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Biden’s UN pick boosts morale for diplomats Trump sidelined (nationthailand.com)

Biden’s UN pick boosts morale for diplomats Trump sidelined

InternationalNov 26. 2020Linda Thomas-Greenfield, during a Bloomberg West Television interview in San Francisco on May 31, 2016. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by David Paul Morris. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · David Wainer · NATIONAL, WORLD, POLITICS, NATIONAL-SECURITY, WHITEHOUSE

When Linda Thomas-Greenfield was held at gunpoint on a diplomatic assignment in Rwanda in 1994, she tried her best to look calm as she explained to a “glazed-eyed young man” that she wasn’t the woman he was told to kill.

“I was afraid, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t panic,” Thomas-Greenfield, now one of America’s most experienced diplomats and President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for United Nations ambassador, later recalled in a TED Talk. The Tutsi woman who was the intended target was among hundreds of thousands killed during the genocide that year.

Some 26 years after that harrowing experience, Thomas-Greenfield will soon be preparing for her Senate confirmation hearing, leaning on her experience across four continents, including State Department assignments in Jamaica, Nigeria, Switzerland and Pakistan, as well as in Washington as assistant secretary of state for African affairs.

After four years of “America First” messaging from President Donald Trump and Secretaries of State Rex Tillerson and Michael Pompeo, Thomas-Greenfield’s appointment is a clear signal of a return to traditional diplomacy and to cooperation over confrontation at the U.N. It’s also a vote of confidence in career diplomats whose influence has been diminished.

“America is back. Multilateralism is back. Diplomacy is back,” Thomas-Greenfield said Tuesday as Biden introduced his foreign policy team.

In a sign of how much this reflects a shift in attitude, Pompeo responded on Fox News hours later that “multilateralism for the sake of hanging out with your buddies at a cool cocktail party, that’s not in the best interest of the United States of America.”

Raised in Louisiana, Thomas-Greenfield was the oldest of eight children and was bused to a segregated school as a child. Her father dropped out of school in the third grade, and her mother had an eighth-grade education. She attended Louisiana State University, where she faced harassment and discrimination from students and faculty members, according to a person close to her.

The 67-year-old Thomas-Greenfield, who would be one of the highest-ranking Black officials in Biden’s administration, said Tuesday that she taps into her Louisiana roots to conduct “gumbo diplomacy.”

“Wherever I was posted around the world, I’d invite people of different backgrounds and beliefs to help me make a roux and chop onions for the Holy Trinity, and make homemade gumbo,” she said. The Holy Trinity of Cajun cuisine is a base made of onions, bell peppers and celery. “It was my way of breaking down barriers, connecting with people.”

Biden plans to give his UN envoy the full Cabinet status that current Ambassador Kelly Craft lacks, but the job at the world body won’t be easy. Under Trump, the U.S. took on other members of the organization on issues from reimposing sanctions on Iran to quitting the World Health Organization, a move Biden has pledged to reverse.

“Her appointment will be seen at the UN as a sign that Washington will re-engage with the world and that the Biden administration will not be staffed with individuals who are antagonistic to the organization,” said Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

Thomas-Greenfield’s experience and contacts in Africa will come in handy at a time when African countries have grown exasperated with the U.S., which recently held up the appointment of African diplomats to head the UN mission in Libya in favor of a Bulgarian national.

Much like her recent predecessors, she would have to deal with China’s rise at the UN, where it has gained clout by getting its nationals tapped to head top agencies.

“China has been much more willing to play the game than the U.S.,” said Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. “Anything that dents that and suggests the U.S. is paying attention to Africa, where China has been a major benefactor, will benefit U.S. diplomacy at the UN.”

Diplomats and African leaders view Thomas-Greenfield as a hands-on envoy who was determined to get out into the field as much as possible.

“She got to know Liberia, not only the capital, but also rural Liberia,” former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said by phone. “As the deputy secretary for African affairs she was able to mobilize support from the U.S. for Liberia during the 2014 Ebola outbreak.”

Thomas-Greenfield’s appointment also will send a message to the career diplomats of the U.S. foreign service, who were largely sidelined from senior positions during the Trump administration.

Pompeo sought to rehire Thomas-Greenfield when he took over as Trump’s top diplomat in April 2018, but she declined, according to a person familiar with his thinking at the time who asked not to be identified.

In a November article for Foreign Affairs magazine that she co-wrote with William Burns, Thomas-Greenfield, who served for a time as director general of the foreign service, lamented the “wreckage” at the State Department and called for a commitment to investing in the people at the department.

“Her appointment sends an important message to the foreign service that one of their own, and a person of color, can become a Cabinet member,” said Wendy Sherman, a former undersecretary of state for political affairs under President Barack Obama who has worked closely with Thomas-Greenfield, including in her recent post at Albright Stonebridge Group, a consulting group founded by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Thomas-Greenfield is “very capable of holding a press conference and putting out a public narrative but does not need to be the shiny object in the room,” Sherman said.

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Brexit talks entering decisive days, EU’s Von Der Leyen says (nationthailand.com)

Brexit talks entering decisive days, EU’s Von Der Leyen says

InternationalNov 26. 2020Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, delivers a State of the Union address in the European Parliament in Brussels on Sept. 16, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Geert Vanden Wijngaert. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Ian Wishart, Viktoria Dendrinou · WORLD, EUROPE

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the coming days will be “decisive” for trade negotiations with the U.K. and crucial differences between the two sides remain.

“Frankly I cannot tell you today if there will be a deal,” von der Leyen told the European Parliament in Brussels. “There are still three issues that can make the difference between a deal and no deal.”

Von der Leyen said the disagreements that have bedeviled the talks since the beginning are still proving difficult: the level playing field for business, the enforcement of any agreement and access to British fishing waters.

