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national_security | Washington Times | https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/24/donald-trumps-summit-kim-jong-un-faces-high-expect/ | Trump under pressure for real results in summit with Kim | 2019-02-24 | national_security | HANOI , Vietnam β This time around , President Trump faces higher expectations .
Eight months after his breakthrough meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un , Mr. Trump this week heads into the second denuclearization summit under greater scrutiny to bring back more tangible results from the high-stakes parley in Vietnam .
Some analysts expect an agreement that would require North Korea to freeze its production of fissile material at its Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center , used to make nuclear weapons . It β s not clear what Mr. Trump is willing to give in return .
Their first meeting in Singapore produced vague promises from Mr. Kim to abandon his weapons programs , but there has been scant progress on that front since then despite months of follow-up talks between the two sides .
The U.S. β didn β t really get anything out of that Singapore summit , just an aspirational statement , β said Sue Mi Terry , a former CIA analyst and chair of the Korea program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies . β You can argue that not much has really changed . β
Bruce Klingner , a specialist on Korea at the conservative Heritage Foundation , said recent North Korean public statements β indicate the two sides are no closer to even having a common definition of denuclearization , let alone a comprehensive detailed agreement . β
But former CIA officer Andrew Kim , who helped negotiate last year β s breakthrough meeting , said he expects more progress from the second summit .
β The stars kind of have lined up , β he said in a speech Friday . β I have come to believe we have a great opportunity to engage with Pyongyang . β
When the president sits down with Mr. Kim for two days of talks starting Wednesday in Hanoi , he will try to pin down the reclusive communist autocrat on his definition of β denuclearization . β
To U.S. officials , it means complete , verifiable and irreversible elimination of Pyongyang β s weapons programs . But a senior administration official acknowledged that one of the goals sought by the White House at the second summit is β developing a shared understanding of what denuclearization is . β
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on CNN β s β State of the Union β Sunday that North Korea is still a nuclear threat , although β tensions are reduced . β
β We β ve got work to do on the denuclearization , β Mr. Pompeo said . β There are many things [ Mr. Kim ] could do to demonstrate his commitment to denuclearization . β
He said Mr. Trump is focused on β a demonstrable , verifiable step β from North Korea .
Former Ambassador Joseph DeTrani , who served as special U.S. envoy to six-party talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006 , said the most important objective is β clarity on the nuclear issue . β
β I think at this summit , North Korea has to hear that again β that the U.S. is resolute , β Mr. DeTrani said . β And does North Korea agree with that ? What is their definition of complete denuclearization ? Describe it any way you want , but now you know clearly where we are . There β s no ambiguity on the U.S. side . β
Speaking of the need for clarity , security analysts say the White House has been sending mixed messages about its goals for the summit . Mr. Trump said last week he feels no urgency to make a deal with Mr. Kim , pointing out that sanctions are still in force and that North Korea hasn β t conducted a nuclear or missile test in well over a year .
β I β m in no rush , β Mr. Trump said . β There β s no [ weapons ] testing . As long as there is no testing , I β m in no rush . β
The administration β s announcement that it is seeking a β shared understanding β of denuclearization with North Korea seems at odds with comments by U.S. special envoy Stephen Biegun last month .
In a speech , Mr. Biegun said North Korea has committed β to the dismantlement and destruction β of all its uranium- and plutonium-enrichment facilities . He said the pledge goes beyond the Yongbyon nuclear plant .
Lowering expectations even more , White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that simply sitting down for a second summit is an achievement .
β The fact [ that the president ] is able to do it again is in itself a big success , β she said .
But having broken the ice last year with the first-ever meeting between a U.S. president and North Korean leader , the world now expects more from the relationship .
Without mentioning the possible easing of sanctions , the White House is promising unspecified economic benefits if Mr. Kim is willing to commit to a more firm plan for denuclearization .
β The president has made clear that should North Korea follow through on its commitment to complete denuclearization , we will work to ensure there are economic development options , β the White House said .
Richard Johnson , senior director for fuel cycle and verification at the Nuclear Threat Initiative , said a freeze on producing enriched uranium and plutonium is β a starting point . β
β This is not going to happen in a year , this is not going to happen in two years , β Mr. Johnson said . β The essential next step is a fissile material production freeze . β
A senior administration official expressed frustration that news coverage of the lack of progress with North Korea is β completely divorced from policy . β
β It β s not that the North Koreans are advancing their weapons of mass destruction program despite our diplomacy , β the official said . β Our diplomacy is precisely because of what the North Koreans are doing , and this is why the president has placed such a high priority on convincing the North Koreans to make a different set of choices . β
While the U.S. is approaching the summit with firm expectations , Mr. DeTrani said the North Koreans are looking for room to maneuver around sanctions . He suggested a deal might not be possible unless the U.S. is willing to respond in an β action-for-action spirit . β
β If the sanctions are in place until complete , verifiable denuclearization , that means North Korea β s not going to be able to trade , they β re not going to get the energy assistance , the crude oil from China , β he said . β You β ve got to respond simultaneously . And we have to talk about that . Are we going to look for workarounds on the sanctions ? Are we going to say there are exceptions for humanitarian aid ? Are we going to say there are exceptions for energy assistance that may go to hospitals and orphanages ? They need to hear from us on those issues .
β These are the major points , β Mr. DeTrani said . β And if they can agree on these points β¦ within three months we can have a road map on how we can accomplish all of the [ denuclearization goals ] with certain timelines . That would be a pretty powerful summit conclusion , I think . β
Other results from the summit could include a declaration by the U.S. of an end to the Korean War , in which an armistice was signed in 1953 ; the opening of a U.S. liaison office in Pyongyang ; and an expansion of efforts to return the remains of U.S. soldiers killed in the war .
Some observers have expressed concern that Mr. Trump could go off script in Hanoi and promise to withdraw about 28,000 U.S. troops from South Korea . He has repeatedly expressed disagreement with the deployment , saying it β s too expensive and that South Korea should pay for it .
Ms. Terry pointed to Mr. Trump β s surprise announcement last year that he planned to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria despite opposition from then-Defense Secretary James N. Mattis . She said while there is β no support in the U.S. government to pull troops out of South Korea , I don β t have faith in President Trump , β and she fears he might β do what he wants to do without coordinating with his advisers . β
β That β s truly the wild card . That β s my biggest concern , β she said .
One official said withdrawing roughly 28,000 U.S. troops from South Korea β is not the subject of discussions . β
β I β ve never discussed that in any round of negotiations , β the official said .
Leading up to the summit , Mr. Biegun and his North Korean counterpart , Lee Do-hoon , arrived in Hanoi late last week for their latest round of talks on the details of a possible agreement .
Mr. Trump will arrive in Vietnam on Tuesday and is expected to hold meetings with top Vietnamese officials during his visit . Mr. Kim also is expected to hold meetings separately with Vietnamese leaders before negotiating with Mr. Trump .
The North Korean leader reportedly is planning to travel by train from Pyongyang across much of China to Hanoi , a 45-hour trek . For the summit in Singapore last year , Mr. Kim flew on a jet loaned to him by the Chinese government . | aJhydAlxWZVIde1G | 2 | North Korea Summit | -0.2 | Donald Trump | 0.1 | National Security | 0 | Defense And Security | 0 | null | null |
isis | Christian Science Monitor | http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2014/0911/Pentagon-to-send-500-more-troops-to-Iraq-prepare-for-direct-action-in-Syria-video | Pentagon to send 500 more troops to Iraq, prepare for 'direct action' in Syria (+video) | 2014-09-11 | isis | Minutes after President Obama endeavored to make his case to the American people about the dangers of the Islamic State and the need for stepped-up US military force to β destroy β them , the Pentagon released its latest plan of action .
In the next week , roughly 500 more US troops will be deployed to Iraq , bringing the total number added this summer to more than 1,500 . Most of them will be sent to operational command centers in Baghdad and Irbil , the capital of the Kurdish north . Another 150 will assess the skills of Iraqi soldiers , and the final 125 will help run the armed drones now bombing IS , also known as ISIL and ISIS .
To date , the US military has conducted about 150 airstrikes in Iraq β but this was when the US was on the defensive .
Now , Mr. Obama said , it β s time to β go on offense . β
This covers operations in Iraq β for now β but , a senior defense official notes , β The president has made it clear that he has the authority to strike ISIL wherever they are . β
This means , the official , who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press , adds that the US military β is ready to conduct direct action against ISIL targets in Syria . β
β Decisions about when to conduct these actions will be made at a prudent time , β the official says .
The other major step in the US plan to fight IS involves ramping up US assistance to the Syrian opposition . In the days to come , this will include calling on Congress β to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters , β Obama said .
This is easier said than done , however , since it is frustratingly difficult to determine who , precisely , the β moderate opposition β is .
The less-extreme center of the Syrian opposition β is quite small and has gotten smaller over the years , β says retired Gen. Michael Hayden , the former director of the CIA .
β Finding that center , reinforcing that center , is much more difficult now than it would have been six , 12 , 18 months ago , β he added in remarks Thursday at the Atlantic Council . β The saving grace is that it β s easier today than it will be six , 12 , 18 months from now , too . β
Another tricky problem , however , is that it β s not clear that the Free Syrian Army , which is widely considered to be the best bet to gain this stepped-up US backing , β has a clear vision of what they would do with the Syrian state if they were able to assume control , β says Ben Connable , senior international policy analyst at the RAND Corp. and a former Marine intelligence officer in Iraq .
These questions about what the β end state β in Iraq and Syria resemble once the US military completes its mission are important because that β s how Pentagon planners devise their strategy in the first place .
β You start by envisioning an β end state β condition , envisioning what you want to achieve , β says Mr. Connable . The planning proceeds from there .
This in turn brings up some complex questions . If the US military destroys IS in Syria , for example , that is sure to strengthen the standing of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his brutal regime . What then ?
And if IS is pushed out of Iraq , will the Sunnis turn their ire against the Shiite-led government there ?
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Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been replaced by Haider al-Abadi . But Prime Minister Al-Abadi is also a Shiite , and it appears as though Mr. Al-Maliki will now become vice president β which means resentments may linger , Connable says .
β So the grievances that drive the Sunnis to fight against the [ Iraqi ] Army are still there , β he adds . β What happens next ? β | PBEUqcssOXxMu4F5 | 1 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
media_bias | Fox News | https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-blasts-ny-times-for-changing-headline-when-radical-left-democrats-went-absolutely-crazy | Trump blasts NYT for changing headline under pressure from βRadical Left Democratsβ | media_bias | President Trump took The New York Times to task Wednesday for changing the headline of its lead article about his remarks on the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton after taking heat from the left for not being critical enough toward him .
After Trump delivered an address in the aftermath of the deadly shootings , in which he condemned racism and white supremacy , the newspaper planned a front-page story with the headline , β Trump urges unity vs. racism. β Amid a storm of criticism on social media , including from top Democratic presidential candidates , the newspaper later altered it to the more critical : β Assailing hate but not guns . β
β 'Trump Urges Unity Vs. Racism , ' was the correct description in the first headline by the Failing New York Times , but it was quickly changed to , 'Assailing Hate But Not Guns , ' after the Radical Left Democrats went absolutely CRAZY ! β Trump tweeted .
β Fake News β That β s what we β re up against , β Trump continued , noting , β After 3 years I almost got a good headline from the Times ! β
The Times made the change after getting slammed by high-profile Democrats including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , D-N.Y. , and 2020 hopefuls Beto O β Rourke and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand , D-N.Y .
Ocasio-Cortez , who has feuded with Trump as well as leadership in her own party , retweeted an image of the original story while essentially accusing the Times of helping white supremacy .
β Let this front page serve as a reminder of how white supremacy is aided by β and often relies upon β the cowardice of mainstream institutions , β she said .
BETO O'ROURKE COMPARES TRUMP RALLY TO NAZI GERMANY IN WAKE OF EL PASO SHOOTING
Gillibrand retweeted the same image and said , β That β s not what happened , β while O β Rourke simply said , β Unbelievable . β
In light of the headline change , Trump also quoted former Clinton adviser Mark Penn , who told βββ β Tucker Carlson β I β ve never seen anything like this , β and questioned , β Is that journalism today ? β
The president later cited a report from One America News Network that the shooter in Dayton β had a history of supporting political figures like Bernie Sanders , Elizabeth Warren , and ANTIFA , β and urged greater media coverage . | YYefjSAHCOPCULZ0 | 2 | New York Times | -0.5 | Donald Trump | 0.2 | Media Watch | 0 | Media Industry | 0 | null | null | |
terrorism | Christian Science Monitor | http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/terrorism-security/2013/1119/Bombers-hit-Iran-s-Beirut-embassy-amid-fears-of-widening-Syrian-war | Bombers hit Iran's Beirut embassy amid fears of widening Syrian war | 2013-11-19 | terrorism | Twin explosions near the Iranian embassy in Beirut today killed at least 20 people , including an Iranian official , in what some observers are calling a clear sign of deepening sectarian divisions across the region , motivated by the civil war in Syria .
Today , a β chaotic scene β overwhelmed the southern Jnah district where the Iranian embassy is located after two suicide bombers β one on foot , one in a car β detonated their explosives , reports The Los Angeles Times . TV images showed dark smoke , several fires , and blazing cars . At least 100 people were injured , and the Iranian ambassador to Beirut confirmed the death of Iranian cultural attache Ebrahim Ansari , who had been in his post for only a month , reports the BBC .
It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack in a neighborhood known as a Hezbollah stronghold . The BBC reports that the Lebanese Sunni jihadi group the Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility . The station also reports the perpetrators were sending a β clear message . β
The area has been hit by a handful of attacks in recent months , and Lebanon as a whole has recently witnessed β cross-border rocket attacks by Syrian rebels into Shiite areas , deadly car bomb attacks against Sunni and Shiite targets , sectarian clashes , and several roadside bomb attacks against suspected Hezbollah vehicles , β according to The βββ .
β The aim of the blast is to stir up the situation in Lebanon and use the Lebanese arena to convey messages , β Lebanon 's Prime Minister Najib Mikati told state news agency NNA .
Iran and Hezbollah , Lebanon β s largest political group , are major backers of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad . According to the Los Angeles Times :
Just last week , the leader of Hezbollah , Hassan Nasrallah , said that the group would continue to send its militiamen to Syria to fight alongside government forces . The announcement drew condemnation from anti-Assad groups in both Lebanon and Syria . Lebanese officials , keen to avoid their nation being drawn into Syria β s civil war , have declared a policy of neutrality in the Syrian war . Many in Lebanon fear the Syrian conflict could destabilize Lebanon β s fragile , multi-sectarian democracy , still brittle following Lebanon β s own , 15-year civil war , which ended in 1990 .
Today 's attacks took place in the context of the Syrian government aggressively pushing back against rebel fighters on three fronts , including one in the region of Qalamoun along the Lebanese border , reports The New York Times .
There have long been fears that if fighting in Syria continues , it will drag Lebanon into chaos . Hezbollah β s involvement in supporting the Syrian government is countered by the involvement of Sunni Lebanese fighting in Syria on behalf of the rebels . In addition , Lebanon , a country of about 4 million people , is now host to upwards of 1 million Syrian refugees .
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The βββ wrote a series on the regional stakes of Syria β s war , and noted that if there is one out and out β winner β there , it could critically affect Lebanon β s stability .
It is difficult to envisage an ideal outcome for Lebanon if one side or the other triumphs in Syria . If the Assad regime manages to cling to power and reduce the threat posed by the rebels , Hezbollah will remain strong in Lebanon and the cross-regional alliance between the Shiite group and its backers in Damascus and Tehran will endure . Such a scenario will deepen Sunni grievances in Lebanon and leave unresolved the continuing domestic debate over Hezbollah 's status . If the Assad regime falls and is replaced by a Sunni regime that moves closer to Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Gulf , Hezbollah will be isolated from Iran and will feel dangerously vulnerable . Any move by a newly emboldened Sunni community in Lebanon against a Hezbollah that still would be determined to retain its arms could exacerbate an already precarious security climate . Perhaps the best scenario for Lebanon is a negotiated solution in Syria which compels rival actors to make compromises .
But despite attacks and bombings on Lebanese soil , the Monitor 's Nicholas Blanford writes that Syria still isn β t tipping Lebanon toward its own civil war . | xf2CfiJ9onDMX8hP | 1 | Terrorism | -0.3 | Lebanon | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
elections | New York Times (News) | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/us/politics/pennsylvania-congressional-race-conor-lamb-trump.html?rref=collection/sectioncollection/politics&action=click&contentCollection=politics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront | Strong Performance by Democrat Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania Shakes Trump and G.O.P. | 2018-03-14 | Elections | Trump Administration Advertisement Supported by News Analysis By Peter Baker and Michael D. Shear LOS ANGELES β President Trump woke up here in the land of earthquakes on Wednesday morning, but he was 2,500 miles away from the tremor that was really shaking his party. While the president hobnobbed on Tuesday night with wealthy donors in the exclusive enclave of Beverly Park, the voters in the suburbs south of Pittsburgh were in revolt, giving the Democratic candidate a narrow victory in a special election in Pennsylvania that was taking on outsize proportions. Just as they did outside Birmingham and Montgomery, Ala., in December, and Richmond, Va., and Washington in November, energized and angry suburban voters were swamping the Trump stalwarts in the more rural parts of those regions, sending a clear message to Republicans around the country. While Republican turnout in a district that Mr. Trump won in 2016 by 20 percentage points was healthy, Democrats showed again that they could tap unions and other traditionally friendly groups to get their voters out in droves. The N.A.A.C.P. helped win Attorney General Jeff Sessionsβs former Alabama Senate seat for Doug Jones in December. Organized labor, once seen as fractured and feckless in the Trump era, gave the Democrat Conor Lamb his edge in Pennsylvania. Advertisement Rick Saccone, the Republican candidate who wrapped himself in Mr. Trumpβs cloak and drew the president to his district last weekend in a bid to rescue a faltering campaign, trailed Mr. Lamb, a former Marine seeking to show his party can compete even in red territory. Mr. Lamb held an apparently insurmountable lead of 641 votes on Wednesday, with about only 500 absentee, provisional and military ballots remaining to be counted, according to county election officials. transcript βIt took a little longer than we thought, but we did it.β βWe fought to find common ground, and we found it β almost everywhere. Democrats, Republicans, independents, each of us, Americans.β βBut I really feel strongly about Rick Saccone.β βIβm here because we stand with Rick Saccone.β βI didnβt support Nancy Pelosi for any leadership position.β βPeople in my party donβt support natural gas drilling. I do.β βItβs about making America great again. Are you with us?β See full results and maps of the Pennsylvania special election. Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like. Peter Baker reported from Los Angeles, and Michael Shear from Washington. Follow Peter Baker and Michael Shear on Twitter: @peterbakernyt @shearm. Advertisement Subscribe now Β©2025 The New York Times Company | d86f536c59b25529 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
politics | Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-finance-202/2017/11/17/the-finance-202-biggest-tax-cut-in-american-history-isn-t-popular-with-many-americans/5a0de1c330fb045a2e0030ab/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_finance202-815am%3Ahomepage/story&utm_term=.836f7a67c79b | 'Biggest tax cut in American history' isn't popular with many Americans | 2017-11-17 | US Senate, Politics | clockThis article was published more than 7 years ago Editor's note: An earlier version of this story published Nov. 17, 2017, referred to previous reporting in The Washington Post that Belarusan-American businessman Sergei Millian had been a source of information for a dossier of unverified allegations against Donald Trump. In November 2021, The Post removed that material from the original 2017 story after the account was contradicted by allegations in a federal indictment and undermined by further reporting. References to the initial report have been removed from this piece. | 2c214f939d31e7a2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
national_security | Victor Hanson | https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/establishment-adopts-trump-views-china-military-threat-trade/ | OPINION: The Establishment Goes Trump on China | 2019-02-26 | national_security | President Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing , November 9 , 2017 . ( Thomas Peter/Reuters )
A new consensus is emerging , and it sounds a lot like what the president has said all along .
Read recent essays on China . Visit think-tank public symposia . Hear out military analysts . Talk with academics and media pundits . Listen to Silicon Valley grandees . Watch Senate speeches and politicians interview on television .
The resulting new groupspeak is surreal . If one excises the word β Trump , β what follows is a seemingly revolutionary recalibration of attitudes toward China that more or less echo Trump β s voice in the wilderness and often crude and shrill warnings dating back from the campaign trail of 2015 .
Trump β s second secretary of state , the skillful Mike Pompeo , has been institutionalizing the president β s pessimistic view of China . Insightful but heretofore underappreciated assessments from China scholars such as Miles Yu and Gordon Chang are now being taking seriously . Both have been warning us for years that the Chinese seek domination , not accommodation , and are replacing their erstwhile feigned respect for our strength with an emboldened contempt for our perceived growing weakness , whether real or psychological . Both have warned also that once China achieves military , economic , and cultural parity with the United States , the global order will be quite different from that of the last 75 years .
From the military , one hears more frequently now that we were at a tipping point by late 2016 : The Obama Asian pivot had failed β publicly provocative , but in reality without substance , giving the lethal impression of real weakness masked by empty rhetoric . The Chinese militarization of the Spratley Islands was conceded as the inevitable future of the South China Sea . Chinese military and weapons doctrine was aimed at destroying the offensive capability of the U.S. fleet in the Pacific as a way of breaking off allies from America , and then Finlanding them .
From 2009 to 2016 , our defense readiness was eroding , China β s increasing . Psychologically , the American military could not reassure the global order that China would not one day soon unleash North Korea , absorb Taiwan , emasculate South Korea and Japan , or isolate the Philippines and Australia . Huge and mercantile Chinese trade surpluses with all its Western trading partners were accepted as normal .
The cash-short Pentagon seemed to shrug that America was the victim of cosmic and historic forces that inevitably would dethrone the United States , analogous to the declinism of the 1930s , when a powerful U.S. 7th Fleet was not able to deter a modern rising Japanese navy from carving out what would become the Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere based on perceptions of American impotence and weariness and spent European colonialism .
In Silicon Valley , the good old news of making trillions of dollars over the last 30 years in outsourcing assemblage to China , opening up a huge new Chinese consumer market , and entering joint partnerships has insidiously been eclipsed by the growing reality that our techie masters of the universe were instead deluded Dr. Frankensteins who had helped to birth an unstoppable monster .
Technology was stolen , either by espionage inside the U.S. or by formalized theft as the cost of doing business inside China . Copyrights and patents did not bother China . The scale of environmental damage inside China did not diminish , but accelerated and was manifested abroad . There was no sense of symmetry ; in dealing with China , the idea of commercial reciprocity , shared environmental protocols , generalized notions of international commerce β all that simply did not exist . And the reason it did not exist wasn β t sloppiness or insensitivity ; it did not exist by design , owing to the Chinese β s arrogance that they were the rising sun and the U.S. was in its twilight β with a few exceptions granted to some of the Western elite who were getting rich largely by accommodating the Chinese warping of trade and technological theft .
Financially challenged colleges and universities had come to rely on full-tuition-paying Chinese students . When stories spread that some Chinese students were acting as organs of the Chinese Communist Party , actively engaging in espionage , or illiberally bullying any critics of China , colleges either ignored such news or regarded its bearers as racists and xenophobes .
Chinese college students who mouthed government talking points were strangely rebranded , in identity-politics fashion , as the victimized Other , and to be accorded the usual accruing exemptions . In sum , China was considered a politically correct entity . Or better yet , it was seen as a cash cow for struggling liberal-arts colleges and so properly immune from any suggestion that it sent thousands of its citizens abroad to absorb or expropriate Western technology without contamination from taboo liberal ideas . While the U.S. obsessed over β Russian collusion β from a thuggish but comparative weak Vladimir Putin , no one worried much about the increasingly boldness of Chinese espionage and cyber sabotage . In Tolkienesque terms of relative threats , Putin played Saruman to a Chinese Sauron .
This willful blindness was similar again to the denseness of Europe and the United States from 1880 to 1920 , when Japan had sent tens of thousands of students and liaisons abroad to learn everything from nautical and aviation engineering to assembly-line fabrication and sophisticated steel production . The West , in condescending and racist fashion , was flattered : Such emulation must be proof of Japan β s inferiority and desires to become a Westernized ( albeit junior ) free-market democracy .
In fact , Japanese expropriation was done in a context of arrogance and bitterness over not receiving commensurate recognition after World War I. Japan assumed that whatever was stolen from the West could be improved by superior Japanese discipline , order , and national unity and purpose β far better craftsmanship without the drag of research-and-development costs .
Our diplomats for decades had assured Americans that Chinese trade imbalances , technological theft , gratuitous bullying in the air and sea , disdain for U.S. Asian allies , rampant espionage , and contempt for the postwar commercial order were 50-year-old β growing pains β β the Tiananmen Square road bumps on the inevitable path to liberal society and consensual government .
The arrogant Western idea was that just as free-market economics ( rather than jaded mercantilism , dictatorship , and government monopolies ) had enriched the Chinese , so too would the accruing bounty β liberalize β Chinese society , ensure an β aware β consumer class , and impress on the country that Western popular culture and politics were just as inevitable and attractive as had been Western profit-making . Or economists and investors insisted that cheap imported Chinese goods meant that the stagnant wages of the middle classes would not matter so much at Walmart β while American business would be forced to be leaner and more efficient to survive the cutthroat competition .
The net result was to ignore or contextualize China β s civil-rights abuses , contaminated products , religious persecution , flagrant international aggression , attacks on the postwar global order , neo-colonialism , and abject racism on the grounds these sins were comparable to our own 19th-century bouts with such illiberality β or in some perverse way in the long run even beneficial to the United States .
Again , American finance and corporations invested full bore in Chinese joint projects , offshored , and outsourced β often at the price of giving away key American technological and strategic advantages , hollowing out American red-state industrial and manufacturing capacity , and weakening the nation β s cyber and conventional military security .
The idea seemed to be that if a few thousand multimillionaires got even far more fabulously rich by acquiescing to Chinese mercantilism , they could not do real harm to the vast and powerful U.S. Or perhaps , given inevitable American decline , the idea was that they should get their profits in now , before the American golden goose was put out of its misery .
In all these areas and more , a new consensus , among left and right , is now settling in that we are at a crossroads with China . Any more appeasement and acquiescence will lose the West its Asian allies , who will be forced to go with the ascendant superpower , not the declining one .
Either the U.S. military recalibrates or it will return to its 1930s stature of a powerful but vastly overextended Pacific navy and air force . We have reached a cultural nexus at which any more acquiescence would institutionalize the idea that to object to Chinese piracy is to indulge in hurtful stereotypes and therefore should be replaced with appeasement , and that giving away American technology or allowing its expropriation with a wink and nod is not treasonous but simply good business .
The establishment would like to fool itself that it came to its growing about-face on China thanks to a natural exhaustion of patience , or new data , or brilliant new exegeses . And that evolution may be in part true .
But far more likely , Trump β s early and relentless hammering on Chinese mercantilism , systematic cheating , and illiberality finally made the old status quo unsustainable in the face of mounting evidence .
The establishment is adopting Trump β s once-renegade stance toward China , and yet trying to immunize it from him all the same . So the end result seems something like the following : β That idiot Trump somehow now agrees with us on confronting China . β
Something to Consider If you enjoyed this article , we have a proposition for you : Join NRPLUS . Members get all of our content ( including the magazine ) , no paywalls or content meters , an advertising-minimal experience , and unique access to our writers and editors ( conference calls , social-media groups , etc. ) . And importantly , NRPLUS members help keep NR going . Consider it ? If you enjoyed this article , and were stimulated by its contents , we have a proposition for you : Join NRPLUS . LEARN MORE | sGCBYOt8lbA383Ww | 2 | National Security | -0.4 | China | -0.2 | Defense And Security | -0.2 | null | null | null | null |
immigration | Reason | https://reason.com/archives/2017/03/31/why-the-wall-wont-work | Why the Wall Won't Work | 2017-03-31 | Immigration | Donald Trump captured the imagination of many American voters with a single campaign promise . `` I will build a great , great wall on our southern border , '' he boasted in June 2015 . For good measure , he added , `` And I will have Mexico pay for that wall . '' The twin pledgesβwhich followed a tirade about Mexican rapists and drug dealersβneatly captured everything that was either attractive or repulsive to voters in the real estate mogul 's presidential run : bravado , nationalism , and controversy .
Trump was often criticized for lacking precision in policy ideas , but he had bold and detailed requirements for his wall . It would be 1,000 miles long . ( The other 1,500 , he said , were covered by `` natural barriers . '' ) He gave various estimates of its heightβbetween 30 and 50 feet , with the most common number being 35 . His barrier would be an `` impenetrable physical wall '' composed of `` precast [ concrete ] plankβ¦30 feet long , 40 feet long . '' He also insisted that it would be aesthetically pleasing .
While he said after the election that a fence may be appropriate in `` some areas , '' he added that a wall would be better , and he has since vigorously corrected reporters who describe the project as a `` fence . '' Throughout the campaign , he described the current fences as a `` joke , '' implying that he would not only build a superior barrier , but that he would replace the one that exists at some points now .
The History The president 's proposal has a decadeslong history . After the 1986 `` amnesty , '' when President Ronald Reagan traded increased border security for the legalization of 3 million unauthorized immigrants , the San Diego Border Patrol constructed a 10-foot welded steel fence along the 14-mile section of the border closest to the Pacific . In 1996 , a new law provided funds for a second layer . Despite repeated requests from the Border Patrol for more , by the year 2000 just 60 miles of the southern border had fencing , almost all of which was in urban areas . Only San Diego had a second layer .
After 9/11 , border hawks launched another push for fences , with little success . Most immigration enforcement funds were going to a surge in border agents . But President George W. Bush 's push for comprehensive immigration reform , which would have legalized the unauthorized immigrants in the United States , gave the hawks their opportunity . In 2006 , Congress approved the Secure Fence Act mandating nearly 700 miles of fencing on the border .
The president signed on to the bill hoping to placate the secure-the-border-first crowd and obtain the humane immigration changes that he wanted . This sales job enabled it to pass with bipartisan support from the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton . The immigration reform never materialized , but fence construction was nearly complete by 2009 , and there are now 617 total miles of physical barriers , 36 miles of which have two layers .
Yet the hawks were not placated . They complained that there was no second layer in most places . They stewed that half the fence was just `` vehicle barriers '' βconcrete posts that provide obstacles for drivers but not pedestrians . Moreover , the 317 miles of real pedestrian fences dramatically vary in height and quality . The Border Patrol uses half a dozen types of fencing materialsβwire mesh , landing mats , chain-link , bollard , aesthetic , and sheet pilingβjust to control on-foot crossings . These barriers are mainly a combination of steel posts and bars supplemented in places with wire , ranging in height from 6 to 18 feet .
The Legal Obstacles Trump has been adamant that his wall will be built `` ahead of schedule . '' For that to happen , he 'll need to avoid the various legal issues that plagued earlier efforts . Entities other than the federal governmentβstates , Indian tribes , private individualsβcontrol over two-thirds of borderland property . Private parties own the vast majority of the border in Texas , and for this βββ , roughly 70 percent of the existing border fence is located in California , Arizona , and New Mexico . Almost all of it is on federally controlled land .
The Bush administration bullied property owners , threatening to sue them if they did not `` voluntarily '' hand over the rights to their land . It offered no compensation for doing so . Thinking that they had no recourse , some people signed off , but others refused . The government then attempted to use eminent domain , a procedure Trump has long defended , to seize their property , but the lawsuits imposed serious delaysβseven years in one case .
In 2009 , the Homeland Security inspector general concluded that the Border Patrol had `` achieved [ its ] progress primarily in areas where environmental and real estate issues did not cause significant delay . '' One intransigent resident had owned his property since before the `` Roosevelt easement , '' which gives the federal government a 60-foot right of way along the border . He fought the administration , so the fence had until recently a 1.2-mile gap on his land . Border residents fought more than a third of all land transfers , in fact . Because the Constitution promises just compensation for takings , Trump can do little to speed this process .
Native American tribes also have the capacity to stop construction of barriers . The Tohono O'odham Nation , which has land on both sides of the border , has already pledged to fight any efforts to build a wall there . In 2007 , when the tribe allowed vehicle barriers to be constructed , the Bush administration ended up desecrating Indian burial grounds and digging up human remains . The new president would need a stand-alone bill from Congress to condemn their land . Senate Democrats can ( and likely would ) filibuster such an effort .
Even federal lands can be problematic . In 2010 , two-thirds of patrol agents-in-charge told the Government Accountability Office ( GAO ) that land management laws had delayed or limited access to portions of federal lands , for fence building or repairs and other purposes , with more than half stating they did not get a timely response when they requested permission to use the lands . In one case , it took nearly eight months for the Border Patrol to get the OK to install a single underground sensor .
Water rights have also been a problem for the fence . A 1970 treaty requires that the floodplain of the Rio Grande remain open to both sides of the border . The Obama administration attempted to build fences along the river anyway , but the treaty and the river 's floods forced the barrier to be placed so far into the interior of the United States that it has many holes to allow U.S. residents access to their property . These also provide an opportunity for border crossers .
At the same time , the fence can cause Mexico to receive too much water . Even when a fence has holes , which a wall would not , debris can turn the fence into a dam . Thanks to the barrier , some floods have fully covered the doors of Mexican buildings in Los Ebanos , across the Rio Grande , while producing little more than deep puddling on the U.S. side . The International Boundary and Water Commission that administers the treaty has rebuffed the Border Patrol 's attempts to replicate this disaster in other areas of the Rio Grande Valley .
The Practical Considerations Fences or walls obstruct crossers ' paths , cutting off a straight shot into the interior of the country . But a barrier is not the permanent object that some people imagine . Natural events can knock down parts of a border fence . One storm in Texas left a hole for months . Fences and walls can also erode near rivers or beaches , as the one in San Diego did . And they can be penetrated : Some fencing can be cut in minutes , and the Border Patrol reported repairing more than 4,000 holes in one year alone . They neglected to mention whether that number equaled that year 's number of breaches .
Much of the current fencing can be easily mounted with a ladder or from the roof of a truck . In some cases , border crossers can scale the fence without any additional equipment . One viral video from 2010 shows two women easily climbing an 18-foot steel bollard-style pedestrian fence in less than 20 seconds . Smugglers can even drive over the fence using ramps , a fact that was discovered only when a couple of foolish drug entrepreneurs managed to get their SUV stuck on top . ( They took the dope and split . )
A wall would probably be less easily damaged by man or nature . But in at least some areas , its impassibility could also become a maintenance liability . Border Patrol agents have told Fox News that a border wall would still `` have to allow water to pass through , or the sheer force of raging water could damage its integrity , not to mention the legal rights of both the U.S. and Mexico to seasonal rains . '' In 2011 , for example , a flood in Arizona washed away 40 feet of steel fence .
While not `` impenetrable , '' a concrete wall would impede efforts to cut through it . Trump has also claimed that no one would ever use a ladder to go over his wall because `` there 's no way to get down . '' After pondering the question for a second , he then conceded , `` maybe a rope . '' Nonetheless , the height might discourage some people from attempting to climb it , and it would certainly take them longer to do so , giving Border Patrol agents additional time to reach them .
If not over or through , some crossers may opt to go under . Tunnels are typically used more for drug smuggling , but they still create a significant vulnerability in any kind of physical barrier . From 2007 to 2010 , the Border Patrol found more than one tunnel per month , on average . `` For every tunnel we find , we feel they 're building another one somewhere , '' Kevin Hecht , a Border Patrol tunnel expert , told The New York Times last year . A wall would likely increase the rewards for successful tunneling as other modes of transit grow more expensive .
Trump is unconcerned , asserting that `` tunnel technology '' will rule out any such subterfuge . Effective tunnel detection equipment is seen as the Holy Grail of Border Patrol enforcement , but the Homeland Security Department 's Science and Technology Directorate has so far concluded that no current technology for detecting tunnels beneath the border is `` suited to Border Patrol agents ' operational needs . ''
But the biggest practical problem with a wall is its opacity . In fact , many Border Patrol agents oppose a concrete wall for precisely this βββ ( albeit quietly , given that they were also some of Trump 's biggest supporters during the election ) . `` A cinder block or rock wall , in the traditional sense , is n't necessarily the most effective or desirable choice , '' Border Patrol agents told Fox News . `` Seeing through a fence allows agents to anticipate and mobilize , prior to illegal immigrants actually climbing or cutting through the fence . ''
The agency is already desperate to switch out the nontransparent landing-mat fences in use in some places . These metal sheets were adapted from helicopter landing pads left over from Vietnam , and while inexpensive , they are ill-suited to their purpose . Popular Mechanics described these parts of the fence as `` obsolete , in need of replacement , '' noting that they `` can be easy to foil since Border Patrol agents ca n't see what 's going on on the other side . '' If a wall slows down agents as much as it does smugglers and migrants , it provides no advantage on balance .
To put it most simply , border barriers will never stop illegal immigration , because a wall or fence can not apprehend crossers . The agents that Fox News spoke to called a wall `` meaningless '' without agents and technology to back it up . Mayor Michael Gomez of Douglas , Arizona , labeled the fence a failure in 2010 , saying `` they jump right over it . '' Former Border Patrol spokesperson Mike Scioli has called the fence little more than `` a speed bump in the desert . ''
The Efficacy of a Wall Trump speaks with absolute certainty of a wall 's ability to repel entries , yet the efficacy of the existing barriers has gone largely unstudied . The president is proposing a project likely to cost tens of billions of dollars and to suck up many other resources , and he is doing so without a single evaluation of the barrier . Obviously , any obstacle to passage will reduce entries at the margin . But would other options work better ?
Rep. Henry Cuellar ( DβTexas ) of the House Homeland Security Committee failed to obtain an answer to this exact question from the Obama administration . Chairman Michael McCaul ( RβTexas ) concluded in 2013 that `` it would be an inefficient use of taxpayer money to complete the fence , '' but he gave no indication of how he evaluated the costs and benefits . A 2016 Migration Policy Institute review of the impact of walls and fences around the world turned up no academic literature specifically on the deterrent effect of physical barriers relative to other technologies or strategies , and concluded somewhat vaguely that walls appear to be `` relatively ineffective . ''
Trump claimed no one would ever use a ladder to go over his wall because `` there 's no way to get down . '' He pondered , then conceded , `` maybe a rope . ''
Fences can have strong local effects , and the case for more fencing often relies completely on these regional outcomes . Take the San Diego border sector , probably the most commonly cited success story in this debate .
From 1990 to 1993 , it replaced a `` totally ineffective '' fence with a taller , opaque landing mat fence along 14 miles of the border . This had little impact on the number of border crossers . `` The primary fence , by itself , did not have a discernible impact on the influx of unauthorized aliens coming across the border in San Diego , '' the Congressional Research Service concluded .
From 1994 to 1996 , Operation Gatekeeper doubled the number of agents in the sector to reinforce the fence , but this too had little effect on the number of apprehended migrants . ( Researchers use apprehensions as a proxy for illegal immigration because they usually track closely to the number of total entries . ) Instead , the apprehensions shifted dramatically away from the areas guarded by western stations at Imperial Beach and Chula Vista , where fences were built , and toward eastern stations . The net flow remained the same .
From 1997 to 1999 , when the San Diego sector was reinforced with nine miles of secondary fencing and even more agents were added , the numbers did finally slow . But looking at the apprehension figures , it appears that San Diego simply pushed its problem even further east , to the El Centro , Yuma , and Tucson sectors . Each agent in those places ended up apprehending more people after the fence was built than before .
Ideally , we would perform the same type of before-and-after analysis of the impact of the Secure Fence Act of 2006 . The problem is that those barriers were rolled out at the same time that Congress almost doubled the size of the Border Patrol , increasing it from 12,000 to 21,000 agents . Moreover , fences went up in many different sectors , making it difficult to isolate the effects . To complicate matters further , this period saw the collapse of the housing bubble , which caused a huge exodus of unauthorized workers back to Mexico .
The Unintended Consequences The numbers from this period also suggest that counting `` reduced crossings '' as a victory may be misleading . As the amount of fencing and the number of agents grew , the share of unauthorized immigrants entering illegally fell , but the number entering legally ( and then staying illegally ) rose .
In 2006 , the Pew Research Center calculated that more than a third of all unauthorized immigrants entered lawfully and then simply overstayed their visas . People who come to the U.S. as tourists or temporary business travelers are forbidden from working , so a small number remain after their visa expires to work under the table . For every three border crossers in 1992 , there was one overstay . But by 2012 , visa overstays accounted for 58 percent of all new unauthorized immigrants . A wall not only will do nothing to stop these people from entering , but it may actually incentivize more people to stick around without authorization .
Using reduced border crossings as the standard of success also obscures the wall 's effect on the total population of undocumented residents in the country .
Until the first fence was built in 1990 , workers could circulate freely across the border , coming to harvest crops during the summer and then returning home in the winter . They crossed with a goal of bettering their lives south of the border . The 1980s had more total crossings than the 1990s , but because as many people left each year as arrived , the total number of unauthorized immigrants remained roughly constant at about 3 million . The true measure of of a barrier 's efficacy should be not the gross flow but the net flow , taking into account both entries and exits .
Increased enforcement in the 1990s raised the cost to cross the border , which obviously prevented some migrants from crossing at the margin . In fact , the cost of a single border crossing exploded from $ 500 in 1995 to $ 3,000 in 2009 . Increasing the price of illegal activity is law enforcement 's main measurement of success . The Drug Enforcement Administration would be thrilled to claim it had driven up illicit drug prices 600 percent in a decade and a half .
But this strategy backfired . The increased costs and risks disincentivized people from returning home . In 1996 , just as the secondary fencing was going up in San Diego , a majority of new unauthorized entrants left within one year , according to a study by the University of Pennsylvania sociologist Douglas Massey . By 2009βwith three times as many agents , 650 miles of barriers , and constant surveillance along the borderβan illegal immigrant 's likelihood of leaving within one year had dropped to a statistically insignificant level . Border security had essentially trapped them in .
The illegal population grew in tandem with the increases in smuggling prices , which in turn paralleled the growth in the number of border officers . This process continued from 1990 to 2007 , when the housing collapse finally set Mexican migration into reverse .
Massey calculates that as of 2009 , 5.3 million fewer immigrants would have been residing in the United States illegally had enforcement remained at the same levels as in the 1980s . He argues that a large guest worker program , similar to the one that the United States last had in the early 1960s , would reduce not just border crossings but the population of immigrants living in this countryβseemingly a nationalist two-for-one .
The Price Tag Congress set aside $ 1.2 billion for the 700-mile border fence in 2006 . It ended up spending $ 3.5 billion for construction of the current combination of pedestrian fences and vehicle impediments . In 2009 , the Border Patrol estimated it would need to spend an average of $ 325 million per year for 20 years to maintain these barriers . The Congressional Research Service found that by 2015 , Congress had already spent $ 7 billion on the project , more than $ 11.3 million per mile per decade .
Of course , it hardly makes sense to look at averages , given that half the fence is inexpensive vehicle-only barriers . Of the 317 miles of true pedestrian fencing , the GAO found that construction alone for the first 70 miles cost $ 2.8 million per mile on average . In the more difficult , non-urban areas , costs grew dramatically : For the next 225 miles , they rose to $ 5 million per mile on average . In a mountainous region east of San Diego , they hit $ 16 million per mile . After about 290 miles , the GAO assumed the average cost for the final 26 miles would be $ 6.5 million .
If Trump backs away from his promise or if Congress ignores his requests for new funding , he may choose to simply build out the existing pedestrian fence for the remaining 683 miles to reach his 1,000-mile goal . Using the $ 6.5-million-per-mile figure , Congress will still need to front at least $ 10 billion over 10 years . The entire fence would price out at $ 18 billion , accounting for inflation . Add in the costs associated with acquiring private land and building in less accessible areas and the price tag goes even higher .
Trump , who still insists that his wall will be not a fence but an `` impenetrable physical wall '' of concrete , claims that it will cost between $ 10 billion and $ 12 billion . In early 2017 , House Speaker Paul Ryan suggested that a similar amount of appropriations would be needed for the wall . Neither the president nor the speaker has revealed his methodology . But since we know that just building out the existing fence would cost at least that much , the wall will undoubtedly cost far more .
Not only that , but the existing fences were relatively inexpensive to build because they were constructed from materials such as old metal from helicopter landing pads and built low to the ground in some places . Trump has criticized them for , among other things , their inability to prevent tunneling , their materials , their height , and their aesthetics . Trump 's wall would use , according to one engineer 's estimate , more than 1.5 times as much concrete as the Hoover Dam .
For the full 1,000 miles , Trump 's 30-foot wall ( with a 10-foot tunnel barrier ) would cost $ 31.2 billion , or $ 31.2 million per mile , according to the best estimate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers . Two other estimates placed the construction cost of the wall in the $ 25 billion range . An internal Department of Homeland Security report from February 2017 concluded the project would cost $ 21.6 billion for `` a series of fences and walls '' along 1,250 miles of the border . And these are solely upfront construction costs . They do n't include ongoing maintenance , which has accounted for roughly half of the price of the existing barriers over a decade .
The Economic Downside Donald Trump has insisted from the start of his campaign that Mexico will pay for the wall . When he presented a proposal to Congress to fund the wall 's construction in January , he continued to insist that Mexico would repay the United States . For his part , Mexican President Enrique PeΓ±a Nieto has said that he would refuse to pay for any portion of the wall , and the back-and-forth became so heated in January that he canceled a meeting with Trump .
The U.S. president has remained vague about how this reimbursement will happen without Mexico 's cooperation , and his total lack of understanding of basic economic concepts may be contributing to his erroneous belief . `` The wall is a fraction of the kind of moneyβ¦that Mexico takes in from the United States , '' he told CNN in April 2016 . `` You 're talking about a trade deficit with Mexico of $ 58 billion . '' In other words , he seems to be saying that if the Mexican government does not give him the $ 31 billion or more that it will take to build the wall , Trump will tax America 's business with Mexico . White House Spokesman Sean Spicer intimated something similar in January 2017 .
Even if that were to happen , it is simply inaccurate to claim that America 's southern neighbor would be paying for the wall , since the revenue would be coming from U.S. consumers . If the United States imposes a tax on Mexican imports , then people in America buying Mexican goods , from beer to cars , will cover it . Sen. Marco Rubio ( RβFla . ) said as much to Trump during a presidential primary debate in January 2016 , explaining that the Mexican government `` does n't pay the tariffβthe buyer pays the tariff . '' Evidently , the lesson failed to stick .
Trump has also floated the idea of cutting off remittances to Mexico of unauthorized immigrants if the Mexican government refuses to pay up . His proposed regulatory method of doing this ( claiming that cash wire transfers are actually bank accounts ) is legally suspect , but even if it were licit , it would not cover the cost of the wall . Although Mexican immigrants annually send $ 26 billion to their families in Mexico , only half of the Mexican immigrants in the United States are here illegally , and the majority of the remittances from unauthorized immigrants would likely find a way home through means other than wire transfers .
The βββ President Trump 's wall would be a mammoth expenditure that would have little impact on illegal immigration . But perhaps that 's not the point . The campaign 's goal was to plant an image in voters ' minds of what making America great again would look like . The president 's goal may now be to create a symbol , an illustration of a nationalism that says to the world that although people of all kinds may want to come here , America was created by and for Americans .
For those who are not nationalists , the wall is a problem . The direct harms are easy to document : the spending , the taxes , the eminent domain abuse , and the decrease in immigrants ' freedom of movement .
Even if the wall fails to reduce illegal entries significantly overall , one byproduct of making it harder to enter is that people will choose to cross in increasingly dangerous points along the border ( the president 's `` natural barriers '' ) . This objective was a purposeful Border Patrol strategy in the 1990s , and it caused the number of deaths to skyrocket as people perished in mountains or deserts . From 1993 to 2005 , the number of lives lost in crossing rose from 23 to 500 per year . Since the border fence was built , the number has declined , but the death rate per crossing had more than tripled by 2012 .
Wasteful security has always been the compromise that non-nationalists give to nationalists to obtain a better immigration system , one that treats people humanely and allows more of them to enter and live here legally . The most optimistic case is that the president builds some kind of barrier and takes credit for the drop in illegal immigration that began a decade ago . Seizing victory , he allows some form of immigration reform palatable to moderate Republicans to pass .
But agreeing to the symbol could be seen as conceding the principle behind it . If Trump understands the costs and the limited benefits of the wall , his true purpose may be to force his opponents to give in to the nationalist viewpoint and spend the ensuing decades building and maintaining its outward sign . Many Republicans , including the president , have adopted a `` border security first '' philosophy that requires certain metrics to be met before other humane reforms take effect , so the wall could simply be an attempt to move the goalposts for security so far that they can never be reached ( especially if Mexico 's reimbursement is a criterion ) .
Another possibility is that the wall serves as a grand red herring , forcing Trump 's opponents to focus on the symbol while he enforces his true vision in other areas . The president 's executive order mandating the construction of a wall also requires a crackdown on asylum seekers coming to the border from Central America . His order on interior enforcement renders nearly all unauthorized immigrants priorities for removal . He has still further orders planned to undermine the legal immigration system for foreign workers . And of course , he has tried to ban all people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering at all . As his opponents focus on the wall , the Trump administration targets immigrants from every direction .
In a sense , the wall merely represents the Trump administration 's worst instincts and desires . It is harmful , wasteful , and offensive , but an ineffective wall is nonetheless better than the surge of 5,000 new Border Patrol agents and 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to round up and deport people that the president also wants . No wall has ever arrested , robbed , battered , or murdered nonviolent people , as immigration enforcement has . A wall will not create an interest group to lobby for itself , endorse nationalist presidential candidates , and demand more power and funding , as the Border Patrol union does .
The wall is more than a symbol . It will harm the lives of thousands of border residents and immigrants while wasting billions of tax dollars . But in a world run by nationalists , the one small source of comfort for non-nationalists over the next four years may be the knowledge that it could be worse . | ad0359801593977f | 2 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
politics | CNN (Web News) | http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/06/politics/clinton-email-review-wrongdoing/index.html | State: Clinton email review not aimed at wrongdoing | 2015-03-06 | politics | Washington ( CNN ) The State Department is reviewing Hillary Clinton 's emails to determine what can be released to the public , not whether she did anything wrong , according to a senior department official .
Clinton aides and department officials stressed this week that the former secretary of state did not violate State policy when she exclusively used a private email account for government work . However , it is currently unclear whether Clinton broke a State guideline dating back to 2005 that suggested `` normal day-to-day operations be conducted on an ( authorized information system ) , which has the proper level of security control . ''
Those guidelines were filled with exemptions that could allow Clinton to use a private account .
The department official was careful to say that the people reviewing the documents are `` not going to prejudge the outcome of the review of Secretary Clinton 's 55,000 pages of emails . ''
Clinton was not automatically in violation of State Department policy when she exclusively used a private email during her four years as America 's top diplomat , the source added , contradicting other media on Thursday .
`` Under federal regulations , there is no prohibition on using a personal email for official business as long as any records are preserved , '' the official said . `` Reports claiming that by using personal email she is automatically in violation of that FAM [ Foreign Affairs manual ] are inaccurate . ''
Clinton 's use of private email was never hidden from anyone , according to a former State Department official . The former secretary of state sent thousands of employees message from that account and in her four plus years at the State Department , nobody raised a red flag and say that she could n't conduct her email communication in the manner she was conducting it , the former official adds .
There were no big internal discussion among State Department lawyers , either , about Clinton 's use of private email . The former official said it was simply accepted as her form of communication .
Clinton 's exclusive use of a private email system has quickly ballooned this week into a controversy for the presumed Democratic frontrunner for president in 2016 . Experts have said it does n't appear Clinton violated federal laws , but that has n't stemmed the issue that has become more about bad optics and politics .
Clinton tweeted on Wednesday night that she asked State to release her emails .
`` I want the public to see my email , '' her tweet said . `` They said they will review them for release as soon as possible . ''
The State Department acknowledged Clinton 's request after the tweet , and a senior official said the review could `` take several months . ''
And while State officials said their review will focus on what can be released , the inquiry will also have to determine what is not suitable for dissemination given its sensitivity . If the department has to withhold documents , questions are likely to be raised about whether Clinton broke State Department guidance for transmuting sensitive but unclassified materials .
On Friday , Marie Harf , a state department spokeswoman , said she was `` not going to speculate '' about whether there is sensitive information in Clinton 's emails .
`` We just do n't know what would happen in that situation , there are so many variables and factors , I just really do n't want to speculate , '' Harf said .
The New York Times reported on Thursday that Clinton 's closest aides at State were well aware that Clinton communicated using a private email address . `` Neither career foreign service officers nor State Department lawyers suggested that Mrs. Clinton use a department email address , '' the Times reported , citing a person with direct knowledge of the inner workings of State Department under Mrs. Clinton .
Clinton 's spokesman failed to comment to CNN questions about those revelations by the Times .
A senior State Department official did say on Friday that administration officials who engaged in email exchanges with her would been party to the fact she used a private account , although it is unclear how many administration officials she actually emailed . Several Clinton former senior staffers have said they used to get their instructions from her verbally .
The questions around Clinton 's email use have captivated political watchers over the last week and allowed Republicans to cast Clinton in a similar way they did her husband , former President Bill Clinton : As a secretive politician pushing the boundaries and rules and regulations .
Charges of hypocrisy have also surfaced given that an inspector general 's report from 2012 - while Clinton was secretary - repeatedly cited Ambassador to Kenya Scott Gration 's use of `` commercial email for official government business '' saying it was against policy to do so `` except in emergencies , '' which created morale problems , `` confusion and discouragement within the embassy community . '' Gration , who resigned his post in 2012 before the IG report became public , was criticized for a number of other things in the document , but it was clear that his using commercial email instead of State Department email was a real concern .
At the time , Clinton was using her own personal email account to conduct official business .
Clinton set up a server at her home in New York to keep her emails , meaning she and her aides were in possession of the documents , not the State Department . When the representatives from State asked for all her records in 2014 , Clinton sent them the 55,000 pages of emails . A Clinton aide said they provided `` anything that pertained to her work '' at State , but it is impossible to verify the former secretary of state did send everything .
State Department guidelines require employees who use private email accounts to back up those documents on government computers so that the department can archive them and they can be available for Freedom of Information Act requests . Clinton aides argue that they complied with State rules when they sent the documents to the department , but that did not happen until 2014 , over a year after Clinton left the department .
In addition to directives from State , federal guidelines from Clinton 's four years leading the department do not appear to outlaw the exclusive use of personal email devices .
The National Archives and Records Administration , the government agency that regulates the Federal Records Act , issued guidance in 2009 -- the same year Clinton took over at State -- that allowed agency employees to use personal accounts as long as they ensured `` that federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system . ''
Before that , the archives agency said they did not `` specifically address this issue . ''
It was n't until 2014 - when President Barack Obama signed an update to the Federal Records Law - that a timeline was set up to mandate how quickly emails had to be turned over by people who used personal devices . | OxmbsySjeo4SORdB | 0 | Hillary Clinton | -0.1 | Politics | -0.1 | Emails | 0 | null | null | null | null |
voting_rights_and_voter_fraud | The Dallas Morning News | https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2020/03/06/democrats-sue-to-try-to-halt-the-end-of-straight-ticket-voting-in-texas-general-election/ | Democrats sue to try to halt the end of straight-ticket voting in Texasβ general election | 2020-03-06 | Elections, Texas, Democratic Party, Voting Rights And Voter Fraud | Updated on Friday , March 6 at 6:30 p.m. with additional comments .
AUSTIN β In a new federal lawsuit , Democrats are pushing back against the end of straight-ticket voting in Texas , arguing the change is unconstitutional because it will disproportionately affect black and Hispanic voters .
The lawsuit against the Texas secretary of state was filed by the Texas Democratic Party , the Webb County Democratic Party and the Democratic campaign arms of the U.S. Senate and House on Thursday .
The Democratic groups argue the end of down-the-ballot voting scheduled for the November general election will mean voters will face longer poll lines and voting wait times . It comes days after Texans across the state had to wait up to six hours to vote in the Super Tuesday primaries .
β Texas decided voting had become too convenient for its citizens , and especially its minority citizens , β the lawsuit says . β In ending a century-old voting practice that Texans have relied on to exercise their most fundamental and sacred rights β the rights to political participation and association β Texas has recklessly created a recipe for disaster at the polls in 2020 . β
Citing violations of the 14th Amendment and the federal Voting Rights Act , Democrats are asking for a federal judge to block the change .
Republican lawmakers pushed the measure through the Texas Legislature in 2017 , but the implementation of the law was delayed until September 2020 through a last-minute amendment to the bill . Even with the end of straight-ticket voting , voters would still see candidates β party affiliations on the November ballot , but they will no longer be able to automatically vote for all the candidates in one party in a single step .
At the time , Republicans said eliminating straight-ticket voting would encourage voters to educate themselves on the candidates .
β House Bill 25 was passed to ensure that all Texas voters look at each candidate and individually choose those who represent them , '' Texas GOP Chairman James Dickey said in a prepared statement on Friday . β Texas joined the 42 other states that do not provide straight-ticket voting for the same reason . Our priority is and must be to defend and protect the full impact of each voter β s choices in each election . β
But Democrats said it was more aimed at diluting their strength in urban areas where there are more races , and down-ballot candidates benefited from straight-party tickets . And in those areas , which are more diverse , it would ultimately disenfranchise minorities , the elderly and voters who need assistance .
β The end of straight-ticket voting was yet another Republican attempt to suppress the vote , alter the electorate , and take away power from the rising Texas majority , '' Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said in a prepared statement . β In minority-majority districts , lines to vote have already proven to be hours long . β
The lawsuit is the latest effort to curb long voting lines such as the ones some Texans faced on Super Tuesday , which local officials said were caused by a surge in turnout , understaffing and issues with voting machines .
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee , a Houston Democrat who serves on the judiciary committee , blasted the assault on straight-ticket voting . In a phone interview on Wednesday about long poll lines in Harris County , she cited it as an example of election rules changes that until a 2013 Supreme Court ruling would have required approval from the U.S. Justice Department β and probably wouldn β t have received it .
β Who β s hurt by straight ticket voting ? I mean , your vote is your vote , and you could be straight ticket Republican or a straight ticket Democrat . There β s no limitation of who can vote straight ticket. β But , she said , β Someone must have looked at 2018 and seen the enormous turnout in some minority communitiesβ¦ and said this is a good thing to get rid of . β
During Texas β s 2018 general election , approximately two-thirds of Texas voters cast their votes using straight-ticked-voting , according to the lawsuit .
In a Thursday email , the Mexican American Legislative Caucus also warned against the elimination of straight-ticket voting for the November election , when the group says turnout could be as high as 11 million voters .
The caucus announced it plans to hold a joint hearing with the Texas Legislative Black Caucus and the Legislative Study Group to look into the issues voters faced during the primary .
β We must do everything in our power to protect the right to vote and enhance access to the ballot box in Texas , β said Rafael AnchΓa , a Dallas Democrat and chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus .
