New poll shows Pete Buttigieg surging into top tier in New Hampshire with Biden and Sanders

CNN: Support for Pete Buttigieg jumped 14 points in a new Granite State Poll from the University of New Hampshire, launching him into the first-in-the-nation primary state's top tier of candidates.

The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire's The Survey Center, shows the young mayor of South Bend, Indiana, joining Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Vice President Joe Biden at the top of the increasingly large Democratic presidential pack. Sanders and Biden have generally been dominating the field in national and state polling since the cycle began.

Sanders has been top of the list since last year in New Hampshire in the University of New Hampshire's polling, helped by its close proximity to his home state of Vermont, with three-in-ten likely Democratic primary voters saying they'll vote for him. While Biden usually dominates national surveys, he comes in second in New Hampshire, with 18%.

Buttigieg rounds out the top tier of candidates with 15%.

It's another strong showing in a recent poll for Buttigieg, who has gone from being a mostly unknown Midwestern mayor to one of the spring's hottest names in the Democratic presidential race. Polls from the last two months show the Hoosier is consistently finishing in third in early state polls behind Sanders and Biden.

Following the three top candidates in the University of New Hampshire survey are Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (5%); Kamala Harris of California (4%); Cory Booker of New Jersey (3%); former Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas (3%); Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota (2%); businessman Andrew Yang (2%); and Rep. Tim Ryan (2%). The rest of the field tested at 1% or less.

Expect those numbers to change quite a bit in the coming months of polling: Only 9% of likely Democratic voters in New Hampshire said they've definitely decided who to vote for in the primary, and another 14% said they were leaning toward a candidate. Three-quarters said they still hadn't decided.

When asked what candidates they want to support as an open-ended question (instead of a list of options), Buttigieg and Biden were much closer (11% and 12%, respectively), while Sanders still dominated, meaning that most people named Sanders as their candidate instead of choosing him from a list.

But the list is more similar to being in a voting booth than an open-ended question, which is more reflective of name recognition. A jump in the open-ended question rankings may mean a jump in name recognition for the South Bend mayor more than it means that other candidates have seen a decrease in their support >>>

The Sri Lanka attacks are a sad reminder that the world is not free from terrorism

The Independent: The bombing of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka has left a new black mark on an island which might have thought terrorism was a thing of the past.

So far the death toll from the multiple attacks stands at over 200, though it seems reasonable to suppose that number will rise. Some foreign nationals are among the dead, including five Britons, but the vast majority of victims are local people. The murderous assaults were plainly well planned, and timed to coincide with Easter services. The carnage they have inflicted is unutterably grim.

The Sri Lankan government has concluded that suicide bombers were responsible for most if not all the blasts, while seven people have been arrested. No group has yet claimed liability for the attacks: the motive might be domestic, but the authorities will also be considering whether those who planned such destruction were driven by a broader, international outlook.

It is a decade since the defeat of the Tamil Tigers brought Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war to a brutal conclusion. Violence in recent years has been sporadic, perpetrated predominantly by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority against Muslim targets including mosques and businesses. Just over a year ago the authorities were moved to impose a state of emergency after a number of such attacks, said to have been carried out in revenge for the beating of a Buddhist man by a group of Muslim men.

So, sectarian tensions on the island have not disappeared. It is notable, however, that the targets on this occasion had connections either to the tourism industry or to Christian places of worship. That might point to the kind of extremism born of ideology that pays little heed to national borders.

The response of the Sri Lankan authorities has been quick. The country may not have enjoyed political stability in the last few years – indeed, it was beset by a constitutional crisis only last autumn – but security agencies have acted swiftly in the face of today’s tragedy. A curfew remains in place, with warnings that further attacks cannot be ruled out.

Shutting down access to social media services is less than ideal – but understandable as a means of preventing the circulation of wild rumours. Nevertheless, in a country which has seen its fair share of repression it is to be hoped that civic rights will be restored as soon as reasonably possible.

One thing is certainly clear from recent events, and that is that the world is not free of terrorism. Any thought that the fall of the Isis caliphate in Syria might have that effect was always likely to be facile – partly because the extreme beliefs which gave rise to that particular group are not confined to it; but also because there are plenty of other extreme views which can (and do) manifest themselves in violence.

We have seen that in recent days in Northern Ireland, where the emergence of the New IRA – and the murder of Lyra McKee – is a bleak reminder of historic woes. We have seen it too on the British mainland, where Brexit – and the factors which led us here in the first place – have fuelled the ire of many on the political right.