“With very little time ahead of us, we will do all in our power to reach an agreement,” she added.

Negotiations are continuing virtually after a member of the European team tested positive for the coronavirus but face-to-face contact is expected to resume in London before the end of the week. Officials on both sides have expressed optimism that an agreement is possible and could be reached by the end of next week.

“In the discussions about state aid we have still serious issues, for instance when it comes to enforcement,” von der Leyen said. “Significant difficulties remain on the question how we can secure — now and over time — our common high standards on labor and social rights, the environment, climate change and tax transparency.”

Before the European Commission chief spoke, U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden used a conversation with reporters to remind the U.K. of the importance of sticking by the agreement it struck last year to keep the Irish border free of checkpoints after Brexit. Reneging on those commitments could disrupt any potential trade deal before it’s ratified.

“We do not want a guarded border,” Biden said on Tuesday. “The idea of having the border, north and south, once again being closed. We’ve just got to keep the border open.”

Turning away from Brexit, von der Leyen broached the topic of the rule of law in the EU as Poland and Hungary threaten to withhold agreement on the bloc’s budget and pandemic recovery fund amid a row over plans to tie the funding to basic principles such as the maintenance of an independent judiciary.

“In July all 27 member states agreed on a conditionality mechanism,” von der Leyen said. “We’re talking here about violations of the principle of the rule of law, which are now threatening the EU budget.”

She described the rule of law conditions as appropriate, proportionate and necessary.

“It is very difficult to imagine that anybody in Europe could have anything against this principle.”

With the coronavirus still ravaging the continent, von der Leyen welcomed the European Commission’s contracts with six different vaccine suppliers and said the first Europeans might be vaccinated before the end of the December.

But she warned against repeating the mistakes of the summer.

“Relaxing too fast and too much is a risk for a third wave after Christmas,” she said. “Weeks ago, I said that this Christmas will be different. And yes, it will be quieter.”

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Joe Biden calls for shared sacrifice to fight the pandemic as Trump rails about baseless election accusations (nationthailand.com)

Joe Biden calls for shared sacrifice to fight the pandemic as Trump rails about baseless election accusations

InternationalNov 26. 2020President-elect Joe Biden gives a pre-Thanksgiving speech on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Demetrius Freeman 

By The Washington Post · Jenna Johnson, Amy B Wang, Josh Dawsey · NATIONAL, POLITICS, WHITEHOUSE

President-elect Joe Biden urged Americans on the eve of Thanksgiving to recommit to fighting the coronavirus, not one another, and to take it upon themselves to make decisions that can save lives.

In a somber and at times pleading speech, Biden reflected on other times in history that Americans have suffered, on the pain felt by the families of the more than 260,000 people who have been killed by the virus, on the sacrifices many Americans are making by scaling back or canceling their holiday plans and on the additional deaths that will undoubtedly come in the months ahead.

He urged Americans to take “simple steps” like wearing a mask, limiting the size of gatherings and socially distancing from others.

“This is the moment where we need to steel our spines,” Biden said from a stage in Wilmington, Del. “Redouble our efforts and recommit ourselves to the fight.”

He later added: “Hang on. Don’t let yourself surrender to the fatigue, which I understand – it is real fatigue. I know we can and we will beat this virus. America is not going to lose this war. We’ll get our lives back. Life is going to return to normal, I promise you.”

As Biden called on Americans to come together, President Donald Trump spent the day tweeting a steady stream of grievances and baseless accusations, twice scream-tweeting: “RIGGED ELECTION!” The president made no mention of the pandemic, which has killed more than 260,000 under his watch, offered no suggestions to Americans conflicted about how to celebrate Thanksgiving safely and publicly expressed no gratitude.

Just before Biden began speaking in Wilmington, Del., Trump called the cellphone of his attorney Jenna Ellis, who was at a news conference about voter fraud in Pennsylvania. As she put him on speakerphone, he continued to unleash his grievances over the sometimes scratchy line.

“This election was lost by the Democrats,” Trump said, falsely. “They cheated.”

Earlier in the day, Trump’s aides hastily canceled a trip to that event. The president had planned to helicopter there for a news conference featuring his attorney Rudy Giuliani to again allege widespread voter fraud, despite not having yet provided any evidence. Trump was angry, several advisers said, at the perception he had given up the election fight after allowing the transition to begin.

The travel plan caught Trump’s advisers by surprise, including campaign attorney Justin Clark, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and many others close to the president, three officials said. Efforts were made to talk him out of the trip, but he continued to say it would be a good idea to appear with Giuliani and continue fighting the election results.

At the event, Giuliani appeared without a mask, even though he had been in close contact with campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn, who tested positive after appearing last week at the RNC with Giuliani.

Much of the White House was empty on Wednesday morning, and several advisers said they were no longer paying attention to Trump’s antics. RNC lawyers are distancing themselves from the Giuliani efforts, officials said, and the campaign has stopped holding morning calls to talk about how to talk to the country about Giuliani’s fights.

Biden’s team, as it has for days, continued to beef up a transition that only began officially on Monday evening, when the General Services Administration finally notified federal agencies they could cooperate with the Biden team.

“The election is over. Virtually everyone on Earth has accepted that truth, except for Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani,” said Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for the Biden-Harris transition team. “The Trump campaign has been laughed out of every courtroom with their meritless and baseless lawsuits meant to undermine the will of the American people. This is a sideshow.”

Bedingfield said that the Biden-Harris transition team has been quickly making up for lost time since Monday night when GSA administrator Emily Murphy gave the go-ahead, ending a three-week delay.

She and Jen Psaki, another spokeswoman, provided a laundry list of logistical accomplishments, refreshingly boring compared to parade of attacks, boastful claims and context-lacking assertions often uttered by Trump administration officials.

