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HONG KONG Hong Kongs pro-democracy lawmakers said Wednesday they would resign en masse to protest Beijings growing control over the local legislature, one of the last remaining centers of dissent in the Chinese city.

The 15 resignations were set off by a decision earlier in the day out of Beijing that forced the removal of four opposition lawmakers in Hong Kong.

The lawmakers departure comes amid Beijings intensifying efforts to silence Hong Kongs political opposition and to curb a vast protest movement.

Heres a look at key moments in the long showdown between pro-democratic forces and the Beijing-backed authorities who have chipped away at Hong Kongs special status as a bastion for free speech and independent courts.

Extradition bill incites enormous protests.

In May 2019, Hong Kong lawmakers scuffled over a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China, where courts are controlled by the ruling Communist Party. That was followed by huge street protests, with organizers estimating that one million people marched on June 9, 2019, in a city of about 7.5 million.

Three days later, the police fired tear gas at protesters who had blocked a major highway outside the Legislative Council, Hong Kongs legislature. The heavy-handed response prompted another June march that organizers said drew nearly two million people.

On July 21, after protesters vandalized Beijings liaison office in Hong Kong, a mob attacked a group of protesters in a train station. Dozens were injured, including journalists and a pro-democracy legislator. The appearance of police inaction that night would fuel widespread anger toward the Hong Kong police force and suspicion that officers were unwilling to protect antigovernment protesters.

In the months that followed, street clashes became routine between the police and black-clad protesters, who targeted symbols of authority, including local police stations and the citys vaunted subway system.

Even as the arrests intensified, the protest movement claimed a major success: In September 2019, Hong Kongs leader, Carrie Lam, withdrew the extradition bill.

The concession did not end the protests, though, and some began getting more intense. Confrontations on college campuses in mid-November began resembling medieval sieges, with students fortifying their campuses against police charges and sometimes even shooting arrows out toward riot police. The police continued their harsh tactics, using tear gas, batons, water cannons and rubber bullets.

But if Beijing officials were betting that the increase in violence would turn local opinion against the protest movement, they were wrong.

The movement earned a stunning victory in late November as pro-democracy candidates captured most of the seats in local elections for district councils. It was a vivid expression of defiance toward and anger with Beijing and their allies in Hong Kongs leadership.

The pandemic strikes, and elections are put off.

After the pro-democracy movements election wins, a lull in protests set in for several weeks. Then, on New Years Day, demonstrators returned to the streets in full force in a protest that started peacefully but descended into violent clashes with the police.

But even as they marched, many protesters were expressing more trepidation than righteous anger. Mainland and Hong Kong officials had made clear they would not back down, and Hong Kongs economy was showing signs of intense strain from the disruption.

The tone was already shifting, and then the coronavirus pandemic struck. As the new virus began spreading around the world, social-distancing rules and the imperative to stay home took even more steam out of the protest movement.

The Hong Kong government said the pandemic meant the legislative election scheduled for September would need to be postponed by a year. The opposition cried foul and said the government was afraid that establishment candidates would be defeated.

After a year of protests, and opposition election victories, Beijing had had enough.

In late June this year, the mainland government imposed an ominously vague and far-reaching national security bill on Hong Kong that targeted dissent and protest. Calls for Hong Kong to be independent were made illegal, and sabotaging transportation infrastructure, which became increasingly common during the protests, was designated as terrorism. A national security office was set up, and Chinas state security apparatus, which had previously worked covertly in Hong Kong, was allowed to operate in public.

More than two dozen people have since been arrested under the new law. Most prominent among them was Jimmy Lai, founder of the citys biggest pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily.

This week, Beijing officials went even further, granting the Hong Kong government broad powers to remove lawmakers from office who do not show clear loyalty to China.

Within minutes, Hong Kong officials removed the four lawmakers, prompting the other 15 members of the pro-democracy bloc to resign in protest. Their departures will leave the political opposition without a voice in the Hong Kong legislature, which had stood as a symbol of the one country, two systems framework intended to keep Hong Kong semiautonomous until 2047.