The Texas Civil Rights Project is also calling the secretary of state , Texas β top election official , to work with local officials to resolve the voting issues Texans faced on Super Tuesday before the November general election . | 3c20a0ad17d8779c | 1 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
elections | Washington Times | http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/24/minority-politicians-point-out-where-republican-me/ | Minority politicians point out where Republican message goes wrong | 2014-04-24 | elections | LA PALMA , Calif. β Kwang Song has never voted in the United States , but that could change after the 71-year-old bumped into Michelle Steel , a Republican candidate for the Orange County Board of Supervisors , outside the Hannam Chain Korean market in northern Orange County this month .
Asked , in Korean , what party Ms. Song wanted to register with , she told Mrs. Steel , the same party as you .
Mrs. Steel and other Republicans from California to Washington , D.C. , hope there are plenty of other ethnic voters like Ms. Song .
The GOP is tapping into Democratic-style identity politics to try to find a way to stop , or even reverse , its eroding support among minority voters .
β California is a precursor of the dynamic change , demographicswise , in America , β said Shawn Steel , Mrs. Steel β s husband and a member of the Republican National Committee from California . β So this is a harbinger . This is a call in the dark night saying , β Look , guys , let β s change . We have to adapt or die . β β
In the state that controls the single biggest pot of electoral votes , Wayne Lindholm , president of the Lincoln Club of Orange County , which has served as a rich source of funds for the GOP over the years and whose members have included Richard Nixon and John Wayne , summed up the party β s challenge more bluntly : β We need to break the image of being just old white guys . β
This state used to be Republican territory , producing Nixon , Ronald Reagan and other GOP stalwarts up through the late 1980s , when dramatic demographic trends began to eat away at the conservative voter base .
That has been the case in Orange County . Louis DeSipio , a professor of Hispanic studies at the University of California , Irvine , said Nixon wouldn β t recognize his former stomping grounds .
In 1980 , the state β s population was 65 percent white , 23 percent Hispanic and 10 percent Asian . Fast-forward to today , and of the state β s estimated 38 million people , 34 percent are Hispanic , 19 percent are Asian and 43 percent are white .
That is a problem for a party that has won elections primarily on the backs of white voters . The result : Democrats control the governorship , both U.S. Senate seats and large majorities in both houses of the state Legislature . George H.W . Bush , in 1988 , was the last Republican to carry the Golden State in a presidential election .
β The white electorate on which [ Republicans ] have relied for many years is growing much more slowly than the non-white electorate , β Mr. DeSipio said .
Relying on white voters isn β t working for the Republican Party nationally , either .
Its 2012 presidential nominee , Mitt Romney , won 59 percent of the white vote , a higher percentage than Ronald Reagan did in 1980 when he defeated Democrat Jimmy Carter . But most minority voters roundly rejected Mr. Romney , and that cost him the White House .
President Obama won the votes of 73 percent of Asians and 71 percent of Hispanics nationally , and 72 percent of the Hispanic vote and 79 percent of the Asian vote in California .
Mr. Romney β s loss , in a race that many strategists felt he should win , sent Republican leaders scrambling for answers .
In an election postmortem , the Republican National Committee found that trouble winning minority votes was a key stumbling block .
Mr. Steel , a former head of the California Republican Party , is among those making the case that the GOP must field and , more important , elect minority candidates .
β If the party is to be robust and be a player in California , they are going to have to make some absolutely fundamental changes in their marketing approach , β Mr. Steel said . β The dynamic , fast-growing Asian population needs to be brought in wholesale , and the best way to do that is have a whole lot of Asian-Americans run for local and state offices who are Republican Asians . β
Mr. Steel said the party also must invest more into minority outreach .
He points to a project he spearheaded in 2012 when he raised $ 50,000 as part of an outreach effort in Nevada that included a bilingual phone bank and mailers in four Asian languages promoting Mr. Romney . Exit polls suggested that the limited investment paid off : Mr. Romney pulled in 47 percent of Nevada β s Asian and Pacific-American vote , compared with 26 percent nationwide .
Some analysts warn that the Republican foray into identity politics can go only so far . They say the chief problems are the party β s stances on issues that are key to winning minority votes .
β The question is going to be , β Are you in favor of legalization ? β β said Roberto Suro , a professor at the University of Southern California β s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism who previously served as director of the Pew Hispanic Center . β If the answer is , β Under no circumstances , β this is going to be hard . β
Jack M. Guerrero , a Cudahy City Council member who serves as mayor and ran for the California Assembly in 2012 , said Republicans need to reformulate their message to argue that they are fighting for the little guy , and need to reassure people that the party does not want to scrap social safety net programs but rather make them more efficient and accountable .
But , he said , the β elephant in the room β for Hispanic voters is immigration .
Mr. Guerrero , who was elected to the City Council last year and is the son of Mexican immigrants , said his party needs to adopt a more respectful tone toward immigrants and reject the stances of high-profile Republicans such as Rep. Steve King of Iowa , who Hispanics see as anti-immigrant .
β Those of us that are a lot more sensible need to stand up to that , β Mr. Guerrero said .
He also said the party needs to embrace legalization for at least some illegal immigrants , including a pathway to citizenship β even if it will take you 15 years . β
β If we present a proposition like that , we can get Latinos onboard , β he said . β If we don β t get past that option , then it is all on the messenger eventually . It is someone like me . We will survive only by propping up Republican exceptionals out there [ who are ] able to convince constituents that , except for [ immigration ] , they are Republicans . β
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher , a California Republican who is backing Mrs. Steel and some of the other minority candidates , made it clear that getting rank-and-file Republicans to embrace legalization is difficult .
β I will never vote to legalize the status of people who come here illegally , β Mr. Rohrabacher said at a campaign stop , with Mrs. Steel at his side . β It is an insult to immigrants who came in legally , like Michelle . β
The Republican Party β s immigration problem in California stems back to the 1990s , when Gov . Pete Wilson led an initiative , passed by voters , that cracked down on illegal immigrants β use of many state social services . The law was invalidated by a court , and a subsequent Democratic governor halted appeals , leaving the ruling in place .
The political damage came quickly and went beyond Hispanics , said Charles Kim of Fullerton , whose wife , Young Kim , is running for a seat in the California Assembly . The initiative , known as Proposition 187 , turned off Asian voters as well , he said .
β That is the turning point for when they started losing interest in the Republican Party , β Mr. Kim said . β Democrats , they hug you first . I disagree with them , but they welcome me . I agree with Republicans , but they don β t welcome me . That is the feeling we have . β
The biography on the β About Young Kim β page of his wife β s campaign website makes no mention of her party affiliation .
Mrs. Steel doesn β t shy away from her immigrant experience when she talks with voters .
She was born in South Korea , and her family moved to Japan , where her father served as a diplomat . After her father died , Mrs. Steel β s mother packed up her three daughters and moved to the United States , where she learned her third language : English .
Speaking with a thick accent , which forces some people to lean forward and listen more intently , Mrs. Steel jokes about how she figured it was an American dating tradition to bring along a best friend after Mr. Rohrabacher , now a congressman , tagged along with her husband on their first outing .
She said her desire to run for public office was fueled by the way her mother was treated by the state tax agency , the California Board of Equalization , after she opened a clothing store in Los Angeles .
β She got harassed and abused by tax agency , β Mrs. Steel said . β So I had a grudge against them . She paid taxes that she didn β t owe , plus collecting interest on top of it . β
Mrs. Steel , who graduated from Pepperdine University and received an MBA from the University of Southern California , won one of the five seats on the same tax board in 2006 , making her one of the senior ranking Republican officials in the state government .
Another minority Republican hopeful , Janet Nguyen , an Orange County supervisor running for state Senate , said her family benefited from social welfare programs after emigrating from Vietnam . She said that is an experience more Republicans need to understand .
β When people start saying things like those on welfare are β milking the system , β well , guess what ? That is offensive to me , even though I am not on welfare . That system helped me get to where I am today , β Ms. Nguyen said .
β However , we are rebuilding the party and we are making sure that we are reaching out , β she said . β There are now individuals like myself who are more outspoken about issues and also are talking to Republican leaders about these issues and how we deal with it . β
Republicans hope Mrs. Nguyen can help them tap into the Vietnamese voting bloc . They estimate there are 40,000 unregistered Vietnamese in that Senate district , and they want to get at least 10,000 of them registered and turned out to vote .
The thinking is simple : If they can register Vietnamese voters , even if they sign up as Democrats or decline to pick a party , the new voters are likely to back the Vietnamese candidate .
β This is an old tactic , β Mr. Steel said . β It used to be the Italians . It used to be the Irish . It is a tribalistic thing . It is very effective and so that is kind of an early 20th century phenomena . You go to your tribe , you go to your community , they help you and then you prosper . β | OtI5GItcZ8LpqdyR | 2 | Elections | 0.1 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
general_news | Vox | https://www.vox.com/world/2018/5/25/17394156/gas-prices-memorial-day | Why youβll pay more for gas this Memorial Day weekend | 2018-05-25 | general_news | Fueling up for your Memorial Day weekend road trip is going to be much pricier than it has been in years .
Gas prices are approaching $ 3 a gallon nationally β a 25 percent increase since last year and the highest they β ve been since 2014 .
The surge could dampen the pace of the economy by forcing Americans to spend more at the gas pump and less on other goods and services . If it costs more to fill up your car , it means you have less money to spend going out for a meal or buying clothing .
That could be politically costly for the Trump administration and its Republican allies as they head into the midterms . Even if prices don β t keep rising β and they might β the pain at the pump could erase some of the economic gain Americans received from the administration β s massive tax cut .
β If you look at the benefits of what households are getting from lower [ tax ] rates , roughly one-third of that is wiped out if these higher gas prices are sustained , β Ellen Zentner , the chief US economist at Morgan Stanley , told Politico .
And there are a number of reasons to think prices will stay at their current levels β or rise further . Analysts say the core of the issue is that global demand for oil is exceeding global supply , and that the imbalance is driving up prices .
Patrick DeHaan , a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy , a firm that monitors gasoline pricing , told me that the biggest factors are that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries ( OPEC ) has cut production and because oil production in Venezuela is plunging amid the country β s ongoing economic and political crisis .
OPEC is a cartel of 14 major oil exporters including Saudi Arabia and Iraq that have deliberately produced less oil in recent years to make oil more expensive in global markets . Since their economies are heavily dependent on oil exports , higher prices abroad mean more money at home .
And the economic and political crisis in Venezuela , which sits atop the world β s largest oil reserves , has exacerbated things further . Corruption , decaying oil infrastructure , and a starving workforce have caused production to plummet to the lowest levels in decades .
President Donald Trump β s decision to pull out of the Iran deal earlier in May has pushed oil prices higher still . The Trump administration is currently in the process of reimposing sanctions on Iran β s oil sector , and the energy firm FGE estimates that the sanctions could cause Iran to slash its oil exports by up to 1 million barrels of oil a day . That would dent global oil supply and make gas even more expensive .
No one really knows if oil prices are going to keep rising
Antoine Halff , a scholar at Columbia University β s Center on Global Energy Policy and a former analyst at the International Energy Agency , says a key question surrounding future oil prices is what OPEC decides to do at its meeting in June . Because of the Iran sanctions and Venezuela β s production woes , OPEC could decide that it should export more oil in order to make sure prices don β t rise too high and kill off demand .
Another variable is how the Trump administration approaches Iran . If the two sides start talking openly about war , oil prices could skyrocket as investors brace for continued instability β or far , far worse β in the region that produces much of the world β s oil .
That could send prices spiraling up well past $ 3 a gallon at the gas pump , which could really begin to hurt American consumers and the political standing of Republican Senate and congressional candidates .
The Trump administration thought the tax cuts might be a good way to get more money in people β s wallets before the midterm elections . But if gas prices continue to surge , people might not feel it at all . | BQUllcN61nCv7q5f | 0 | Gas Prices | -0.7 | General News | -0.1 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
white_house | Newsmax | https://www.newsmax.com/politics/trump-kimnorthkorea-hanoi-summit/2019/02/08/id/901953/ | Trump Says He Will Meet Kim in Hanoi for Their Second Summit | 2019-02-08 | White House, Donald Trump, Politics | President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will hold their second summit in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi later this month , the president said on Friday night .
β My representatives have just left North Korea after a very productive meeting and an agreed upon time and date for the second Summit with Kim Jong Un . It will take place in Hanoi , Vietnam , on February 27 & 28 . I look forward to seeing Chairman Kim & advancing the cause of peace ! β
Trump plans to meet with Kim Feb. 27 and 28 , their second meeting after the historic summit in Singapore last summer . In his State of the Union address , Trump said that while β much work remains to be done , β he was hopeful his β good β relationship with the North Korean leader would yield results in ongoing nuclear talks .
β We continue our historic push for peace on the Korean Peninsula , β Trump said .
In a second tweet , Trump praised Kim as a leader with great promise . β North Korea , under the leadership of Kim Jong Un , will become a great Economic Powerhouse . He may surprise some but he won β t surprise me , because I have gotten to know him & fully understand how capable he is . North Korea will become a different kind of Rocket - an Economic one ! β
Before their first meeting , Trump derided Kim as a β Little Rocket Man β with nuclear ambitions . The Kim regime has long been regarded as one of the world β s most repressive governments and responsible for widespread human rights violations .
Trump will face pressure to achieve more during his second meeting with the North Korean leader , after the first summit did not yield commitments from Kim to allow weapons inspections or dismantle its growing arsenal of warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles .
In recent months , North Korea has said it would consider a step-by-step approach , pairing actions to denuclearize with incentives , including the removal of economic sanctions crippling its economy . In a New Year β s address , Kim threatened a β new path β if the U.S. didn β t ease β vicious β sanctions .
Vietnam was considered a favorable location for the summit because Kim could travel to the country with a flight largely over friendly Chinese territory . Representatives of Vietnam β s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment after Trump β s announcement . | 76712f27269219db | 2 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
nsa | CNN (Web News) | http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/politics/rand-paul/index.html?hpt=po_c1 | Rand Paul v Barack Obama: A prelude to 2016 | 2014-02-12 | nsa | Story highlights Rand Paul filed a class action suit against President Obama over surveillance
He is asking for suit participants ' email addresses through his PAC
That 's the name of a lawsuit the Kentucky senator announced Wednesday against President Barack Obama and national security officials over government surveillance .
`` We do n't do this out of disrespect to anyone we do this out of respect to the Constitution , '' Paul said at a news conference .
Paul 's class-action suit , filed in federal court in Washington , was spurred by Edward Snowden 's public disclosure last year that the NSA had gathered information on nearly every telephone call made in the United States since 2006 .
At a news conference , Paul called the legal challenge `` an important first step '' to ending the program that sweeps up numbers and other information known as metadata .
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With the suit , the son of Libertarian hero Ron Paul , who captured the hearts and minds of millions during his two presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 , is rounding out his political persona through his Libertarian roots and adding another spoonful of political savvy .
Paul v Obama in 2014 could be an effective way of helping Paul v the Democratic candidate in 2016 , if he runs for President .
It 's no secret that Paul is considering such a step , but nothing 's official yet .
`` I keep looking at my schedule and I see New Hampshire , I see Iowa , I see South Carolina and I do n't understand why I keep going to these states . '' Paul said Sunday about the three key nominating states on Dallas TV station KXAS 's program `` Lone Star Politics , '' according to the Dallas Morning News
Paul has crossover appeal on issues of war and national security that might help him down the road .
According to a January poll by Quinnipiac , 48 % of American support the phone surveillance program and 47 % oppose . Similarly , 48 % say it 's necessary to keep Americans safe and 46 % think it 's not necessary . Additional polls show the split does not cut along party lines .
Signed on to Paul 's lawsuit is anti-establishment political organization FreedomWorks . Representing them is Ken Cuccinelli , Virginia 's firebrand former attorney general , who lost his bid in November to be Virginia 's governor .
Paul is also promoting the suit through his political action committee , RandPAC , and while he said the legal move could impact hundreds of millions of people , he is asking 10 million of them to sign on to the class-action suit through his website .
Asking for email addresses of class-action participants could be an effective way to increase a list of campaign supporters .
`` Senator Paul can tap into those that are angry at the NSA and use the large number of class action participants to fundraise for a potential 2016 presidential run , '' Republican strategist Ron Bonjean said .
In a CNN op-ed , Paul stayed away from politics and stuck to the policy prescription .
`` It 's time to hold government officials accountable for their habitual trampling on the Constitution and on our rights as individuals , '' he wrote .
While Paul 's criticism of the government 's surveillance programs has rankled both Democrats and Republicans who believe the program keeps Americans safe , he is also receiving bipartisan support .
Jenny Beth Martin , co-founder of Tea Party Patriots , said Paul 's suit follows his principles of limited government .
`` I think it first and foremost is practical and necessary that we define the role of the NSA in terms of the Fourth Amendment in terms of today 's modern technology , '' Martin said , praising Paul .
On the other end of the political spectrum , the American Civil Liberties Union said it generally agrees with Paul 's efforts to rein in the program .
`` We agree with his view of the program and hope it will bring an end '' to the surveillance program , Patrick Toomey , an ACLU staff attorney , said .
The ACLU also filed its own lawsuit six months ago against the program and hosted a day of action on Tuesday that resulted in 266,000 calls and emails to members of Congress opposing the mass surveillance program created to boost U.S. counterterror abilities .
Paul gained national attention during a 13-hour filibuster last year of John Brennan , the nominee to lead the CIA when he also received praise from both conservatives and liberals .
And after he announced his suit Wednesday , Paul had lunch to discuss restoring voting rights to ex felons , an issue that Paul has also drawn attention to and also crosses political ideologies .
The efficacy of the suit is challenging , said legal analyst Alan Dershowitz .
`` It 's a serious legal issue , '' Dershowitz said on CNN 's `` Wolf , '' adding that the issue will likely reach the Supreme Court but not via Paul 's suit because of it 's difficult to show that people were harmed by the surveillance .
`` This is more of a political action than an action that has a chance of succeeding on its merits . '' | oXH9NIxIiP6Tb6bV | 0 | Rand Paul | -0.1 | NSA | 0.1 | Defense And Security | -0.1 | null | null | null | null |
politics | Bloomberg | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-05/elections-today-pose-first-test-for-parties-after-u-s-shutdown.html | Elections Pose First Test for Parties After U.S. Shutdown | 2013-11-05 | Politics | To continue, please click the box below to let us know you're not a robot. Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading. For more information you can review our Terms of Service and Cookie Policy. For inquiries related to this message please contact our support team and provide the reference ID below. Get the most important global markets news at your fingertips with a Bloomberg.com subscription. | b67574535886a636 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
russia | Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-putin-to-discuss-ukraine-in-video-call-amid-growing-tensions/2021/12/06/e089e36a-5707-11ec-a219-9b4ae96da3b7_story.html | Biden, Putin discuss Ukraine in video call amid growing tensions | 2021-12-07 | Russia, Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden, Ukraine, World, Foreign Policy, Sanctions | President Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin in a video call Tuesday not to mount a new invasion of Ukraine and laid out the economic and security costs Russia would face if the Kremlin chooses to go down that path, as the White House attempts to forestall a renewed war in Europe.Biden also offered a diplomatic route to end the war scare that has arisen since the Kremlin, for the second time this year, massed troops and materiel near the border with Ukraine, raising fears of an offensive far larger and more deadly than its invasion eight years ago.The two leaders came out of the virtual meeting and tasked their teams with engaging in what the Kremlin called βsubstantive consultationsβ on βsensitiveβ European security issues, including Russiaβs complaints that NATO is encroaching on its borders and conducting threatening activities on Ukrainian territory. In the run-up to the call, Russia had proposed starting talks on those issues.AdvertisementPresident Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin exchanged greetings to begin a virtual meeting between the two leaders on Dec. 7. (Video: Reuters)During the two-hour call, Putin told Biden that NATO is βbuilding up its military potential at our bordersβ and asked for βreliable, legally fixed guarantees excluding the expansion of NATO in the eastern direction and the deployment of offensive strike weapons systems in the states adjacent to Russia,β the Kremlin said in a statement.White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden made no commitments or concessions on possible NATO membership for Ukraine, which for years has been seeking to join the U.S.-led military alliance.Speaking in a briefing after the call, Sullivan said Biden βstands by the proposition that countries should be able to freely choose who they associate with,β and noted Washington would be compelled to back its NATO allies in Europe with new forces and equipment should Russia further invade Ukraine. He also described the possibility of lower-level follow-on talks Russia has been seeking.AdvertisementβFormal agreements or formal treaties were not on the table in the conversation today, but the straightforward notion that the United States, flanked by our European allies and partners, would be prepared to talk to Russia about strategic issues in the European theater β that was on the table, and we are prepared to do that,β Sullivan said, noting Washington and Moscow did so during the Cold War.βWhat the right mechanism for that is, what the agenda for that is, and what comes of that β that is all to be worked out as we see how things proceed in the coming days,β he added.Sullivan declined to go into detail about what economic threats Biden set out for Putin, but he said the United States is prepared to take measures now that it wasnβt prepared to take after Russiaβs 2014 invasion of Ukraine. He also said the United States has been engaging with both the incoming and outgoing German governments about what would happen to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline if there were an invasion.AdvertisementβIt is leverage for the West because if Vladimir Putin wants to see gas flow through that pipeline, he may not want to take the risk of invading Ukraine,β Sullivan said.Those comments came a day after Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill that the German government has informed the Kremlin it would suspend the pipeline if Russia once again invades Ukraine, according to congressional aides familiar with the exchange.Nuland touched on that possibility again during an open hearing Tuesday, when Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) asked her if a Russian invasion would βtip the balanceβ and cause U.S. allies in Europe to end the pipeline, which runs from Russia to Germany and has yet to come online.βI believe that it absolutely would, senator,β said Nuland.AdvertisementKremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov told Russian media in the hours after Tuesdayβs call that Nord Stream 2 didnβt come up at all during the conversation between Putin and Biden. Ushakov also said Putin didnβt mention any possibility of sending Russian forces into Ukraine.In the eyes of the White House, the call didnβt put those fears to rest.βWe still do not believe that President Putin has made a decision,β Sullivan said. βWhat President Biden did today was lay out very clearly the consequences if he chooses to move.βU.S. intelligence has found that Moscow may be planning a multi-front offensive into Ukraine as early as next year involving as many 175,000 troops, according to U.S. officials and an intelligence document obtained by The Washington Post.The tension comes against the backdrop of a conflict in Ukraineβs eastern Donbas region, which has been simmering for nearly eight years and, according to Ukraine, has left more than 14,000 people dead. Russia fueled a separatist rebellion in the region in 2014 after pro-Western demonstrators toppled a Kremlin-friendly government in Kyiv and took power.AdvertisementDuring the call, Putin noted the lack of progress in the implementation of the 2015 Minsk agreements designed to end the conflict. He also accused the Ukrainian government of trying to dismantle the accords and those reached during the Normandy format talks, which include Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France, the Kremlin said in its readout of Tuesdayβs call.Sullivan said that the White House believes progress on ending the conflict can be made through the Minsk agreement and the Normandy format, and said there can also be a βlarger mechanismβ to address Russiaβs broader concerns about NATO, as well as the U.S. and its NATO alliesβ concerns about Russia.In an interview with the Financial Times in April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for changes to the Minsk protocol and suggested adding the United States and Britain to the Normandy format. Russia, meanwhile, has sought to work in the confines of those peace arrangements, which were made in part as a capitulation to Moscow aimed at stopping the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine.AdvertisementIn an email readout of the call, the White House said that βBiden voiced the deep concerns of the United States and our European Allies about Russiaβs escalation of forces surrounding Ukraine and made clear that the U.S. and our Allies would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of military escalation.β Biden also, the readout said, expressed his support for Ukraineβs sovereignty and territorial integrity, and urged a de-escalation and return to diplomacy.The call went beyond Ukraine. Biden and Putin had βa good discussion on the Iran issueβ during the call, Sullivan said, calling the talk βproductiveβ and emphasizing how Washington and Moscow worked together despite tensions to produce the 2015 Iranian nuclear accords.Biden briefed the leaders of Britain, Germany, France and Italy after the call and is planning to speak with Zelensky on Thursday, the White House said.AdvertisementBoth publicly and privately, administration officials have been hesitant to telegraph just how far the United States is prepared to go, including the potential use of military force, if Russia moves ahead and invades Ukraine.Republicans have accused Biden of not going far enough to ward off the Kremlin and have urged him to provide the Ukrainians with more weapons. Sen. James M. Inhofe (Okla.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement after the call that βsanctioning Russia over this reckless behavior is important, but it is not enoughβ and called on the White House to send anti-air, antitank and counter-artillery weapons to Ukraine.Though Ukraineβs accession to NATO has long appeared remote, Russia is concerned about the extent of Kyivβs cooperation with the alliance, including on military assistance, analysts said.AdvertisementAmid the escalation, Russian officials have claimed that Moscow β not Kyiv β is under threat.In an address to Russiaβs Foreign Ministry board in November, Putin warned that the West has not taken Russiaβs βred linesβ seriously enough. He said the United States and its allies supply Kyiv with lethal weapons, conduct βprovocativeβ military exercises in the Black Sea and fly strategic bombers close to Russiaβs borders.βNo matter what the outcome of the Biden-Putin virtual summit, please remember that Putin invented this βcrisisβ single-handedly,β Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration, wrote on Twitter. βNothing changed in Ukraine. Nothing changed regarding NATO policy.βJohn Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and senior director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, said it is possible Putinβs main objective in massing forces by the border is not to invade but rather to intimidate the United States, Europe or Ukraine into some form of compromise.Herbst said the most likely downside to these negotiations is that βin our willingness to prevent the nasty outcome, we give Putin something of value β so what he learns is that intimidation works.βDmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said that even if Washington gave Moscow the guarantees it is seeking, βthey probably wouldnβt be completely trusted by Russia.ββThe Russian strategy appears to be using military force deployments and movements to make the U.S. take Russian security concerns seriously and engage in a productive dialogue,β Trenin said.Moscow regards Biden βas a sensible person who, all rhetoric aside, understands his responsibility when confronting a fellow nuclear superpower,β Trenin added.The two leaders met in person in June, at a summit in Geneva, that included three hours of face-to-face talks but little in the way of deliverables. Still, at the time both sides dubbed the summit a success, saying it had achieved its goal of opening lines of communication between the two countries to head off potential catastrophes. | 8e530a5f95c79a0d | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
supreme_court | The Flip Side | https://www.theflipside.io/archives/2020-census-battle | 2020 Census Battle | supreme_court | The left argues that the new evidence makes clear the GOP β s true motives , and condemns the citizenship question as undermining the purpose of the census .
β A trove of documents brought to the attention of the Supreme Court on Thursday makes it hard to see the Trump administration β s efforts to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census as anything but a partisan power grabβ¦ An accurate and fair count of everyone in America isn β t just any policy goal . There β s much at stake with the 2020 census β from the future of the next redistricting cycle to how billions of dollars in federal funding will be allocated . The Supreme Court should see this new evidence for what it seems to reveal : A blatant attempt to rig a constitutional mandate . β
β [ The ] newly revealed documents show that the Trump administration β s purpose in putting the citizenship question on the upcoming census was not its stated one to help Hispanic voters under the Voting Rights Act , but rather to create policy that would be β a disadvantage to the Democrats β and β advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic Whites. β It β s difficult to produce a greater smoking gun than explicitly saying you are hoping to help the GOP by increasing white voting powerβ¦
β Even if it is otherwise constitutionally permissible to experiment with different understandings of how to draw districts with equal populations under the equal protection clause , the government should not be able to do so if the purpose is to dilute the power of political adversaries and minority voters , as demonstrated in this case by the new revelations . β
β Long before Trump was even elected , Republican Party insiders were plotting to increase white political power at the expense of people of color . After Trump was elected , they implemented this plan by insisting that their actual goal was the protection of minority voting rightsβ¦ there was the real reason and the stated reason , the truth and the pretextβ¦
β That the Republican effort to increase white political power might be motivated by partisanship rather than racism is little solace . Segregationist Democrats might not have insisted on disenfranchising black voters after Reconstruction had those voters not been staunch Republicans . Whether motivated by partisanship or racism , though , the result is the sameβ¦ [ Yet ] the census case does not hinge on whether the citizenship question is discriminatory . Rather , as a matter of administrative law , the executive branch must follow certain procedures before making decisions . The Trump administration β s blatant dishonesty settles the question of whether it followed procedure definitively : It did not . β
β Federal law protects the privacy of everyone who responds to the census . But that β s small comfort for immigrants and their families living in a climate of fear under President Trump . Bureau officials have for decades recognized that communities with significant immigrant populations are likely to be undercounted if there is a citizenship question on the censusβ¦
β By the bureau β s own , nonpartisan analysis , adding a citizenship question to the β short form β that will go to every household in America in 2020 could result in an undercount of 6.5 million people β close to the entire population of Indiana or Tennessee . And the agency has told Mr. Ross that there are better alternatives to a citizenship question that wouldn β t pose significant β potential quality and cost disruptions β in administering the census , such as deriving citizenship data from the American Community Surveyβ¦ At the heart of the dispute lies the question : Who gets to be counted ? β
Others note that β [ Warren ] has provided more detail on Medicare financing than Sanders has . She has also provided more overall policy detail , including on the taxes she would raise , than Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg . And her Medicare plan comes much , much closer to paying for itself than various Republican tax cuts . I wish the conservatives complaining about her plan applied the same rigor to their own ideasβ¦ The biggest weakness of Warren β s approach is that it tries to bulldoze through the sizable public anxiety about radical changes to the health care system . Warren would not let people opt into Medicare , a wildly popular idea . She would force them to joinβ¦ she needs to come up with a reassuring transition plan soon . β
β Trump β s defenders will say this evidence is all circumstantial . But circumstantial evidence is not weak evidence : it β s simply evidence based on the circumstances in which an act of wrongdoing is committed β such as the license plate of a car that speeds away from a bank just after that bank is robbed . Criminals are convicted on such evidence all the time . They will also say that there β s no explicit quid pro quo proposal here . Butβ¦ β even when a corrupt deal is struck implicitly , the government can still prosecute extortion on a quid pro quo basis . Circumstantial evidence can be enough to prove a criminal exchange. β β¦ β β In the absence of an explicit quid pro quo over restarting aid , the context and circumstances are what will become the focus of the investigation . There is enough here to support impeachment . Whether it is also enough to convince Republicans and lead to removal is another matter . β | zXSVCBLwpng7edhS | 1 | Supreme Court | 0.2 | US Census | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | |
immigration | BuzzFeed News | https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/ice-immigrant-surgeries-deaths-jails-whistleblower-secret | A Childβs Forehead Partially Removed, Four Deaths, The Wrong Medicine β A Secret Report Exposes Health Care For Jailed Immigrants | immigration | βββ has obtained a memo in which an ICE whistleblower says two immigrants got preventable surgeries and two were given the wrong drugs . Four died β one after getting `` grossly negligent '' care .
Immigrants held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement jails around the US received medical care so bad it resulted in two preventable surgeries , including an 8-year-old boy who had to have part of his forehead removed , and contributed to four deaths , according to an internal complaint from an agency whistleblower . The allegations appear in an explosive Department of Homeland Security memo , obtained by βββ , containing reports of detainees being given incorrect medication , suffering from delays in treating withdrawal symptoms , and one who was allowed to become so mentally unstable he lacerated his own penis and required reparative surgery .
The whistleblower reported that three people had died in ICE lockup after receiving inadequate medical treatment or oversight , and said official reports on a fourth person β s death were β very misleading. β One man died from meningitis following β grossly negligent β care . Another killed himself after saying he would do exactly that months earlier . The allegations were laid out in a March 20 memorandum signed by Cameron Quinn , DHS β s officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties , and sent to top ICE leadership . The memo describes the whistleblower as someone within the ICE Health Service Corps , or IHSC , which provides medical care and oversight for detainees in the agency β s custody . βββ does not know the person β s identity . The whistleblower β s allegations were first received by the Homeland Security β s inspector general in April 2018 . In July of that year , the inspector general sent the allegations to Quinn β s office , which will investigate the medical care and oversight IHSC provides at a time when President Donald Trump demonizes immigrants , detains them in record numbers , and enacts restrictive policies to keep them out of the US . The allegations in the DHS memo , if corroborated , are a cry from someone working for ICE echoing what advocates , lawsuits , and other media reports have been saying for years : The medical care ICE provides and oversees for immigrants in private and local jails could be very bad . This internal memo is one of a trove of remarkable secret documents β including emails , briefing materials , and draft reports β βββ has obtained throughout 2019 uncovering how the Trump administration β s immigration policies were formed and executed , and how those policies confused or harmed people who sought to immigrate to the US . These records have revealed how immigrants locked up at the US border had no access to showers and how children were held in closed and crowded cells ; that US border officials apparently pressured the asylum office to deny immigrants entry into the US ; that a Texas detention center waited more than seven hours to transfer an ailing 37-year-old Mexican man to a hospital , where he died from bleeding in his brain ; and that in the final days before launching a controversial plan to deport Central American asylum-seekers to Guatemala , US officials scrambled to answer basic questions such as how people would get shelter , food , and social services . βββ has retyped the memo based on the whistleblower β s allegations , providing its full text , because metadata or other information in the original could compromise a source β s identity . βββ redacted the names of most immigrants and ICE middle managers and their contact information . [ Make more work like this possible : Become a βββ member today . ] The memo describes what happened to 17 different immigrants who were held at nine facilities across six states , from Georgia to Washington . The allegations include : That immigrants received incorrect medications . One man was given an antidepressant instead of an antipsychotic drug , likely worsening his condition . Another was given aspirin despite having thin blood β he nearly died .
That four immigrants endured severe withdrawal symptoms while in ICE custody . One man addicted to opioids was the subject of a β medication error β ; two men with a benzodiazepine addiction saw delays in treatment ; and one man β went into severe alcohol withdrawal and delirium and was admitted to the hospital in the intensive care unit . β
That IHSC leadership was unresponsive or even dishonest when confronted . They β failed to take appropriate action β when told of policy violations in 10 of the cases ; β did not respond β to concerns about one case in which a detainee with non-Hodgkin β s lymphoma died under β deplorable β conditions ; and were β erroneous β and told others to β hold off β when looking into several cases . Overall , the memo says , the whistleblower alleged that IHSC β has systematically provided inadequate medical and mental health care and oversight to immigration detainees across the U.S. β The memo also says the inspector general will investigate the whistleblower β s allegation that they were retaliated against for raising the issues .
The memo was distributed within the agency β but a former senior ICE official who was aware of the allegations and the response told βββ that ICE leadership appeared to not take a close look at the allegations . β This is significant and very damning , β the former official , who requested anonymity in order to speak freely , said . β It blows up a lot of the ICE responses to allegations of poor medical care and about how it provides β the highest care of detainees. β This makes that seem pretty false , which it is. β An ICE spokesperson told βββ in a statement it β is committed to ensuring that those in our custody reside in secure , humane environments and under appropriate conditions of confinement . The agency takes very seriously the health , safety and welfare of those in our care , including those who come into ICE custody with prior medical conditions or who have never before received appropriate medical care . It also uses a multi-layered inspections program to ensure its facilities meet a certain threshold of care as outlined in our contracts with facilities , as well as the National Detention Standards and the Performance Based National Detention Standards. β The agency added that it maintains a detainee helpline and created an independent oversight body β to conduct independent oversight of detention conditions for ICE detainees through facility reviews and targeted site visits. β The agency also said senior officials have a council that examines serious issues , especially β critical incidents , β to make sure leadership knows about incidents and β and that all required investigation and coordination is undertaken in a timely fashion. β [ Read ICE β s full statement here . ] ICE referred βββ to DHS for questions about investigations into the memo β s allegations . DHS didn β t return a request for comment by deadline .
Bettina Hansen / The Seattle Times A detainee receives prescribed medications from an employee at the regional detention center for immigrants in Tacoma , recently renamed the Northwest ICE Processing Center , Sept. 10 .
ICE has expanded the number of people it detains to record levels under Trump . Thousands of immigrants in its custody had passed their initial asylum screenings , a practice that in the past generally led to release from custody .
The peak came this summer when around 55,000 immigrants were in custody in local jails and private prisons across the country . To pay for it all , DHS had to transfer money earmarked for disaster relief and other efforts . In recent weeks , it has dipped to around 44,000 people in custody , still above the numbers during the Obama administration . In the 2019 fiscal year , eight people died in ICE custody . The highest number of deaths in recent years came in the 2017 fiscal year , which included the end of the Obama administration , when 12 people died in ICE custody . ICE β s sprawling detention system relies on a variety of methods to provide medical care . In some facilities , the agency provides it directly ; in others , it has a few ICE employees assist private or public contractors ; and in many , it oversees care provided by a contractor . On Dec. 5 , 2017 , an 8-year-old boy β s mother told officials at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley that her son β s earache had been worsening for two weeks , the memo says . Medical personnel diagnosed him with swimmer β s ear β an external ear infection β and gave him ear drops . More than two weeks later , on Dec. 23 , the boy had seizures and was taken to the hospital . Doctors there diagnosed him with Pott β s puffy tumor , a rare infection inside the skull that spread from the child β s ear to his facial bone and formed abscesses under the skull . To treat it , they surgically removed part of the boy β s frontal bone , which makes up the forehead . The whistleblower said that ICE β s Medical Quality Management Unit analyzed the case , and found that the β inadequate medical care provided by [ the detention center ] was a contributory factor resulting in harm. β The quality control unit β s report was forwarded to IHSC leadership who , the whistleblower said , β failed to take appropriate action . ''
β Allegedly , delayed medical care and misdiagnosis led to an infection that spread from the child β s ear to his facial bone , requiring a partial bone resection . According to the information provided , on December 5 , 2017 , the child β s mother first reported that her child had a progressively worsening earache for the past two weeks . The child was subsequently treated using nursing guidelines for Allergies/Fever/Pain , diagnosed with Swimmer β s Ear , and given ear drops . However , on December 23 , 2017 , the child was noted to have seizure activity and was transferred to the hospital where he was diagnosed with Pott β s Puffy Tumor with epidural and subdural abscess resulting in partial frontal bone resection . Further , the complainant alleged that MQMU performed an analysis of the case and found that the inadequate medical care provided by STFRC was a contributory factor resulting in harm . MQMU β s report was forwarded to IHSC leadership and MQMU requested findings and/or interventions from Clinical Services , yet IHSC leadership failed to take appropriate action . β
At the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin , Georgia , a man was β was reportedly bleeding through his skin and having vision changes , β the whistleblower said .
Instead of taking him to the hospital , a doctor continued his aspirin regimen β which thins the blood β for six days β despite [ the detainee ] having extremely thin blood , β the memo reads . The result was β his coughing up large amounts of blood. β He was taken β in critical condition β to the hospital , where he was β not expected to survive. β The quality control unit reviewed the case β and determined that that Asprin therapy may have caused harm that could have resulted in a fatality. β β A delay in care , β the memo reads , β occurred after medical staff were notified of the detainee 's critical lab result that should have resulted in immediate medical intervention. β The quality control unit notified IHSC of β policy and procedure violations , β the memo reads , but β leadership failed to take appropriate action . β
β Allegedly , a delay in care occurred after medical staff were notified of the detainee β s critical lab result that should have resulted in immediate medical intervention . [ Name withheld by βββ ] was reportedly bleeding through his skin and having vision changes . Despite having extremely thin blood , the physician allegedly kept him on aspirin regimen for six days , resulting in his coughing up large amounts of blood . [ Name withheld by βββ ] was taken to the hospital in critical condition and not expected to survive . MQMU performed an analysis of the case and determined that that Asprin therapy may have caused harm that could have resulted in a fatality . The findings were forwarded to IHSC leadership for consideration of a root cause analysis , yet IHSC leadership failed to take appropriate action . β
And at the Eloy Federal Contract Facility in Arizona , the quality control unit notified the detention center β s psychiatrist several times about an immigrant β s β worsening psychosis-related symptoms , but the psychiatrist failed to treat him , β the memo reads .
The man β became so unstable that he lacerated his penis , requiring hospitalization and surgery . β
β According to the complaint , IHSC Medical Quality Management Unit ( β MQMU β ) notified the facility psychiatrist several times about [ Name withheld by βββ ] worsening psychosis-related symptoms , but the psychiatrist failed to treat him . [ Name withheld by βββ ] allegedly became so unstable that he lacerated his penis , requiring hospitalization and surgery . β
The whistleblower referred to the case of Ronald Cruz , whose real name is Ronal Romero .
Romero came to the US in 2002 and lived for more than a decade in Missouri , where he found a community of friends and worked long hours at local restaurants in management positions , his family told βββ . In January 2016 , he was convicted of driving under the influence and sentenced to two days in jail . Romero had a previous deportation order , and was picked up by ICE officials and sent back to Honduras .
Romero returned to the US because of the lack of opportunity and dangerous conditions in his home country , his family said . Romero was arrested by Customs and Border Protection officials on May 9 , 2018 , and was transferred to ICE β s Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos , Texas , on May 14 . By the next day , he began feeling sick and was in serious pain , according to a death review conducted by ICE β s Office of Professional Responsibility and obtained by the Project on Government Oversight . He told the medical staff at the ICE facility that he had been receiving ear drops and antibiotics for an ear infection while he was in CBP custody . He was treated and given medication . But later that day he became confused , not knowing where he was , and had trouble waking up . He died the next day in a hospital . His family did not hear from him while he was in ICE custody , they said , and his death came as a shock : β I cried deeply β I was like a father and an oldest brother to him , β said one of his brothers , who requested anonymity to speak freely . Their father , the brothers explained , had been murdered years ago in Honduras . An autopsy performed by a private entity found that Cruz died of β sepsis complication with meningitis. β An internal death review conducted by ICE found the facility was compliant with its medical standards . But the whistleblower called the medical care rendered to Cruz `` grossly negligent '' and challenged ICE β s review , alleging `` that the mortality review committee was erroneous in concluding that the care rendered to Mr. Cruz was appropriate . '' Cruz β s two older brothers have tried to convince people that the treatment their brother received was substandard . β I β m grateful to the whistleblower for the strength to share this information in this way β it β s very sad what happened with my brother , β one of Cruz β s siblings told βββ . β We believe he should be here with us . He was our little brother β he was everything to us . He was treated like an animal. β Andrew Free , an immigration attorney in Georgia who represents Cruz β s family , said the existence of the memo was illuminating : β To hear an insider who has knowledge of government records saying this was grossly negligent is at once tragic , and oddly validating. β β You should know , β his older brother said , β he was a hard worker who treated others well . He wasn β t a bad person . He was a good brother and a good friend . β
β According to the complainant , the medical care rendered to Mr. Cruz was β grossly negligent. β Mr. Cruz β s preliminary cause of death on May 16 , 2018 was ruled as meningitis . The complainant alleged that the mortality review committee was erroneous in concluding that the care rendered to Mr. Cruz was appropriate . β
The whistleblower alleged other widespread issues , such as detainees with psychological problems who were allegedly left without observation or provided incorrect medication . Officials were notified about Efrain De La Rosa β s deteriorating mental health at Stewart Detention Facility in Lumpkin , Georgia . De La Rosa said on April 26 , 2018 , that he β d be dead in three days β he killed himself about 11 weeks later .
β Mr . De La Rosa β s preliminary cause of death was ruled a suicide . According to the complainant , IHSC leadership was notified of Mr. De La Rosa β s deteriorating mental health condition via SEN report on several occasions between April 25 , 2018 and May 6 , 2018 . On April 26 , 2018 , a SEN report indicated that while on suicide watch , Mr. De La Rosa β s had stated to staff that he would be dead in three days . The complainant noted that several months earlier , IHSC leadership directed MQMU to cease reviewing SEN and segregation reports , despite concerns raised to IHSC leadership that this restriction could negatively impact detainee safety . β
De La Rosa has been the subject of investigations by the Intercept , the Atlanta Journal-Constitution , and the Young Turks . The Young Turks previously obtained an internal email sent to ICE β s current acting director , Matthew Albence , that relayed issues with ICE β s medical care . These outlets reported that De La Rosa was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and was being held in solitary confinement on suicide watch . He seemed obsessed with death . When he was transferred from a mental health facility to Stewart , the staff there didn β t register his issues . ICE said it is β committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody and is undertaking a comprehensive agency-wide review of this incident. β One man at Eloy Federal Contract Facility in Arizona was supposed to receive antipsychotic medication β but allegedly got antidepressants instead , the memo said , β which likely worsened his psychosis. β Senior leadership allegedly told colleagues β to β hold off β on notifying IHSC Clinical Services unless and until the detainee became psychotic and suicidal again . ''
β Allegedly , [ Name withheld by βββ ] was not treated appropriately for serious mental illness with psychotic-like symptoms . According to the complainant , MQMU warned IHSC senior leadership on two occasions about [ Name withheld by βββ ] increased risk of adverse outcomes due to his auditory hallucinations and suicidal ideations . This allegedly resulted in [ Name withheld by βββ ] not receiving anti-psychotic medication , despite the IHSC chief psychiatrist β s agreement with the MQMU β s findings and recommendation that [ Name withheld by βββ ] receive anti-psychotic medication . Instead , [ Name withheld by βββ ] received an anti-depressant which likely worsened his psychosis . The complainant further claimed that following MQMU β s second notification of inadequate mental health care and treatment , IHSC senior leadership allegedly advised MQMU to β hold off β on notifying IHSC Clinical Services unless and until the detainee became psychotic and suicidal again . β
Four cases alleged forcible medication at two facilities : the El Paso Service Processing Center in Texas and the Jena/LaSalle Detention Facility in Louisiana . In these cases , the memo was concerned with β policy and procedure violations β around the injections . And each time , the memo said , β IHSC leadership failed to take appropriate action . '' Both cases in Louisiana involved forced injections of Ativan , a medication that aims to treat patients with mental illness and agitation . There , a woman was sent to the hospital for erratic behavior and convulsions . When she returned , she was found eating toilet paper and Styrofoam . She was allegedly β given forced intramuscular injection of Ativan . β
β [ Name withheld by βββ ] was sent to the hospital Emergency Room due to erratic behavior and convulsions . When she returned to the facility , she was observed eating toilet paper and styrofoam in the Medical Housing Unit ( MHU ) . According to the complainant , [ Name withheld by βββ ] was placed at higher than normal risk for mental status deterioration and given forced intramuscular injection of Ativan . Further , the complainant alleged that MQMU performed an analysis of the case and the findings included policy and procedure violations , which were forwarded to IHSC leadership for review and action , yet IHSC leadership failed to take appropriate action . β
β Allegedly , [ Name withheld by βββ ] was forcibly medicated with multiple Ativan injections for repeated behavioral issues . Further , MQMU performed an analysis of the case and the findings included policy and procedure violations , which were forwarded to IHSC leadership for review and action , yet IHSC leadership dialed to take appropriate action . β
β According to the information provided , [ Name withheld by βββ ] was observed with a sweatshirt around his neck and four correctional officers held him down while medical staff administered a haloperidol intramuscularly by force . According to the complainant , MQMU performed an analysis of the case and the findings included policy and procedure violations , which were forwarded to IHSC leadership for review and action , yet , IHSC leadership failed to take appropriate action . β
β Allegedly , [ Name withheld by βββ ] was forcibly medicated for reported behavioral issues . MQMU performed an analysis of the case and the findings included policy and procedure violations , which were forwarded to IHSC leadership for review and action , yet IHSC leadership failed to take appropriate action . β
In at least four cases , detainees were allegedly not appropriately treated for their alcohol or opioid withdrawal .
β Allegedly , facility medical staff did not follow policies and procedures concerning withdrawal protocols for [ Name withheld by βββ ] alcohol withdrawal . [ Name withheld by βββ ] a stated during his intake screening that he consumed one bottle of vodka and two bottles of beer daily . [ Name withheld by βββ ] subsequently went into severe alcohol withdrawal and delirium and was admitted to the hospital in the intensive care unit ( ICU ) . Further , according to the complainant , MQMU performed an analysis of the case and the findings included policy and procedure violations , which were forwarded to IHSC leadership for review and action , yet IHSC leadership failed to take appropriate action .
β Allegedly , facility medical staff did not follow policies and procedures concerning withdrawal protocols for [ Name withheld by βββ ] opioid withdrawal . According to the complainant , the detainee was not treated until MQMU staff called the facility following a review of a significant event notification ( SEN ) . The detainee was subsequently found to be in severe benzodiazepine withdrawal and was admitted to the hospital . Further , the complainant alleges that MQMU performed an analysis of the case and the findings included policy and procedure violations , which were forwarded to IHSC leadership for review and action , yet IHSC leadership failed to take appropriate action . β
β Allegedly , facility medical staff did not follow policies and procedures concerning withdrawal protocols for [ Name withheld by βββ ] benzodiazepines withdrawal . According to the complainant , medical staff did not address his withdrawal at intake , despite his reporting high levels of daily consumption of benzodiazepines . [ Name withheld by βββ ] subsequently went into drug withdrawal seizures and was admitted to the hospital . Further , the complainant alleges that MQMU performed an analysis of the case and the findings included policy and procedure violations , which were forwarded to IHSC leadership for review and action , yet IHSC leadership failed to take appropriate action. β β Allegedly , facility medical staff did not follow policies and procedures concerning withdrawal protocols for [ Name withheld by βββ ] opioid withdrawal , and a medication error occurred during the course of his treatment . Further , according to the complainant , MQMU performed an analysis of the case and the findings included policy and procedure violations , which were forwarded to the IHSC leadership for review and action , yet IHSC leadership failed to take appropriate action . β
And Roger Rayson died in ICE custody at the LaSalle Detention Facility of bleeding in the brain . The whistleblower described the care provided to him as β deplorable . β
β According to the complainant , Mr. Rayson healthcare was β deplorable. β Mr. Rayson β s preliminary cause of death was ruled as subdural hemorrhages resulting in a traumatic brain injury . The complainant claimed that multiple requests for the Uniform Corrective Action Plan ( UCAP ) and Root Cause Analysis ( RCA ) were made to IHSC leadership , but IHSC did not respond . β
Rayson , a 47-year-old Jamaican immigrant , died approximately two months after being taken into ICE custody and a month β after being transferred to a hospital for nausea , vomiting , and pain , β according to a report by four advocacy groups . At the hospital , the report said he was diagnosed with β a fast-growing but treatable form of non-Hodgkin β s Lymphoma , and died nine days later . β
Medical experts interviewed by βββ said the series of allegations required additional scrutiny , including from Congress . β The allegations , if they are true , are serious and deserve really careful scrutiny about what went wrong , why it went wrong , and it is very possible they represent a more fundamental problem with the ICE health care system , β said Marc Stern , a public health expert and faculty member at the University of Washington . Homer Venters , a former chief medical officer for the New York City jail system who has closely studied care in correctional facilities , told βββ he was concerned that β IHSC is not acting in a way to not repeat the same type of preventable death over and over in different places around the country. β Venters said that , in his experience , when health professionals such as the whistleblower take their complaints outside of their own system , β they do so because they don β t see a path to improving the system from the inside β they don β t see hope for addressing what are detention-related deaths that are preventable that flow from lack of access to quality health services . β
Eric Gay / AP A box for grievances is seen in the cafeteria at the ICE South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley , Texas , Aug. 23 .
ICE has been criticized for its detainee medical care for years . In 2019 alone , the family of an Iranian man who the ACLU claims failed to receive proper treatment for methadone withdrawal and later died in ICE custody in Colorado sued the private prison contractor he was held in , GEO Group . In August , immigrant advocates sued ICE on behalf of 15 individuals detained at 8 different facilities in 6 states over what they described as the federal government β s failure to provide adequate medical and mental health treatment . The groups allege that the detainees have been denied necessary surgeries or even provided medication , such as insulin , for serious medical issues . ICE officials have long said that they are dedicated to providing timely and comprehensive medical care to immigrants in their custody , noting that they have access to a daily sick call and 24-hour emergency care . The agency has publicized that it spends more than $ 269 million each year on health care services . The former senior ICE official told βββ that some at the agency brush away allegations of substandard medical care . β β The care is better than they got in their home countries β β you hear that a lot , β the former official said . The official said it was unlikely that the agency would dramatically alter or add resources to its medical care system . β It β s not going to happen under this administration , β the former official said . β That would take away money from beds and they are high on beds . They are not going to want to use that money in a different way. β β
A Child β s Forehead Partially Removed Four Deaths The Wrong Medicine A Secret Report Exposes Health Care For Jailed Immigrants βββ has obtained a memo in which an ICE whistleblower says two immigrants got preventable surgeries and two were given the wrong drugs . Four died β one after getting β grossly negligent β care . | vdRLMGACUJ7dFzza | 0 | Business | -2.5 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | |
foreign_policy | CNN (Web News) | http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/13/politics/afghanistan-isis-moab-bomb/ | First on CNN: US drops largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan | 2017-04-13 | Foreign Policy, Afghanistan, ISIS | Washington ( CNN ) The US military dropped America 's most powerful non-nuclear bomb on ISIS targets in Afghanistan Thursday , the first time this type of weapon has been used in battle , according to US officials .
A GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb ( MOAB ) , nicknamed the `` mother of all bombs , '' was dropped at 7:32 p.m. local time , according to four US military officials with direct knowledge of the mission . A MOAB is a 30-foot-long , 21,600-pound , GPS-guided munition .
President Donald Trump called it `` another successful job '' later Thursday .
The bomb was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft , stationed in Afghanistan and operated by Air Force Special Operations Command , Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump told CNN .
Officials said the target was an ISIS cave and tunnel complex and personnel in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province , a remote area in the country 's east which borders Pakistan . ]
`` The United States takes the fight against ISIS very seriously and in order to defeat the group we must deny them operational space , which we did , '' White House press secretary Sean Spicer said later Thursday . The strike `` targeted a system of tunnels and cave that ISIS fighters use to move around freely . ''
Afghanistan 's ambassador to the US , Hamdullah Mohib , told CNN 's Brooke Baldwin that the bomb was dropped after fighting had intensified over the last week between US Special Forces and Afghan troops against ISIS .
The US and Afghan forces were unable to advance because ISIS had mined the area with explosives , so the bomb was dropped to clear the tunnels , Mohib said .
Trump declined to say whether he personally signed off on the strike , but did comment , `` Everybody knows exactly what happens . So , what I do is I authorize our military . ''
He continued , `` We have given them total authorization and that 's what they 're doing . ''
Asked about Trump 's `` total authorization '' comments , a senior administration official declined to specify whether the President indeed ordered the strike in Afghanistan .
But the official said that in general , `` We do n't approve every strike , '' adding that , `` This administration has moved further away '' from dictating military strategy from the White House .
JUST WATCHED Trump wo n't say if he signed off on bomb use Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump wo n't say if he signed off on bomb use 01:33
It 's a change both Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis wanted , the official said .
The President has granted military commanders broader latitude to act independently on several battlefields where US forces are involved , which Trump touted as making a `` tremendous difference '' in the fight against ISIS .
During the campaign , Trump vowed to eradicate ISIS , saying he would `` bomb the s * * t '' out of the terror group , also known as ISIL .
Republican hawks were quick to voice their support for the strike Thursday .
`` I hope America 's adversaries are watching & now understand there 's a new sheriff in town , '' tweeted Sen. Lindsey Graham , a South Carolina Republican . `` Pleased Air Force dropped MOAB against ISIL in Afghanistan . Must be more aggressive against ISIL everywhere - including Afghanistan . ''
JUST WATCHED White House : Bomb targeted ISIS tunnels , caves Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH White House : Bomb targeted ISIS tunnels , caves 00:47
But California Democrat Rep. Jackie Speier voiced concerns about potentially increasing US military involvement in Afghanistan .
`` We are escalating in an area I think we should be deescalating in , '' she told CNN 's Wolf Blitzer . `` Coupled with what happened in Yemen , what happened in Syria , these are efforts that are made to suggest that we will be engaging in wars in three different countries simultaneously . ''
Gen. John Nicholson , commander of US forces in Afghanistan , signed off on the use of the bomb , according to the sources . The authority to deploy the weapon was granted to Nicholson by the commander of US Central Command , Gen. Joseph Votel , Stump said .
JUST WATCHED Why did the US use the MOAB ? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Why did the US use the MOAB ? 00:54
This is the first time a MOAB has been used in the battlefield , according to the US officials . This munition was developed during the Iraq war and is an air blast-type warhead that explodes before hitting the ground in order to project a a massive blast to all sides .
During the final stages of testing in 2003 , military officials told CNN that the MOAB was mainly conceived as a weapon employed for `` psychological operations . '' Military officials said they hoped the MOAB would create such a huge blast that it would rattle Iraqi troops and pressure them into surrendering or not even fighting .
As originally conceived , the MOAB was to be used against large formations of troops and equipment or hardened above-ground bunkers . The target set has also been expanded to include targets buried under softer surfaces , like caves or tunnels .
But while the MOAB bomb detonates with the power of 18,000 pounds of tritonal explosives , the size of its explosion pales in comparison to that of a nuclear bomb .
JUST WATCHED Afghanistan ambassador weighs in on bombing Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Afghanistan ambassador weighs in on bombing 02:27
Former Defense Secretary William Perry described the stark difference in power between a MOAB and nuclear bomb .
`` The # MOAB explosive yield is 0.011 kilotons , typical nuclear yield is 10-180 kilotons - the US alone possesses over 7000 nuclear weapons , '' he tweeted .
`` As ISIS-K 's losses have mounted , they are using IEDs , bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defense , '' Nicholson said in a statement following the strike .
`` This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K , '' Nicholson added .
`` US forces took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike . US Forces will continue offensive operations until ISIS-K is destroyed in Afghanistan , '' read the statement from US Forces Afghanistan .
The extent of the damage and whether anyone was killed is not yet clear . The military is currently conducting an assessment .
JUST WATCHED MOAB bomb originally developed for Iraq war Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH MOAB bomb originally developed for Iraq war 00:57
The Pentagon is currently reviewing whether to deploy additional trainers to Afghanistan to help bolster US allies there .
The Achin district is the primary center of ISIS activity in Afghanistan . A US Army Special Forces soldier was killed fighting the terror group there Saturday .
There are about 8,400 US troops in Afghanistan and they regularly perform counterterrorism operations against ISIS in the Nangarhar Province .
The US counterterrorism mission is separate from the NATO-led effort to train , advise and assist the Afghan army and police force .
While ISIS is identified primarily with its presence in Iraq and Syria , US and coalition officials have long expressed concern about a growing presence in Afghanistan .
ISIS first emerged in the summer of 2015 in the country 's east , fast gaining ground and support , often among disaffected Taliban or Afghan youth .
US military officials have said the ISIS branch is largely comprised of former members of regional terror groups , including the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan .
A US official told CNN that the military estimates are that the Afghan affiliate of ISIS has about 600 to 800 fighters , primarily based in two to three districts in southern Nangarhar . There are also a small number of ISIS operatives in Kunar province as well , the official added .
The Afghan offshoot 's link to the organization 's Syria-based leadership has been questioned . Many say in fact the Afghan ISIS fighters came from Pakistan and adopted the group 's branding in order to get financing . | 3b128ade7bc133c8 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
elections | NPR Online News | http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/10/03/162263539/romney-goes-on-offense-pays-for-it-in-first-wave-of-fact-checks | Romney Goes On Offense, Pays For It In First Wave Of Fact Checks | 2012-10-03 | elections | Romney Goes On Offense , Pays For It In First Wave Of Fact Checks
In their first of three debates , President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney `` traded barbs '' and stretched some facts , say the nonpartisan watchdogs at PolitiFact.com .
