farid, Motherboard

President Barack Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, will leave office in a few weeks with the dubious honor of having sold more weapons than any other American president since World War II. And experts say President-Elect Donald Trump will most likely sell even more.

Read the full article.

8) Grande Prairie, Alta. Allowed To Reject Graphic Anti-Abortion Bus Ads: Judge

The Canadian Press

An abortion rights group is hailing a court ruling that says a city in northwest Alberta has the legal right to refuse to run a graphic anti-abortion ad on its transit buses.

Read the full article.

9) Why we still need John Berger’s Ways of Seeing

Emma Hope Allwood, Dazed

“A woman is always accompanied, except when quite alone, and perhaps even then, by her own image of herself. While she is walking across a room or weeping at the death of her father, she cannot avoid envisioning herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she is taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. She has to survey everything she is and everything she does, because how she appears to others – and particularly how she appears to men – is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life.”

Read the full article.

10) 5 Ways Modern Disney Is Even More Sexist Than The Classics

Vicki Veritas & Matt Cowan, Cracked

A new crop of revamped Disney films want to reverse those old "princess in distress" stories through female characters who are strong, independent, and unique. Or ... are they? Now, we haven't seen Moana yet. Maybe that totally reverses every bit of unintentional damage those other films did. But, uh ... it doesn't sound likely.

Read the full article.

11) Judge rules doctors can refuse trans patients and women who have had abortions

Marie Solis, News Mic

On Saturday, a United States district judge ruled that doctors may turn away women who have had abortions and transgender patients on the basis of religious freedom.

Read the full article.

12) Leitch tells Fox she agrees with critique of 'socialized medicine'

Janice Dickson, iPolitics

Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch told Fox News’ Business Network on Tuesday that elites, insiders, and left-wing media, are doing everything they can to stop her and also suggested she doesn’t agree with universal healthcare.

Read the full article. 

13) Colin Kaepernick’s Teammates Give Him an Award for Courage

Dave Zirin, The Nation

The San Francisco 49ers announced on Friday that the team has voted to give Colin Kaepernick the Len Eshmont Award, a prize given to the player who “best exemplifies the inspirational and courageous play of Len Eshmont—a Navy vet—an original member of the 1946 49ers team.”

Read the full article.

14) Mental Health Issues Shouldn't Overshadow Victims Of Men's Violence

Isabelle Cote, Huffington Post

A few days following New Year celebrations, a tragedy has occurred in Big Tracadie, a rural community in Nova Scotia. Lionel Desmond, a retired corporal of the Canadian Armed Forces, had allegedly murdered his wife, Shanna Desmond, their 10-year-old daughter, Aaliyah, and his mother Brenda Desmond shortly before taking his own life.

Read the full article.

15) Women killed by their spouses are not casualties in someone else’s story

Elizabeth Renzetti, The Globe and Mail

Will we ever know any more about what Shanna Desmond was like as a person, or does her story stop with her violent death? So far, the details are few, but they point to someone who was lovely and dedicated to her job. She was “empathetic,” according to a colleague who worked with her at St. Martha’s Regional Hospital in Nova Scotia, where Ms. Desmond was a registered nurse. She would drive through bad weather to get to work. Her Facebook profile picture is a funny, playful shot of her at work sticking her tongue out alongside a patient.

Read the full article.

16) Get the flu shot: Editorial

Toronto Star Editorial Board

Every year about 70 per cent of Torontonians roll the dice and choose not to get a flu vaccine, according to Statistics Canada, even though it’s their best shot at avoiding the life-threatening disease and of passing it on to others.

Read the full article.

17) Netanyahu Caught on Tape Negotiating Mutual Benefits With Businessman

Gidi Weitz, Haaretz

At the heart of Case 2000 is an attempt at an unambiguous deal between money and government. Sources who spoke with Netanyahu said he was surprised by evidence against him.

Read the full article.

See also: Netanyahu, Children of Men, Cheetahs & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List December 25 - January 1

See also: Car Culture, the CIA, Pope Francis & more -- The Left Chapter Holiday Reading List December 18 - 25

Castro, Climate Change, Trump & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List November 20 - 27

This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.

This list covers the week of November 20 - November 27. It is in order of date of the article's  release.

1) Suddenly It’s Okay to Be pro-Israel and anti-Semitic

Gideon Levy, Haaretz

All of a sudden it’s not so terrible to be anti-Semitic. Suddenly it’s excusable as long as you hate Muslims and Arabs and “love Israel.” The Jewish and Israeli right has issued a sweeping amnesty to anti-Semitic lovers of Israel – yes, there is such a thing, and they’re en route to taking power in the United States.


