{"id":24861,"date":"2016-11-26T16:36:50","date_gmt":"2016-11-27T00:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=24861"},"modified":"2016-11-26T16:41:10","modified_gmt":"2016-11-27T00:41:10","slug":"squatchs-open-thread-26112016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/11\/26\/squatchs-open-thread-26112016\/","title":{"rendered":"Squatch’s Open Thread 26\/11\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well I fell asleep at the switch last night and did not get this finished as I had wanted.  The news is a bit slow but that will change as Trump makes his mark.  He has commented that we will see more proposed cabinet announcements next Friday.  In the interim, it is raining cats and dogs here and I should go out shortly, but I think I'll stay warm and dry.  I prefer my cats dry and purring . . . not a difficult choice.<\/span><\/p>\n

MSN.com<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — Canada suddenly has its first hijab-wearing news anchor on commercial television.<\/p>\n

\"aakgbuw\"<\/p>\n

"For me, it's just a step forward in my career," Ginella Massa, who jumped at the chance to fill a vacant anchor chair at the CityNews network in Toronto last Friday night, tells The Hollywood Reporter. But when Massa ended the 11 p.m. newscast just before midnight and checked in with her assignment editor, they agreed Canada had also taken an even bigger leap forward for diversity.<\/p>\n

"He said, was that a first? And I said, yes, I think it was, to have a woman in a hijab anchor the news in Canada," she recalls. So Massa marked her career milestone on her Twitter account and on Facebook<\/font><\/a>, where she wrote: "That's a wrap! Thankful to have opportunities like this at a time when there is so much hate and vilifying of Muslims." <\/p>\n

I am very happy for this young woman, and for Canada.  But I am also sad because this should not be news . .  . it should be an everyday occurrence.  Skills should be the measure, not outward appearances.  May we see more barriers broken down!<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Nation<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — D<\/span>onald Trump ran on a series of impossible promises, but enough people believed he could deliver on them that he won the Electoral College. His supporters are in for what might be the rudest awakening in recent political history.  <\/p>\n

\"trump_supporters_california_rtr_img\"Demonstrators hold signs in support of President-elect Donald Trump in Oceanside, California, November 11, 2016. (Reuters \/ Sandy Huffaker)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Immediately after the election, the candidate who ran against the esreadtablishment, the guy who promised to “drain the swamp,” immediately surrounded himself with party hacks and lobbyists<\/font><\/a>. He announced that Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus, perhaps the most prominent face of the dreaded “establishment,” would be his chief of staff. Good-government advocates expect the Trump regime to gut<\/font><\/a> what remains of our already tattered campaign-finance laws. Reuters<\/em> reports<\/font><\/a> that, “despite his professed opposition to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, President-elect Donald Trump is considering several of the major advocates of that war for top national security posts.” And as Politico<\/em>’s Ben White put it<\/font><\/a>, “a populist candidate who railed against shady financial interests on the campaign trail is now putting together an administration that looks like an investment banker’s dream.”<\/p>\n

Trump’s not going to make coal cheaper than natural gas and bring back a bunch of mining jobs. He might be able to negotiate some new riders for NAFTA, but they’ll be guided by the same corporate lobbyists who effectively wrote it in the first place, and won’t do anything to bring back jobs that have been sent overseas. There will be no 35 percent tariff on imports from Mexico or China.<\/p>\n

Click through for the rest of an interesting read.  As the author concluded, "<\/span>What’s certain is that they’re headed for an epic case of buyers’ remorse."<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Daily Beast<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — Fidel Castro  13\/08\/1926 – 25 \/11\/2016<\/p>\n

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Fidel Castro relinquished the presidency in 2008, handing power to his brother Raul after a period of illness. Since then he has gradually disappeared from public life, occasionally penning a column for the state newspaper, Granma.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Long after the heroism and mystique of the revolution has faded, Fidel Castro will likely be remembered for his role in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when civilization came as close as it has yet come to nuclear Armageddon. During that 13-day trilateral confrontation, while the world watched the stand-off on black and white television sets, behind the scenes Castro was furiously writing to his Soviet counterpart Nikita Khrushchev demanding that the Ukrainian press the button and incinerate us all by launching a first nuclear strike on the United States. “However hard and terrible the solution might be, there is no other,” wrote Castro. Thankfully Stalin’s former henchman, who by his own admission was “up to his elbows” in blood, chose not to heed Castro’s advice.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that Castro was a thorn in many people's sides, but probably more so in the US's side.  Being merely 90 miles off the south-east coast of the US, Cuba's Castro and the US came to verbal blows many times.  And of course there is the Cuban ex-pat community that grew in the US, particulary in Florida.  Some will celebrate his passing, others, not.  <\/span>Reuters<\/strong><\/span><\/a> carried reactions from leaders and others around the world.  "[US] <\/span>President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday called Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who died on Friday night aged 90, a "brutal dictator who oppressed his people for six decades."<\/p>\n

"While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve," Trump said in a statement."  President Barak Obama was much more conciliatory.<\/span><\/p>\n

My Universe <\/span><\/strong>— <\/span><\/p>\n