No Kings

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What we're reading

• As construction begins on US President Donald Trump's new $250m (£187m) White House ballroom, mystery continues to swirl around the identities of the wealthy donors and corporations paying for it. The US president has said that he personally will pay for significant portions of its construction, and suggested that some still anonymous donors would be willing to spend more than $20m to complete the project. BBC

• In a 1985 interview, Lula was asked whether Brazil’s new democratic system was delivering real change for working people. Skeptical of the narrow, elite-driven transition then underway, Lula criticized the idea that simply holding elections was enough. “Do you think the janitor at your newspaper enjoys the same democracy you do,” he asked the interviewer, “just because you both live under the same regime?” When the interviewer replied that, in formal terms, yes—each person’s vote counts the same—Lula pushed back. “No,” he said, “democracy is not just the right to vote. Democracy is the right to life.” Dissent Magazine

• Experts say that his increasing use of the armed forces within the United States represents an extraordinary violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. That bedrock 19th-century law banning the use of federal troops to execute domestic law enforcement has long been seen as fundamental to America’s democratic tradition. However, the president’s deployments continue to nudge this country ever closer to becoming a genuine police state. The Nation