Read the full article.

2) Many in Milwaukee Neighborhood Didn’t Vote — and Don’t Regret It

 Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times

Four barbers and a firefighter were pondering their future under a Trump presidency at the Upper Cutz barbershop last week.

“We got to figure this out,” said Cedric Fleming, one of the barbers. “We got a gangster in the chair now,” he said, referring to President-elect Donald J. Trump.

They admitted that they could not complain too much: Only two of them had voted. But there were no regrets.

Read the full article.

3) Lessons from Italy: the Dangers of Anti-Trumpism

Cinzia Arruzza, Verso

Comparisons between Donald Trump and former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi abounded throughout the presidential election campaign and have only proliferated since Trump declared victory. They are not entirely ungrounded.

Trump and Berlusconi are both men who came to power from business rather than politics and both have presented their inexperience with the political establishment as a mark of purity. They have both insisted on their entrepreneurial success as the most evident proof of their qualification to rule the country. Like Plato’s tyrant, they both exhibit an ethos based on a dream of continuous and unlimited jouissance and an aggressive and hubristic eros (though Berlusconi prefers to think of himself as an irresistible seducer rather than a rapist). They both indulge in gross misogynistic and racist jokes and have reshaped public language by legitimizing insult and political incorrectness as acceptable forms of political communication and by embodying an exhilarating return of the repressed. They both revel in kitschy aesthetics and don the orange hue of artificial tanning. And they both allied with the far right in order to advance a political project of authoritarian neoliberalism and unbridled capitalism.

Read the full article.

4) I have never been sexually assaulted

Deidre Pearson, Feminist Current

 I have never been sexually assaulted.

When I was five-years-old I went to an in-home daycare, run by a woman who had a son and some daughters (a combination of my age at the time and the years that have passed make me unable to remember precisely how many). The woman’s daughters were older than me, but younger than the boy. He may have been in grade six or even in high school — to me he was just a “big kid.”

Read the full article.

5) French politicians are now marching to Marine Le Pen’s immigration tune

Philippe Marlière, The Guardian 

The first round of the French presidential election is five months away, yet France is already in political turmoil. There are several reasons. First, François Hollande, the incumbent president, is so weak and discredited that some expect him to pull out of the race altogether. This would be an unprecedented move for a president in office.

Second, Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, is going from strength to strength. She is consistently polling at more than 20% of the share of the vote (against 17.9% in 2012) and seems guaranteed to make it to the second and decisive round of next year’s presidential elections. What’s more, Le Pen’s rise has been directly affecting her opponents across the political spectrum.

Read the full article.

6) Lashing Out at ‘Identity Politics,’ Pundits Blame Trump on Those Most Vulnerable to Trump

Adam Johnson, Fair

Over the past two weeks, pundits from all ends of the spectrum have been scrambling to explain Clinton’s unexpected loss, with reasons spanning from the plausible to the highly dubious; WikiLeaks, Bernie Sanders, fake news, Jill Stein, Russia, bad algorithms and the FBI have all been accused of having sole or part responsibility. Lately, however, a new, entirely bogus culprit has emerged from center and center-left circles: “identity politics” and its close cousin, “political correctness.”

Read the full article.

7) Writers, Do Better

Kathryn Borel Jr., The Walrus

The first person who helped me after I was sexually assaulted by a stranger in 2012 was a tiny female jogger. Before she came to my aid, and after the assault was over—for reasons I’ll never understand—my rapist followed me. I walked fast for an hour trying to get to my house while he tailed me. As the sun was coming up, there was a woman across the street, out on her morning run. I didn’t even see her cross over to my side—but suddenly she standing between me and my rapist, yelling at him. He fled. She walked me home, made sure I was inside, then jogged off. I never saw her again.

Read the full article. 

8) Trudeau attended cash-for-access fundraiser with Chinese billionaires

Robert Fife & Steven Chase, The Globe and Mail

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the top draw at a $1,500 Liberal Party cash-for-access fundraiser at the mansion of a wealthy Chinese-Canadian business executive in May. One of the guests at the event was a well-heeled donor who was seeking Ottawa’s final approval to begin operating a new bank aimed at Canada’s Chinese community.

Read the full article.

9) Dear Democrats, you must stop blaming Hillary’s loss on black folk and Bernie supporters 

Shaun King, New York Daily News

I thought this would happen.