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What Led to the Hong Kong Resignations? - The New York Times

WILMINGTON, Del. The teleprompters were set, the patriotic decorations assembled, and onlookers had been waiting for hours. Still, as the light faded behind an oversize American flag and the evening grew chilly, there was no sign of Joseph R. Biden Jr. on the elaborate stage from which his fans hoped he would declare victory.

And so last Friday concluded the way the previous three days had: After hours of anticipation among Mr. Bidens supporters, a flurry of preparations by his team and mounting Democratic hopes for Biden beats Trump headlines, everyone in the vicinity of the Westin hotel in Wilmington, Del., would be left waiting on the result of the presidential campaign, again.

Democracy is sometimes messy, Mr. Biden said last week. It sometimes requires a little patience as well.

Or, perhaps, a lot of patience. Certainly, some of Mr. Bidens earliest supporters had been waiting at least since his first presidential bid, in the 1988 campaign, to see him win the White House, so perhaps they were used to it. But not everyone had been standing by for quite so long, and the lurching uncertainty of what turned into an election week was an especially intense and vivid experience for Democratic staff members, Biden friends and family members, as well as journalists who spent much of the last week in Wilmington, near Mr. Bidens home.

For the second time in three months, international attention turned to this city of around 70,000 along the Delaware River, where the Amtrak station is named for the president-elect and seemingly everyone has a story about running into one member of the Biden clan or another.

Wilmington first readied itself for prime time in the presidential campaign in August. The city hosted the culmination of the largely virtual Democratic National Convention, featuring in-person fireworks and a drive-in rally here after Mr. Biden accepted the nomination, but the event was over as advertised after that.

Last week, the spotlight stretched on as one election night extravaganza turned into four days of waiting before a winner was called.

On the original election night, last Tuesday, longtime Biden fans and neighbors showed up to a drive-in rally hoping to watch him and Senator Kamala Harris declare a landslide victory. They left anxious and edgy as President Trump prevailed in Florida instead, with the presidential race uncalled. Biden staff members who had plainly been expecting a valedictory speech that night were terse with the reporters who chased after them in the subsequent hours.

As the vote count stretched on in key battlegrounds across the country, the days in Wilmington settled into something of a rhythm, much like a day spent waiting in an airport for a long-delayed flight.

In the morning, the Biden team would project confidence and sometimes preview remarks, of some kind, from Mr. Biden. Throughout the day, mask-wearing journalists would scramble after sources who walked through the lobby of the Westin, momentary bursts of physical activity in an environment where leaving the security perimeter even for a sandwich or a mandatory coronavirus test was risky, in case news about a state came in.

Yet if any members of the news media or campaign staff felt nostalgic for the rituals of pre-pandemic political reporting, which often involved waiting around to corner someone in person instead of on a campaign-managed conference call, the bonus days of the election offered glimpses of that era.

At night, everyone waited.

The home base for the festivities was the Chase Center on the Riverfront, an event center near the Christina River or, more specifically, the parking lot outside, which was transformed into the home of a drive-in gathering on election night, and then a second gathering on Saturday night once the race had been called by news organizations. Inside the center itself, Mr. Biden gave occasional remarks, urging patience and projecting calm even as his aides and donors grew increasingly impatient.

The lobby of the Westin next to the Chase Center became ground zero for spotting Biden aides and allies an unfamiliar activity, given the virtual nature of the campaign for many months. In Democratic politics, it quickly became the most famous hotel lobby east of the Des Moines Marriott, traditionally an epicenter of political activity before the Iowa caucuses.

Steve Ricchetti, a longtime adviser, whirled through on Friday evening. Anita Dunn, a senior adviser, and Bob Bauer, the former White House counsel, dipped in and out. Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware and a close Biden ally, regularly held impromptu news conferences. Members of Mr. Bidens team who typically sparred with reporters by phone or on television were swarmed for their latest in-person intel.