The attacks on Muslim worshippers in New Zealand last month were a shocking demonstration of where far-right extremism can lead – as if we didn’t already know. Islamist terror remains a threat too, while the example of Myanmar is proof that sectarian violence is not confined only to the Abrahamic religions.

Whoever turns out to be responsible for the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka, it is crucial that extremism in all its forms be challenged and rooted out. Tit for tat violence on this scale should be avoided at all costs. And in the meantime, the world yet again mourns victims of terror who had done no wrong.

Life is not a bucket list

Altoona Mirror: Many people draft a so-called “bucket list” or a list of things they wish to accomplish before they die.

The interesting thing about a bucket list is not so much what is in it but how the list changes with age. If you are a senior citizen and just working on your bucket list, chances are it is pretty well suited for your age and condition. However, if you made your list while still in your 20s and are still working on it now as a senior citizen, my guess is things have changed quite a bit.

It is not uncommon at age 24 to want to jump out of an airplane, be a stunt driver in an auto daredevil show, climb a mountain or get shot out of a cannon in a circus. At 78, things like that seldom remain a high priority and have been replaced with a desire to simply get out of bed in the morning and be able to stand up straight without finding a new pain somewhere in your body.

I can remember as a young man dancing until the sun came up on New Year’s Eve. Today, if I don’t fall asleep by 10 p.m. in my family room watching TV, I consider it a pretty racy evening.

I remember when in my early 30s thinking about actually running for President of the United States. Not only did I fail to accomplish that goal, but I have come to realize that today I seem to be the only person who is not running for president. In self-defense, I wanted to run for office to hopefully bring some common sense to the position, but today the focus of those seeking that office seems to be on outlawing common sense, so I think I missed my chance.

Having a bucket list is fine but don’t make the mistake of focusing so hard on what you might want to do that you don’t see the things right in front of you that you can do.

Personally, I don’t have a list tucked away. I try to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. I am not a group person and much prefer to share my experiences alone or with my wife. I remember very well when I led her through what seemed like a burnt forest and mounds of lava, up the side of a mountain where we were able to peer through the fissure cracks in the hard-crusted ground to see the fire and feel the heat at the base of a volcano. I promised myself I would return during an eruption, but while that opportunity never presented itself, I treasure the time I did have in the presence of that earthly beast.

Being a hunter and an outdoors person, I love pure unspoiled nature and had the exciting opportunity to be all alone and get within 6 yards of a mature bull elk in the Idaho wilderness. I can’t imagine a greater thrill.

My wife and I skied down the mountains of Utah in fresh crisp snows as the sun painted the western sky a mixture bright reds, pinks and blues. What could be more serene or beautiful?

While spending time in unknown waters on a fishing trip, we went over a waterfall in a canoe and survived, (not on my bucket list and not highly recommended, but etched in our memories all the same).

The best things in my life have involved other people. People I have met by accident and sometimes for only a moment who had some impact on my attitude, my thoughts, my values or my life. People who often opened a door for me to a different view of life through their actions or words. There were not many, maybe less than a dozen over a lifetime, but each valuable in their own right. What a waste it would have been if I had been so busy planning what I wanted to do next that I missed their interaction.

In order to “give back,” I try to keep my eyes open for people I can help, provide support for or inspire to do better for themselves and others, hopefully making the world a better place.

Life itself is the greatest bucket list. Life happens every day; opportunities abound if you only open your eyes to see them.

Adventure is around every corner. It can be skin diving among the fish off the coast of South America or it can be eating a hoagie and wetting a fishing line at Canoe Creek State Park. Adventure, beauty and memories are all around us wherever we are. We all make the mistake of being so busy living we forget to be alive.

John Kasun writes from his home in Duncansville where he is constantly on the lookout for an erupting volcano while he keeps his eyes peeled for an unexpected waterfall. 

The art of revolution: What went right in Sudan and Algeria

by Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera senior political analyst

The Daily Trust: Sudan and Algeria can easily evoke memories of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions of 2010 and 2011. Like their neighbours, Sudanese and Algerian protesters managed to overthrow their autocratic leaders after decades of rule, in a matter of months, and without a single shot fired.

Marching, chanting, resisting and daring, the people of Sudan and Algeria pressed on with their calls for freedom and democracy until they were able to disarm the old guard – politicians and generals alike – and force them to acquiesce to their initial demands.
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It may still be too early to judge, but so far it looks like these latecomers have learned important lessons from Arab as well as other revolutions. In fact, Sudan and Algeria may well be able to deter the counter-revolution and avert the dangers of civil war. The signs are hopeful.