As Democrats begin to deal with the severe emotional reality of a Donald Trump presidency and a conservative Congress, they need someone to blame. They are good at that.

No doubt, many people blew this election, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic establishment chief among them, but black folk and Bernie Sanders supporters simply don’t deserve one iota of blame.

Read the full article. 

10) Mystery solved in the case of the missing transit revenue

Edward Keenan, The Toronto Star 

To hear some members of city council tell it, Toronto is like the setting of some heist film — Ocean’s Fourteen: The Great Transit Caper. Hardened thieves are scheming and sneaking and disguising themselves as children all to the ends of ripping off the transit system. Sounds like a case of [Duh-duh-duuuuuuuuuuhhhhn] fare evasion.

Read the full article. 

11) Petition - PayPal: Stop discriminating against Palestinians.

Sum of Us

PayPal does business in 203 countries around the world and is the default method of online payment for millions. But it won’t serve Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank -- even though it has no problem providing Israelis living in illegal settlements with the same service.

Read the full article and sign the petition. 

12) Guest Editorial: Sawant’s Response to Mudede’s “Brazenly Dishonest” Argument About Anti-Trump Protests

Kshama Sawant, The Stranger

I share the horror of millions of people over Donald Trump’s ascendance to the White House. While Trump lost the popular vote and the majority of the American people do not agree with his right-wing positions, bigots are nonetheless feeling emboldened. A surge in bullying and hate crimes has taken place, and the KKK felt confident enough to hold a victory rally in North Carolina.

Read the full article. 

13) Impassioned Sandra Jansen calls on legislature to stand against misogyny

Rick McConnell, CBC News

Calgary MLA Sandra Jansen drew a standing ovation Tuesday after she rose in the legislature and gave an impassioned speech denouncing the hateful and misogynistic comments she has faced since crossing the floor to join the NDP last week.

The first words out of the former Tory MLA's mouth likely raised eyebrows when she said: "What a traitorous bitch!"

Read the full article.

16) Trump’s climate denial is just one of the forces that point towards war

George Monbiot, The Guardian 

Wave the magic wand and the problem goes away. Those pesky pollution laws, carbon caps and clean-power plans: swish them away and the golden age of blue-collar employment will return. This is Donald Trump’s promise, in his video message on Monday, in which the US president-elect claimed that unleashing coal and fracking would create “many millions of high-paid jobs”. He will tear down everything to make it come true.

Read the full article.

17) Buckingham Palace advertises for new gardener... who will earn less than the London Living Wage

Lizzie Edmonds, The Evening Standard

Buckingham Palace is advertising for a gardener where the successful candidate will earn less than the recommended London Living Wage.

An advert has been placed on the Royal Household website for a live in gardener with a salary of £17,000, which works out at £8.72 an hour for a 37-and-a-half-hour working week.

Read the full article.

18) Conservative MP Kellie Leitch calls for CBC to be dismantled

Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch is proposing to sell the CBC, saying she doesn’t believe the broadcaster should be “propped up by taxpayers.”

Read the full article.

19)  Arctic ice melt could trigger uncontrollable climate change at global level

Fiona Harvey, The Guardian

Arctic scientists have warned that the increasingly rapid melting of the ice cap risks triggering 19 “tipping points” in the region that could have catastrophic consequences around the globe.

Read the full article.

20) Colin Kaepernick has tense exchange with reporter over Fidel Castro T-shirt

Brandon Schlager, Sporting News 

San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick is being asked once again to explain a controversial message — this time for wearing a T-shirt featuring Malcolm X and Fidel Castro during a news conference.

Read the full article.

21) The 13 impossible crises that humanity now faces

George Monbiot, The Guardian

Please don’t read this unless you are feeling strong. This is a list of 13 major crises that, I believe, confront us. There may be more. Please feel free to add to it or to knock it down. I’m sorry to say that it’s not happy reading.

Read the full article.

22) Galloway sex-assault complainant breaks silence

Laura Kane, Canadian Press

The former University of British Columbia student who accused Steven Galloway of sexual assault says her complaint against the acclaimed author was not about a "consensual affair."

Read the full article.

23) Jo Cox's murder was followed by 50,000 tweets celebrating her death

Mark Townsend, The Guardian

More than 50,000 abusive and offensive tweets were sent celebrating Labour MP Jo Cox’s murder and lauding her killer, Thomas Mair, as a “hero” or “patriot” in the month following her death, prompting calls for the government to do more to tackle hate speech online.

Read the full article.