Similarly , the researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center 's FactCheck.org found examples of truth-stretching by both men .
Overall , it was a debate packed with facts , a wonk 's delight . From the very first remarks , with President Obama saying 5 million jobs have been created in the private sector over the last 30 months , the debate was very number focused . So there were some things to check . And because Romney made more factual assertions , he 's getting dinged more β at least in the early hours after the debate β by the fact checkers .
Here is a sample of what 's being reported about the truthiness of what Obama and Romney had to say Wednesday night on stage at the University of Denver :
-- One of the biggest disputes was over tax cuts . Obama argued that Romney 's plan to stimulate the economy includes a tax cut totaling $ 5 trillion that , Obama said , is n't possible because the Republican nominee is also promising to spend money in other places .
Romney flatly disputed that number . `` First of all , I do n't have a $ 5 trillion tax cut , '' he said .
Who 's right ? The Washington Post 's Fact Checker says the facts on this one are on Obama 's side . The New York Times notes that Romney `` has proposed cutting all marginal tax rates by 20 percent β which would in and of itself cut tax revenue by $ 5 trillion . ''
FactCheck.org has weighed in too , tweeting during the debate that `` Romney says he will pay for $ 5T tax cut without raising deficit or raising taxes on middle class . Experts say that 's not possible . ''
PolitiFact has given a `` mostly true '' rating to the charge that `` Romney is proposing a tax plan `` that would give millionaires another tax break and raise taxes on middle class families by up to $ 2,000 a year . ''
-- Has the president put in place a plan that would cut Medicare benefits by $ 716 billion ? Romney says yes . The president says no . According to PolitiFact , Romney 's charge is `` half true . ''
`` That amount β $ 716 billion β refers to Obamacare 's reductions in Medicare spending over 10 years , primarily paid to insurers and hospitals , '' says PolitiFact . So there is a basis for the number . But , it adds , `` the statement gives the impression that the law takes money already allocated to Medicare away from current recipients , '' which is why it gets only a `` half true '' rating .
The New York Times writes that Obama `` did not cut benefits by $ 716 billion over 10 years as part of his 2010 health care law ; rather , he reduced Medicare reimbursements to health care providers , chiefly insurance companies and drug manufacturers . And the law gave Medicare recipients more generous benefits for prescription drugs and free preventive care like mammograms . ''
Still , as NPR 's Julie Rovner has reported , `` some of the money does indeed reduce future Medical spending , and the fact is , you ca n't reduce health care spending and preserve Medicare for 78 million baby boomers without slowing its growth . ''
-- In listing his objections to the Affordable Care Act , Romney said it `` puts in place an unelected board that 's going to tell people , ultimately , what kind of treatments they can have . I do n't like that idea . ''
But the Times and National Journal have reported that the board in question would n't make treatment decisions , a point Obama made during the debate . National Journal called Romney 's characterization of what this board would do `` one of the biggest whoppers of the night . '' PolitiFact gave Romney 's claim a `` mostly false '' rating .
Under the law , the board 's job would be to keep Medicare spending within a particular target ( not a dollar figure , but as a factor of GDP ) but the board is prohibited from choosing the benefits to be restricted to achieve savings , so it can not make treatment decisions .
FactCheck.org , which has likened the charge about this panel to the earlier claim from Republicans that Obama would create `` death panels , '' writes that `` the board , the Independent Payment Advisory Board , can not , by law , 'ration ' care or determine which treatments Medicare covers . In fact , the IPAB is limited in what it can do to curb the growth of Medicare spending . ''
-- On cutting the federal deficit , PolitiFact writes , `` Romney claimed that Obama had said he would 'cut the deficit in half . ' That 's the case . ... Obama said he put forward ' a specific $ 4 trillion deficit reduction plan . ' That 's true if you combine the 10-year impact of his budget with the 10-year impact of cuts already approved . ( For that reason , we 've previously found his claim that his budget plan would 'cut our deficits by $ 4 trillion ' Half True . ) ''
-- As for Obama 's claim that under his watch the economy has created 5 million jobs in the past 30 months , NPR 's John Ydstie says that 's true . But it also ignores an inconvenient truth ( for the president ) , that about the same number of jobs were lost during Obama 's first year in office .
-- And on a lighter note , the debate opened with a tender moment and a fact that soon was disputed on Twitter . In acknowledging his wedding anniversary , Obama said that `` 20 years ago I became the luckiest man on Earth because Michelle Obama agreed to marry me . '' An astute tweeter noted that 20 years ago , the first lady 's last name was Robinson . | COdw8ZdtYU0QhEVH | 1 | Election2012 | -0.4 | Presidential Elections | -0.4 | Elections | 0 | null | null | null | null |
politics | Politico | http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/hillary-clinton-emails-deleted-not-gone-116526.html?hp=lc2_4 | Hillaryβs emails: Deleted but not gone | 2015-03-30 | politics | As House Republican leaders weigh whether to try to force former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to hand over her personal email server , experts say the messages she deleted from it β or at least portions of them β can almost certainly be recovered .
Half a dozen computer forensics experts interviewed by βββ said remnants of Clinton β s emails likely still exist on the server , although retrieving them could be time intensive and expensive .
Clinton β s attorney David Kendall on Friday wrote Benghazi Committee Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy ( R-S.C. ) , declining the committee β s request for the server to be turned over to an independent third party . The committee said it wants a third party to verify that all Benghazi-related emails were in fact turned over to the panelβespecially after Clinton acknowledged deleting anything determined to be β personal β messages .
Kendall called the request pointless , saying Clinton β s IT staff had confirmed to him the messages are gone for good .
But permanent deletion is extremely difficult to achieve , the experts said . Enterprise servers built in the last decade or so are increasingly designed to preserve emails more rigorously , either as a document trail in case of a lawsuit , to comply with industry regulations or to allow system administrators to β idiot proof β their systems so they can save the day when non-technically proficient executives accidentally delete emails .
The key principle of digital forensics is β Delete doesn β t and restore won β t , β said Mark Rasch , a former federal prosecutor who worked on computer crimes .
A telling precedent is the case of former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner , who came under scrutiny over charges that the IRS targeted tea party groups for heightened scrutiny .
The IRS said that a 2011 hard-drive crash rendered her emails irretrievable . The agency trashed the hard drive and said it had over-written back-up tapes .
But the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found a pile of several hundred old back-up tapes and hired an outside forensic expert to recover the old messages .
It β s taken them eight months β and a sum of money that TIGTA has repeatedly refused to disclose β but they believe they β ve discovered the missing correspondence .
In the Hillary Clinton matter , House Republican investigators have bickered with the State Department over Benghazi documents since soon after the 2012 attack and formally subpoenaed all correspondence and other documents in 2013 .
But it only came to light this month that the State Department did not have copies of Clinton β s emails because she used a personal account and server to conduct official business β instead of a standard government address . The House Benghazi committee subpoenaed Benghazi correspondence from Clinton β s personal email March 4 , and Gowdy followed up March 20 , formally asking Clinton to turn her server over to the State Department inspector general or another neutral third party to assess whether any of the ostensibly personal emails contain government business .
The subpoena , which deadlined Friday , requested only documents . But after Clinton refused to hand over the server , top House Republicans are coalescing around a plan to talk to her first before they consider subpoenaing it , according to someone familiar with the conversations .
In the letter Friday , Clinton β s attorney said there was no legal authority to force Clinton to turn over the server and that any arguments related to public access to federal records were addressed because she turned over her work emails to the State Department .
The experts interviewed by βββ said the amount of information that can be retrieved depends on the type of server Clinton used , its control settings and the rigor and expertise of the people who pressed the delete key .
β Obviously Clinton has someone with technical capability to run a mail server for her . Whether that person is actively capable of interfering with an investigation , I don β t know . That β s another technological step up. β said Hal Pomeranz , founder of Deer Run Associates , a computer forensics investigation firm .
Rasch , the cyber-crimes prosecutor now in private practice , compared deleting an email in standard email systems , such as Microsoft β s Outlook or Google β s Gmail , to placing a computer desktop item in the recycle bin .
In other words , the item can still be recovered until you do something else , such as empty the bin .
With most email systems , that something else would be putting another email in the deleted email β s place , a process called β overwriting. β A file may need to be overwritten multiple times before it β s totally gone . It may fast begin to look like a piece of Swiss cheese , however , with section after section degraded or missing .
On a busy corporate network , a deleted email might be overwritten within a few hours because emails are constantly coming in and going out and system administrators are regularly compressing email storage to save space , said Jake Williams , a principal consultant at Rendition Infosec .
On a personal server with only one or a few users , however , it could take months or years to overwrite that space , said Williams , also a computer forensics consultant at the SANS Institute , a non-profit computer security training center .
Clinton β s statement from her March 10 press conference β β at the end , I chose not to keep my private personal emails β β suggests that the emails were not deleted sporadically over the course of the last several years but all at once a couple of weeks ago after she stopped regularly using the server or the email system . That would indicate that most of the emails are likely intact and in good shape , Williams said .
That β s provided , of course , that whoever deleted the emails simply pressed the delete key rather than running a more complex command , such as ordering the computer to β wipe β or β burn β its email contents or using a plug in that ensures deleted emails are rapidly overwritten .
Clinton Spokesman Nick Merrill declined to say what kind of server the former secretary used or the year it was built . He also declined to comment on the server β s e-discovery settings or the specific deletion protocol .
Even if Clinton β s staffers successfully wiped all emails from her server , there are other places they could show up , forensics experts said , such as in a temporary file elsewhere on the server , in a file on her computer hard drive , or on her BlackBerry .
There also are likely logs of emails sent and received elsewhere on the server or on Clinton β s devices , separate from the emails themselves , forensics practitioners said .
Finally , of course , the emails themselves may be stored in the computers , phones and servers of people Clinton corresponded with β and who might be identified in email logs .
β It β s an obvious point , but you can β t delete email , β Rasch said . β By definition , I have sent my emails to or received them from someone else , which meansβ¦someone else has a copyβ¦Deleting emails is really not an effective way to conceal what you β re doing . β | GIeZTYT8zgiUjZg0 | 0 | Emails | -0.3 | Hillary Clinton | -0.1 | US House | -0.1 | Politics | 0 | null | null |
us_senate | Salon | http://www.salon.com/2016/08/05/mitch-mcconnells-trump-problem-the-nominee-undermines-scotus-obstruction-and-the-gop-majority/ | Mitch McConnellβs Trump problem: The nominee undermines SCOTUS obstruction and the GOP majority | 2016-08-05 | Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, Supreme Court, US Senate, Politics | Remember Merrick Garland ? He β s the appeals court judge Barack Obama nominated nearly five months ago to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court . That nomination has been languishing thanks to the recalcitrance of Senate Republicans , who moved to block any consideration of any Obama nominee and argued that ( nonexistent ) precedent and ( nonexistent ) principle demanded that the next president be given the honor of picking Scalia β s successor .
The glaringly obvious real reason behind the obstructionism was that the Republican Senate saw an opportunity to have a Republican president nominate the next Supreme Court justice and restore the court β s conservative majority . Back when they first made the arguments for obstruction ( i.e . almost immediately after Scalia died in February ) , it was an open question as to who the Republican nominee for president would be . That question has since been answered : they β re stuck with Donald Trump , and that unfortunate reality has thrown the Republican Senate leadership and the GOP Senate caucus into a politically untenable situation as it tries to maintain its majority while also denying Obama another Supreme Court pick .
You might have noticed , but Donald Trump is in the middle of an extended implosion just two weeks after accepting his party β s presidential nomination . He β s fighting with a Gold Star family , he β s refusing to endorse congressional Republicans in their primary races , and he and his surrogates keep getting caught in increasingly shameless and extravagant lies . This has taken a toll on Trump β s poll numbers β in an alarming development for Senate Republicans , Trump is tanking in states like Pennsylvania and New Hampshire where vulnerable GOP incumbents are up for reelection . The lower Trump sinks in these states , the higher the likelihood the down-ballot candidates will fall with him .
Were Trump to continue along this downward trajectory , Senate Republicans would be faced with a couple of options , neither of which are good . The first is to stick with Trump , white-knuckle it all the way to Election Day , and pray that doing so won β t result in the GOP losing the presidency , the Senate majority , and the next Supreme Court nomination ( s ) .
The other option , if things got bad enough , would be a hard break between Senate Republicans and their presidential nominee . Should Trump β s numbers in battleground states worsen as the calendar drags on , we could see the Senate GOP β s political self-preservation instincts begin to override partisan loyalty :
Were that break to happen , it would mean that Republicans will have given up any hope of winning the presidency and making the next court pick and are focused exclusively on salvaging the Senate . It would also be an admission from the Senate Republican leadership that their obstructionist Supreme Court strategy was a sham from the get-go .
Their case for blocking Garland has always rested on the argument that the people deserve their say in who gets to make the next nomination . If Senate Republican leaders are forced to reverse course on Trump out of political expediency , then they will have undermined their stated argument and acknowledged that their own party β s voters made an unacceptable choice for the presidency .
Regardless of what happens , Trump is proving to be less and less electable with each passing moment , which means the Senate GOP β s obstructionist gamble is already careening towards failure . So now they β re caught in an awkward place in which they β re pretending to stand on the high ground of principle while also trying to avoid being dragged down the low road by their presidential nominee .
And while it is tempting to say that it β s Trump who put the Republicans in this situation , the truth is that they brought it on themselves . The move to block Merrick Garland was a blatant attempt at a power grab and an extraordinary break from political norms , and the excuses Senate Republicans tried to hide behind were transparently cynical . No one was fooled by what they were trying to pull , and the fact that the whole strategy came to rely on the political acumen of Donald Trump offers at least some proof that karmic retribution is real . | 172ae431e29e6e68 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
economy_and_jobs | CNN (Web News) | http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/29/opinion/state-of-the-union-opinion-roundup/index.html?hpt=op_t1 | Can Obama deliver action on inequality? | 2014-01-29 | Income Inequality, Economy And Jobs | Story highlights Commentators weighed in on Obama 's State of the Union address
Julian Zelizer says Obama tried to move conversation toward inequality
Maria Cardona : GOP could learn from Obama 's approach on women 's issues
CNN asked for views on President Obama 's State of the Union address Tuesday night , in which he called for `` a year of action '' -- with or without Congress 's agreement -- on combating inequality , creating pathways into employment , immigration reform and more .
President Barack Obama 's State of the Union Address offered both a threat and a promise : To use the federal government 's power to tackle the economic challenges the middle class has faced in recent decades . His theme was opportunity , namely , using government to ensure that all Americans have a genuine chance to climb the ladder `` of opportunity '' to make it into the middle class and become self-sufficient .
Relying on the government to ensure that those doors stay open is a traditional theme for Democrats , one they 've employed effectively since President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s .
While the speech did have more proposals than some expected ( tax reform , investing in infrastructure and research , job training , education , equal pay , minimum wage and more ) , the address was generally vague . But offering a laundry list was not the President 's main intention . Nor was his primary goal to boost his approval ratings .
What the President really hoped to do with this speech was to direct the national conversation for the coming year . He wants to move Washington further away from its political obsession with austerity -- cutting spending and cutting deficits -- and toward a debate about how the federal government , through the President if necessary , can take concrete steps to alleviate the problems of inequality and provide renewed security to the middle class .
President Obama asked Republicans in Congress to join him in entering this discussion and dealing with this problem through concrete policy , while he also sent a clear warning that he will move ahead without them if they resist . `` But America does not stand still , '' the President said , `` and neither will I . So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families , that 's what I 'm going to do . ''
Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University . He is the author of `` Jimmy Carter '' and `` Governing America . ''
Considering how much stock Democrats have put into the debate over income inequality recently , President Obama 's State of the Union speech did n't spend much time driving the party 's point home with specifics or facts .
Instead he over-relied on anecdotes . Yes , he correctly pointed out the three decades of technological growth had slowly eaten away at middle-class jobs . But by focusing the nation 's attention more on the band-aid minimum wage increase -- and making only cursory mention of more permanent solutions , such as the specific loopholes he would close and tax code revisions he would make -- Obama missed an opportunity . And that was to convince Americans that his economic policies are not the reason median income has dropped since he took office and that he 's still capable of big policy initiatives , the kind that could find a little bipartisan support from tax hawks on the moderate right who also want to re-write the tax code .
That 's not to suggest an executive order to raise the minimum wage wo n't help people ; it will . But to change the dynamic that has kept wages stagnant since President Reagan , it 's going to take something big . And for all of the big talk about income inequality from Democrats , President Obama 's address presented very little in terms of specific ideas , backed by facts , that would change the trajectory .
Instead , by glossing over the country 's economic arc -- and not educating people on the decades-long regression of the middle class because of the tax code -- he made it easier for his critics to simply point a finger and say `` it 's his fault . ''
LZ Granderson writes a weekly column for CNN.com . A senior writer for ESPN and lecturer at Northwestern University , the former Hechinger Institute fellow has had his commentary recognized by the Online News Association , the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association . Follow him on Twitter @ locs_n_laughs .
The biggest surprise of Obama 's speech last night was his return to a campaign pledge from his first Presidential run : To close the GuantΓ‘namo Bay prison where the U.S. government is holding detainees accused of terrorism without formal charge or trial date , violating one of the most fundamental safeguards of our Constitution .
That is the only comfort that human rights supporters and humanitarians got from tonight 's State of the Union address . On Syria , the greatest moral challenge of our time and a pressing strategic issue , the President said nothing except to make a quick reference to the removal of Syrian chemical weapons due to U.S. `` diplomacy backed by force . ''
That kind of diplomacy is exactly what is lacking in Syria ; the participants in the ongoing conference in Switzerland have no reason to think that if they can not agree to a peace agreement the United States will respond with anything more than exhortations . Indeed , elsewhere in the speech the President echoed his remarks last May when he insisted that `` America must move off a permanent war footing , '' adopting restrictions on the use if drones . He also anticipated the day when the Afghan war , the longest war in American history , would be over .
Looking at the speech as a whole , the real core of the President 's foreign-policy is not political but economic : His point early on that America is now the No . 1 place to invest in the world , beating out China . Notwithstanding Secretary of State John Kerry 's strenuous efforts on three different fronts -- Iran , Syria , and Israel/Palestine -- his boss used this speech to toss breadcrumbs to various foreign-policy constituencies . It 's the economy stupid , never more than now .
Anne-Marie Slaughter is president and CEO of the New America Foundation . She was director of policy planning in the U.S. State Department from 2009 to 2011 .
Kevin Appleby : An immigration reform goal he may be able to reach
A highlight of President Obama 's State of the Union address was his call for bipartisan cooperation in passing immigration reform this year : `` Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have acted . I know that members of both parties in the House want to do the same . So let 's get immigration reform done this year . ''
Unlike other years , this year 's call to action actually has a ring of political reality , as the House Republicans are preparing to release their own principles for reform .
But getting a fair immigration bill through the House of Representatives in an election year will be tough , requiring more political leadership and less political gamesmanship . It is achievable , provided all sides enter the fray in good faith and with a sincere desire to tackle the problem . As the President said in his speech , `` ... it is time to heed the call of business leaders , labor leaders , faith leaders and law enforcement and fix our broken immigration system . ''
Both sides will have to compromise and , believe it or not , work together to pass positive and humane legislation . There will be real differences on the substantive issues , particularly in how the undocumented population will be allowed to apply for citizenship and what future enforcement policies may be adopted . But they are not irreconcilable .
The human stakes are high . If the President and Congress fail to repair our immigration system , immigrant families and communities -- and the social fabric of the nation -- will continue to break apart .
As Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has aptly stated , our current immigration system is a `` stain on the soul of the nation. `` As a moral matter , we can no longer wait to fix it .
Kevin Appleby is director of Migration Policy and Public Affairs at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops .
Timothy Stanley : Obama plans to ignore Congress -- and they 'll ignore him back
The latest State of the Union address reflected the Washington partisanship we 've all come to know and hate . Obama began the speech by asking for unity , but quickly made it clear that he a ) did n't expect to get it and b ) is prepared to break the deadlock with executive action . Take the minimum wage . Obama made a moral case for it being raised , implied that he expects the Republicans to refuse support , and then indicated that he 'd find ways of doing it anyway .
Last year he was prepared to fight the Republicans in Congress . This year he 'll ignore them and , presumably , travel the country calling them heartless instead . So the battle will take on a new , slightly less Constitutionally-sound dimension . No less bitter , of course .
Where he has asked for cooperation , it 's doubtful he 'll get it . Solar panels and amnesty for illegal immigrants are not things that John Boehner can easily deliver votes on . Meanwhile , Republicans will probably avoid engaging rhetorically with Obama 's economic populism and continue to talk about Obamacare and the deficit instead , setting themselves up to reap a protest vote in the November midterms .
So what we heard last night was an admirably feisty attempt to regain the political initiative by establishing the Republicans as the party of stasis and the President as a man who just wants to get things done . The problem , though , is that the political realities continue to block movement .
Last year we saw a shutdown , light gun control initiatives defeated and even a war averted by just the terror of taking it to Congress . Why should this change ? The Republicans wo n't gain anything from being nicer to the President and the President is staking everything on the country turning against the Republicans . Sorry , but 2014 looks like it 'll be a repeat of 2013 .
Timothy Stanley is a historian at Oxford University and blogs for Britain 's The Daily Telegraph . He is the author of `` The Crusader : The Life and Times of Pat Buchanan . ''
Nick Ehrmann : Early education important , but do n't forget high school
Last night , President Obama made an impassioned and necessary case to lower the barriers for low-income students to succeed in higher education . He said : `` The problem is we 're still not reaching enough kids , and we 're not reaching them in time . '' He 's right . That has to change .
The President points out that `` one of the best investments we can make in a child 's life is high-quality early education . '' His focus on mustering resources from both the public and private sectors , of creating `` a coalition of elected officials , business leaders , and philanthropists '' to increase access to quality early education is smart .
Let 's not forget that the same is true of students further along in their education . Research has shown that academic preparation in high school is the single strongest predictor of college completion .
Take 18-year-old Estiven Rodriguez , the Dominican-born student whom the President hailed in his speech for extraordinary academic achievements , including a scholarship to Dickinson College for the fall . After arriving to the U.S. speaking limited English , Estiven 's path to opportunity accelerated with exposure to rigorous academic preparation later on in his journey through the New York City public schools .
Making the President 's vision a reality requires collaboration from both the public and private sectors , from the best minds in education , from parents , teachers , policymakers , and nonprofits alike . This is about Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School -- or WHEELS , an urban public high school -- partnering with nonprofits to create a learning environment that helps students like Estiven thrive .
We have the rest of 2014 to see whether the President 's intention to work outside of Congress to expand educational opportunity will prove effective .
Nick Ehrmann is the CEO and founder of Blue Engine , a New York City-based education nonprofit that partners with public high schools to prepare students for college success .
Maria Cardona : GOP should follow Obama 's lead on women 's issues
In his State of the Union speech , President Obama offered a blueprint for moving the country forward with optimism , economic opportunity and pathways to prosperity for all . But thanks to obstruction in Washington , too little has been done to make these a reality for all Americans , especially women . Here is where Republicans should pay attention .
Republicans can also follow the President 's lead on raising the minimum wage to $ 10.10 an hour for future federal contract workers as a way to climb out of their self-dug hole with women . Women hold a majority of low-wage jobs in America . Raising the minimum wage and closing the gender wage gap will help the 1 out of 3 women who live in or on the brink of poverty , could cut poverty in half and add half a trillion dollars to the economy .
Add to that abandoning the GOPs obsession with repealing Obamacare -- an initiative that has given countless mothers the security of knowing that their children with pre-existing conditions will be covered by a health plan -- and you could have the beginning of the end of the Republicans ' problems with women . Maybe .
Maria Cardona is a Democratic strategist , a principal at the Dewey Square Group , a former senior adviser to Hillary Clinton and former communications director for the Democratic National Committee .
President Obama 's fifth State of the Union address was haunted by the specter of austerity . Very few of the measures he asked Congress to act on -- education , tax and immigration reform , closing Guantanamo or passing fair-pay legislation -- would require the federal government to spend .
According to Lawrence Summers , President Obama 's former top economic adviser , if Congress does not authorize more spending , we may be `` doomed to oscillation between inadequate and slow growth and bubbly , unsustainable and problem-creating growth . '' He added : the depressed state of the economy calls for `` direct fiscal policy action . ''
The closest Obama got to discussing spending was after urging Congress to close tax loopholes that reward corporations for sending jobs overseas while creating disincentives to creating jobs at home . We can take the money saved from tax reform , he said , and spend it `` rebuilding our roads , upgrading our ports , unclogging our commutes . '' But if Congress fails to act , he said he would use the powers of the executive to fast-track `` key projects '' to `` get more construction workers on the job as fast as possible . ''
That 's fine , but there 's only so much Obama can do without Congress . He can cut red tape all day but that 's not going to put more money in more Americans ' pockets , boosting their purchasing power . His call to raise the minimum wage will indeed increase demand , and alleviate poor sales , but even a $ 10.10 minimum wage does n't keep pace with productivity gains over the past decade . This economy is not able to create enough quality jobs on its own . In the absence of benevolent market forces , the government must spend .
Given that this is the year when the Affordable Care Act really gets into gear , it 's not surprising that the President took the opportunity to highlight some of the important things that are happening right now due to health care reform . He highlighted the case of a woman in Arizona who was previously uninsured , but who was able to get health insurance on January 1 thanks to new regulations and the insurance exchanges . Millions of people stand to gain insurance this year , and the administration is eager to highlight this achievement .
But the President also seemed to acknowledge reality in the sense that people are not signing up for insurance at the rate that he had hoped for . He exhorted people to get family members to sign up for care . He used Kentucky as an example of success , but even that state is n't where many hoped it would be .
He urged Republicans to change their tactics on the law . Instead of `` refighting old battles , '' he asked them to offer new ideas and allow them to be compared to his law in terms of costs and coverage .
This certainly did n't feel like a victory lap . President Obama continues to face opposition and calls for the law to be repealed . That 's almost certainly not going to happen , but it has to be frustrating to the President that he still has to appeal to the American people for support on a law that was passed almost four years ago .
Aaron E. Carroll is a professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine and the director of its Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research . He has supported a single-payer health system during the reform debate . He blogs about health policy at The Incidental Economist and tweets at @ aaronecarroll .
Bob Greene : The state of the union ? Discord and inaction
Three bangs of the gavel , `` Mr. Speaker , the President of the United States , '' `` High privilege and distinct honor , '' and the annual grandeur-on-demand unfolded right on schedule Tuesday night .
The State of the Union address was not short on human moments . President Obama , in the first minute of his speech , evoked teachers , entrepreneurs , auto workers , farmers and rural doctors to argue that America 's finest moments are crafted not in Washington , but out in the nation .
He pointed out that `` the son of a barkeep '' -- John Boehner -- was Speaker of the House , and that the son of a single mother -- Obama himself -- was president .
But when Obama declared that `` this chamber '' -- the well of the House of Representatives , on this evening filled with members of Congress , members of the Cabinet , justices of the Supreme Court , members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- `` speaks with one voice , '' his words , no matter how well intentioned , rang necessarily a little hollow .
If ever in the country 's history it was true -- and it probably never was -- it certainly is n't today . The President was making the case that the upper echelon of American politics and government concurs that `` the state of our Union '' is strong .
That sentiment is far from unanimous , and before long you will find ample evidence in the wall-to-wall attack ads that , as always , will be an inescapable feature of Congressional campaigns across the country . The State of the Union address long ago ceded its place as the main barometer of how political and governmental America feels about itself ; the attack ads paint a truer cumulative portrait .
The president vowed `` a year of action , '' and he will be correct , although perhaps not in the way he intended . The action is up the road , in the bare-knuckles election campaigns that lie ahead . The state of the union -- at least the political union -- is combative and discordant . Which is probably healthy , although sometimes not easy to watch . As messy as America 's civic life can be , in the end it is hard to dispute that it is indeed a high privilege and distinct honor to live here , to be a part of it all .
CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a bestselling author whose 25 books include `` Late Edition : A Love Story ; '' `` Duty : A Father , His Son , and the Man Who Won the War ; '' and `` Once Upon a Town : The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen . ''
It 's always difficult for a President starting a sixth year in office to frame a State of the Union speech for a forward-looking agenda , even when the basic economic environment is good . When that President has governed through a dysfunctional recovery and watched the workforce dwindle down as a share of the working-age population , it 's nearly impossible . President Obama 's speech , needless to say , did not accomplish the impossible .
He started out the speech bragging about adding eight million jobs in four years . According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics , that figure is 7.5 million since December 2009 , although it 's closer to 6.5 million in the Household survey . Even at the higher number , job growth works out to an average of 156,250 net jobs added each month .
Thanks to population growth , the U.S. economy needs to add about 150,000 jobs each month just to stay even in terms of workforce employment . What President Obama fails to mention is that his economic policies have dragged employment and active engagement in the workforce as a percentage of the civilian population down from 64.6 % at the beginning of that four-year period to 62.8 % now , a level not seen since Jimmy Carter gave his first official State of the Union speech in 1978 .
Clearly , then , Obama 's policies have not brought prosperity and job creation to the nation . At best , we have had four years of stagnation on job creation , and the falling top-line unemployment number reflects an exodus from the workforce , not any improvement in the job market . Why is that ? Obama slipped into the passive voice to explain it : `` But average wages have barely budged . Inequality has deepened . Upward mobility has stalled . '' Obama seems to think that he 's just arrived on the scene , but it has been his economic and regulatory policies for the past five years that produced this stalled economy and stagnation environment .
And what did Obama propose to solve this ? The same policies that produced it -- spending on supposedly shovel-ready public works , short-term gimmicky incentives and government programs , most of which have nothing to do with freeing capital to unlock job creation .
No one expected Obama to offer anything innovative or new , so it 's hardly a disappointment . But like his last few State of the Union speeches , it was largely a laundry list of priorities far out of touch with Americans who just want to get back to work .
Anthony Leiserowitz : A renewed promise of action on climate change
President Obama 's 5th State of the Union address called for reigniting the American dream -- one that feels increasingly out of reach for far too many Americans .
He vowed to take assertive presidential action this year -- with Congress where possible , but without Congress when it refuses to act . This includes perhaps his most important legacy -- making serious and substantial progress to reduce the threat of global warming and prepare the nation for the impacts already beginning to hit home . Future generations will look back on this President and on this time as a critical moment in the history of the world : did we choose to address this real and present danger or did we choose to ignore or deny the problem until it festered beyond repair ?
The President listed his accomplishments so far -- stronger pollution standards for cars , rules to limit pollution from power plants , investments in the transition to clean energy . He also described new partnerships with states and local communities to begin preparing to protect the nation from extreme weather and other climate impacts .
These are important first steps . There is much still to be done -- by individuals , communities , states , the nation and the world . And there are still political divisions within America about the reality and seriousness of the threat . ( He was in fact blunt : `` ... the debate is settled . Climate change is a fact , '' he said . )
But as the President reminded us , progress never comes easy . `` Sometimes we stumble ; we make mistakes ; we get frustrated or discouraged . But for more than 200 years , we have put those things aside and placed our collective shoulder to the wheel of progress . ''
Anthony Leiserowitz is director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies . | 97c9db18183a1db5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
economy_and_jobs | ThinkProgress | https://thinkprogress.org/sanders-ocasio-cortez-loan-shark-prevention-act-8804a0ba4e23/ | Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez join forces with Loan Shark Prevention Act aimed at consumer-credit abuses | economy_and_jobs | Credit card interest rates would be capped at 15 % nationwide under a new federal usury law proposed on Thursday by Sen. Bernie Sanders ( I-VT ) and Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez ( D-NY ) .
The pair β s Loan Shark Prevention Act draws upon a long tradition , not just in legislative politics but in human moral thought . Most major faith traditions have characterized usurious lending as a grave sin , and the background materials prepared by the populist pair make pains to reference the β special place in the Seventh Circle of Hell β such lenders are accorded in late-medieval depictions of the inferno .
β Today we don β t need the hellfire , the pitchforks , or the rivers of boiling blood , but we do need a national usury law that caps interest rates on credit cards and consumer loans at 15 % , β a briefing document on the proposal states .
Average annual interest rates on credit card debt have climbed steadily in modern times and now stand at almost 18 % . Many cards charge annual percentage rates as high as 27 % , the supporting white-paper notes , adding that the finance and retail firms offering this high-cost credit have become alarmingly reliant on the interest income their uncapped charges generate .
Retail cards from major store chains like Macy β s and Kohl β s now account for more than a third of total company profits β a large enough chunk to paper over the sector β s struggle to maintain a sustainable trajectory on actual product sales volume . In an echo of the Wells Fargo account-opening fraud scheme that shattered the reputation of one of the country β s largest banks , retail firms have begun pressuring frontline workers to sell their high-cost credit cards to shoppers .
Outside the storerooms , in the traditional credit card spaces , the firms making money from the high rates targeted by Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez often turn out to have benefited directly from taxpayer bailouts at the nadir of the financial crisis a decade ago .
Additionally , the proposed legislation would also be a death blow for the openly predatory payday lending industry , which has typically escaped much in the way of federal regulation thanks to allies in both parties .
Those businesses , which tailor their offerings to strip more than $ 3 billion a year out of the poorest working people in the country by trapping a large but minority share of their customers in a vicious cycle of semi-permanent debt at triple-digit annual rates , have been riding high this year . With arch-conservatives empowered across President Donald Trump β s administration , even the modest federal regulations that were set to come online this year for payday lending have been shelved by the right-wing ideologues who now run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau .
Sanders and Ocasio Cortez β s loansharking ban would crack the payday business model as it currently stands . Such lenders have successfully argued in the past that low-income communities would be worse off under strict usury caps because the expensive credit payday loans offer can be the only alternative in a financial emergency for people without access to a normal banking institution . While credit unions and other alternatives have shown it β s possible to serve that demand without charging the absurd 300 % -and-upwards annual rate terms that payday loan documents obscure from desperate borrowers , the argument has nonetheless helped ward off state and federal oversight of the industry more than once .
The Loan Shark Prevention Act anticipates that argument and counters with the promise that such β unbanked β working families would gain access to reasonably-priced alternative credit when they need it β through the return of basic banking and lending services at the U.S. Post Office .
That idea , often referred to as postal banking , made its return as a fashionable policy idea in progressive circles five years ago after Sen. Elizabeth Warren ( D-MA ) β herself a 2020 competitor for the Democratic presidential nomination β drew new attention to it after progressive policy thinkers and journalists rescued it from a forgotten history . The new legislation from Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez would incorporate a bill Sanders wrote in 2013 to restore postal banking along much the same lines Warren had popularized in op-eds and speeches .
Postal banking never got over the line during Barack Obama β s presidency . But liberal legislators continued to work quietly with postal service unions and policy mavens to craft a legislative platform that would leverage the vast physical infrastructure of the USPS to cure the usurious predations of the payday lenders .
That delicate project was almost tipped on its ear in 2018 when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ( D-NY ) β another 2020 hopeful β introduced her own postal banking bill . Insiders and experts told βββ at the time that the junior New York senator had bypassed the back-channel work others had been pursuing on the issue , while praising the substance of her bill .
However robust the recent progressive work has been on both postal banking specifically and usurious lending in general , Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are β characteristically β setting a new left flank in those policy conversations with this legislation .
A hard rate cap of 15 % is far more aggressive as a policy tool than what some experts who β ve studied the way low-income people without bank accounts weather financial shocks . There β s a wide spectrum of recommendations on the subject . Center-aligned think tanks like the Pew Charitable Trusts , which has studied the payday lending business particularly closely , worry that rate caps might go too far , proposing regulatory tweaks to halve the rates lenders charge as a more roundabout alternative . Meanwhile , many left-leaning policy shops that favor such hard caps don β t go as far as the 15 % mark at the heart of the Sanders-AOC bill .
But Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez each owe much of their popularity to this sort of willingness to push the envelope , in a stark stylistic contrast to the orthodox Democrats that tend to stake out territory in the moderate center at the outset of policy negotiations . Some of those old-guard party leaders have even found themselves carrying water for payday lenders when those businesses have faced serious political pressure .
β I am sure it will be criticized , β Sanders told the Washington Post ahead of a launch event with Ocasio-Cortez scheduled for noon Thursday . β I have a radical idea : Maybe Congress should stand up for ordinary people . β | z4KiJcNAYEP8fVl2 | 0 | Debt | -0.4 | Economy And Jobs | -0.1 | Inequality | 0 | Billionaires | 0 | null | null | |
immigration | Splinter | https://splinternews.com/trump-loses-another-court-battle-over-sanctuary-cities-1830775931 | Trump Loses Another Court Battle Over Sanctuary Cities | 2018-11-30 | Immigration | This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Cloudflare Ray ID: 9154dc3b9bd0eb2c β’ Your IP: Click to reveal 47.88.30.20 β’ Performance & security by Cloudflare | 639bf1056dfc39f6 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
federal_budget | Fox Online News | http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/04/house-republicans-unveil-government-funding-measure/ | House Republicans unveil government funding measure | 2013-03-04 | federal_budget | Republicans controlling the U.S. House moved Monday to give the Pentagon more money for military readiness while easing the pain felt by such agencies as the FBI and the Border Patrol from the across-the-board spending cuts that are just starting to take effect .
The effort is part of a huge spending measure that would fund day-to-day federal operations through September -- and head off a potential government shutdown later this month .
The measure would leave in place automatic cuts of 5 percent to domestic agencies and 7.8 percent to the Pentagon ordered by President Barack Obama Friday night after months of battling with Republicans over the budget .
Both Democrats and Republicans for months have warned the cuts are draconian and would slow the growth of the economy and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs . The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office , for instance , says they would slow the economy by 0.6 percent and cost about 750,000 jobs .
The new House Republicans ' legislation would award the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments their detailed 2013 budgets while other agencies would be frozen at 2012 levels -- and then bear the across-the-board cuts .
The impact of the new cuts was proving slow to reach the broader public as Obama convened the first Cabinet meeting of his second term to discuss next steps .
The Pentagon did say it would furlough thousands of military school teachers around the world and close stores with consumer goods an extra day each week . And Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the spending cuts were causing delays in customs lines at airports including Los Angeles International and O'Hare International in Chicago .
Obama said he was continuing to seek out Republican partners to reach a deal to ease or head off the cuts , but there was no sign that a breakthrough was in the works to reverse them .
`` We are going to manage it the best we can to minimize the impact on American families , '' the president told reporters at the start of the first Cabinet meeting of his second term . `` It is not the right way to go about deficit reduction . ''
The new Republican funding measure is set to advance through the House on Wednesday . It is aimed at preventing a government shutdown when a six-month spending bill passed last September runs out March 27 .
The latest measure would provide an increase for military operations and maintenance efforts as well as veterans ' health programs but would put most the rest of the government on budget autopilot .
After accounting for the across-the-board cuts , domestic agencies would face reductions exceeding 5 percent when compared with last year . But Republicans would carve out a host of exemptions seeking to protect certain functions and to provide new funding for embassy security and modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal . The FBI and the Border Patrol would be able to maintain current staffing levels and would not have to furlough employees .
The legislation would provide about $ 2 billion more than the current level to increase security at U.S. embassies and diplomatic missions worldwide . Last September , a terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi , Libya , killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans .
The across-the-board cuts would carve $ 85 billion in spending from the government 's $ 3.6 trillion budget for this year , concentrating the cuts in the approximately $ 1 trillion allocated to the day-to-day agency operating budgets set by Congress each year . Those so-called discretionary accounts received big boosts in the first two years of Obama 's presidency when Democrats controlled Congress but have borne the brunt of the cuts approved as Obama and Republicans have grappled over the budget . | 331xIAPVKCjivchN | 2 | Economy And Jobs | 0.5 | Sequester | 0 | Federal Budget | 0 | null | null | null | null |
elections | NPR Online News | http://www.npr.org/2012/09/21/159346466/the-candidates-and-their-taxes | The Candidates And Their Taxes | 2012-09-21 | elections | The Candidates And Their Taxes Two years of tax returns are now available for inspection for both GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan ( although Romney 's 2011 return is still preliminary ) , as well as a full 12 years for both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden . Here 's a side-by-side look at 2010 and 2011 returns for the candidates .
The Candidates And Their Taxes Presidential Race The Candidates And Their Taxes Two years of tax returns are now available for inspection for both GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan ( although Romney 's 2011 return is still preliminary ) , as well as a full 12 years for both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden . Here 's a side-by-side look at 2010 and 2011 returns for the candidates . 2010 2011 2010 2011 * 2010 2011 2010 2011 Total Income $ 1,795,614 $ 844,585 $ 21,661,344 $ 20,901,075 $ 379,178 $ 379,035 $ 215,417 $ 323,416 Taxes $ 453,770 $ 162,074 $ 3,005,496 $ 3,226,623 $ 86,047 $ 86,892 $ 34,233 $ 64,764 Effective Rate 25.3 % 19.2 % 13.9 % 15.4 % 22.7 % 22.9 % 15.9 % 20 % Wages $ 395,188 $ 394,821 $ 0 $ 0 $ 308,376 $ 307,543 $ 153,741 $ 153,359 Outside Business Income $ 1,382,899 $ 441,369 $ 593,996 $ 110,500 $ 0 $ 0 $ 0 $ 0 Rental income , royalties , etc . $ 1,323 $ 698 $ ( 279,884 ) $ 2,830,078 $ 11,000 $ 12,653 $ 39,013 $ 116,043 Interest $ 8,066 $ 10,694 $ 3,295,727 $ 4,099,156 $ 4,014 $ 2,827 $ 4,900 $ 3,314 Ordinary dividends $ 9,997 $ 3 $ 4,923,348 $ 3,168,867 $ 0 $ 0 $ 14,628 $ 17,400 Qualified dividends $ 2,159 $ 0 $ 3,327,678 $ 1,905,753 $ 0 $ 0 $ 11,424 $ 12,587 Capital gains $ ( 3,000 ) $ ( 3,000 ) $ 12,573,249 $ 10,700,179 $ 0 $ 0 $ 3,135 $ 33,153 Itemized deductions $ 373,289 $ 278,498 $ 4,519,140 $ 5,688,179 $ 67,038 $ 60,628 $ 26,395 $ 51,242 Mortgage interest deduction $ 49,945 $ 47,564 $ 0 $ 0 $ 30,019 $ 25,671 $ 12,755 $ 16,143 Charitable contributions $ 245,075 $ 172,130 $ 2,983,974 $ 4,020,572 $ 5,350 $ 5,540 $ 2,600 $ 12,991 Percentage of income to charity 13.6 % 20.4 % 13.8 % 19.2 % 1.4 % 1.5 % 1.2 % 4 % Related NPR Stories Ryan 's Taxes Show Gap Between Romney And The Not-So-Rich NPR thanks our sponsors Become an NPR sponsor | 9FVn8qd1Ua6Lkn7h | 1 | Politics | 0 | Taxes | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
terrorism | CBN | http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2017/september/subway-explosion-22-wounded-as-terrorists-attack-london-yet-again | Subway Explosion: 22 Wounded as Terrorists Attack London Yet Again | 2017-09-15 | Terrorism | This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window. This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Share This article British police made a "significant" arrest in the manhunt for suspects after the London subway bombing that injured more than two dozen people. Police said that an unidentified 18-year-old man was arrested by Kent police in the port of Dover on the English Channel. "We have made a significant arrest in our investigation this morning," Deputy Assistant Police Commissioner Neil Basu said. But he warned that the investigation was still ongoing and the terrorist threat level remains at "critical," meaning another attack is highly likely. British authorities arrested a second suspect Saturday night, a 21 year- old man was taken into custody in Hounslow. The Islamic State is claiming the explosion was carried out by an "affiliated unit." At least 29 people were taken to the hospital after an explosion went off in the Parsons Green underground train station in West London, Friday, setting one train on fire. The ambulance service says none of the injuries is thought to be serious or life-threatening. Police were alerted to an incident at 8:20 a.m. local time after commuters reported a noise and a flash aboard the District Line train at Parsons Green station. Photos taken inside the train show a white plastic bucket inside a foil-lined shopping bag with wire and flames sticking out. "There was out of the corner of my eye a massive flash of flames that went up the side of the train," one eyewitness told Sky News, then "an acrid chemical smell." Other commuters reported seeing people with burns to their faces and bodies scrambling to escape the area. Witnesses say several people, including children were trampled by the crowd of people running away. "I ended up squashed on the staircase, people were falling over, people fainting, crying, there were little kids clinging on to the back of me," one witness said. Mark Rowley, head of counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police, said "we now assess this was a detonation of an improvised explosive device" and a full investigation into the attack in underway. President Donald Trump responded to the attack, tweeting Friday morning that it was an attack "by a loser terrorist" and they "must be dealt with in a much tougher manner." Another attack in London by a loser terrorist.These are sick and demented people who were in the sights of Scotland Yard. Must be proactive! Loser terrorists must be dealt with in a much tougher manner.The internet is their main recruitment tool which we must cut off & use better! British Home Secretary Amber Rudd told the BBC the presidentβs tweet about having the suspect in sight was βpure speculation.β She added there is no evidence this is the work of ISIS, despite their claims. England has been the target of four Islamic terrorist attacks already this year, with deadly vehicle attacks near Parliament, on London Bridge and near a mosque in Finsbury Park in north London. Also, a suicide bomb attack in May at Manchester Arena killed 22 people. Share This article You are signing up to receive general newsletters from CBN. By signing up, you are consenting to our privacy policy. You can specify preference after sign-up and opt out at any time. You are signing up to receive general newsletters from CBN. By signing up, you are consenting to our privacy policy. You can specify preference after sign-up and opt out at any time. Β© 2024 The Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc., A nonprofit 501 (c)(3) Charitable Organization. We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience. By clicking βAccept Allβ you are giving your consent for us to set cookies.CBN Cookie Policy | e687c3ac210f1022 | 2 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
us_house | CNN (Web News) | http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/29/politics/planned-parenthood-hearing-cecile-richards/index.html | House panel spars over Planned Parenthood funding | 2015-09-29 | us_house | Washington ( CNN ) Republicans accused Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards on Tuesday of spending $ 40 million on `` lavish '' priorities during a heated and emotional congressional hearing on the embattled organization .
In more than four hours of questioning , House Republicans painted a picture of Richards and other Planned Parenthood leaders hosting pricey parties , flying first class and spending more time fundraising than focusing on women 's health care .
`` The question before us is : Does this organization -- does Planned Parenthood really need a federal subsidy ? '' said House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz , R-Utah . `` Does it need federal dollars ? Every time we spend a federal dollar , what we 're doing is pulling money out of somebody 's pocket and we 're giving it to somebody else . What I do n't like , what I do n't want to tolerate , what I do n't want to become numb to is wasting those taxpayer dollars . ''
The hearing offered a chance for both parties to trade shots on Planned Parenthood , which is under fire after a series of edited videos surfaced this summer which purportedly show organization officials discussing the sale of fetal tissue . Some conservative Republicans are seizing on the issue to press Congress to defund Planned Parenthood as part of a broader spending package .
Planned Parenthood gets roughly $ 450 million a year in federal funding , of which almost $ 400 million is reimbursement for services covered by Medicaid . Federal funds are prohibited by law from being used for abortion , and Planned Parenthood 's federal funding covers services such as cancer screenings and birth control .
At the hearing , Democratic supporters of Planned Parenthood accused their Republican colleagues of being misogynistic and more interested in political hits than an actual investigation . Richards argued the videos -- produced by conservative activists at the Center for Medical Progress -- are misleading .
`` The outrageous accusations leveled against Planned Parenthood based on heavily doctored videos are offensive and categorically untrue . I realize , though , that the facts have never gotten in the way of these campaigns to block women from health care they need and deserve , '' Richards told the committee .
But the videos have become potent tools for conservatives looking to end federal support for the group .
Chaffetz opened the hearing with an emotional story of his mother and father dying from cancer . He choked up at times as he talked about losing them . He talked about his wife 's work with a plastic surgeon who does reconstructive surgery for women with breast cancer . He then pivoted to his argument that the government should spend more on cancer screening and research while ending funding for Planned Parenthood .
`` This has absolutely nothing to do with providing health care to young women who need a breast exam , '' Chaffetz said .
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings , the panel 's top Democrat , fired back , saying that most of the federal funding goes to services for poor women . He then countered with his own personal story , noting that his mother-in-law died from cancer last week .
`` I understand what you 're talking about . I get it , '' Cummings said .
Richards , in written testimony , called the videos `` a deliberate and systematic effort by ( CMP Director ) David Daleiden and other opponents of safe and legal abortion to infiltrate our health centers , try to entrap our staff into potentially illegal conduct , and create discredited , doctored videos designed to smear Planned Parenthood . ''
Following Richards ' opening comments , Chaffetz opened a rapid-fire line of questioning , verbally running over Richards repeatedly as he painted a picture of one Planned Parenthood organization dedicated to political work and abortions , not health care .
`` My guess is you run the mothership here . When you show up and want to have something done , it 's probably done , '' he said .
At one point , Chaffetz denied a member 's request that he yield .
Richards struggled to answer as Chaffetz repeatedly said he had limited time and many questions . But when she did , she said their political work and health care operations were clearly -- and legally -- separated .
As Chaffetz presented a slide that showed an increase in abortions , Richards said she was blindsided and had not seen the slide before . `` It does n't feel like we 're trying to get to the truth here , '' she said .
Chaffetz pressed Richards about her six-figure salary , asking why she should be earning close to $ 600,000 . It was part of a larger argument he made that Planned Parenthood did not need federal dollars .
House Oversight Republicans released a report Tuesday that detailed spending on parties , including $ 35 million for an office near Madison Square Garden in New York City .
`` Affiliates routinely host lavish parties . The funding used for one affiliate 's 'Gathering of Goddesses and Gods ' event or another 's 'Chocolate Champagne ' and 'Murder Mystery ' fundraisers could have been used on health services , '' the report said .
But Democrats rushed to Richards ' defense , with some accusing Republicans of being anti-women .
`` My colleagues like to say this is n't a war on women . Look at how you 've been treated as a witness , '' said Rep. Gerry Connolly , a Virginia Democrat . `` The disrespect , the misogyny rampant here today , tells us what is really going on . ''
The undercover videos have been at the center of the effort by conservative Republicans to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood , with some threatening to shut down the federal government if federal funding for the group is n't ceased . That effort failed in the Senate , but House lawmakers will decide Wednesday on whether to shut down the government as part of the vote on another continuing resolution .
House Speaker John Boehner , who has denounced conservative hardliners since he announced his plan to resign last week , promised Sunday he would work with Democrats to keep the government open .
Outside Washington , the debate over Planned Parenthood and its abortion services has been one of the dominant issues from the campaign trail to state capitols .
Utah Republican Gov . Gary Herbert announced that he would no longer allow federal dollars to pass through the state to the group , spurring the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah to announce Monday that it was suing the state .
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood in July , shortly after the first CMP video was released . But he said Monday that the probe `` discovered no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Planned Parenthood 's St. Louis facility is selling fetal tissue , '' according to Koster , a Democrat .
The videos were repeatedly referenced during both Republican presidential debates in recent weeks , as several 2016 hopefuls have urged Congress to defund the organization .
Democratic White House hopefuls took to Twitter to show their support for Planned Parenthood as part of a `` pink out '' campaign . Martin O'Malley was among those to `` pink out '' his Twitter profile photo . He also tweeted that Planned Parenthood provides `` necessary medical care for millions each year . ''
Bernie Sanders tweeted , `` I # StandWithPP . These attacks come from those who simply do n't believe women have a right to control their own bodies . I disagree . # PinkOut . ''
I # StandWithPP . These attacks come from those who simply do n't believe women have a right to control their own bodies . I disagree . # PinkOut β Bernie Sanders ( @ BernieSanders ) September 29 , 2015
But Republican and evangelical favorite Mike Huckabee fired off several tweets , saying what Planned Parenthood provided was far from health care .
`` # PlannedParenthood performs 327,000 abortions per year . Sorry , @ CecileRichards this is NOT healthcare , '' he tweeted .
# PlannedParenthood performs 327,000 abortions per year . Sorry , @ CecileRichards this is NOT healthcare . β Gov . Mike Huckabee ( @ GovMikeHuckabee ) September 29 , 2015
He added , `` Harvesting human organs to be sold like brake pads for a Buick is beyond barbaric , it 's immoral , grotesque , & evil . # PlannedParenthood . '' | 9eyyCPaHo0bjRAmL | 0 | Politics | 0.9 | US House | -0.2 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
facts_and_fact_checking | The Atlantic | https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/heres-how-fight-coronavirus-misinformation/608914/ | Hereβs How to Fight Coronavirus Misinformation | 2020-03-29 | facts_and_fact_checking | CHECK YOUR OWN BIASES . Our brains repeat patterns in order to make decisions more quickly , and they selectively seek out information that confirms what we already believe . These mental shortcuts don β t always lead to accurate conclusions . We all have beliefs we hold dear , and we tend to trust others who share those beliefsβwhich means that we often find ourselves caught in echo chambers or filter bubbles .
Get out of your information comfort zone . If you watch Fox News all day , try a few minutes of CNN , and vice versa . It β s important to know the facts first , but also to understand how those around you get their information .
ASK YOURSELF IF YOU β RE BEING CONSTRUCTIVE . Before you share something , ask yourself if doing so is constructive for everyone who might see or hear it . Even if you intend to share something with only your immediate friends or family , they might share it as well , and their followers might share it too . Before you share a Facebook status or send a tweet , picture yourself standing at your local PTA , church , or community meeting . Is what you β re about to share constructive for those folks , or will it make the situation worse ?
BE EMPHATIC , BUT ALSO EMPATHETIC . If you β ve followed the steps above , you know the facts . And you β re right to be emphatic about those facts , but that β s not always enough . To quote the late social psychologist Leon Festinger , when you present someone who has a strong conviction with evidence that he β s wrong , β The individual will frequently emerge , not only unshaken , but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. β In other words , your goal shouldn β t be to be right , but to be helpful . Allow the people around you to discover the facts for themselves , even ifβand especially whenβthey have your guidance .
REMEMBER THAT ANXIETY IS NATURAL , BUT IT β S ALSO VIRAL . Anxiety compounds . As the public-health expert Judson Brewer recently wrote in the Harvard Business Review , β [ W ] hen anxiety is spread by social contagionβdefined as the spread of affect from one person to anotherβit can lead to something even more problematic : panic . β
When we conduct fire drills , the guidance is to remain calm and file out of the building in an orderly fashion . We are trained to make sure that our response doesn β t worsen the situation . The same applies to navigating the online information space and personal communicationsβespecially during a crisis . Your tone matters . And screaming into the void online or at someone in particular isn β t likely to make things better .
Be patient , kind , deliberate , and fact-based . More people will listen .
We β re in this together . It β s our civic duty to ensure we β re all making the smartest decisions and not allowing rumors or conspiracy theories to take seed . We all have a role to play . You don β t have to become an epidemiology expertβthe medical professionals and journalists will do their jobs . You do have to make an effort to not spread rumors or falsehoods , or anything else that could make a public-health response harder for those around you .
Andy Carvin is a senior fellow at βββ Council β s Digital Forensic Research Lab and led NPR β s journalism innovation efforts from 2006 to 2013. is a senior fellow at βββ Council β s Digital Forensic Research Lab and led NPR β s journalism innovation efforts from 2006 to 2013 . | PXKc4DDF2XONE9il | 0 | Misinformation And Disinformation | -0.1 | COVID-19 Misinformation | -0.1 | Coronavirus | 0 | null | null | null | null |
education | Washington Free Beacon | https://freebeacon.com/campus/wilsons-princeton-downfall-could-have-domino-effect/ | Wilsonβs Princeton Downfall Could Have Domino Effect | 2020-06-29 | education | Princeton University 's decision to remove Woodrow Wilson 's name from campus could have a domino effect on other institutions bearing the name of the Democratic president .
Princeton 's board of trustees voted to change the names of the university 's public policy school and one of its residential colleges , both of which bore the name of the professor-turned-president , in light of his `` racist thinking and policies . '' The Ivy League college 's decision has driven others to scrutinize Wilson 's legacy . A petition created by the D.C. History and Justice Collective asking the city to change the name of Woodrow Wilson High School has garnered thousands of signatures since Princeton made its announcement .
`` We are urging you to join β¦ Princeton University in taking this white supremacist off the pedestal on which we have left him for far too long , '' the letter to D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser reads . `` Washington may not be the fastest to end the shameful allegiance to a tarnished figurehead , but it can yet be the model for affirming our civic values over the racist history that continues to shape our city 's inequities today . ''
The D.C. History and Justice Collective , which was created in 2018 , did not respond to a request for comment .
The petition has already found allies among elected officials in Washington . Ruth Wattenberg , Ward Three member of the D.C. State Board of Education , told the βββ that Wilson does not deserve the honors that have been bestowed upon him .
`` Whatever else may be true of his life 's work , here in D.C. , he worked aggressively to segregate the federal civil service , '' Wattenberg said . `` Naming a high school in D.C. after Woodrow Wilson is wrong . ''
Neither D.C. Public Schools chancellor Lewis Ferebee nor Mayor Bowser returned requests for comment .
The petition to rename Wilson High School took off after Princeton 's board of trustees announced on June 26 that its public policy school will be known as the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and its residential college , `` First College . '' Some on campus objected to the move . Princeton student Akhil Rajasekar told the Free Beacon that the decision was not only `` rushed '' and `` problematic , '' but `` ultimately [ not ] about race at all . ''
`` The decision to remove Woodrow Wilson 's name from Princeton 's campus is unprecedented and deeply problematic . It was rushed , without any input from students , faculty , or alumni , '' Rajasekar said . `` It 's going to have exactly zero influence on anybody that a few words were symbolically changed⦠. This is little more than a power tactic that reveals how strong the pressure to conform and give in to the mob is , with no regard for reasoned approaches or competing viewpoints . ''
The university justified the decision , saying that such an honor implies an endorsement of the individual as a `` role model , '' rather than a mere reflection of his accomplishments .
`` We have taken this extraordinary step because we believe that Wilson 's racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school whose scholars , students , and alumni must be firmly committed to combating the scourge of racism in all its form , '' the board said . `` Identifying a political leader as the namesake for a public policy school inevitably suggests that the honoree is a role model⦠. We must therefore ask whether it is acceptable for the University 's school of public affairs to bear the name of a racist who segregated the nation 's civil service after it had been integrated for decades . ''
The decision has extended beyond high school and college campuses , drawing the attention of President Trump . He defended his Democratic predecessorβas well as Hollywood actor John Wayneβfrom those seeking to erase his legacy . The movement to tear down monuments or rename institutions reflects `` incredible stupidity , '' according to Trump .
`` Can anyone believe that Princeton just dropped the name of Woodrow Wilson from their highly respected policy center . Now the Do Nothing Democrats want to take off the name John Wayne from an airport . Incredible stupidity , '' he tweeted .
