Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Something to Know - 28 June

Every publication that I have read, from the LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post, and the Guardian, has covered every perspective and nuance of the "Brexit".   It all reads the same after a while.   This selection from the NY Times covers most of the main issues as the "event" goes forward, and is concise enough that it give all the main talking points in one easy read.    There is one still remaining thought in my mind, and it is does the Queen feel the need to put in her two cents?  After all, she might intervene to protect the United Kingdom, which might in the worst case scenario shrink to nothing more than Britain and Gibraltar:


EUROPE

How Britain Could Exit 'Brexit'

The Interpreter



By MAX FISHER JUNE 27, 2016


Photo
The afternoon rush in London on Monday. Technically, the "Brexit" referendum result is not legally binding, but the alternatives are tricky for Britain's leaders. CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — In the days since Britons voted to leave the European Union, the so-called "Brexit" referendum has created such severe turmoil that public attention is increasingly focused on an extreme option: Can they get out of it?

Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday that he considered the referendum binding and that "the process of implementing the decision in the best possible way must now begin." But he also said he would leave that process to his successor, after his expected resignation in October. This opens a window of at least four months during which time Britain could decide not to proceed, and avoid consequences from Europe.

If the next prime minister does trigger the departure process, Britain then has two years to negotiate the terms of its leaving. While European Union rules say that membership is revoked automatically at the end of that period, Britain could theoretically use that time to negotiate an alternative plan.

The country has a few options for how, during these two windows, it might remain in the European Union. Each carries significant risks and downsides, both for Europe and for Britain itself — but, then again, so does leaving.

Option No. 1: 
Simply don't do it

The referendum is not legally binding. The process of leaving does not begin until the prime minister officially invokes Article 50 of the European Union's governing treaty. So he or she could, in theory, carry on as if the vote had never happened.

Mr. Cameron has already caused a delay by refusing to invoke Article 50 himself. Of his two most likely possible successors in the Conservative Party, Theresa May opposes leaving the union and Boris Johnson, a prime Brexit proponent, is already backpedaling, pledging on Monday that changes "will not come in any great rush."

Most members of Parliament opposed leaving the union, and might support a prime minister who refused to invoke Article 50. But that would be akin to overruling the will of 17.4 million Britons who voted to leave, an extreme step in a country that prides itself on democratic values.

It is difficult to predict how pro-Brexit voters would respond if their government ignored the referendum's result, but such a move risks empowering more extreme voices. British politics, already in tremendous turmoil, would face an uncertain future, as would the lawmakers who will be up for re-election.

Option No. 2: 
A Scottish veto

The House of Lords said in an April report that any decision to exit the European Union would have to be approved by the Parliaments of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Welsh voters supported Brexit, and Northern Ireland's Parliament is led by a party that favors leaving the union. But Scottish voters overwhelmingly opposed leaving, and so does the governing Scottish National Party, which has pledged to take any available measures to remain in the bloc.

Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland, has suggested that her Parliament could withhold consent, sparking a constitutional crisis.

That, in turn, could be an opportunity for leaders wishing to avoid a Brexit. The next prime minister could tell voters that he or she would like to carry out their will, but that leaving Europe is impossible without Scottish approval.

This offers at least a hint more political legitimacy than simply disregarding the referendum.

But if Britain's next prime minister is intent on following through with Brexit, the British Parliament could repeal the law that gives Scotland veto power. Ms. Sturgeon would probably respond by seeking a new referendum on Scottish independence — something she has already threatened to do if Britain leaves the union.

Option No. 3: A do-over

In 1992, Danish voters narrowly rejected a referendum on joining one of the treaties that laid the European Union's foundations. Eleven months later, after a flurry of diplomacy, Denmark held a second referendum, which voters approved.

Similar scenarios unfolded in 2001 — and again in 2008 — when Irish voters rejected European Union treaties before embracing them in second referendums in subsequent years.

Could British voters reverse themselves as well? By Monday, four days after the Brexit vote, an online petition calling for a do-over had 3.8 million signatures.

But there is little reason to believe that a second referendum, were it held today, would yield a different result. While a handful of Britons have said on social media that they regretted their vote to leave the union, polling suggests that they are a tiny minority. A survey by ComRes, taken on Saturday, found that only 1 percent of "Leave" voters were unhappy with the results. (Brexit won by four percentage points, 52 to 48.)

British leaders could justify a second cut at the question by securing special concessions from the European Union, like allowing Britain to put a cap on immigration. This approach was how Danish and Irish leaders persuaded their voters to approve the referendums they had previously rejected.