24) Fidel Castro 1926-2016

Greg Grandin, The Nation

Fidel Castro is dead at 90. He took power in 1959, at the head of the joyful, raucous, and brash Cuban Revolution, which was immediately placed under siege by Washington. Castro almost outlasted 11 US presidents—Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and passing in the waning days of Obama’s last term. Perhaps he just couldn’t bear the thought of President Donald Trump. Having been sanctimoniously lectured by all 11 US presidents on what constitutes proper democratic procedure, he might have thought Trump, about to take office with a minority  of the vote and with significant voter suppression, a vindication.

Read the full article.

Finally, while not from the last week, this article is worth sharing again in the wake of the death of Fidel Castro:

25) Nelson Mandela on How Cuba "Destroyed the Myth of the Invincibility of the White Oppressor"

Nelson Mandela, Democracy Now

We have come here today recognizing our great debt to the Cuban people. What other country has such a history of selfless behavior as Cuba has shown for the people of Africa? How many countries benefit from Cuban health care professionals and educators? How many of these volunteers are now in Africa? What country has ever needed help from Cuba and has not received it? How many countries threatened by imperialism or fighting for their freedom have been able to count on the support of Cuba?

Read the full article.

And...In Memoriam: Fidel Castro 1926-2016 

"Nothing in the world is irreversible, not even capitalism."

See also: Trump, UBC, Basic Income & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List November 13 - 20

See also: Trump -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List November 6 - 13

Trump -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List November 6 - 13

This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.

This list covers the week of November 6 - November 13. It is in order of date of the article's  release. Needless to say, this week's roundup is dominated by the American election and the victory of Donald Trump.

1) Black Ontario teen cleared in encounter with police says officers should have body cameras

CBC News

A black Ontario teenager who saw charges against him dropped after video emerged of his encounter with officers says police should be required to wear body cameras.

Jake Anderson was 17 when he was arrested and charged with public intoxication, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest in Chatham on July 25, 2015.

After news surfaced a month later of surveillance video that captured part of the incident in the southwestern Ontario community, the charges were dropped.

Read the full article.

2) The Art of Spin

Patrick Barrett & Deepa Kumar, Jacobin

The 2016 presidential election is widely regarded as a contest between the two most unpopular candidates in a generation, if not all time. The lion’s share of the attention has focused on the spectacle of Donald Trump, the wealthy real-estate mogul and television personality who has succeeded in capturing the Republican Party nomination in large part due to his capacity to manipulate a mass media system that has long favored sensation over substance.

Read the full article. 

3) German town builds 13ft wall to separate refugees from residents

The Independent UK

A suburban town in Germany is building a 13ft-high stone wall to separate residents from refugees living at a nearby migrant accommodation facility.

Officials from Neuperlach Sud, outside Munich, said the prospect of a wall was raised after locals complained about 160 unaccompanied young refugees moving into the area.

Read the full article. 

4) Donald Trump is moving to the White House, and liberals put him there

Thomas Frank, The Guardian

A month ago I tried to write a column proposing mean nicknames for president-elect Donald Trump, on the basis that it would be funny to turn the tables on him for the cruel diminutives he applied to others.

I couldn’t pull it off. There is a darkness about Trump that negates that sort of humor: a folly so bewildering, an incompetence so profound that no insult could plumb its depths.

Read the full article. 

5) AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY

David Remnick, The New Yorker

The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. Trump’s shocking victory, his ascension to the Presidency, is a sickening event in the history of the United States and liberal democracy. On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President—a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit—and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety.

Read the full article.

6) The Democratic Party deserves so much of the blame for electing Donald Trump 

Shaun King, New York Daily News

Election Day 2016 was a miserable failure for the Democratic Party. When all the votes are counted, it appears that Donald Trump will have won 30 states and at least 300 Electoral College votes. After months of tough talk, Democrats not only lost the presidency, but lost the Senate and continued to lose the House. It was a thorough drubbing. Calling it anything other than that is a damn lie.

Read the full article.

7) Kellie Leitch: American Cousins Threw Out Elites By Electing Trump

Ryan Maloney, The Huffington Post 

A Conservative leadership contender has suggested the same movement that made Donald Trump the next United States president should be replicated in Canada.

Ontario MP Kellie Leitch, best known for her controversial proposal to screen immigrants for so-called “anti-Canadian values,” sent a fundraising email in the wee hours Wednesday toasting Trump’s surprising victory.

Read the full article.

8) A List of Pro-Women, Pro-Immigrant, Pro-Earth, Anti-Bigotry Organizations That Need Your Support

Joanna Rothkopf, Jezebel

Donald Trump has been a vocal advocate of sexual assault, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and violent racism. Early Wednesday morning, America voted to elect him our president.

