Also on today’s menu:
‘Nowhere To Go Other Than Christie’
Another 'Pretendian' Or Not?
Israeli Forces Strike Shifa Hospital
The US House of Representatives passed yet another stopgap funding plan on November 14, averting a government shutdown by a 336-95 vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said he and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) agree that the Senate now must pass the bill quickly.
It was the first major legislative test for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) after former speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted following the passage of a similar short-term funding bill in late September. Fellow GOP lawmakers criticized Johnson for supporting the compromise (93 House Republicans voted against the bill which had the support of all but two House Democrats), but Johnson argued, “We’re not surrendering; we’re fighting. But you have to be wise about choosing the fights. You’ve got to fight fights that you can win, and we’re going to, and you’re going to see this House majority stand together on our principles.”
The 32-page short-term spending bill funds part of the federal government through January 19 and the remainder through February 2, giving Congress and the White House more time to negotiate full-year spending bills.
‘Nowhere To Go Other Than Christie’
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is pinning his hopes for the Republican primary nomination on New Hampshire voters. “New Hampshire is the state where everyone who wants to participate can participate,” Christie told a crowd at the Merrimack Veterans of Foreign Wars hall. “It’s an open system; it’s transparent. And all of you get to decide.”
Political action committees backing Christie have encouraged Democrats to change their party affiliation to vote for him in the Republican primary to knock out Donald Trump, and some independent voters have said they see Christie as the only viable choice to defeat Trump.
NHPR quoted Scott Simeone of Amherst, who works for Raytheon, calling Trump “a criminal” and saying, “What he did on January 6 was unforgivable.” Simeone says Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy are too extreme, inexperienced, or ineffective, leaving him with nowhere left to go other than Christie.
Another 'Pretendian' Or Not?
Buffy Sainte-Marie is the latest and one of the most prominent indigenous figures to have their identity questioned. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s long-running documentary series, The Fifth Estate, aired a documentary that investigated the 82-year-old singer’s background and concluded that, based on a birth certificate, Sainte-Marie — whose full name is Beverley Jean Santamaria — was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts, to Albert and Winifred Santamaria, a couple from Italy with mostly English ancestry.
Previously recognized as the only indigenous person to win an Academy Award, Sainte-Marie appeared for five years on Sesame Street, explaining Cree identity to young viewers. Her website says she is “believed to have been born” on the Piapot First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan, and that she was adopted by a white American couple as a baby during Canada’s “Sixties Scoop” when thousands of indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families between the 1950s and 1980s and placed in foster care or adopted by non-indigenous families as a form of assimilation. In the early 1960s, she connected with a couple from Piapot First Nation in Saskatchewan, who eventually adopted her as one of their own. The couple's granddaughter, Ntwanis Piapot, told Global News that the adoption process took several years and was done in Cree custom.
Her family issued a statement saying, “No one, including Canada and its governments, the Indian Act, institutions, media, or any person anywhere can deny our family’s inherent right to determine who is a member of our family and community.” Sainte-Marie said, “What I’ve always been honest about is that I don’t know where I’m from or who my birth parents were” and that she had “always struggled to answer questions about who I am.” She said her “growing-up mother” had told her many things, “including that I was adopted and that I was native, but there was no documentation, as was common for indigenous children born in the 1940s.”
During her 60-year career, Sainte-Marie has raised a number of indigenous issues, speaking out against colonial oppression, which once got her blacklisted from radio stations in the US.
Israeli Forces Strike Shifa Hospital
Israeli forces raided Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, which Israel says is a Hamas command post nestled under civilians. The United States said its own intelligence indicated that Hamas militants have used Shifa and other hospitals, and tunnels beneath them, to support military operations and to hold hostages. The hospital is the latest target in Israel’s response to Hamas’ killing of some 1,200 people and seizure of around 240 captives in a surprise October 7 attack.
Hamas and Gaza health officials deny that militants operate in Shifa. Munir al-Boursh, a senior official with Gaza’s Health Ministry, said Israeli forces ransacked the basement and other buildings at Shifa, including those housing the emergency and surgery departments.
The Israeli military said it was carrying out a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the hospital,” adding that it was separate from where patients and medical staff are located.
Café Chatter
On Full Fascist: Every single Jew in this country know what that dog whistle, “vermin” means. They have grandparents who had numbers on their arms. He hasn’t come out with, Jews will not replace us. However, he did say that there were good people on both sides who were marching with torches chanting that phrase. I don’t know who bothers me more. Him, or the people at his rallies who laugh and chant similar slogans. As far as transgender rights. Leave them alone. Trans kids commit suicide before 18. What do they have to say to that? We have two trans nieces. Now, neither one has decided to have surgery at this point. One is 18. The other is not. They both said that they had known since 11 that they were not male. They are both doing well now after hormone therapy, psychological counseling, and family support. It still should be between the young person, their physician and their family. Just like women’s health.
— Candace Skurnik
National Gratitude Month
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