Mr. Johnson, who said on Monday that Britain was "part of Europe and always will be," hinted before the vote that he might pursue this strategy. "There is only one way to get the change we need, and that is to vote to go," he wrote in a March op-ed in The Telegraph. "All E.U. history shows that they only really listen to a population when it says No."

A second vote would allow politicians to claim that they had followed the will of the voters and stood up to the European Union, avoiding both populist outrage and the economic and diplomatic fallout of a British exit.

European leaders, however, may not be eager to go along. If any member state can extract special concessions by threatening to leave, it undermines the union's ability to make Europe-wide policies. It also gives other states an incentive to play chicken with exit referendums, a dangerous game that could easily end in disaster.

There is also a risk that British voters would reject the second referendum as well. If that happened, there would truly be no going back.

Option No. 4: 
An exit in name only

Article 50 gives an exiting country two years to negotiate terms for its relationship with the union, on issues like trade and migration.

What if Britain struck a series of deals that largely preserved the status quo, only without formal European Union membership?

This, too, seems to be something Mr. Johnson is pondering. In an op-ed in The Telegraph on Sunday, he promised that Britain would maintain free trade and free movement deals with Europe.

As Rafael Behr, a columnist for The Guardian, joked on Twitter: "Otherwise known as 'membership of the European Union.' "

One model is Norway, which is not a European Union member but subscribes to its common market and open borders.

"Leave" campaigners emphasized two goals: reducing migration and extracting Britain from European bureaucracy. While a Norway-style arrangement could, in theory, limit migration, it would worsen British subjugation to European policy makers.

If Britain chose this path, it "would have no vote and no presence when crucial decisions that affect the daily lives of its citizens are made," Norway's former foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, warned last year.

Such a deal would also probably require Britain to continue paying membership fees, which "Leave" campaigners promised to win back.

Nicolas VĂ©ron, a French economist, wrote on the website of Bruegel, a research group in Brussels, that European leaders would probably oppose this arrangement, too, for fear of setting a bad precedent.

These leaders, he said, want to send a "clear and unambiguous" message to other member states: If you leave the union, you will not be rewarded with a sweetheart deal allowing you the benefits of membership without the burden. You will get a hard and painful breakup, so think carefully.

--
****
Juan
 

Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association  aid and abet violence.

- An American Story



Monday, June 27, 2016

Andy Borowitz

TRUMP'S BID TO BECOME BORN-AGAIN FAILS AS JESUS TURNS DOWN FRIEND REQUEST

 

By 

 , 11:21 A.M.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NOAM GALAI / WIREIMAGE / GETTY

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—The billionaire Donald J. Trump's bid to become a born-again Christian failed over the weekend after Jesus Christ turned down his friend request, campaign officials have acknowledged.

Jesus, who has not generally been active on Facebook, made a rare appearance on the social network on Monday to announce his decision to ignore the presumptive Republican nominee's request for a personal relationship with him.

In a brief post, Jesus offered the following explanation: "Just everything."

The turndown from Jesus Christ, the inspiration behind one of the world's most prominent religions, caps what has been a tough month for the Trump campaign.

Privately, campaign staffers fretted that the candidate would pen a disparaging tweet about Jesus, which might alienate evangelical voters in key battleground states.

But, at a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump made no reference to Jesus, and instead touted endorsements he had received from Gary Busey, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Joe (the Plumber) Wurzelbacher.


--
****
Juan
 

Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association  aid and abet violence.

- An American Story



Saturday, June 25, 2016

Something to Keep Knowing - 25 June

BREXIT SHOULD BE A WARNING ABOUT DONALD TRUMP

 

By 

 , JUNE 24, 2016
In a press conference in Scotland following the Brexit vote, Donald Trump's first priority seemed to be to tout the renovation of one of his golf courses.

As Donald Trump stood in front of the Trump Turnberry golf resort, in Scotland, the morning after the vote for Brexit, he was asked to contemplate his own place in the world, and his power over the minds of the British. "Do you think anything you said in the United States influenced voters here in Britain when it comes to leaving the E.U.?" a reporter asked, as a bagpiper stood watch. "Good question," Trump replied, squinting from under a white "Make America Great Again" baseball cap. "If I said yes, total influence, you'd all say, 'That's terrible, his ego is terrible,' right? So I will never say that, Tom. I'd like to give you that one, but I can't say that." Donald Trump, once again silenced by his own humility, would answer Brexit questions for a good half hour, in the course of which he did allow that he'd heard talk of "a big parallel" to his own campaign: "People want to take their country back," he said. "They want to take their borders back. They want to take their monetary back. They want to take a lot of things back." Most of all, perhaps, "they don't necessarily want people pouring into their country."

