This list covers the week of January 29 - February 5. It is in order of date of the article's release.
1) Let’s call Trump’s Muslim ban what it really is: A hate crime
Shaista Aziz, The Globe and Mail
We’ve just witnessed the first full week of a Donald Trump presidency that has set the tone for what is to come. True to form, Mr. Trump’s arrival in the White House has been every bit as hateful, shameful and unconscionable, as we should’ve expected it to be based on his rhetoric during the election campaign.
Read the full article.
2) French Socialists choose leftwing rebel Benoît Hamon for Élysée fight
Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian
Benoît Hamon, the staunchly leftwing rebel outsider who wants to introduce a universal basic income, legalise cannabis and tax robots has been chosen as the French Socialist party’s presidential candidate.
Read the full article.
3) It’s time to ban white male Trump supporters from entering the U.S.
Meghan Murphy, Feminist Current
Contrary to the claims of Donald Trump and his supporters, the real “threat to safety and security” has, once again, turned out to be white men.
Read the full article.
4) Simple truth is Canada's mass shooters are usually white and Canadian-born
Neil Macdonald, CBC News
For a short, hopeful moment Monday, Trumpian conservatives were clucking and warbling triumphant tweets at one another.
Rumours swirling about the slaughter at the mosque in Quebec City had the shooter yelling "Allahu Akbar," albeit in a strong Québécois accent, as he killed and reloaded.
So why wasn't the fake-news liberal mainstream media concentrating on that instead of portraying it as an anti-Muslim hate crime encouraged by President Trump's crackdown on Muslim immigrants? Maybe it was a Shia/Sunni thing: the sort of atrocity that takes place all the time in countries where ISIS operates. Maybe it was Muslim-on-Muslim terror
Read the full article.
5) Don’t Give In To Coup Fantasies; Power is More Straightforward
Arun Gupta, The Anarres Project
I am getting notes and articles forwarded from numerous people, smart people, that are full of paranoid speculation about coups, false flag operations, and military mobilizations.
STOP IT.
This is exactly what the Trumpkins want. They want you to be paranoid, to be consumed by fear and irrationality. The last thing they want you to be is thoughtful, careful, rational. They want you to overreact and succumb to lurid fantasies.
Their exercise of power thus far is muscular but also chaotic, banal, and largely symbolic.
Read the full article.
6) African Union criticises US for ‘taking many of our people as slaves’ and not taking refugees
Adam Withnall, The Independent
The head of the African Union has criticised Donald Trump’s ban on immigration from some Muslim-majority countries, saying it presents “one of the greatest challenges” for the continent.
Read the full article.
7) Suspect in Quebec Mosque Attack Quickly Depicted as a Moroccan Muslim. He’s a White Nationalist.
Glenn Greenwald & Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept
A MASS SHOOTING at a Quebec City mosque last night left six people dead and eight wounded. The targeted mosque, the Cultural Islamic Center of Quebec, was the same one at which a severed pig’s head was left during Ramadan last June. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the episode a “terrorist attack on Muslims.”
Read the full article.
8) Hate crimes spike in Montreal after Quebec City mosque shooting
Rachel Lau, Global News
There have been 14 reports of hate crimes in Montreal since the Quebec City mosque shooting Sunday, said Montreal police chief Philippe Pichet.
Officials say it’s a striking increase.
Read the full article.
9) No plans to change refugee target in wake of U.S. travel ban: immigration minister
Kathleen Harris, CBC News
As MPs debate U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban in the House of Commons, Canada has already confirmed it will not hike its refugee intake target in the wake of a contentious immigration and travel crackdown in the U.S., says Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen.
Read the full article.
10) Had Muslim gunmen killed six white Christians, half the world would have Canadian flags as profile pictures
Shaun King, New York Daily News
On Sunday night an anti-Muslim white nationalist allegedly walked into a mosque in Canada and shot and killed six people and left at least eight others critically wounded in a hail of gunfire. All by itself, that news is utterly devastating — or at least it should be — but something truly despicable is going on.
Read the full article.
11) Opposition accuses Trudeau of 'betrayal' as Liberals abandon promise of electoral reform
Aaron Wherry, CBC News
Justin Trudeau's Liberal government is abandoning a commitment to reform the federal electoral system.
A new mandate letter issued to Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould, released publicly on Wednesday, says "changing the electoral system will not be in your mandate."
Opposition MPs blasted the Liberal government's move as a cynical betrayal.
Read the full article.
12) A Look into Canada’s Most Controversial Environmental Organization
Ryan O'Connor, Vice
What is Energy Probe and why is it anti-climate change?
Daryn Caister was like a lot of coffee drinkers in Toronto. Young and socially conscious, he got his daily fix at the Green Beanery across from Honest Ed's in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood. A popular café advertising organic "fair trade" beans, it also boasted that profits went to the environmental work conducted by Probe International.
Read the full article.
13) Netanyahu's silence on Trump and anti-Semitism
Mairav Zonszein, 972 Mag
Netanyahu built his career on the idea that only he can protect the Jewish people. Yet his silence in the face of Trump’s disregard for rising American anti-Semitism speaks volumes.