So far, revolutionaries in Sudan and Algeria are still firmly on the path of non-violence, a la Tunisia and Egypt.
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Peaceful protest has proven the least costly and the most constructive among all possible strategies and scenarios, not only to confront repression, but also to pave the way for democracy. Indeed, non-violent revolutions are most capable of splitting the regime’s rank and file and straining its legitimacy.

If history is any guide, violent revolts tend to coalesce and galvanise a dictatorship’s base, making it harder to bring down. They also produce alternative leadership that is no less violent than the repressive regimes they aim to overthrow.

But for civil disobedience, boycott, demonstrations and other forms of non-violent strategies to work, they require popular mobilisation. In Algeria and Sudan, people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds, young and old, women and men, secular and religious came together in their demand for freedom and better living.

Such inclusion of different elements of society prevents the regime from taking advantage of any potential splits or feelings of alienation, as has happened in both Syria and Egypt, in order to discredit the revolution and justify repression against its supporters.

Condemning or alienating those middle- and low-ranking bureaucrats or government employees, including teachers and policemen, is counterproductive and harmful; attracting and incorporating them in the revolution can contribute to its potential success.

A greater popular mobilisation behind the revolution ensures greater participation in the ensuing democratic process, which guarantees its long-term consolidation.

That may take time, lots of time. A revolution is a thrilling, liberating rush of social and political adrenaline, but even with broad support, its long-term success depends on consistency and perseverance. The pressure can’t ease just because the despot is gone. What must come next is a slow, tedious, and deliberate process of organisation, negotiation and reconciliation.

Without it, any revolution ends in the dustbins of history.

For, if people return home to business-as-usual after the fall of an autocrat, they allow the old regime to reconstitute itself in one form or another.

Changing an autocrat might be hard; changing the system behind him is even harder. The important question for all revolutions is not who but what comes after.

The Algerian and Sudanese people seem well aware of that. They celebrated the bloodless ouster of Bouteflika and al-Bashir, but they did so knowing well that this was only the beginning of a very long and fraught process.

The swift introduction of substitute leaders from within the old system in both countries underlined the need for more comprehensive thinking about the way forward.

In both Algeria and Sudan, the protesters know they need to get the military on their side and on their terms, like in Tunisia, in order to avoid an Egypt-like scenario.

Tunisia’s experience also teaches that protests must go on until a new transparent system of accountability is in place. This means knowing not only whom you oppose, but also what you want both in the short and long term. It’s rather easy to be against corrupt repressive leaders, but much harder to articulate and implement a vision for a better future.

This brings us to the old chicken-and-egg riddle: What comes first, democracy or democrats? For how is it possible to nurture democracy without democrats, or democrats without democracy?

The simple answer is: They come in tandem. It takes experience and courage to foster them.

Democracy is no panacea. It is a lot of work and results can be mixed, sometimes undemocratic, even after decades and centuries of democratic rule. Just look at the rise of fascist anti-democratic right-wing parties in a number of leading democracies.

And in the Arab world, liberal democracy, the truest form of democracy, may indeed be seen as a controversial idea or a foreign import by traditional and conservative portions of society.

All of this means that there is a need for open debate, for trial and error, which takes time – lots of time. And that is why priority needs to be given to a gradual transition over immediate elections – something the revolutionaries of both Sudan and Algeria seem to insist on.

They demand a transition into civilian, not military rule – one that prepares the political and legal frameworks to hold free and fair elections.

Rushing to the polls immediately is certain to privilege older, more organised parties and fracture the newly formed groups driving the revolution, as they compete for power. Egypt is a good example of how the ancien regime can exploit post-election tensions between liberal secularist and conservative Islamists to mount a coup d’etat against an elected president.

This does not mean open-ended transition that drags on endlessly >>>

Pelosi, Schumer call for Mueller to testify

CNN: Washington (CNN)House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, outraged over the Trump administration's rollout of special counsel Robert Mueller's report, called on Thursday for Mueller to publicly testify before Congress.

"Attorney General (Bill) Barr's regrettably partisan handling of the Mueller report, including his slanted March 24th summary letter, his irresponsible testimony before Congress last week, and his indefensible plan to spin the report in a press conference later this morning — hours before he allows the public or Congress to see it — have resulted in a crisis of confidence in his independence and impartiality," Pelosi and Schumer said in a statement Thursday morning.

Democrats have slammed what they say are orchestrated attempts by the Trump administration to control the narrative surrounding the report's release.

Barr is expected Thursday to release a redacted version of Mueller's report detailing the findings of the special counsel investigation. But before the report is first released to Congress, the attorney general will hold a press conference, and President Donald Trump has suggested he may hold a press conference of his own.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that there had been numerous conversations between the White House and the Justice Department ahead of the release of the Mueller report.

