“Mr. Mateen never returned home,” Adam Goldman of the New York Times writes. “Instead, he drove two hours from the family’s home in Fort Pierce, Fla., to a nightclub in Orlando, where he killed 49 people and wounded dozens more before the police fatally shot him, ending one of the worst terrorist attacks in the United States since 2001.”

The British tabloid Daily Mail is upset following a court ruling that could halt a so-called hard Brexit. The newspaper made a profile of the judges and wrote that one of them is openly gay, Pink News reports, as if this had anything to do with the ruling.

Dana Liebelson of the Huffington Post writes: “In perhaps the most bizarre moment of the debate, the moderator asked Duke why his website made repeated references to ‘CNN Jews.’ Duke went on an anti-Semitic rant about how ‘there is a problem in America with a very strong, powerful tribal group that dominates our media and dominates our international banking.’ He added, ‘I’m not opposed to all Jews.’”

Yesterday, three High Court judges in London ruled that British Parliamentarians in Westminster must vote on leaving the European Union. Today, I read the full text of this 32-page judgment and found an interesting history lesson about Britain’s constitution. Read the judgment in full here.

Chelsea Manning tried to commit suicide last month as she was starting a week of solitary confinement, a punishment for a previous attempt to end her life in July, Charlie Savage of the New York Times reports.

A new survey suggests 65% of Germans would feel afraid if Trump were to become president of the United States, The Local reports. I think the same figures would be found in most European countries as we recognise the fascism of Trump only too well.

“Hundreds of far-right protesters have marched through Berlin calling for Chancellor Angela Merkel to be removed from office,” the Associated Press reports. “Police accompanied the protest through the German capital’s former Jewish district, at one point forcibly removing a blockade staged by far-left counter-demonstrators.”

Pieter Cleppe of the Open Europe think tank writes about a democratic predicament in the EU Observer.

“African nations are seeking to suspend the work of the first UN independent expert charged with investigating violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” the Guardian reports.

“Much remains to be decided on election night, but this is nothing close to the Hillary Clinton rout that many in politics—and the media—saw as likely on Tuesday,” Aaron Blake of the Washington Post reports. “In fact, Donald Trump appears likely to win at this point.”

Image: Michael Vadon (Wikimedia Commons).

One of Russia’s most senior diplomats has told the Interfax news agency that Putin’s government was in touch with members of President-elect Donald Trump’s political team during the election campaign and knows most of his entourage, Andrew Osborn of the Huffington Post reports.

I guess they talked about how to make Russia great again.

“Cohen was still performing to sellout crowds and drawing new generations of fans at an age when most people would have settled back in their rocking chairs to reflect on their life’s accomplishments,” the Canadian National Post reports.

I was working this morning when I heard of his passing. When I talked about Cohen’s work with others, I realised that few saw the brilliant Jewish poet. To me, the knowledge about Jewish thought always served as a key to understanding Cohen’s lyrics.

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?

נוח על משכבך בשלום.

The archaeologist and anthropologist Tobias Stone has written an important article for the Huffington Post.

“Europe needs common political will for more security policy relevance,” German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen says in an opinion article published by the Rheinische Post. “The outcome of the election in America could provide an additional impetus.”

One of the largest Ku Klux Klan groups in America has announced a parade on 3 December to celebrate President-elect Donald Trump’s win, Jaweed Kaleem of the Los Angeles Times reports.

“A town in eastern Spain has become the latest to declare war on owners who fail to clean up after their dogs by tracing the animal’s DNA from poo left in the streets,” The Local reports.

“Hillary Clinton is on course to receive more votes than any other US presidential candidate in history except Barack Obama—despite losing Tuesday’s election to Donald Trump,” Ben Kentish of the Independent reports. “With the last remaining ballots still being counted, analysts expect the Democrat to pull clear of the new President-elect in the popular vote even though she lost the electoral college tally by some margin.”

“Stephen Bannon, an anti-Semite who ran the white nationalist ‘alt-right’ website Breitbart News before taking a leave of absence to become the Trump campaign CEO, will be Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor,” Zachary Pleat of Media Matters for America reports.