The entire area was turned into a fortified compound for election night and the days that followed, with imposing fencing keeping out the public. Outside the security barrier, Biden supporters sat on lawn chairs and at least one father and son slept in a car, hoping to get close enough to glimpse a possible president-elect. The onlookers traded Biden signs and shared doughnuts, and lucked out with unseasonably warm fall weather as the wait stretched on.

There was at least one casualty of election night turning into election week: an enormous American flag that hung from two cranes. After it had ripped and been mended once, it ripped again, and eventually a replacement flag was hoisted in its place.

On Saturday morning, 48 years to the day that Mr. Biden was first elected to the Senate, his sister, Valerie Biden Owens, walked through the Westin lobby.

Its wonderful, she told a small group of reporters as she walked out the door. Its a wonderful thing for us, but its a better thing for America.

A few minutes later, CNN called the race for her brother.

On the streets outside the security barrier, drivers leaned on their horns in celebration, passers-by responded with cheers and the smell of cigar smoke wafted.

And inside the Chase Center parking lot, attendees who had waited days to celebrate Mr. Biden at a drive-in rally were ready to display their joy. They waved glow sticks, affixed Biden signs to their cars and, in at least one case, left a Champagne bottle perched on top of a vehicle.

Mr. Biden opened his own remarks the most important speech of his life by giving the world an introduction to Delaware politics.

Delawareans! he said. I see my buddy Senator Tom Carper down there, and I think Senator Coons is there, and I think the governors around.

Is that Ruth Ann? he asked to cheers, referring to former Gov. Ruth Ann Minner.

At the end of his speech, the sky lit up with another name.

Biden, read the lights in the sky, courtesy of a drone light show. President Elect.

The rest is here:
Democracy Required Kind of a Lot of Patience, Actually - The New York Times

Whether the candidate you supported for president won or lost, we all need to support the person chosen by the majority to lead this nation.

Columns share an author's personal perspective and are often based on facts in the newspaper's reporting.

Election day has passed, and by the time you are reading this, we should know who won the election. Whether the winner is the person you voted for, or his opponent, that person will be the president for the next four years.

I have been saddened at what I have seen posted on social media sites about candidates. I am not talking about candidate postings. I am talking about what my fellow MetroWest residents have been posting about candidates. Where has our sense of decency gone? Did we all forget that old adage that two wrongs do not make a right?

If you want to address an issue with a candidates position, or perhaps a statement on a topic you are interested in, then do that in a civil and factual way. What do you think you are accomplishing when you post memes that are derogatory about a candidate? Do you honestly think some meme is going to change a persons mind about the candidate they support? News flash, it will not.

We are a democracy, and many seem to have forgotten what that means. Let me remind you. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines democracy as government by the people: especially:rule of the majority; and a government in which the supreme power isvestedin the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held freeelections. I ask you to pay particular attention to the statement, rule of the majority.

There are so many issues facing this nation today. How we act on them will impact ours, our children's and our children's children's lives. Climate change, racial and economic equity, and reproductive rights are not new issues. We have been talking about and legislating them for years. We have seen the efforts on those issues sometimes take a course we are not happy with over the last few years. That simply means that those on the opposite side of these issues are now seeing their side lead, just as we saw our side do for a time prior to the last few years. That is what democracy does, gives us the right to choose to change our direction when the majority of the people feel the need for that change.

Let us all start leading by example. You want respect? Then be respectful of all others, even those whose political views we may find reprehensible. You want equality? Then treat every person you engage with as your equal, as someone who has just as much right to their opinion as you have to yours. You want change? Then work to build a coalition of like-minded people to do just that. You want to complain about an elected official? Then do that using facts and statistics.

For many of us here in MetroWest, the path our country has been on for the last few years is not the path we would choose. We need to remember that for the eight years prior to that, some of our friends and neighbors felt as we do now, that we were on the wrong path.

Fundamentally, we have seen our country shift on the ideals that for so long defined who we are. That shift will have consequences. What those consequences will ultimately be remains to be seen. A wise man once told me that nothing lasts forever, not even the bad stuff. So if you see what is happening as bad, hang on. Just like the weather, it will change soon.

