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Thousands rally in London to remember slain MP Jo Cox on what would have been her 42nd birthday

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 20:22:20 +0000

Thousands rally in London to remember slain MP Jo Cox on what would have been her 42nd birthday Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/23/2016 - 14:22 Deepan Dutta

London – Thousands gathered in Trafalgar Square Wednesday to remember and pay tribute to Jo Cox, who was assassinated on June 16 while meeting with constituents in Birstall, West Yorkshire. The rally was held in conjunction with other remembrance gatherings around the world on what would have been Cox’s 42nd birthday.

Attendees held signs with images of Cox’s face and waved placards with taglines such as “#LoveLikeJo.” Organizers themed the event “More In Common,” a nod to a line from Cox’s maiden speech in Parliament where she declared, “[W]e are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”
Brendan Cox, Jo Cox’s widower and father to their two small children, spoke with broken words as he choked back tears.

“Amazing and deeply touching as all of this is, I wish I wasn’t here today,” he said. “Not because I’m ungrateful to the organizers, or to you all for coming. But because of course, I’d rather be… I’d rather be with Jo.”

While describing what Jo would have done on her 42nd birthday had she been around to celebrate it, Brendan Cox touched on the looming “Brexit” vote taking place tomorrow.

“She would have spent it dashing around the streets of our hometown, trying to convince people that Britain is stronger in Europe,” Brendan Cox said. “She feared the consequences of Europe dividing again, hated the idea of building walls between us, and worried about the dynamics that that could unleash.”

His words were met with loud applause from the crowd, many of whom wore “IN” stickers to signify their support of remaining in the EU.

Speakers who followed Mr. Cox echoed sentiments about Jo Cox’s generosity, compassion, and tireless advocacy for refugees from Syria and other war-torn regions. A tribute music video from U2’s Bono accompanied poetry readings from actors Gillian Anderson and Bill Nighy, and the event was headlined with a speech from Nobel laureate Malala Yousufazi.

Malala reminded the thousands in attendance of her own brutal experience of being shot by extremists because of her advocacy for educating girls in Pakistan.

“I’m here today as a living proof that [the extremists] can’t win with bullets either,” she said. “And Jo’s life is a proof that a message of peace is more powerful than any weapon of war. Once again, the extremists have failed.”

The alleged murderer of Jo Cox, Thomas Mair, is currently being held by British authorities on several charges, including murder, with terrorism charges pending in an appearance scheduled for next week. While police have not publicly discussed his motivations for the attack, eyewitnesses to the event have told local media that the attacker shouted “Britain First!” before fatally shooting and stabbing Jo Cox outside a library. Mair has also been accused of having links to far-right groups in Europe and the United States.

The murder has shocked the nation and brought a temporary halt to the heavy and oftentimes nasty campaigning from both sides of the Brexit debate.

Paul Lasok, a campaigner for the Remain campaign, believes people have become fed up with the mudslinging.

“What is noticeable is that the rhetoric is very, very unfortunate,” Lasok said. “This is a campaign where there is very little debate… there’s a lot of haranguing going on. I think a lot of members of the public just don’t like it.”

Roy Ashbury, a retired teacher from Hampshire in Southern England who came to London to pay his respect to Jo Cox, placed a certain amount of blame on the inflamed rhetoric that has been slung in the lead-up to the vote; particularly from the Leave campaign.

“The atmosphere has been really unhealthy,” Ashbury said. “[The attack] was almost bound to happen. Nobody predicted it, but you felt that something bad was going to happen.”

He called the attack a “political act,” and also blames the “hatred and animosity” he sees in conservative newspapers like the Daily Mail. He thinks her death may influence the vote tomorrow.

“I think a lot of people have said that they feel inspired,” Ashbury said. “I feel myself that I must do more to be true to what she believed in.”

The rally concluded with a request that all in attendance join their hands to symbolize love and unity, and a stirring rendition of “Do You Hear the People Sing” from the play “Les Miserables,” Jo Cox’s favorite musical.

Mariella Frostrup, a close friend of the Cox family who hosted the event, thanked those who attended and left them with a message of hope.

“Don’t let this be just one day,” Frostrup said. “Let’s take this feeling of support and love for each other, and unity, and roll it out.”

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The view from the ground

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 20:22:20 +0000

The view from the ground Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/23/2016 - 14:22 Deepan Dutta

Both sides scramble as Brexit vote grows near.

London – A huddle of volunteers surrounds Robin Phelps at his table in the Imperial Durbar, a pub located in the middle-class Tooting neighborhood. Phelps, a volunteer coordinator for the “Remain” campaign, directs his charges to neighborhood “sectors,” where they’ll make a last push by distributing stickers, fliers and other “IN” campaign material that currently litter the table and benches in a corner of this trendy British Raj-themed bar.