Five House Democratic committee chairs demanded that Barr cancel his press conference scheduled for 9:30 a.m. ET Thursday, calling it "unnecessary and inappropriate," and objected to the Justice Department reportedly briefing the White House on Mueller's work.

"With the Special Counsel's fact-gathering work concluded, it is now Congress' responsibility to assess the findings and evidence and proceed accordingly," the lawmakers said in a joint statement Wednesday >>>

A Good Democracy Is Hard to Find

Foreign Policy: Democracy’s global travails continue to mount. What looked as recently as a decade ago to be real democratic progress in countries as diverse as Brazil, Hungary, South Africa, and Turkey has been either reversed by illiberal strongmen or unsettled by revelations of systemic corruption. Some of the most stirring recent political openings, such as those in Egypt and Myanmar, have slammed shut. The United States and several long-standing democracies in western Europe are struggling with serious democratic challenges, especially the rise of illiberal populist forces. And the two most significant nondemocratic powers, China and Russia, are strutting on the global stage.

Faced with this dispiriting state of affairs, worried observers fret over three basic questions: Why is this democratic recession happening? How bad is it? And where is it heading?

This is the backdrop for the political scientist Sheri Berman’s substantial new history of democracy in Europe. Synthesizing several decades of scholarship, Berman throws long and deep, aiming both to illuminate the causes and significance of Europe’s current democratic woes and to set realistic expectations about democracy’s chances in the many countries that have tried in recent decades to slip authoritarianism’s grip. Readers will come away from Berman’s account with useful insights on the vital question of why democracy sometimes succeeds but often does not. But it does not explicitly grapple with a further crucial question: As events push Western democracy into uncharted waters, how much can democracy’s past reveal about its future?

THE LONG ROAD TO DEMOCRACY

Berman starts her story in the seventeenth century and follows it through the defining events of modern European political history. She focuses on the large western European democracies—France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom—with two chapters on eastern Europe to round out the account. (The smaller countries of western Europe and those of northern Europe are largely absent.) The longitudinal sweep of her narrative is daunting. She tours the French Revolution, the revolutions of 1848, the battle over the Corn Laws, German and Italian unification, the rise and fall of fascism, the Spanish Civil War, the Marshall Plan, the postwar successes of western Europe, and the failures of communism. In doing so, she manages to convey the essential elements without getting lost in the details, analyzing political actors and their doings while keeping a constant eye on underlying economic and societal trends. Her analysis mostly persuades, although it rarely surprises, conforming as it does to conventional accounts.

Berman’s central argument is that countries usually achieve liberal democracy only after a long series of setbacks, conflicts, and failures. France offers a case in point. After the early glory of the French Revolution, the country followed an exceptionally bumpy path. A long slog of successive troubled republics consolidated into liberal democracy only after World War II. Germany had to endure its own punishing odyssey before solidifying as a remarkably stable and productive democracy. Berman accounts for the United Kingdom’s exceptionally smooth transition from aristocracy to democracy by pointing to the willingness of the country’s landowning elites to cede power peacefully, albeit slowly and grudgingly.

As Berman makes clear, the combination of free and fair elections, the rule of law, and widespread respect for democratic institutions that is today termed “liberal democracy” is a recent and rare achievement. From the late eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, European democratic strivings usually produced illiberal or electoral democracies, such as the short-lived Second French Republic (which lasted from 1848 to 1852), in which large numbers of citizens were disenfranchised or governments offered only weak protections for political and civil liberties. It was only in the second half of the twentieth century that liberal democracy became common. Berman pushes hard on this point and insists on the careful use of the term “liberal democracy,” emphasizing that it does not apply to the earlier phases of European democratic life. American analysts would do well to adopt this conceptual rigor, given their habit of blithely applying the same term, “democracy,” to the system of governance maintained by the United States today and to the one that the country maintained in the nineteenth century, which excluded women, African Americans, and other groups from full citizenship.

If liberal democracy is recent and exceptional, what makes it possible? Despite popular fascination with political leaders, the process that produces liberal democracy is not, in Berman’s view, principally the work of great men and women. It is more fundamentally the result of deep economic and societal transformations. In order for liberal democracy to emerge, countries have had to forge national unity and break up—or grow out of—strong concentrations of economic power. War often served as the handmaiden of national unity in Eurpe. Many of the necessary economic transformations were also violent, given the reluctance of landed elites to relinquish power >>>

THOMAS CAROTHERS is Senior Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Notre Dame fire: Macron pledges to rebuild devastated Paris cathedral 

The Guardian: A fire that devastated Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of Paris was brought under control by firefighters in the early hours of Tuesday morning, though officials warned there were still residual fires to put out.