Read the full article.
14) Easily-Triggered, Privileged People Have Turned Society Into Their Own Giant Safe Space
Na’amen Gobert Tilahun, The Huffington Post
“Are you triggered?” white men sneer from every corner of Facebook, when confronted with political outrage or even mild disagreement. “Do you need to go to your safe space?” Rhetoric about “trigger warnings,” alerts to traumatized people that a book or film or article might exacerbate PTSD, has been twisted into a snide way of mocking people, a coded insult meant to imply someone is spoiled or coddled. Celebrities of all levels have commented: Neil Gaiman named a short story collection Trigger Warning as self-congratulation for its disturbing contents. Joe Rogan’s new Netflix comedy special is named Triggered, and Rogan said in an interview with Maxim that talking about triggers was the “anthem of the oversensitive crowd.” In the intro to her new book Buffered, YouTube personality Hannah Hart makes a specific point of saying there will be no trigger warnings because “life does not provide trigger warnings.” Even the University of Chicago has weighed in, making a point of telling incoming freshmen it didn’t support trigger warnings in classes — preferring, I suppose, to have students ambushed by trauma.
Read the full article.
15) Elizabeth May On Electoral Reform: PM Threw 'Young Women Cabinet Ministers Under The Bus'
Zi-Ann Lum, The Huffington Post
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May feels “betrayed” by the government’s decision to abandon its electoral reform promise, and has criticized the prime minister for throwing “two young women cabinet ministers under the bus” in the process.
Read the full article.
16) ‘Cuck’: a modern swear word that’s as dirty as the old ones
Leah McLaren
Let’s talk about swearing. I love a grubby old curse word, don’t you? I’m an unapologetic user of the f-bomb and the s-bomb and even very occasionally – when the idiot home-office printer breaks again – the ever-controversial c-bomb. The guidelines for uttering profanity in my house are like the 1970s rules for spanking: Only grown-ups can do it, but not during a fight and never with intent to cause harm.
Which brings me to the brand-new new swear I recently discovered while visiting Twitter, that delightful bastion of conflict and insult. The word is “cuck.” And, in case you haven’t heard it, it’s bad. So bad I can hardly believe it’s printable in this newspaper. It probably won’t be after I explain what it means.
Read the full article.
17) Fukushima nuclear reactor radiation at highest level since 2011 meltdown
Justin McCurry, The Guardian
Radiation levels inside a damaged reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station are at their highest since the plant suffered a triple meltdown almost six years ago.
Read the full article.
18) Everything Trump Is Doing, Establishment Democrats Set in Motion
Michael Sainato, Observer
The Democratic Party has actively participated or remained complicit in several of the policies and plans now being pushed by the Trump administration, despite their rhetoric conveying a blanket opposition.
Read the full article.
19) Rona Ambrose vacationed on billionaire's yacht during Trudeau criticism
CTV News Staff
Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose spent her holiday on a billionaire’s yacht while her colleagues blasted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for vacationing on the Aga Khan’s private island -- although Ambrose cleared her trip with the ethics commissioner.
Read the full article.
20) Former Manitoba NDP cabinet minister wants to form new political party
Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press
A longtime former Manitoba cabinet minister said Friday night he is leaving the provincial New Democrats and hoping to form a new political party to reflect the views of Indigenous people and people of colour.
Read the full article.
21) UNFOUNDED: WHY POLICE DISMISS 1 IN 5 SEXUAL ASSAULT CLAIMS AS BASELESS
Robyn Doolittle, The Globe and Mail
In a 20-month-long investigation into how police handle sexual assault allegations, The Globe and Mail gathered data from more than 870 police forces. The findings expose deep flaws at every step of the process
Read the full article.
22) Donald Trump plants the seeds of his demise
Tony Burman, The Toronto Star
As the world sinks deeper into Donald Trump’s abyss, this was the most depressing of weeks — except for two extraordinary developments that should give us some inspiration.
Read the full article.
23) Trump Needs a Holy War
Bradley Burston, Haaretz
It's an inconceivably scary thought that the Trump administration is simply winging it, breakneck, disrupting and detonating and taking America apart - and all of it without a plan. But here's the even scarier possibility - that there is, in fact, a plan.
Read the full article.
24) Steve Bannon Described U.S. Jews as 'Enablers' of Jihad
JTA, Haaretz
In a proposal of a documentary on a purported Islamic plan to take over America, Steve Bannon, U.S. President Donald Trump’s top strategic adviser, described the “American Jewish community” as among unwitting “enablers” of Jihad.
Read the full article.
25) No Matter Who Wins, the Green Bay Packers are the Real Champs
Josh Kolic, The Hoop and the Harm
This is not a homer piece.
Sorry to disappoint all the cheeseheads who probably came here because of the title but I am not a Packers fan.
In fact my favourite football team is the Cleveland Browns. That’s the right the biggest dumpster fire in football.
Read the full article.
See also: The Trump Administration, O'Leary, the Women's Marches & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List January 22-29
See also: The Women's Marches, the Inauguration, Saskatchewan Austerity & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List January 15-22