Trump had begun his press conference, as he began his Presidential campaign, by supplying ample material for farce. In his opening remarks, before he took questions, he noted that the day was a historic one, "for a lot of reasons, not only Turnberry," as though Britons had to be reminded that something else had happened that morning, apart from the post-renovation reopening of a golf course. (His son Don, Jr., had described the occasion, the reason for Trump's trip, as an effort to "make Turnberry great again.") Although Trump would later muse that "people like to see borders," his only real priority at first, it seemed, was to insist that they see the suites at the Turnberry, which were the most luxurious one could imagine. The sprinkler system was now at "the highest level," as was the course design itself. "Even people who truly hate me are saying it's the best they've ever seen," he said. The catalogue of Turnberry treats went on for several minutes, leaving many wondering what they were watching—wasn't this the Presidential candidate for a major American party? Didn't he know that a continent was in crisis? Would this finally expose him as unacceptably unserious? In some of his tweets, he seemed not to acknowledge that the sentiment in Scotland was for Remain—did he understand the political structure of the United Kingdom? Given the gravity of the moment, he appeared, at that juncture, absurd, just as Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, and Boris Johnson, the Tory former mayor of London, often do. During the Leave campaign, Johnson played Paul Ryan to Farage's Trump—the more socially acceptable peddler of destructive ideas. There was a flotilla on the Thames; it was laughable. But they won. After Trump began taking questions, a reporter asked about Prime Minister David Cameron's criticism of his policies, such as his proposed ban on non-citizen Muslims entering the United States. Cameron had shunned Trump, the reporter suggested. Trump interrupted him.

"Excuse me, where is David Cameron right now?" Trump said. Cameron had been at the front of the campaign for Remain; early that morning, he'd announced that he would be stepping down. "Right now, I don't think David Cameron wants to meet anybody," Trump said.

This is not to say that, once the questions and the discussion of Brexit began, Trump avoided gestures of extreme recklessness or, for that matter, self-parody. Speaking of fears of immigration in Europe, he cited some German friends of his who were members of his Mar-a-Lago Club, in Palm Beach. They were, he said, "very proud Germans, to a level that you wouldn't believe." (The British, thinking about extreme German nationalism, probably had no trouble believing.) "They would be bragging about their country, they would be talking about their country as though there was no other place"—and yet, because of all the immigrants they saw coming in, they were thinking of leaving Germany. Trump shook his head in sympathy. He seemed indifferent to the effect all this might have on markets: the Fed didn't know anything, and neither did foreign-policy experts. Everyone was just going to have to wait to see what happened to the pound, whose crash, he believed, might be "a positive" for Britain: "They're going to do more business. You know, when the pound goes down, more people are coming to Turnberry, frankly."

But only the right kind of people, it seemed. "You're going to let people that you want into your country. And people that you don't want, or people that you don't think are going to be appropriate for your country or good for your country, you're not going to have to take," Trump said. Should Scotland leave the United Kingdom, a move that many Scots want to take, in order to stay in the E.U.? "That's up to the people of Scotland," he said. But he figured that the European Union would fall apart anyway.

The Brexit results are a strong warning for anyone complacent about Donald Trump. Brexit didn't happen because people in Europe listened to him; but he is a voice in a call-and-response chorus that is not going to simply dissipate. As my colleague John Cassidy wrote yesterday, there are structural economic issues that have left both Leave sympathizers and Trump voters with real grievances, and it will be disastrous if bigoted nationalists are the only ones who engage them. The political institutions are very different: we don't worry so much here about the labyrinthine regulations put out by Brussels bureaucrats; they don't quite have super pacs. But the word "rigged," or its local variations, is probably the key one on both sides of the Atlantic. Both Trump and Farage and his allies have made openly racist and ethnic appeals. The European Union is a great idealistic project, and it is a tragedy that it might be torn down now. A lesson for Americans is that fortified idealistic structures can be torn down, by means of some of the same wrecking tools Trump has been willing to deploy, even if those who are considered the serious people, in a country that reminds us of our own, warn against doing so. One pattern seen in the Brexit results was a disconnect between party leaders—in all of the major parties—and their bases. Sneering is not going to save the republic.