This is Phelps’ first time actively campaigning for a political cause, but he’s enthused about the campaign to convince his fellow United Kingdom citizens to vote for the U.K. to remain in the European Union. He said he became quite alarmed by the “dangerous” rhetoric coming out of the Leave campaign, and it motivated him to do something on the ground. He intends to stay here until 9 p.m. Thursday, an hour before polls close across the country, to help the Remain campaign get as many votes out of the Tooting area as possible.

Once his acolytes have dispersed, Phelps explains how he might convince quizzical Americans why the U.K. should stay in the E.U.

The E.U.’s economic power, he says, would be dealt a “great blow” if the U.K. left, and that would affect both parties’ ability to discourage countries like Russia from committing belligerent actions such as the covert invasion of the Ukraine.

“I think the E.U.’s soft power, economic power, goes hand in hand with NATO’s hard power in keeping the West safe,” he says.

Lead volunteer Robin Phelps briefs volunteers on referendum day at the Imperial Durbar pub in Tooting, South London. Photo by Deepan Dutta.

Phelps cites the loss of intelligence-sharing that could give rise to security lapses and possibly more terrorism concerns.

Sebastian Coventry, another supporter of the Remain movement, tries to explain what it would mean to E.U. if the U.K. left in terms of American geopolitics and economics.

“Imagine one of America’s most important states, such as California or New York, deciding it did not want to be a part of the States anymore,” Coventry says.

He presents the European Union as much like the United States, as a federation of different states coming together to form a greater union with far more influence and economic benefit than if they remained apart.

�鶹��Ƶ a mile away from the Imperial Durbar, at a quaint townhome that serves as a center for the Leave campaign in Earlsfield in South London, Vicky Allitt, the homeowner and volunteer leader in this branch, says that she has been very busy this morning and afternoon.

“People have been coming and going all day, and we’re hoping for the best,” Allitt says.

While Allitt speaks, two other volunteers drink tea at her dining table while classical music plays in the background. The atmosphere feels warm, but muted, as recent coverage in local media has painted the Leave campaign as increasingly desperate as it struggles to articulate what the future holds if the U.K. leaves.

After a night of torrential downpours created flash flooding and serious disruptions across London, polls opened Thursday morning for citizens to cast their vote for U.K.’s future in Europe.

A vote to leave would create “Brexit” and change the U.K.’s relationship with the United States and the rest of the world. As a fully sovereign nation, it would be free to re-negotiate trade agreements and diplomatic alliances, but would also hit the ‘reset’ button on many such existing relationships.

President Obama has been a vocal supporter of the U.K. remaining in the E.U., with White House Press Secretary stating Josh Earnest saying Wednesday that the “United States benefits from having U.K. as a member of a strong E.U.” Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has echoed those sentiments.

However, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential candidate, Donald Trump, has come out in favor of the U.K. leaving, citing the need for nations to control their own destinies. He even drew a parallel with America’s own birth, telling U.K.’s Sky News that “America is here because of its own little Brexit.”

With polls showing a dead heat the night before the polls open, both the “remain” and “leave” campaigns have put on a full-court press to get out the vote and pull any remaining undecideds toward their side. Volunteers for both campaigns have set up camp in houses and pubs across the country, coordinating their efforts to get every last person to the polls.

Ben Cattanu, a Canadian volunteer who lives in Britain, asks Americans what they might think if Texas were to leave the U.S. in order to develop its own trade deals and exert its cultural identity.

The core of Cattanu’s concerns for leaving is economic volatility, which he says would affect everyone, not just the British and Europeans. He is also very concerned about the wave of “anti-intellectualism” that seems to be spreading across the West, using Donald Trump as an example of how vague, bombastic rhetoric draws crowds and raises emotions while providing little in the way of substance. This, he says, is what the Leave campaign has done by stoking fears and emotions over issues such as immigration. He says this is the reason Leave has drawn much closer in the polls despite calls from most political and economic leaders around the world for the U.K. to remain.

Volunteers like Cattanu continue to pop in and out of the campaign outpost into the evening hours trying to catch Londoners returning from work in subway stations and on the street, reminding them to vote.

A common mantra among those on the Remain side is that the decision to leave is permanent; there is no turning back if voters choose to exit the E.U.