Here are a few organizations that work to fight for the rights of our most vulnerable populations, and ways you can volunteer or donate to make sure they are able to work harder than ever.

Read the full article.

9) Never underestimate how much America hates women

Nona Aronowitz, Fusion

When it became nightmarishly clear on Tuesday night that Donald Trump was going to become our next president, a startling amount of women in my social media feeds posted a version of this phrase: “Never underestimate how much America hates women.”

Read the full article.

10) Trudeau not ‘living up’ to a climate-change promise, says U.K. think-tank in fossil-fuel subsidy report card

Marie-Danielle Smith, The National Post

Close to the anniversary of a major United Nations climate-change agreement in Paris last December, the year-old Liberal government seems poised to go back on one of its climate-related election promises, says a report from a U.K.-based think-tank.

After recommitting himself to ending fossil-fuel subsidization at the G20 leaders’ summit in China two months ago, though offering no timeline, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doesn’t appear to be “living up” to his promises, the report from InfluenceMap says.

Read the full article.

11) Donald Trump's victory followed by wave of hate crime attacks against minorities across US - led by his supporters

Lizzie Dearden, The Independent UK

Police are investigating a wave of alleged hate crimes against Muslims, Hispanic Americans, black people, ethnic minorities and the LGBT community in the wake of the US election.

Attackers professing support for Donald Trump have been accused of numerous attacks in the 24 hours following his shock victory, including death threats, physical assaults and racist graffiti.

Read the full article. 

12) Kellie Leitch: 'I am not a racist'

Laura Payton, CTV News

Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch is defending herself against criticism she's using Donald Trump-style politics to try to win her bid to take charge of the party.

Leitch accused Michael Chong, another leadership hopeful, of calling her racist during a debate on CTV's Question Period.

Read the full article. 

13) These Rust Belt Democrats Saw the Trump Wave Coming

Pema Levy, Mother Jones

Like labor unions everywhere, the local Plumbers & Pipefitters union in Ohio's Mahoning Valley—a historically Democratic bastion due to the influence of labor—endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in September 2015 and urged its members to vote for her. But unlike in years past, when Roland "Butch" Taylor briefed about 200 members on the union's support of Clinton and the prospective benefits of a Clinton presidency in May, the meeting didn't go well. "I got a lot of boos," he recalls. "I got a lot of chatter back. And out of the group, only one person came up and asked me for a T-shirt."

"Right then and there, I knew something was wrong," says Taylor, who retired a few months later. "I thought, 'Well, maybe it will change as the campaign moves forward.'"

Read the full article.

14) Passing the Baton

 Branko Marcetic. Jacobin

On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton said president-elect Donald Trump is the most dangerous man to ever run for president. He’s a “moral disaster,” according to her former running mate Tim Kaine. If you believe the Democrats’ campaign rhetoric, Trump is a direct puppet of a foreign leader. At best, he’s “temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief,” as President Obama put it. For others, Trump is a literal fascist, a dictator-in-waiting who has been compared to everyone from Hitler and Mussolini to supposed Latin American strongmen.

This is the man who will now be in control of the most powerful military and state surveillance apparatus in all of history. When Trump is inaugurated in January next year, he will take charge of a sprawling, opaque, and extremely powerful national security regime with few checks and balances.

Read the full article.

While not from the week, we are including the following article as it is pertinent and worth revisiting in light of Trump's victory.

15) We’ve seen Donald Trump before – his name was Silvio Berlusconi

John Foot, The Guardian

We keep being told that the Donald Trump phenomenon means we have entered the era of post-fact politics. Yet, I would argue, post-fact politics has been tarnishing democracy for some time. Twenty-two years ago a successful businessman sent a VHS tape to Italy’s news channels. It showed him sitting in a (fake) office. He read a pre-prepared statement via an autocue.

The man’s name was Silvio Berlusconi, and he was announcing that he was, in his words, “taking the field”. The first reaction was derision. Opposition politicians saw his political project (the formation of a “movement” called Forza Italia – Go for it, Italy – just months ahead of a crucial general election) as a joke. Some claimed a stocking had been put over the camera to soften the impact of Berlusconi’s face.

Read the full article.

See also: The NFL, Landlord Licensing, Žižek & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List October 30 - November 6

See also: The wages of liberalism is Trump

See also: Adam Capay, the ONDP, the US Greens & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List: October 23-30