Since Monday night, the Biden-Harris transition team has made contact or met with more than 50 major federal agencies and commissions, and held more than 30 virtual briefings, Bedingfield said. She praised civil servants assisting with the transition from the Trump Administration for being “professional and welcoming” and for beginning to prepare for this moment weeks ago, despite Trump’s attempts to stall. She thanked them for clearing their schedules and, at in-person meetings, offering coffee and meals.

Biden is now receiving classified information and expects to start in-person security briefings next week, the aides said. The process of background checks for political appointees has begun, and some members of the transition team have begun to receive government-issued laptops.

Next week, Biden plans to announce some members of his economic team. Biden has already picked economist Janet Yellen to be U.S. treasury secretary. When asked when Biden would name a health secretary, given the pandemic, Psaki said that “it is front and center on the top of the mind” of Biden, Harris and other officials, but declined to provide a time frame. More appointments are expected in the weeks to come, although the spokeswomen would not say in which areas.

“Buckle up for December,” Psaki said.

Despite Trump’s efforts, Bedingfield and Psaki both said they were confident that, so far, Biden has access to the information and resources needed for a smooth transition.

Biden still has not spoken with Trump, which Bedingfield said is not necessary. If Trump eventually wants to speak with Biden, she said, “that’s something we would work out in the future.” A conversation between the two is not something “mission critical,” she said.

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GOP effort to invalidate more than 2.5 million votes in Pennsylvania dealt another setback (nationthailand.com)

GOP effort to invalidate more than 2.5 million votes in Pennsylvania dealt another setback

InternationalNov 26. 2020President Trump and then-candidate Joe Biden are pictured at the first debate in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 22, 2020. Trump has had no success in court regarding his allegations of election fraud. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo Jabin Botsford 

By The Washington Post · Elise Viebeck, Josh Dawsey · NATIONAL, POLITICS, COURTSLAW, WHITEHOUSE

Republicans faced another procedural setback in a Pennsylvania lawsuit seeking to invalidate more than 2.5 million votes, as a temporary order blocking further certification of election results was stayed on appeal from state officials who had already formalized President-elect Joe Biden’s win the day before.

Legal experts said the case had little chance of success, much like the other last-ditch GOP election lawsuits pending in battleground states. Republicans have gained no substantive traction across more than two dozen cases trying to undo results favoring Biden since Election Day, and as of Tuesday, four of six states where President Donald Trump tried to overturn the outcome have certified Biden’s win.

In the Pennsylvania case, Republican plaintiffs are retroactively challenging the state’s mail-voting system, calling into question virtually every contest that took place there on Nov. 3 and asking for judges to take the unprecedented step of voiding election results across the state.

On Wednesday morning, Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough, who was elected as a Republican in 2009, placed a hold on the certification process for downballot races pending an evidentiary hearing. State officials appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court later Wednesday, which triggered an automatic stay of McCullough’s order. They then asked the state high court to step in and dismiss the case altogether.

“The Commonwealth Court’s Order threatens to disrupt the certification of every race in the 2020 general election; foreclose the seating of elected representatives; indefinitely postpone the December 1 start of the General Assembly’s term; undermine the will of the voters; and cast a wholly unwarranted cloud over Pennsylvania’s election results,” lawyers for the state wrote in a filing.

Legal experts said it was unlikely that judges assigned to the case would ultimately grant a request to change the rules of an election after the fact in a way that disenfranchises millions of people.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who tracks voting rights litigation, called the case “internally incoherent” and “an attempt to magically disappear an entire election.”

“It basically says Pennsylvania had something other than an election, which is another explanation for why it’s not going anywhere,” he said.

McCullough’s order followed a late-night filing by Republicans speculating that Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat, might have accelerated certification of the presidential results on Tuesday to avoid a possible injunction stemming from their case.

Boockvar stated Tuesday that she certified the results for president and vice president and that Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, signed the Certificate of Ascertainment for Biden’s slate of electors, adding that the certificate was submitted to the archivist of the United States.

Separately, Pennsylvania Republicans sought to build support for their voter fraud claims on Wednesday with an hours-long, largely maskless indoor news event at a Wyndham Hotel in Gettysburg.

Led by Republican state legislators, the gathering featured Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and adviser Jenna Ellis alongside Pennsylvanians who voiced suspicions that the election was dishonest based on their experiences as observers. At one point, Trump called in via Giuliani’s cellphone, telling the room and people watching online that “we have to turn the election over.”

Trump had planned to attend the event in person, which caught advisers by surprise, including campaign attorney Justin Clark, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and many others close to the president, three people involved with the campaign said on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak. Efforts were made to talk Trump out of the trip, but he continued to say it would be a good idea to appear with Giuliani, the people said. They said Trump told several advisers that he appreciated Giuliani wanted to keep fighting, while he believed they were prematurely declaring defeat.

By Wednesday morning, the president had decided not to go, even as his team whirred into motion to make the Thanksgiving Eve trip happen. “Bullet dodged,” said one campaign adviser. “It would have been a total humiliation.”

Giuliani appeared without a mask, even after he had been in close contact with campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn, who tested positive for the coronavirus and appeared last week at the RNC with Giuliani and attorney Sidney Powell, maskless.

RNC lawyers were distancing themselves from Giuliani’s efforts, the officials said. Much of the White House was empty on Wednesday morning. The campaign has stopped holding morning calls to talk about how to craft messaging around Giuliani’s fights, several advisers said.

Many of the president’s advisers do not see the effort by Ellis and Giuliani going anywhere, and they believe Trump is only hurting his reputation and legacy by participating in it.

Elsewhere in the country, Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward continued her push to challenge Biden’s victory there ahead of Nov. 30, when Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, is scheduled to certify results.