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Scott Ellis, 43, Lafayette: “By not participating in the process, you don’t imply consent with the outcome”

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 20:22:20 +0000

Scott Ellis, 43, Lafayette: “By not participating in the process, you don’t imply consent with the outcome” Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/18/2014 - 13:22 Lars Gesing

Scott Ellis’ Facebook page looks different than those of a lot of his social media peers. Ellis, 43, is an administrator of the group “Don’t Vote,” one of many such gathering places on Facebook. His own newsfeed is speckled with notes encouraging his friends to join him in his voting abstinence.

The Texas native is quick to point out that his reasons for not voting go way beyond such common excuses like apathy, a lack of interest or a jam-packed schedule.

“Opting out of the voting process and encouraging others to do it, lowering voter turnout in general is like a vote of no confidence in the system,” he said. “By not participating in the process, you don’t imply consent with the outcome.”

The father of two teenage girls considers himself an anarchist, and he is well aware of the stigma that comes along with that choice.

“That doesn’t mean throwing rocks through windows,” he adds calmly, with a straight face that leaves no doubt that this man is at peace with his manifold critics, who include his own family. “I don’t go to the voting booth for the same reasons I don’t get a mob together and boss my neighbor around just because I have the majority.”

The software engineer, who works in Boulder and lives in Lafayette, can’t remember the last time he voted, or for which candidate. “Probably in my 20s,” he said. Back then, he voted Libertarian because he couldn’t make out a meaningful difference between Democrats and Republicans. “They both envision a role of the state in a person’s life that is way, way too large.”

When he realized that the odds of any given third-party candidate are miniscule, Ellis made a final decision: “I realized I had to withdraw from the process altogether.”

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Forbes staff writer John Tamny: "Economic growth is all about the destruction of work"

Anonymous — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 20:22:20 +0000

Forbes staff writer John Tamny: "Economic growth is all about the destruction of work" Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/27/2014 - 13:22 Lars Gesing

If you talk about inequality in America, and if you want to read about it, The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and his columns are a safe bet for you. The economics Nobel laureate regularly writes about issues such as unemployment, minimum wage and social mobility – as in one of his most recent columns, “Down the Up Staircase.” He also published a variety of books, including his most recent one, “End this Depression Now!” A few days ago, Krugman provided his followers with two presentations he gave at Princeton University – one on the Stimulus, and the other on how to help workers.

Just recently, it seems, the Republican Party started to revise its strategy on how to help workers. In the Washington Monthly’s blog “Political Animal,” Ed Kilgore posted an opinion piece, depicting an essential part of the Republican strategy for economic recovery. He wrote about how it took the GOP years to realize that solely focusing their efforts on “job-creators” wasn’t going to pay off – neither in electoral success, nor in economic recovery. He quoted Republican House majority leader Rep. Eric Cantor, saying that “90 percent of Americans work for someone else.” In an early-February briefing, Cantor was reported to have “rallied his troops on how to talk to people who don’t own their own businesses, and [those who] don’t view themselves as second-class citizens for working for somebody else.”

How tough a job Republican leadership is facing to unite its party behind a consistent approach to nourishing the economy shows the latest statement of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal after a meeting of state governors at the White House. In its “First Read” column, NBCNews.com paraphrased Jindal’s words as follows: “ ‘The Obama economy is now the minimum wage economy,’ Jindal said, accusing the president of ‘waving the white flag of surrender’ on job growth.” The column immediately follows up with a reaction of Democratic Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, who, according to NBC News, said something as little judgmental as: “That’s the most insane statement I’ve ever heard.”

The minimum wage debate continues to rage, and will likely set the tone for the upcoming midterm campaign season. As both parties try to shape their profiles, a speedy solution is utterly unexpected. As the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent wrote in his “The Plum Line” blog, House Democrats are expected to try to force the Republican majority into a corner, filing a discharge petition to get a House vote on the minimum wage hike. Sargent attributes the information to a “Democratic leadership aide.” House Republicans are most likely not going to sign the petition, but could still become pressured, Sargent writes in his story headlined “Dems ramp up pressure on minimum wage.”

Meanwhile Senate Democrats have pushed off a vote on raising the minimum wage to late March or early April, CBS News reports, citing scheduling conflicts and obstruction from Senate Republicans as reasons. Originally, Senate majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had wanted to hold a vote in early March.

On the Forbes Magazine website, staff writer John Tamny offers some less heard-of analysis on job safety, an issue that is at the center of the minimum wage debate. First, he declares it “sure” that the mandatory pay-raise would render some unemployed as “labor is a cost like any other.” But just a couple of lines further into his piece, Tamny opens up: “Where the right get it comically wrong is in their commentary about how minimum wages will force automation on companies as though this is a bad thing. No, it’s something we should embrace. Counterintuitive as it may seem, economic growth is all about the destruction of work – doing more with less labor inputs – on the way to higher profits.”

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