Can anyone believe that Princeton just dropped the name of Woodrow Wilson from their highly respected policy center . Now the Do Nothing Democrats want to take off the name John Wayne from an airport . Incredible stupidity ! β Donald J. Trump ( @ realDonaldTrump ) June 29 , 2020
The renaming campaign against Wilson is not unprecedented in the Washington , D.C. , Virginia , and Maryland area . In 2018 , Orr Elementary School in Northeast D.C. changed its name to Lawrence Boone Elementary after the school discovered Benjamin Orrβthe fourth mayor of the nation 's capitolβowned slaves . In 2017 , the Montgomery County Council president asked Brooke Lee Middle School in Silver Spring , Maryland , to rename itself due to Lee 's segregationist policies .
The campaign against Wilson dates back years on Princeton 's campus , though the board of trustees said as recently as 2015 that it would not remove the Democrat 's name from the school , but would do its best to be `` honest and forthcoming about [ his ] history . '' Activism at Wilson High School began in earnest in 2015 , but the renaming effort is enjoying the momentum of Princeton 's concession . Activists have found a champion in Wattenberg .
`` He was working actively to roll back the degree of desegregation that already existed here in D.C. , '' Wattenberg said . `` That work should not be honored by a D.C. high school with his name . ''
Rajasekar fears the name changes will set a precedent for others to follow suit . If an elite institution like Princeton is unwilling to defend Wilson , it will only encourage others to throw historic figures under the bus . It is only a matter of time before they shift their attention from individuals to ideals .
`` What 's deeply worrisome is that academic freedom may be next on the chopping block if the mob gets its way , and I hope the university takes an absolute and uncompromising stand in its defense when the mob comes calling for its destruction , '' he said . | Sv1CfCsCk2KjYYiW | 2 | Progressives | 0.5 | Education | 0.2 | Democratic Party | 0.1 | Cancel Culture | 0 | Campus Speech | 0 |
us_house | Fox Online News | http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/03/12/ryan-gop-house-budget-vows-seem-paralyzed-by-angst-over-gop-white-house-battle.html | Ryan, GOP House budget vows seem paralyzed by angst over GOP White House battle | 2016-03-12 | us_house | The Cuyahoga River , which slices through downtown Cleveland twice , caught fire in the 1950s and 1960s .
There is so much dread and acrimony about the GOP presidential contest , one wonders if the Republican convention in Cleveland could be the scene of a similar conflagration .
Talk of a brokered or contested convention abounds . Angst paralyzes some Republican lawmakers about the prospects of Donald Trump or Sen. Ted Cruz , R-Texas , heading the GOP ticket . There β s worry about outright discord and no clear winner come convention time .
Is it any wonder some Republicans briefly launched an effort to recruit House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan , R-Wis. , to seek the presidency ?
Former U.S . Ambassador to Finland Earle Mack wanted to garner one million online signatures to compel Ryan to run .
β If you do not get 1,238 delegates on the first ballot , then the confusion starts . The chaos starts , β Mack told the Fox Business Network . β Because of the disarray , they would need someone to heal it . And that would be Paul Ryan . β
The speaker β s political team wasn β t amused . Ryan β s counsel , Timothy Kronquist , sent a letter to the Federal Election Commission on Monday disavowing the organization .
Kronquist followed up with a cease-and-desist letter Thursday to the pro-Ryan group . The dispatch accused the outfit of giving voters the impression its activities are β in coordination with Speaker Ryan . β
Kronquist noted that Ryan repeatedly said he isn β t running for president .
Of course , Ryan was also adamant that he wasn β t running for speaker of the House β¦
An effort to quash political activity even if Ryan doesn β t support the draft effort ? Weren β t Republicans lathered up when they accused the IRS of trying to temper political activities ? Where β s Lois Lerner ?
By Friday afternoon , the pro-Ryan group halted its efforts . It issued a statement saying the recruitment mission β could become an unwanted distraction from the Speaker β s current responsibilities . β
However , the group argued that β in an open convention , the best person to lead our country would be Speaker Paul Ryan . β
Ryan β s done all he can to distance himself from chatter of a brokered convention .
β That β s ridiculous , β Ryan exclaimed in January when asked about the likelihood of the brokered convention scenario . When asked if he could guarantee there wouldn β t be a fight in Cleveland , he replied β How would I know ? β
House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif. , knows the risks Republicans would face at a multi-ballot confab .
β If they think that they β re going to upset the verdict of the people in terms of the elections , that can really be opening a very big Pandora β s Box , β she said . β I think that you change that to your peril . β
The GOP β s political consternation over the top of the ticket translates to a legislative frailty on Capitol Hill .
This angst and division in the party is crystalized in the current fight in Congress to approve a budget -- and maybe spending bills later this year .
β We believe we have an obligation , a duty , to offer another way forward . To offer an alternative , β Ryan said in January .
Ryan talked repeatedly about how β Americans want progress β and said he β s β really excited about β being bold . β
He codified 2016 is β a year of ideas. β The speaker said he wants to β offer our fellow citizens solutions . β
Lofty rhetoric . But the GOP is struggling with the budget . No budget and it β s hard for Congress to crank through the 12 annual spending bills that fund the government .
These can be the basic -- at times boring -- mechanics of Congress . And it β s challenging to match soaring talk about agendas and ideas when the oratory of the Republican presidential frontrunner focuses on the size of his jockstrap .
The success of Donald Trump and recalcitrance of House conservatives is now giving Ryan the same headaches encountered by former Speaker John Boehner , R-Ohio .
`` Speaker Ryan is the ultimate optimist , and the job has only energized him , '' spokeswoman AshLeeStrong said Saturday .
Republicans may yet try to advance an annual budget through committee next week and on the House floor later this month . Rank-and-file House Republicans huddle in the Capitol basement late Monday afternoon to assess matters .
Moving soon is important if the House is to actually knock out spending bills this year and truly legislate .
That would prevent cramming everything into an ugly , omnibus measure in December . But a failure to move any sort of budget doesn β t match Ryan β s bold agenda talk . It could be a significant embarrassment for the speaker since he β s touted as the β numbers β guy .
In fact , the die for Ryan and this budget may have already been cast the day before he became speaker .
Last October , the House voted 266-167 to establish topline spending numbers for the current budget cycle and the one that now stymies the House .
Boehner engineered that agreement with President Obama . It set the annual appropriations figure ( often called β discretionary β spending ) for fiscal 2017 at $ 1.070 trillion . That meant Congress would then fillet the $ 1.070 trillion among the 12 annual spending bills to run the government .
But examine the October , 28 , 2015 , roll call . Of the 266 yea votes , Republicans only provided 79 . Boehner and Ryan were among that group .
Now , conservatives demand Ryan boot the $ 1.070 trillion figure in favor of $ 1.040 trillion .
If the leadership had the votes , they would have moved the budget through committee and onto the floor a few weeks ago .
House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise , R-La. , whipped the budget last week . There β s no formal green light just yet despite a hope of action soon .
Rep. Bill Flores , R-Texas , chairman the Republican Study Committee , the largest bloc of conservatives in the House -- roughly 170 members of the 246 member House GOP conference .
β I have not backed off , β Flores said . β I β m not endorsing $ 1.070 trillion . β
However , he did say a plan which helped with broader savings -- even while sticking to $ 1.070 trillion -- might be worth considering .
β You have to look at the whole picture , β Flores said .
There are also political considerations . A number of incumbent Texas Republicans were jumpy about their primaries earlier this month . There was concern that voting for a budget at the higher level could lend ammo to their opponents .
But all Texas GOPers won and avoided runoffs . So , the delay may help .
Ryan still hasn β t solved the most-pervasive problem in the House Republican Conference . It β s an issue that dogged his predecessor .
β There are about 100 people here who would vote no and hope yes , β said one knowledgeable source .
That flies in the face of a memo Scalise penned to his colleagues in November .
β Too many in our conference are falling into the pattern of voting no on tough bills while actually hoping the bill passes because they know that the outcome will be even worse if the bill fails , β he wrote .
Failing to adopt a budget cripples the House from completing most spending bills . No bold agenda there . And it β s awkward for Republicans -- and Ryan in particular -- who browbeat Senate Democrats for not adopting budgets .
Members of the House β s ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus would like $ 30 billion in immediate cuts to entitlement programs such as Medicare , Medicaid and Social Security . It is unclear how such cuts could impact current beneficiaries .
GOP Rep. Dave Brat , R-Va. , wants to curb the entitlements in appropriations bills , though that violates the much-vaunted β regular order β by running afoul of multiple budget rules and regulations .
β I am a strong supporter of cutting mandatory spending , just not on Appropriations bills , β said Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers , R-Ky. β Any such attempt would stop the appropriations process in its tracks -- risking the passage of appropriations bills in the House , in the Senate , and most certainly White House approval .
β This would ultimately lead us once again to Continuing Resolutions and an omnibus , which is the opposite of the β regular order β we are all seeking to achieve . β
It β s typical to alter entitlements via a special budget process called β reconciliation. β Reconciliation usually comes later in the year . But the House can β t employ the reconciliation maneuver unless it approves a budget . Still , Brat and other conservatives are skeptical about waiting .
β I prefer to see ( changes ) in appropriations because they come first , β he said . β I have to see it in writing . β
β I haven β t heard anything that would change my mind , β he said . β It β s always a hope and a prayer . All other hopes and prayers have failed . β
Brooks was not concerned about demands for β regular order , β though some approaches floated by Freedom Caucus members seem to deviate from doing things by the book .
β I β m not concerned with the process , β Brooks said . β I β m concerned with substance . β
This boils down to a math problem . A scant 79 Republicans voted for the $ 1.070 trillion budget deal in the final hours of the Boehner regime . Ryan is now trying to convert 79 into 218 yeas to pass a budget . The math might not work .
All the while , there β s rhetoric of big ideas and a big agenda ahead of the convention and election . And if the House is impaired legislatively , there are questions if the talk rings hollow . | LyBcVd8owfSTmuo6 | 2 | Republican Party | -1.4 | US House | -0.4 | Paul Ryan | 0.2 | Budget | 0 | Politics | 0 |
supreme_court | Fox Online News | http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/09/18/moral-and-political-dilemma-created-by-kavanaughs-accuser.html | The moral and political dilemma created by Kavanaugh's accuser | 2018-09-18 | supreme_court | In less than 24 hours , the Supreme Court confirmation process has been utterly transformed from a virtual certainty to a dramatic dilemma .
When Brett Kavanaugh faced only an unnamed accuser with a vague story about something that allegedly happened nearly four decades ago , when he was at Georgetown Prep , it was clear that the Republicans had no intention of slowing down the train . And a rough media consensus , including some on the left , decided that this was a late hit and an unfair one at that .
But when Christine Blasey Ford came forward to The Washington Post , she changed the equation . And when her lawyer said on two morning shows yesterday that Ford is willing to testify , it created an unstoppable momentum that forced Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley to invite her and Kavanaugh to testify next Monday . Once Jeff Flake and Susan Collins joined the call for hearings , there was no turning back . So much for Grassley 's initial suggestion that they just chat by phone .
Kavanaugh , too , with an expanded but equally vociferous denial , said he is willing to testify . So the initial proposal by Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley , that both be interviewed over the phone , looks dead in the water .
Even President Trump , whose first instinct is always to counterattack , was restrained in comments about his nominee .
While praising Kavanaugh , the president also said , `` I wish the Democrats could have done this a lot sooner , because they had this information for many months . And they should n't have waited til literally the last days . They should have done it a lot sooner . But with all of that being said we want to go through the process . ''
And he added : `` If it takes a little delay , it 'll take a little delay . ''
Earlier , Kellyanne Conway said that `` this woman should not be insulted and she should not be ignored . ''
Much of this is driven by math . With Jeff Flake , who is retiring , and Susan Collins saying there should be hearings , and the Republicans holding only a 51-49 majority , two defections could kill the nomination , even if the GOP bypasses the committee for a floor vote .
Look , the process was terrible . Dianne Feinstein had been sitting on the anonymous letter since July . Even the liberal editorial page of the San Francisco Chronicle said Feinstein was `` unfair '' to everyoneβthe nominee , the accuser and the panel β s members . The 11th-hour nature of the charge makes it look like desperation politics .
In the Post interview , Ford , now a research psychologist at Palo Alto University , expanded on her account , saying that Kavanaugh groped her as he tried to pull off her bathing suit and put his hand over her mouth when she screamed .
`` I thought he might inadvertently kill me , '' Ford told the paper . `` He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing . ''
And on `` Today , '' her lawyer Debra Katz said that Ford `` clearly considers this an attempted rape . She believes that if it were not for the severe intoxication of Brett Kavanaugh , she would 've been raped . ''
The Post examined a therapist 's notes from 2012 , which `` do not mention Kavanaugh 's name but say [ Ford ] reported that she was attacked by students 'from an elitist boys β school ' who went on to become 'highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington . ' The notes say four boys were involved , a discrepancy Ford says was an error on the therapist β s part . ''
Orrin Hatch , meanwhile , says he spoke to Kavanaugh and the judge maintains that he was n't even at such a party , with the senator suggesting this is a case of mistaken identity .
So here is what the senators , the media and the public have to face :
An allegation of attempted rape is extremely serious . It can traumatize a woman for the rest of her life . The fear can linger for a very long time . It ca n't simply be written off as old news .
At the same time , if Kavanaugh did anything like what is alleged , he was a high school student . He has since built an outstanding career , worked well with women , coaches his daughters ' teams -- and 65 women who knew him at Georgetown Prep have vouched for his character . Should a horrible , drunken episode at the age of 17 ruin a man β s career decades later ?
But Kavanaugh says unequivocally this never happened . If lawmakers were to conclude otherwise , they could deem him to be lying β as an adult .
Throw in all the twists and turns as journalists dig into the matter and the testimony that will rivet the nation next week under the glare of television lights . No one , at this point , knows how this will play out . | ESRRAgpqjxMqbppM | 2 | Supreme Court | -0.6 | Brett Kavanaugh | -0.2 | Christine Blasey Ford | -0.2 | Sexual Misconduct | -0.2 | null | null |
healthcare | New York Times - News | http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/opinion/krugman-the-obamacare-shock.html | The Obamacare Shock | 2013-05-27 | healthcare | The Affordable Care Act , a k a Obamacare , goes fully into effect at the beginning of next year , and predictions of disaster are being heard far and wide . There will be an administrative β train wreck , β we β re told ; consumers will face a terrible shock . Republicans , one hears , are already counting on the law β s troubles to give them a big electoral advantage .
No doubt there will be problems , as there are with any large new government initiative , and in this case , we have the added complication that many Republican governors and legislators are doing all they can to sabotage reform . Yet important new evidence β especially from California , the law β s most important test case β suggests that the real Obamacare shock will be one of unexpected success .
Before I can explain what the news means , I need to make a crucial point : Obamacare is a deeply conservative reform , not in a political sense ( although it was originally a Republican proposal ) but in terms of leaving most people β s health care unaffected . Americans who receive health insurance from their employers , Medicare or Medicaid β which is to say , the vast majority of those who have any kind of health insurance at all β will see almost no changes when the law goes into effect .
There are , however , millions of Americans who don β t receive insurance either from their employers or from government programs . They can get insurance only by buying it on their own , and many of them are effectively shut out of that market . In some states , like California , insurers reject applicants with past medical problems . In others , like New York , insurers can β t reject applicants , and must offer similar coverage regardless of personal medical history ( β community rating β ) ; unfortunately , this leads to a situation in which premiums are very high because only those with current health problems sign up , while healthy people take the risk of going uninsured . | hpd8fAsojrfopZu8 | 0 | Healthcare | 0.7 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
energy | The Guardian | https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/02/opec-agrees-to-ramp-up-oil-production-but-fails-to-exclude-russia | Opec agrees to ramp up oil production, but fails to exclude Russia | 2022-06-02 | Energy, Trade, OPEC, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Oil, Gas Prices, World, Supply Chains, Transportation, Economy And Jobs | Brent crude makes small rise to $116.94 as group sets extra output higher at 650,000 barrels a day The Opec oil cartel and its allies have agreed to ramp up production of crude amid a surge in global demand, but did not exclude Russia from contributing to future increases despite its invasion of Ukraine. Ministers representing Opecβs 13 members and 10 non-Opec producers led by Russia, a grouping called Opec+, said on Thursday they would increase output by nearly 650,000 barrels a day in July and August, nearly two-thirds more than previously planned rises of about 400,000 barrels a day. Reports earlier in the week had suggested the cartel was considering excluding Russia from future quotas, in a move that could have paved the way for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to pump more oil, but Opec stopped short of the move. Brent crude prices rose slightly after the announcement, up 0.5% at $116.94 a barrel. Opec members said they had βnoted the most recent reopening from lockdowns in major global economic centresβ, but failed to mention the fallout of the Ukraine conflict, which has led to oil embargos against Russia and driven demand for oil from other producers. The easing of Covid lockdowns around the world has also added to pressure on fuel supplies. Surging demand has sent energy prices soaring, pushing inflation to a 40-year high in the UK, and fuelling a cost of living crisis that has left many households struggling to cover basic costs. Thursdayβs meeting was the first since the EU agreed a partial embargo on Russian crude earlier this week in hopes of βcutting a huge source of financing for its war machineβ. While the sanctions will immediately hit 75% of Russian oil imports to the EU, and impact on 90% by the end of the year, oil transported through the critical Druzhba (βfriendshipβ) pipeline will be exempt from the ban. That was a key concession to Hungary and other central EU states including the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which are heavily dependent on Russian oil. Bloomberg Economics has calculated that Moscow would still receive $285bn (Β£226bn) this year for its fossil fuel exports, including gas on which European countries rely heavily. However, the EU has also reached an agreement with the UK to ban insurers from covering ships transporting Russian oil, in order to make it more difficult for the country to export energy supplies. | 08fac05d0b930c3c | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
supreme_court | HuffPost | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/supreme-court-dna-ruling_n_3435274.html?ref=topbar | Supreme Court DNA Ruling: Court Says Human Genes Cannot Be Patented | 2013-06-13 | Supreme Court | HuffPost turns 20 this year, and our mission is clearer than ever: We won't back down when it comes to providing free and impartial journalism. The next four years will reshape America as we know it, but we will never bow to political pressure.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless newsroom. We hope you'll join us. You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest β we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us. You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest β we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us. Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages. Do you have info to share with HuffPost reporters? Hereβs how. Do you have info to share with HuffPost reporters? Hereβs how. You have the right to opt-out of the sale or sharing of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences. | 4e813f9ef9bc7ae0 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
taxes | Fox News | http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/27/norquist-and-influential-anti-tax-pledge-at-center-washington-fiscal-debate/ | Norquist and influential anti-tax pledge at center of Washington fiscal debate | 2012-11-27 | taxes | For decades , conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist vowed to drive Republicans out of office if they did n't pledge to oppose tax increases . Many lawmakers signed on.But now , several senior Republicans are breaking ranks , willing to consider raising more money through taxes as part of a deal with Democrats to avoid a catastrophic budget meltdown .
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker says the only pledge he will keep is his oath of office . House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says no one in his home state of Virginia is talking about what leaders in Washington refer to simply as `` The Pledge , '' a Norquist invention that dates to 1986 . Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss says he cares more about his country than sticking to Norquist 's pledge .
It 's quite an about-face for senior members of a party that long has stood firmly against almost any notion of tax increases . And while GOP leaders insist they still do n't want to see taxes go up , the reality of a nation in a debt crisis is forcing some to moderate their opposition to any movement on how much Americans pay to fund their government . Republican legislators and Democratic President Barack Obama 's White House are haggling vigorously as they look for ways to reach agreement on detailed tax adjustments and spending cuts before automatic , blunt-force changes occur at the new year .
`` Oh , I signed it , '' Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said on βββ about Norquist 's pledge , adding he still supports its goals . `` But we 've got to deal with the crisis we face . We 've got to deal with the political reality of the president 's victory . ''
The naysaying about the pledge is raising the question of whether Norquist -- a little-known Republican outside Washington -- is losing his position of power within the GOP . It 's a notion he calls ridiculous .
But he indicated he would turn on lawmakers who defy him , starting with Corker , who published an opinion piece Monday in The Washington Post outlining an alternative to the budget breakdown that includes more revenue .
`` Corker was elected to the Senate because he took the pledge , '' Norquist said on βββ . `` He would not be a senator today if he had n't made that commitment . If he breaks it , he 's going to have to have a conversation with the people of Tennessee about his keeping his word . And the same thing with other people who are elected because they made that written commitment to the people of their state . ''
At the White House , spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that the shifting away from Norquist signaled an opportunity for Republicans to work with President Obama .
`` They represent what we hope is a difference in tone and approach to these problems and a recognition that a balanced approach to deficit reduction is the right approach , '' Carney said .
Norquist , the head of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform , opposes tax increases of any kind , whether eliminating deductions , a position some GOP lawmakers say they 're open to , or raising rates . He has insisted on hardline positions from lawmakers and , for years , has held outsized sway in the party for someone who does not hold public office . His pledge does n't allow any change to the tax code that adds a dollar to revenues .
House Speaker John Boehner has called that notion unrealistic and has dismissed Norquist as `` some random person . ''
Nevertheless , Norquist has maintained a certain level of clout for years .
Heading into the 2012 elections , 279 lawmakers had signed Norquist 's ' pledge , according to Americans for Tax Reform .
But some who have signed the pledge are having second thoughts . And when the new House is seated next year , no more than 212 of them consider themselves bound by the promise .
`` I 'm not obligated on the pledge , '' Corker told CBS News . `` I was just elected . The only thing I 'm honoring is the oath I take when I serve when I 'm sworn in this January . ''
`` When I go to the constituents that have re-elected me , it is not about that pledge , '' Cantor said on MSNBC . `` It really is about trying to solve problems . ''
Chambliss , a veteran senator from Georgia , said he signed the pledge during an earlier campaign when the country 's debt was nowhere near its current $ 16 trillion level .
`` Times have changed significantly , and I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge , '' Chambliss told his local television station . `` If we do it ( Norquist 's ) way , then we 'll continue in debt . ''
`` I 'm frankly not concerned about the Norquist pledge , '' Chambliss added .
Raising taxes , whether by closing loopholes or raising tax rates , is seldom a vote-winning strategy .
President George H.W . Bush broke his campaign promise to not raise taxes ; he ended up losing re-election in 1992 .
Other Republicans , however , are now willing to put additional tax revenues on the table as a bargaining chip for a deal with Democrats to get changes in Social Security and Medicare and pare down federal deficits .
`` I agree with Grover , we should n't raise rates . But I think Grover is wrong when it comes to we ca n't cap deductions and buy down debt , '' Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Sunday on ABC 's `` This Week . ''
`` I will violate the pledge -- long story short -- for the good of the country , only if Democrats will do entitlement reform , '' he added .
Rep. Peter King of New York told NBC 's `` Meet the Press '' on Sunday that the pledge is good for a two-year term only .
`` A pledge you signed 20 years ago , 18 years ago , is for that Congress , '' King said . `` For instance , if I were in Congress in 1941 , I would have signed a support of declaration of war against Japan . I 'm not going to attack Japan today . The world has changed , and the economic situation is different . ''
Sen. John McCain , the Republican presidential nominee in 2008 , said the pledge is losing its clout .
`` Fewer and fewer people are signing this , quote , pledge , '' he told an audience recently . | Jt522aMKFjnGy8ae | 2 | Taxes | -0.5 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
culture | ABC News | https://abcnews.go.com/US/jussie-smollett-custody-chicago-police-allegedly-lying-attack/story?id=61208295&cid=clicksource_4380645_1_heads_hero_live_hero_hed | Jussie Smollett taken into custody by Chicago police over allegedly lying about attack | culture | A Chicago judge set Jussie Smollett 's bond at $ 100,000 on Thursday and ordered him to surrender his passport , hours after a remarkable Chicago Police Department press conference in which Superintendent Eddie T. Johnson blasted the 'Empire ' star , saying that Smollett 's alleged staging of a hoax attack was a `` publicity stunt ... to promote his career . ''
Interested in Jussie Smollett ? Add Jussie Smollett as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Jussie Smollett news , video , and analysis from βββ . Add Interest
The weeks-long investigation into the alleged hate crime attack β- an alarming account that sizzled with a spectrum of hot button issues ranging from race , sexuality and politics to crime and celebrity -- riveted and distressed a deeply-divided nation .
Standing before Cook County Circuit Court Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke , Jr. , Smollett appeared to remain steadfast in his refutation of the felony charge against him . He has repeatedly insisted that the attack was real and that he was merely a victim , not a perpetrator . If convicted of felony disorderly conduct for filing a false report , the actor faces up to three years in prison .
When first assistant state attorney Risa Lanier told Lyke that the actor had picked up two brothers who authorities say carried out the staged attack on him at his direction and showed them the location of where he wanted to be attacked , Smollett shook his head in disagreement .
When Lyke told Smollett that the allegations , if true , are `` utterly outrageous , '' the actor nodded his head in agreement -- doing so again when Lyke said the noose detail would be the most despicable part of the alleged scheme .
The judge also ordered pre-trial monitoring of the actor , and ordered him to stay away from the two brothers he allegedly conspired with to stage the hoax attack , according to police .
The tense courtroom appearance followed on the heels of a morning press conference at which a visibly angry Johnson castigated the actor for betraying his race and his city with such an incendiary false claim .
`` Jussie Smollett took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career , '' a visibly angry Johnson said . β I am left hanging my head asking β why ? β . Why would anyone , especially an African-American man , use the symbolism of a noose to make false accusations ? ... How can an individual who 's been embraced by the city of Chicago turn around and slap everyone in the city in the face with these false claims ? ''
Johnson charged that Smollett , an actor on the hit show 'Empire ' who has consistently denied any role in staging the alleged attack , orchestrated it because he was `` dissatisfied with his salary . ''
In addition to staging the attack , officials said , Smollett also sent himself a hate-filled letter to the Fox studio where the hit show is filmed .
Smollett turned himself in at 5:15 a.m. local time and made a statement to police before being taken into custody . His lawyers , Todd Pugh and Victor Henderson , were not present at the time but they released a statement the night before .
`` Like any other citizen , Mr. Smollett enjoys the presumption of innocence , particularly when there has been an investigation like this one where information , both true and false , has been repeatedly leaked . Given these circumstances , we intend to conduct a thorough investigation and to mount an aggressive defense . ''
Thursday evening , the attorneys released a statement criticizing law enforcement 's handling of the case .
`` Today we witnessed an organized law enforcement spectacle that has no place in the American legal system . The presumption of innocence , a bedrock in the search for justice , was trampled upon at the expense of Mr. Smollett and notably , on the eve of a Mayoral election , '' the statement read . `` Mr. Smollett is a young man of impeccable character and integrity who fiercely and solemnly maintains his innocence and feels betrayed by a system that apparently wants to skip due process and proceed directly to sentencing . ''
Police add that Smollett gave no statement to police after turning himself in and that his lawyers had reached out to them Wednesday night to discuss his surrender . Smollett wanted to turn himself in near midnight , but authorities suggested he come in at 5 a.m. instead , to avoid spending the night in jail . Smollett arrived early Thursday morning accompanied by a female lawyer and an entourage of five or six people .
Smollett was silent as he went through the motions of being booked and processed .
By late morning on Thursday , the backlash against the actor began at the top , with an angry tweet from the President of the United States .
`` . @ JussieSmollett - what about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments ! ? # MAGA '' President Donald Trump wrote in a tweet after the press conference .
In an earlier interview with βββ , Smollett was asked why he thought he was targeted and he replied that he is a strident critic of the Trump administration .
β I come really really hard against 45 , '' he said . referring to Trump , the 45th U.S. president . `` I come really really hard against his administration , and I don β t hold my tongue . β
. @ JussieSmollett - what about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments ! ? # MAGA β Donald J. Trump ( @ realDonaldTrump ) February 21 , 2019
During a press briefing later Thursday morning , Chicago law enforcement officials said that Chicago police detectives interviewed more than 100 people and reviewed dozens of police cameras trying to get to the bottom of Smollett 's claims .
β β How can an individual who 's been embraced by the city of Chicago turn around and slap everyone in the city in the face with these false claims ?
Johnson , a well-regarded and popular big city police chief and Chicago native , appeared genuinely aggrieved as he described how , he said , Smollett took advantage of the pain of racism to advance his career .
`` Why would anyone use the symbol of a noose '' to further his `` own public profile , '' Johnson wondered aloud .
`` I 'm offended by what happened and I 'm angry , '' Johnson continued . `` This publicity stunt was a scar that Chicago didn β t own and certainly didn β t deserve . ''
Johnson , who oversees one of the nation 's largest police departments in one of its most violent cities , seemed disheartened by all the attention paid to the Smollett affair .
β The accusation within this phony attack received national attention for weeks , β Johnson told reporters during a press conference . β Celebrities , news commentators and even presidential candidates weighed in on something that was choreographed by an actor . ''
`` When you get the opportunity , '' he said with a mixture of derision and frustration , `` the shooting victims and their families ? Give them the same amount of attention . ''
Press Briefing : Jussie Smollet is under arrest and in custody of detectives . At 9am at # ChicagoPolice Headquarters , Supt Eddie Johnson , Commander of Area Central Detectives Edward Wodnicki will brief reporters on the investigation prior to the defendants appearance in court . pic.twitter.com/9PSv8Ojec2 β Anthony Guglielmi ( @ AJGuglielmi ) February 21 , 2019
After the press briefing , 20th Century Fox , the station that airs `` Empire , '' released a statement which read , `` We understand the seriousness of this matter and we respect the legal process . We are evaluating the situation and we are considering our options . ''
Smollett told police he was attacked by two masked men near his apartment in Chicago . The two men , Smollett initially said , shouted racist and homophobic slurs at him as a rope was wrapped around his neck and a chemical compound was poured on him . The alleged assailants yelled `` MAGA country , '' a reference to President Donald Trump 's `` Make American Great Again '' slogan , police were told .
β β Chicago trusted this young man . We loved 'Empire , ' and we took this very seriously that something this hateful could happen in our city .
In an interview with `` Good Morning America '' anchor Robin Roberts , Smollett said he was heartbroken when he found out that people questioned his story .
Asked why he would leave the rope draped around his neck until police arrived because he `` wanted them to see . ''
`` I was looking at myself , just like checking myself out , '' he told Roberts . `` I saw the bruise on my neck , you know , like the little -- the rope burn around my neck . So when the police came I kept the clothes on , I kept the rope on me . ... I mean , it was n't , like , wrapped around . But , yeah , it was around because I wanted them to see . ''
Asked why he wait until the second interview to tell police that the assailants yelled β MAGA country β at him during the attack , Smollett seemed to take offense at the insinuation .
`` For me , the main thing was the idea that I somehow switched up my story , you know ? And that somehow maybe I added a little extra trinket , you know , of the MAGA thing , '' Smollett said on βββ . `` I did n't need to add anything like that . They called me a f -- -- , they called me a n -- -- . There 's no which way you cut it . ''
Johnson said on Thursday that Smollett 's seeming injuries from the incident also appeared to be phony .
β The brothers had on gloves during the staged attack where they -- they punched him a little bit , but as far as we can tell , the scratches and bruising that you saw on his face was most likely self-inflicted . ''
Police identified and questioned two `` persons of interest '' captured on surveillance video near the scene around the time of the alleged attack . The men , who are brothers , were arrested on Feb. 13 but then released without charges , with police saying they were no longer considered suspects .
While being questioned by investigators , the brothers claimed that Smollett paid them to help orchestrate and stage the crime after he became upset that a letter threatening him , sent Jan. 22 to the Fox studio where `` Empire '' is filmed , did not get enough attention , sources told βββ .
On Wednesday , Smollett was charged with felony disorderly conduct for filing a false crime report . By that evening , police officially had classified the actor as a suspect in the ongoing investigation . Detectives subsequently presented evidence to a Cook County grand jury .
`` That was a pretty hateful allegation , and it really put a terrible look on Chicago , '' Guglielmi told ABC Chicago station WLS in a telephone interview Thursday morning . `` Chicago trusted this young man . We loved 'Empire , ' and we took this very seriously that something this hateful could happen in our city . '' | iCIPSFv376rLSRX3 | 0 | Jussie Smollett | -0.8 | Culture | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | |
general_news | The Federalist | https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/20/why-the-march-for-life-represents-mlks-legacy-better-than-the-womens-march-does/ | Why The March For Life Represents MLKβs Legacy Better Than The Womenβs March Does | 2020-01-20 | Martin Luther King Jr., Black Americans, Holidays, General News | Martin Luther King Jr.βs oldest son and daughter-in-law spoke at the 2020 D.C. Womenβs March, which took place during the MLK holiday weekend. However, Martin Luther King Jr.βs legacy will be better honored at the March for Life than at the Womenβs March. Andrea Waters King said, βEach of us is made by our creatorβ¦[and we must] respect the dignity and worth of every man, woman and child.β Ironically, she said these words in front of a crowd that held countless pro-abortion signs, from βSafe abortion is a human rightβ and βNo uterus, no opinionβ to βI am not ovary reactingβ and βKeep your tiny hands off my reproductive rights.β The National Womenβs March platform is broad, but it becomes clear to anyone who attends that there are two priorities: getting Donald Trump out of office (by any means necessary) and defending the right to an abortion. When asked to name a policy that has hindered womenβs equality, one woman immediately named health care. βThey want all of those babies born,β she said, βbut once theyβre born they donβt want to help them at all.β Whenever women at the march mentioned health care, they were always referring to abortion. One older woman who remembers having gone to the original womenβs march in 1971 said she was marching on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment, an amendment many pro-abortion activists hope will enshrine the right to abortion in the Constitution. One woman dressed in a βHandmaidβs Taleβ costume said that she believed reproductive rights were the gatekeeper for all womenβs rights. She held a sign attached to a wire hanger that read, βVote while you still can.β She argued that if women lose the right to an abortion they will eventually lose all other rights as well. This is not the true legacy of the beloved civil rights leader. Martin Luther King Jr. was a religious man who strongly believed in the natural law. If he were alive today, it is far more likely that he would have lent his influence to the March for Life rather than to the vulgar National Womenβs March. For many years Martin Luther King Jr.βs legacy has been hijacked by the left, who want to pretend he would agree with their definition of social justice. In reality, King believed in a fixed moral law, one that did not fluctuate according to evolving cultural standards. Leftists have also attempted to secularize King, forgetting that he was a reverend and that it was churches who rose up and organized the marches, boycotts, and sit-ins of the civil rights movement. King is famous for writing in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail that βinjustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.β He wrote that he could not sit idly by in Atlanta and not worry about what is happening in Birmingham. While its highly likely that King would have something to say about the treatment of immigrants and other minorities in the United States, there is no way he would accept that abortion is settled law and thus just. King believed a just law needed to conform to the natural law. King of course put it best: βA just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral lawβ¦ Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.β King argued that segregation was unjust because it distorted the personality and put people into the category of things. What is abortion, if not the ultimate degradation of the human personalityβ and not just for the child, but for the mother as well? A woman who aborts her baby is no less a mother than one who gives birth. The only difference is that she has now willfully destroyed a piece of herself. The famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass argued that slavery is just as morally degrading for the slave owner as it is for the slave, because it turns him into a tyrant. Women who have abortions also never leave the procedure unscathed. The decision will have psychological effects on them for the rest of their lives. They might tell themselves that what they got rid of was a thing and not a person, but that βblobβsβ little heartbeat and small fingerprints tell a different story. This is not justice. A better representative of Martin Luther King Jr. is his niece, Alveda King. Alveda King is an avid pro-life activist. She was almost the victim of an abortion, but luckily her grandfather convinced his daughter to give birth instead. As a young woman, Alveda King had two abortions that left her scarred physically and emotionally. King calls herself a victim of abortion and has compassion for women who have gone through the same thing. Today King works for various pro-life organizations. She is the executive director of outreach for a group called Civil Rights for the Unborn and is involved in Silent No More, a group that raises awareness about the physical and emotional pain abortion causes. King believes the pro-life movement is logically consistent with the civil rights movement. Just as the civil rights movement worked to convince society that black men and women are fully human, she works to convince society that babies in the womb deserve legal recognition. βMy dream for the unborn is that in America they will have the same dignity that all Americans deserve,β she said. It is difficult for conservatives to take lefty virtue signaling seriously or to respect so-called βsocial justice warriorsβ when they believe killing more than 600,000 babies a year is a right instead of a crime. If oneβs definition of justice does not entail protecting the weak, then it is not true justice. Martin Luther King Jr. understood this. In the most well-known portion of his βI have a Dreamβ speech, King declares that he looks forward to a day when little black boys and girls will be able to join hands with little white girls and boys in brotherhood. Can anyone honestly disagree that if King were here today he would not be fighting to give those little boys and girls a chance to be born in the first place? Β© 2025 The Federalist, A wholly independent division of FDRLST Media. All rights reserved. We won't sell or share your personal information to inform the ads you see. You may still see interest-based ads if your information is sold or shared by other companies or was sold or shared previously. Dismiss Opt out | 049cbf9adccf6ff0 | 2 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
economy_and_jobs | CNN (Web News) | http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/22/news/economy/economy-election-americans-dissatisfied/?hpt=po_c2 | Election issue: Why people still feel the economy stinks | 2014-10-22 | economy_and_jobs | U.S. unemployment is down . Consumer confidence is up . Inflation is low .
Things are improving , yet Americans are still worried . The economy is voters ' top concern ahead of the midterm elections next month , ranking ahead of national security , according to a recent Politico poll .
Only 42 % of those surveyed by CNN late last month thought the economy was in good shape . While that 's the highest share since January 2008 and an improvement from the 29 % who felt this way a year ago , it 's still weak overall .
Let 's take a look at what 's going right : The unemployment rate is below 6 % for the first time since 2008 . Job openings are back to 2001 levels . Consumer confidence is at its highest point since before the recession , and inflation remains a tame 1.7 % .
Related : What do women want in a husband ? A job !
Sounds great , but it 's taken the country a long time to get to this point , said Richard Curtin , chief economist of the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Survey of Consumers .
The recovery has also been stronger for some than others . Young adults are still having a tough time starting their careers , while older Americans are having difficulty shifting into retirement after their nest eggs were destroyed during the Great Recession .
`` It 's taking so long to recover and it 's been so uneven , '' he said . `` It 's been more than five years since the end of the recession . ''
Although the unemployment rate has fallen rapidly in the past two years , it remains at a relatively elevated level , said Justin Wolfers , a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics . The average jobless rate in the decade before the Great Recession hit in December 2007 was 4.9 % .
Americans also do n't feel any better off . While more people may have jobs , they are n't bringing home fatter paychecks . Wages and income have remained stagnant for years , making it tough for folks even though inflation is low . Median household income , which stood at $ 51,939 last year , is back to 1995 levels .
Consumers expect a median income boost of 1.1 % over the next year , Curtin said . But that wo n't keep up with their inflation expectations of 2.8 % .
`` American households , on average , are still struggling with their living standards slowly eroding , '' he said .
Not everyone , however , is suffering from flat-lining wages ... and that 's also why the average American remains worried about the economy . The rich are seeing both their income and wealth rise . The wealthiest 5 % of American households held 63 % of all wealth in 2013 , up from 54 % in 1989 , according to a recently released Federal Reserve survey .
`` Rising inequality is why Main Street does n't feel like it 's benefiting from the full fruits of the recovery , '' Wolfers said . | lapPUBTPJWOFUqK4 | 0 | Economy And Jobs | -0.3 | Jobs | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
gun_control_and_gun_rights | CNN (Web News) | http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/17/opinion/francis-gun-control-groundswell/index.html?hpt=op_t1 | Gun control: It's on all of us | 2013-01-17 | gun_control_and_gun_rights | Story highlights Terri Francis : Obama took good first step to end gun violence with his executive actions
But that 's not enough , she says ; we are all still responsible and need to get to work
Francis ' cousin 's son was shot and killed , but she buried her head in the sand on the issue
Now , she realizes that she and all Americans need to get educated and act for gun control
President Obama took a great first step in making our country safer Wednesday when he signed executive actions to reduce gun violence and urged Congress to reinstate the 2004 assault weapons ban .
But the president 's actions do not let the rest of us off the hook . Each one of us needs to decide on our own how we will participate in shaping our country 's future .
Let the families of Newtown grieve . The rest of us need to get to work .
In 2003 , my cousin 's 15-year-old son was shot and killed by a robber . My cousin found solidarity with other parents whose children had been snatched by gun violence , making instant activists out of moms and dads .
As I thought of the parents of Newtown over the past month , steeped in their grief , I realized how little I know , how little I have ever wanted to know , about the circumstances surrounding the gun death closest to me . I do n't know what kind of gun was used to murder my own relative . Even if I did , what would it mean to me ?
I 've never owned a gun nor have I ever touched one . I have never even knowingly been in the presence of one . I have taken false and selfish comfort in believing that guns and the chaos connected to them were worlds away . Not wanting to wade into the debate around gun control , my position on guns has been one of naivety and willed ignorance .
It is much easier to cry in front of my television and feel helpless than to learn what these weapons are , what they do and what I can do to make events like Newtown , Aurora , Tuscon and Virginia Tech less likely to happen again .
JUST WATCHED Obama pushes gun control measures Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Obama pushes gun control measures 02:54
JUST WATCHED Obama pushes gun control measures Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Obama pushes gun control measures 02:54
JUST WATCHED Girl reads letter she wrote to Obama Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Girl reads letter she wrote to Obama 03:26
My relationship to my community needs to be one but of action .
It may seem daunting to enter into the fray of a heated issue , to shape public opinion and to push our elected officials to substantive change , but we 've done it before .
In the 1960s , everyday people , from maids to college students and church members , said `` enough is enough '' to the back of the bus , separate water fountains and segregated lunch counters . Nearly two decades later , a mother who lost her child to a drunken driver launched the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving and led the country to enduring cultural and legislative transformation to stop drunken driving and to institute stricter alcohol policies .
Voices of the people played a role in the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and public opinion pushed Congress to pass the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act .
Yes , civil discourse can be uncivil . But do n't let toxic Internet trolls and television zealots stop you from participating in this vital public discussion .
The grieving families of Newtown and the grieving families of the hundreds of people who will have died from gun shootings since Sandy Hook will be conscripted to the front lines of the gun control debate . But we ca n't let them fight it on their own .
Because the truth is , when an average of eight children die from gun violence every day in this country , nobody is left untouched by a shooting death . Eventually , that evil will make its mark , directly or indirectly , on all of us .
In the wake of the one-month anniversary of the Newtown shootings , the country 's grief over mass shootings , one-on-one gun violence and unintentional gun deaths weighs so heavily on our collective conscience that once again the nation seems ready to take action .
Yes , our elected officials must lead and we must hold them accountable if they do n't . But we must do our part as well . We have to organize and shape public opinion to make it easier for the president and Congress to do what they must .
We can start by educating ourselves . Know what these weapons of mass destruction do , know who is trying to stop research on gun safety , know what organizations are pushing for more comprehensive bans . Once we 're educated , we can educate our friends and families and build a groundswell , home by home , street by street and block by block .
Because that is what this is going to take . It 's going to take all of us . | 1qhLjQz0IG32qAmm | 0 | Gun Control And Gun Rights | -0.5 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
politics | USA TODAY | https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/07/10/ross-perot-dies-put-deficits-trade-on-national-agenda-column/1690924001/ | OPINION: Rollins: Ross Perot was a patriot who drew attention to globalization and deficits | 2019-07-10 | politics | America lost a great patriot Tuesday with the passing of an American icon , Ross Perot .
Perot was a can-do warrior , a self-made billionaire businessman , and an unabashed lover of America who turned millions of Americans into believers that he , and they , could make a difference in altering the political process . He was a great family man , with an impeccable character who lived by the oaths he learned as a young Eagle Scout .
He supported many wonderful causes , and through his good deeds , often given anonymously , helped thousands in his native Texas and across the country .
As a graduate of the Naval Academy in Annapolis , Maryland , he loved the men and women who served our country in the military and was an unstoppable advocate to recover and identify our MIA 's and prisoners of war .
Millions of Americans , disillusioned by politics as usual , jumped into his campaign as volunteers or supporters . His volunteers got him on the ballot by petition in all 50 states . His 1-800 call-in telephone banks operated 24 hours a day , and millions of Americans called in wanting to volunteer or contribute . Unfortunately , Ross ( as everyone called him ) did n't have a clue as to what a modern presidential campaign was about . He was a salesman extraordinaire with a knack for storytelling , laced sometimes with exaggeration .
As the news media started treating him as a front-runner and a serious candidate ( he was leading both President H.W . Bush and Arkansas Gov . Bill Clinton in the polls in June 1992 ) , the campaign changed from fun to a test of what he knew and what he was really saying . β We 're going to get under the hood and fix the engine β might have been an applause line to his thousands of supporters at rallies , but journalists wanted details β how and when and at what cost . Ross was a man used to complimentary stories in business magazines , and he didn β t like the scrutiny given to him by the mainstream political journalists .
His disdain for the national news media grew more hostile everyday and with it , he developed a greater contempt for the political pros who tried to help him . Trying to put a political campaign together in a few short months , when it normally is a several-year task , and to do so without a party structure , is an impossible dream . Massive decisions had to be made everyday . Mr. Perot could n't or wouldn β t make them .
Embrace populism : Democrats should run on how Trump made 'rigged ' system worse
He fired his professional staff , including me , and resigned the race himself the following day . His return several months later was more to repair his tarnished reputation ( he was labeled a β quitter β by Newsweek magazine ) than to make a serious run for the presidency . He still got 19 % of the vote . That number as an independent was exceeded only by former President Teddy Rosevelt 's 27 % in a comeback effort when he ran and lost on the Bull Moose ticket in 1912 .
Perot tried again in 1996 as the candidate of the Reform Party , but President Clinton ran successfully for a second term . Perot got only 8 % of the vote .
The movement Mr. Perot started was partly responsible and certainly the forerunner of the Tea Party movement that led to a changeover in the Congress and eventually Donald Trump 's candidacy and election as president . Perot β s issues β the runaway deficit , the North American Free Trade Agreement and the impact of globalization on jobs β have not been resolved , but they are on the nation 's agenda and he put them there .
Trump 's populism gets old : The Rust Belt is done with gold-plated populism
Mr. Perot was a great American who contributed so much . He lived an extraordinary life and maybe we all benefited a little from his example . Rest in peace , Mr. Perot .
Ed Rollins , a veteran Republican strategist , was White House political director for President Ronald Reagan , national director of the 1984 Reagan-Bush campaign and co-manager of Ross Perot 's 1992 presidential campaign . Follow him on Twitter : @ EdRollins | beiiXPzgIyVJc8ZU | 1 | Politics | -0.6 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
healthcare | NBC News Digital | https://nbcnews.com/news/us-news/so-many-patients-dying-doctors-say-nyc-public-hospitals-reeling-n1172451 | 'So many patients dying': Doctors say NYC public hospitals reeling from coronavirus cases | 2020-03-31 | Coronavirus, Public Health, Labor, Workers' Rights, Hospitals, Healthcare | A doctor at a major public hospital in New York City described having worn a single N95 mask, a critical tool in protection from the coronavirus, for an entire week. Normally, the Brooklyn doctor would change it after every visit with a patient. Colleague after colleague, including nurses and residents, have been falling sick with the virus. Patients were coming in for unrelated health issues and suddenly testing positive for coronavirus after coming to the hospital."The situation is quite horrible and they're saying we haven't hit the peak yet and we're doing all sorts of crazy things to keep up," the doctor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said. "We're having so many patients dying."The doctor said medical staff have been fighting over rationed personal protective equipment, pediatric doctors have been asked to care for patients in their 70s and 80s, orthopedic doctors and cardiologists have been asked to help treat coronavirus patients and urologists have been working as senior intensive care unit staff."They're pulling in doctors from everywhere to deal with the patient load,'' the doctor said. "It's changed the way the whole hospital culture operates."The doctor said the pandemic was ravaging a public hospital that was "already underresourced and underfunded," showing a critical weakness in the health care system as coronavirus cases continue to overwhelm medical facilities that often serve vulnerable populations.Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak"We don't have enough access to supplies on a regular basis, let alone when there is a crisis," the doctor said."We are overwhelmed, extremely tired, working extremely long hours and it's becoming in some cases dangerous because it's not enough," the doctor said. "Mistakes can be made and certain things can be missed."New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said he believed public hospitals would face "the greatest stress" in the fight against the coronavirus and urged other medical facilities to share resources, staff and supplies to help them. He also called on hospitals to take on patients from overwhelmed facilities."No one hospital has the resources to handle this," he said during a news conference Monday afternoon at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, which has been converted into a field hospital.Cuomo called on the state's hospitals to work together as one system and said the state was centralizing the buying and distribution of supplies and creating a stockpile in anticipation of the apex of cases.He said that as one hospital starts to overload, patients should be moved to facilities that have available space and that this should be done on a daily basis. Eventually, as more and more hospitals hit capacity, Cuomo said that the public and private hospital systems "should work together to share the load.""The public system I think is going to face the greatest stress," Cuomo said.As of Monday morning, there were more than 36,000 known cases of COVID-19 in New York City and 790 deaths. Queens and Brooklyn remain the hardest hit boroughs, with nearly 12,000 cases and nearly 6,000 cases respectively.The doctor in Brooklyn said what was especially concerning was how quickly vulnerable coronavirus patients could take a sharp turn for the worse.Workers move a deceased patient outside of Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York on Monday. Brendan McDermid / Reuters"They're talking to you, they're fine, next you know they're gone," the doctor said.Public hospitals were already more likely to treat vulnerable populations, such as people without health insurance and those with complicating factors, the doctor saidThe source described treating a patient in their 40s with minimal complicating factors needing to be sent to the intensive care unit and "numerous" patients in their 60s, 70s and 80s needing to be intubated.Last week, two nurses in New York died of the coronavirus. One of them was an assistant nursing manager with the Mount Sinai Health System, a nonprofit hospital system.An emergency room doctor with the Mount Sinai Health System said, "I think we have not been as hard hit yet" as colleagues in Brooklyn and Queens, but still, "pretty much every single patient we see is a COVID patient.""I feel like I live, breathe and feel COVID on me all the time," the doctor said.The doctor added, "Even at Mount Sinai hospitals, you just don't have the infrastructure to support, to take care of these patients.""There's just not enough staff to watch them," the doctor said.Staff at the hospital have been increasingly concerned about bringing the disease home to their loved ones, the doctor said. The doctor said staff were now being told they could have one N95 mask per day, but the week before the source felt there was not enough personal protective equipment.The doctor said the fear was that as cases continued to escalate, the hospital would have to make incredibly tough decisions about treatment and who would have access to precious medical equipment."How do I tell someone that their family members are going to die and their family member is not going to get a ventilator if they want it?," the doctor said.One of the hardest hit hospitals has been the Elmhurst Hospital Center, a public hospital in Queens. Inside Elmhurst, doctors have described overfilled waiting rooms, patients waiting six hours to be seen, others packed closely together on stretchers waiting 50 to 60 hours for a bed and doctors desperately trying to get more ventilators.The doctor at the Brooklyn public hospital feared it was a sign of what was to come."I think our hospital will be the next Elmhurst," the doctor said.NYC Health + Hospitals, the city's public hospital system, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the issues public hospitals have been facing.The hospital system said in a statement to NBC News last week it was "working day and night to ensure that all our patients receive the care they need."The hospital system said it had "adequate supplies at the moment but were fully cognizant of the nationwide scarcity of resources" and that "reports of lack of personal protective equipment and ventilators in our system are false.""The public health system is working with all local, state and federal agencies to ensure that resources are strategically allocated throughout to accommodate the surge caused by COVID-19," the hospital system said. "We are committed to our mission to care for all New Yorkers regardless of immigration status and ability to pay, and are focused on keeping all our patients and staff safe." | 95952985198790b6 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
race_and_racism | The American Spectator | https://spectator.org/rule-of-law-george-floyd-riots-george-floyd-protests-confederate-statues-statue-removal/ | Confederate Statues Defaced, America Disgraced | race_and_racism | On Sunday evening , demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd defaced and toppled a statue of Confederate officer Charles Linn , which had stood in a public park in Birmingham , Alabama , since being installed in 2013 by a charity .
The destruction of this Confederate monument is but one in a sequence of such vandalisms that have swept the nation β s southern states in the past week . The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Birmingham was defaced before authorities disassembled and relocated it . A Confederate monument on the University of Mississippi campus was vandalized Saturday evening by protesters . A statue of General Robert E. Lee in Richmond , Virginia , has likewise been a target of vandalism , along with Confederate statues in North and South Carolina . A 131-year-old statue of a Confederate soldier in Alexandria , Virginia , was removed before any harm could come to it . In addition , a statue of Thomas Jefferson in Birmingham was set on fire , and a statue of Mayor Frank Rizzo of Philadelphia was graffitied . These latter figures , although not associated with the Confederacy , were vandalized for the same reason β their perceived racist attitudes and actions , called to attention in light of George Floyd β s death .
Those who would have memorials of the Confederacy removed argue that their presence causes civil unrest , while advocates of their staying put argue that they are symbols of state heritage . Protesters adamantly claim that the statues β removal will alleviate some racial tensions ; others are skeptical that the mere relocation of marble and bronze will solve any underlying social problems .
But what should be quite uncontroversial is that the deliberate destruction of public property is not an appropriate mode of protest , besides being illegal . It isn β t said nearly enough , but by defacing and toppling Confederate statues , these protesters are doing a far worse injustice than the states may have done by erecting them . This country was built upon the Lockean idea that property , both private and public , is sacred , and nothing β not anger , not resentment , not unrest β can justify its violation . To vandalize property is to scorn a sacred principle of the American system and to reject one of the premises upon which our nation was founded , and one of the reasons why it has become so prosperous .
In a republic , if citizens disagree with their government β s actions , they are free to use their vote to change the way government makes its decisions . But one of the things that enables a civil society to function is that its citizens agree to submit to the state β s judgment , even when they believe said judgment to be in error . It is this general agreement that keeps our civilization , even to this day , from descending once again into a Hobbesian nightmare . But by vandalizing these statues , some protesters have shown that they will not abide by the government β s decisions and are willing to break the law to prove it . This spurning of the rule of law is toxic to the health of any republic and , if it carries on unpunished or is even encouraged by officials , will continue to grow until bronze statues are not the only things getting hurt .
History is rife with examples of revolutions that have disregarded basic rights to life and property . Such chaos has been commonplace since the French Revolution and the subsequent Reign of Terror . The events then and in many revolutions since serve as grim reminders that no matter how righteous one β s cause may be , going beyond the law to address one β s grievances can easily upset a nation β s social and political order and lead to devastating and deadly unforeseen consequences .
Whether in Birmingham or anywhere else , property , public and private , must be protected . If these Confederate statues truly are stirring up the discord accredited to them , then they should be removed in a manner to be determined by law β the citizens of any of these states are free to change their laws and their representatives . And , if this is what citizens decide to do , then , regardless of whatever social value is lost or gained , there is nothing criminal in it . But the wanton defacement and destruction of public property witnessed this week is as inexcusable as it is unlawful and unethical , and such vandalism must not be permitted to continue . | uYtwoUeopcW13SIM | 2 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | |
lgbt_rights | Politico | http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/can-gay-marriage-survive-a-scotus-loss-89304.html?hp=t1 | Can gay marriage survive SCOTUS loss? | 2013-03-26 | lgbt_rights | A shift in public opinion could make a difference at the Court . | AP Photo , Reuters Can gay marriage survive a loss ?
The tide might be turning in favor of gay marriage , but that doesn β t mean the Supreme Court will be swept up in it .
For all the toasting in Washington and excitement among gay rights groups about the historic oral arguments this week , there β s still a chance their set of cases could culminate in a loss .
Under the worst-case scenario for gay rights groups , the court could uphold both California β s Proposition 8 and the federal law Defense of Marriage Act β extending no new rights to gay couples looking to marry or take advantage of federal benefits extended to opposite-sex couples .
But gay rights activists say this wouldn β t have the impact of Plessy v. Ferguson β the 1896 decision that left β separate but equal β the law of the land until Brown v. Board of Education six decades later .
Instead , they say , they would still leave the court in a better position than when they started their legal trek because public opinion has swung in their favor , supporters have been galvanized and about 100 prominent Republicans signed a brief publicly endorsing gay marriage .
β Even if you lose the case , and I think that β s very unlikely , you would say that the case has been a success because it β s changed public opinion so dramatically , β said Richard Socarides , a former adviser to President Bill Clinton . β It β s really unbelievable what a successful communications and litigation strategy has combined to do in such a short time . β
Plus , they don β t think they β re going to lose big at all .
β There β s zero possibility , β said University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone .
One key source of confidence is Justice Anthony Kennedy β s majority ruling 17 years ago in Romer v. Evans , a case throwing out a Colorado ballot measure that banned any special protections for gays and lesbians . Many analysts believe that decision and a 2003 ruling he wrote banning sodomy laws essentially guarantee Kennedy will vote to find the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional . With the four Democratic-appointed justices thought to favor at least that much of a win for gay rights , Kennedy would make a majority .
Other potential GOP pickups for the pro-same sex marriage forces are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito .
For those reading tea leaves , there are signs Roberts could be in play . While in private practice in 1995 , Roberts gave pro bono help to the legal team preparing briefs and oral arguments for the Colorado case . And Roberts is using some of his personal allotment of tickets to this week β s arguments to allow a lesbian cousin and her partner to attend oral arguments , the Los Angeles Times reported .
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are considered pretty certain votes against same-sex marriage . Scalia defended the Colorado measure as β a modest attempt by seemingly tolerant Coloradans to preserve traditional sexual mores against the efforts of a politically powerful minority to revise those mores through use of the laws. β Thomas joined the opinion .
There is one potential wild card on the left : Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg . Though she was a pioneering litigator for the American Civil Liberties Union on gender issues , she has repeatedly said she thinks the Roe v. Wade decision went too far because it forced a consensus that many Americans had not arrived at and led to a backlash .
β It β s not that the judgment was wrong , but it moved too far too fast , β she said at Columbia Law School last year . β The court made a decision that made every abortion law in the country invalid , even the most liberal . β¦ Things might have turned out differently if the court had been more restrained . β | IMWwhSv5PSduAqGT | 0 | LGBTQ Issues | 0.4 | Same-Sex Marriage | 0.2 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
politics | USA TODAY | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/02/02/eastern-virginia-medical-school-reacts-northams-racist-yearbook-photo/2759715002/ | Eastern Virginia Medical School officials and alumni react to racist yearbook photo | 2019-02-02 | politics | STAUNTON , Va. β Eastern Virginia Medical School alumni began defending their school β and in some cases the photo from the 1984 yearbook page of Virginia Gov . Ralph Northam that showed a man in blackface and another person in a Ku Klux Klan hood .
On Friday the governor apologized for being in the photo , but on Saturday he said he would n't resign and that he does n't believe it is him in the photo , as he initially thought .
The Norfolk school , which has over 10,000 alumni , was founded in 1973 .