Ward on Tuesday asked a judge to begin examining ballots and envelopes ahead of what she said would be a formal election contest filed after certification. Arizona law allows any voter to challenge the results of an election on the grounds that illegal votes were cast or that election officials engaged in misconduct. To succeed, Ward would have to show that Trump actually received the most votes in the state, which appears unlikely given that Biden’s margin of victory is greater than 10,000 votes.

A judge has set a hearing in the case for Monday.

In Wisconsin, recounts in the two largest counties – Dane and Milwaukee – continued on Wednesday. Election officials plan to pause the process on Thursday to observe the Thanksgiving holiday before returning to work on Friday and working through the weekend to complete the recounts by Dec. 1, as required by Wisconsin law. Biden leads Trump by about 20,000 votes in the state. As of the close of Tuesday, the state’s recount, which began on Friday, had resulted in Biden’s margin being whittled by just 52 votes.

In Georgia, a machine recount is underway of the state’s 5 million presidential votes, at the president’s request. While most counties plan on taking Thanksgiving Day off, they are scheduled to resume the recount at 7 a.m. on Friday and work through the weekend to meet the deadline of Dec. 2. The new recount is a machine rescan of the presidential ballots, which were already hand-recounted during the state’s risk-limiting audit process to ensure the accuracy of the initial count of ballots.

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Trump tweets string of falsehoods about Wisconsin absentee voters (nationthailand.com)

Trump tweets string of falsehoods about Wisconsin absentee voters

InternationalNov 26. 2020

By The Washington Post · Salvador Rizzo · NATIONAL, POLITICS

” ‘In Wisconsin, somebody has to be indefinitely confined in order to vote absentee. In the past there were 20,000 people. This past election there were 120,000…and Republicans were locked out of the vote counting process.’ @VicToensing @newsmax” – President Trump, in a tweet, Nov. 24, 2020

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/5d8a6a71-d8e8-4201-88ff-918f5beed8ad?ptvads=block&playthrough=false

Every part of this is false, proving once again why none of President Donald Trump’s claims about election fraud should be given any credence.

As we’ve documented in recent fact checks, the statements from Trump and his lawyers are all absurd and easily debunked. Last week, it was Sidney Powell alleging with no evidence that an algorithm from Venezuela had changed millions of Trump votes to votes for President-elect Joe Biden. This week, Rudy Giuliani is mixing up Michigan and Minnesota to peddle a false claim about “phantom voters.”

Here, we have Victoria Toensing mangling pretty much everything about Wisconsin in a Newsmax interview and Trump repeating the disinformation to more than 88 million Twitter followers. (Twitter quickly flagged the tweet as misleading.)

Biden won Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes. The Trump campaign is paying for an ongoing recount in Dane and Milwaukee counties, the most heavily Democratic in the state. The campaign is expected to file a lawsuit after the recount, challenging thousands of ballots.

Trump already is seeking to throw out thousands of votes in Wisconsin, including any absentee ballots from “indefinitely confined” voters, roughly 69,000 absentee ballots cast in person during the two weeks before Election Day and more.

Let’s debunk these claims one by one.

– “In Wisconsin, somebody has to be indefinitely confined in order to vote absentee.”

False. Wisconsin law allows any registered voter to request an absentee ballot, and no excuse has been required since 2000.

– “Under Wisconsin law, voters do not need a reason or excuse, such as being out of town on Election Day, to vote absentee,” the state’s election website says. “Any voter who prefers to vote by absentee ballot may request one.”

“In the past there were 20,000 people. This past election there were 120,000.”

– Under Wisconsin law: “Voters who are indefinitely confined due to age, illness, infirmity, or disability may request that a ballot be automatically sent to them for each election. Indefinitely confined voters do not need to provide a photo ID with their absentee ballot request.”

This is an accommodation for voters who cannot physically go to the polls. They have the option of receiving mail ballots automatically for each election and don’t need to provide a photo ID with their request. The requirements are stricter for other Wisconsin absentee voters, who must request ballots for specific elections or years.

The suggestion here is that the number of indefinitely confined voters in Wisconsin grew suspiciously this year. But these numbers from Trump and Toensing are inaccurate, contradicted by the state’s official statistics. The real numbers tell a different story, and Reid Magney, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Elections Commission, told us “we have seen no evidence of fraud.”

Magney said that in November 2016, the state recorded 56,978 indefinitely confined absentee voters out of 144,802 absentee-by-mail voters. (That’s 39 percent.)

For November 2020, Wisconsin’s preliminary figures show 215,713 indefinitely confined absentee voters out of approximately 1.32 million absentee-by-mail voters, or 16 percent. (Final figures will not be available until mid-December.)

“Republicans were locked out of the vote counting process.”

Republican observers have been present throughout Wisconsin’s counting process, during the initial count and now during the recount. In fact, local election officials say that Trump’s observers are seeking to gum up the works, “in some instances by objecting to every ballot tabulators pulled to count,” according to the Associated Press.

No recount in Wisconsin history has overturned a vote margin as large as Biden’s. Trump and his lawyers also have falsely claimed that Republican observers were not allowed inside the room as votes were counted in Philadelphia and Detroit, among other cities.

A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

In case anyone needed a reminder that Trump simply cannot be believed on the election, this is it. He is casting doubt on Wisconsin’s results, but every part of his claim is demonstrably false. Trump earns Four Pinocchios.

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U.S. closes Texas facility for migrants (nationthailand.com)

U.S. closes Texas facility for migrants

InternationalNov 26. 2020A young child holds onto a fence at the U.S. Border Patrol Central Processing Center in McAllen, Tex., in August 2019. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Carolyn Van Houten. 

By The Washington Post · Nick Miroff · NATIONAL, COURTSLAW

WASHINGTON – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have shut down the South Texas warehouse where chain-link enclosures were deplored as “cages” during the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrant families and children. The facility will undergo renovations until 2022, CBP officials said.

