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peppertree's JournalLeaders gather for G20 Buenos Aires talks amid rising tensions
World leaders are meeting in Argentina for their annual G20 summit amid new tension with Russia over Ukraine and a US trade row with China.
Mr Trump initially said he would not meet Mr Putin because the three Ukrainian vessels and 24 sailors seized by Russia in the Black Sea near Crimea had not been returned. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said this morning that the two would have a “brief, impromptu” meeting.
But ahead of the summit's official start Mr Trump signed a trade deal with the Mexican and Canadian leaders. Speaking before the signing of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) - to replace NAFTA - Mr Trump described it as "probably the greatest trade deal ever."
Leaders are gathering now for opening remarks and an afternoon plenary session. There will be any number of bilateral get-togethers on the sidelines.
The most notable absence was that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose arrival at the summit has been delayed by a technical fault in her plane.
Differences over climate change could be one of the biggest obstacles to an agreed joint communiqué when the summit ends on Saturday.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he would refuse to sign a trade deal with South America's Mercosur bloc if Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro withdrew from the Paris climate accord.
The summit is also a diplomatic test for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman amid questions about his possible involvement in the murder last month of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey.
Trade war impasse
Hopes of progress over tariffs in Mr Trump's expected talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping have been meanwhile dampened. The two economic giants are locked in a trade war, which may possibly even escalate.
President Trump said recently that current tariff levels on $200bn of Chinese imports would rise as planned. He also threatened tariffs on $267bn of other Chinese exports to the US.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, he said that while China was interested in striking a deal, "I don't know if I want to do it" and "I like the deal we have now."
Host woes
The 2018 summit, the first to be hosted by Argentina, comes amid the most serious economic crisis in the host nation since its 2001-02 collapse.
A $100 bn debt bubble during President Mauricio Macri's first two years in office (2016-17) collapsed in April, leading to $30 bn in capital flight, a halving of the peso's value, and prime rates of nearly 70% in an effort to shore up the peso.
GDP was down 5.8% from the same time last year, while inflation has risen to 55% (the highest in 27 years).
"Argentina was asked to host the G-20 summit two years ago, when foreign media coverage of Macri was almost universally positive," former Ambassador to the U.S. Jorge Argüello noted.
"Were the decision to have been taken this year, I doubt Argentina would have been chosen."
At: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46395758
The now iconic 'Baby Trump' balloon makes its way in front of the Argentine Congress.
Trump's presence at the 2018 G-20 Summit is second only to that of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in its controversy.
Republican Hyde-Smith beats Democrat Espy in Mississippi Senate race
Source: NBC News
Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has defeated Democrat Mike Espy in Tuesday night's special Senate election in Mississippi, a contest tainted by race-related controversies, NBC News projects.
With 78% of votes being reported, Hyde-Smith had 55.2%, or 363,567 votes, to 44.8%, or 296,254 votes, for Espy, according to NBC News.
Hyde-Smith, who becomes the first woman elected to Congress from Mississippi, will serve out the remaining two years of former GOP Sen. Thad Cochran's term, whom she was appointed to replace earlier this year after he resigned.
With her win, Republicans will start the new Congress in January with a 53-47 majority in the Senate.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/hyde-smith-espy-mississippi-senate-runoff-election-results-n940811
Mike Espy and Cindy Hyde-Smith: an uphill fight for Democrats and a noble effort.
40 years after the assassination of Harvey Milk, LGBTQ candidates find success
In this month's midterm elections, Colorado elected the nation's first openly gay governor. Voters across the country sent a record number of LGBT candidates to Congress.
These victories come 40 years after the assassination of the first openly gay elected official in California — Harvey Milk.
Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. In 1978, under his urging, the city council passed a gay rights ordinance that protected gay people from being fired from their jobs. His advocacy angered many.
On Nov. 27, 1978, Supervisor Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a former police officer and former city supervisor who had clashed with Milk over LGBTQ issues.
Milk's murder transformed national politics.
The success of LGBTQ candidates in the midterm elections would have been hard to imagine four decades ago when Milk first won office. In California at that time, a conservative state senator named John Briggs was pushing a statewide ballot measure, Proposition 6, to ban gay and lesbian teachers.
Harvey Milk led the fight against the proposition, debating Briggs around the state. That November, voters overwhelmingly defeated the Briggs initiative. Briggs himself, now 88, later renounced his position.
But three weeks later, Moscone and Milk were dead.
It was a kind of political awakening for many who came of age in the years that followed. Today, the seat Milk held when he was killed is occupied by another openly gay man, Rafael Mandelman.
"As someone who was 5 years old when he was shot," says Mandelman, "I am continually grateful not just for Harvey but for the folks of that generation who really did change the world."
At: http://www.cpr.org/news/npr-story/40-years-after-the-assassination-of-harvey-milk-lgbt-candidates-find-success
San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Havey Milk during their brief tenures.
Their murder, 40 years ago today, at the hands of an opponent helped lead to much of the political change Milk had sought in life.