Hillary Clinton, who had earlier warned against Brexit, said in a statement on Friday morning, "This time of uncertainty only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House." The fear is that it may also point to the desire, in some quarters, for something different. Trump, at any rate, when asked if Clinton had "misread" the situation, seized the opportunity to push a favored conspiracy theory. "The only reason she did it was because Obama wanted it. If Obama wanted the other way, if he said leave, she would have said leave. She does whatever he wants her to do. Now you know why, but that's O.K., we don't have to get into that." (For those who are not regular viewers of Trump's speeches, this is a reference to the idea that Obama is blackmailing Clinton with the threat of jail for supposed crimes related to her e-mails.)

"And the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing is your people have taken the country back," Trump said toward the end of his press conference. "There's something very, very nice about that. And they voted, and it's been peaceful." (This ignored the assassination, last week, of Jo Cox, a pro-Remain M.P.) "And it was strong and very contentious, and in many respects—I watched last night—it was a little bit ugly. But it's been an amazing process to watch. It's been a big move."

That move is one thing that British voters can't take back, at least in the short run. If Trump wins, our country might have a hard time taking that back, too.

For more on Brexit, you can read Anthony Lane on the run-up, John Cassidy on what happens next, Benjamin Wallace-Wells on the consequences for liberalism, and Ed Caeser on the vote in the M.P. Jo Cox's district. Or you can look at Kim Warp's cartoon and Barry Blitt's new cover.

--
****
Juan
 

Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association  aid and abet violence.

- An American Story



Something to Know - 25 June

Rob Rogers

This is day two of the aftermath of the "Brexit" results.   The global financial impact was the big headline, followed by all the collateral damage from here one out, and speculation of the future.  Those narratives will go on for a long time.  This article delves into the political impact and consequences, with a sobering look at the structure of governance and its disconnections.   In particular, the future of the USA needs to reflect deeply, and learn from it.  To better appreciate this article, refer to the ny times link:


LONDON — From Brussels to Berlin to Washington, leaders of the Western democratic world awoke Friday morning to a blunt, once-unthinkable rebuke delivered by the flinty citizens of a small island nation in the North Atlantic. Populist anger against the established political order had finally boiled over.

The British had rebelled.

Their stunning vote to leave the European Union presents a political, economic and existential crisis for a bloc already reeling from entrenched problems. But the thumb-in-your-eye message is hardly limited to Britain. The same yawning gap between the elite and mass opinion is fueling apopulist backlash in Austria, France, Germany and elsewhere on the Continent — as well as in the United States.

The symbolism of trans-Atlantic insurrection was rich on Friday: Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and embodiment of American fury, happened to be visiting Britain.

"Basically, they took back their country," Mr. Trump said Friday morning from Scotland, where he was promoting his golf courses. "That's a good thing."

Photo
Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for president, arriving at his Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland on Friday. CreditJeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Asked where public anger was greatest, Mr. Trump said: "U.K. U.S. There's plenty of other places. This will not be the last."

Even as the European Union began to grapple with a new and potentially destabilizing period of political uncertainty, the British vote also will inevitably be seized upon as further evidence of deepening public unease with the global economic order. Globalization and economic liberalization have produced winners and losers — and the big "Leave" vote in economically stagnant regions of Britain suggests that many of those who have lost out are fed up.

Time and again, the European Union has navigated political crises during the past decade with a Whac-a-Mole response that has maintained the status quo and the bloc's lumbering forward momentum toward greater integration — without directly confronting the roiling public discontent beneath the surface.




But now the question is whether the dam has broken: Before breakfast on Friday, anti-Europe leaders in France and the Netherlands were rejoicing and demanding similar referendums on European Union membership.

Photo
Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, at the headquarters of the European Union in Brussels on Friday. CreditJohn Thys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

"Victory for liberty!" declared the far-right French leader Marine Le Pen, writing on Twitter, who changed her profile picture to an image of the Union Jack.

From its outset, the European Union was a project of elites, one that, at times, moved forward without a clear popular mandate from the masses. Adopting the common currency was deeply controversial in some places, including Germany. The issue of democratic legitimacy has always hung over the unification project, since many significant steps were achieved through treaties that stirred considerable resistance in some countries.

European unity remained popular, particularly as the bloc delivered undeniable economic and social progress. But the class frictions beneath the project worsened in the past decade, as the European economy has been battered by recession and an uneven recovery.

It is not clear whether the message is getting through to more establishment leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, or what lessons they are taking from the shock of the British exit.