“Populism—ostensibly a belief in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people—often requires a bogeyman, be it an existing government, the supposed cultural elite, the media, or a particular ethnic, racial, or religious group,” David Rovella of Bloomberg writes.

He’s absolutely right. The problem with populism is not its focus on common people’s lives and problems but its tendency to seek simple answers by blaming vulnerable minorities and by ignoring expert knowledge.

“During the election, many people fell prey to fake news stories on social media—even the president-elect ended up retweeting fake statistics,” Jessica Roy of the Los Angeles Times writes. “A professor of communication has created a list of unreliable news sites to help people do better.”

Download the list here.

One of the conservative judges Donald Trump might appoint to the Supreme Court is William Pryor Jr, who has in the past suggested that same-sex couples should be punished with jail for having sex in their own homes, Joseph Patrick McCormick of Pink News reports.

Source: International Trade Centre

European Union	2011	2015
Share in value of global imports	33.5%	31.3%
Share in value of global exports	32.8%	32.7%

The New York Times took a map of America and split it in two based on areas that voted for Clinton and Trump in the 2016 election. Seen here is Clinton’s map. Read Tim Wallace’s article of the two Americas here.

Hugo Ball (1886–1927), the father of Dadaism.

“Grindr killer Stephen Port has been found guilty of murdering men he met through the gay dating app to fulfil his sexual fetish for ‘twinks’,” Emma Lake of the Sun reports.

I’ve read about this case before. Gruesome and very, very sad.

The new Roman Empire rises with Trump as its Augustus? Sullivan seems to think so in his article for the New York Magazine:

This is now Trump’s America. He controls everything from here on forward. He has won this campaign in such a decisive fashion that he owes no one anything. He has destroyed the GOP and remade it in his image. He has humiliated the elites and the elite media. He has embarrassed every pollster and naysayer. He has avenged Obama. And in the coming weeks, Trump will not likely be content to bask in vindication. He will seek unforgiving revenge on those who dared to oppose him. The party apparatus will be remade in his image. The House and Senate will fail to resist anything he proposes—and those who speak up will be primaried into oblivion. The Supreme Court may well be shifted to the far right for more than a generation to come—with this massive victory, he can pick a new Supreme Court justice who will make Antonin Scalia seem like a milquetoast. He will have a docile, fawning Congress for at least four years. We will not have an administration so much as a court.

This winter will see below-normal temperatures across the whole of Scandinavia, The Local reports. Brrr! It’s time to go into hibernation.

“The flood of ‘fake news’ this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation,” Craig Timberg of the Washington Post reports.

Ex-dictator Fidel Castro has died. He was a hero to Communists everywhere, but also a brutal enemy of individual liberty and freedom. With him, Cuba turned into an isolated dictatorship where people were poor and imprisoned.

I’m in Munich this weekend. Last night I went to the National Theatre to see the Bavarian State Ballet’s production of Giselle. The ballet was superb, but so was the theatre building itself. In the 30-minute intermission, I took a few pictures of the foyer and auditorium. It’s obvious that Bavaria wants visitors to realise that this part of the German federation is in fact a country in its own right. Bavaria has a long and proud history as an independent kingdom. These photos do not make the grandeur justice, but they give you a hint.

The far-right “Alternative for Germany” party is once again making a fool of itself. But this time it’s not about immigration or European policy—it’s about sex toys, The Local reports.

The irony is that these far-right parties claim to defend European freedom of a perceived threat from Muslim intolerance. Well, they have more in common with the loony Islamists than liberal Europe. Extremists are never to be trusted.

I can’t get enough of this view. One of the perks of flying.

“After winning Sunday’s rightwing primary runoff vote François Fillon’s next challenge will be to take on Marine Le Pen,” The Local writes.

I don’t know too much about Fillon, but from what I can tell, he’s a socially conservative Catholic with a fairly sane economic liberalism. Anyhow, just about any one is better for France—and Europe—than Le Pen’s xenophobic fascism.

RFSL Rådgivningen Skåne is an organisation that promotes good health in the local gay and transgender community. As chairman of this organisation, I was very proud when we celebrated our thirtieth-anniversary jubilee at the Victoria theatre tonight.