Richard V. Homan , the school 's president , provost and dean of the school of medicine , issued a statement Saturday saying the school can not change the events of the past but can use it as a reminder of the `` importance of our ongoing work toward diversity and inclusion . ''
`` We share the outrage , alarm and sadness voiced by our alumni , the press and many on social media regarding the picture published in the 1984 student yearbook , '' he said in the statement . `` The picture is shockingly abhorrent and absolutely antithetical to the principles , morals and values we hold and espouse of our educational and research institution and our professions . Racism and discrimination in any form is not acceptable . ''
More : ' I am not the person in that photo ' : Virginia Gov . Ralph Northam denies he was in racist image
The statement was posted on the medical school 's website and its Facebook page . Many alumni reacting to the news on the Facebook post said the school should n't be judged on this incident .
`` I am a person of color . Approximately 10 percent of my class were minorities , '' read a comment from an account credited to Naved Jafri , reportedly a 1996 graduate .
`` There was never a culture of racism or discrimination based on race while I attended , nor anything like this in our yearbooks .
`` The picture being discussed is a stain on our school but doesn β t represent the vast majority of excellent , caring , health professionals that have graduated from there and continue to serve the community . Please don β t judge us all based on this picture . ''
Ken Fink , a 1982 graduate , apparently posted on the same thread , asking where everyone 's sense of humor was .
It was n't possible Saturday night to independently confirm the post was from Fink .
`` I β d like to know where everyone β s sense of humor has gone . As medical students at EVMS in the 80 β s , humor was encouraged as a self preserving mechanism as we struggled thorough the difficulty of learning medicine , '' Fink posted under Petra Fink 's Facebook , his wife 's account .
`` We went to Halloween parties and made fun of ourselves . The picture depicts the absurdity of racism , exemplifying that we can all get along after all , and that the medical world recognizes human equality . It β s too bad the public can β t interpret it this way . ''
Others on the thread responded , saying blackface and dressing up as a member of the Klan is unacceptable .
`` Black face is never acceptable . The KKK is never acceptable . The fact that we still have events like the Charlottesville rally attended to by still very active racist hate groups makes it extremely unfunny , '' an account for Christopher Venantius posted . `` The only absurd thing about racism is that it still evidently exists , even in the medical profession . ''
This is not the only photo featuring someone in blackface in the 1984 yearbook . According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch , there are several others .
According to the article , on the page opposite Northam 's there 's a photo of three men , two of whom appear to be in blackface . There is one other photo with a man in blackface on a different page of the same yearbook , the article said .
`` You have always known that page existed . And you knew it was there when he ran for office . You likely kept it a secret to protect him and yourselves , '' an account credited to Sharnae Diane commented on the Facebook post . `` The time to make amends was before it became public . Shame on you ! ! ! I feel sorry for all the good people who graduated from your institution that can no longer hang their diplomas proudly ! ''
`` We share the outrage , alarm and sadness voiced by our alumni , the press and many on social media regarding the picture published in the 1984 student yearbook . The picture is shockingly abhorrent and absolutely antithetical to the principles , morals and values we hold and espouse of our educational and research institution and our professions . Racism and discrimination in any form is not acceptable . We can not change the events of the past , but we can use these events as reminders of the importance of our ongoing work toward diversity and inclusion . This is a time for self-reflection and humility . On behalf of our beloved EVMS , I sincerely apologize for the past transgressions of your trust . We recognize the need to address and rectify any issues of racism and discrimination that arise , at any point β and will continue a long tradition of action to build a strong culture of diversity and inclusion . Therefore , I shall convene an urgent meeting of members of our senior leadership and members of our Boards to address this issue holistically for EVMS . We will , of course , include students , residents , faculty , staff , and alumni in this work . It has been said that those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it . We must learn from this and will come together to support and live the values and principles we hold so dear . We remain steadfast in reassuring our community that EVMS is absolutely committed to supporting and creating a culture of diversity , inclusion and social equality . We continue to affirm the tenets of our professions and our mission to recruit , educate and train a culturally competent healthcare workforce that reflects the demography of our nation and the patients we serve . Thank you for your tireless work to make EVMS and the communities we serve a better and healthier place . In my seven years at EVMS , I have witnessed the efforts of our outstanding faculty , students and staff to advance our missions . We have much more work to do and must now vow to do more to forge a better future together . I am confident that together , we shall . '' | pRqsvTJcdb4IpoA3 | 1 | Ralph Northam | -0.8 | Politics | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
healthcare | Fox News | http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/03/mulvaney-responds-to-jimmy-kimmels-health-care-plea.html | Mulvaney responds to Jimmy Kimmel's health care plea | 2017-05-03 | healthcare | White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney responded Wednesday to a heartfelt appeal to lawmakers by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that children not be denied care because of pre-existing conditions β with Mulvaney saying he agrees , and Republicans aren β t looking to kick people off their health care .
β Everyone , I think , agrees with Jimmy Kimmel that we have enough money in this country to provide care for those type of folks , β he told `` Fox & Friends . ''
Kimmel , host of β The Jimmy Kimmel Show , β choked up Monday night as he told the story of his son β s birth and subsequent health scare , which revealed he had a heart defect requiring urgent surgery . After telling his story , he urged lawmakers discussing health care reform on Capitol Hill to work together to make sure no child can be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition .
β Before 2014 , if you were born with congenital heart disease like my son was , there was a good chance you would never be able to get health insurance because you were born with a pre-existing condition , β he said .
β If your baby is going to die and it doesn β t have to , it shouldn β t matter how much money you make . I think that β s something that if you β re a Democrat or a Republican , we all agree on that , we do , β he said , adding that lawmakers in Washington need to understand that .
β Don β t let their partisan squabbles divide us on something every decent person wants , we need to take care of each other , β Kimmel said . β No parent should have to ever decide if they can afford to save their child β s life , it just shouldn β t happen , not here . β
Democrats leapt on Kimmel β s viral remarks β which had already picked up over 7 million hits on YouTube alone β to pressure Republicans over a new health bill in the works which is struggling to attract enough support .
β Well said , Jimmy . That 's exactly why we fought so hard for the ACA , and why we need to protect it for kids like Billy . And congratulations ! β former President Barack Obama tweeted .
Well said , Jimmy . That 's exactly why we fought so hard for the ACA , and why we need to protect it for kids like Billy . And congratulations ! https : //t.co/77F8rZrD3P β Barack Obama ( @ BarackObama ) May 2 , 2017
Watch & prepare to tear up . Thanks @ jimmykimmel for sharing your story & reminding us what 's at stake w/health care.https : //t.co/2kTEeUEG2f β Hillary Clinton ( @ HillaryClinton ) May 2 , 2017
But Mulvaney said on β Fox & Friends β that Kimmel β s call is something that everyone agrees on .
β I don β t think the logical conclusion is that , β Oh , by the way , Republicans are going to kick these people off of health care . ' That β s not the point , β he said .
Kimmel β s remarks have drawn focus in particular to Republican plans to allow states to weaken protections that prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions .
The current bill includes a provision by which companies can charge more to those with pre-existing conditions as long as states create high-risk pools for those affected . Some more centrist Republicans have declined to back the bill in the House because of the provision , making it unclear if the bill can pass before a looming recess .
But Mulvaney said the plan wasn β t so much about weakening protections , but giving states more power to take control of health care for their people .
β The point behind the state waiver program is that state governments know how to treat children like the Kimmel baby better than the federal government does , β he said .
β If we give more control to the states they can figure out a way to best provide for children like Mr. Kimmel β s baby , β he said . | JHlhUCk0mqcEauMM | 2 | Jimmy Kimmel | 0.1 | Healthcare | -0.1 | Mick Mulvaney | 0 | null | null | null | null |
white_house | New York Times - News | https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/us/politics/trump-presidency-national-emergency.html | Presidents Have Declared Dozens of Emergencies, but None Like Trumpβs | 2019-02-15 | white_house | But Elizabeth Goitein , who oversaw the Brennan Center study , pointed to the widespread dispute over whether , as a matter of empirical reality , there exists a true emergency on the border that would be resolved by a wall , as well as to the fact that Congress already made clear it did not intend to spend extra billions of dollars on Mr. Trump β s wall .
β There is nothing approaching an β emergency β in this situation , no matter how loose a definition you use , β she said . β And Congress has made it as clear as it can that it does not want the president to use funds for this purpose , so this is the president using emergency powers to thwart the will of Congress . That is very different from how emergency powers have been used in the past . β
In a briefing with reporters on Friday , the White House identified only two previous instances in which presidents relied on emergency powers to spend funds on something different than what Congress had appropriated them for . Both involved military construction associated with wars : one under President George Bush β s Persian Gulf war emergency declaration , the other under President George W. Bush β s emergency declaration after the Sept. 11 attacks . Neither funded projects that Congress had previously weighed and rejected .
The idea behind emergency powers laws is that Congress wanted the president to have standby authorities to activate in a crisis , when the government must respond quickly . The Brennan Center study identified 123 such statutes .
In the 1976 act , Congress turned off numerous old β emergencies β that had been lingering for many years and created a process presidents must follow when invoking such statutes . But the overhaul did not include defining limits on when a president could decide that a qualifying emergency existed , preserving White House flexibility .
One check against abuse of that power eroded quickly : Congress had intended for lawmakers to have the power to overrule a president β s declaration by passing a resolution with a simple majority vote . After a 1983 Supreme Court ruling , however , presidents gained the power to veto such resolutions . That weakened Congress β s hand because it takes two-thirds of both chambers to override a veto . | LdjiEkNIa8TJ02jL | 0 | Donald Trump | -0.2 | White House | -0.1 | Politics | 0 | null | null | null | null |
world | Reuters | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-summit/on-eve-of-russia-summit-trump-calls-european-union-a-foe-idUSKBN1K50JA | On eve of Russia summit, Trump calls European Union 'a foe' | 2018-07-15 | World, Donald Trump, European Union, Russia | HELSINKI ( βββ ) - On the eve of his meeting with Russia β s Vladimir Putin , U.S. President Donald Trump rattled allies once more by labeling the European Union a β foe β with regard to trade .
In a pre-summit interview with CBS News β β Face the Nation β program aired on Sunday , Trump lumped in the EU with China and Russia as U.S. economic adversaries . β I think the European Union is a foe , what they do to us in trade , β he said .
Trump and Putin will meet on Monday in Helsinki for their first stand-alone meeting since Trump took office in January 2017 . Trump arrived in Helsinki on Sunday evening after spending the day playing golf at his private club in Scotland .
The Helsinki summit , which comes at one of the most crucial junctures for the West since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union , has alarmed some NATO allies who fear Putin might seek a grand deal that would undermine the U.S.-led transatlantic alliance .
During last week β s NATO summit in Brussels , Trump repeatedly criticized other member countries for failing to spend more on defense , and openly questioned the alliance β s purpose .
In recent months , he has also been highly critical of the EU in trade terms , arguing that its policies make it difficult for U.S. exporters .
After Trump labeled the EU a β foe , β Donald Tusk , president of the European Council , responded on Twitter , using one of Trump β s favorite stock phrases .
β America and the EU are best friends , β Tusk wrote . β Whoever says we are foes is spreading fake news . β
Trump and his aides have been working through the weekend to soften expectations for tangible results from the Russia meeting .
John Bolton , Trump β s national security adviser , said in an interview with ABC β s β This Week β that the United States would not be looking for β deliverables β and that the meeting would be β unstructured , β beginning with a one-on-one session between the two leaders .
The U.S . Ambassador to Russia , Jon Huntsman , told NBC β S β Meet the Press β that the meeting was β an attempt to see if we can defuse and take some of the drama , and quite frankly some of the danger , out of the relationship right now . β
A probe over allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election has clouded Trump β s presidency . Trump has denied any collusion with the Russians by his campaign and Russia denies it meddled .
For Trump , the formal meeting with Putin is an opportunity to develop a closer working relationship with the Russian president .
They have met twice before on the sidelines of international summits . Last November , in Vietnam , they agreed to maintain open military channels of communications between their forces in Syria .
U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he arrives at Helsinki-Vantaa airport in Vantaa , Finland , July 15 , 2018 . βββ/Leonhard Foeger
Trump has baffled his own advisers at times with his unabashed desire for strong ties with Putin , White House sources have said . Most U.S. officials see Putin as an unsavory character on the world stage .
U.S. officials have said they hope to make progress during the talks persuading Russia to use its influence to get Iranian forces out of Syria , as part of a wider campaign to rein in Iran β s influence in the Middle East .
They also expect Trump to bring up Russia β s incursion into Ukraine and the allegations of Russian meddling in the election . Other issues include the potential for nuclear arms talks and North Korea β s nuclear challenge , given that U.S. officials have said Russia had worked in the past to help Pyongyang circumvent international sanctions .
Huntsman on Sunday said that it was β highly unlikely β the United States would recognize Russia β s 2014 annexation of Crimea , but would not rule it out .
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has warned Trump against making any unilateral deals with Russia that come with a cost for the United States β Western allies .
The meeting comes just days after 12 Russian intelligence officers were charged by a U.S. federal grand jury for hacking the Democrats ahead of the 2016 election , the most detailed U.S. accusation yet that Moscow meddled in the election to help Trump .
When asked by CBS if he would ask Putin to extradite the Russians to the United States , Trump said he might . Russia β s constitution forbids the extradition of its own citizens .
β I hadn β t thought of that , β Trump said . β But certainly , I β ll be asking about it . β
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee , Mark Warner , said he was worried about Trump being alone in the room with Putin , without his national-security aides .
β We know that Trump doesn β t do a lot of prep work for these meetings . He kind of goes in and wings it , β Warner said on NBC β s β Meet the Press . β I really would feel much better if there were other Americans in the room . β
The president has repeatedly said the investigation into Russian election meddling is a β rigged witch hunt β that makes it hard for him to do substantive deals with Moscow . | f919f8d0ac709592 | 1 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
elections | The Guardian | https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/25/joe-biden-president-democrats-2020-bernie-sanders | Biden brings broad appeal in battle for 2020 β but don't expect a revolution | 2019-04-25 | Election 2020, Joe Biden, Presidential Elections, Elections | The former vice-president says he β s a proud β Obama-Biden Democrat β yet questions over his leftwing credentials remain
Standing before a gathering of Democrats in his home state of Delaware last month , Joe Biden struck a defiant tone in the face of questions over his liberal credentials .
β I β m told I get criticized by the β new left β , β Biden told the crowd . β I have the most progressive record of anybody running . β
The moment drew instant headlines for what appeared to be a slip of the tongue : Biden , who had yet to enter the 2020 presidential race at the time , all but confirmed his third bid for America β s highest office .
But lost in the frenzy of speculation over Biden β s plans was his dismissal of the Democratic party β s leftward turn β which he plans to challenge amid a packed field .
The 76-year-old Biden launched his campaign on Thursday , joining the most crowded Democratic primary in modern history as the party seeks to limit Donald Trump to one term .
But as most contenders swing left on key policies , Biden has billed himself as a proud β Obama-Biden Democrat β β in a sign he has no intention of distancing himself from his two terms in the White House .
Biden will instead position himself as a pragmatic progressive , armed with decades of public service of which consensus-building has been a hallmark .
β I think there β s a sense that under Trump , the country has lost a tremendous amount of ground , β said Jared Bernstein , a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities , who served as a chief economist to Biden from 2009 to 2011 .
β Say what you will about the Obama-Biden years , but this was a highly functional , thoughtful administration . And I think part of the case for Biden is that there is a significant chunk of the electorate that has fond memories of that level of functionality . β
Other Democrats in the race are calling for far more than a return to normal .
Say what you will about the Obama-Biden years , but this was a highly functional , thoughtful administration Jared Bernstein
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders , the clear frontrunner so far , has built his campaign around advancing the political revolution that just fell short in earning him the Democratic nomination four years ago .
Biden and Sanders have held the top two slots in the overwhelming majority of early polls . They are also almost certain to go head-to-head in seeking to regain the support of working-class voters who swung away from Democrats in 2016 and helped propel Trump to the White House .
Biden β s appeal is rooted in his own working-class background and reputation as a reliable legislator who was often dispatched by Obama to cut deals with recalcitrant Republicans on Capitol Hill .
Sanders , by contrast , has once again pitched his candidacy in upending the establishment while pushing for sweeping reforms that include the single-payer healthcare proposal Medicare for All and breaking up big banks .
β Bernie is a guy who β s overtly attempting to lead a revolution in American politics that is percolating support from the grassroots to change many of the fundamental policies in the country , β said Tad Devine , who worked as the chief strategist for Sanders β 2016 presidential campaign .
β Biden is going to stand up and say : β I can heal the wounds of this country , I can bring people together again , and I understand how this country can work again . β β
Devine , who is not a part of Sanders β 2020 campaign , said he did not expect the two men to spend their time sparring with one another when the ultimate goal was to remove Trump from the White House .
He said : β There β s been a lot of shadowboxing and positioning , but it β s different when you β re actually running . β
Even so , Biden has voiced frustration with the β progressive β label .
β The definition of β progressive β now seems to be changing , β he said earlier this month . β That is , β Are you a socialist ? Well , that β s a real progressive . β β
Biden has said he was never labeled a β moderate β in the past and touted the Obama administration β s record on advancing LGBTQ rights , negotiating the Paris climate accord and passing the landmark Affordable Care Act .
Bernstein said : β Every Democrat up there is pointing in the same direction : universal coverage , some form of job subsidy or guarantee , better access to college and childcare . I don β t think there β s going to be much disagreement on the goals . I think the different agendas will be how fast you can get there and with what level of disruption . β
Biden β s path to the nomination will not , however , be without its obstacles .
Four women came forward in recent weeks to allege that their physical encounters with Biden made them uncomfortable . None of the women accused Biden of sexual assault or harassment , but they said he had violated their personal space by getting too close to them .
Biden confronted the allegations in a video , and vowed to be β much more mindful β of his interactions with women .
The controversy did not appear to have a significant effect on Biden β s standing in the polls , where he has fallen slightly in some surveys but remains firmly in the top tier of candidates .
Several of his fellow 2020 contenders said Biden should answer for his behavior , but they stopped short of suggesting his conduct was disqualifying .
Questions , nonetheless , linger over whether Biden is best positioned to represent an increasingly diverse and liberal Democratic electorate .
His domestic and foreign policy record has come under renewed scrutiny : a series of articles have reexamined Biden β s positions , from civil rights and gun laws to the Iraq war and abortion .
Kamala Harris calls for impeachment as CNN hosts 2020 contenders Read more
β Joe Biden is the Hillary Clinton of 2020 , β one headline read .
Biden has also had to grapple with his legacy as the Senate judiciary committee chairman who investigated allegations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas , one of the supreme court β s conservative justices , during Thomas β s confirmation process in the early 1990s .
The interrogation of Clarences β accuser , Anita Hill , by an all-white , all-male panel later became a symbol of a lack of diversity in the US Congress . Biden has since lamented his role in the way Hill was treated , saying : β She faced a committee that didn β t fully understand what the hell this was all about . To this day , I regret I couldn β t give her the kind of hearing she deserved . β
But even as Biden β s political baggage remains a focus in some progressive circles , he continues to top the 2020 field β nationally and in key battleground states .
A survey published on Wednesday found that he leads Trump by eight percentage points in a hypothetical matchup . Biden β s edge over Trump was particularly large among women ( 17 points ) , millennials ( 22 points ) and independents ( 10 points ) , according to the poll .
Biden has repeatedly shown over the past two years that he is not afraid to hold back in his criticism of Trump , stating earlier this month that the president β opposes every day the core values of our nation β .
β If he β s going to have fire , I think he β s going to aim it in Trump β s direction , β Devine said of Biden .
β The one thing that unites Democrats more than anything else is the desire to beat Trump . β | 4262fac77dc23665 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
politics | CBS News | http://www.cbsnews.com/news/will-trump-accept-u-s-intel-assessment-after-friday-briefing/ | Will Trump accept U.S. intelligence assessment on Russia hacking after briefing? | politics | President-elect Donald Trump is expected to be briefed Friday on a report prepared by the U.S. intelligence community on Russian hacking activities in the presidential election -- after he spent this week still questioning the veracity of their previous assessments .
On Thursday , President Obama received a briefing on the report -- prepared by the CIA , FBI and NSA -- which he had ordered in December . Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Thursday that an unclassified version of the report will be made public early next week . In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday , Clapper previewed some of the report β s findings .
β Hacking was only part of it , β he said about Russia β s cyber activities during the election . β It also entailed classical propaganda , disinformation , fake news . β
Clapper will be one of four intelligence chiefs to brief Mr. Trump on the report Friday at Trump Tower in New York . The other briefers will be CIA Director John Brennan , FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers .
For weeks , the president-elect has been questioning the U.S. intelligence community β s integrity and its assessment that Russia not only launched cyberattacks against the U.S. to sow doubt in the election , but to sway the outcome in favor of Mr. Trump . Since the final weeks of the campaign , he also doubted that Russia was responsible .
Mr. Trump claimed on New Year β s Eve that he had information no one else had on Russian hacking and that he would reveal it publicly this week , but he has not yet followed through on that statement . On Wednesday , he posted a tweet indicating he β s still not convinced Russia is to blame for cyberattacks against the Democratic National Committee ( DNC ) , other political groups and Hillary Clinton β s campaign chairman John Podesta .
The `` Intelligence '' briefing on so-called `` Russian hacking '' was delayed until Friday , perhaps more time needed to build a case . Very strange ! β Donald J. Trump ( @ realDonaldTrump ) January 4 , 2017
A number of Republicans in Congress like Rep. Michael McCaul , R-Texas , chairman of the Homeland Security Committee , are adamant about the need for the new administration to develop a more clear-cut cyber policy and to punish Russia for its actions . McCaul expressed confidence in the intelligence Thursday , saying that the evidence he was briefed on in both classified and unclassified settings β was very clear , β and he said that it was clear the attacks were β nation state-based . β
β I think the incoming administration needs to take a strong stance against what has happened , β he told reporters .
Sen. John McCain , R-Arizona , and other Republicans warned at his committee β s hearing that Russia must suffer the consequences .
β Every American should be alarmed by Russia β s attacks on our nation , β said McCain . Later in the day , he told reporters that the Trump administration should work with Congress to craft a cyber policy .
β We β ll be glad to work with them , but they β ve got to have a policy and a strategy , β he said as he continued to blast the Obama administration for lacking a plan . β They β ve never had one . They β ve reacted to every single attack in a different way . It β s just crazy . β
Clapper , Rogers and undersecretary of defense for intelligence , Marcel Lettre , issued a joint statement Thursday , warning that Russia is a β full-scope cyber actor . β
β We assess that only Russia β s senior-most officials could have authorized the recent election-focused data thefts and disclosures , based of the scope and sensitivity of the targets . Russia also has used cyber tactics and techniques to seek to influence public opinion across Europe and Eurasia , β they said . β Looking forward , Russian cyber operations will likely target the United States to gather intelligence , support Russian decision-making , conduct influence operations to support Russian military and political objectives , and prepare the cyber environment for future contingencies . β
Last week , the Obama administration announced a new series of sanctions against Russian intelligence agents and entities that the U.S. says were responsible for hacks into the DNC and other servers . In addition to the targeted sanctions , 35 Russian operatives were expelled from the U.S. in retaliation .
Sen. Lindsey Graham , R-South Carolina , said those actions weren β t good enough and had some advice for the president-elect : β When you listen to these people [ in the intelligence community , ] you can be skeptical , but you have to understand they β re the best among us . β
β I think what Obama did was throw a pill . I β m ready to throw a rock , β Graham said . β If we don β t throw rocks , we β re going to make a huge mistake . β
Over the next week , Sen. Ben Cardin , D-Maryland , the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee , plans to roll out legislation containing tougher sanctions against Russia .
β That hearing today gave a great boost to sanctions , β McCain said . Clapper β s testimony and Roger β s testimony this morning helps that process along and resolved any doubts as to what the intelligence part of our government thinks . β
Mr. Trump , meanwhile , appeared to side this week with WikiLeaks β s Julian Assange who again denied that their source for hacked emails was not the Russian government .
Julian Assange said `` a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta '' - why was DNC so careless ? Also said Russians did not give him the info ! β Donald J. Trump ( @ realDonaldTrump ) January 4 , 2017
Several lawmakers slammed Mr. Trump for questioning the integrity of the intelligence community . Sen. Claire McCaskill , D-Missouri , asked Clapper , β Who benefits from a president-elect trashing the intelligence community ? β
β I think there is an important distinction here between healthy skepticism , β Clapper said , β ... I think there β s a difference between skepticism and disparagement . β
Speaker Paul Ryan , R-Wisconsin , had positive , but qualified words for the intelligence community .
β I do have faith that our men and women in the intelligence community are doing an incredible job , sacrificing for our country , β he told reporters Thursday , β but there β s always room for improvement . β
On the question of whether Russians meddled in the presidential election , though , Ryan firmly believes the intelligence . β Did the Russians hack us ? Yes . Is it right for any country to meddle in our elections ? No , β he said on β The Jerry Bader Show . β | VAGfnjvxL3YXJA99 | 0 | Politics | 0.4 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | |
politics | Guest Writer - Right | https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/country-not-on-brink-of-civil-war-alexander-hamilton/ | OPINION: Weβre Not on the Brink of Civil War. Hereβs Why. | 2018-10-08 | Civil War, Politics | Detail of Alexander Hamilton portrait by John Trumbull , c. 1805 ( via Wikimedia )
Alexander Hamilton said it first : As a nation , we are united by our desire to make money off one another .
Lately , we have heard lamentations from public intellectuals that the bonds of our union are fraying . It is worse now than at any point since the 1850s ! And of course we all know what happened next . . .
Nonsense . Our union is all right . It may not be the happiest of moments in our nation β s history β though it is far from the least happy ! β but the state of our union is strong .
To me , this whole argument illustrates that we need a better class of public intellectuals β the current crop seems not to understand the origins of our country , the logic animating the Constitution , or most of the intervening history between then and now . And it is not for nothing that America to these folks is always on the precipice of greatness or disaster depending on the party affiliation of the current occupant of the White House .
To everybody else , I would say simply : Keep calm and trust Alexander Hamilton .
To explain myself , let me back up a moment and quote John Jay from Federalist No . 2 , regarding the natural unity of the United States and her people :
It has often given me pleasure to observe that independent America was not composed of detached and distant territories , but that one connected , fertile , widespreading country was the portion of our western sons of liberty . . . . With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people β a people descended from the same ancestors , speaking the same language , professing the same religion , attached to the same principles of government , very similar in their manners and customs , and who , by their joint counsels , arms , and efforts , fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war , have nobly established general liberty and independence .
With all due respect to the most excellent Jay , this was just not the case . The nation that Jay was describing in this essay simply did not exist in 1788 when he wrote this essay . That is not a critique of Jay . The Federalist Papers were meant to persuade undecided voters and delegates . Let β s just say that he was being . . . ahem . . . aspirational .
The truth is that America then , as now , was hotly divided along religion , class , and ethnic lines . Moreover , the bonds of shared sacrifice during the Revolutionary War had started breaking by 1788 β just as the bonds forged after 9/11 seem today to have broken , too . And unlike today , it was nearly impossible to traverse the country from north to south via land . It would have been easier to sail from Boston to London than travel by land from Boston to Charleston .
This lack of internal cohesion was reflected in the impotence of the government that predated the Constitution : the Articles of Confederation . These established a β firm league of friendship β between the states . The problem was that the states were not really friends with one another . So the whole country was falling apart by the time the Constitutional Convention met in 1787 .
The Constitution was an effort to frame a government for a unified people who did not really exist . And one of the main problems on the minds of the Founders during the 1780s was how to bring these diverse , stubborn , parochial people together .
Which brings me to Alexander Hamilton . His political theory is , as I have written about in other forums , deeply problematic in many respects . His temper was not well suited to statesmanship , either . He had a unique capacity to needlessly drive people apart from one another . Yet he was virtually alone in seeing the key to holding this fragile union together : economic integration . Hamilton understood that , more than virtue , civic duty , religion , or shared sacrifice , it was the prospect of making money with one another that could bring Americans together .
From my perspective , the quintessential Hamiltonian entries in the Federalist Papers are not No . 70 , on vigor in the executive , or No . 78 , on the courts . Rather , they are No . 11 and No . 12 , which lay out his vision of the role of commerce in a national republic . In Federalist No . 12 , he writes :
The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged , by all enlightened statesmen , to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth ; and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares . By multiplying the means of gratification , by promoting the introduction and circulation of the precious metals , those darling objects of human avarice and enterprise , it serves to vivify and invigorate the channels of industry , and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness . The assiduous merchant , the laborious husbandman , the active mechanic , and the industrious manufacturer , all orders of men look forward with eager expectation and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of their toils . The often-agitated question , between agriculture and commerce , has from indubitable experience received a decision , which has silenced the rivalships , that once subsisted between them , and has proved to the satisfaction of their friends , that their interests are intimately blended and interwoven .
Here , Hamilton makes a compelling case that if groups of people recognize that they can make money from interacting with one another , they will come together . Their interests will ultimately be β blended and interwoven , β even if they have different religions , regional dialects , or professions .
This is the great genius of Hamilton on full display , and his brilliant theory furnishes a compelling explanation for why the American union has persisted for so long . Our mutual success depends on the union itself , such that our fates are now so intertwined other that it is impossible to separate them . We can be Protestant , Catholic , Jew , Muslim , or atheist . We can be black , white , or Latino . We can be Northern or Southern . We can be liberal or conservative . We can have any number of professions . But so long as we continue to appreciate that our own personal prosperity depends on the prosperity of those with whom we may otherwise disagree , we shall remain together .
This is one reason that the Civil War had an economic component , although the dominant issue was of course slavery . The North and the West had been rapidly expanding and industrializing through the first half of the 19th century , integrating the regional economies . But the South remained a world unto itself , and much of its wealth was generated by exporting cotton to Europe . Indeed , one of the main reasons the South reckoned that it could successfully rebel is that the European powers would miss southern cotton exports so badly that they would broker a settlement .
Nothing like the South of the 1850s exists today . America is well integrated economically . So Hamilton β s old logic is fully in force : Mutual economic gain remains the keystone of the national union .
To put matters bluntly , we do not have to like one another , so long as we continue to make money off one another . That is what will keep us together . | 43b79c89e0bc74f5 | 2 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
culture | Vox | https://www.vox.com/2018/9/4/17818148/nike-boycott-kaepernick | Why the social media boycott over Colin Kaepernick is a win for Nike | 2018-09-04 | culture | Goaded by the performative nature of the internet , people are destroying their Nike apparel and declaring a moral boycott over shoes they β ve already purchased β all in the name of denouncing Colin Kaepernick , the newest face of Nike β s β Just Do It β campaign .
On Monday , Nike announced that Kaepernick is one of the athletes helping commemorate the 30th anniversary of the brand β s iconic slogan . ( Serena Williams and Odell Beckham Jr. are among the other faces of the campaign . ) The ad is a black-and-white close-up of Kaepernick β s face with the words , β Believe in something . Even if it means sacrificing everything β β a reference to Kaepernick β s lawsuit against the NFL for allegedly colluding to keep the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback out of the league over his protests against police brutality .
Believe in something , even if it means sacrificing everything . # JustDoIt pic.twitter.com/SRWkMIDdaO β Colin Kaepernick ( @ Kaepernick7 ) September 3 , 2018
Though Kaepernick and other NFL players who have kneeled during the national anthem maintain that their protest is about police brutality resulting in the deaths of unarmed black Americans , that hasn β t stopped their critics , including President Donald Trump , from claiming that Kaepernick is disrespecting his flag and country .
And so the new Nike ad has inspired some people to post videos and photos of them destroying their Nike apparel in an illustration of their fealty to said flag and country :
First the @ NFL forces me to choose between my favorite sport and my country . I chose country . Then @ Nike forces me to choose between my favorite shoes and my country . Since when did the American Flag and the National Anthem become offensive ? pic.twitter.com/4CVQdTHUH4 β Sean Clancy ( @ sclancy79 ) September 3 , 2018
What β s followed is a boycott largely confined to performative social-media outrage . Unsurprisingly , this outrage caught the attention of President Donald Trump , leading him to double down on his attacks on Kaepernick and the NFL on Wednesday , in a tweet claiming that the boycott was punitively damaging Nike :
Just like the NFL , whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN , Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts . I wonder if they had any idea that it would be this way ? As far as the NFL is concerned , I just find it hard to watch , and always will , until they stand for the FLAG ! β Donald J. Trump ( @ realDonaldTrump ) September 5 , 2018
Americans destroying apparel they β ve already paid for to scold a multibillion-dollar company over an ad campaign that promotes rebellion but also is implicitly selling conformity : It sounds like deep-level satire . But that is the world we live in , and it crystallizes some specifics of how the internet outrage machine operates β and how Nike has already won .
Some people are destroying Nike stuff they β ve already bought . More people are mocking them for doing so .
When Kaepernick β s ad was released on Monday night , social media quickly lit up with excitement . But there was also a vocal contingent who staged their own protest , of sorts , in response .
John Rich , of the country duo Big & Rich , tweeted that his sound man ( a former Marine ) was moved to destroy a pair of white Nike tube socks over the news :
Our Soundman just cut the Nike swoosh off his socks . Former marine . Get ready @ Nike multiply that by the millions . pic.twitter.com/h8kj6RXe7j β John Rich ( @ johnrich ) September 3 , 2018
Rich went on to clarify that the news was so inflammatory that it drove the sock-cutter into such a rage that he couldn β t cut straight into the fabric :
Nah , he was just so wound up that he did n't take time . It 's a wonder he did n't cut himself . You think we 'll roll over on shit like this ? hahaa ! Ok. Have another SnowCone . β John Rich ( @ johnrich ) September 3 , 2018
Rich β s tweet went viral , though it β s unclear how much of that reflects support for his statement versus a desire to dunk on the guy who destroyed those tube socks :
THIS IS THE GREATEST , STUPIDEST THING . If there is ANY upside to the ugliness of the wave of open white supremacy we are experiencing right now it is THE HILARIOUS COMEDY OF SHEER DUMBITUDE https : //t.co/uoY8kzzbRq β Paul F. Tompkins ( @ PFTompkins ) September 4 , 2018
However , Rich β s documentation of Nike destruction wasn β t the first to appear on social media , nor the first to get dunked on . It followed on the heels of another viral tweet from Twitter user Sean Clancy ( whose avatar includes Pepe the frog and the text β don β t tread on memes β ) , which featured a video of a pair of Nike shoes on fire and seems to have , ahem , ignited the hashtag # BurnYourNikes .
But while there β s a smattering of seemingly sincere participants in this incendiary boycott , including some encouragement from the sitting president of the United States , the # BurnYourNikes hashtag is currently heavily populated by those mocking the performance , pointing out that destroying Nike goods that are already bought and paid for doesn β t actually hurt Nike β s bottom line . In some cases , burning Nikes might inadvertently be advertising for the company .
Other details this viral Nike boycott has thus far failed to take into consideration : whether it also means never rooting for Ohio State , Penn State , Michigan State , Michigan , Texas , Baylor , or any other college that is sponsored by Nike ; whether it extends to Converse , Hurley , and all the other brands owned by Nike ; whether boycotters will also forgo brands like Under Armour , which has also delved into political waters and opposed Trump ; and whether the service members being used as justification for the boycott want to be used as props :
Stop using the troops as an excuse to burn your Nike shit . I β m not your scapegoat . I β m gon na sit over here and continue to buy my Nike stuff , they give military a discount # NikeBoycott β Katlin Bellaw ( @ KatlinBellaw ) September 4 , 2018
Here 's an idea . If you think America 's veterans deserve more respect , why not donate your clothes to a veterans ' charity instead of cutting them up with scissors like a dumb , spiteful little brat ? # NikeBoycott β Matthew Chapman ( @ fawfulfan ) September 4 , 2018
What β s being underlined in this conversation around Nike destruction and its relative merit is that this performative boycott isn β t just about the brand itself . Setting Nike shoes on fire or cutting up socks allows these users to voice their displeasure with Nike , and to assert their own identity in a public space that might invite some mockery , sure , but will also reward them for their performance : In shunning Nike on Twitter , they β re also courting follows , likes , and retweets , the platform β s main currency .
For some users , this boycott , regardless of its sincerity , doubles as a branding opportunity β especially for someone like Rich , who has posted several follow-up tweets about Nike and attempted to coin his own hashtag , # PigSocks . His country music band is now more visible than it β s been in years , and the viral boycott he helped spark has drawn increased attention to his Twitter page β which as of press time features a pinned tweet promoting his Redneck Riviera whiskey brand .
The irony here , of course , is that the Kaepernick ad is itself branding β and in reacting to it , its critics are ensuring that Nike is getting exactly what it paid for .
Nike knew what it was doing when it picked Kaepernick for the ad
Nike deciding to highlight Kaepernick wasn β t done on a whim . The company has had Kaepernick under contract since 2011 , and reportedly began negotiating a β new , multi-year pact β with him months ago , well after he initiated the lawsuit alluded to in the ad β s text . The timing is not a coincidence .
Like any billion-dollar brand , Nike employs a lot of people , many of whom are experts in marketing . The risk of a negative response was undoubtedly assessed before making the deal , which makes clear that Nike believes the rewards of sponsoring Kaepernick outweigh the cost . That the ad became part of the national conversation within minutes of its release means that it β s already worked , and whatever minor hit Nike β s stock has taken in the immediate aftermath is outweighed by the long-term attention the brand has received .
Would you sacrifice comfort , money and security for what you believe in ? # ImWithKap pic.twitter.com/MMY55z84G3 β Ava DuVernay ( @ ava ) September 3 , 2018
Another thing to keep in mind is that the identity factor works both ways . The spirit that drives one person to burn a pair of already purchased Nikes is the same spirit that might move another person to buy the branded apparel that β s part of Kaepernick β s endorsement with the company . Whether they β re detractors burning items they β ve already paid for or supporters indicating their approval by buying new items , Nike makes money on both .
You burning your Nike gear costs Nike nothing , & gives them free advertising .
They are going to sell more to others because of the campaign .
You think a multi billion dollar company did n't study the cost/benefit fallout before launching the campaign ?
In that respect , as Rolling Stone β s Jamil Smith points out , this isn β t a completely altruistic story . Nike is still going to make a profit off social justice and people β s desire to do something for a cause .
But it β s also a rare example of a company taking a loud , public stand for social justice and civil rights , and Nike is putting at least some of its money where its mouth is : Kaepernick β s deal with the company reportedly includes a contribution to his Know Your Rights charity . ( Kaepernick himself has donated to several civil rights and equality organizations . ) That counts for something , even if it loses Nike some fans ( who have already bought merchandise ) along the way . | Lghjom9vaJLix2OZ | 0 | Colin Kaepernick | -0.2 | Boycott | -0.1 | Nike | 0 | Culture | 0 | null | null |
elections | Washington Times | http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/4/obama-socialist-many-scoff-claim-persists/ | Obama a socialist? Many scoff, but claim persists | 2012-06-04 | elections | NEW YORK β When President Barack Obama β s re-election campaign unveiled its new slogan , some conservative critics were quick to pounce .
β Forward , β they asserted , is a word long associated with Europe β s radical left . Its choice reaffirmed their contention that Obama is , to some degree or other , a socialist β a claim that surfaced early in the 2008 campaign and has persisted ever since , fueling a lively industry of bumper stickers and books ..
β New Obama slogan has long ties to Marxism , socialism , β read a headline in The βββ . A column by Russian immigrant Svetlana Kunin , for Investor β s Business Daily , said Obama seeks to move America forward to β total government involvement in people β s lives . β
This is far from a new phenomenon β the use of β socialist β as a political epithet in the U.S. dates back to pre-Civil War days when abolitionist newspaper editor Horace Greeley was branded a socialist by some pro-slavery adversaries . In the 20th century , many elements of Franklin Roosevelt β s New Deal β including Social Security β were denounced as socialist . So was Medicare when it was created in the 1960s .
But to many historians and political scientists β and to actual socialists as well β the persistent claim that Obama is a socialist lacks credence .
He β s widely seen as a pragmatist within the Democratic Party mainstream who β s had ample success raising campaign funds from wealthy Wall Street capitalists . Even some of his strongest critics acknowledge that his administration hasn β t sought one of the classic forms of socialism β government control of the nation β s means of production .
Terence Ball , a political scientist at Arizona State University , said β socialist β has gained currency as an anti-Obama slur because β the β L β word ( liberal ) has lost it shock value . β
β I grow weary of Obama and the Democrats being called socialist , β said Ball , who has written about ideologies . β If you talk to any real socialist , they disown them very , very quickly . β
Full-fledged U.S. socialists are relatively scarce these days β three socialist-oriented presidential candidates received about 21,000 votes among them in 2008 . And current socialist leaders don β t share the right-wing view that Obama is a fellow traveler .
β It makes absolutely no sense , β said Greg Pason , national secretary of the Socialist Party USA . Obama β s health care overhaul β is anything but socialist . It β s bailing out for-profit companies . β
β We β ve had an opportunity to talk to people , and that β s been a blessing , β he said . β People have actually researched socialist organizations . β
One tidbit they might learn : The Pledge of Allegiance β the epitome of American patriotism β was written in 1892 by a socialist clergyman , Francis Bellamy .
When the 2012 Republican presidential campaign was still competitive , three of the leading candidates β Rick Perry , Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann β depicted Obama as a socialist . Mitt Romney , the eventual winner , declined to go that far .
β I don β t use the word β socialist , β or I haven β t so far , β Romney told CNN in an interview last year . β But I do agree that the president β s approach is government-heavy , government-intensive , and it β s not working . β
In one of the GOP debates , Romney asserted that Obama β takes his political inspiration from Europe , from the socialist-democrats in Europe . β
Radio host Rush Limbaugh was among several conservatives who chided Romney for his reluctance to call Obama a socialist outright .
β You know , I keep forgetting , the fact that Obama is black , is why we can β t call him a socialist , β Limbaugh said on one of his shows . β That had slipped my mind because when I look at Obama , I don β t see black . I see a socialist . I see a Marxist . β
A slew of books have been written by conservative authors trying to out Obama as socialist . Among the more ambitious , in terms of research , was β Radical in Chief β by Stanley Kurtz , a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center , a conservative Washington think tank . Delving into Obama β s years as a student and a community organizer , Kurtz contended that Obama is part of a coterie of β stealth socialists . β
β Over the long term , Obama β s plans are designed to ensnare the country in a new socialism , a stealth socialism that masquerades as a traditional sense of fair play , a soft but pernicious socialism similar to that currently strangling the economies of Europe , β Kurtz wrote .
In much of today β s world , socialism lacks the contentious overtones that it has in America .
The new French president , Francois Hollande , is a Socialist , and most of Western Europe adheres to socialist-style policies that endure under a variety of governing parties .
Canada , which resembles the U.S. in so many ways , has a universal health care system and its main opposition party , the New Democrats , is union-backed and has socialist roots .
One of the few contemporary U.S. politicians to embrace the socialist label is Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont . He formally lists himself as an independent , but throughout his career β including stints as a mayor and House member β he β s described himself as a democratic socialist .
β Branding someone as a socialist has become the slur du jour by leading lights of the American right from Newt Gingrich to Rush Limbaugh , β Sanders said in 2009 . β If we could get beyond such nonsense , I think this country could use a good debate about what goes on here compared to places with a long social-democratic tradition like Sweden , Norway and Finland , where , by and large , the middle class has a far higher standard of living than we do . β
The roots of socialism in America can be traced to the arrival of German immigrants in the 1850s , according to Rutgers University professor Norman Markowitz , who teaches the history of socialism and communism .
The Socialist Party of America grew significantly in the early 20th century under the leadership of union organizer Eugene V. Debs , electing a congressman and dozens of mayors . Debs ran for president five times , getting more than 913,000 votes in 1920 β the party β s high-water mark . ( At the time , Debs was in prison on charges that he had urged resistance to the draft during World War I . )
The party β s following eroded during the 1920s , and Debs was succeeded as leader by Norman Thomas , a Presbyterian minister in New York . During the Great Depression , Thomas received 892,000 votes in the 1932 presidential election as Franklin Roosevelt won the first of his four victories .
After World War II , the anti-communist crusade led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the broader tensions of the Cold War relegated organized socialism in the U.S. to the political margins . The term β creeping socialism β emerged , used by conservatives to denigrate various policy proposals and initiatives that involved a role for the government .
After the Cold War β s end , use of β socialist β as a political insult also receded . Markowitz believes its recent revival relates directly to the animosity toward Obama that is shared by a certain segment of Americans .
β There β s this hysterical outbreak of abuse to prove that the president is not American , that he β s a secret Muslim , that policies that past Republican administrations would have adopted are part of a socialist , communist conspiracy , β Markowitz said .
Due in part to the multiple definitions of socialism , some conservatives wrestle with semantics as they seek appropriate terms for Obama β s ideology .
β Instinctively , the president is a collectivist , β said Ken Blackwell , former Ohio secretary of state and now a conservative commentator . β My fundamental belief is that he wants to transform our market economy into a government-controlled economy β not far afield from European-style socialism . β
Steven Hayward , a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of a two-volume biography of Ronald Reagan , said Obama is not a socialist under the strict definitions of that term β central economic planning and government control of production .
β However , socialism has a secondary meaning that is harder to explain β government regulations , supervision of the private economy , β Hayward said . β The problem now with Obama is , β What does he really think ? β β
Ezra Klein , a blogger and columnist for The Washington Post , tackled the issue recently in a posting headlined β Barack Obama : Worst . Socialist . Ever . β
Klein cited data indicating that the government sector of the economy shrank during the past three years .
β If President Obama is truly a socialist , β Klein wrote , β then he β s not a very good one . β | bbm0d3uzl3m1LxNg | 2 | Elections | -0.1 | Presidential Elections | -0.1 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
economy_and_jobs | NPR Online News | http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/06/01/187626854/obamas-economic-view-a-glass-half-full-and-half-empty | Obama's Economic View: A Glass Half-Full And Half-Empty | 2013-06-01 | economy_and_jobs | It has been a good week for economic news . Here 's a quick rundown of the positive signs : Home prices showed their best gains in seven years . Consumer confidence hit a five-year high . The stock market set a new record . All just this week .
`` We 're seeing progress , '' President Obama said in the White House Rose Garden on Friday morning , `` and the economy is starting to pick up steam . The gears are starting to turn again , and we 're getting some traction . ''
You could tell from the tone of his voice that he was leading up to a `` but . ''
`` But the thing is , the way we measure our progress as a country is not just where the stock market is , '' the president added .
He went on to say that too many people in the middle class are still struggling . And that pivot β from glass half-full to glass half-empty β captures the tricky dance a president must do at a time like this .
`` I think the American people very much can understand that things are improving , '' says Gene Sperling , who directs the White House 's National Economic Council . `` But they also understand they 're not good enough . So I do n't think there 's many people out there who think that the United States Congress should be declaring 'mission accomplished ' right now . ''
That reference to Congress is important . The White House has a long list of economic boosters it wants Congress to deploy β from building new infrastructure to rolling back the budget cuts known as the sequester . The administration 's problem is that the better the economic news gets , the less pressure Congress feels to act .
`` I think that the odds of the sequester being undone have gone to pretty much zero , '' says Kevin Hassett , an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute . He acknowledges that a growing economy takes away one key weapon that Republicans have used against this White House .
Then again , Hassett says , `` I do n't think that the accusation that the president mishandled the economy ever played that well with voters . I think if it had , then Mitt Romney would be president right now . And , full disclosure , I was on the Romney team . ''
Even though the White House is not shouting `` recovery '' from the rooftops , Republicans have shifted away from their refrain of `` Where are the jobs ? '' Instead , their main message now is that the administration is corrupt and full of scandals .
Any of this could change in a heartbeat , though . Everyone at the White House appreciates that the U.S. economy is just one Japanese tsunami or one Greek financial crisis away from another dip .
`` If things turn out worse than you expect , you really look pretty bad , '' says Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities . He was Vice President Joe Biden 's economic adviser in the first term .
Bernstein remembers `` Recovery Summer '' three years ago . That 's what the White House called a national tour to promote the steps it was taking to help the economy . But by the end of `` Recovery Summer , '' unemployment was at 9.6 percent .
`` I think one of the lessons that one learns from that is that there 's actually a lot more downside to economic optimism than is widely recognized , '' he says .
Even today , there are good reasons for economic pessimism . Unemployment is still at 7.5 percent . Wages have barely grown at all when you adjust for inflation . And Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute says that , with 2.5 percent economic growth , the country is not exactly rocketing out of its hole .
`` We have not seen really rapid job creation , '' he says . `` We 've been averaging roughly 175,000 jobs per month . At that pace of growth , you 're looking at sort of a full employment economy not till somewhere around 2020 . ''
Still , the rise in home prices means around 2 million people are no longer underwater . Only about half of Americans own stocks , but those who do can feel a bit happier looking at their 401 ( k ) s .
The U.S. economy may not be back . But at least it 's been a good week . | U5F1t0vZwq38bjKW | 1 | Economy And Jobs | -0.1 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
trade | Washington Times | http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/13/house-democrats-mount-opposition-obama-trade-deal/ | House Democrats mount opposition to Obama trade deal | 2015-05-13 | trade | The White House tried to salvage President Obama β s free-trade deal on Capitol Hill Wednesday , even as House Democrats intensified their opposition to the measure and blamed Mr. Obama for mishandling the politics of his top second-term priority .
A day after Senate Democrats dealt an embarrassing setback to Mr. Obama on the trade legislation , key Democratic lawmakers vowed that the task ahead for the president will only become more difficult if the measure eventually reaches the House .
β If the administration thought it was tough going in the Senate , in the House it will be even harder , β said Rep. Rosa DeLauro , Connecticut Democrat and a leading opponent of giving the president special authority to negotiate the trade pact . β I believe they underestimated the depth of feeling . β
White House aides were in discussions with lawmakers to find β a path forward β to rescue the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership , a sprawling agreement with 11 other Pacific-rim nations . The administration also was scrambling to reassure foreign governments from Japan to Canada that the failed test vote in the Senate Tuesday was not a fatal blow to the overall trade agreement .
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged that the administration hasn β t yet found a solution to persuading U.S. lawmakers to grant trade-promotion authority to Mr. Obama .
β I don β t have one to announce now , β he said . β This is something that β s under a lot of discussion on Capitol Hill . β
Even as administration officials were trying to work through the policy differences with their own party , however , the White House also was grappling with renewed criticism about Mr. Obama bungling his personal outreach effort with an approach perceived by some as condescending and even sexist . Liberals from Sen. Sherrod Brown , Ohio Democrat , to NOW President Terry O β Neill said it was sexist for the president to refer to Sen. Elizabeth Warren , Massachusetts Democrat and a vocal opponent of the deal , as β Elizabeth . β
β I think it is sexist , β Ms. O β Neill told The Hill newspaper . β I think the president was trying to build up his own trustworthiness on this issue by convincing us that Senator Warren β s concerns are not to be taken seriously . But he did it in a sexist way . β
Mr. Brown later relented from his criticism , saying he would apologize to Mr. Obama .
Senate Democrats filibustered Tuesday to stop the first major free-trade deal vote in years , with the administration β s effort falling seven votes short of the 60 needed to proceed with debate . Only one Democrat , Sen. Thomas R. Carper of Delaware , voted with the president on legislation to give Mr. Obama trade-promotion authority .
House Democrats said the White House miscalculated badly by rejecting lawmakers β calls to include a provision in the TPP to address currency manipulation by other countries . Rep. David Scott , Georgia Democrat , called it β the Achilles heel β of the proposed agreement and said the administration β s refusal to address it was β asinine . β
Rep. Joe Courtney , Connecticut Democrat , said the administration has been downplaying lawmakers β concerns for years about including an enforceable provision against currency manipulation in the TPP .
β A huge bipartisan collection of members have been sending up smoke signals for years , going back to 2013 , β Mr. Courtney said . β To not have an agreement that has enforceable provisions on that issue , it β s almost political malpractice for members of Congress to just sort of look the other way . All of us would have preferred that the administration heeded the early input that all of us were giving on this issue and brought this to the table . β
The president has said that addressing currency manipulation could have an adverse impact on U.S. monetary policy , an argument that Mr. Courtney called β misleading rebuttal . β
Mrs. DeLauro said the administration has β rebuffed β lawmakers β concerns about currency manipulation , food safety and enforceable labor standards for more than two years , and the problem is now coming back to haunt the president .
β The White House and the administration have only begun to engage in the last few months , really , β she told reporters . β We β ve been rebuffed . Now there is this frenetic sense of β let β s try to address those people who are still undecided . β β
Speaker John A. Boehner , Ohio Republican who supports the deal , has said the White House needs to provide about 50 votes from the 188 Democratic House lawmakers to help pass the measure . More than 150 House Democrats last year came out in opposition to the deal , and Mrs. DeLauro recited the names of a handful of other Democratic lawmakers who have recently announced their opposition , including Reps. Adam Schiff of California and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois .
The so-called β fast-track β authority allows a president to negotiate trade deals with other countries , then submit them for up-or-down votes in Congress without amendments . Analysts say that if Congress were allowed to amend deals , it would make it impossible to negotiate with foreign governments .
But the Senate test vote brought to light the breathtaking spectacle of Democratic lawmakers complaining that the president of their own party was trying to grab too much power .
β We have seen too much power ceded from Congress to the executive branch at the expense of the United States , particularly in foreign matters , β said Rep. David Scott , Georgia Democrat . β You can look at the Iran [ nuclear ] deal , look at a lot of things . Congress has to retain our place . This should be a shared trade deal , not just by the president himself . β
The simmering feud between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Warren , an icon of the progressive wing , showed no signs of abating . The White House also faced more second-guessing about Mr. Obama β s decision to promote the trade deal last week at the headquarters of Nike , a company that has used β sweatshop β labor overseas β a particular sore point with progressive groups .
Even as the White House was trying to patch up relations with Democratic lawmakers , Mr . Earnest tossed more criticism at Mrs. Warren by saying her claims that the pact is being negotiated in secret β are just not true . β
β If people do want to raise a substantive objection to pursuing this strategy , then they should stick to the facts , β Mr . Earnest said . We β re interested in a substantive debate . But we don β t have to say things that aren β t true in order to have this debate . β
β This is the debate that we want to have , because this is the substance of the debate , β he said . β We are well aware that there are people in both parties that have raised concerns about Nike β s previous practices in terms of doing business overseas . The question right now is , β What are we going to do about it ? β And what we see from progressives is a lot of complaining about it . β | ziqv1WJfX4eljQLP | 2 | US Congress | -0.1 | US Senate | -0.1 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
veterans_affairs | CNN (Web News) | http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/14/us/va-scandal-eric-shinseki-reaction/index.html?hpt=po_c1 | 'Angered' Shinseki to speak but say little about growing VA scandal | 2014-05-14 | Veterans Affairs, Politics | Story highlights CNN has obtained prepared congressional testimony by Eric Shinseki
The Veterans Affairs secretary is scheduled to testify to a Senate panel Thursday
His statements reflect concern but offer no specifics in the response to VA scandal
Since November , CNN has uncovered delays in care at VA facilities across the country
Under fire after veterans died waiting for appointments at VA hospitals , Veteran Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki will say Thursday that he is `` angered and saddened '' but wo n't be providing much detail about how his department is correcting the problems , according to prepared congressional testimony obtained by CNN .
In fact , Shinseki , who is scheduled to testify in front of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on Thursday , wo n't even acknowledge that there are problems .
According to the written testimony , Shinseki will say the VA Inspector General 's Office , which has launched an independent investigation , has advised the department not to provide information that could compromise their inquiry .
`` I am personally angered and saddened by any adverse consequence that a veteran might experience while in , or as a result of , our care , '' he says in the prepared testimony .
Last month , CNN revealed that at least 40 veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system , according to sources inside the hospital and a doctor who worked there . Many of those veterans were placed on a secret waiting list , the sources said .
JUST WATCHED Senator wants FBI to review VA scandal Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Senator wants FBI to review VA scandal 06:22
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Since November , CNN has uncovered delays in care at VA facilities across the country where numerous VA staffers have stepped forward to allege dangerously long wait times and efforts by VA officials to cover them up .
The VA has previously admitted that 23 veterans passed away because of delays , and 53 others had adverse health effects at VA facilities across the country . Sources now tell CNN the Office of Inspector General is investigating in six states , including Arizona .
`` In response to allegations about scheduling and delays at the Phoenix VA , '' Shinseki will say according to the testimony , `` I invited an independent investigation by the VA Office of Inspector General ( OIG ) to conduct a comprehensive , thorough and timely review .
`` If these allegations are true , they are completely unacceptable -- to veterans , to me and to our dedicated VHA employees , '' Shinseki says in the prepared testimony . `` If they are substantiated by OIG , responsible and timely action will be taken . ''
Shinseki also said that he has placed three employees , including two senior executives , on administrative leave at the request of the Inspector General 's office .
Shinseki will also tell lawmakers that he has directed the Veterans Health Administration to `` complete a nationwide access review , '' according to the testimony .
President Barack Obama has appointed Rob Nabors , his deputy chief of staff , to assist Veterans Affairs officials conduct the review .
`` America has a sacred trust with the men and women who serve our country in uniform -- one that continues when they come home -- and we must do everything to keep that trust , '' Obama said in a statement Wednesday .
The inspector general 's investigation and access review , along with the administrative leave , have all been previously made public . | 6982af64ba450519 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
labor | Associated Press | https://apnews.com/d2a5e80b7ba7d568e9e6a3966d6308d0 | Coronavirus layoffs spark surge in state jobless claims | 2020-03-18 | labor | Unionized hospitality workers wait in line in a basement garage to apply for unemployment benefits at the Hospitality Training Academy Friday , March 13 , 2020 , in Los Angeles . Fearing a widespread health crisis , Californians moved broadly Friday to get in front of the spread of the coronavirus , shuttering schools that educate hundreds of thousands of students , urging the faithful to watch religious services online and postponing or scratching just about any event that could attract a big crowd . ( AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez )
Unionized hospitality workers wait in line in a basement garage to apply for unemployment benefits at the Hospitality Training Academy Friday , March 13 , 2020 , in Los Angeles . Fearing a widespread health crisis , Californians moved broadly Friday to get in front of the spread of the coronavirus , shuttering schools that educate hundreds of thousands of students , urging the faithful to watch religious services online and postponing or scratching just about any event that could attract a big crowd . ( AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez )
JEFFERSON CITY , Mo . ( AP ) β In Ohio , more than 48,000 people applied for jobless benefits during the first two days of this week . The tally during the same period the prior week : just 1,825 .
In neighboring Pennsylvania , about 70,000 people sought unemployment aid in a single day β six times the total for the entire previous week .
Jobless claims are surging across the U.S. after government officials ordered millions of workers , students and shoppers to stay at home as a precaution against spreading the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease .
β We β ve been getting flooded with calls , β said John Dodds , director of the nonprofit Philadelphia Unemployment Project . β It β s going to be a big mess , a double mess : illness and unemployment . β
The growing number of people filing for unemployment checks raises fresh questions about whether states have stockpiled enough money since the last recession to tide over idled workers until the crisis ends . Some fear the demand for help could outpace the states β ability to pay claims .