Perhaps the liberal Democrats in the House who staged a clamorous sit-in Wednesday night in Washington, while part of the system themselves, were channeling the populist anger of the American left in their willingness to break the rules to make a point about the need for gun control. In Brussels, many member governments appear divided between an instinct to respond to the British referendum vote by driving for greater integration among Germany, France and other core members of the bloc and a willingness to moderate their ambitions in recognition of public opposition.

European leaders were under pressure to reassure the European public, and the world, that the bloc was not at risk of unraveling. For decades, the European Union had moved forward, always expanding in size and influence. Britain has now reversed that trend.

"We're completely in uncharted territory," said Hans Kundnani, a Berlin-based expert in European politics at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Mr. Kundnani said the British vote exposed a contradiction at the core of the European project. European leaders define success as steering member states toward greater political and economic integration. And many of the bloc's inefficiencies and dysfunctions can be traced to the unfinished work of strengthening European institutions and achieving greater integration between member states in areas such as banking, finance, security and defense.

GRAPHIC

With or Without the E.U., Europe Is Still Connected

Britain's financial and military connections to the rest of Europe.

 OPEN GRAPHIC

But public opinion is deeply skeptical of this "more Europe" agenda. Far-right populist leaders have stoked public anxieties and resurgent nationalism by lashing out against immigrants, while portraying the European capital, Brussels, as a bastion of political elites out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people. Far-left populists have demanded a re-examination of the neoliberal economics of free trade and limited regulation, while resisting efforts to deconstruct the social democratic welfare state.

"The E.U. robs us of our money, our identity, our democracy, our sovereignty," said Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom. "The elites want more E.U. They think they know better than the people. They look down on the people and want to decide in their place. They want us to be ruled by undemocratic, unaccountable bureaucrats in a faraway place like Brussels."

And permeating everything is the weak Continental economy and the crippling debt burden across Southern Europe.

"The E.U. is kind of trapped," Mr. Kundnani said. "On the one hand, the instinct will be to move ahead with further integration and reassure the rest of the world that the European Union is not unraveling. But that is very difficult because of the fault lines that exist."

GRAPHIC

How to Leave the European Union

British citizens voted Thursday on whether to leave the European Union. There are steps outlined for members wishing to withdraw from the bloc, but no country has ever left, so the process is uncertain.

 OPEN GRAPHIC

He added: "They are trapped because moving ahead is very difficult. Moving backwards is the last thing they want to do. And the status quo is unsustainable."

Britain has always been a skeptical member of the European household. During the 1990s, Britain chose to keep the pound and not to join the countries sharing a common European currency, the euro. Many of the British concerns about the euro proved true, undermining the bloc's credibility, even as Britain has remained mostly insulated against the Continent's still unresolved euro crisis.

Before the referendum, some European officials portrayed Britain as an idiosyncratic case that should not be seen as a bellwether for the Continent. But that is a hard argument to make. In France, Ms. Le Pen's far-right National Front party is experiencing steadily rising popularity as the country prepares for national elections next year. In Germany, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany polled strongly in recent state elections.

Right-wing leaders in Hungary and Poland are hostile to immigrants, while critics say the governments of those countries are also rewriting national laws to undermine democratic checks and balances. In Italy, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement scored major victories last Sunday by winning mayoral elections in Turin and, more important, in the capital, Rome.

MULTIMEDIA FEATURE

Portraits of a Nation Contemplating a 'Brexit'

Britons will make a momentous choice on Thursday that could matter more for their future than any ordinary election.

 OPEN MULTIMEDIA FEATURE

Donald Tusk, one of the European Union's top leaders, has started to talk about the risks facing the political establishment. At a speech last month before Europe's coalition of center-right political parties, Mr. Tusk cautioned his fellow political elites.

"Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe, do not share our euro-enthusiasm," said Mr. Tusk, the president of the European Council, which comprises the heads of state of all the 28 member states in the bloc. "Disillusioned with great visions of the future, they demand that we cope with the present reality better than we have been doing until now."

Yet taking action may be difficult, since most analysts say the European Union is paralyzed by the coming national elections in 2017 in France and Germany, the two most powerful countries in the bloc. Neither the French nor the German government is eager to endorse sweeping initiatives for more European integration before the elections out of fear of a populist whipping at the polls.

"Europe is very divided and the main European country, Germany, has no will or skills to lead the union — and is approaching important national elections," said Lucio Caracciolo, the editor of the Italian geopolitical magazine Limes. "France is a country in crisis, while Italy has its own problems. I can't see who would assume a European leadership capable of producing a deeper integration process."

He added: "There is a very widespread rejection of politics everywhere. There is a similar mood in the United States, an antipolitical sentiment."

