"The Great Awokening"

For all the attention paid to the politics of the far right in the Trump era, the biggest shift in American politics is happening somewhere else entirely.

In the past five years, white liberals have moved so far to the left on questions of race and racism that they are now, on these issues, to the left of even the typical black voter.

This change amounts to a “Great Awokening” — comparable in some ways to the enormous religious foment in the white North in the years before the American Civil War. It began roughly with the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, when activists took advantage of ubiquitous digital video and routine use of social media to expose a national audience in a visceral way to what otherwise might have been a routine local news story.

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https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18259865/great-awokening-white-liberals-race-polling-trump-2020

Venezuela's National Constituent Assembly has backed a Supreme Court request to strip Juan Guaido of his immunity, paving the way for possible legal proceedings against the US-backed opposition leader calling for regime change.

The decision to revoke Guaido's immunity –which he has held as the head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly– came a day after Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) urged the ANC lawmakers to take action against the self-proclaimed ‘interim’ president, as he stands accused of inciting violence and engaging in an illicit financial activity.

“Justice is necessary for the guarantee of peace,” the president of the assembly Diosdado Cabello stressed, adding that ANC approves the top court’s request “so that there is justice in our country.”

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https://www.rt.com/news/455402-venezuela-guaido-immunity-stripped/

The claims by Ecuador’s President that Julian Assange has “violated the conditions of his asylum” are linked to WikiLeaks reporting on INA Papers that implicated Lenin Moreno in corruption, the whistleblower website said.

A probe against Moreno has been brought forward by an opposition MP, who received a dossier from an anonymous source with documents allegedly revealing that the president and his family were involved in corruption, perjury and money laundering through an offshore firm.

The harsh statements by the Ecuadorean leader against WikiLeaks’ founder came “after WikiLeaks reported on the existence of the INAPapers offshore corruption scandal wracking his government,” the whistleblowers wrote on Twitter.

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https://www.rt.com/news/455397-assange-asylum-ecuador-moreno/

https://www.rt.com/news/

A Norwegian suspect detained in Russia on espionage charges was gathering crucial intelligence on the Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines, a Russian state prosecutor has said.

Frode Berg, a Norwegian citizen, got in touch with a Russian informant to collect the intelligence, state prosecutor Milana Digayeva told Russian news agencies. The informant, she said, was monitored by Russian secret services.

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https://www.rt.com/news/455364-norwegian-spy-russian-submarines/

A group of ex-spooks is suing the Defense Department and spy agencies for the right to publish books on their careers without being subjected to arbitrary censorship that favors tales depicting the government in a favorable light.

Claiming that the “prepublication review” system inflicted on all employees with security clearances is overly broad, arbitrary and capricious, and flagrantly unconstitutional, amounting to a “far-reaching system of prior restraint,” the American Civil Liberties Union and the Knight First Amendment Institute are suing the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Defense Department on behalf of five former federal employees who argue the byzantine, confusing system has hurt them professionally.

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https://www.rt.com/usa/455408-former-spies-sue-intelligence-agencies/