β Our unemployment insurance fund is getting hit pretty hard right now , β said Gov . Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island , where coronavirus-related jobless claims accelerated from zero to nearly 18,000 in barely one week .
Raimondo , a Democrat , said the state needs to start replenishing its fund and appealed for help from the federal government .
President Donald Trump β s administration is proposing an economic stimulus package that could approach $ 1 trillion and include sending checks to Americans within a matter of weeks to help them pay for groceries , bills , mortgages and rent . The Senate gave final approval Wednesday to a separate bill that would inject $ 1 billion into state unemployment insurance programs .
The federal aid could rival or exceed that of the Great Recession in 2008 , when a financial industry crisis led to widespread layoffs . Economic analysts warn the country is likely entering β or already in β its first recession since then .
Valerie Costa , a 41-year-old mother of two , quickly applied for unemployment benefits after the Rhode Island casino where she worked as a bartender and cocktail server closed because of virus precautions . For now , her husband is still working .
β We β re limiting our spending . But we also really don β t know what to expect , β she said . β Most of us live through our tips , and if no tips are coming in , that makes things tough . β
The last recession led to the insolvency of unemployment trust funds in 35 states that collectively racked up more than $ 40 billion of debt to keep paying unemployed workers . In many states , those debts were repaid through higher taxes on employers .
To shore up their trust funds , some states also cut the amount and duration of benefits for those who became unemployed in the future .
β States aren β t really recession-ready , because it β s so hard for people to get benefits , stay in the program , and the benefits are insufficient , β said Michele Evermore , a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project , a New York-based group that advocates for low-wage workers and the unemployed .
Jobless claims and unemployment also are rising around the globe . The U.N. β s International Labor Organization estimates that fallout from the coronavirus outbreak could lead to nearly 25 million job losses worldwide and drain up to $ 3.4 trillion worth of income by the end of this year .
In the U.S. , state unemployment trust funds generally are in better financial shape than they were before the last recession . Yet 21 states began the year with less than the amount recommended to remain solvent in an average recession , according to a U.S. Department of Labor report . At the bottom of the solvency list are many of the most populous states β California , Texas , New York , Illinois , Ohio and Massachusetts .
Ohio Gov . Mike DeWine , a Republican , was among the first to shut down schools , sporting events and certain businesses because of the coronavirus . Unemployment claims have since skyrocketed .
DeWine β s administration acknowledged that state lawmakers likely will have to intervene to shore up the state β s shaky unemployment trust fund .
β The workers out there should not be worried . It will be funded for their needs , β said Ohio Lt. Gov . Jon Husted , also a Republican .
Pennsylvania in January finally made the last payment on billions of dollars of bonds issued in 2012 to cover the unemployment fund debt from the last recession . But its fund remains in danger of insolvency , according to the U.S. Labor Department report .
In Tennessee , new unemployment claims tripled over the past week . Michigan β s unemployment agency said Wednesday that it has received over five times as many unemployment applications as normal . And Minnesota said it has been getting more than 2,000 unemployment applications per hour , compared with the usual 40 or 50 .
The Department of Employment and Economic Development has been taking more than 2,000 applications per hour , compared with the usual 40 or 50 , Commissioner Steve Grove said
Warnings to stay away from public gathering spots also have made it more complicated to apply for benefits , with some state unemployment offices closed to the public . Instead , states have shifted more applicants from offices to websites and phone calls , but even those systems are being taxed .
New Jersey Gov . Phil Murphy said the number of unemployment insurance requests was so high at the start of this week that it crashed the state labor department β s website .
New York β s labor department said it β s experiencing β an unprecedented increase β in calls and online visits for unemployment benefits . During the first half of Tuesday , it had 110,000 website visits and 21,000 phone calls . That β s 2 1/2 times the web traffic and 10 times the phone calls of the entire previous Tuesday . At times , the surge was too much for the agency to handle .
Governors and lawmakers in many states took action this week to make unemployment benefits easier and quicker to get . Some also waived rules that disregard the first week of unemployment or extended the total number of weeks people can be eligible .
In North Carolina , which offers less in jobless benefits than most states , displaced workers won β t have to be actively looking for a new job , as is required for traditional benefits , and employers who must lay off workers won β t be financially responsible for the benefits their workers receive .
Kansas lawmakers worked quickly Tuesday to pass legislation that eliminates a one-week wait to begin receiving benefits and expands their duration from 16 to 26 weeks . But House Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Sean Tarwater , a Republican , expressed concern that the economic problems caused by the virus pandemic could deplete the state β s unemployment fund in less than a year , even though it β s ranked in the top quarter nationally .
β What we are seeing is something totally unique here , where the switch has flipped from historically low claims numbers to a dramatic escalation that β s going to affect multiple segments of the economy , β said Kansas Deputy Labor Department Secretary Brett Flachsbarth . | joaqyAxK78KDZ2uT | 1 | Coronavirus | -0.5 | Labor | -0.2 | Recession | 0 | Economy And Jobs | 0 | null | null |
elections | New York Times (News) | http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/us/ted-cruz-wins-republican-caucus.html | Iowa Caucus: Cruz Victory Deals Setback to Donald Trump | 2016-02-01 | Presidential Elections, Elections | Advertisement Supported by By Jonathan Martin DES MOINES β Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, powered by a surge of support from evangelical Christians, dealt a humbling loss to Donald J. Trump in the Iowa caucuses on Monday, throwing into question the depth of support for Mr. Trumpβs unconventional candidacy. In the first contest of what so far has been more a populist revolt against the political order than a traditional Republican primary, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida finished a strong third, bolstering his case to consolidate the support of Republicans uneasy about the two top finishers. With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Mr. Cruz had nearly 28 percent of the vote, Mr. Trump 24 percent and Mr. Rubio 23 percent. Advertisement Mr. Cruzβs victory was hard-earned. He fought off a barrage of attacks in the campaignβs final weeks from Mr. Trump as well as from Iowaβs longtime governor, Terry E. Branstad, and Republican leaders in Washington who warned that the hard-line Mr. Cruz would lead the party to electoral disaster this fall. transcript NA Having felled the brash Mr. Trump, who unceasingly predicted victory and dominated the race up until the first voting, Mr. Cruz can credibly portray himself, to conservatives who have yearned to unite behind a strong champion, as a giant-killer. Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like. Alan Rappeport contributed reporting. Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the First Draft newsletter. Advertisement Enjoy unlimited access to all of The Times. See subscription options | c1888dfc9a265eaa | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
elections | Vox | https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/3/18282638/pete-buttigieg-mayor-pete-pronounce-explained | The Pete Buttigieg boom | 2019-04-03 | elections | The polls in the 2020 Democratic primary have been relatively stable β with one gigantic exception . Pete Buttigieg , the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend , Indiana , has gone from no-name to one of the top five candidates in the poll averages .
β As far as I β m concerned , one real thing has happened [ in 2020 ] , β the New York Times poll analyst Nate Cohn writes . β Buttigieg has emerged . β
Buttigieg β s surge owes to a kind of dual appeal . Some moderates like his Midwestern background , elite credentials ( he β s a graduate of Harvard and Oxford ) , and soft-spoken but knowledgeable way of talking about policy . Liberal Democrats see in Buttigieg an intellectual who could be President Trump β s polar opposite , and whose focus on political reforms like abolishing the Electoral College channels their frustration with a system that feels rigged in the GOP β s favor .
β In recent times , appealing to Republican legislators has been wasteful because they β ve mostly been acting in bad faith , β Buttigieg told me in a phone call in March .
Interviews and press appearances were vital to his poll rise . After a breakout performance at a CNN town hall in early March , Buttigieg received a significant increase in media attention and positive coverage . ( By now , many more people know that it β s pronounced β Boot-edge-edge. β ) His campaign has leveraged this into social media popularity and viral stardom , all of which translated to a significant bump in fundraising and his top-tier poll numbers .
There β s no doubt in anyone β s mind anymore that Buttigieg is a top-tier candidate , despite his lack of federal credentials . The question now is whether the media covering him like a top-tier candidate , reporting not just on his rise but also blemishes on his record like a recent controversy over a police shooting of a black man in South Bend , will damage him . It β s also possible he stumbles in the spotlight , performing poorly at a debate or facing withering attacks from other candidates .
But right now , it β s clear that Pete Buttigieg is , as improbably as it seemed just a few months ago , one of the leading candidates for the Democratic 2020 nomination .
β He β s got the swoon factor , the young factor , the honest-to-the-point-of-vulnerable factor , and he β s great on the stump , β Jennifer Victor , a political scientist at George Mason University , tells me . β By standard measures , he shouldn β t be doing that well , but I think American presidential primary politics are well beyond standard measures . β
Media coverage of Buttigieg tends to focus on his biography and impeccable elite credentials .
Born in 1982 , near the beginning of the millennial generation , he graduated from Harvard and won a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford . He went on to work at McKinsey , the giant consulting company , then enlist in the military β as a gay man β before the repeal of β don β t ask , don β t tell. β He did a seven-month tour in Afghanistan as a naval reserve officer . He reportedly speaks seven languages , and he apparently learned Norwegian for the sole purpose of reading an interesting-sounding book .
But Buttigieg didn β t come out of nowhere . He β s been seen as a rising star in national Democratic politics since his election as mayor of South Bend , Indiana β s fourth-largest city , in 2011 . On his way out of office , President Barack Obama named Buttigieg as one of several future leaders of the Democratic Party .
Buttigieg β s bid in 2017 to be the chair of the Democratic National Committee failed β he dropped out just before the first round of ballots β but that did little to dampen the party β s enthusiasm for the young mayor . And in 2019 , he almost seems lab-engineered to appeal to a variety of Democrats looking for a clear antidote to Trump . Moderates look at his biography and see someone they aren β t scared of ; the liberal partisans that make up much of the party β s base look at his positions and rhetoric and see someone who β s their kind of fighter .
Despite Buttigieg β s reputation as a big-thinking candidate , he β s often strikingly unwilling to commit to specific policies . But cobble together his policy positions from various public appearances and it β s clear that he β s solidly progressive in a way that could satisfy the Democratic base β s hunger for a bolder , less centrist approach to policy .
Buttigieg has endorsed a single-payer health care system , although he proposes starting out with a transition policy like a public option or all-payer rate setting . He β s said the Green New Deal is a β sound framework β for tackling climate change and called for a withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan . He has defended Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez β s proposal for a 70 percent effective marginal tax rate , though he stopped short of openly committing himself to a particular rate .
He β s been most specific , though , about structural change and electoral reform .
Like Elizabeth Warren , Buttigieg supports abolishing the Electoral College . He β s also endorsed automatic voter registration and statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington , DC , and signaled openness to abolishing the Senate filibuster .
But his most interesting idea , which he detailed in an interview with the Intercept β s Mehdi Hasan , is to radically overhaul the Supreme Court .
β One solution that I β ve been discussing in recent weeks is structuring it with 15 members , but five of whom can only be seated by a unanimous consensus of the other 10 , β he said to Hasan . β Anything that would make a Supreme Court vacancy less of an apocalyptic ideological struggle would be an improvement . β
This answer β one of the more radical plans for changing the Supreme Court I β ve seen from a mainstream political figure β speaks to the heart of Buttigieg β s political appeal among a certain segment of the Democratic base . He addresses the broader Democratic Party β s sense of being victimized by a system that favors Republicans and by a party willing to play hardball in pushing voter ID laws , gerrymandering , and the theft of Merrick Garland β s Supreme Court seat .
Buttigieg might be a quiet and reserved guy , but he embodies a kind of political boldness . Rather than forge a policy compromise with Republicans , he wants to transform ideas and structures that define American politics . If Sen. Bernie Sanders ( I-VT ) is a class warrior , Pete Buttigieg is a partisan warrior .
β I think we β re in a tectonic shift in America such that even now we may be underreacting to how deep this moment is . I mean , you have basically a 30- or 40-year-long Reagan consensus that that held sway over this country . ... And that β s , that β s done , β he told my colleague Ezra Klein . β I think it β s a moment that β s really crying out for big ideas and for us to pay attention to just really profound things happening . β
Buttigieg has elite credentials . But he doesn β t appear heavily invested in all the niceties of elite politics , where a peculiar notion of β civility β is often used to oppose efforts to go after Republican politicians themselves . When former Vice President Joe Biden labeled current Vice President Mike Pence a β decent guy , β Buttigieg took exception . In an interview with BuzzFeed , he challenged the notion of separating Pence β s personal politeness from his overall political worldview .
β I mean , to your face , if he were sitting right here , you β d think that this guy is very polite , β Buttigieg said . β But that masks this absolutely fanatical view about how the world works or how the universe works that has led to these incredibly hurtful , dangerous , and harmful policies , and that β s what we have now in the White House . And I think it chills a lot of us , especially in the LGBTQ community , to see that somebody like that can be in that kind of position of power . β
For all these reasons , Buttigieg feels to a lot of Democrats like a different kind of candidate : neither a poll-tested milquetoast centrist nor a part of an entrenched party faction , but a competent executive whose vision directly addresses their Trump-era anxieties and partisan anger . This seems perfect for a kind of relatively educated Democratic voter who consumes a lot of political media , someone who waxes nostalgic for the Obama presidency and listens to every episode of Pod Save America β a show whose hosts , incidentally , are big Buttigieg fans .
β Pete Buttigieg is a really fascinating guy who has a lot [ of ] interesting things to say about politics in this era and has clearly thought very hard about why he is running for President , β tweeted Dan Pfeiffer , one of the show β s hosts and a former Obama senior adviser .
Yet at the same time , Buttigieg manages to present this agenda in such a way as to come across as both principled and nonpartisan to more moderate audiences .
Take his plan for Supreme Court reform . Given the Court β s current ideological composition , adding more justices would likely be a huge win for Democratic partisan interests . But when Buttigieg was discussing the proposal with Klein , he presented it in the neutral language of good government and the health of American institutions .
β It irritates me a little bit that every time I talk about a Supreme Court reform to make the institution less political , someone writes a gloss on it that makes it sound like I β m proposing that we simply add justices for the purpose of pulling the Court further to the left , β he said . β Anything we do needs to be rooted in making sense in principle . And something that makes sense in principle is to protect the Court from being the scene of an apocalyptic ideological fight every time the vacancy opens , and to set up the Court so that it has more people thinking for themselves . β
You may think that this argument is disingenuous , a mask . But it comes across as sincere even to center-right establishmentarians like New York Times columnist David Brooks and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough . Buttigieg is able to both be a partisan warrior for the base and present an attractive image for moderates : a kind of β everything to everyone β appeal that resembles no one more than Barack Obama .
Buttigieg β s case for himself depends on his record as mayor
All of that is fine in theory . But in practice , can a mayor of a city of about 100,000 people really make the jump to being the most powerful person in the world ?
I put this question to Buttigieg directly in March , asking him why any Democratic voters should back him over senators or governors or a former vice president . His answer had two parts .
First , he said , mayors have a level of executive experience that helps them understand what it β s like to manage a series of different complex policy issues at once β enough , at least , to make being president feasible .
β Nobody walks into the Oval Office knowing what it β s like to be president , β Buttigieg said . β I β d argue that being a mayor of a city of any size ... means that you have the on-the-ground , day-to-day , executive experience of government at its core . β
Second , he argues , geography matters . South Bend is a former industrial town in the Midwest heartland , one that suffered tremendously from things like the closure of a Studebaker auto manufacturing plant in 1963 . Buttigieg claims he can connect with voters in such places in a way that other Democrats β from coastal enclaves like , say , Vermont or California β simply can β t .
β The experience of somebody who comes from the American interior , from the kind of community where people grew up being told that success had to do with getting out ... is an experience we need more of in our national leadership , β he says . β And especially in the Democratic Party , because losing touch with that kind of experience is something that β s really set us back as a party . β
This argument is particularly well suited to the Trump-era Democratic electorate .
Buttigieg is positioning himself as the opposite of Trump β a competent , qualified executive who knows how government works . But he β s also appealing to liberal America β s anxieties about winning over the white working class and rebuilding Hillary Clinton β s so-called β blue wall β in Pennsylvania , Wisconsin , and Michigan , the states that were supposed to hold the presidency for Democrats but instead handed it to Trump .
The substance of Buttigieg β s case for himself depends on his actual tenure as South Bend mayor . To what extent was the mayor a competent executive in touch with Middle America ?
Three political scientists in Indiana who study local politics told me in March that , more or less , he was β though a significant racial controversy emerged in late June that put a wrinkle in their largely economy-focused assessments .
β My impression is that in South Bend , he has been quite a spectacular success , β Gerald Wright , the chair of Indiana University Bloomington β s political science department , told me .
When Buttigieg took office in January 2012 , South Bend had been experiencing slow but steady population decline . For the past five years , there β s been small but noticeable population growth . On Buttigieg β s first day , unemployment in the South Bend metro area was at 10.2 percent β 1.6 points higher than the Indiana state average . As the end of 2018 , it was essentially even with the statewide average ( 3.7 percent versus 3.5 ) .
It β s hard to separate his performance from an improving national economy during the same time . Still , South Bend does decently well when compared exclusively to the performance of other post-industrial Midwest towns on metrics like jobs and population growth . And experts point to several Buttigieg policies in particular that improved the city β s economic performance in recent years .
Buttigieg turned Route 31 , the big thoroughfare that ran through South Bend β s previously moribund downtown , from two different one-way lanes into a series of two-ways to encourage people to stop and spend . Roughly 1,000 people live in downtown South Bend today ; that figure was β effectively zero when Buttigieg took office , β per the Indianapolis Star .
β [ His policy was ] slowing people down β they catch a better view of what is in the place , they maybe see a restaurant they β ve not seen before or a business they β ve not seen before . And that then causes them to engage , β says Andrew Downs , the director of Purdue University Fort Wayne β s center on Indiana politics .
Buttigieg wanted to move South Bend , the home of the University of Notre Dame , away from its industrial past and toward an economic model designed for an overall US economy centering on tech and jobs requiring more education . This kind of vision is often criticized for ignoring deeper structural inequalities : Development can often entrench inequality or price out poor and minority residents altogether .
And Buttigieg did come in for some criticism on that front , particularly during his push to demolish 1,000 unlivable and uninhabited homes as part of a broader development scheme . But what was striking , according to the experts , is how responsive he was to these concerns . Stacey Odom , a resident of the heavily black LaSalle Park neighborhood , heard that her area was being targeted for redevelopment . She asked him for help , including a $ 300,000 grant for home repairs for local residents . Buttigieg gave her $ 650,000 .
However , South Bend still has a number of real problems . The city β s eviction rate is high , in part due to tenant-unfriendly state laws . Most seriously , there have been issues relating to race and policing which Buttigieg has , according to some , not addressed well enough β a simmering controversy that exploded during the campaign .
In late June , Buttigieg took a break from the campaign trail to address the fatal shooting of Eric Logan , a black man , by South Bend Police Sgt . Ryan O β Neill , a white officer . He faced withering criticism from black residents at a June 23 town hall , who condemned him for not doing enough to address police violence and racism on the force . Buttigieg pointed to an initiative to get cops to wear body cameras he spearheaded ( though O β Neill wasn β t using one during the shooting ) and called for a federal investigation into the incident .
It β s not clear if his response has been forceful enough to satisfy black South Bend residents , or how the controversy will end more broadly . But the difficulty he faced at the June 23 town hall , and the negative media coverage that accompanied it , highlights the gap between president of the United States and mayor of South Bend .
It β s one thing to be a competent executive who has to make decisions about a single highway and personally address a constituent β s grievances about housing . It β s another thing to handle a racially charged controversy in the national spotlight , and yet another thing to make national-level policy decisions on such weighty issues .
Even if Buttigieg is as effective a mayor as local experts say he is , it β s not obvious that he has the kind of skill set that prepares him for the world β s biggest job . He β ll have to make the case that he isn β t just a good mayor ; he β s so exceptionally good that he deserves to make a leap to the country β s top job . And his handling of the Eric Logan shooting will help us see how solid his case is .
The extremely local nature of his past experience makes it seem very strange to mention Buttigieg in the same breath as major candidates like Sen. Kamala Harris ( D-CA ) . Yet that β s the league he β s playing in : the latest poll average has him in fifth place , a scant .4 percentage points behind Harris and well ahead of everyone behind him .
But to actually win , Buttigieg will need to do more than just capture the hearts of the relatively few Democrats who know and like him ; he β ll need to expand his support base to a broader cross section of the party . He β s currently performing very poorly , for example , with black voters β a vital primary constituency β and the controversy surrounding Eric Logan β s death is unlikely to help . He will need something , some spark , to catapult him into the same league as the frontrunner Biden .
Yet the higher Buttigieg climbs , the more likely he is to attract criticism that could damage his chances .
β The candidate having a boomlet will typically draw more media scrutiny , β John Sides , a political scientist at George Washington University , tells me . β Once candidates seem β serious β enough to pay attention to , the news media examines their previous record and behavior on the campaign trail more carefully . β
The truth is that Buttigieg is still , at this point , relatively undervetted . We don β t know what the investigative reporters and opposition researchers currently digging into his background and past statements have found . And there are already some obvious fault lines that could split Buttigieg β s support .
The first is identity . The current field of Democratic presidential candidates is the most diverse ever ; the party took back the House of Representatives in November in an election propelled by candidates of color and women . In some ways , Buttigieg , a first-time national candidate who is trying to become the first openly gay president , fits that mold .
But he β s also a relatively inexperienced white man dealing with a serious racial controversy . For some critics , there β s something odd about someone like that becoming the breakout insurgent star of the Democratic field based on his perceived intelligence and policy chops . It feels a little like there β s a double standard at work given that Elizabeth Warren , another leading candidate who β s been far more specific on policies ranging from big tech to agriculture , has gotten much more unfavorable media coverage about her supposed lack of β likability . β
β I really like Pete Buttigieg . He is intelligent . He is decent . He is curious , β prominent feminist and New America fellow Jill Filipovic tweeted . β But when he says β I think that policy matters , I β m a policy guy , β but all of his policies are basically Warren β s ( except less specific and less progressive ) , I wonder why he β s not working for her. β
I asked Buttigieg about this line of critique . β If somebody is pointing out that there are advantages β many of them unfair β that go along with being male in our society and in our politics , then I completely agree , β he says .
But he went on to push back : β If somebody is saying that I should not compete because I β m a man , I don β t know what to say to that . And if somebody is saying that I had it easy , I would invite them to join the military and enter Indiana politics in 2010 as a gay person . β
A much harsher line of attack has emerged on the socialist left . A widely shared March 29 article in the magazine Current Affairs , for example , purported to document β irrefutable evidence that no serious progressive should want Pete Buttigieg anywhere near national public office . β
The piece β s author , Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson , proceeds with an extremely critical read of Buttigieg β s campaign book , Shortest Way Home , and a harsh-bordering-on-unfair review of his record in South Bend . Robinson concludes that he simply is not the kind of person the left can trust with power .
β Mayor Pete does not have an entirely different story than any other politician in our lifetime . He has the same story they all have , β Robinson writes . β No more Bright Young People with their beautiful families and flawless characters and elite educations and vacuous messages of uplift and togetherness . Give me fucked-up people with convictions and gusto . Give me real human beings , not CV-padding corporate zombies . β
Buttigieg doesn β t reciprocate this left antipathy . In our March interview , he argued that the rise of a more unabashedly left-wing politics is good for America .
β We need to actually see the furthest boundaries of our idea space . If the debate is just between a center-left and a center-center-left , then we β re not really exploring all of the different possibilities right now , β he told me . β Most of the boldness in American politics in my lifetime has come only on the right , and it β s refreshing to see that change β even if some of what β s coming on the left leads to policies that I would approach differently . β
It β s very clear that Buttigieg doesn β t want to make Democratic enemies at this point in the race . But he β s in a competitive primary against some pretty popular and well-funded opponents . If Democratic voters continue to take him as seriously as they are right now , then he β ll inevitably start taking punches β and having to throw them . Whether that means he has a natural ceiling remains to be seen .
So right now , Buttigieg is appealing to Democratic voters unsatisfied with the other choices . He speaks both to some voters β desire for the opposite of Trump and to the Democratic base β s desire for an unapologetic champion who will go to bat against Republicans . That is enough to elevate him to serious candidate status ; the only question now is how much further it can take him . | L3y6Rt7bbHDc26C2 | 0 | Election2020 | 0.8 | Pete Buttigieg | 0 | Presidential Elections | 0 | Elections | 0 | null | null |
white_house | BBC News | http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40933391 | Charlottesville violence: Trump council sees more CEOs resign | 2017-08-15 | CEOs, White House, Politics | US President Donald Trump hit back at business leaders on Tuesday as executives tried to distance themselves from the administration .
Mr Trump is under fire for being late to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis involved in a violent rally .
But Mr Trump said : `` They 're leaving out of embarrassment , because they make their products outside . ''
Shortly after Mr Trump 's comments , a fifth group stepped down from a White House business panel .
Those who have quit the manufacturing council in recent days include Kenneth Frazier of Merck , Kevin Plank of Under Armour , Brian Krzanich of Intel and Scott Paul , the president of business group the Alliance for American Manufacturing .
On Tuesday evening , after a combative news conference in which Mr Trump defended his original statement that violence came from `` many sides '' , Richard Trumka , president of the AFL-CIO labour group , also said he and Thea Lee , another leader of the organisation , would no longer participate .
`` It 's clear that President Trump 's manufacturing council was never an effective means for delivering real policy that lifts working families and his remarks today were the last straw , '' he said .
As calls mount for corporations to respond , other firms participating on White House panels have issued statements condemning the violence .
Walmart , which typically avoids political controversy , shared a statement from its chief executive that said Mr Trump `` missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together by unequivocally rejecting the appalling actions of white supremacists '' .
However , Walmart boss Doug McMillon did not say he would step down from the panel .
Shannon Coulter , who co-founded the # grabyourwallet boycott against companies that do business with Mr Trump , said recent events have added momentum to the campaign .
`` Charlottesville has definitely escalated the issue of associating oneself with the Trumps , '' she told the BBC . `` I think it 's increasingly clear to CEOs on his councils that the Trump name and identity is toxic and that for the sake of their brands they need to get away from it as quickly as possible . ''
Kenneth Frazier , the head of drugs giant Merck , led the walkout from the White House manufacturing council on Monday morning .
One of only a handful of black leaders of Fortune 500 companies , Mr Frazier said he would no longer participate , calling it a matter of `` personal conscience '' .
Mr Frazier said : `` I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism . ''
`` America 's leaders must honour our fundamental views by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred , bigotry and group supremacy , which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal . ''
In response , Mr Trump tweeted that Mr Frazier would now have `` more time to lower rip-off drug prices '' .
Mr Frazier 's decision sparked calls from the public for other leaders involved in Mr Trump 's panels to follow suit .
Kevin Plank , the chief executive of sports apparel company Under Armour , said he was resigning on Monday night . His decision came after he faced backlash from shoppers - and some Under Armour-sponsored athletes - earlier this year when he praised Mr Trump 's pro-business views .
Intel boss Brian Krzanich also said on Monday that he would resign , followed by Scott Paul of the manufacturing alliance on Tuesday .
Mr Trump dismissed the resignations , saying those companies relied on overseas manufacturing .
`` They 're not taking their job seriously as it pertains to this country , '' he said . `` We want jobs , manufacturing in this country . ''
Many executives , including those at companies such as Campbell Soup Co and General Electric , said they feel it is important to remain involved .
`` We must engage if we hope to change the world and those who lead it , '' Alex Gorsky , chairman and chief executive of Johnson & Johnson , said in a statement .
But the resignations this week add to Mr Trump 's growing alienation from the business community , which he had expected to claim as an ally .
Former Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick left a business advisory council in February over the Trump administration 's immigration policies .
Tesla 's chief executive Elon Musk and Walt Disney 's chief executive Robert Iger left the President 's Strategic and Policy Forum in June , after Mr Trump said he would withdraw from the Paris climate accord .
Rashad Robinson is executive director of Color of Change , which is among the groups that have brought pressure on corporations .
He said he hoped it would help make it clear that Mr Trump 's attitude toward white supremacists and neo-Nazis was unacceptable .
`` The more desertions and defections , the more isolated this administration is , the less mainstream connections that this administration has , the more powerful this message is to every day Americans about how out of step what 's happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is and why we need a change , `` he said .
Companies that cut ties with the White House are likely to face costs , said Jiekun Huang , a professor of finance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign .
He is co-author of a study that linked higher stock prices to White House visits , based on records from the Obama administration . An initial review of the first six months of the Trump administration showed a similar effect , he said .
But the risk of losing access to discuss regulations or contracts must be weighed against the risk of alienating employees and consumers , said Michael Maslansky , head of Maslansky + Partners , a language strategy firm that has advised major companies .
`` The era of the fence-sitter corporation is over , '' he said .
`` If you 're silent about an issue , then each side will assume you 're on the wrong side . You end up really having to choose . '' | 9bbe7887205b162f | 1 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
free_speech | Independent Journal Review | https://ijr.com/elizabeth-warren-calls-out-facebook/ | Elizabeth Warren Calls Out Facebook for Taking Down Big Tech Break Up Advertisement | 2019-03-12 | Censorship, Elizabeth Warren, Facebook, Free Speech | Sen. Elizabeth Warren called out Facebook on Monday for taking down campaign advertisement videos that propose big breakups for major tech companies .
Warren announced her plan last week titled , β Here β s How We Can Break Up Big Tech β , which focuses on breaking up β anti-competitive β mergers , including Facebook β s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram .
The Facebook advertisements that Warren posted on Friday , specifically target the company for their past privacy actions and power . β Three companies have vast power over our economy and our democracy . Facebook , Amazon , and Google , β the ad read according to Politico .
β We all use them . But in their rise to power , they β ve bulldozed competition , used our private information for profit , and tilted the playing field in their favor . β
Facebook soon took three of the ads down with messages stating , β This ad was taken down because it goes against Facebook β s advertising policies . β
A Facebook spokesperson later confirmed to Politico the advertisements were taken down because they contained the company β s logo , which violated their policy but added , β In the interest of allowing robust debate , we are restoring the ads . β
Warren tweeted her frustrations toward the company and reiterated the example of their ability to censor her post as her inspirations for the proposal .
β Curious why I think [ Facebook ] has too much power ? Let β s start with their ability to shut down a debate over whether [ Facebook ] has too much power . Thanks for restoring my posts . But I want a social media marketplace that isn β t dominated by a single censor , β she said .
Curious why I think FB has too much power ? Let 's start with their ability to shut down a debate over whether FB has too much power . Thanks for restoring my posts . But I want a social media marketplace that is n't dominated by a single censor . # BreakUpBigTech https : //t.co/UPS6dozOxn β Elizabeth Warren ( @ ewarren ) March 11 , 2019
Warren most recently took to Twitter on Monday , posting a video of her talking to supporters in Long Island City where she compared the β Hunger Games β to the system of how Amazon and other big companies pit areas against each other for the most financial gain . | 7c85bf88eaed7b0a | 2 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
education | NPR (Online News) | https://www.npr.org/2018/08/14/638715749/colorado-school-district-switches-to-4-day-week-to-save-money | Colorado School District Switches To 4-Day Week To Save Money | 2018-08-17 | Education | By Vanessa Romo Colorado School District 27J has adopted a four-day school schedule in an attempt to save about $1 million a year. James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images hide caption Colorado School District 27J has adopted a four-day school schedule in an attempt to save about $1 million a year. A Colorado school district intent on saving money has cut one of its greatest costs: teaching. District 27J, one of the state's larger districts, has dropped Mondays from the school week and switched to a four-day schedule as of Tuesday, the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year. Superintendent Chris Fiedler told NBC 9 News that the district will save on transportation costs, teaching salaries and districtwide utilities. "We anticipate about $1 million in savings," Fiedler said. 9 News reported that the change comes on the heels of six failed attempts by the district to raise additional money through bond elections. The district northeast of the Denver metropolitan area serves nearly 18,000 students and includes 12 elementary schools, four middle schools, four high schools and five charter schools. It is the 98th district in the state approved by the Colorado Department of Education to adopt the shorter schedule. Fiedler estimates that running fewer school buses alone will save the district about $700,000. "I realize this will be a significant change for our students, their families, and the communities we are so fortunate to serve, but our district can no longer be expected to do more with less financial resources," district officials said in a press release, according to 9 News. The district plans to offer child care on Mondays for $30 per child per day. Students will attend regular classes Tuesday through Friday and class time will be extended by 40 minutes per day. The schedule was submitted for approval by the Colorado Department of Education in March. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor These cookies are essential to provide you with services available through the NPR Services and to enable you to use some of their features. For example, these cookies allow NPR to remember your registration information while you are logged in. Local station customization, the NPR Shop, and other interactive features also use cookies. Without these cookies, the services that you have asked for cannot be provided, and we only use these cookies to provide you with those services. You may opt out of the sharing of your information with our sponsorship vendors for delivery of personalized sponsorship credits and marketing messages on our website or third-party sites by turning off "Share Data for Targeted Sponsorship." If you opt out, our service providers or vendors may continue to serve you non-personalized, non-"interest-based" sponsorship credits and marketing messages on our website or third-party sites, and those sponsorship credits and marketing message may come with cookies that are used to control how often you encounter those credits and messages, to prevent fraud, and to do aggregate reporting. These cookies are used to collect information about traffic to our Services and how users interact with the NPR Services. The information collected includes the number of visitors to the NPR Services, the websites that referred visitors to the NPR Services, the pages that they visited on the NPR Services, what time of day they visited the NPR Services, whether they have visited the NPR Services before, and other similar information. We use this information to help operate the NPR Services more efficiently, to gather broad demographic information and to monitor the level of activity on the NPR Services. These cookies allow our Services to remember choices you make when you use them, such as remembering your Member station preferences and remembering your account details. The purpose of these cookies is to provide you with a more personal experience and to prevent you from having to re-enter your preferences every time you visit the NPR Services. These cookies track your browsing habits or other information, such as location, to enable us to show sponsorship credits which are more likely to be of interest to you. These cookies use information about your browsing history to group you with other users who have similar interests. Based on that information, and with our permission, we and our sponsors can place cookies to enable us or our sponsors to show sponsorship credits and other messages that we think will be relevant to your interests while you are using third-party services. | 82e4cdcc2caedd1f | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
middle_east | National Review | http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443359/un-resolution-israel-obama-administration-aids-palestinian-violence | How the Obama Administration Facilitated Palestinian Violence | 2016-12-27 | middle_east | Israelis needed our help more than ever last week . Yet for the first time in decades , they couldn β t rely on it .
Last week the Obama administration defied both history and international law to grant Palestinian terrorists a grand victory . At a stroke , the administration purported to declare any Israeli claim to any portion of the West Bank β including the Western Wall β illegitimate , and empowered Palestinian terrorists to press for their next round of concessions . It β s a betrayal that will echo far beyond any arms deals with Israel and could conceivably endanger the Jewish state β s very existence .
To put this staggering betrayal into context , one has to understand the long , bloody history of Arab efforts to destroy Israel , efforts that have been aided at every turn by the eternal anti-Semitism of huge swaths of our much-vaunted β international community . β
For the first 25 years of its existence , Israel endured multiple brute-force attempts at its destruction , as Arab powers mobilized large land armies for direct invasions of Israeli territory . That effort failed on a grand scale : Against all odds , Israeli forces prevailed time and again , leaving Israel in control of far more land than it initially possessed on its birth as a state . Undeterred by its conventional military losses , the Arab world turned to different methods , using a combination of lawfare and terrorism to slowly erode Israel β s ability to sustain its nation and culture . It is through the former tactic β the abuse of international law toward ends not achievable on the battlefield β that the international community seeks to deligitimize Israel β s territory and demography .
In other words , anti-Semites define β true β Israel ( the only one they β ll recognize ) as a much smaller nation that is swollen with literally millions of Palestinian β refugees β who pose an existential threat to the world β s only Jewish state . An Israel jammed into indefensible borders with a majority-Arab population wouldn β t be Israel at all . It would be Palestine , and its Jewish residents would be entirely dependent on the good graces of their enemies to live peacefully in their own ancestral homeland .
RELATED : Obama β s Betrayal of Israel Is a Black Day for American Diplomacy
No rational nation would agree to its own extinction , though , so a hammer is necessary β one strong enough to drive a nation to make compromises it would never otherwise make . That hammer is terrorism . Whether it β s rockets from Gaza , incursions from Lebanon , or crazed knife attacks in Jerusalem , terrorism is the force that β s supposed to make Israelis ultimately beg for mercy . Of course it β s all β condemned β by the international community . They tut-tut when Jewish children die , but all that violence has to be β understood. β Oppressed people lash out against their oppressors , you see .
One can β t understand the international community β s anti-Semitism without understanding the three great double standards that together gin up fake outrage against Israel and dupe the gullible into believing the Big Lie that Israel is the oppressor and Palestinians its chief victims .
The first double standard deals with the status of land acquired as a result of waging defensive warfare . Traditionally , when aggressors launch losing wars , they are not permitted to reclaim all the territory they lost without cost or consequence . This truth is uncontroversial and apparent from the distant and recent past . Germany does not control the same land that it did in August 1939 , nor does Japan . Yet time and again , the β international community β has taken the view that nations such as Egypt and Syria could and should claim the lands they lost in their own aggressive wars with Israel , including the very lands used as launching pads for those wars . The international community maintains that view in spite of the fact that applying the same reasoning worldwide would cause instability and chaos . Israel , alone among all countries , is thus bound to bear the burden of unwinding its past wars .
The administration β s actions fit perfectly within the long-term Palestinian-Arab strategy to destroy Israel .
The next double standard deals with the definition of β refugees β β a word that means one thing when applied to Palestinians and another thing when applied to anyone in the rest of the world . Everywhere else , a β refugee β is a person who flees ( or can β t return ) to his home country because of a β well-founded fear of persecution. β Descendants of those people are not reckoned by the international community to be refugees themselves , unless they are Palestinian . If the same standard were applied universally , it would mean constantly growing and inherently unstable β refugee β populations . A family tree would become an instrument of migration and mobility , permitting permanent relocation and resettlement , at will , so long as you had a refugee ancestor . No sovereign nation would permit such a regime . No other sovereign nation does . Again , Israel bears a unique burden .
The third double standard is that the international community rejects Israeli efforts to destroy hostile terrorist organizations . The United States can conduct international military operations against ISIS or al-Qaeda with minimal international outcry . Across the globe , other sovereign nations conduct ruthless and sustained military operations against terrorist organizations in their midst . Yet Israel can β t conduct military operations against Hamas or Hezbollah without generating world revulsion at its β high crimes . β
When the Obama administration last week allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution that declared all Israeli settlements to violate international law , it applied the first double standard , did nothing to address the second , and facilitated Palestinian attempts to maintain pressure on Israel through terrorist violence . The Palestinians gained an immense international victory without the promise of peace . The administration β s actions fit perfectly within the long-term Palestinian-Arab strategy to destroy Israel .
# related # In both 2000 and 2008 , Palestinians rejected permanent peace settlements that would have given them control over Gaza and all but the smallest enclaves of the West Bank , with land swaps with Israel making up the difference . Why ? Well , both peace agreements would have guaranteed the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state , which is unacceptable for Palestinians and their anti-Semitic allies . Better , they decided , to keep their eyes on the Israeli prize and play the long game . After all , there β s no point in negotiating when you can gain concessions through lawfare and terror .
As always , the barrier to lasting peace isn β t Israel but rather a β partner β that longs for its ultimate destruction . Last week , the Israelis needed the backing of the United States more than ever , and yet , for the first time in decades , they couldn β t rely on it . It β s shameful that the Obama administration fell for the Big Lie and rewarded Palestinian hatred . But , sadly , it β s not surprising .
β David French is a staff writer for βββ , a senior fellow at the βββ Institute , and an attorney . | gtQcmANTY439RdLe | 2 | United Nations | -0.1 | Middle East | 0 | Palestine | 0 | null | null | null | null |
great_britain | Vox | https://www.vox.com/2018/11/21/18102759/brexit-deal-theresa-may-parliament-second-referendum | The many possible outcomes of Brexit, explained | 2018-11-21 | great_britain | British Prime Minister Theresa May and the European Union have a Brexit deal , a historic agreement that lays out the terms of the United Kingdom β s breakup with the bloc .
The other 27 EU member-states finalized and approved the withdrawal agreement at a summit in Brussels this Sunday . But the process is far from over : May must now get a deeply divided UK Parliament to approve the plan .
Hostility for the deal has been building for nearly two weeks , ever since May first unveiled the proposed agreement .
The most vocal resistance comes from the prime minister β s own Conservative Party , a fractured mess of loyalists and hardline β Brexiteers β who want a more decisive break with the European Union . The opposition Labour Party has also said it will resist the deal . Right now , at least , the withdrawal agreement doesn β t seem to have the votes .
This standstill could push everyone toward a β no deal β Brexit , the β cliff edge β scenario that would be bad for the EU , and likely catastrophic for Britain . Planes would be grounded , ports would be clogged , food would rot , and garbage would pile up , and those are just some of the possible scenarios .
May β s future is riding on the agreement , as well . At a Sunday press conference , she warned that a failed deal would lead to division and uncertainty . That includes her own job , which is far from secure as she faces pushback from all sides .
Amid this political turmoil , Brexit β s March 29 , 2019 , deadline inches ever closer . Here β s a look at some possible outcomes as May prepares to test her deal in Parliament .
To recap , May introduced a Brexit proposal on November 14 after months of back-and-forth with EU leaders .
This lengthy agreement tackles some of the critical issues in the forthcoming EU-UK break-up , specifically the divorce settlement ( how much the UK must pay the EU , which is likely at least Β£39 billion , or about $ 50 billion ) and the post-Brexit status of UK citizens and EU nationals living in the EU and UK , respectively . It also includes the Irish β backstop , β ensuring that the politically sensitive border between Northern Ireland ( part of the UK ) and the Republic of Ireland ( an EU country ) remains open , even if the UK and EU don β t finalize border details in a post-Brexit deal .
The withdrawal agreement also calls for a 21-month transition period until December 31 , 2020 , to give the EU and the UK time to figure out their future relationship , the hard details of the trade , security cooperation , and more . ( The transition can be renewed one time for up to two years . ) A political declaration lays out the broad outlines for this arrangement .
The details of these plan were largely finalized on Sunday , when the 27 EU member states signed off on the deal in Brussels . The European Parliament will also need to formally approve the agreement at some point . But first it β s got to get ratified by the UK Parliament .
And this is promising to be difficult because every political camp within the UK has found something to hate in this agreement .
May β s plan , briefly , is an attempt at a β soft β Brexit compromise , but even those who favor closer alignment with the EU don β t love this deal . They see this deal as severing too many ties to EU , leaving Britain weaker and worse off economically than it was before .
The hardline β Brexiteers β in her party are virulently opposed β though it β s unlikely they β d be pleased by any deal . They see May β s deal as preventing the UK from reclaiming control of its borders and laws , and blocking it from making trade deals with other countries . Under May β s deal , the UK will also still have to follow EU customs rules for a period of time , but will lose its decision-making power in the bloc .
Then there β s Labour , the opposition party led by Jeremy Corbyn . Labour has its own disagreements about Brexit within the party , but it has collectively rejected May β s deal , saying it doesn β t meet their required pillars for a satisfactory Brexit . The party also sees this as an opportunity : If May and her deal implode , it might put them closer to regaining control of the government .
There β s pushback from other corners , including the Democratic Unionist Party ( DUP ) , a party from Northern Ireland . The DUP β s partnership with the Tories is keeping May in power . This party has resisted the deal ; they object to the Irish border backstop plan because it would apply different rules to Northern Ireland , compared to the rest of the UK .
The bottom line : Few are satisfied with this compromise , because the UK is splintered between those who want out of the EU and those who never wanted to leave in the first place . No side actually β wins β with this deal .
And May β s own government is divided on the plan . After she secured cabinet approval of her draft deal last week , two top Cabinet ministers quit in protest the next day , including her Brexit secretary . ( Several other junior members also stepped down . ) It β s a sign the divisions within Britain are deep enough to derail whatever May brings home from Brussels .
The UK Parliament could approve the deal ... at some point
The UK Parliament will vote on the Brexit deal in mid-December . May needs 320 votes to pass the agreement , but it β s not clear yet if she will have the support .
Back in 2017 , May tried to shore up support for Brexit negotiations by calling snap elections . Her plan backfired , and May β s Conservative Party ended up losing the majority , and formed a minority government with the DUP , whose 10 votes it needed to retain power .
The DUP said May has broken her promise on Brexit , and seems unlikely to support the deal .
As many as 51 Conservative party members have said they wouldn β t vote for a previous β soft β Brexit plan , but the number of total defectors right now is unclear . May β s cabinet will try to whip votes , though that won β t likely convince the hardcore Brexiteers .
It seems likely May will need to peel off some Labour votes in order to get her deal passed . ( Labour has broadly rejected the deal , but there β s still a chance that some MPs could break off and support it . )
So while it β s too early to say May β s deal is headed for defeat , it β s definitely not looking great .
At least on the first try . Experts say if the Brexit deal gets voted down in December , there β s a chance May might be able to try again , especially if the financial markets or businesses freak out at the prospect no-deal scenario .
In other words : The UK will have to be pushed to the brink to get Parliament to finally act .
Which is why some observers say this deal might eventually pass β but maybe not until the second try . If the markets react severely , members of Parliament may be cowed into going β back and take a second look β at the deal , according to Spencer Boyer , a senior fellow with the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement .
May could step aside after a leadership challenge from her Conservative party
Pro-Brexit Conservative MPs led the charge to oust May last week . Their efforts have since stalled , but at least 26 Tories confirmed they submitted letters of no confidence against May last week , arguing her handling of Brexit has made her unfit to lead .
At least 48 MPs must turn in letters to the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee , the Conservatives β parliamentary group , to trigger a β no confidence β vote within the party . May needs a majority β 158 Tory MPs β to survive . If she loses , she β d have to step aside . If she defeats the challenge , she can β t be challenged by her party for 12 months .
The rebellion against May fizzled out , as it appeared her opponents overestimated their support and couldn β t reach the 48-letter threshold .
But the threat could be revived now that May has finalized the deal , as the pro-Brexit crowd isn β t likely to stop agitating against her .
Yet the schisms within May β s own Conservative party could ultimately protect her from a leadership challenge . β The reason she β s managed to last has been that there isn β t a clear alternative [ to her ] , β Simon Usherwood , a professor at the University of Surrey and deputy director of an independent Brexit think tank , told me .
In other words , the pro-Brexit and pro-European wings of her party fear May β s replacement could be far more opposed to their positions . β Nobody feels entirely sure that if they got rid of her they would get ... someone who β s more favorable and supportive of what they want , β Usherwood added .
In March 2017 , May formally triggered Article 50 of the EU β s Lisbon Treaty . That set off a two-year countdown to the formal Brexit deadline of March 29 , 2019 .
If her Brexit deal fails in Parliament , that could push the UK closer to the brink of a devastating no-deal Brexit . But the UK might try to finagle an extension , arguing it needs more time to approve a deal , or negotiate more concessions , or buy time in the case of political uncertainty , such as a leadership change .
There β s no guarantee the EU would go for this . The complications are many , including upcoming EU parliamentary elections in May . And European leaders have said it β s this deal or no deal , so it seems highly unlikely they β d consider going back to the negotiating table .
The idea of a second referendum , or a β people β s vote β on Brexit , has been percolating for a while . Perhaps years of Brexit drama has been enough to change some people β s minds , or the public could solve the gridlock in Parliament , the thinking goes .
But how to get a second referendum β or what it would look like β is complicated . May said she would not call for one , so barring any last-minute about face or leadership change , it β s unlikely to happen . It would also be a near-impossible feat to hold a campaign before the March 29 , and would probably require begging the EU for an Article 50 extension .
There β s also the fact that a second referendum would likely be messy . It β s not clear what the referendum would ask . Would it be a test of May β s Brexit deal versus no-deal ? Would it involve multiple choices β leave , stay , or take the deal ? Would it be a do-over of the original 2016 β leave β versus β remain , β which will still disappoint at least half of a bitterly divided country and not necessarily change the outcome ?
Some Labour MPs are pushing to have a vote on a second referendum , but Corbyn has declined to come out strongly in favor . β It β s an option for the future , but it β s not an option for today , β Corbyn said over the weekend .
Proponents of the second referendum who see it as a Brexit out might be deluding themselves , too . β The last two national votes we β ve had haven β t gone the way that people thought they would , β Usherwood said . β So do you really want to open up a huge amount of uncertainty ? β
May currently faces a leadership challenge within her own party . But if MPs turn against her in Parliament , that could throw the entire government into turmoil .
The DUP sent a few warning shots , refusing to support Conservative legislation twice last week to pressure May on a better Brexit deal . May needs DUP β s 10 votes to stay in power ; if they defect from her government , the Conservatives lose a majority . That could lead to a no-confidence vote in Parliament , potentially triggering general elections .
Labour , meanwhile , has been pushing for new elections β and there β s always a chance they could get them if May β s deal blows up badly enough in Parliament , or her government crumbles . β Labour β s top priority is to get back in power , β Boyer told me .
A second referendum or a new general election seems implausible now . But Brexit β s one promise is to be unpredictable .
What happened in Brussels this weekend means it β s now up to the United Kingdom to decide whether to accept this divorce deal , or not . And European leaders have made clear that it β s this deal , or no deal at all .
β This is the best deal for the UK , the best deal for Europe , this is the only deal possible , β European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Sunday .
Erik Jones , the director of European and Eurasian Studies at Johns Hopkins University , told me that even if MPs object to this premise , or vote down the deal believing there β s a better one to be had , there β s not much more Europe can give that will sway the ideologues on either side .
β You β re not going to get any significant concessions , β he said . β If you think that there β s any silver bullet that could change the minds of enough members of the British Parliament having voted it down once , it just ain β t there . β
Looming over these debates is the possibility of a no-deal Brexit . The economic and logistical pain of crashing out of the EU may be enough to push MPs to accept an imperfect Brexit deal . β Everyone β s made a lot of noise and has been unhappy about this , that and the other , but they haven β t been able to agree on an alternative plan of action , β Usherwood said .
So , in the end , the current Brexit deal may be the only option . Ultimately , Usherwood said , if everything looks even less attractive than this deal , then that β s what will end up getting signed . β But , β he added , β who knows ? β | UVLWJNQqLBXHOODH | 0 | Brexit | -0.3 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
elections | CNN (Web News) | http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/05/politics/roy-moore-trump-analysis/index.html | The Republican rationalization of Roy Moore is now complete | 2017-12-05 | elections | Washington ( CNN ) Over the last 48 hours , the Republican Party has come to grips with a stark reality : Roy Moore may well win the Alabama special election next Tuesday .
That realization has triggered a series of events . President Donald Trump , always interested in associating himself with winning , endorsed Moore on Monday in a tweet and a phone call -- telling the embattled Senate nominee to `` go get 'em ! '' And the very same senators who called on Moore to step aside and condemned him for allegedly pursuing sexual relationships with teenage girls when he was in his 30s started to find ways to walk those comments back .
`` I think we 're going to let the people of Alabama decide a week from Tuesday who they want to send to the Senate , and then we 'll address the matter appropriately , '' Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Sunday
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch took that rationalization even further on Monday while traveling with Trump in Utah
Of Trump 's endorsement of Moore , Hatch said : `` I do n't think he had any choice but to do that . You know he needs every Republican he can get so he can put his agenda through . So that 's the only Republican you can possibly get down there . ''
Added Hatch of the accusations against Moore : `` Many of the things he allegedly did are decades ago . So it 's hard to -- that 's a decision that has to be made by the people in that state . ''
So . This is where we are . In the space of a few weeks , establishment Republicans have gone from saying they believed the allegations made against Moore and insisting he could n't and should n't represent the GOP to leaving it to the people of Alabama to decide and attacking the accusations as decades old .
Why ? Simple . Because the race is in a week . Moore has denied all of the allegations and never wavered in his pledge to remain in the race . And , perhaps most importantly , polling suggests Moore 's numbers have bounced back after an initial dip following the accusations . In short : He looks like a winner now , so Republicans are finding ways to justify his behavior .
That logic is transparently obvious in Hatch 's comments about Moore and the race . `` You know [ Trump ] needs every Republican he can get so he can put his agenda through , '' is Hatch essentially acknowledging that winning matters more than anything else . Period . Full stop . That any Republican , even one faced with allegations of sexually inappropriate conduct , is better than any Democrat .
That logical leap also puts to lie the idea forwarded by Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner ( R ) that if Moore wins , Senate Republicans should and would move to expel him from the chamber .
Color me skeptical . The last senator expelled was in 1862 for supporting the Confederacy . And , given the walking back of their Moore criticisms of late , can you imagine Republican senators pushing to overturn the results of a popular election victory ? If , as McConnell said , Senate Republicans are content with letting the people of Alabama decide who their senator should be , then the Senate ca n't very well overturn that verdict now can they ?
There are real risks in Republicans ' newly adopted `` winning is n't everything , it 's the only thing '' strategy in Alabama , however .
JUST WATCHED Analyst : Republican Party destroying itself Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Analyst : Republican Party destroying itself 02:03
`` Roy Moore in the US Senate would be a stain on the GOP and on the nation , '' tweeted 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Monday night . `` Leigh Corfman and other victims are courageous heroes . No vote , no majority is worth losing our honor , our integrity . ''
That sentiment was echoed Tuesday morning by Matthew Dowd , who handled polling for George W. Bush 's presidential campaign . `` After going all in for Roy Moore , the President , the White House , the GOP , and any of their enablers has zero moral authority to talk about Weinstein , Franken , Conyers , etc. , '' tweeted Dowd . `` Deplorable . ''
The issue Romney and Dowd raise is this : If the core principle of a political party is winning as a means to hold power then that party runs the very real risk of not standing for anything . Winning and power are means to an end . That end is accomplishing the policy goals that a party stands for . Winning is n't a goal to be achieved via governance .
What Republicans are doing here with their Moore justifications is seeking short-term gain at the very real risk of long-term pain . Keeping a two-seat Senate majority may seem like the most important thing in the world to Senate Republicans today . But , if the cost is sacrificing any sort of moral high ground when it comes to acceptable behavior in politics ( and life ) , the prospect of holding a single Senate seat seems like a very poor tradeoff . | FVH5ALQKa35hbU59 | 0 | Republican Party | -1.7 | Roy Moore | 1 | Elections | 0 | null | null | null | null |
middle_east | Fox News | http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/06/clinton-sought-end-run-around-counterterrorism-bureau-on-night-benghazi-attack/ | Clinton sought end-run around counterterrorism bureau on night of Benghazi attack, witness will say | 2013-05-06 | middle_east | On the night of Sept. 11 , as the Obama administration scrambled to respond to the Benghazi terror attacks , then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aide effectively tried to cut the department 's own counterterrorism bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making , according to a `` whistle-blower '' witness from that bureau who will soon testify to the charge before Congress , βββ has learned .
That witness is Mark I. Thompson , a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for operations in the agency β s counterterrorism bureau . Sources tell βββ Thompson will level the allegation against Clinton during testimony on Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee , chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa , R-Calif .
βββ has also learned that another official from the counterterrorism bureau -- independently of Thompson -- voiced the same complaint about Clinton and Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy to trusted national security colleagues back in October .
Extremists linked to Al Qaeda stormed the U.S. Consulate and a nearby annex on Sept. 11 , in a heavily armed and well-coordinated eight-hour assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya , Chris Stevens , and three other Americans .
Thompson considers himself a whistle-blower whose account was suppressed by the official investigative panel that Clinton convened to review the episode , the Accountability Review Board ( ARB ) . Thompson 's lawyer , Joseph diGenova , a former U.S. attorney , has further alleged that his client has been subjected to threats and intimidation by as-yet-unnamed superiors at State , in advance of his cooperation with Congress .
Sources close to the congressional investigation who have been briefed on what Thompson will testify tell βββ the veteran counterterrorism official concluded on Sept. 11 that Clinton and Kennedy tried to cut the counterterrorism bureau out of the loop as they and other Obama administration officials weighed how to respond to -- and characterize -- the Benghazi attacks .
`` You should have seen what ( Clinton ) tried to do to us that night , '' the second official in State 's counterterrorism bureau told colleagues back in October . Those comments would appear to be corroborated by Thompson 's forthcoming testimony .
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the counterterrorism officials ' allegation `` 100 percent false . '' A spokesman for Clinton said tersely that the charge is not true .
Daniel Benjamin , who ran the department 's Counterterrorism Bureau at the time , also put out a statement Monday morning strongly denying the charges .
`` I ran the bureau then , and I can say now with certainty , as the former Coordinator for Counterterrorism , that this charge is simply untrue , '' he said . `` Though I was out of the country on official travel at the time of the attack , I was in frequent contact with the Department . At no time did I feel that the Bureau was in any way being left out of deliberations that it should have been part of . ''
He went on to call his bureau a `` central participant in the interagency discussion about the longer-term response to Benghazi . '' He said `` at no time was the Bureau sidelined or otherwise kept from carrying out its tasks . ''
Documents from the State Department , the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council , first published in the May 13 edition of `` The Weekly Standard , '' showed that senior officials from those agencies decided within days of the attacks to delete all references to Al Qaeda 's known involvement in them from `` talking points '' being prepared for those administration officers being sent out to discuss the attacks publicly .
Those talking points -- and indeed , the statements of all senior Obama administration officials who commented publicly on Benghazi during the early days after the attacks -- sought instead to depict the Americans ' deaths as the result of a spontaneous protest that went awry . The administration later acknowledged that there had been no such protest , as evidence mounted that Al Qaeda-linked terrorists had participated in the attacks . The latter conclusion had figured prominently in the earliest CIA drafts of the talking points , but was stricken by an ad hoc group of senior officials controlling the drafting process . Among those involved in prodding the deletions , the documents published by `` The Weekly Standard '' show , was State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland , who wrote at one point that the revisions were not sufficient to satisfy `` my building 's leadership . ''
The allegations of the two counterterrorism officials stand to return the former secretary of state to the center of the Benghazi story . Widely regarded as a leading potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 , Clinton has insisted she was not privy to decisions made by underlings about the inadequate security for the U.S. installations in Benghazi that were made in the run-up to the attacks . And she has portrayed her role -- once the attacks became known in Washington -- as that of a determined fact-finder who worked with colleagues to fashion the best possible response to the crisis .
Clinton testified about Benghazi for the first and only time in January of this year , shortly before leaving office . She had long delayed her testimony , at first because she cited the need for the ARB to complete its report , and then because she suffered a series of untimely health problems that included a stomach virus , a concussion sustained during a fall at home , and a blood clot near her brain , from which she has since recovered . However , Clinton was never interviewed by the ARB she convened .
βββ disclosed last week that the conduct of the ARB is itself now under review by the State Department 's Office of Inspector General . A department spokesman said the OIG probe is examining all prior ARBs , not just the one established after Benghazi .
The two U.S. officials -- former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen and former Ambassador Tom Pickering -- who oversaw the internal review of the attacks defended their report .
`` From the beginning of the ARB process , we had unfettered access to everyone and everything including all the documentation we needed . Our marching orders were to get to the bottom of what happened , and that 's what we did , '' they said in a statement Monday .