Thousands of Parisians watched in horror from behind police cordons as a ferocious blaze devastated Notre Dame Cathedral on Monday night, destroying its spire and a large part of the roof.

An investigation has been opened by the prosecutor’s office, but police said it began accidentally and may be linked to building work at the cathedral. The 850-year-old gothic masterpiece had been undergoing restoration work.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, attended the scene and later gave a speech in which he vowed that the cathedral would be rebuilt, as fire crews said the landmark’s rectangular bell towers and structure of the building had been saved.

Macron said “the worst had been avoided” thanks to hundreds of brave firefighters who battled for hours and who would continue working through the night. One firefighter was severely injured but no other casualties were reported >>>

The expected redactions in the Mueller report, explained

Vox: Sorry, but you probably won’t get to read the entire report by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Here’s why: The document, which will detail the findings of his investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election — including the question of whether President Donald Trump tried to obstruct justice during the investigation — will be partially redacted.

That’s upsetting for both lawmakers and members of the public who desperately want to see the full report, which could come out as early as this week. But Attorney General William Barr says he plans to redact four types of information in the report: grand jury material, sensitive intelligence, matters that could affect ongoing investigations, and infringements on the privacy rights of “peripheral third parties.”

It’s also possible that Trump will try to assert executive privilege to block the release of some information, while Democrats and others will likely push to minimize the number and nature of any redactions.

In other words, redactions will likely prove a major sticking point between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats after the long-awaited Mueller report comes out.

So ahead of the Mueller report’s release, it’s worth taking a moment to discuss what redactions are, how Barr plans to use them in the Mueller report, and the controversy they’re likely to spark.

There’s a natural tension between what the government wants to keep secret and what the public wants to see. But any administration has an obligation to make as much information available as it legally and safely can.

So what to do? Redact stuff.

“A redaction is sort of a compromise between withholding a document entirely versus releasing the full document,” former White House lawyer Andy Wright told me. “It’s a half measure.”

You may have seen redactions before. They’re the (frankly annoying) black or white bars covering sensitive information — such as someone’s email or name — in the middle of a sentence, or even an entire paragraph or page >>>

Whatever you think of Julian Assange, his extradition to the US must be opposed 
Extraditing the founder of WikiLeaks is an attempt by the US to intimidate anyone who exposes its crimes 

By Owen Jones

The Guardian: States that commit crimes in foreign lands depend on at least passive acquiescence. This is achieved in a number of ways. One is the “othering” of the victims: the stripping away of their humanity, because if you imagined them to be people like your own children or your neighbours, their suffering and deaths would be intolerable. Another approach is to portray opponents of foreign aggression as traitors, or in league with hostile powers. And another strategy is to cover up the consequences of foreign wars, to ensure that the populace is kept intentionally unaware of the acts committed in their name.

This is what the attempted extradition of Julian Assange to the US is about. Back in 2010, the then US soldier Chelsea Manning downloaded hundreds of thousands of classified documents relating to US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US state department cables, and inmates imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. Assange’s alleged role consists of helping Manning crack an encrypted password to gain access to the US defense department computer network.

It is Manning who is the true hero of this story: last month, she was arrested for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks, placed in solitary confinement for four weeks, and now remains imprisoned. We must demand her freedom.

These leaks revealed some of the horrors of the post-9/11 wars. One showed a US aircrew laughing after slaughtering a dozen innocent people, including two Iraqi employees of Reuters, after dishonestly alleging to have encountered a firefight. Other files revealed how US-led forces killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, their deaths otherwise airbrushed out of existence. Another cable, which exposed corruption and scandals in the court of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the western-backed then-dictator of Tunisia, helped fuel protests, which toppled him.

Assange does have a case to answer: but it is not this. It is widely circulating around the internet that the case of a Swedish woman who alleged rape has been kicked out by authorities. This is profoundly misleading: in 2017, prosecutors concluded that “at this point, all possibilities to conduct the investigation are exhausted”, that because Assange was holed up in Ecuador’s embassy, and Ecuador would not cooperate, the investigation had to be discontinued, but could be resumed if Assange “makes himself available”.

Separate allegations of sexual assault, made by a second Swedish woman, were dropped by Swedish authorities in 2015 after expiring under the statute of limitations. You cannot be a progressive if your response to someone making an accusation of rape is to dismiss her simply because you admire the man who is accused – worse, to portray a woman as a lying, Machiavellian schemer trying to bring down a great man is misogyny. If the case is resumed, Assange must answer the accusation in Sweden without the threat of extradition to the US.