The will of the people must be sacrosanct in all we do in order for democracy to work. Without that, we are not a democracy. Whether the candidate you supported for president won or lost, we all need to support the person chosen by the majority to lead this nation. While doing that we should concentrate on working for the betterment of all, and for the United States of America to be the shining light in the darkness that those who founded this nation designed us to be.

Stephanie Deeley is co-president of the League of Women Voters of Framingham.

Excerpt from:
Opinion/Deeley: In a democracy, the will of the people must be sacrosanct - Milford Daily News

By passing judgment on what's too unreliable to be seen, the tech giants are moving down a road that's rarely led anywhere good

Columns share an author's personal perspective and are often based on facts in the newspaper's reporting.

Democrats and Republicans alike missed the point on Wednesday, when members of the Senate Commerce Committee had their last chance before the election to grill the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google. With the GOP on the hunt for partisan bias and the Democrats urging greater efforts to reduce misinformation, both sides ignored some fundamental principles of democracy.

The ostensible purpose of the hearing was to resume the argument over whether to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. In truth, Republicans called the tech CEOs to press them on their handling of a controversial New York Post story that alleges wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Democratic senators responded that the GOP was trying to "bully" the techies.

Well, goodness.

Let's start with a reminder that the social media companies are private enterprises, and even in the run-up to an election one might say especially in the run-up to an election they're clothed with a First Amendment right to curate content on their sites as they like. Yes, absolutely, one might sometimes wish that they acted in a more principled and even-handed manner, but did I happen to mention that they're private enterprises?

It's true that misinformation is rampant online. One is reminded of what Isaac Asimov called Gennerat's Law: "The falsely dramatic drives out the truly dull." There's a lot of the falsely dramatic floating around out there, and people tend to gravitate toward the bits that make the other side look worse.

Nevertheless, the tech giants, by passing judgment on what's too unreliable to be seen, are taking tentative steps down a road that's rarely led anywhere good. Even private restriction, although not matching any of the classic definitions of censorship, betrays a kind of hubris what John Stuart Mill famously derided as a belief in one's own infallibility. Worse, what tends to motivate the removal of bad information is a fear of the danger posed by whatever is being omitted or suppressed a worry about what might happen should the wrong people wind up seeing it.

The deep problem here isn't that the companies often act as though they're wearing partisan blinders. The problem is that even were the work done with perfect political neutrality, the determination to avoid the use of a platform to spread "misinformation" would still display the same basic attitude. When a platform spots a piece it considers suspect and its staff or review partners say, "Nope, can't let people see this," the unspoken message is, "We here at Twinstabook are clever enough to understand what's really going on. The people who rely on our platform aren't."

On issues from climate change to COVID-19, the social media companies often take the view that there are arguments too dangerous to allow their users to see. I agree that climate change poses a dangerous threat and that bad advice about the novel coronavirus could lead to a deadlier spread. But it's an enormous leap from holding a position, even passionately, to believing that others shouldn't be treated as wise enough to make up their own minds.

Yes, the public square is awash in misinformation. It has been ever thus. I'm of the generation trained to believe that the cure for bad information is good information. If people are sometimes persuaded by the false, that's a risk attendant upon the proper practice of democracy.

Nowadays, when we say "democracy" we almost always think of voting. But I cling to a classical vision in which voting is only one piece of what makes democracy valuable. More vital is acknowledging our joint participation, together with co-equals, in a common enterprise of self-governance; an enterprise in which we respect, among other things, the ability of our fellow citizens to decide for themselves which argument to accept. When a point of view is suppressed because those who hold the power to shape dialogue consider it wrong even dangerously wrong we're engaged in the opposite of democracy.

Censorship deprives individuals of the ethical right to decide for themselves what to believe. The fact that a private company has the unquestioned freedom to violate that ethical right doesn't mean that it should.

None of this means that I oppose efforts by social media companies to moderate content. Given the influence of their platforms, I think it's wise and good to edit out personal attacks, harassment, and the like. But the same reason the importance of the platforms forces me to conclude that the companies are mistaken in restricting points of view they consider wrong.