The counterterrorism officials , however , concluded that Clinton and Kennedy were immediately wary of the attacks being portrayed as acts of terrorism , and accordingly worked to prevent the counterterrorism bureau from having a role in the department 's early decision-making relating to them .
Also appearing before the oversight committee on Wednesday will be Gregory N. Hicks , the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attacks . Like Thompson , Hicks is a career State Department official who considers himself a Benghazi whistle-blower . His attorney , Victoria Toensing , a former chief counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee , has charged that Hicks , too , has faced threats of reprisal from unnamed superiors at State . ( Toensing and diGenova , who are representing their respective clients pro bono , are married . )
Portions of the forthcoming testimony of Hicks -- who was one of the last people to speak to Stevens , and who upon the ambassador 's death became the senior U.S. diplomat in Libya -- were made public by Rep. Issa during an appearance on the CBS News program `` Face the Nation '' on Sunday .
Hicks told the committee that he and his colleagues on the ground in Libya that night knew instantly that Benghazi was a terrorist attack , and that he was astonished that no one drafting the administration 's talking points consulted with him before finalizing them , or before U.N . Ambassador Susan Rice delivered them on the Sunday talk shows of Sept. 16 .
Hicks was interviewed by the ARB but Thompson was not , sources close to the committee 's investigation tell βββ . | WWvOyffo7hSB7pDF | 2 | Middle East | -1.5 | Benghazi | -0.8 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
china | Breitbart News | https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2024/02/01/fbi-finds-chinese-state-hacker-malware-hundreds-infrastructure-related-routers/ | FBI Finds Chinese State Hacker Malware on Hundreds of U.S. Infrastructure-Related Routers | 2024-02-02 | China, Cybersecurity, FBI, Justice Department, Infrastructure, World, Foreign Affairs | The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Wednesday announced they were able to disrupt a massive Chinese cyber-espionage campaign called Volt Typhoon that penetrated critical American infrastructure systems.Volt Typhoon was detected and made public by Microsoftβs cybersecurity team in May 2023. Microsoft described the perpetrators as state-sponsored hackers from China who were developing βcapabilities that could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises.βMicrosoftβs conclusions were backed by the intelligence agencies of the βFive Eyesβ alliance: the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. China denied the allegations and accused the Five Eyes nations of pushing βdisinformation.βVolt Typhoonβs activities were originally thought to be centered on Guam, with the goal of disrupting American network communications across the Pacific in the event of a conflict with China, such as China might cause by invading Taiwan. Further investigation showed the scope of the operation was much greater, with targets including West Coast ports, oil pipelines, and the power grid of Texas.The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in December that China was clearly βpre-positioningβ cyber warfare assets to βdisrupt or destroy that critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict, to either prevent the United States from being able to project power into Asia or to cause societal chaos inside the United States.βVolt Typhoon was cited by cybersecurity experts as one of the biggest, most dangerous examples of βliving off the land,β a technique in which hackers infiltrate a system without causing any damage or revealing their presence, using tools that mimic normal network activity. As DHS put it, the Chinese operation was all about scouting ahead and preparing for destructive attacks that could be triggered if the U.S. and China came into conflict.DOJ said on Wednesday that the U.S. and its allies have stepped up their efforts against threats like Volt Typhoon, and that particular threat has been βdisruptedβ by purging its malicious software from hundreds of routers. U.S. officials remained certain that Chinese state-sponsored hackers were responsible for the intrusions.Sean Newell, deputy chief of the Justice Departmentβs National Security Division, explained that Volt Typhoonβs hackers created a βbotnetβ hidden inside network routers that concealed their other hacking activities. The compromised routers, which were mostly older Cisco and Netgear models nearing the end of their operational lifespans, allowed the hackers to work in secret, without security programs detecting their unusual network traffic.FBI Director Christopher Wray told the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party that the nearly-obsolete routers were βeasy targetsβ for the hackers, whose activities targeted water, power, oil, and transportation systems.Wray said the FBI also believes China will try to interfere in the 2024 elections, as it did in Taiwanβs recent presidential race. He pointed to the tremendous amount of information Chinese applications like TikTok collect about their users as potential espionage weapons since the Chinese military apparatus is legally guaranteed at-will access to all data compiled by Chinese corporations.βToday, and literally every day, theyβre actively attacking our economic security, engaging in wholesale theft of our innovation, and our personal and corporate data,β said Wray.CISA Director Jen Easterly warned that Chinaβs hackers have grown very adept at lurking undetected inside computer systems.βTheyβve elevated their ability to act like a system administrator so you really canβt tell thatβs a Chinese actor,β Easterly said.Security Week reported some concerns in the cybersecurity community that Volt Typhoon might not be completely βdisrupted,β because it was able to penetrate βthousands of organizations,β but the FBIβs court orders covered only hundreds of infected routers.The FBI essentially managed to find a way to order the malware in the infected routers to delete itself, without damaging the routers or the systems that relied upon them. The owners of those routers do not appear to have been warned in advance, but the FBI said it is attempting to notify all of them now and provide some security advice.Some hardware experts said the routers may not be completely purged of Volt Typhoonβs influence, so it would be safest to replace them all, as quickly as possible.CISA issued a bulletin to router manufacturers this week that explained how Volt Typhoon was able to hijack their hardware. CISA and the FBI asked manufacturers to eliminate the vulnerabilities that were exploited by the Chinese hacking group and βbuild security into the design, development, and maintenanceβ of their products. Among the suggestions included in the bulletin was programming routers to download software updates automatically, and making it harder to disable network security remotely. | b2240f2cde5adbcb | 2 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
elections | National Review (News) | https://www.nationalreview.com/news/gop-aides-claim-party-would-fight-neera-tandens-confirmation/ | GOP Aides Say Party Would Fight Neera Tandenβs Confirmation | 2020-11-30 | Elections, Joe Biden, Economic Policy | National Review Trump Praises Muskβs DOGE Team During Joint Hannity Interview for Helping Implement Executive Orders Senate Confirms Howard Lutnick to Be Commerce Secretary Trump Administration Eliminates DEI Considerations from Federal Contracting Guidelines Trump Signs Executive Order Aimed at βReducing Barriersβ to IVF New Pro-Life Coalition Seeks to Redefine Abortion Discourse with $30 Million Investment Republicans have indicated that Joe Bidenβs prospective nomination of Neera Tanden to the Office of Management and Budget would not pass the Senate with a GOP majority. Tanden, a former Hillary Clinton aide and current president of left-wing think tank Center for American Progress, has a history of comments criticizing various Republican senators, whose approval she would need to head OMB. βSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell [R., Ky.] has broken the Senate, he has broken the Supreme Court, and in conjunction with President Donald Trump, he has broken our democracy,β Tanden wrote in a statement during the confirmation process for Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Tanden also criticized Senator Susan Collins (R., Maine) during the confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh. βNeera Tanden, who has an endless stream of disparaging comments about the Republican Senatorsβ whose votes sheβll need, stands zero chance of being confirmed,β Drew Brandewie, spokesman for Senator John Cornyn, wrote on Twitter on Monday. βThereβs the sacrifice to the confirmation godsβ¦β commented Josh Holmes, former chief of staff to McConnell. Tanden is the first prospective cabinet nominee to generate considerable resistance among Republicans. Moderate senators Collins, Mitt Romney (R., Utah), and Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) have indicated that they will support Bidenβs cabinet picks as long as they are βmainstream.β The nominees so far include Clinton aide Jake Sullivan for national security adviser, and Antony Blinken for secretary of state. Among Democrats, Tanden has drawn criticism for her apparent hostility to the progressive wing of the party. Tanden was an informal adviser to the Clinton campaign in 2016, which held off progressive challenger Bernie Sanders in the primary only to be defeated by Donald Trump in the general election. Send a tip to the news team at NR. Under the SECβs new guidance, undertaking βspecific actions on a social, environmental, or political policyβ may be seen as a violation. Usually the State Departmentβs FTO designations are reserved for groups like al-Qaeda or ISIS instead of money-driven cartels. After Trump left office, there was a βrapid return to underreportingβ under Biden, according to the National Association of Scholars. His tone and false claims can be explained by personal history more than anything else. The MTA immediately filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court challenging the decision. Ernst has already laid out a blueprint for how Loeffler can improve the SBAβs various loan programs and make the agency run more efficiently. Β© 2025 National Review Newsletters Β© 2025 National Review | 98bca70751b89b51 | 2 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
inequality | HuffPost | http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/worldbank-evicted-abandoned | How The World Bank Broke Its Promise To Protect The Poor | 2015-04-16 | World Bank, Income Inequality, Poverty, World, Inequality | people were forced from their homes , deprived of their land or had their livelihoods damaged because they lived in the path of a World Bank project .
How The World Bank Broke Its Promise To Protect The Poor
Find Out First ICIJ and The Huffington Post estimate that 3.4 million people have been physically or economically displaced by World Bank-backed projects since 2004 . For email updates on our investigation , sign up below .
Beneath a gloomy white sky , more than 100 armed police poured into the slum of Badia East in the teeming megacity of Lagos , Nigeria .
As they advanced , they cracked their batons on the unpaved streets and against the ramshackle walls of the shanties .
β If you love your life , move out ! β the officers shouted .
Thousands of people grabbed what belongings they could carry and fled .
Then a line of hulking excavators moved in , using their hydraulic claws to smash homes into pieces . Within hours , the neighborhood was a ruin .
Bimbo Omowole Osobe , a former resident of the Badia East slum who was evicted in 2013 when her neighborhood was demolished , sits in the clinic where she now sleeps at night in the reception area . Osobe joined with volunteers from Justice and Empowerment Initiatives , an NGO where she works with other slum dwellers to fight demolitions . A child in the slums of Orisunbare Ijora Badia in Lagos , Nigeria . George Osodi / International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
Bimbo Omowole Osobe briefly lost track of her children in the chaos . When she returned to the community hours later , her concrete-block home and two small shops were gone .
β It β s like when a woman goes in for labor , and the baby comes out dead , β she said . β That β s how it felt to me . β
The Lagos state government flattened Badia East in February 2013 to clear land in an urban renewal zone financed by the World Bank , the global lender committed to fighting poverty . The neighborhood β s poor residents were cast out without warning or compensation and left to fend for themselves in a crowded , dangerous city .
Evictions like the one in Badia East aren β t supposed to happen in the middle of projects backed by the World Bank .
For more than three decades , the lender has maintained a set of β safeguard β policies that it claims have brought about a more humane and democratic system of economic development . Governments that borrow money from the bank can β t force people from their homes without warning . Families evicted to make way for dams , power plants or other big projects must be resettled and their livelihoods restored .
Key Findings Over the last decade , projects funded by the World Bank have physically or economically displaced an estimated 3.4 million people , forcing them from their homes , taking their land or damaging their livelihoods .
The World Bank has regularly failed to live up to its own policies for protecting people harmed by projects it finances .
The World Bank and its private-sector lending arm , the International Finance Corp. , have financed governments and companies accused of human rights violations such as rape , murder and torture . In some cases the lenders have continued to bankroll these borrowers after evidence of abuses emerged .
Ethiopian authorities diverted millions of dollars from a World Bank-supported project to fund a violent campaign of mass evictions , according to former officials who carried out the forced resettlement program .
From 2009 to 2013 , World Bank Group lenders pumped $ 50 billion into projects graded the highest risk for β irreversible or unprecedented β social or environmental impacts β more than twice as much as the previous five-year span .
The bank β s commitment , it says , is to β do no harm β to people or the environment .
Over the past decade , the bank has regularly failed to enforce its rules , with devastating consequences for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet , an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists , The Huffington Post and other media partners has found .
The World Bank often neglects to properly review projects ahead of time to make sure communities are protected , and frequently has no idea what happens to people after they are removed . In many cases , it has continued to do business with governments that have abused their citizens , sending a signal that borrowers have little to fear if they violate the bank β s rules , according to current and former bank employees .
β There was often no intent on the part of the governments to comply β and there was often no intent on the part of the bank β s management to enforce , β said Navin Rai , a former World Bank official who oversaw the bank β s protections for indigenous peoples from 2000 to 2012 . β That was how the game was played . β
In March , after ICIJ and βββ informed World Bank officials that the news outlets had found β systemic gaps β in the institution β s protections for displaced families , the bank acknowledged that its oversight has been poor , and promised reforms .
β We took a hard look at ourselves on resettlement and what we found caused me deep concern , β Jim Yong Kim , the World Bank β s president , said in a statement .
The scope of β involuntary resettlement , β as the bank calls it , is vast . From 2004 to 2013 , the bank β s projects physically or economically displaced an estimated 3.4 million people , forcing them from their homes , taking their land or damaging their livelihoods , ICIJ β s analysis of World Bank records reveals .
The true figure is likely higher , because the bank often fails to count or undercounts the number of people affected by its projects .
A team of more than 50 journalists from 21 countries spent nearly a year documenting the bank β s failure to protect people moved aside in the name of progress . The reporting partners analyzed thousands of World Bank records , interviewed hundreds of people and reported on the ground in Albania , Brazil , Ethiopia , Honduras , Ghana , Guatemala , India , Kenya , Kosovo , Nigeria , Peru , Serbia , South Sudan and Uganda .
In these countries and others , the investigation found , the bank β s lapses have hurt urban slum dwellers , hardscrabble farmers , impoverished fisherfolk , forest dwellers and indigenous groups β leaving them to fight for their homes , their land and their ways of life , sometimes in the face of intimidation and violence .
Asia And Africa Resettled Nearly all of the estimated 3.4 million people who have been physically or economically displaced by World Bank-backed projects between 2004 and 2013 live in Africa or one of three Asian countries : Vietnam , China and India . Read about the data and our methodology here . Continent Evicted People Displaced See Countries By : People Displaced Total Projects Source : the World Bank Only countries where resettlement is known to have occurred are included .
Between 2004 and 2013 , the World Bank and its private-sector lending arm , the International Finance Corp. , committed to lend $ 455 billion to bankroll nearly 7,200 projects in developing countries .
Over the same span , people affected by World Bank and IFC investments lodged dozens of complaints with the lenders β internal review panels , alleging the lenders and their borrowers failed to live up to World Bank and IFC safeguard rules .
In Lagos , the World Bank β s ombudsman , the Inspection Panel , said bank management β fell short of protecting the poor and vulnerable communities against forceful evictions. β Bank officials should have paid better attention to what was going on in Badia East , the panel said , given Lagos authorities β long history of bulldozing slums and forcing people from their homes .
One year after the evictions , the bank loaned Lagos authorities $ 200 million to support the state government β s budget .
The World Bank said it was β not a party to the demolition β and that it advised the Lagos government to negotiate with displaced people , leading to compensation for most of those who said they β d been harmed .
Cases involving evictions have drawn the most attention , but the most common hardships suffered by people living in the path of World Bank projects involve lost or diminished income .
A fisherman near Mundra , India , prepares the net for an overnight fishing trip . Locals say a World Bank Group-backed project in the area has depleted fish stocks . Sami Siva / International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
On India β s northwest coast , members of a historically oppressed Muslim community claim that heated water spewing from a coal-fueled power plant has depleted fish and lobster stocks in the once-fertile gulf where they make their living . The IFC loaned Tata Power , one of India β s largest companies , $ 450 million to help build the plant .
The U.S. and other global powers launched the World Bank at the end of World War II to promote development in countries torn by war and poverty . Member countries finance the bank and vote on whether to approve roughly $ 65 billion in annual loans , grants and other investments .
In 2014 , the bank financed initiatives as varied as training for chicken farmers in Senegal and sewage system upgrades in the West Bank and Gaza Strip .
What Is The World Bank ? The World Bank Group is the globe β s most prestigious development lender , bankrolling hundreds of government projects each year in pursuit of its high-minded mission : to combat the scourge of poverty by backing new transit systems , power plants , dams and other projects it believes will help boost the fortunes of poor people . Read more Β» World Bank Group IBRD IDA IFC International Bank for Reconstruction and Development , one of the two lending arms traditionally considered to be the World Bank International Development Association , one of the two lending arms traditionally considered to be the World Bank International Finance Corporation , the World Bank β s private-lending arm Typically lends to middle-income governments , also some creditworthy low-income countries Typically lends to low-income governments Typically lends to private firms in developing ( low- to middle-income ) countries Founded in 1944 Founded in 1960 Founded in 1956 FY 2014 commitments $ 18.6 billion FY 2014 commitments $ 22.2 billion FY 2014 commitments $ 17.3 billionn Lends at market rate Guarantees loans Lends at low interest rate Lends at market rate Guarantees loans Invests in private companies 1 . IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development , one of the two lending arms traditionally considered to be the World Bank Typically lends to middle-income governments , also some creditworthy low-income countries Founded in 1944 FY 2014 commitments $ 18.6 billion Lends at market rate Guarantees loans 2 . IDA International Development Association , one of the two lending arms traditionally considered to be the World Bank Typically lends to low-income governments Founded in 1960 FY 2014 commitments $ 22.2 billion Lends at low interest rate 3 . IFC International Finance Corporation , the World Bank 's private lending arm Typically lends to private firms in developing ( low- to middle-income ) countries Founded in 1956 FY 2014 commitments $ 17.3 billion Lends at market rate Guarantees loans Invests in private companies World Bank Annual Report Sources : Congressional Research Service
World Bank President Kim said in March that the demand in struggling regions for infrastructure spending β to provide clean water , electricity , medical care and other vital needs β will mean the bank will finance an increasing number of big projects likely to remove people from their land or disrupt their livelihoods .
The World Bank also put out a 5Β½-page β action plan β that it said would improve its oversight of resettlement .
β We must and will do better , β said David Theis , a World Bank spokesman , in response to the reporting team β s questions .
Yet even as it promised reforms to its procedures , the bank has proposed sweeping changes to the policies that underlie them . The bank is now in the middle of a rewrite of its safeguards policy that will set its course for decades to come .
Some current and former World Bank officials warn that the proposed revisions will further undermine the bank β s commitment to protecting the people it was created to serve . The latest draft of the new policy , released in July 2014 , would give governments more room to sidestep the bank β s standards and make decisions about whether local populations need protecting , they say .
β I am saddened to see now that pioneering policy achievements of the bank are being dismantled and downgraded , β said Michael Cernea , a former high-ranking bank official who oversaw the bank resettlement protections for nearly two decades . β The poorest and most powerless will pay the price . β
The bank says it has listened to the feedback and will release a revised draft with β the strongest , most state-of-the-art environmental and social safeguards . β
A man-made disaster in eastern Brazil in the late 1970s helped prompt the World Bank to adopt its first systematic protections for people living in the footprint of big projects .
Rising waters upstream from the Sobradinho Dam , built with World Bank financing , forced more than 60,000 people from their homes . Their relocation was poorly planned and chaotic . Some families fled their villages as water began pouring into their homes and fields , leaving behind herds of animals to drown .
The fiasco gave Cernea , the World Bank β s first in-house sociologist , leverage to convince the bank to approve its first comprehensive policy for protecting people whose lives are upended by the bank β s projects . Cernea based the new rules , approved by the bank in 1980 , on a simple premise : People who lose their land , their homes or their jobs should get enough help to restore , or exceed , their old standard of living .
Under the World Bank β s rules , governments seeking money from the bank must put together detailed resettlement plans for people who are physically or economically displaced .
Current and former bank employees say the work of enforcing these standards has often been undercut by internal pressures to win approval for big , splashy projects . Many bank managers , insiders say , define success by the number of deals they fund . They often push back against requirements that add complications and costs .
Daniel Gross , an anthropologist who worked for the bank for two decades as a consultant and staff member , said in-house safeguards watchdogs have β a place at the table β in debates over how much the bank is required to do to protect people . But amid the push to get projects done , they β re frequently ignored and pressed to β play ball and get along , β he said .
In an internal survey conducted last year by bank auditors , 77 percent of employees responsible for enforcing the institution β s safeguards said they think that management β does not value β their work . The bank released the survey in March , at the same time that it admitted to poor oversight of its resettlement policy .
β Safeguards are irrelevant for managers , β said one staffer who was surveyed for the report .
Albanian authorities used a World Bank-backed project to clear the way for a planned seaside resort , partly or completely tearing down 15 homes in the impoverished village of Jale . Andon Koka 's home was flattened , and half of his brother 's home ( in background ) was demolished . Besar Likmeta / BalkanInsight.com
In 2007 , residents of Jale , a tiny Albanian beach hamlet on the Ionian Sea , found themselves in the path of a coastal cleanup effort backed by a $ 17.5 million loan from the World Bank . More than a dozen poor families lived in Jale , many in homes with add-ons and extra floors they rented to vacationers .
They saw Jale as an ideal spot for a high-end resort to lure tourists to the country . They decided to use the coastal restoration project β which was managed by the son-in-law of Sali Berisha , Albania β s prime minister at the time β as a vehicle for turning the plan into a reality .
Before dawn one April morning , dozens of police officers streamed into the beach community , heading for structures previously identified in photos taken during aerial surveys paid for by the World Bank . The police rousted residents from their beds and forced them from their homes . Demolition crews leveled entire houses or tore down additions that the government said had been put up without proper permits .
Sanie Halilaj cried as work crews pulled down half of the house she had shared with her husband for more than half a century .
β When you lose a loved one , someone consoles you , β the 74-year-old said in a recent interview . β But when you lose your home , there is no consolation . β
Bank officials initially denied the evictions were connected to the bank-financed coastal initiative . But a year later , the bank β s Inspection Panel found β direct links β between the project and the demolitions . The panel slammed the bank for embarking on a β systematic effort β to obstruct its investigation , providing answers β at times in total conflict with factual information which had been long known to management . β
After the panel β s report was released in 2008 , then-World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick called the bank β s actions β appalling. β Zoellick vowed that the institution would swiftly β strengthen oversight , improve procedures and help the families who had their buildings demolished . β
Seven years later , little has changed . In Jale , most residents still haven β t received payment from the government for what they lost , even though the World Bank has covered their legal costs . At the bank , oversight remains weak .
A 2014 internal World Bank review found that in 60 percent of sampled cases , bank staffers failed to document what happened to people after they were forced from their land or homes .
Seventy percent of the cases sampled in the 2014 report lacked required information about whether anyone had complained and whether complaints were resolved , indicating the bank β s mechanisms for dealing with grievances were β box-checking β exercises that β existed on paper but not in practice , β the in-house reviewers wrote .
These β sizeable gaps in information β indicate β significant potential failures in the bank β s system for dealing with resettlement , β the report said . β The inability to confirm that resettlement has been satisfactorily completed poses a reputational risk for the World Bank . β
Ben Hallman / The Huffington Post Victor Mendoza , the president of a farming co-op near the sprawling Yanacocha gold mine in northern Peru , with his 10-year-old son . The mine , built two decades ago with the financial backing of the International Finance Corp. , the private-lending arm of the World Bank , is deeply unpopular in this region . Farmers like Mendoza claim it is polluting their water supply and threatening the health of their families and livestock . Read the story here
Most World Bank investments do not require evictions or damage people β s ability to earn a living or feed their families . But the percentage of those that do has increased sharply in recent years .
A 2012 internal audit found that projects in the bank β s pipeline triggered the bank β s resettlement policy 40 percent of the time β twice as often as projects the bank had already completed .
The World Bank and IFC have also been boosting support for mega-projects , such as oil pipelines and dams , that the lenders acknowledge are most likely to cause β irreversible β social or environmental harm , an analysis by βββ and ICIJ found .
A big project can upend the lives of tens of thousands of people .
Since 2004 , World Bank estimates indicate that at least a dozen bank-supported projects physically or economically displaced more than 50,000 people each .
Studies show that forced relocations can rip apart kinship networks and increase risks of illness and disease . Resettled populations are more likely to suffer unemployment and hunger , and mortality rates are higher .
The World Bank acknowledges that resettlement is difficult , but says it β s often impossible to build roads , power plants and other much-needed projects without moving people from their homes .
β We stand by the need to continue financing infrastructure projects , including those that entail land acquisition and involuntary resettlement , β said Theis , the World Bank spokesman .
The bank says it strives to make sure its borrowers provide real help to people pushed aside by big projects . In Laos , the bank says , authorities built more than 1,300 new homes with electricity and toilets , 32 schools and two health centers for thousands of people forced to move to make way for a World Bank-financed dam .
β Through careful project design and proper implementation , land acquisition and involuntary resettlement have resulted in people β s lives improving significantly , β Theis said in a statement .
In a drought-haunted region of Brazil , farm families pushed aside by another World Bank-backed dam say that their lives haven β t been improved .
Thirty-five families live in a tiny , government-built relocation village called Gameleira , named after the dam and reservoir that forced them to leave their homes along the MundaΓΊ River .
In their old homes , they could take water from wells and the river itself , but the relocation village has no fresh water source . A World Bank report acknowledged a delay in getting water access for the new village , but said the village β s water issues had been solved by late 2012 .
The villagers say that β s not true . They are still waiting , four years after they were forced to relocate , for local authorities to keep their promise to build a small pipeline to draw water from the new reservoir to the relocation village . Meanwhile , water from the reservoir is being piped to urban areas .
A well in the village produces salty water and , even with desalination equipment , each family is limited to 36 liters of water a day . Families supplement their supply by buying from commercial vendors , sometimes spending as much as a third of their modest incomes .
These purchases provide them enough water to irrigate small gardens of yuca , beans and corn . If they want to plant cash crops β such as cashews β they have to wait for rain , which hardly ever comes .
β We feel that we are suffering so that people from the city can have water , β 39-year-old Francisco VenΓlson dos Santos , a farmer and father of four boys and two girls , said . β They abandoned us here . β
In a written statement , the World Bank said it is satisfied the village was provided an adequate supply of water β both in terms of quantity and quality. β The bank said it is helping Brazilian authorities deal with northeast Brazil β s prolonged drought by helping β to increase the resilience of small rural communities , β giving them advice on drilling emergency groundwater wells and creating β drought preparedness plans . β
In July 2012 , an unconventional leader took over as the World Bank β s new president . Jim Yong Kim , a Korean-American physician known for his work fighting AIDS in Africa , became the first World Bank president whose background wasn β t in finance or politics .
Two decades before , Kim had joined protests in Washington , D.C. , calling for the World Bank to be shut down altogether for valuing indicators like economic growth over assistance to poor people .
Human rights advocates and bank staffers working on safeguards hoped that Kim β s appointment would signal a shift toward greater protections for people affected by World Bank projects .
In March , Kim said he was concerned about β major problems β in the bank β s oversight of its resettlement policies . He announced an action plan calling for greater independence for the bank β s safeguards watchdogs and a 15 percent funding boost for safeguards enforcement .
But while Kim and other bank officials have acknowledged general shortcomings , they have consistently denied that the bank shares blame for violent or wrongful evictions carried out by its borrowers .
In Ethiopia , the World Bank β s Inspection Panel found the bank had violated its own rules by failing to acknowledge an β operational link β between a bank-funded health and education initiative and a mass relocation campaign carried out by the Ethiopian government . In 2011 , soldiers carrying out the evictions targeted some villagers for beatings and rapes , killing at least seven , according to a report by Human Rights Watch and ICIJ β s interviews with people who were evicted .
Andreea Campeanu / International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Daily life in a refugee camp in South Sudan . Some of the camp β s residents fled Ethiopia to avoid brutal evictions carried out by government forces . New evidence suggests the government β s actions were funded by the World Bank . Read the story here
Kim said that while β we could have done more β to help the evicted communities , the bank was ultimately not at fault .
In India , the IFC β s internal ombudsman found that the lender had breached its policies by not doing enough to protect the large fishing community living in the shadow of the coal power plant it financed on the Gulf of Kutch . With Kim β s approval , IFC β s management rejected many of the ombudsman β s findings and defended the actions of its corporate client .
In both Ethiopia and India , the World Bank Group declined to direct its clients to fully compensate the affected communities .
In response to complaints about the Badia East evictions in Nigeria , the World Bank embraced a shortcut that fell short of its promise that people affected by projects will be fully compensated for their losses .
Typically , a community that claims it has been harmed by a bank project can file a complaint that will trigger an investigation by the bank β s Inspection Panel .
But when three Badia East residents submitted a complaint , panel staffers held off launching an investigation . Instead , they guided the residents into a new pilot program for handling disputes . The program put the community into direct negotiations with the Lagos state government .
Megan Chapman , then a lawyer for the Social and Economic Rights Action Center and now a co-founder of Justice & Empowerment Initiatives , represented the evicted residents . The Inspection Panel promised Chapman that the Badia East community could demand an investigation at any time if it wasn β t satisfied with the outcome , according to emails reviewed by ICIJ .
Negotiations didn β t go well for the evicted residents . The Lagos government insisted they had been illegal squatters , even though some of them had lived there for decades . It gave the group an ultimatum : Accept a small payment and sign away any legal rights , or get nothing .
Chapman believed that the government β s offer violated the bank β s resettlement policy because it didn β t provide new homes for the displaced or compensation equal to what they β d lost . The payments that Lagos authorities offered for larger demolished structures , for example , were 31 percent lower than what the World Bank β s own consultants said they were worth .
β It was like David and Goliath . There were these little people fighting against this giant , β Chapman said . The bank β really left vulnerable people on their own . β
The government β s ultimatum divided the community . The leader of Chapman β s organization said it was the best offer the evicted people were going to get . He said he was satisfied with the deal . Many residents and their advocates β including Chapman β objected .
Internal emails obtained by ICIJ indicate that by early 2014 , the Inspection Panel β s chair , Eimi Watanabe , was already pushing to make sure that the panel would not investigate the World Bank β s role in the case .
After hearing that the leader of Chapman β s group was satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations , Watanabe urged her staff to issue a formal notice shutting down the possibility of any investigation before the fragile agreement fell apart , according to internal emails obtained by ICIJ .
β Pl [ ease ] issue notice soonest before it unravels , β Watanabe wrote on Feb. 6 , 2014 .
Watanabe β s directive didn β t immediately kill the investigation , but over the following months the panel made it clear that it didn β t want to dig deeper into the World Bank β s actions .
In July 2014 , two of the three residents who had filed the complaint told the panel they were unhappy with the deal and that they wanted to go forward with an investigation . The panel rejected their request and shut the case down with an official notice that said , as an aside , that the bank had fallen short of its own resettlement standards .
Chapman and other advocates say the bank misled them about how the pilot program would work and abandoned the people of Badia East .
Watanabe did not respond to ICIJ β s questions about the Lagos case .
Gonzalo Castro de la Mata , the Inspection Panel β s current chair , said the panel β deliberated carefully at every stage of the case β and did not seek to arbitrarily shut down the investigation before it could start .
He said that although the Lagos government had agreed to follow World Bank rules for resettlement in Badia East and other neighborhoods , the evictions weren β t done under the official umbrella of the bank β s urban renewal initiative . Because of this and other factors , he said , the panel determined that β a lengthy process of investigation would not at the end of day necessarily yield better outcomes β for residents who lost their homes .
Tony Karumba / GroundTruth Joseph Kilimo Chebet , a father of five , standing next to the burned remains of his homestead in Kenya , destroyed only hours prior by Kenya Forest Service officers . Read the story here
As it enters its eighth decade , the World Bank faces an identity crisis .
It is no longer the only lender willing to venture into struggling nations and finance huge projects . It is being challenged by new competition from other development banks that don β t have the same social standards β and are rapidly drawing support from the World Bank β s traditional backers .
China has launched a new development bank and persuaded Britain , Germany and other American allies to join , despite open U.S. opposition .
These geopolitical shifts have fueled doubts about whether the World Bank still has the clout β or the desire β to impose strong protections for people living in the way of development .
United Nations human rights officials have written World Bank President Kim to say they β re concerned that the growing ability of borrowers to access other financing has spurred the bank to join a β race to the bottom β and push its standards for protecting people even lower .
The bank β s proposed changes to its safeguard rules would grant many borrowers greater authority to police themselves . In the current draft , governments would be allowed to hold off on preparing resettlement plans until after the bank greenlights projects . They would also be permitted to use their own environmental and social policies instead of the bank β s safeguards , as long as the bank determines these policies are consistent with its own .
Some current and former bank officials say these changes would spell disaster for the people living in the growing footprint of the bank β s projects β allowing governments to abide by weaker national standards and decide whether vulnerable populations need protecting after they have already received financing .
In December , the World Bank β s biggest patron , the U.S. Congress , approved a measure directing the American representative on the World Bank board to vote against any future project that would be subject to weaker safeguards than the ones currently in place .
The bank says that the new rules would strengthen the protections for populations affected by its projects .
Theis , the bank spokesman , said that under the proposed rules , β a rigorous upfront scoping of the project is always required β and borrowers still must prepare plans to address resettlement and other adverse impacts of projects β well in advance of any construction activities . β
World Bank officials are now writing a new version of the safeguards that they say will take into account the criticisms of their previous draft . They expect to release the new draft in the late spring or summer .
In the meantime , the bank continues to ramp up its investment in large infrastructure projects , like the one that claimed Bimbo Osobe β s home in Badia East .
Osobe spent months after her eviction sleeping under only a net for shelter , she said .
As of mid-March , she was staying in a medical clinic , sleeping in the reception area after the clinic closes at night . She β s been forced to send three of her children away to stay with relatives , she said .
β It is not a good thing for a family to be divided , β Osobe said . | 7f69d1d2eb26d26e | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
healthcare | Associated Press | https://apnews.com/6bf623038da94f6ba74d71761f0cf665 | Judge blocks Trump birth control coverage rules in 13 states | 2019-01-14 | Healthcare, Birth Control, Donald Trump | Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2016, file photo, a one-month dosage of hormonal birth control pills is displayed in Sacramento, Calif. A U.S. judge will hear arguments over Californiaβs attempt to block new rules by the Trump administration allowing more employers to claim religious objections to providing birth control benefits. The rules set to go into effect on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) FILE - In this March 25, 2015 file photo, Margot Riphagen of New Orleans, La., wears a birth control pills costume during a protest in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. A U.S. judge will hear arguments Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, over Californiaβs attempt to block new rules by the Trump administration that would allow more employers to opt out of providing no-cost birth control to women. The new rules are set to go into effect on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File) HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) β A federal judge on Monday put a nationwide hold on Trump administration rules that allow more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control. U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia agreed with a lawsuit originally filed by Pennsylvania, citing the potential harm to states should the rules be enforced. Numerous citizens could lose contraceptive coverage, Beetlestone wrote, resulting in the increased use of state-funded contraceptive services, as well as increased costs to state services from unintended pregnancies. The rules, scheduled to take effect Monday, would change a mandate under 2010βs Affordable Care Act by allowing more employers, including publicly traded companies, to opt out of providing no-cost contraceptive coverage to women by claiming religious objections. Some private employers could also now object on moral grounds. Pennsylvaniaβs attorney general, Josh Shapiro, called the court ruling a βvictory for the health and economic independence of womenβ and the rejection of a Trump administration move to violate a federal law that requires insurers to cover the services. βCongress hasnβt changed that law, and the president canβt simply ignore it with an illegal rule,β Shapiro said. New Jersey later joined Pennsylvania in suing. In issuing the injunction, Beetlestone wrote in her opinion that the states were likely to win their lawsuitβs claims that Trumpβs administration violated procedural requirements for how regulations must be created and that the rules exceed the scope of authority under the Affordable Care Act. The Department of Justice did not say whether it would appeal, saying only that it will βcontinue to vigorously defend religious liberty.β The Department of Health and Human Services said the rules affirm the administrationβs commitment to upholding constitutional freedoms. βNo American should be forced to violate his or her own conscience in order to abide by the laws and regulations governing our health care system,β Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said in a statement. On Sunday, a federal judge in California blocked the rules from taking effect in the jurisdictions in the lawsuit before him. Those included California, New York and 11 other states along with Washington, D.C. At issue is a requirement under former Democratic President Barack Obamaβs health care law that birth control services be covered at no additional cost. Obama officials included exemptions for religious organizations. But the administration of President Donald Trump, a Republican, sought to expand those exemptions and added βmoral convictionsβ as a basis to opt out of providing birth control services. The Justice Department has argued that the new rules βprotect a narrow class of sincere religious and moral objectors from being forced to facilitate practices that conflict with their beliefs.β Beetlestone had previously blocked an interim version of the rules in a December 2017 ruling. In November, the Trump administration rolled out a final version of the rule, prompting another challenge by states. Associated Press writer Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. | 940edcf7beea5f7b | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
trade | USA TODAY | https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/27/nafta-u-s-mexico-reach-deal-revise-key-parts-nafta/1071821002/ | U.S., Mexico strike new trade deal that could pave the way for an overhaul of NAFTA | 2018-08-27 | trade | CLOSE Donald Trump called NAFTA the β worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere. β β So he wants to renegotiate it -- or kill it altogether . So just what is NAFTA ? ( May 18 ) AP
WASHINGTON β President Donald Trump said Monday the United States and Mexico have reached a new trade deal , paving the way for the possible revision of the North American Free Trade Agreement .
In an Oval Office announcement , Trump said the new agreement would be called the United States-Mexico trade agreement and would replace NAFTA , which he said had β bad connotations β for the United States .
β It β s a big day for trade , β he said . β It β s a big day for our country . β
Trump said that he intends to terminate NAFTA and that the United States would immediately begin negotiations with Canada , the third party in the trilateral trade pact that he has called the β worst deal ever . β
β If they would like to negotiate fairly , we will do that , β Trump said . He said it β s possible that a separate deal could be reached with Canada .
Stocks soared on news of the deal between the two countries . The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 259 points , or 1 percent , to 26,049 . The Nasdaq climbed 72 points , or nearly 1 percent , to 8,018 . The S & P 500 rose 22 points , or 0.8 percent , to 2,897 .
The United States and Mexico have held five consecutive weeks of talks to revise parts of the NAFTA .
In a phone call with Trump , Mexican President Enrique PeΓ±a Nieto called the deal β something very positive for the United States and Mexico . β
The two nations hope to get a final deal signed before PeΓ±a Nieto leaves office Dec. 1 . Before the United States can sign the deal , Congress must be given 90 days β notice . U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said a formal notice would be sent to Congress on Friday and the deal would be signed by the end of November .
PeΓ±a Nieto repeatedly expressed interest for Canada to be incorporated into the agreement . Trump said the United States would have a deal with Canada `` one way or another . ''
`` It β ll either be a tariff on cars , or it β ll be a negotiated deal , '' he said . `` Frankly , a tariff on cars is a much easier way to go . Perhaps the other would be much better for Canada . β
In Mexico City , Marcelo Ebrard , Mexico β s incoming foreign minister under President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador , said Monday he was pleased to see the United States and Mexico craft a new trade deal , according to Reuters .
β We see the agreement announced today as positive progress . ... In the coming days , we will continue in trilateral negotiations with Canada , which is vital to be able to renew the ( trade ) pact , β Ebrard said .
Douglas George , the Detroit-based consul general of Canada responsible for Michigan , Ohio , Indiana and Kentucky , sounded upbeat Monday .
β We β re encouraged by the optimism shown by our negotiating partners , β George told the Detroit Free Press on Monday . β Progress between Mexico and the U.S. is a necessary requirement for any renewed NAFTA agreement . While they β ve been negotiating , we β ve been in regular contact with them over the last weeks . We β ll continue to work toward a modernized NAFTA . We have a three-way negotiation that β s been ongoing . β
He added , β We β ll only sign a new NAFTA that β s good for Canada and the middle class . ''
George declined to comment on the idea of renaming NAFTA .
A big deal looking good with Mexico ! β Donald J. Trump ( @ realDonaldTrump ) August 27 , 2018
Negotiators for the United States and Mexico worked over the weekend to iron out remaining differences and strike a deal before Canada is brought back to the table .
One of the sticking points in the talks has centered on the so-called auto rules of origin , which dictate that , to avoid tariffs , a certain percentage of an automobile must be built from parts that originated from countries within the NAFTA region .
Under the new rules , cars must be built with at least 75 percent of parts made in North America , up from 62.5 percent under NAFTA . Also , 40 to 45 percent of an auto will have to be made by workers earning at least $ 16 an hour .
Other stumbling blocks included the procedure to settle disputes between corporations and governments and the Trump administration β s push for a sunset provision under which the revised NAFTA agreement would expire after five years unless all three countries took steps to extend it .
Mexico and Canada balked at such a provision , arguing that trade agreements are supposed to offer the assurance of continuity for businesses and make it easier for them to comply with regulatory requirements .
The compromise reached between the United States and Mexico calls for the new deal to run for 16 years . The deal will be reviewed after six years and could then be extended another 16 .
Besides the auto provisions , the agreement also includes standards designed to protect intellectual property and trade secrets , tougher labor requirements for Mexico and environmental obligations designed to combat trafficking in wildlife , timber and fish .
In Congress , which must approve any new deal , some lawmakers took a wait-and-see attitude toward the agreement .
Sen. John Cornyn , R-Texas , called the deal β a positive step β but stressed that the final deal should include Canada and have bipartisan support . β A trilateral agreement is the best path forward , β he said .
Sen. Sherrod Brown , D-Ohio , one of the most ardent critics of NAFTA , said that although he needed to review the text of the agreement , β this is an important step forward. β But β we still have a lot of work to do to bring Canada on board and write the legislation needed to make any deal a reality . β
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers , which represents major automakers on policy issues in Washington , sounded an optimistic note Monday after reports of a preliminary trade deal .
Automakers had expressed concerns that a breakdown in NAFTA could compromise their profits , lead to higher vehicle prices and force them to shift production .
β Automakers support modernizing NAFTA to bring this nearly 25-year-old agreement into the 21st century , β the Auto Alliance said Monday in a statement . β We are pleased to hear that the U.S. and Mexico have reached a consensus on several issues , including automotive rules of origin , and we look forward to learning more . β
Trump β s supporters argued that Mexico unfairly benefited from NAFTA and the deal should be reworked .
Mexico β s share of vehicles manufactured in North America has grown from about 12 percent in 2007 to about 23 percent in 2017 , according to the Center for Automotive Research . The U.S. share has fallen from 70 percent to 62 percent during that period .
The Auto Alliance urged the United States and Mexico on Monday to β quickly re-engage with Canada to continue to build on this progress . β
The group called for negotiators to β continue to strike the right balance by incentivizing production and investment in North America while keeping new vehicles affordable for more Americans . β
Contributing : Nathan Bomey of βββ and Phoebe Wall Howard of the Detroit Free Press .
More : What is NAFTA ? Seven things to know about the North American free trade pact
More : U.S.-Mexico are close to reaching a deal in NAFTA talks , but Canada is still a wild card | j4GYlvBBvFBOu4X4 | 1 | NAFTA | 0 | Trade | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
economy_and_jobs | MSNBC | https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/uaw-strike-2023-ford-gm-stellantis-rcna104829 | Why the UAW strike is bigger than the auto industry | 2023-09-18 | Economy And Jobs, United Auto Workers, Biden Administration, Electric Vehicles, Auto Industry, Unions | The United Auto Workers are on strike. For the first time in the unionβs long and storied history, workers are on strike simultaneously against all of the βBig Threeβ automakers β Ford, GM and Stellantis (the maker of Chrysler). The labor action could affect nearly 150,000 workers and, if it drags on, bring a meaningful slice of the American economy to a standstill. Dark warnings that this might cause a recession are being thrown around. But, in reality, this strike is a reason to rejoice if you are a working person in America. It is a sign of an ongoing power shift that may be strong enough to heal wounds sustained by the entire working class for decades.The UAW is led by Shawn Fain, a reformer elected earlier this year to pull the union out of its days of stasis and corruption, and return it to its crusading, democratic roots. Fain is plainspoken, middle-aged and unflashy, but he holds forth on the rights of labor with the fervor of a preacher. He entered into negotiations with the automakers declining to shake hands at the bargaining table and holding tight to his vow of βNo concessions.ββRecord corporate profits should be shared by record contracts for the UAW,β Biden said Friday.Tactically, this strike has started small, with a shifting roster of representative plants and scaling up as necessary. This strategy has the twin benefits of inflicting paralyzing uncertainty on the industryβs logistics and operations while conserving the unionβs strike fund. But though the strike has started relatively small in number, do not imagine that it has small stakes. It is an industrial-scale attempt to find out whether the post-pandemic surge of enthusiasm for organized labor can produce the kind of material gains that change peopleβs lives forever.Fain and the UAWβs members are calculating that the balance of power between capital and labor, which has tilted deeply toward capital ever since the Reagan era, is swinging hard back the other way. There are reasons to think that this is true. Tight labor markets since Covid began have given workers more bargaining power; polls show that public enthusiasm for unions is at its highest point since 1965; and President Joe Bidenβs pro-union bona fides have created a rare period of active support for labor inside the White House and at regulatory agencies. (βRecord corporate profits should be shared by record contracts for the UAW,β Biden said Friday.)This is set against a longer-term backdrop of rising economic inequality. Generations of workers are rightly furious that their pay has remained stagnant for decades as executives and investors reaped the gains of their increasing productivity. Autoworkers have been exposed to the full force of these trends. They and their unions made grand concessions after the 2008 financial crisis to save their industry. When the companiesβ fortunes improved, they forgot the workersβ sacrifice. An Economic Policy Institute analysis found that in the past decade, the Big Three have made $250 billion in profits, sent $66 billion of that to investors and raised CEO pay by 40%. Meanwhile, the average auto manufacturing worker is earning almost 20% less today than they did in 2008.In this, the auto industry is a perfect microcosm of the American economy writ large. This bifurcation between the top and everyone else β the trend that has eroded the middle class, destroyed the classic βAmerican dreamβ of supporting a family on a blue collar income, and fed the blanket disgust in our system that helped fuel the rise of Donald Trump β cannot continue forever. Something has to give.So the UAW is going big. Their demands for this contract are not incremental. The union is asking for not just a 36% wage increase over four years β similar to the increase in executive pay β but also a defined benefit pension (something that corporate America is determined to make extinct) and a 32-hour workweek. The latter demands may be somewhat aspirational, but if there was ever a time to be aspirational, it is now.Unless the labor movement can leap up and seize this moment, it may well slip away.In fact, this brash showing of aspiration β this willingness to force the gears of iconic companies to stop turning in order to address the fact that the lives of working people are not sustainable β will likely go down as the strikeβs most important quality of all. American unions have been in a defensive crouch for a half-century. After World War II, 1 in 3 American workers was a union member; today, that number is barely 1 in 10. Business interests, their Republican allies and a Democratic Party that made the poisonous decision to embrace neoliberalism for a generation all conspired successfully to make it hard to join unions, sustain unions or exercise union power.Today, as unions look up at the parting clouds and see some unfamiliar rays of sunshine, the question becomes whether the labor movement can rouse itself to act with the urgency necessary. Accepting small losses and compromises in the name of political necessity becomes a habit. Unless the labor movement can leap up and seize this moment, it may well slip away.And that is why everyone should be encouraged by this strike. It is not just a story about the auto industry, nor about one particular contract. It is a story about another major labor union proving that it understands the opportunity at hand. Already this year, we have seen tens of thousands of striking workers shut down Hollywood, and hundreds of thousands of determined Teamsters who were ready to strike win a historically strong contract for UPS workers.Every time that organized labor demonstrates that it can stand up to and defeat organized capital, it sends a message to the 90% of workers without a union that a better life is possible. Organizing those workers is the ultimate task of the labor movement, the end point of the quest to put this long era of runaway inequality to bed forever. Getting there will mean showing everyone what unions can do. It will mean undertaking, and winning, a lot of big strikes.βItβs time to decide what kind of a world we want to live in,β Fain declared earlier this week. βAnd itβs time to decide what we are willing to do to get it.β The auto workers have taken their place on the front line of the class war. They will make themselves a world worth living in, or the CEOs will have to go make all the cars themselves. | 2f5a399b8c0f140b | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
elections | New York Times - News | https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/us/politics/even-in-unruly-alabama-politics-never-seen-anything-like-this.html?rref=collection/sectioncollection/politics&action=click&contentCollection=politics®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&mtrref=www.nytimes.com | Alabama, Despite History of Unruly Politics, Has βNever Seen Anything Like Thisβ | 2017-12-09 | elections | β They β re pulling out all the old classics for this one , β said Gordon Harvey , a history professor at Jacksonville State University in Alabama .
While Mr. Jones has not said anything nearly as incendiary as Mr. Moore has , he has attempted some political jujitsu amid the campaign β s racial politics , sending out a mailer featuring an African-American that read : β Think if a black man went after high school girls anyone would try to make him a senator ? β
No , Mr. Browder said , he had simply never seen so many volatile elements packed into a political moment . Then he thought for a minute .
Wallace , the fiery segregationist governor , comes up often here these days . He was by turns an avid boxer , a circuit judge with lofty ambitions , a state leader who blatantly flouted federal authority , a symbol of defiance to the direction of the national culture , a hero to many rural and small-town whites and a politician who ran national campaigns on a promise to β send them a message β β all descriptions that perfectly fit Mr. Moore .
Mr. Wallace was a Democrat , and his use of race was far more overt and central . Yet when political veterans are pushed to come up with analogous races , they often turn to Wallace β s successful 1970 run for governor , where he took on , as a national newspaper column put it , β an unholy coalition of the Republican and Democratic national parties , militant blacks and country club millionaires , the White House and Alabama liberals. β Aside from the White House , at least since President Trump endorsed his candidacy , this is much the same crowd that Mr. Moore has taken on .
Still , those who knew Wallace well are quick to point out that the messages may be delivered in much the same style , but the messengers are not so alike . | cPPG54GGiN4k7XDU | 0 | Alabama | -0.8 | Elections | -0.5 | Roy Moore | -0.5 | Doug Jones | 0 | null | null |
politics | CNN (Web News) | http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/31/opinions/flynn-immunity-callan-opinion/index.html | OPINION: Will immunity make Michael Flynn 'Queen for a Day'? | 2017-03-31 | Michael Flynn, Politics | Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst , a former New York City homicide prosecutor and currently is of counsel at the New York law firm of Edelman & Edelman PC , focusing on wrongful conviction and civil rights cases . Follow him on Twitter @ paulcallan . The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own .
( CNN ) Ordinarily , there is nothing unusual about a defense lawyer seeking an immunity deal in exchange for his client 's cooperation .
When , however , the client is the former national security adviser to the US president , the situation is highly unusual . He stands next to the president with a duty to safeguard the nation and its secrets . If he seeks immunity to tell the truth , the country has the right to know why .
On Thursday night , a prominent Washington criminal defense attorney , Robert Kelner , issued the following statement on behalf of his client Gen. Michael Flynn , former national security adviser to President Donald Trump :
`` Gen. Flynn certainly has a story to tell , and he very much wants to tell it , should the circumstances permit . ... No reasonable person , who has the benefit of advice from counsel , would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized , witch-hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution . ''
The attorney 's carefully worded statement clearly implies he is looking to negotiate what lawyers call a `` Queen for a Day '' proffer agreement with federal prosecutors and congressional investigators . In the legal profession , the sardonic `` Queen for a Day '' description of such an important process is a form of gallows humor deriving from the name of a popular television show , whose heyday was from 1956 to 1964 .
Such an agreement permits the witness to trade his or her story for a grant of immunity against future prosecution . The `` Queen for a Day '' part of the transaction arises from the dance that precedes the more formal immunity grant and possible deal .
Prosecutors are not going to trade away their ability to lodge criminal charges against a potential defendant without a meticulous vetting of the reliability and usefulness of the information he or she seeks to trade .
In the `` Queen for a Day '' debriefing , the client appears with his attorney and answers detailed questions about the information he proffers . Often , FBI agents and multiple prosecutors put forward questions to test the truthfulness of the witness and the value of the information .
JUST WATCHED Democratic congressman slams Flynn 's immunity proposal Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Democratic congressman slams Flynn 's immunity proposal 01:29
Before the session , prosecutors agree that no words spoken in the session can ever be used against the witness unless he deliberately lies about something important -- something `` material '' as the lawyers would say .
In that case , all bets are off . No deal is forged , and the client may be prosecuted for whatever matter the prosecutors were initially investigating . He may also be charged with another serious crime : lying to federal law enforcement authorities .
`` Queen for a Day '' sessions are tense , often dangerous forums , even for an innocent person facing a wolf pack of determined , prosecutorial interrogators . If his lawyer terminates the session and advises his client to walk , all bets are off
To be clear , not all witnesses who seek an immunity deal or agree to a `` Queen for a Day '' proffer session are guilty of something . A completely innocent person with a particularly diligent lawyer may seek immunity just to be safe in a `` highly politicized , witch-hunt environment , '' as Kelner observed .
On the other hand , good lawyers know that a client with real criminal liability is likely to get a better deal if he is the first to walk through the immunity door with a satchel of information that can help prosecutors make a case against others ... particularly highly placed others .
In the TV show , the `` Queen for a Day '' winner was the contestant who told the most tragic life story as judged by the audience applause meter . She was awarded a crown , a robe and often a washing machine or similar appliance .
In the justice system 's modern version of the show , no crown is awarded , but on the other hand , you get to go home . The people you implicate may not . It remains to be seen if Flynn will be allowed to compete . | 9d91f40441508cd6 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
joe_biden | Newsweek | https://www.newsweek.com/does-joe-biden-have-cancer-presidents-history-melanoma-explained-1726505 | Does Joe Biden Have Cancer? President's History With Melanoma Explained | 2022-07-20 | Cancer, Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Joe Biden, Massachusetts, Public Health, White House | This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window. Jon Jackson is a News Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine and Russia war. Jon previously worked at The Week, the River Journal, Den of Geek and Maxim. He graduated Summa Cum Laude with honors in journalism and mass communication from New York University. Languages: English. Jenni Fink is a senior editor at Newsweek, based in New York. She leads the National News team, reporting on politics and domestic issues. As a writer, she has covered domestic politics and spearheaded the Campus Culture vertical. Jenni joined Newsweek in 2018 from Independent Journal Review and has worked as a fiction author, publishing her first novel Sentenced to Life in 2015. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona. Language: English. You can get in touch with Jenni by emailing j.fink@newsweek.com. Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. During a speech on Wednesday, President Joe Biden seemingly said he's had cancer. The comment, which was slightly muffled in footage, quickly resulted in a debate about the president's health. "That's why Iβand so damn many other people I grew up withβhave cancer," Biden said while discussing the environmental issues Delaware faced when he grew up there. The remarks were made during a speech in Somerset, Massachusetts, in which Biden talked about climate change and the job potential that could be created by investing in clean energy. RNC Research, a Twitter account managed by the Republican National Committee, quickly seized on his statement. It tweeted, "Did Joe Biden just announce he has cancer?" Glenn Kessler, who is the editor and chief writer of The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" feature, responded to the post from RNC Research. "How dumb is this tweet? Check out Biden's medical report. Before he became president, he'd had non-melanoma skin cancers removed. Has no one at @RNCResearch ever had this common procedure?" Kessler tweeted. Biden's physician acknowledged in a November 2021, report that the president had several "localized, non-melanoma skin cancers" removed before assuming the presidency. Mohs surgery, which the president underwent multiple times, is an effective way for treating the two most common types of skin cancer. The procedure allows medical professionals to remove thin layers of cancer-containing skin while minimizing damage to surrounding healthy tissue, according to the Mayo Clinic. Considered a fairly routine procedure, Mohs surgery is usually done on an outpatient basis and reduces the need for additional treatments. The November 2021 report said the lesions were "completely excised, with clear margins" and the rest of the body skin was examined for dermatological surveillance. Although Biden had some areas treated with liquid nitrogen cryotherapy, the physician said there are no areas that are suspected of being skin cancer as of the time he was examined. Biden's son, Beau Biden, died in 2015 at the age of 46 of brain cancer. Joe Biden has since spoken often about the need to further cancer research. In February, he announced the relaunch of the "Cancer Moonshot" program, which has the goal of reducing the death rates from cancer in the U.S. by 50 percent over the next 25 years. He originally started the initiate in 2016 when he was vice president. "I committed to this fight when I was vice president. It's one of the reasons why, quite frankly, I ran for president. But let there be no doubt, now that I am president, this is a presidential White House priority. Period," Biden said during a February 2 press conference. Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment. Update 07/20/22 3:20 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include more background information. Jon Jackson is a News Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine and Russia war. Jon previously worked at The Week, the River Journal, Den of Geek and Maxim. He graduated Summa Cum Laude with honors in journalism and mass communication from New York University. Languages: English. Jenni Fink is a senior editor at Newsweek, based in New York. She leads the National News team, reporting on politics and domestic issues. As a writer, she has covered domestic politics and spearheaded the Campus Culture vertical. Jenni joined Newsweek in 2018 from Independent Journal Review and has worked as a fiction author, publishing her first novel Sentenced to Life in 2015. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona. Language: English. You can get in touch with Jenni by emailing j.fink@newsweek.com. Jon Jackson is a News Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine and Russia war. Jon previously worked at The Week, the River Journal, Den of Geek and Maxim. He graduated Summa Cum Laude with honors in journalism and mass communication from New York University. Languages: English. Jon Jackson is a News Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine ... Read more Newsletters in your inbox See all Company Editions: Contact Terms of Use Β© 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC | cef2d72f3894c99e | 1 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
2024_presidential_election | Rich Lowry | https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/07/a-tale-of-two-trump-speeches/ | A Tale of Two Trump Speeches | 2024-07-18 | 2024 Presidential Election, Republican National Convention, Donald Trump | National Review The 2026 Senate Map Begins to Take Shape This Is What Democracy Looks Like The Partisan Chaos Unfolding in Minnesota They Gave Trump the Center, and He Took It Gerrymandering Isnβt Why Republicans Won the House in 2024 Rarely has the appearance of a partyβs nominee on a convention stage been as intensely anticipated as that of Donald Trump in Milwaukee. Nearly assassinated last Saturday and still bandaged from his wound to his ear, Trump was rapturously greeted each time he entered the convention hall this week, and his speech was tantalizingly teased as completely reworked after the shooting last weekend. The emotional centerpiece of the address, of course, was Trumpβs riveting account of his near-assassination. He delivered it in a soft, earnest tone that weβve never heard before. He seemed genuinely moved and humbled, and attributed his survival to the grace of God. He paid tribute at length to the firefighter who was killed at his rally, the former fire chief Corey Comperatore, and two others who were seriously injured. This was, indeed, a different Trump. From there, he delivered a lengthy, rambling, repetitive speech, clocking in at a record one hour and 32 minutes. As he combined lengthy riffs with his teleprompter text, often leaving and returning to topics multiple times, the performance became more like a restrained, low-affect rally than a focused convention speech. Trump stayed mostly positive (although he couldnβt resist references to Democrats βcheatingβ in 2020) and mostly spoke in a quieter tone than usual. Along with his impromptu tributes to the speakers and performers from earlier in the evening and his prediction of a good upcoming season for the Green Bay Packers, he hit all the issues where Biden is vulnerable, and promised to kill inflation, keep taxes low, pursue deregulation, secure the border, and restore Americaβs strength and deterrence abroad. He also emphasized his signature hostility to trade β calling on the head of the UAW to be fired for allowing cars to get manufactured in Mexico β and pledged to protect Social Security and Medicare. As a speech, it was a fizzle. Trump and the Republicans are sitting pretty, though. The party was unified and energized in Milwaukee, while the Democrats have been in the throes of a crisis that seems likely now to result in the defenestration of President Joe Biden. Who knows, if it happens, how that will play out β whether Democrats emerge still divided with another weak candidate or newly united behind someone formidable. Regardless, Republicans have to hope that Trump, who has been willing to listen to his advisers more than usual during this campaign, will be more disciplined going forward than he was at the podium last night. Trump reiterated his threat to withhold federal funding from Maine over its defiance of his executive order barring men from womenβs sports. The men successfully changed voter registration information for about three dozen people in Delaware County in 2021. The suit claims that SpaceX violated federal law by requiring applicants to be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Senate Republicans are likely to be more on defense than offense in 2026, but the field will be small unless and until the environment deteriorates. What would a Haaland governorship mean for New Mexico? Simply put, it would be a disaster. The revelation comes after Hamas failed to return the body of Shiri Bibas together with her two sons in violation of the cease-fire agreement. Β© 2025 National Review Newsletters Β© 2025 National Review | c087f449d268dd0f | 2 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
healthcare | New York Times - News | http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/19/us/proven-models-break-down-in-search-for-the-uninsured.html?ref=politics&_r=0 | Obamaβs Vote-Getting Tactics Struggle to Find the Uninsured | 2014-02-19 | healthcare | Although the administration expects many enrollees to make their own way to the government β s health care website or the state exchanges , the door-to-door effort is aimed at people without computers , email addresses or the wherewithal to show up at health fairs and other enrollment events at Kmarts or grocery stores . Officials say the labor-intensive targeting program , while frustrating , could eventually add thousands of people to the rolls of the insured .
