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We should have known better. When the Brexit party was launched in a metal workshop just outside Coventry back in April, it looked like we were seeing a new Nigel Farage. A perma-tanned, more professional, healthier version of the boozy chancer who had hot-footed into the embrace of Donald Trump and the US alt-right chatshow circuit after leading Ukip into oblivion. The louder bigots and racists appeared to have been sidelined, to be replaced by leavers from the left and right who felt disenfranchised by the traditional parties and were ready to swear allegiance to King Nigel instead.

And when the Brexit party topped the polls in the European elections, helping to steer the Conservatives further to the right and toppling Theresa May in the process, it seemed that this time Farage might be here to stay. At least for a while. He was the one man who had the clout to keep the Tories even when led by someone as slippery as Boris Johnson honest in his tireless pursuit of a hard and damaging Brexit. A power behind the throne.

Yet we and his followers had all forgotten just one thing. The man himself. Because Nigels unique talent is to destroy everything he creates. He craves power but is unable to delegate or share it. People who disagree with him are cast out and crushed. Like Trump and Boris, he is a political narcissist who can see no further than his own reflection. He has no friends or equals. Only willing acolytes who are, from time to time, granted a slot as his warm-up act. Nigel makes the rules and Nigel changes them.

It was Nigel who chose not to stand as an MP in this election. Why bother when theres so much more money to be made elsewhere? It was Nigel who arbitrarily decided to stand down 317 Brexit party candidates, all of whom had paid 100 for the privilege, in Tory held seats. It was Nigel who oversaw his party plummet in the polls from 17% to 4%. It was Nigel who turned Nigel and the Nigel party into an irrelevance.

And now it was slowly dawning on some of his most faithful retainers that they had been had. No one would call Brexit MEPs Lance Forman, Lucy Harris, John Longworth and Annunziata Rees-Mogg the brightest kids on the block, but even they had finally decided to call it a day by holding a central London press conference in which they would call on any Brexit party supporters to vote Tory instead.

The spirit of Nigel lives on, though. So it was entirely fitting that the press conference was a total shitshow. First it was delayed for 20 minutes because a Brexit party spokesman chose to have a rival press conference denouncing the breakaway four in an adjacent room.

Youre all slags, shouted the spokesman.

Youre the slag, the scabs yelled back.

Who are you calling a slag, slags.

We could have been back in the Ukip days. Euphoric recall and all that. A member of the press offered to get both sides together for a spot of mediation and couples counselling, but no one could agree on where it should take place. So it was left to the not-nice-but-dim four to cope as best they could. As in badly. There really was no explaining why they were now backing Boriss Brexit deal that they had all described as a crock of a shit a few weeks ago. There again, they had all found a smidgeon of self-worth in finally finding a voice and standing up to Nigel, so I guess it was worth it. Baby steps and all that. Coherence might come later.

None of which was quite how Farage had envisaged his TV swansong in his interview with Andrew Neil. Then Nigels Last Stand was probably never going to end well, even if he hadnt self-immolated over the preceding six weeks. After all the one rule of an Andrew Neil interview is that Andrew Neil always wins. End of.

Youve barely got a walk-on part in this election, Neil said, his eyes barely open. Youre going nowhere. From the off, it sounded as if he was a bit bored. As if this really wasnt a good use of half an hour of his time. Several times he had to check his pulse to reassure himself he was actually still alive. He was like a cat toying with a limbless mouse. Disappointed not to be getting any real pushback, and only going through the motions out of professional instinct.

Not that Neil was acting out of pity. He doesnt do that. He cant access that emotion. Just that it was all too easy. Teasing Nigel over his numerous mis-steps, his idiotic immigration policies, Islamophobia, his stated desire to privatise the NHS and his apparent support for Donald Trumps right to talk about sexually assaulting whoever he liked. Youre going to end up with no MPs and could be remembered as the man who thwarted Brexit, he yawned. Nigel could do little but contradict himself, admit there was nothing he could do about Boris betraying Brexit and scarper out of the studio in search of a large Scotch and a revolver. Never to be seen again.