Male minors rest under Mylar blankets in the Border Patrol Central Processing Center in McAllen, Texas., in August 2019. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Carolyn Van Houten.

The chain-link partitions will be removed, and the warehouse will be redesigned to provide detained migrants with more humane conditions, CBP officials said. The renovations will take 18 months or longer, leaving border agents without a large-volume facility if a new migration surge occurs next year.

“The new design will allow for updated accommodations, which will greatly improve the operating efficiency of the center as well as the welfare of individuals being processed,” Thomas Gresback, a spokesman for the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector, told The Washington Post.

The Obama administration opened the facility in 2014 after a record number of Central American families and children began streaming into South Texas, leaving U.S. agents and border stations dangerously overcrowded. CBP obtained a large warehouse and hastily converted it into a clean, air-conditioned processing center to accommodate the surge. Inexpensive chain-link fencing was used to create partitions in the cavernous space, but its grim appearance came to symbolize the dehumanizing treatment of migrants in U.S. custody.

The warehouse has been mostly empty this year, as CBP implemented emergency public health measures in March that allow agents to quickly “expel” more than 90% of border crossers back to Mexico. Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to halt the practice of expelling underage migrants.

During pre-pandemic times, migrant families and children who were taken into custody in the Rio Grande Valley after crossing illegally into the United States typically were taken to the CPC warehouse. Their personal and biometric information was recorded into government databases, and they would sometimes spend several days or more inside the facility, sleeping on mats as they waited for authorities to determine whether they would be transferred to a longer-term detention facility, returned to Mexico or released into the United States.

The partitions were used to separate different demographic groups – such as keeping teenage boys apart from mothers with infants. The renovation is likely to replace the chain link with clear plastic dividers, and officials said the new facility will provide more recreation and play areas for children, as well as more permanent kitchen, infirmary and shower facilities.

The CPC’s capacity will be reduced from 1,500 to 1,100, Gresback said.

Men sit on a bench with other fathers of young children in the McAllen, Texas, facility. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Carolyn Van Houten.

Department of Homeland Security officials and migration experts have warned that the incoming Biden administration risks facing a new migration crisis next year. Mexico and Central America have been battered by the economic squeeze of the coronavirus pandemic, and catastrophic flooding and crop damage this fall from multiple hurricanes.

Last month, the number of migrants taken into custody along the Mexico border jumped to 69,237, up 21 percent from September. It was the highest one-month total since February 2019.

President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign promises to reverse the Trump administration’s restrictive approach to immigration enforcement have also raised fears that smuggling organizations will use the anticipation of weaker enforcement to recruit clients.

The Rio Grande Valley remains the busiest area for illegal migration along the entire U.S. southern border, but the bare-bones detention cells of its Border Patrol stations were designed to hold adults, not families and children. Those stations became so overcrowded during the 2014 surge that families were left for hours in the sweltering exterior garages of the stations, in conditions so poor that the Obama administration was forced to look for an indoor, climate-controlled facility, settling on the warehouse.

“It was the best solution at the time,” said Rodolfo Karisch, who retired in January as the Border Patrol chief of the Rio Grande Valley sector. Karisch said the decision to remove the chain link and renovate the facility was a sign that the Border Patrol had heeded the public outcry and asked “What else can we do to make it better?”

When the families and children began crossing the border in large numbers again in 2018, the Trump administration responded with a “Zero Tolerance” crackdown that intentionally separated thousands of migrant children from their parents. The children were sent to shelter facilities and dormitories that the Department of Health and Human Services oversaw, while the adults were kept in immigration jails.

When CBP officials allowed television crews inside the Central Processing Center during the surge to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis, the facility’s chain-link fencing triggered an immediate uproar. Opponents of the Trump administration’s immigration and border policies latched onto the phrase “kids in cages” as a way to attack what they saw as inhumane treatment of people seeking refuge in the United States.

During the second presidential debate in October, then-candidate Biden denounced the president’s family separations as “criminal,” to which Trump responded: “Who built the cages, Joe?” – blaming the Obama administration.

In 2018, CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan pushed for the removal of the chain-link fencing, and he advocated for the creation of new border facilities that would be more appropriate for families and children. Congress blocked proposals for a processing center in the El Paso area, but lawmakers in 2019 approved a $4.5 billion emergency spending bill to set up temporary migrant shelter facilities, during a year when the Border Patrol made nearly 1 million arrests and detentions.

CBP likely would need to set up short-term tent facilities again in the event of a new migration wave, officials said. “CBP consistently revaluates future operational requirements to support the safe and legal processing of aliens who have entered the United States illegally,” Gresback said.

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600 civilians were killed in massacre in Tigray, Ethiopia’s rights commission says (nationthailand.com)

600 civilians were killed in massacre in Tigray, Ethiopia’s rights commission says

InternationalNov 25. 2020

By The Washington Post · Lesley Wroughton · WORLD, AFRICA 
Hundreds of people in a town in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region were stabbed, strangled and hacked to death in an apparent ethnically based attack that may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes, Ethiopia’s human rights watchdog said Tuesday.

The commission said at least 600 people were killed in the town of Mai Kadra in western Tigray on Nov. 9 when local youths known as Samri, aided by the then-local administration, went door to door killing those they identified as from the minority Amhara and Wolkait ethnic groups.

The killings took place throughout the night of Nov. 9 as security forces of the region’s ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, were retreating from the advance of federal government troops, the commission said.

The victims were beaten to death with sticks, stabbed with knives, machetes and hatchets, and strangled with ropes, according to the report. Many others were severely injured and property looted or destroyed, the commission said.

“The killings, bodily and mental injury, as well as the destruction that went on throughout the night . . . indicate the commission of grave human rights violations which may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes,” the commission said.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission’s findings could not be independently verified, but they echo similar accounts reported earlier by Amnesty International, which cited witness statements, photos and videos as evidence.

