On the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota, Native American voters are scrambling to comply with a restrictive voter ID law in time to cast ballots for a crucial Senate election.
Category Archives: Viva!
Trump Received ‘Secret’ Payments After Endorsing Pyramid Schemes Targeting Poor, Lawsuit Alleges
Prior to becoming president, Donald Trump knowingly promoted a host of get-rich-quick schemes as legitimate business opportunities, swindling thousands of hard-working Americans as he collected “large, secret payments” from at least three sketchy companies, according to a new lawsuit. [ more › ]
‘We’ve never seen this’: massive Canadian glaciers shrinking rapidly

Glaciers in the Yukon territory are retreating even faster than expected in a warming climate, scientists warn
Scientists in Canada have warned that massive glaciers in the Yukon territory are shrinking even faster than would be expected from a warming climate – and bringing dramatic changes to the region.
After a string of recent reports chronicling the demise of the ice fields, researchers hope that greater awareness will help the public better understand the rapid pace of climate change.
Trump borrows from the old tricks of fascism | Timothy Snyder

The idea that the powerful are victims who must be coddled arose in a setting that recalls the United States of today
The governing principle of the Trump administration is total irresponsibility, a claim of innocence from a position of power, something which happens to be an old fascist trick. As we see in the president’s reactions to American rightwing terrorism, he will always claim victimhood for himself and shift blame to the actual victims. As we see in the motivations of the terrorists themselves, and in the long history of fascism, this maneuver can lead to murder.
The Nazis claimed a monopoly on victimhood. Mein Kampf includes a lengthy pout about how Jews and other non-Germans made Hitler’s life as a young man in the Habsburg monarchy difficult. After stormtroopers attacked others in Germany in the early 1930s, they made a great fuss if one of their own was injured. The Horst Wessel Song, recalling a single Nazi who was killed, was on the lips of Germans who killed millions of people. The second world war was for the Nazis’ self-defense against “global Jewry”.
Opinion: Australia should be wary of the Proud Boys and their violent, alt-right views

Gavin McInnes will be the latest in a string of provocative, right-wing speakers to visit Australia. Each tour pushes the public debate further to the right, with more scope for conflict, writes Kaz Ross.
We Can Replace Them
In Georgia, a chance to rebuke white nationalism
Sarah Sanders repeatedly deflects ‘enemy of the people’ question – video
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, refused to identify which media outlets Trump and his administration have referred to as ‘the enemy of the people’ despite repeated questions from CNN’s Jim Acosta. Sanders said: ‘The president is not referencing all media, he’s talking about the growing amount of fake news that exists in the country’
DRC records 17 new Ebola cases in nation’s 3rd-largest outbreak
Drones to deliver vaccines to remote Vanuatu in world-first commercial contracts

An Australian company is awarded the world’s first-ever commercial contract to deliver life-saving vaccines to vulnerable children in remote areas by drone.
What Is At Stake Is Democracy Itself
What is at stake today is not the future of Ranil Wickremesinghe or the UNP. What is at stake is democracy itself, and its necessary pillars, inviolability of the constitution, rule of law and freedom of expression.
There was a democratic way to remove Ranil Wickremesinghe and appoint Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister – defeat the government at the budget vote. That would have been constitutional and wouldn’t have plunged the country into a crisis.
But such a course of action presupposed Mahinda Rajapaksa having a parliamentary majority. The constitutional coup was mounted to install as prime minister a man who does not enjoy a parliamentary majority.
The decision to prorogue the parliament without consulting the Speaker indicates that Mahinda Rajapaksa is uncertain about being able to secure a majority soon.
Having violated the constitution in such a fundamental sense, will the new ‘government’ abide by lesser laws? Will it bow down to a Supreme Court decision or allow the lack of a Parliamentary majority to stand its way? Or will it use the prorogation and its control over nerve centres of state power to create favourable facts on the ground? The occupation of the state media institutions illegally on Friday night (October 26) is indicative of what lies ahead. The government cannot afford to confirm to the rule of law or democratic practices and it will not. The Rajapaksas are back in power. And they will do whatever it takes to stay in power.
The main narrator of the assassination drama, Namal Kumara, gave a press conference on Saturday, naming Ranil Wickremesinghe as the man behind the plot. He admitted that he doesn’t have any ‘evidence’; he just knows. Clearly, post-October 26th, Sri Lanka is set to exit not just democracy but also a fact-based reality. It is important to bear in mind that DIG Nalaka Silva has been arrested under the PTA. If any politicians are arrested in relation to the ‘plot’, those arrests too would be under the PTA. Whether such arrests will be used as a tactic to create a parliamentary majority for Mahinda Rajapaksas remains to be seen,
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, when he spoke to the Sunday Times on Friday night was accompanied by the notorious Sinhala-Buddhist monk, Ittakande Saddhatissa, the head of Ravana Balaya.
The first and so far the only country to recognise the new prime minister is China.
With Friday’s constitutional coup, Sri Lanka has entered a ‘state of exception,’ during which the law will be violated again and again, by those in power and democracy will be sacrificed in the name of national security.
Our march away from democracy into autocracy has begun.
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