Few industries in Britain are likely to be more directly hit than the financial services industry in London. Damon Hoff, a hedge fund manager, said that he had voted to stay in the European Union, but that he understood the sentiments of those who had voted to leave.

"Europeans don't feel more prosperous," he said. "Europeans don't feel more empowered. And certainly the British don't."

He added: "You want to be part of something that continuously evolves. Does the European Union feel like it is evolving? No."


LONDON — From Brussels to Berlin to Washington, leaders of the Western democratic world awoke Friday morning to a blunt, once-unthinkable rebuke delivered by the flinty citizens of a small island nation in the North Atlantic. Populist anger against the established political order had finally boiled over.

The British had rebelled.

Their stunning vote to leave the European Union presents a political, economic and existential crisis for a bloc already reeling from entrenched problems. But the thumb-in-your-eye message is hardly limited to Britain. The same yawning gap between the elite and mass opinion is fueling a populist backlash in Austria, France, Germany and elsewhere on the Continent — as well as in the United States.

The symbolism of trans-Atlantic insurrection was rich on Friday: Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and embodiment of American fury, happened to be visiting Britain.

"Basically, they took back their country," Mr. Trump said Friday morning from Scotland, where he was promoting his golf courses. "That's a good thing."

Even as the European Union began to grapple with a new and potentially destabilizing period of political uncertainty, the British vote also will inevitably be seized upon as further evidence of deepening public unease with the global economic order. Globalization and economic liberalization have produced winners and losers — and the big "Leave" vote in economically stagnant regions of Britain suggests that many of those who have lost out are fed up.

Time and again, the European Union has navigated political crises during the past decade with a Whac-a-Mole response that has maintained the status quo and the bloc's lumbering forward momentum toward greater integration — without directly confronting the roiling public discontent beneath the surface.

From its outset, the European Union was a project of elites, one that, at times, moved forward without a clear popular mandate from the masses. Adopting the common currency was deeply controversial in some places, including Germany. The issue of democratic legitimacy has always hung over the unification project, since many significant steps were achieved through treaties that stirred considerable resistance in some countries.

European unity remained popular, particularly as the bloc delivered undeniable economic and social progress. But the class frictions beneath the project worsened in the past decade, as the European economy has been battered by recession and an uneven recovery.

It is not clear whether the message is getting through to more establishment leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, or what lessons they are taking from the shock of the British exit.

Perhaps the liberal Democrats in the House who staged a clamorous sit-in Wednesday night in Washington, while part of the system themselves, were channeling the populist anger of the American left in their willingness to break the rules to make a point about the need for gun control. In Brussels, many member governments appear divided between an instinct to respond to the British referendum vote by driving for greater integration among Germany, France and other core members of the bloc and a willingness to moderate their ambitions in recognition of public opposition.

European leaders were under pressure to reassure the European public, and the world, that the bloc was not at risk of unraveling. For decades, the European Union had moved forward, always expanding in size and influence. Britain has now reversed that trend.

"We're completely in uncharted territory," said Hans Kundnani, a Berlin-based expert in European politics at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Mr. Kundnani said the British vote exposed a contradiction at the core of the European project. European leaders define success as steering member states toward greater political and economic integration. And many of the bloc's inefficiencies and dysfunctions can be traced to the unfinished work of strengthening European institutions and achieving greater integration between member states in areas such as banking, finance, security and defense.

But public opinion is deeply skeptical of this "more Europe" agenda. Far-right populist leaders have stoked public anxieties and resurgent nationalism by lashing out against immigrants, while portraying the European capital, Brussels, as a bastion of political elites out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people. Far-left populists have demanded a re-examination of the neoliberal economics of free trade and limited regulation, while resisting efforts to deconstruct the social democratic welfare state.

"The E.U. robs us of our money, our identity, our democracy, our sovereignty," said Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom. "The elites want more E.U. They think they know better than the people. They look down on the people and want to decide in their place. They want us to be ruled by undemocratic, unaccountable bureaucrats in a faraway place like Brussels."

And permeating everything is the weak Continental economy and the crippling debt burden across Southern Europe.

"The E.U. is kind of trapped," Mr. Kundnani said. "On the one hand, the instinct will be to move ahead with further integration and reassure the rest of the world that the European Union is not unraveling. But that is very difficult because of the fault lines that exist."

Britain has always been a skeptical member of the European household. During the 1990s, Britain chose to keep the pound and not to join the countries sharing a common European currency, the euro. Many of the British concerns about the euro proved true, undermining the bloc's credibility, even as Britain has remained mostly insulated against the Continent's still unresolved euro crisis.