Neil only really came alive once Nigel had left. Then he addressed the camera and listed the questions of trust, propriety, Brexit and the NHS that he would like to ask Johnson if only the prime minister had the guts to be interviewed. Now that would be worth Neils time. Over in Downing Street, Boris quietly projectile vomited. It was the first honest thing he had done in weeks.

John Craces new book, Decline and Fail: Read in Case of Political Apocalypse, is published by Guardian Faber. To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 15, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of 1.99.

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A bad day for Farage as Brexit party MEPs realise they've been had - The Guardian

This editorial represents the opinion of the Dispatch editorial board, which includes the publisher, editor, editorial page editor and editorial writers. Editorials, like opinion columns, represent a particular viewpoint and are not to be confused with news stories.

Immigration has been President Donald Trumps signature issue since the start of his candidacy in 2015, so its not surprising that, of all the institutions that have been damaged and twisted by this toxic presidency, the U.S. immigration system might be the worst hit.

Thats not to say that it was in good shape before Trump. For decades, Congress has been unable to agree on how to effectively and humanely manage the ceaseless flow of people seeking better lives in the United States.

But the radical transformation of priorities and tactics under the 45th president has been truly shocking. And, disturbingly, the worst of it seems to be driven by the malignant views of one adviser: White House aide Stephen Miller, said to be obsessed with reducing immigration and known to favor the writings of white supremacists.

Millers influence has built a worse-than-ever backlog in U.S. Immigration Court. TRAC, a nonpartisan federal data research center at Syracuse University, reported recently that the backlog has nearly doubled since Trump took office and is now at nearly 1.1 million cases. In Ohio, 12,851 cases are pending, up from 6,184 in 2016.

Immigration courts have been underfunded for decades. Congress and presidents of both parties share blame for ramping up immigration enforcement spending far more than courts and thus feeding the backlog. But two Trump administration moves, besides being wrongheaded, have made things far worse.

In his first days in office, Trump declared that deportation actions no longer would be focused on illegal immigrants who have committed crimes; now, all those in the country illegally are of equal priority for deportation. It is both cruel and dangerous, not only ripping apart families who are living peacefully and productively but also spending scarce resources that should be focused on deporting bad guys instead upending innocent lives.

In May 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions Millers onetime boss decreed that immigration judges no longer can dismiss cases administratively and ordered that thousands of previously closed cases be reopened.

Besides this maladministration, Miller reportedly was the driving force behind the decision to separate immigrant children from their parents at the border Trumps most outrageous immigration action to date. Now, Miller is determined to enact a rule that would deny permanent resident status to legal immigrants who have received any public benefits such as food stamps, Medicaid and Section 8 housing vouchers or who are deemed likely to ever need such help.

The rule has been blocked temporarily by a federal judge, who called it repugnant to the American Dream and said the administration offered no good reason for why the change is necessary.

Recently, emails from Miller, made public by a former editor of the alt-right website Breitbart, illustrate his seeming obsession with immigration, especially by nonwhites, as a threat to America. He spoke admiringly of President Calvin Coolidge for introducing discriminatory national-origin quotas that were aimed at keeping out Italians and Poles and now are viewed as bigoted.

There is plenty to debate about how to manage immigration, but Millers dark vision of a fearful fortress, closed to all but the already fortunate, is not the idea of America that most Americans cherish.

We can only hope that the better vision of America as a refuge from oppression survives until the Trump administration is history.

Continued here:
Editorial: America is not the bigoted fortress of Stephen Millers vision - The Columbus Dispatch

Richard Collins III, left, and Sean UrbanskiPhoto: U.S. Army, University of Maryland Police Department (AP, File)

Jury selection will begin today in the trial of Sean Urbanski, the Maryland man accused of fatally stabbing Bowie State University student Richard Collins III at a bus stop on the University of Maryland campus two years ago. The 23-year-old Collins was a freshly-commissioned U.S. Army lieutenant just days away from graduating.