Democrat Cox now leading Valadao after Kern County update
Fresno Democrat T.J. Cox has overtaken incumbent David Valadao in their race for California’s 21st Congressional District seat.
Cox now holds a 438-vote over the Hanford Republican – 55,650 votes to 55,212. This is Cox’s first lead in the race.
The 21st is the last contested Congressional race in the country.
Kern County processed about 8,000 uncounted ballots – nearly 1,900 of which were in the 21st – in Monday’s update. A little under 3,000 ballots remain in Kern, where Cox has secured 61 percent of the vote to date.
The lead is far from set in stone, as Valadao-favoring Kings County and Fresno County – which has broken almost dead even – have thousands of outstanding ballots to be counted in the next few days.
But it appears Cox is on his way to delivering Democrats their 40th flipped seat – one that analysts and news media called for Valadao on election night.
At: https://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/election/local-election/article222204075.html
And then there were 40: GOP incumbent David Valadao and Democratic challenger T.J. Cox.
Cox has now pulled ahead of Valadao in the nation's last undecided House race, though thousands of votes remain to be counted.
Argentina's G-20 week marked by labor strikes, soccer fiasco
Four days before Buenos Aires prepares to host this year's G-20 Summit, a wave of labor strikes and the cancellation of two major football (soccer) championships due to violence have cast a pall over over the Argentine capital.
Workers for Argentina’s largest airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas, went on strike on Monday, grounding some 371 flights and 40,000 passengers, over the airline's refusal to honor wage hikes agreed to in September.
Public transit workers in Buenos Aires likewise announced a three-hour strike Tuesday, shutting down subway and bus service.
Violence later erupted over the weekend after the final game of Copa Libertadores, the South American championship, which had to be twice postponed after hooligans attacked players.
Another game between arch rivals Boca Juniors and River Plate - the Superclásico (considered the world's Nº1 derby by Britain's Daily Mirror) - was cancelled and has yet to be rescheduled after a Boca Juniors team bus was attacked with bricks.
Buenos Aires Security Minister Martín Ocampo resigned on Monday. National Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, who has reaped criticism from the IACHR and Amnesty International for "excessive and indiscriminate" use of force against protests, had dismissed concerns.
"We're hosting the G-20, so the Boca-River match is pretty minor," she had said.
The strikes and soccer fiasco raise questions about the city’s preparedness to handle an expected 8,000 visitors for the G-20 summit as delegations begin to arrive.
The disruption also doesn’t bode well for President Mauricio Macri, whose approval ratings (24%) are at the lowest point since taking office three years ago after Argentina was rocked this year by a debt and currency crisis that dragged the economy into recession.
GDP was down 5.8% from the same time last year - the most severe downturn since the country's 2001-02 collapse - while inflation has risen to 55% (the highest in 27 years).
At: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-26/airline-strike-soccer-fiasco-mark-argentina-s-week-as-g-20-host
Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, President Mauricio Macri, and Justice Minister Germán Garavano in a press conference following the two cancelled soccer championships.
"This is a joke," a fan told the press. "They want to hold a G-20 summit but can't guard a bus?"
Human Rights Watch asks Saudi crown prince be detained in upcoming G20 summit
Days before the upcoming G20 summit, which begins in Buenos Aires this Friday, the U.S.-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch asked Argentine Federal Judge Ariel Lijo for the arrest of Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman.
The request was in response to the brutal, October 2 murder of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, Turkey, among other accusations.
Crown Prince bin Salman, 33, will arrive in Argentina in the coming days as head of the Saudi delegation that will participate in the G20 summit to be held November 30 and December 1.
The judge forwarded the complaint to the public prosecutor Ramiro González, who will decide whether to open an investigation and if it is within Argentine jurisdiction to prosecute a murder committed in the Saudi consulate in Turkey.
Jurisdictional obstacles, however, are compounded by political ones, as Argentine President Mauricio Macri is close to U.S. President Donald Trump and has remained silent over the Khashoggi murder.
Asked if he would meet the Saudi prince in Buenos Aires, Trump replied: “I don’t know that he’s going to be there; but if he is, I will.”
At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eldestapeweb.com%2Fg20-pidieron-la-detencion-uno-los-representantes-que-vendra-la-cumbre-n52563&edit-text=
Trump and Netanyahoo admire a murderous bin Salman in a cartoon published by progressive Jewish activists Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz.
Argentina's Macri has sought closer ties with all three, making real action by Argentine prosecutors all the more unlikely.
Oprah Winfrey's mom Vernita Lee dies on Thanksgiving at age 83
Oprah Winfrey's mother, Vernita Lee, died at her Milwaukee home last week, her family announced Monday.
Lee was 18 when she gave birth to her first child in rural Mississippi, naming her "Orpah" after a woman mentioned in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Ruth, but many mispronounced it as Oprah and the name stuck.
She died this Thanksgiving at the age of 83.
Lee was a lifetime member of the NAACP and her daughter joked at the dinner that Lee had been asking her for years to come to Waukesha County to speak at the Freedom Fund event.