The commission’s findings, the result of a week-long investigation in the town, are the first evidence of possible war crimes being committed in Tigray, where government troops and TPLF forces have been fighting since Nov. 4 in a conflict many fear could destabilize the Horn of Africa.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in a statement called the commission’s findings “heart-wrenching” and urged the international community “to condemn these atrocious acts of crimes against humanity.”

There was no immediate response to the commission’s report from the TPLF. The regional government and refugees fleeing the fighting have accused government forces of targeting ethnic Tigrayans.

The commission warned that the death toll from the massacre could be much higher, as many people were still missing and bodies were hidden in fields outside the town.

Survivors told investigators that some residents in the town hid people in their homes, in churches and in farm fields as the Samri gangs raided the town.

“The unimaginably atrocious crime committed against civilians for no reason other than their ethnicity is heartbreaking,” the commission’s chief, Daniel Bekele, said in a statement, calling for the perpetrators of the attacks to be brought to justice.

Abiy, who comes from the Oromo, the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, on Sunday issued a 72-hour ultimatum to Tigray’s leaders and combatants to surrender before government forces attack the capital Mekele, with a population of about half a million. The deadline is Wednesday.

The conflict erupted when Abiy sent troops to Tigray after the TPLF army and local militia attacked government military bases in the region and tried to steal artillery and other military equipment. The conflict spread across the border to Eritrea when Tigrayan forces fired several rockets at its capital and sent at least 40,000 refugees fleeing into Sudan.

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Biden’s national security rollout doesn’t include a Pentagon pick (nationthailand.com)

Biden’s national security rollout doesn’t include a Pentagon pick

InternationalNov 25. 2020

By The Washington Post · Anne Gearan · NATIONAL, POLITICS, NATIONAL-SECURITY 
WASHINGTON – President-elect Joe Biden has introduced the bulk of his national security Cabinet, but did not include the Defense Department in his rollout this week amid questions about whether he has settled on longtime defense expert Michèle Flournoy as his Pentagon chief.

Flournoy’s name has been considered at the top of Biden’s list to run the nation’s largest security agency, with frequent mention that she would be the first female secretary of defense.

Her prominence served to highlight the absence of a Pentagon nominee during an event in Delaware on Tuesday that included Biden’s picks for secretary of state, intelligence director, chief of homeland security and United Nations ambassador, as well as White House national security adviser.

Biden has not yet made a decision and Flournoy remains very much in the running for the job, people familiar with the process said. Those people, who requested anonymity to talk about pending personnel decisions, cautioned against reading too much into the absence of Pentagon and CIA nominees in the initial round of Cabinet announcements. Biden’s choice for the U.S. Agency for International Development is also pending.

Tuesday’s focus was on diplomacy and a shift away from Trump administration policies that Biden says have alienated allies and punished immigrants and refugees. But it was still notable that Biden didn’t mention the Pentagon, or the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“It’s a team that will keep our country and our people safe and secure, and it’s a team that reflects the fact that America is back,” Biden said. “Ready to lead the world, not retreat from it. Ready to confront our adversaries, not reject our allies. And ready to stand up for our values.”

A Biden transition official brushed off the notion that the Pentagon pick was delayed or that the campaign risked a perception problem by not including a defense secretary now.

“This team has moved quickly across the board, and that includes in terms of the nominations and senior appointments we have put forward,” a Biden transition official said. 

The official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal decision-making, noted that before Monday the Trump administration had refused to free up federal resources for the Biden transition.

Despite that obstacle, “we have, so far, outpaced the last two administrations in terms of announcing key Cabinet officials,” the official said.

According to a report in Politico, another contender for the Pentagon slot is Jeh Johnson, former homeland security secretary under Obama, who would become the first Black defense secretary if named to the position.

Tuesday’s announcement included the return of the U.N. job to Cabinet rank and creation of a new Cabinet-rank post focused on climate change.

Flournoy holds centrist policy views that align with most of Biden’s national security platform, although the two disagreed over aspects of the Afghanistan war when she was a senior Pentagon official in the Obama administration and Biden was vice president.

Officials close to Flournoy have preached patience about the selection process, citing Biden’s desire for expertise and diversity. But they also have acknowledged that no decision has been made yet.

Flournoy comes from the same cadre of professionals with credentials from the Obama administration and Washington think tanks as the nominees who were announced Tuesday. She also co-founded a security consultant firm with Antony Blinken, Biden’s choice to be secretary of state.

Flournoy has ties to the defense industry, making her suspect to some liberal Democrats, but it is not clear if Biden shares that concern. Blinken will face the same scrutiny that Flournoy would about the secretive client list at their WestExec Advisors firm. Biden also bypassed liberal complaints about his choice for director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, as being too hawkish. 

“Obviously we have concerns. We also recognize the reasons for the nomination and we would expect those concerns to be worked through in the nomination process as it would be with anybody,” said Stephen Miles, executive director of Win Without War, a liberal security coalition.

But Miles said it does not appear that liberal skepticism alone would derail Flournoy, whose positions and affiliations are well known.

“It’s pretty clear there’s something else going on here,” that is unrelated to liberal views on Flournoy’s candidacy, Miles said. 

Mark Jacobson, a former Pentagon official who is now assistant dean at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, compared Tuesday’s rollout with George W. Bush’s Cabinet announcements.

The national security team of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was considered a unit for weeks, though Rumsfeld and Powell were formally announced 12 days apart in December, 2000.

“When the Bush administration did their famous rollout of ‘the Vulcans’ ” as the group was nicknamed, “it was part of an electoral campaign promise and meant to show competence and experience,” a message similar to Biden’s, Jacobson said.

“I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that it’s State, NSC and the U.N. ambassador as Biden’s big three,” omitting the Pentagon, Jacobson said. “It’s still designed to instill a feeling among Americans that there is a competent team in there.”