Urbanski will be tried for first-degree murder and a state hate crime charge, which could bring him life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted. As WJZ-TV reports, the trial for the high-profile crime has already been delayed four times.

What wont be contested at the trial is the fact that Urbanski killed Collins on May 20, 2017. What prosecutors will try to prove in the next two weeks is that Urbanski killed Collins because he was black.

From the Washington Post:

The surveillance video of the stabbing is clear, according to prosecutors: Sean Urbanski stands in the shadows before approaching a group of three college students at a University of Maryland bus stop. He walks past another man, who, like Urbanski, is white. He bypasses an Asian woman. And then he confronts the only black person in the group.

To persuade a jury, prosecutors will point to the fact that he singled out the sole black person at the bus stop that night, as well as to the contents of his phone, which they say contains evidence of his racist beliefsracist memes, as well as posts on the now-deleted Facebook group Alt-Reicht: Nation.

Between Christmas Day 2016 and April 18, 2017, Urbanski interacted with content that included the image of a noose and a gun or with material that referred to black DNA or racist jokes, according to a judges description of the images detailed at a pretrial hearing for Urbanski.

Prosecutors are also expected to present 911 calls from eyewitnesses, who are also scheduled to testify, and recordings of more than a dozen phone calls Urbanski made from jail, WTOP reports.

Urbanskis defense team, meanwhile, says their client was out-of-his-mind drunk when he stabbed Collins, the Post reports: Eight hours after he was arrested in Collinss slaying, his attorneys said, Urbanski showed a blood alcohol concentration of .10, higher than the legal limit in Maryland of .08.

They also say Urbanski was never a member of the alt-right. Not only was Alt-Reicht not officially affiliated with any far-right groups, they add that the Facebook group was intended to be satirical.

Urbanskis fate will likely rely on what a jury thinks of the material on his phone, and whether they will be willing to dismiss months worth of content and exchanges that suggest Urbanski is racist. According to WTOP, the FBI declined to press charges against Urbanski for a federal hate crime, deeming there wasnt enough evidence to warrant the charges (the maximum sentence for a federal hate crime is the death penalty). Urbanskis defense did try to offer a plea deal for second-degree murder, but prosecutors held firm on the first-degree charge.

Jurors will be allowed to consider finding Urbanski guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter. Opening arguments are slated to begin Wednesday.

The rest is here:
Hate-Crime Trial Begins in Killing of Black Student on University of Maryland Campus - The Root

The Borgias: Power and Depravity in Renaissance Italy. By Paul Strathern. (Tantor, unabridged, 11 hours.)

At the center of Paul Stratherns nimble biography of this clan of power-hungry miscreants is Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI from 1492 to his death in 1503; his son Cesare, fratricidal cardinal turned syphilitic military commander; and daughter, Lucrezia, canny, capable power player and pawn. Vice chancellor to five popes before becoming pontiff himself, Rodrigo strove for a united Italy governed by a hereditary Borgia papacy. To this end, he employed diplomatic cunning, military aggression, assassination, treachery and the strategic marriages of his children. Lucrezias first husband was dispatched as impotent; the second was poisoned, then strangled; the third, though cuckolded, survived. Meanwhile, Cesare, a duplicitous, self-confident braggart, probably had a hand in his brother Juans murder and led the military campaigns to bring Italys city states under papal control. His preferred tactic: betrayal of his allies. This complex, though comprehensible, history a tale of deceit, cruelty, murder, lechery and geopolitical ambition is narrated at a clear, brisk pace by Julian Elfer, who gives special pleasure in the musical grace of his Italian pronunciation.