She is survived by her daughters Winfrey and Lee, four grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
At: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/obituaries/2018/11/26/oprahs-mother-vernita-lee-dies-her-milwaukee-home/2113618002/
Vernita Lee, 1935-2018.
Trump adviser admits there's a 'vast right-wing conspiracy' against the Clintons
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, the former deputy campaign manager of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential run admitted that conservatives engaged in a “vast right-wing conspiracy” to undermine the Clintons just as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton charged.
Speaking with host Chris Wallace, David Bossie was describing Trump’s enemies when he made the admission.
“A vast left-wing conspiracy, very similar to what Hillary Clinton called the vast right-wing conspiracy,” he added as host Wallace interrupted him by saying, “Which incidentally didn’t turn out to be true.”
“No, it was true,” Bossie corrected the Fox News host. “Chris, there was an effort by the conservative movement to undermine President Clinton.”
David Bossie, it should be noted, was behind the Citizens United case, which was based on a movie attacking Hillary Clinton.
At: https://www.alternet.org/watch-trump-adviser-stuns-fox-news-chris-wallace-admitting-theres-vast-right-wing-conspiracy-against
Hardly news to Democratic ears. But it's nice to hear it from the horse's mouth once in a while.
Argentine labor union loses two members to police violence
Two workers belonging to Argentina's Confederation of Popular Economy Laborers (CTEP) were killed by police over the last three days. Both were shot from behind.
The first victim, textile worker Rodolfo Orellana, 36, died Thursday during an attempt to seize an empty lot in Aldo Bonzi, a working-class suburb southwest of Buenos Aires, for use as makeshift housing. Orellana was shot point blank through the shoulder blade, the bullet exiting through his face.
The second, horticulturist Marcos Soria, 32, died today while escaping a beating by Córdoba Province Police in Barrio Angelelli, a poor suburb south of Córdoba, the country's second largest city.
Like Orellana, Soria was shot from behind. Neither man was armed.
Five others, who witnessed the deaths as either protesters or bystanders, have been detained and have reportedly not been allowed to contact family, lawyers, or the press.
The CTEP, which represents mostly unregistered and undocumented workers at the lower end of the economic scale, denounced the murders and announced a demonstration for Monday morning in downtown Buenos Aires to demand justice.
"I've long since stopped believing in coincidences," CTEP leader Juan Grabois, a labor lawyer, remarked following news of Soria's death. "This is intolerable, and this government is responsible."
Shot in the dark
These latest deaths are not the first involving victims shot in the back by federal or provincial police since the right-wing Mauricio Macri administration took office three years ago.
Friday marked the anniversary of a similar case involving indigenous rights protester Rafael Nahuel. Nahuel, 22, was shot as he fled a volley of gunfire from the Coast Guard near the estate of British expat Joe Lewis - in whose lakefront home Macri has vacationed as president.
Another victim, artist Santiago Maldonado, 26, was killed nearby by Gendarmerie (federal militarized police) that August in as yet unexplained circumstances. Security Minister Patricia Bullrich later promoted the main suspect.
Since Macri took office, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has expressed concern over the inappropriate and indiscriminate use of force - as well as over the use of indefinite detention against critics and opponents.
At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicargentina.com%2Fnotas%2F201811%2F27526-la-ctep-denuncio-que-asesinaron-a-otro-integrante-de-su-organizacion.html&edit-text=
Murdered CTEP union workers Marcos Soria and Rodolfo Orellana.
As the economy worsens and opposition to the right-wing Macri regime intensifies, incidents of unarmed protesters shot in the back by police have become a growing trend in Argentina.
Maine Supreme Court gives outgoing Gov. LePage a parting gift: a kick in the pants over Medicaid
Outgoing Republican Gov. Paul LePage is getting on everyone's last nerve in Maine, including Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy who gave him a December 5 deadline to implement the Medicaid expansion voters approved in 2017.
She ruled that Maine's health department has "failed and refused to comply" with the law passed by voters, and that LePage's administration should have had rules adopted and implementation started on the law by July of this year. Instead, LePage has continued to force advocates to fight him in court.
Meanwhile, the case proceeded over whether the state could be forced to implement the law when there wasn't dedicated funding for it.
Today's ruling answered that, citing testimony "from a legislative analyst who said the existing Medicaid fund could pay for expansion at least until May 2019." After that, she said, “any deficiency” in funding “must be solved” by lawmakers.
LePage is out the door in January, replaced by Democrat and Gov.-elect Janet Mills, who has vowed to respect the will of voters and get this expansion finally done.
Given that LePage has also been fighting the legislature on this, vetoing several expansion bills, it looks like 70,000 Mainers are going to get coverage next year.
At: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/21/1814522/-Maine-Supreme-Court-gives-outgoing-Gov-LePage-a-parting-gift-a-kick-in-the-pants-over-Medicaid
Outgoing Maine Governor Paul LePage reacts to today's State Supreme Court ruling.
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