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Trump’s election assault bodes lingering damage (nationthailand.com)

Trump’s election assault bodes lingering damage

InternationalNov 25. 2020President Trump arrives to speak in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford 

By The Washington Post · Toluse Olorunnipa, Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Rosalind S. Helderman · NATIONAL, POLITICS, WHITEHOUSE

WASHINGTON – When President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20, he will face a fundamental challenge unlike any incoming president before him: Tens of millions of Americans who doubt his legitimacy and question the stability of the country’s democratic traditions – in part because of his predecessor’s unprecedented attempt to set both ablaze before leaving office.

For the past three weeks, as President Donald Trump has refused to concede the election, the federal government, the Trump campaign legal team and whole swaths of the Republican Party have worked in tandem to interfere with the peaceful transition of power.

By lodging baseless claims of voter fraud and embracing – or declining to reject – outlandish conspiracy theories about the electoral process, Trump and his allies have normalized the kind of post-election assault on institutions typically seen in less-developed democracies, according to historians, former administration officials, and lawmakers and diplomats from across the political spectrum.

Lingering damage to the U.S. electoral system could be among the most consequential legacies of the Trump presidency, said Michael Chertoff, a homeland security secretary under President George W. Bush

Trump’s effort to overturn the election results in the days after the race has so far proved unsuccessful, as Biden has moved ahead with hallmarks of a presidential transition such as building a Cabinet. But Chertoff and others said the harm inflicted on the democratic process since Nov. 3 should not be underestimated.

“We’ve now seen a blueprint, which has been road-tested in other parts of the world, being adopted by Donald Trump here in the U.S.,” he said, adding that Trump’s attempts have been ineffective in part because of their clumsiness. “But a more effective and a more skillful want-to-be autocrat could use the same playbook.”

Trump has continued to declare himself the winner of the election, even as several key swing states have moved forward with certifying Biden’s victory and the federal government has ascertained that a new administration is likely to take over in two months. Trump’s GOP allies, despite multiple losses in court, have continued to press their case with the public – making an ever-growing list of specious allegations about fraud involving mail-in ballots, voting machines, signature-matching, late-arriving votes, poll workers in heavily minority cities, foreign interference, dead people voting, unbalanced voter rolls, nonresident voters, Sharpie-stained ballots and the traditional tabulation process.

But as Trump has tried unsuccessfully to win over judges and state lawmakers, Biden’s lead has remained secure – and has grown nationally as more ballots have been processed. As of Tuesday, Biden’s popular vote total had surpassed 80 million, the largest in the country’s history.

Still, Trump’s repeated claims of election rigging have led many of the 74 million people who cast ballots for him to doubt the reliability of the voting process. Even as the transition proceeds – with the General Services Administration announcing late Monday that the administration could begin coordinating with Biden’s incoming team – Trump has continued his onslaught.

“What does GSA being allowed to preliminarily work with the Dems have to do with continuing to pursue our various cases on what will go down as the most corrupt election in American political history?” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning. “We are moving full speed ahead. Will never concede to fake ballots & ‘Dominion,’ ” the latter reference being about a company that supplies voting equipment.

The claims about vote-changing machines and fraudulent ballots have been repeatedly rejected by judges, local officials and even the president’s own administration. Last week, Trump fired a top Department of Homeland Security official who had vocally dismissed allegations of widespread fraud in the Nov. 3 election.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The lack of pushback from Republican lawmakers signaled a willingness by them to accept Trump’s post-election denial despite the danger it poses, said Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University.

“This is the story of the Trump presidency,” he said. “The GOP not only stood behind the president, regardless of what he did, but even as he used his power to attack the basic element of the democratic process, very few took action.”

While a growing number of Republicans have publicly acknowledged Biden’s victory, more have remained silent or echoed Trump’s allegations of fraud. Some local Republicans have challenged the results of their own races as Trump has done, making post-election allegations about rigged voting a more mainstream proposition up and down the ballot.

Kimberly Klacik, a Republican who lost a Baltimore-area congressional race by 72% to 28%, claimed on social media that the result had been rigged.

“Luckily, we raised enough money to investigate,” she wrote earlier this month, in a tweet that referred to the president’s allegations of fraud.

Trump’s campaign has also been soliciting donations to continue the president’s quest to overturn his defeat.

“We cannot let the Democrats STEAL this Election from your all-time favorite President,” Trump said Tuesday in a fundraising pitch. “I’m calling on YOU to FIGHT BACK. We need to bolster our critical Election Defense Fund if we’re going to keep going. We can’t do this without you.”

Gene Rechtzigel, a Minnesota Republican who ran for the U.S. House, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State, the Minnesota State Canvassing Board and the Ramsey County Elections Office. He lost to Democrat Betty McCollum by more than 30 points – 133,086 votes – but claimed that the state should delay certification of the results because of allegations of election irregularities.

Other Republicans have taken up the Trump campaign’s push to delay the certification of vote totals in other states ahead of the electoral college’s formal vote electing Biden in mid-December.

Georgia lawyer Lin Wood, a Trump ally, is appealing a federal judge’s rejection of Wood’s attempt to block the certification of Biden’s victory in the state, according to a new filing Tuesday.

Wood had challenged the way Georgia election officials check signatures submitted with absentee ballots and raised questions about the rate of rejection of ballots on the basis of mismatched signatures.

U.S. District Court Steven Grimberg, a Trump appointee, on Friday denied Wood’s request for a temporary restraining order on Georgia’s certification of election results. Grimberg wrote that doing so “at literally the eleventh hour would breed confusion and potential disenfranchisement that, I find, has no basis in fact or in law.”

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp, both Republicans, certified the state’s election results on Friday. The Trump campaign has said it will file a separate lawsuit challenging Biden’s win in Georgia, where a second recount is underway at the president’s request.

Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Michigan plan to hold hearings over the next week on the election – elevating fraud claims even as their states move forward to certify Biden’s victory. Trump’s campaign celebrated the events Tuesday, announcing that the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, will make a presentation Wednesday before Republicans in the Pennsylvania state Senate.

“It’s in everyone’s interest to have a full vetting of election irregularities and fraud,” Giuliani said in a statement. “And the only way to do this is with public hearings, complete with witnesses, videos, pictures and other evidence of illegalities from the November 3rd election.”

In a scathing ruling Saturday, a judge in Pennsylvania dismissed Giuliani’s allegations as meritless and blasted what he said was the Trump campaign’s attempt to disenfranchise millions of the state’s voters.

Trump has been undeterred by the cascade of court losses, and his allies have continued to make the case that the election was stolen from him. Unable to change the results with lawsuits or by persuading state lawmakers to overturn the will of voters, Trump has resorted to pressing the last avenues of protest that remain open to him. His advisers expect him to continue fighting reality as long as possible and do not expect him ever to formally concede to Biden or invite him to the White House in line with tradition stretching back decades.

Biden, who has said Trump’s denial of the election results is “embarrassing,” said Tuesday that he is willing to meet with the president.

“Of course I would, if he asked,” Biden told reporters.

That seems unlikely to happen soon, as Trump and much of his party remain focused on continuing the effort to cast doubt on the election results.

Recounts continued Tuesday in Wisconsin’s two most populous and Democratic-leaning counties, Dane and Milwaukee.

Under Wisconsin law, the Trump campaign had the right to request the recount – provided it agreed to foot the bill – given that Biden’s margin of victory was under 1%. But Biden leads Trump in the state by about 20,000 votes, a gap even many Republicans agree is extremely unlikely to be closed by a recount. In 2016, when Green Party candidate Jill Stein requested a more extensive statewide recount in Wisconsin, it resulted in Trump’s margin growing in the state by just 131 votes.

“Trump representatives saw the process four years ago. They saw how accurate it was – they complimented us on it. Given that, it was really irresponsible to ask for another recount,” said Scott McDonell, the clerk of Dane County, where 80 workers have been staffing the recount for hours each day. “It’s a public health threat.”

Wisconsin Attorney Geneneral Josh Kaul, a Democrat, noted that Trump observers have also slowed the process by objecting to large numbers of ballots. He noted that one Trump observer in Milwaukee objected because a poll worker was placing ballots in a pile – a normal part of the process. Another objected to all absentee ballots that had been folded, as was necessary for voters to place the ballot in an envelope and submit it by mail.

The campaign also formally objected to tens of thousands of ballots that were cast using rules the campaign argued were improper, though the same rules were in place statewide. The challenges were rejected by local officials, but the campaign could still try to sue over its objections and delay Wisconsin’s scheduled certification on Dec. 1.

“What seems to be happening is that representatives of the president are using the recount as a vehicle for challenging certain election practices,” Kaul said.

Kaul said he was confident the challenges would fail, but he said they were obscuring the fact that the voting actually ran very smoothly, with few lines even amid record turnout.

“The real untold story of this election is how efficiently the democratic process worked,” he said.

In the short term, Trump’s efforts could backfire in Georgia, where two runoff races for the Senate could be affected by the president’s continued claims that his loss resulted from fraud.

Georgia’s voting systems manager Gabriel Sterling said during a Monday news conference that he is concerned that “there are going to be some Republicans who don’t trust the outcomes of the system at all” and therefore don’t vote.

“Now, am I concerned that it’s going to end up suppressing the vote, to a degree? Absolutely,” he said. “Whether you’re on the left or the right, anytime you end up questioning the fundamental fairness without any real evidence of there being an issue, you’re undermining the confidence of your voters and everybody else.”

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Mysterious metal obelisk is found in a remote part of Utah (nationthailand.com)

Mysterious metal obelisk is found in a remote part of Utah

InternationalNov 25. 2020

By The Washington Post · Marisa Iati · NATIONAL

The monolith’s mysterious appearance amid the rocky desert sparked excitement among the hominids who circled it, intrigued and perplexed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/d312fa3d-2243-4ef9-a276-565413b8982c?ptvads=block&playthrough=false

But unlike the alien structure made famous by the epic film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the metal monolith discovered Wednesday by public safety workers in southeastern Utah is real. The workers were scouring the redrock region by helicopter for bighorn sheep when a crew member spotted the object, pilot Bret Hutchings told KSL-TV.

“He’s like: ‘There’s this thing! There’s this thing back there! We got to go look at it!'” Hutchings said.

Joking that they were intrepid explorers investigating an alien life form, the crew members determined that the monolith was 10 to 12 feet tall and planted firmly in the ground. It seemed to them like more of an artistic expression than part of a scientific experiment.

But mostly, it looked like something out of a science-fiction novel.

“We were kind of joking around that if one of us just suddenly disappears, I guess the rest of us make a run for it,” Hutchings told KSL, chuckling.

It was not clear who installed the monolith, which Hutchings designated the strangest discovery he’s made in years of flying over Utah desert. The Utah Department of Public Safety will not disclose its exact location, warning that people who try to visit it might end up stranded amid the rocky terrain.

Officials noted that installing unauthorized structures on federally managed public lands is illegal, “no matter what planet you’re from.” The Bureau of Land Management is determining whether to investigate further.

For now, the monolith is delighting science-fiction fans all over the Internet, who noted the uncanny resemblance to the mysterious structure in “2001” that came from aliens and sped up human evolution.

Some people also posited that the discovery of a monolith in the wilderness was a fitting end to the wild ride of the past year.

“2001: A Space Odyssey in #2020,” one Twitter user wrote. “What a long strange year it’s been.”