The Singapore Grip. By J.G. Farrell. (Random House Audio, unabridged, 25 hours)

More than 40 years after its print publication, the mordantly comic final volume of J.G. Farrells Empire Trilogy, is finally available. Set on the eve of the Japanese invasion of the British colony of Singapore in 1942, The Singapore Grip centers on Walter Blackett, a rubber plantation owner who is intent on celebrating his firms jubilee even as all hell is breaking loose in Southeast Asia. A ruthless businessman, Blackett takes the stringencies of making a profit as natural law and is astounded as his workforce abandons him. Narrator Mike Grady conveys the novels devastating irony and ghoulish surreality with dry perfection. He gives Blackett the blunt Midlands accent of the hard-nosed capitalist and provides subtly appropriate voices for the novels many other characters. Among them are Blacketts feckless, dissolute son, Monty, who is scheming to avoid military service; his daughter, Joan, a human viper; and the Human Condition, an elderly, mangy spaniel with his own preoccupations. In this production we have the union of a great narrator and a superb novel.

Elevator Pitch. By Linwood Barclay. (HarperAudio, unabridged, 13 hours)

Linwood Barclay takes one of the more frustrating aspects of modern city life waiting for the elevator in a high-rise building and turns it into horror and white-knuckle suspense. Suddenly the elevators in Manhattan seem to have minds of their own, whizzing up and down, stalling between floors, plummeting in free fall through the shaft, and killing people in a most gruesome way. Its a big headache for Mayor Richard Headley. Should he order the shutdown of this vertical citys 60,000-plus elevators? A fingerless, mangled-face corpse becomes a piece in the puzzle. A taxi explodes. An alt-right group may be implicated. Journalist Barbara Matheson begins her own investigations, as do police officers Jerry Bourque and Lois Delgado. Tense mother-daughter and father-son drama bubbles up. Johnathan McClain narrates the novel in a hard-edge, big-city voice deftly adjusted to capture men and women, New Yorkers and out-of-towners. The novels slightly improbable denouement may reassure us that this couldnt actually happen. Probably.

Katherine A. Powers, a Minnesota native, reviews books for the Wall Street Journal, the Star Tribune and elsewhere. She writes this column for the Washington Post.

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AUDIOBOOKS: The sordid tale of the Borgias and other great audiobooks for your playlist - Minneapolis Star Tribune

In an op-ed for The Washington Post this Monday, Jennifer Rubin highlighted President Trumps recent speech before the far-rightIsraeli American Council, where he unwittingly belted out various antisemitic tropes before the largely Jewish audience.

You have people Jewish people and they are great people and they dont love Israel enough, Trump said a comment that Rubin says uses American Jews as whipping boys for insufficient loyalty to him and his policies.

Rubin then cited another quote from Trumps speech:

Youre not going to vote for the wealth tax. Lets take 100 percent of your wealth away. No, no. Even if you dont like me and some of you dont; some of you, I dont like at all, actually and youre going to be my biggest supporters because youll be out of business in about 15 minutes, Trump said, which, according to Rubin, is an age-old antisemitic trope that claims all Jews are rich and only care about money.

According to Rubin, Trumps rhetoric when it comes to US Jews and Israel achieves two aims: to cater to the ears of evangelical Christians and to send a dog whistle to the alt-right who see in Trump confirmation of their negative stereotypes about Jews.

Despite being admonished by various Jewish leaders, Trump will not stop, Rubin writes.

He continues to single out Jewish lawmakers (e.g., House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) is shifty) and his Republican Party routinely invokes Jewish billionaire George Soros as a maniacal force behind progressive Democrats, writes Rubin, adding that Trumps antisemitism is just another reflection of todays Republican Party.

a cesspool of right-wing nationalist rhetoric, anti-Semitic tropes that find favor in certain circles (since America is a white, Christian nation in their eyes, Jews are outsiders), as well as anti-immigrant screeds and conspiracy theories.

Read her full piece over at The Washington Post.

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then let us make a small request. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism and were investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnstons DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. Weve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. Weve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. We need your support to do what we do.

Raw Story is independent. You wont find mainstream media bias here. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.

We need your support to keep producing quality journalism and deepen our investigative reporting. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.

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Trump has turned Jews into his whipping boys and proven the GOP is now a cesspool: conservative columnist - Raw Story