Before the referendum, some European officials portrayed Britain as an idiosyncratic case that should not be seen as a bellwether for the Continent. But that is a hard argument to make. In France, Ms. Le Pen's far-right National Front party is experiencing steadily rising popularity as the country prepares for national elections next year. In Germany, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany polled strongly in recent state elections.

Right-wing leaders in Hungary and Poland are hostile to immigrants, while critics say the governments of those countries are also rewriting national laws to undermine democratic checks and balances. In Italy, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement scored major victories last Sunday by winning mayoral elections in Turin and, more important, in the capital, Rome.

"Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe, do not share our euro-enthusiasm," said Mr. Tusk, the president of the European Council, which comprises the heads of state of all the 28 member states in the bloc. "Disillusioned with great visions of the future, they demand that we cope with the present reality better than we have been doing until now."

Yet taking action may be difficult, since most analysts say the European Union is paralyzed by the coming national elections in 2017 in France and Germany, the two most powerful countries in the bloc. Neither the French nor the German government is eager to endorse sweeping initiatives for more European integration before the elections out of fear of a populist whipping at the polls.

"Europe is very divided and the main European country, Germany, has no will or skills to lead the union — and is approaching important national elections," said Lucio Caracciolo, the editor of the Italian geopolitical magazine Limes. "France is a country in crisis, while Italy has its own problems. I can't see who would assume a European leadership capable of producing a deeper integration process."

He added: "There is a very widespread rejection of politics everywhere. There is a similar mood in the United States, an antipolitical sentiment."

Few industries in Britain are likely to be more directly hit than the financial services industry in London. Damon Hoff, a hedge fund manager, said that he had voted to stay in the European Union, but that he understood the sentiments of those who had voted to leave.

"Europeans don't feel more prosperous," he said. "Europeans don't feel more empowered. And certainly the British don't."

He added: "You want to be part of something that continuously evolves. Does the European Union feel like it is evolving? No."


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Juan
 

Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association  aid and abet violence.

- An American Story



Friday, June 24, 2016

Some More Stuff to Be Aware of ( or as my mom would have said - something of which one should be aware)

Hey Speaker Ryan - Take This:

The Other 98%'s photo.

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Juan
 

Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association  aid and abet violence.

- An American Story



Andy Borowitz


BRITISH LOSE RIGHT TO CLAIM THAT AMERICANS ARE DUMBER

 

By 

 , 10:37 A.M.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JACK TAYLOR / GETTY

LONDON (The Borowitz Report)—Across the United Kingdom on Friday, Britons mourned their long-cherished right to claim that Americans were significantly dumber than they are.

Luxuriating in the superiority of their intellect over Americans' has long been a favorite pastime in Britain, surpassing in popularity such games as cricket, darts, and snooker.

But, according to Alistair Dorrinson, a pub owner in North London, British voters have done irreparable damage to the "most enjoyable sport this nation has ever known: namely, treating Americans like idiots."

"When our countrymen cast their votes yesterday, they didn't realize they were destroying the most precious leisure activity this nation has ever known," he said. "Wankers."

In the face of this startling display of national idiocy, Dorrinson still mustered some of the resilience for which the British people are known. "This is a dark day," he said. "But I hold out hope that, come November, Americans could become dumber than us once more."

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Juan
 

Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association  aid and abet violence.

- An American Story



Thursday, June 23, 2016

Something to Know - June 23 (Part 2)

Consider this article, from the New Yorker, the text version of the video from the NY Times sent out this morning.   In essence, it repeats what the video presented.   That the maker of the AR-15, a weapon which it says was for the battlefield of Vietnam and Fallujah, was also marketed to the common citizen consumer in our homeland.   If this gains traction in a trial by jury, it will be part of the action to peel and pry away the grip that the NRA has on a fearful community and its control of our legislators:

DAILY COMMENT
FORGET CONGRESS—THE GUN BUSINESS FACES A JUDGE

 By Evan Osnos , JUNE 22, 2016
Erica Lafferty Smegielski, the daughter of the slain principal of Sandy Hook Elementary, at a news conference after Congress failed to pass gun-control legislation in the wake of the Orlando shooting.
Erica Lafferty Smegielski, the daughter of the slain principal of Sandy Hook Elementary, at a news conference after Congress failed to pass gun-control legislation in the wake of the Orlando shooting.
On the seventh day, Congress rested. A week after returning to Washington following the Orlando massacre, with funerals still under way from the lone-gunman case with the highest death toll in American history, the Senate chose to do nothing that might prevent something like it from happening again. Senators rejected four separate gun-safety bills that would have expanded background checks and made it harder for terrorism suspects to buy guns. The failure of the votes on Monday, and the failure of the body itself to perform more than a pantomime of governing, surprised nobody: not the senators or their staffs, not the gun-rights activists or the gun-control activists, not the parents of gunfire victims or the survivors of previous massacres, who have, in recent years, taken to wandering the halls of the Capitol in hopes of capturing the conscience of a public servant. The only thing that ever changes is the number of the grieving, because there is always a new massacre. Erica Lafferty Smegielski, whose mother was the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman killed twenty children and six adults, in 2012, told the Times that "every time we come together for something like this, there is someone new we are introduced to for the first time." In despair, Florida's Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat, said after the vote, "What am I going to tell forty-nine grieving families? I am going to tell them the N.R.A. won again."

But, on Monday, as the Senate vanished into the bog of gun politics, the most serious legal challenge to American gun violence was unfolding not in Washington but in a state court in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Parents of Sandy Hook victims, and one survivor, have brought a novel lawsuit against Remington Arms, which manufactured the AR-15-style Bushmaster rifle used in the attack, that could pry open the inner workings of the gun company, much as lawsuits against tobacco companies exposed their knowledge of the risks of cancer and their efforts to market to children. Unlike the plaintiffs in previous lawsuits against gun companies, the parents are not seeking to prove that the gun had an unsafe design or was distributed in ways that lead to illegal black-market sales; they accuse Remington of "unfair trade practices" for placing advertisements that marketed it to civilians as "the ultimate combat weapons system." In effect, they are accusing Remington of lying to customers.

This is an acutely vulnerable point. In my piece "Making a Killing," published in the magazine this week, I looked at the manufacturing and marketing of guns and their many associated businesses, which include training, insurance, children's products, ammunition, magazine subscriptions, and holsters. The gun industry is masterly at marketing fear; it takes the kernels of anxiety that people feel in the era of isis and mass shootings and puffs them into full-blown panic. Gun companies have thrived in the nervous, polarized post-9/11 era. The fear of attack and the prospect of new gun-control laws have become reliable new sources of business. In its 2013 annual report, Remington Arms described "increased customer concern relating to more restrictive government regulation" as "a significant long-term opportunity to expand our customer base."

Many thought that the Remington case would be dismissed before it ever got to a courtroom, because gunmakers have been shielded, since 2005, by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (P.L.C.A.A.), a law signed by George W. Bush that immunizes gunmakers from lawsuits to a degree that is unprecedented in American capitalism. As I note in my magazine piece, Mike Fifer, the C.E.O. of Sturm, Ruger & Co. has said the law is "probably the only reason we have a U.S. firearms industry anymore." In asking to have the case thrown out, Remington's attorney, James Vogts, asked, "If the P.L.C.A.A. does not prohibit this case against Remington Arms, what kind of case does it prohibit?"

But the plaintiffs in the Sandy Hook case believe that they are not precluded from filing their case in state court, and Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara N. Bellis has allowed preliminary steps to proceed. On Monday, the parents' lawyer Joshua Koskoff accused Remington of making "negligent choices" that serve, in effect, to "entrust the most notorious killing machine to the public and to continue to do so in the face of mounting evidence of its association of mass murder of civilians." He said that the company, according to its own advertising, considered the gun appropriate for use "in the fields of Vietnam and in the streets of Fallujah." But it sold the same weapon to a mother in Connecticut, whose troubled son, Adam Lanza, used it to kill at Sandy Hook. Koskoff asked, "How did it get there?"

One of the biggest things at stake is discovery: If the case goes forward, will plaintiffs, and the press, be allowed to see internal documents about how Remington marketed its weapons using the Internet and video games? Bellis has ordered discovery to begin, but Remington lawyers have said that they will seek to bar files from public view. Bellis has until mid-October to decide what will happen to the case.

In court, Vogts implored the judge not to do the work of a legislature, saying the courtroom was not "the place to debate gun laws." But Judge Bellis asked why society's concerns about the effect of gun marketing should not be taken into account. "Cigarettes are legal, but society has changed regarding how safe they may or may not be," she said. "Why does that same concept not apply to AR-15?" That is the essential issue around guns today—an issue that Congress is too impotent and divided to consider.

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Juan
 

Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association  aid and abet violence.

- An American Story