My libertarian soul fears any effort by government to impose on privately owned companies a different set of rules. And I'll grieve for true democracy if the social media giants continue to display so much faith in the ability of their own employees and partners to make decisions about what's true and what isn't and so little faith in the ability of the rest of us to make up our own minds.

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of law at Yale University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. His novels include "The Emperor of Ocean Park," and his latest nonfiction book is "Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster."

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Opinion/Carter: The opposite of democracy - Milford Daily News

The Editorial Board, USA TODAY Published 11:59 a.m. ET Nov. 7, 2020

Our View: Record high voter turnout fired Donald Trump amid a losing war on COVID-19, ousting an incumbent president for the first time since 1992.

All presidential elections are historic in their own way, but 2020 is truly one for the books. The turnout wasstupendous, the highest participation rate in more than a century.The result, a nail-bitingvictory for Joe Biden after days of vote counting, confounded pollsters who hadprojected a bigger Democratic wave.

Biden, who turns 78 on Nov.20, becomes the oldest person elected to the nation's highest office.His running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, becomes the first woman and the first African Americanto be elected vice president.

Biden'swin, tighter in the Electoral College than in the national popular vote, showed that the majority of voters exhausted or enraged by the turmoil ofDonald Trump's first term were looking for a change. For the first time in 28 years, they ousted an incumbent.

They replaced the first president who had no prior public-service experience with a politicianwho has nearly a half-century of it. They replaced a narcissistic, indecent person with one who isknown for being unusually compassionate and caring. They replaced a dividerwith a uniter.

A decentpresident who respects the nation's democratic ideals is exactly what is needed at this point, with a nation split byTrump's reign of chaos and in the throes of a worseningpublic health emergency. "The purpose of our politics, the work of the nation, isnt to fan the flames of conflict but to solve problems," Biden said Friday night, striking an appropriate and healing tone.

Joe Biden speaks to supporters early Nov. 4, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware.(Photo: Paul Sancya/AP)

As the election results showed, this remains a nation deeply dividedalong cultural and political lines. The fact that Trump almost pulled off a stunning upset shows that his brashness continues to resonatewith tens of millions of voters. It will not be easy for him, or them, to accept the loss.

And it will not be easy for Biden to govern. Depending on the results of two January runoff elections in Georgia, Republicans might wellretain a slim majority in the Senate. And even if Democrats reach50 seats there,some Democrats representing red stateswould likely balk at progressive ideas and nomineesvigorously opposed by Republicans.

Perhaps no other Democratic nominee besides Biden could have carried the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, where he was born. And perhaps more than anyone the Democrats could have fielded,Biden can bring his humanity to play in restoring some of the things that have been lost in this country in nearlyfour years.

Part of Biden's appeal is the things he won't do: attack doctors and scientists in the midst of a deadly pandemic;attack the integrity of our democratic institutions;profit off the presidency while withholding his tax returnsfrom the public; traffic in racist fearmongering; send unhinged tweets from the White House at all hours of the day and night.

But Biden perhaps can do more. There is a reason thatattempts to smear him fell flat. TheAmerican people know him well, and he has built up a reservoir of goodwill. He can use that goodwill to the national advantage.

The first order of business is to get America out of the hole it is in from the pandemic, which claimed 1,529 lives on Election Day alone, according to The COVID Tracking Project.Thismeans developing a coherent national strategy to contain the virus until a vaccine is ready, then building public confidence in a vaccination program. It also means another financialrelief bill,if not in a lame-duck congressional sessionthen early next year.

Another highpriorityis to restore America's tattered global reputation byrejoining the Paris climate accord, from which the United States officially withdrewWednesday.

Beyond that, thedetails of a legislative strategy can be worked out over time. For now, in many ways Americajust needs a return to the normality that previous presidents of both parties exhibited.

President-elect Joe Biden's victory representsthe political equivalent of Alka-Seltzer, a product introduced 11 years before hewas born. As the old commercial jingle put it: Oh, what a relief it is.

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Joe Biden, democracy and decency win a presidential election for the ages - USA TODAY