The campaign is staffed by organizations deploying thousands of paid and volunteer canvassers across the country . Planned Parenthood , one of the most aggressive groups , has raised millions of dollars for the effort . It is paying about 400 workers like Ms. Morwin $ 12 an hour . They are knocking on an average of 18,000 doors a day in eight states : Arizona , Colorado , Florida , Georgia , New Mexico , Ohio , Pennsylvania and Texas .
Enroll America , a nonprofit group that is trying to expand the health care rolls , has hired 266 people and recruited 14,000 volunteers to not only canvass neighborhoods but also make calls at phone banks and host events at community colleges in 11 states . The group has also spent $ 7 million to advertise on the Internet .
The efforts are important for Mr. Obama , who has been damaged politically by the initial failures of his health care website . Now , with HealthCare.gov finally working , his administration and outside supporters are racing to meet their goal of signing up seven million people by March 31 . By the end of January , nearly 3.3 million people had enrolled . To the canvassers , at least , the original goal seems a long way off .
Image A map of areas targeted by health insurance canvassers in Broward County , Fla. Credit Planned Parenthood Federation of America
β Can β t sweat the small stuff , not in this biz , β Ms. Morwin said , after retreating from a run-down rental property on a modest street lined with palm trees in Hollywood , where she was once again informed that the person on her list no longer lived there . β You see the challenges I have ? β | 0g4DObOvDZH3HcLM | 0 | Healthcare | -0.1 | Obamacare | -0.1 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
middle_east | Financial Times | https://www.ft.com/content/2723dc90-b3f3-407b-b111-08e350df284d | Israeli forces fight through the night as ground operations in Gaza intensify | 2023-10-28 | Middle East, Israel, Israel Hamas Violence, Gaza, Palestine, World | was $540 now $319 for your first year Make up your own mind. Build robust opinions on the FT's trusted journalism. Offer available until 27 February 2025. Then $75 per month. Complete digital access to quality FT journalism. Cancel anytime during your trial. Complete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders. Pay a year upfront and save 20%. FT newspaper delivered Monday-Saturday, plus FT Digital Edition delivered to your device Monday-Saturday. Terms & Conditions apply See why over a million readers pay to read the Financial Times. | c21266d0102aff2f | 1 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
race_and_racism | NPR Online News | https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/866794025/from-jobs-to-homeownership-protests-put-spotlight-on-economic-divide | From Jobs To Homeownership, Protests Put Spotlight On Economic Divide | 2020-06-01 | race_and_racism | From Jobs To Homeownership , Protests Put Spotlight On Economic Divide
The death of a black man at the hands of white police officers has sparked days of civil unrest in the United States . Those sparks have landed in a tinderbox assembled over decades of economic inequality , now made worse by the coronavirus pandemic .
Minneapolis police officers initially confronted the man β George Floyd β on suspicion that he 'd used a counterfeit $ 20 bill to buy cigarettes . The viral video of what followed captured an individual tragedy . But it 's set against a backdrop of poverty and discrimination that have long colored relations between law enforcement and the African American community .
African Americans are worse off than whites by almost every economic measure . And that divide has only deepened during the pandemic that 's sent the country into its worst economic downturn in generations .
A survey by the Federal Reserve last year found that even in good times , African Americans are less able to pay their monthly bills than whites or Latinos . That 's hardly surprising , since median income among African Americans is 41 % lower than that of non-Hispanic whites .
Blacks are also 40 % less likely to own their homes than whites β depriving many African American families of an opportunity to build wealth . The gap in homeownership is particularly stark in Minneapolis . A study by Zillow , the online real estate company , found black homeownership in the city lags more than 50 percentage points below the white rate .
`` It tells us that there 's racism baked in to the housing market , '' said Andre Perry , a fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Know Your Price : Valuing Black Lives and Property in America 's Black Cities .
Income disparity , segregation , and racial redlining have all contributed to low national levels of homeownership among African Americans . Although blacks made housing gains in the 1990s and early 2000s , that was reversed by the subprime mortgage crisis , which led to a wave of foreclosures .
Before the pandemic struck , African Americans were enjoying a strong job market . The black unemployment rate in February was 5.8 % β near a 50-year low , though still higher than the white rate . Since then , unemployment for all racial groups has soared to double-digits . But the black-white gap has not noticeably worsened .
African Americans who are working , however , are more likely to hold jobs that put them at risk of infection . A survey by the Labor Department found that in 2018 , less than 20 % of African Americans held jobs they could do from home , compared to about 30 % of whites .
Higher risk of on-the-job exposure to the coronavirus is compounded by African Americans ' higher rates of diabetes , heart disease and other conditions that are thought to contribute to more severe cases of COVID-19 .
`` There have been epidemics in the black community that have existed for generations before COVID , '' Perry said . `` COVID accentuated and exposed those epidemics . ''
Just as the pandemic puts unequal health outcomes under a microscope , the video of George Floyd 's last moments illuminates the frustration brought about by generations of economic hardship .
`` That action really symbolized the knee on the neck of black homeowners and renters , '' Perry said . `` It represents the employers who do n't provide the kind of benefits and wages that will lift African American communities . ''
He suggested the demonstrations taking place across the country , five months before a national election , provide an opportunity for candidates to spell out how they would deal with these challenges .
`` If we do n't address the structural inequality , '' Perry said , `` we 'll be right back in the same place when the next inevitable crisis hits . '' | pODHLEHBIzNVTuUr | 1 | Race And Racism | -0.8 | Inequality | -0.8 | Protests | -0.5 | Economy And Jobs | -0.3 | Housing And Homelessness | 0 |
elections | ThinkProgress | http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/04/26/3772924/sanders-clinton-northeast-primary/ | Bernie Sanders Blames Closed Primaries As Path To The Nomination Narrows | 2016-04-26 | elections | Sen. Bernie Sanders suffered a crushing defeat Tuesday night , losing three out of five states to Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton by significant margins at press time .
In a speech shortly after most polls closed at 8 pm , Sanders blamed his loss on closed primaries , which barred independent voters from participating in four of five primaries . He did win Rhode Island , which allows participation by independent voters .
β In a general election , Democrat , independent , Republican , has the right to vote for president . The elections are not closed primaries , β Sanders said . β Those folks and independents all over this country will be voting in November for the next president of the United States . And in most cases , we win the independent vote by a 2β1 margin . β
Clinton made another strong showing Tuesday night with non-white voters and city dwellers . Exit polls indicated strong support in cities like Baltimore .
Baltimore pastor Jamal Bryant , who had been working to get out the vote for Sanders in Baltimore β s inner city , lamented that the Vermont senator has not done better with communities of color , who have overwhelmingly backed Clinton .
β He more than any candidate , Democrat or Republican , speaks to our issues , β Bryant told βββ , noting his progressive racial justice and criminal justice proposals . β I would have thought he β d have more black and brown supporters . But there β s been a translation problem . The gatekeepers have already sworn allegiance to the Clinton dynasty , and most people go with a name they β re already familiar with . β
As his path to the nomination narrows , Sanders β campaign is reassessing the senator β s prospects following Tuesday β s losses , and key supporters are admitting that it is increasingly unlikely he can clinch the nomination . His campaign and supporters have already turned their attention to how Sanders can use his popularity and influence to shape the Democratic Party even if he is not its standard bearer .
The New York Times reported that aides to Sanders have started pressing party officials for a major role in drafting the platform for the Democratic National Convention in July , especially on including issues like a $ 15-an-hour federal minimum wage , breaking up Wall Street banks , and banning natural gas fracking . | 6aITfelqdEWaThCX | 0 | Hillary Clinton | 0.3 | Bernie Sanders | 0.2 | Presidential Elections | 0.1 | Elections | 0.1 | null | null |
criminal_justice | CNN (Web News) | http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/10/us/new-york-prison-break/index.html | New York prison escape: Clues suggest killers on foot | 2015-06-10 | New York, Criminal Justice, Justice | ( CNN ) A pair of convicted killers who escaped from an upstate New York prison may have headed across the border to Vermont , fearing the pressure of an intense manhunt in the neighboring state , authorities said Wednesday .
New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico said authorities are looking `` behind every tree , under every rock and inside every structure '' for fugitives Richard Matt , 48 , and David Sweat , 34 . The pair made a brazen escape over the weekend from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora . The search -- now in its fifth day -- involves more than 400 law enforcement officers . The state is offering a $ 100,000 reward .
In a news conference outside the maximum-security prison about 20 miles south of the Canadian border , Vermont Gov . Peter Shumlin said the search area had expanded to his state based on information the inmates believed `` New York was going to be hot and Vermont ... cooler in terms of law enforcement . ''
Vermont state police vessels and additional troopers will conduct patrols on Lake Champlain , which cuts across the states . In addition , searches will include campsites and public campgrounds .
`` We have information that would suggest that Vermont was discussed as a possible location , '' New York Gov . Andrew Cuomo said at the same news conference . `` If they are headed toward Vermont ... Vermont is engaged and Vermont is mobilized and we are working hand in glove , and we will be coordinating several times a day to make sure every lead we have , every piece of information is shared . ''
Under an agreement with Vermont , New York state troopers will be allowed across state lines if needed , officials said .
But D'Amico said authorities had no hard information the men had left New York state .
Law enforcement personnel were going door-to-door in both homes and seasonal residences and conducting checkpoints in hamlets and towns surrounding Dannemora . Cuomo said the inmates may have gotten a head start of several hours before the manhunt began .
`` These men are nothing to be trifled with , '' Cuomo said .
For the first time since the escape , law enforcement officials acknowledged publicly that a woman who worked with the convicts in the tailoring shop at the prison may have played a role in the elaborate breakout .
Investigators think prison employee Joyce Mitchell had planned to pick up the inmates after their escape , only to change her mind at the last minute , a source familiar with the investigation told CNN .
D'Amico , without elaborating , said Mitchell had befriended the men and `` may have had some sort of role in assisting them . ''
She has not been arrested or charged in connection with their escape , nor has anyone else . The source added that Mitchell is cooperating with police , having provided information as needed .
Her cell phone was used to call several people connected to Matt , according to another source with knowledge of the investigation . It 's not clear who made these calls , when they were made or if Mitchell knew about them .
Mitchell went to the hospital this weekend because of panic attacks , according to one of the sources . By then , authorities had discovered during a 5:30 a.m. Saturday bed check that Matt and Sweat had escaped .
JUST WATCHED Who is Joyce Mitchell ? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Who is Joyce Mitchell ? 01:37
Mitchell has worked at Clinton for seven years as an industrial training supervisor , according to Jennifer Freeman , a spokeswoman for the New York State Comptroller . Her salary was $ 57,697 a year .
Mitchell 's son Tobey Mitchell told NBC News his mother was in a hospital Saturday evening because `` she was having severe chest pains and she was concerned about that . '' He added that his mom , who works at the prison with her husband , `` worries a lot about everything '' but strongly challenged suggestions she had done anything wrong .
`` She is not the kind of person that 's going to risk her life or other people 's lives to let these guys escape from prison , '' he said .
His wife , Paige Mitchell , told CNN on Wednesday that `` 95 % of what is being said '' about her mother-in-law is not true .
`` They do n't have the facts to prove this , '' she said . `` This is just slander and rumor . ''
Paige Mitchell said she believed Matt may have persuaded her mother-in-law to contact people for him who knew about art .
`` He was interested in art , '' Paige Mitchell said of Matt . `` Her heart was in the right place . ''
Paige Mitchell denied that her mother-in-law was to be the getaway driver or helped provide the power tools used in the escape . Saturday 's hospital visit stemmed from the fact that Joyce Mitchell is a `` very nervous person , '' she said .
If the escapees did indeed have a designated driver , imagine their horror when they popped out of a manhole sometime late Friday or early Saturday and found no accomplice waiting .
JUST WATCHED Expert : Psychopath will likely turn on co-escapee Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Expert : Psychopath will likely turn on co-escapee 03:51
`` That must have been just a complete panic on their part ... 'Now what ? Where are we going to walk to -- this small , rural area ? ' `` said CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes , a former FBI assistant director . `` It 's going to be hard to hide day or night for very long , and they would n't have been prepared to deal with the elements . ''
They 'd have to find food , water and money , while also trying to get their hands on weapons or a vehicle .
`` That would put every family in that rural ( area ) in extreme danger , '' Fuentes said . `` If they 're feeling like cornered animals out there , they are going to do something drastic to try to ensure their physical survival and their continued freedom out of that prison . ''
Without any help like a getaway driver , someone who escapes from Clinton can easily get lost , said Jeff Hall , who teaches at the City University of New York and did his dissertation on northern New York prisons .
`` The environment is formidable , '' said Hall , who grew up near the Dannemora prison , where his father worked . `` It 's rough terrain and , if you 're not familiar with it , it can be deadly . ''
The first came in Dannemora after midnight Friday , about five hours before authorities discovered the men had escaped .
Another focus is about 40 miles southeast in Willsboro , a town of about 2,000 people along Lake Champlain .
That 's where a resident spotted two men overnight Monday walking in a torrential rainstorm on a rural road , Willsboro Town Supervisor Shaun Gillilland said . As the witness ' car approached them , they took off .
Both reports could be false leads , as often happens in manhunts . Former U.S . Marshal Service regional commander Lenny DePaul said he thinks it 's important that people be on the lookout .
JUST WATCHED What 's stopping fugitives from crossing into Canada ? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH What 's stopping fugitives from crossing into Canada ? 03:12
Still , authorities are clearly focusing on the rural swath of New York near Vermont and the Canadian province of Quebec .
Matt and Sweat 's escape was so extraordinarily complex that experts say the two must have had help .
Using power tools , they cut through a cell wall that included a steel plate , maneuvered across a catwalk , shimmied down six stories to a tunnel of pipes , followed that tunnel , broke through a double-brick wall , cut into a 24-inch steam pipe , climbed through the steam pipe , cut another hole so they could get out of the pipe and finally surfaced through a manhole .
Aside from the mystery of how they got the necessary power tools , many wonder how they could have used them without detection .
The hole in the cell 's steel wall suggests they used a cutoff wheel , ironworker Ernesto `` Ernie '' PeΓ±uelas said . But using that tool would have produced a loud sound and detectable odor .
Their time on the lam is also remarkable . Most escapees in New York are captured within 24 hours , according to data compiled by the state . Of 29 inmates who fled between 2002 and 2013 , only one was free for more than two days .
Escaping from detention happens thousands of times each year , federal statistics show . But most are from minimum security facilities , where prisoners just walk away . In 2013 , there were 2,011 cases of prisoners who escaped or were absent without permission .
Sweat was serving a life sentence without parole for fatally shooting and then running over Broome County Sheriff 's Deputy Kevin Tarsia in 2002 .
Matt was convicted for kidnapping a businessman for 27 hours and -- when he did n't comply with his pleas for money -- killing him .
`` Torture is probably an understatement , '' Lee Bates , who drove a car carrying one of Matt 's victims , told CNN 's Anderson Cooper of the 1997 killing . He said Matt shoved a knife sharpener in his victim 's ear , broke his neck and then dismembered the body .
Despite his violent past , Matt is capable of getting others to help him , Bates said . | a616f0cce9ef180b | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
free_speech | Reason | http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/09/college-age-kids-are-much-less-tolerant | Where Have All the Free Speech Fans Gone? | 2017-03-09 | Free Speech | Starting in the '70s , the General Social Survey has periodically asked Americans if they think someone should have a right to give a racist speech in their community . John Sides has charted the responses over at The Washington Post , dividing the people surveyed into four groups : Americans aged 18 to 25 who have had at least some college education , Americans aged 18 to 25 with no college education , older Americans with at least some college education , and older Americans with no college education . The results are striking :
The first thing you 'll probably notice is that the percentage of the college-age crowd supporting the racist 's freedom of speech has decreased dramatically over those four decades . Another thing you 'll notice is that the college kids are n't leading the way so much as they 're converging with the non-college crew . But what really leaps out for me is when most of the drop happened . For the people who are actually on campus , the big plunge ended in the late '80s . Things then flattened for a while , sliding slightly but not severely in the 1990s ; the decline did n't accelerate again until the 21st century .
This flies in the face of folk memory , which tends to treat the '90s as the first age of political correctness . But it 's probably better to remember that period as a time of backlash against political correctness . That first big wave of `` P.C . Kids Gone Mad ! '' stories that hit the national press in 1990 was n't a sign that pro-censorship sentiments were taking off ; it was a sign that more people were resisting those sentiments . When there 's a backlash against some social force , many people assume that force is surging , just because they did n't really notice it before . That does n't mean it 's actually on the rise .
But that 's not all that happened in the '90s . Sides also charts the percentage of Americans in each group who support free speech for communists . Here the decline in the college crowd is n't as severeβthe share supporting the communist 's rights is well north of 50 percentβbut there 's still a noticeable drop at the beginning , followed by a flattening in the '90s and then a resumption in the post-9/11 era :
So the fall-off in campus tolerance for controversial speech does n't just affect the right . The good news here is the trend among those 26-and-uppers . The ones with a college education did n't see any decline , and the ones without a college education have actually grown steadily more tolerant . ( A third chart , which I wo n't repost here but you can find in Sides ' article , shows a similar jump in the number of non-college-educated older Americans willing to back the free-speech rights of an atheist . )
The biggest question for me , looking at those data , is why the decline in collegiate civil libertarianism resumed after the '90s . One possible factor : The further you get into the 21st century , the more college-age people there are who do n't remember the '80s . Backlashes fade with memory . | 6c502f7760bfdacf | 2 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
white_house | CNN (Web News) | http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/11/politics/seymour-hersh-obama-bin-laden-raid-lied/index.html | White House rejects Seymour Hersh 'baseless assertions' on bin Laden raid | 2015-05-11 | white_house | Washington ( CNN ) The White House is dismissing as `` baseless '' a controversial report alleging President Barack Obama 's administration lied about the circumstances surrounding the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden .
`` There are too many inaccuracies and baseless assertions in this piece to fact check each one , '' White House National Security spokesman Ned Price said in a statement to reporters .
He took aim specifically at journalist Seymour Hersh 's assertion that the administration collaborated with Pakistani officials to kill the al Qaeda leader , saying that `` the notion that the operation that killed Usama Bin Ladin was anything but a unilateral U.S. mission is patently false . ''
`` As we said at the time , knowledge of this operation was confined to a very small circle of senior U.S. officials . The President decided early on not to inform any other government , including the Pakistani Government , which was not notified until after the raid had occurred , '' Price said .
`` We had been and continue to be partners with Pakistan in our joint effort to destroy al-Qa'ida , but this was a U.S. operation through and through . ''
JUST WATCHED New bin Laden report : Startling truth or outright lie ? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH New bin Laden report : Startling truth or outright lie ? 02:19
It was the White House 's first response to Hersh 's stunning report , published this weekend in the London Review of Books , outlining what he describes as the true circumstances surrounding bin Laden 's death . Other former administration officials have panned the report as well , and during the daily press briefing , White House spokesman Josh Earnest again dismissed the report , citing CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen 's comment that `` what 's true in this story is n't new , and what 's new in the story is n't true . ''
`` I thought that was a pretty good way of describing why no one here is particularly concerned about it , '' he said .
Citing an anonymous `` major U.S. source , '' Hersh writes that the Obama administration cooperated with Pakistani intelligence officials to kill bin Laden , and that the chief of staff of the Pakistani army and director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency knew about the mission , contrary to Obama 's claim that Pakistani officials were n't aware of the raid in advance .
A U.S. official with detailed knowledge of the outreach to the Pakistanis after the raid tells CNN that based on the reaction it was clear the Pakistanis did not know in advance
CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen immediately rebutted Hersh 's allegations in a post that contradicts most of the claims in his 10,000 word report .
JUST WATCHED Bergen rebutts claims that Obama lied about bin Laden Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Bergen rebutts claims that Obama lied about bin Laden 02:58
`` Hersh 's account of the bin Laden raid is a farrago of nonsense that is contravened by a multitude of eyewitness accounts , inconvenient facts and simple common sense , '' Bergen wrote Monday .
Hersh 's source is identified as a `` retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin Laden 's presence in Abbottabad . ''
And on CNN 's `` New Day '' on Monday morning , Hersh defended that sourcing and questioned why the Obama administration had n't yet responded to the report .
`` This is not a wager β this is a story that has to be dealt with by this government very seriously , '' he told CNN 's Chris Cuomo .
Hersh stuck by his claims on CNN . In explaining why he relied largely on the `` major U.S. source , '' Hersh said that it 's `` very tough for guys still inside to get quoted extensively , '' and declared that he `` vetted most and verified '' his sourcing with further reporting in Pakistan .
But Hersh , who has drawn criticism for his heavy use of anonymous sourcing before , admitted that he had gotten some things wrong in his reporting before .
`` I would argue that a lot of the stories I wrote were pretty much on-mark , '' he said , but he acknowledged : `` Nobody 's perfect , of course -- everybody 's done bad stories . ''
Indeed , he said he may have gotten the state where the military practiced the operation wrong in the piece because `` sometimes my geography gets lousy . ''
Hersh also revealed that the piece hinged in part on an on-the-record interview with former ISI head Gen. Assad Durrani who told him , `` look , you got the story . '' That was `` one of the things that made the story doable now where it would n't have been '' before , he said .
Bergen , in his report pushing back on Hersh 's claims , says he reached out to Durrani and received a far different response .
Durrani said he had `` no evidence of any kind '' that the ISI knew that bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad but he still could `` make an assessment that this could be plausible . ''
Hersh also pushed back against skepticism over the claims in his article , calling it a `` Lewis Carroll fairy tale '' to believe bin Laden would 've been hiding in such an easily accessible region of Pakistan .
The administration has said they received information on bin Laden 's whereabouts by tracking his courier , and that the top military target was killed in a firefight with an elite team of Navy SEALs .
But Hersh writes that the Obama administration had initially agreed to say bin Laden had been killed by a drone strike ; that ISI was holding bin Laden a prisoner at the Abbottabad compound where he was killed , and that a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer told the U.S. of his whereabouts for the $ 25 million award being offered at the time .
Hersh also reports on boasting from some SEALs that bin Laden was n't given a burial at sea that adhered to Islamic religious traditions as the administration had claimed -- rather , his remains `` were thrown into a body bag and , during the helicopter flight back to Jalalabad , some body parts were tossed out over the Hindu Kush mountains . ''
JUST WATCHED Secrets from Bin Laden 's hideout revealed Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Secrets from Bin Laden 's hideout revealed 01:42
JUST WATCHED What do captured al Qaeda documents reveal ? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH What do captured al Qaeda documents reveal ? 02:14
Hersh also alleges Obama 's speech announcing the successful mission was `` put together in a rush , '' not vetted or cleared by national security officials and created `` chaos in the weeks following . ''
`` This series of self-serving and inaccurate statements would create chaos in the weeks following , '' he said .
Hersh quotes his source as saying : `` This was not the fog of war .
`` The fact that there was an agreement with the Pakistanis and no contingency analysis of what was to be disclosed if something went wrong -- that was n't even discussed , '' the source says . `` And once it went wrong , they had to make up a new cover story on the fly . ''
Hersh won the Pulitzer in 1970 for his shocking report on the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War that was widely credited with contributing to the public backlash against the war , and has since reported on conflicts in Iraq , Iran and Syria .
But Hersh has come under frequent criticism for his heavy use of unnamed sources . In 2004 , for instance , his report that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld effectively approved abuses against terrorists held at Abu Ghraib prison was dismissed by a Pentagon spokesperson as `` the most hysterical piece of journalist malpractice I have ever observed . '' | A4yV01kXYi1g3TJz | 0 | Osama Bin Laden | -1.7 | White House | 0.3 | Politics | 0.2 | null | null | null | null |
immigration | Townhall | http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/08/12/tucson-police-ambushed-by-open-border-activists-after-stopping-illegal-immigrant-for-traffic-violation-n1877677 | Tucson Police Ambushed By Open Border Activists After Stopping Illegal Immigrant For Traffic Violation | 2014-08-12 | immigration | Over the weekend in Tucson , Arizona local police pulled over an man for a traffic violation . That man just so happened to be an illegal immigrant who admitted to being in the country illegally . He took an illegal right turn and was driving despite not having a driver 's license .
Shortly after the traffic stop , open border activists showed up to confront the police . When Tucson Police called Border Patrol to turn the man over , two open border activists climbed under the car and had to eventually be dragged out by agents .
Click on the photo to see the video ( I tried to embed the video , but it will only auto-play and we all know how annoying that is ) .
This is the kind of ridiculous behavior police and Border Patrol agents deal with everyday .
Back in 2010 open border activists placed tires , glass and chains across the highway in order to `` stop deportations '' and to protest SB 1070 . Luckily nobody was hurt .
It seems as though illegal immigration advocates will never be satisfied . After Judge Susan Bolton blocked the most controversial parts of SB 1070 , essentially taking out all real power from the bill , a group known as `` Freedom for Arizona , '' committed an act of domestic terrorism by spreading out over 15 tires connected by rope and covered in tar , a banner , brown paint and shards of broken glass across I-19 in Arizona , a busy interstate with a 65 mph speed limit covering approximatly 70 miles between Tucson and Nogales . This action not only stopped all traffic flow , but could have killed innocent people in the process .
The goal of the tires , glass and paint was to stop all deportations back to Mexico as well as stopping all capital flow to damage the economy . The banner placed across the interstate read , `` Stop All Militarization ! The Border is Illegal ! '' | bJF1Te9TJawrhcaX | 2 | Immigration | -0.8 | Border Crisis | -0.1 | Border Security | -0.1 | Borders | 0 | Arizona | 0 |
elections | NPR Online News | http://www.npr.org/2016/04/09/473674198/cruz-puts-another-hurdle-on-trump-s-path-to-gop-nomination | Cruz's Methodical Delegate Strategy Narrows Trump's Path To GOP Nomination | 2016-04-09 | elections | Cruz 's Methodical Delegate Strategy Narrows Trump 's Path To GOP Nomination
On the way into the Colorado Republican Party 's state convention in Colorado Springs Saturday morning , a Ted Cruz supporter waved a big broom with the letters `` CRUZ '' fastened to the top .
The convention took place in a hockey arena , and the prop is probably familiar to most sports fans . The Cruz supporter was looking for a sweep , and a sweep was what he got .
Cruz picked up all 34 Republican National Convention delegates that Colorado Republicans awarded this week . Delegates backing Cruz won all three spots in each of the state 's seven congressional districts , as well as 13 statewide slots .
The Colorado win follows a similar outcome in North Dakota , where Republicans elected a mostly Cruz-approved slate of delegates at a state convention last week . Those two delegate hauls , along with more complex delegate maneuvering in states like Louisiana that had already held their primaries and caucuses , highlight a growing organizational gap between Cruz 's campaign and frontrunner Donald Trump 's .
As recently as last month , the Cruz campaign insisted that he was fighting to win 1,237 delegates and clinch the GOP nomination outright , though Cruz told the Denver Post on Saturday that a contested convention is a `` very significant possibility . '' Cruz also expressed confidence that he would win in such a scenario .
The Texas senator has become the candidate of choice for many Republicans simply trying to stop Trump . Cruz 's organizational successes offer hope to them that he will succeed in blocking Trump 's path . Though many of them stop short of saying they 'd like Cruz to be the eventual nominee .
Most political observers did n't figure Colorado would play a role in the Republican primary , after the state declined to hold a binding primary or caucus . Still , Congressman Ken Buck , who chairs Cruz 's Colorado campaign , said , `` dozens of volunteers have been working since December '' in Colorado to vet delegate candidates and organize at local caucuses and regional meetings .
On Saturday morning , Cruz volunteers wearing bright orange shirts swept through the arena , handing out glossy sheets listing the campaign 's preferred delegate candidates . The campaign also blasted out text messages to convention attendees , listing their delegate choices .
`` We put 15 delegate [ candidates ] forward , '' said Buck , who won a spot as a delegate himself . `` We looked at people that had run and won in the past . We looked at people who had been supporting Cruz for a long time . We looked at elected officials who knew how to run campaigns . ''
That organizational effort was a stark contrast to Trump 's campaign , which only had a handful of volunteers distributing delegate candidate lists . The Trump slate was riddled with errors .
According to NBC News , the Trump campaign failed to put forward a candidate slate in some of the earlier district-level contests . In another congressional district , two of the candidates they urged voters to back did not , in fact , make it onto the ballot .
`` What this says for the Trump campaign is , you need to get your stuff in gear , '' said former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele . `` Because you 're about to get your clock cleaned on the easy stuff . A lot of folks look at , we just won the primary . The is n't about just winning the primary . It 's about winning delegates . You get your delegates wherever and however you can . ''
Indeed , the Trump campaign has made changes in recent days , bringing in longtime Washington operative Paul Manafort to play a role in convention preparation , as well as broader campaign strategy .
Manafort was asked about the result in Colorado on NBC 's Meet The Press on Sunday and responded , `` I acknowledge that we were n't playing in Colorado and they did . ''
He went on to criticize the pro-Cruz efforts as too aggressive , making an accusation of `` Gestapo tactics '' in various local party conventions .
Steele praised the Cruz campaign 's organizational efforts , but cautioned against reading too much into the Colorado and North Dakota convention victories when looking forward to a possible Cleveland floor fight .
`` Going into a state and grabbing unbound delegates and getting commitments and all that is not the same as going into a convention hall where overlaying everything is the RNC rules , '' he said .
Having a political and legal staff that understands the party 's regulations and guidelines are key , he said , giving the Cruz campaign the advantage on that front .
But Steele argued that another important factor is , `` having delegates on the floor and relevant committees , '' Steele said , primarily the Rules Committee , which will shape the convention proceedings .
`` The Trump team is going to be competitive on that front , because they 've got a lot of delegates , and the ability to put their people on that committee and have weight on that committee , '' said Steele .
Both campaigns will spend the next two months gearing up for a historic floor fight . That 's because while Trump may still secure the delegates he needs to avoid one , there 's no chance he can do so until June 7 , the very last day of the primary calendar .
Clarification : This post has been updated to reflect Cruz 's recent comments entertaining the notion of a contested convention . An earlier version stated only that Cruz was insisting he would win enough delegates to clinch the GOP nomination before the party 's convention in July . | 61oJ9qFcPtPyWWYG | 1 | Ted Cruz | 1 | Presidential Elections | -0.6 | Elections | 0 | null | null | null | null |
politics | Fox News Digital | http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/01/20/donald-trump-inaugural-address-video-clips-quotes-highlights | We're Transferring Power Back to the People: President Trump Gives Inaugural Address | 2017-01-20 | White House, Politics | Fox News Channel Pay TV Login Required Fox Business Channel Pay TV Login Required Fox Nation Subscription Required FOX Weather Free to Watch Fox Radio Free to Listen OutKick Free to Watch | 8a3ad7939ae3e913 | 2 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
impeachment | Townhall | https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/01/22/report-schiff-may-have-mischaracterized-piece-of-evidence-in-impeachment-n2559918 | 'Caught Lying Again': Report Calls Out Schiff For Mischaracterizing Parnas Evidence | 2020-01-22 | impeachment | Rep. Adam Schiff ( D-CA ) appears to have β mischaracterized β a piece of evidence used in the Democrats β impeachment investigation , Politico reports .
The problematic evidence stems from a letter the House Intelligence chairman sent to House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler ( D-NY ) last week .
Adam Schiff may have mischaracterized a piece of the Lev Parnas evidence from last week , according to unredacted documents obtained by @ politico ... The story > > https : //t.co/canRArBovk β Melanie Zanona ( @ MZanona ) January 22 , 2020
β In one section of the letter , Schiff claims that Parnas β continued to try to arrange a meeting with President Zelensky , β citing a specific text message exchange where Parnas tells Giuliani : β trying to get us mr Z. β The remainder of the exchange β which was attached to Schiff β s letter β was redacted , β Politico 's Melanie Zanona writes . β But an unredacted version of the exchange shows that several days later , Parnas sent Giuliani a word document that appears to show notes from an interview with Mykola Zlochevsky , the founder of Burisma , followed by a text message to Giuliani that states : β mr Z answers my brother. β That suggests Parnas was referring to Zlochevsky not Zelensky . β
A Democratic official β didn β t dispute the suggestion , β according to Politico , but that source said the single letter `` z '' was most commonly used as a reference to Zelensky . A GOP aide interviewed for the story , meanwhile , called the assumption Schiff made β sloppy oversight work at best . β
Schiff β s sham impeachment is littered with mischaracterizations , falsehoods , & political desperation .
The more Schiff speaks to the American people , the more the support for impeachment is obliterated in the court of public opinion .
Another `` bombshell '' turns out to be a dud . Adam Schiff ought to prove he can manage basic facts before he tries to manage an # impeachment . Kudos to @ seanhannity and @ politico for bringing this mischaracterization of the Parnas evidence to light . pic.twitter.com/LcWm2vryUT β Rep. Mike Johnson ( @ RepMikeJohnson ) January 22 , 2020
The opening paragraph of this story comes pretty close to a β Republicans pounce β kind of thing .
But the real story is that Adam Schiff , once again , has apparently lied about supposed evidence.https : //t.co/5BVGaTpH6M β Tim Murtaugh - Text TRUMP to 88022 ( @ TimMurtaugh ) January 22 , 2020 | UzglhqiC1g9ALnSj | 2 | Adam Schiff | -1.4 | Lev Parnas | -0.5 | Impeachment | 0 | Politics | 0 | null | null |
supreme_court | CNN (Web News) | https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/18/politics/daca-immigration-supreme-court/index.html | Supreme Court blocks Trump from ending DACA | 2020-06-18 | supreme_court | Washington ( CNN ) The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Trump administration 's attempt to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals , an Obama-era program that protects hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation .
The 5-4 ruling was written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg , Elena Kagan , Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor .
In penning the opinion , Roberts once again sided with the liberals on the bench in a momentous dispute that will infuriate judicial conservatives who are still bitter that he once provided the deciding vote to uphold Obamacare .
The opinion is the second time in a week when the Supreme Court -- bolstered with two of President Donald Trump 's nominees -- has ruled against the Trump administration . Monday , the court said LGBTQ Americans are protected under the Civil Rights Act .
The ruling emphasizes that the administration failed to provide an adequate reason to justify ending the DACA program .
`` We do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies , '' Roberts wrote in the majority opinion . `` 'The wisdom ' of those decisions 'is none of our concern . ' We address only whether the agency complied with the procedural requirement that it provide a reasoned explanation for its action . ''
It is a blow to the Trump administration , as immigration reform has been a lynchpin of Trump 's agenda . It means that for now , participants in the program can continue to renew membership in the program that offers them work authorization and temporary protection from deportation .
In his first reaction to the ruling , President Donald Trump retweeted a tweet featuring Justice Clarence Thomas ' dissent .
The decision is `` an effort to avoid a politically controversial but legally correct decision , '' Thomas wrote .
However , the Trump administration could move , again , to try to rescind the program , but this time the administration will have to provide a better explanation grounded in policy for its reason for termination .
`` Today 's decision allows Dreamers to breathe a temporary sigh of relief , '' said Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr of Cornell Law School . `` The administration may try to terminate the DACA program with a better justification , but that will take months or years . In the meantime , Congress should enact permanent relief for Dreamers to end this drama once and for all . ''
Luz Chavez , a DACA recipient based in Maryland , was at the steps of the Supreme Court when the decision came down Thursday .
`` Right now , at the end of the day , our community won , right ? We 've been pushing for this for a long time . Immigrant youth are the reason why DACA was announced and created , '' Chavez told CNN . `` It 's exhilarating . ''
DACA , established in 2012 , is available to any undocumented immigrant who came to the US under the age of 16 , who had lived in the US since at least June of 2007 , was enrolled in high school or graduated and had not been convicted of certain offenses .
An individual also had to pose no national security or public safety threats . Recipients who met the criteria became eligible for renewable , two-year grants of `` deferred action '' from removal . They were also eligible for work authorization and social security numbers . In return , however , they had to provide the government with certain identifying information .
After Trump came into office , then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the program had been created `` without proper authority '' and only after Congress had rejected proposed legislation . The following day , Elaine Duke , the then-acting Secretary of Homeland Security , announced it would be phased out , pointing out that it had `` legal and constitutional defects . ''
Months later , after legal challenges had been launched , then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen issued a new memo laying out more policy-based justifications for winding down the program . She said , for example , that the program increased the risk of undermining public confidence in the rule of law .
Federal courts stepped in and said the administration had acted arbitrarily when phasing out the program in violation of the law . The courts pointed to the administration 's thin justification -- reasoning Roberts and the Supreme Court eventually agreed with .
The administration moved aggressively asking the Supreme Court to lift the injunctions , and the President predicted success .
`` We want to be in the Supreme Court on DACA , '' Trump said . But the justices sat on the petition for months , before finally granting cert last term .
The plaintiffs , including the University of California , a handful of states and DACA recipients argue to the Supreme Court that the phase-out violated the Administrative Procedure Act , a federal law that governs how agencies can establish regulations .
One hundred and forty-three business associations and companies filed a brief in support of DACA stressing that its phase out will harm the economy . The brief points to research from the libertarian Cato Institute that estimates that companies will face an estimated $ 6.3 billion in costs to replace Dreamers `` if they can even find new employees to fill the empty positions . ''
And Tim Cook , the CEO of Apple , filed a brief in support of DACA noting that his company employs 443 Dreamers who come from 25 different countries and four continents .
`` We did not hire them out of kindness or charity , '' Cook argued . `` We did it because Dreamers embody Apple 's innovative strategy '' he said . `` They come from diverse backgrounds and display a wide range of skills and experiences that equip them to tackle problems from different perspectives . ''
After the justices heard arguments in the case , supporters of DACA recipients also told the court that some 27,000 recipients were working on the front lines to fight Covid-19 . | qKg1BwazJV62xxIL | 0 | Donald Trump | -0.2 | DACA | -0.1 | Supreme Court | -0.1 | Immigration | 0 | null | null |
justice_department | The Guardian | http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/nsa-gchq-smartphone-app-angry-birds-personal-data | NSA and GCHQ target 'leaky' phone apps like Angry Birds to scoop user data | 2014-01-27 | Spying, Justice Department, NSA, Defense And Security | β’ US and UK spy agencies piggyback on commercial data β’ Details can include age , location and sexual orientation β’ Documents also reveal targeted tools against individual phones
The National Security Agency and its UK counterpart GCHQ have been developing capabilities to take advantage of `` leaky '' smartphone apps , such as the wildly popular Angry Birds game , that transmit users ' private information across the internet , according to top secret documents .
The data pouring onto communication networks from the new generation of iPhone and Android apps ranges from phone model and screen size to personal details such as age , gender and location . Some apps , the documents state , can share users ' most sensitive information such as sexual orientation β and one app recorded in the material even sends specific sexual preferences such as whether or not the user may be a swinger .
Many smartphone owners will be unaware of the full extent this information is being shared across the internet , and even the most sophisticated would be unlikely to realise that all of it is available for the spy agencies to collect .
Dozens of classified documents , provided to βββ by whistleblower Edward Snowden and reported in partnership with the New York Times and ProPublica , detail the NSA and GCHQ efforts to piggyback on this commercial data collection for their own purposes .
Scooping up information the apps are sending about their users allows the agencies to collect large quantities of mobile phone data from their existing mass surveillance tools β such as cable taps , or from international mobile networks β rather than solely from hacking into individual mobile handsets .
Exploiting phone information and location is a high-priority effort for the intelligence agencies , as terrorists and other intelligence targets make substantial use of phones in planning and carrying out their activities , for example by using phones as triggering devices in conflict zones . The NSA has cumulatively spent more than $ 1bn in its phone targeting efforts .
The disclosures also reveal how much the shift towards smartphone browsing could benefit spy agencies ' collection efforts .
One slide from a May 2010 NSA presentation on getting data from smartphones β breathlessly titled `` Golden Nugget ! '' β sets out the agency 's `` perfect scenario '' : `` Target uploading photo to a social media site taken with a mobile device . What can we get ? ''
The question is answered in the notes to the slide : from that event alone , the agency said it could obtain a `` possible image '' , email selector , phone , buddy lists , and `` a host of other social working data as well as location '' .
In practice , most major social media sites , such as Facebook and Twitter , strip photos of identifying location metadata ( known as EXIF data ) before publication . However , depending on when this is done during upload , such data may still , briefly , be available for collection by the agencies as it travels across the networks .
Depending on what profile information a user had supplied , the documents suggested , the agency would be able to collect almost every key detail of a user 's life : including home country , current location ( through geolocation ) , age , gender , zip code , marital status β options included `` single '' , `` married '' , `` divorced '' , `` swinger '' and more β income , ethnicity , sexual orientation , education level , and number of children .
The agencies also made use of their mobile interception capabilities to collect location information in bulk , from Google and other mapping apps . One basic effort by GCHQ and the NSA was to build a database geolocating every mobile phone mast in the world β meaning that just by taking tower ID from a handset , location information could be gleaned .
A more sophisticated effort , though , relied on intercepting Google Maps queries made on smartphones , and using them to collect large volumes of location information .
So successful was this effort that one 2008 document noted that `` [ i ] t effectively means that anyone using Google Maps on a smartphone is working in support of a GCHQ system . ''
The information generated by each app is chosen by its developers , or by the company that delivers an app 's adverts . The documents do not detail whether the agencies actually collect the potentially sensitive details some apps are capable of storing or transmitting , but any such information would likely qualify as content , rather than metadata .
Data collected from smartphone apps is subject to the same laws and minimisation procedures as all other NSA activity β procedures that the US president , Barack Obama , suggested may be subject to reform in a speech 10 days ago . But the president focused largely on the NSA 's collection of the metadata from US phone calls and made no mention in his address of the large amounts of data the agency collects from smartphone apps .
The latest disclosures could also add to mounting public concern about how the technology sector collects and uses information , especially for those outside the US , who enjoy fewer privacy protections than Americans . A January poll for the Washington Post showed 69 % of US adults were already concerned about how tech companies such as Google used and stored their information .
The documents do not make it clear how much of the information that can be taken from apps is routinely collected , stored or searched , nor how many users may be affected . The NSA says it does not target Americans and its capabilities are deployed only against `` valid foreign intelligence targets '' .
The documents do set out in great detail exactly how much information can be collected from widely popular apps . One document held on GCHQ 's internal Wikipedia-style guide for staff details what can be collected from different apps . Though it uses Android apps for most of its examples , it suggests much of the same data could be taken from equivalent apps on iPhone or other platforms .
The GCHQ documents set out examples of what information can be extracted from different ad platforms , using perhaps the most popular mobile phone game of all time , Angry Birds β which has reportedly been downloaded more than 1.7bn times β as a case study .
From some app platforms , relatively limited , but identifying , information such as exact handset model , the unique ID of the handset , software version , and similar details are all that are transmitted .
Other apps choose to transmit much more data , meaning the agency could potentially net far more . One mobile ad platform , Millennial Media , appeared to offer particularly rich information . Millennial Media 's website states it has partnered with Rovio on a special edition of Angry Birds ; with Farmville maker Zynga ; with Call of Duty developer Activision , and many other major franchises .
Rovio , the maker of Angry Birds , said it had no knowledge of any NSA or GCHQ programs looking to extract data from its apps users .
`` Rovio does n't have any previous knowledge of this matter , and have not been aware of such activity in 3rd party advertising networks , '' said Saara BergstrΓΆm , Rovio 's VP of marketing and communications . `` Nor do we have any involvement with the organizations you mentioned [ NSA and GCHQ ] . ''
Millennial Media did not respond to a request for comment .
In December , the Washington Post reported on how the NSA could make use of advertising tracking files generated through normal internet browsing β known as cookies β from Google and others to get information on potential targets .
However , the richer personal data available to many apps , coupled with real-time geolocation , and the uniquely identifying handset information many apps transmit give the agencies a far richer data source than conventional web-tracking cookies .
Almost every major website uses cookies to serve targeted advertising and content , as well as streamline the experience for the user , for example by managing logins . One GCHQ document from 2010 notes that cookie data β which generally qualifies as metadata β has become just as important to the spies . In fact , the agencies were sweeping it up in such high volumes that their were struggling to store it .
`` They are gathered in bulk , and are currently our single largest type of events , '' the document stated .
The ability to obtain targeted intelligence by hacking individual handsets has been well documented , both through several years of hacker conferences and previous NSA disclosures in Der Spiegel , and both the NSA and GCHQ have extensive tools ready to deploy against iPhone , Android and other phone platforms .
GCHQ 's targeted tools against individual smartphones are named after characters in the TV series The Smurfs . An ability to make the phone 's microphone 'hot ' , to listen in to conversations , is named `` Nosey Smurf '' . High-precision geolocation is called `` Tracker Smurf '' , power management β an ability to stealthily activate an a phone that is apparently turned off β is `` Dreamy Smurf '' , while the spyware 's self-hiding capabilities are codenamed `` Paranoid Smurf '' .
Those capability names are set out in a much broader 2010 presentation that sheds light on spy agencies ' aspirations for mobile phone interception , and that less-documented mass-collection abilities .
The cover sheet of the document sets out the team 's aspirations :
Another slide details weak spots in where data flows from mobile phone network providers to the wider internet , where the agency attempts to intercept communications . These are locations either within a particular network , or international roaming exchanges ( known as GRXs ) , where data from travellers roaming outside their home country is routed .
These are particularly useful to the agency as data is often only weakly encrypted on such networks , and includes extra information such as handset ID or mobile number β much stronger target identifiers than usual IP addresses or similar information left behind when PCs and laptops browse the internet .
The NSA said its phone interception techniques are only used against valid targets , and are subject to stringent legal safeguards .
`` The communications of people who are not valid foreign intelligence targets are not of interest to the National Security Agency , '' said a spokeswoman in a statement .
`` Any implication that NSA 's foreign intelligence collection is focused on the smartphone or social media communications of everyday Americans is not true . Moreover , NSA does not profile everyday Americans as it carries out its foreign intelligence mission . We collect only those communications that we are authorized by law to collect for valid foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes β regardless of the technical means used by the targets .
`` Because some data of US persons may at times be incidentally collected in NSA 's lawful foreign intelligence mission , privacy protections for US persons exist across the entire process concerning the use , handling , retention , and dissemination of data . In addition , NSA actively works to remove extraneous data , to include that of innocent foreign citizens , as early as possible in the process .
`` Continuous and selective publication of specific techniques and tools lawfully used by NSA to pursue legitimate foreign intelligence targets is detrimental to the security of the United States and our allies β and places at risk those we are sworn to protect . ''
The NSA declined to respond to a series of queries on how routinely capabilities against apps were deployed , or on the specific minimisation procedures used to prevent US citizens ' information being stored through such measures .
GCHQ declined to comment on any of its specific programs , but stressed all of its activities were proportional and complied with UK law .
`` It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters , '' said a spokesman .
`` Furthermore , all of GCHQ 's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework that ensures that our activities are authorised , necessary and proportionate , and that there is rigorous oversight , including from the Secretary of State , the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee . All our operational processes rigorously support this position . ''
β’ A separate disclosure on Wednesday , published by Glenn Greenwald and NBC News , gave examples of how GCHQ was making use of its cable-tapping capabilities to monitor YouTube and social media traffic in real-time .
GCHQ β s cable-tapping and internet buffering capabilities , codenamed Tempora , were disclosed by βββ in June , but the new documents published by NBC from a GCHQ presentation titled β Psychology : A New Kind of SIGDEV '' set out a program codenamed Squeaky Dolphin which gave the British spies β broad real-time monitoring β of β YouTube Video Views β , β URLs β Liked β on Facebook β and β Blogspot/Blogger Visits β .
A further slide noted that β passive β β a term for large-scale surveillance through cable intercepts β give the agency β scalability β .
The means of interception mean GCHQ and NSA could obtain data without any knowledge or co-operation from the technology companies . Spokespeople for the NSA and GCHQ told NBC all programs were carried out in accordance with US and UK law .
β’ This article was amended on 28 January 2014 . It referred to martial status , instead of marital status . This has been corrected . | 0c93c661acc69103 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
media_industry | The Verge | https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/30/23328499/elon-musk-twitter-deal-termination-letter-whistleblower-testimony-mudge-zatko | Elon Musk says whistleblowerβs testimony gives him more reasons to dump Twitter deal | 2022-08-30 | Media Industry, Twitter, Big Tech, Elon Musk, Social Media, Business | Musk has filed a new letter of termination Musk has filed a new letter of termination by James Vincent Elon Musk says the disclosures of Twitterβs former security chief have given him new justifications to walk away from his $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform. Muskβs lawyers filed a new βTermination Letterβ with the SEC on August 29th, which cites the testimony of Twitter whistleblower Peiter βMudgeβ Zatko as evidence that Twitter misled Musk in the partiesβ merger agreement. Specifically, Musk claims that Twitterβs declaration in the merger agreement that it had not misled the SEC is false, citing Zatkoβs allegations. In Zatkoβs own complaints, which were published last week, he claimed that Twitter repeatedly and knowingly misled regulators about the security of its platform. β[Zatkoβs] allegations, if true, demonstrate that Twitter has breached the following provisions of the Merger Agreement, thereby giving the Musk Parties the right to terminate the Merger Agreement pursuant to its terms as more fully described below,β states Muskβs new termination letter. Musk, of course, is desperate to back out of the deal, but needs to prove to a judge that Twitter violated some aspect of the merger agreement. If he doesnβt, heβll have to pay a $1 billion fine or be forced to carry out βspecific performanceβ (meaning: actually buy Twitter). Itβs not clear, though, if Muskβs new termination letter strengthens his case. Muskβs first termination letter was filed in the beginning of July, and made similar accusations that Twitter misled the SEC in its regulatory disclosures (among other claims). This new letter essentially repeats the same charge, adding Zatkoβs complaint as additional evidence. Law professor Ann Lipton, whoβs analyzed the credibility of Muskβs legal case for walking away from the Twitter deal, previously said Zatkoβs complaint would be something of a βwild cardβ in the legal case. However, prior to the appearance of this new termination letter, she said Muskβs arguments βdo not appear to be very strong.β In their response to the new termination letter, Twitterβs legal representatives described Muskβs case as βinvalid and wrongful.β They repeated Twitterβs official response to Zatkoβs complaint; namely, that his allegations are βriddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lack important context.β βContrary to the assertions in your letter, Twitter has breached none of its representations or obligations under the Agreement,β write the companyβs representatives. βTwitter intends to enforce the Agreement and close the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with the Musk Parties.β Update, Tuesday 30th August, 09:15AM ET: Story updated with response from Twitter. A weekly newsletter by David Pierce designed to tell you everything you need to download, watch, read, listen to, and explore that fits in The Vergeβs universe. Β© 2025 Vox Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved As a valued user, we are providing you the ability to opt-out from the sharing of your personal information to advertisers and social media companies at any time across business platform, services, businesses and devices. You can opt-out of the sharing of your personal information by using this toggle switch. For more information on your rights and options see our privacy notice. | f6f7045a8b38b8d3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
politics | The Hill | http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/371636-fbi-warns-it-has-grave-concerns-about-material-omissions-of-fact-in | FBI condemns Nunes memo for 'omissions,' escalating feud | 2018-01-31 | politics | The FBI on Wednesday issued an extraordinary public statement condemning the Republican push to release a classified memo that alleges surveillance abuses at the Department of Justice .
The statement placed the bureau at odds not only with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes Devin Gerald NunesOvernight Defense : Trump hosts ErdoΔan at White House | Says Turkish leader has 'great relationship with the Kurds ' | Highlights from first public impeachment hearing GOP zeroes in on alleged Ukraine meddling during impeachment testimony βββ 's 12:30 Report : Democrats open televised impeachment hearings MORE ( R-Calif. ) , whose staff crafted the memo , but also with President Trump Donald John TrumpGOP senators balk at lengthy impeachment trial Warren goes local in race to build 2020 movement 2020 Democrats make play for veterans ' votes MORE himself , who has expressed his desire for the document to be released .
The broadside from the FBI β an agency that rarely makes public statements β was almost certainly approved by Trump β s own FBI director , Christopher Wray , escalating an increasingly bitter feud between the nation β s top law enforcement agency and the Republican Party .
β With regard to the House Intelligence Committee β s memorandum , the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it , β the FBI statement said . β As expressed during our initial review , we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo β s accuracy . β
Senior Justice Department officials , including Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Rod RosensteinDemocrats ask judge to force McGahn to comply with subpoena Democrats ask court to force DOJ 's hand on Mueller grand jury materials Washington celebrates diplomacy β and baseball β at Meridian Ball MORE , have lobbied both the committee and the White House against the release of the document .
The FBI has been in Republican crosshairs for months , with some conservatives asserting there is political bias against Trump at the highest levels of law enforcement . Before Wednesday , the Justice Department β s efforts to combat those attacks had largely taken place behind closed doors or in measured testimony before congressional committees .
But the battle is moving into the public arena now that Republicans have given the White House a memo , drawn from highly classified Justice Department materials , that they say shows shocking misconduct at the FBI .
Nunes , who describes the memo as facts based on research into Justice Department misconduct , pushed back hard at the FBI β s statement , calling the bureau β s objections β spurious . β
β The FBI is intimately familiar with β material omissions β with respect to their presentations to both Congress and the courts , β he said . β Regardless , it β s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counterintelligence investigation during an American political campaign . Once the truth gets out , we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again . β
The furor over the memo comes at a time when the president has grown bitterly frustrated with the federal investigation into his campaign β s alleged ties with Russia . He has repeatedly derided the investigation as a β witch hunt , β tweeted that the FBI β s reputation is in β tatters β and called for the removal of senior FBI officials whom he views as biased against him .
The memo , which is not yet public , is believed to contain allegations that investigators inappropriately relied on information drawn from opposition research paid for in part by Hillary β s Clinton presidential campaign to obtain a surveillance warrant on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page .
Initially , Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd sought to convince Nunes not to release the memo by arguing that it would be β extraordinarily reckless β to publish it without allowing the FBI to conduct a rigorous review to flag potential national security concerns .
The committee at first stonewalled the bureau from viewing the document at all , because , as panel member Mike Conaway Kenneth ( Mike ) Michael ConawayGOP motions to subpoena whistleblower Live coverage : House holds first public impeachment hearing Walden retirement adds to GOP election woes MORE ( R-Texas ) argued , β they β re the ones that have the problem. β Wray was reportedly later allowed to view the document in the committee β s secure spaces at the Capitol .
Now , the bureau appears to argue that the report is misleading β an argument already made publicly by Democrats , who say it is a cherry-picked set of inaccurate accusations designed to kneecap special counsel Robert Mueller Robert ( Bob ) Swan MuellerSpeier says impeachment inquiry shows 'very strong case of bribery ' by Trump Gowdy : I '100 percent ' still believe public congressional hearings are ' a circus ' Comey : Mueller 'did n't succeed in his mission because there was inadequate transparency ' MORE β s investigation into Russia β s election meddling and the Trump campaign .
β The FBI takes seriously its obligations to the FISA Court and its compliance with procedures overseen by career professionals in the Department of Justice and the FBI , β the bureau said in its statement , referring to the law that allows surveillance of foreign targets β including Americans believed to be acting as an agent of a foreign power .
β We are committed to working with the appropriate oversight entities to ensure the continuing integrity of the FISA process , β the statement said .
The House Intelligence Committee voted Monday to release the document publicly over the strident objections of committee Democrats , who say Republicans are attempting to politicize the intelligence process at the expense of national security . Bureau officials are privately expressing the same concern , according to reporting from The New York Times .
One former FBI official who spoke to βββ suggested that Wednesday β s statement was a straightforward attempt to counter what the bureau sees as misleading claims in the memo .
β For sure the FBI doesn β t want to get into a β he said/she said β with House Intel but somewhere , sometime they β re going to have to get the facts out , which I assume supports their position , β Ron Hosko , a former assistant director , told βββ in an email .
β I suspect that β s more likely the truth about their motivation than any desire to damage [ Trump ] , β he wrote .
The decision to release the document now rests with Trump , who has five days to decide whether to allow its publication .
Caught on a hot mic on Tuesday night after delivering his first State of the Union address , Trump told Rep. Jeff Duncan Jeffrey ( Jeff ) Darren DuncanHouse Republicans add Jordan to Intel panel for impeachment probe House votes to block drilling in Arctic refuge Overnight Energy : House moves to block Trump drilling | House GOP rolls out proposal to counter offshore drilling ban | calls mount for NOAA probe MORE ( R-S.C. ) that he would β 100 percent β release the memo .
The White House has insisted the document will go through a normal multiagency review process to ensure its release will not jeopardize national security .
Trump β s chief of staff , John Kelly John Francis KellyMORE , on Wednesday indicated the White House plans to release the memo soon .
β It will be released here pretty quick , I think , and then the whole world can see it , β Kelly said during an interview on Fox News Radio . β This president wants everything out so the American people can make up their own minds . β | hbSc0989Mq8xJA2O | 1 | FISA | 0.2 | Politics | -0.2 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
media_bias | NewsBusters | https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/techwatch/corinne-weaver/2018/10/17/report-google-news-biased-toward-left-4-1 | Report: Google News Biased Toward the Left 4-to-1 | 2018-10-17 | media_bias | Is Google News neutral ? Not according to a new report that studied the issue and determined that its results were skewed liberal .
AllSides , a media technology group , spent two weeks analyzing Google News β homepage and determined that news outlets with a left-leaning bias were always at the top of the list . The study determined that out of 123 individual measurements , 65 % of the news links provided were liberal , while only 16 % of the links were conservative . That β s a 4-to-1 ratio . 20 % of the links given were considered to be from a middle perspective .
The study pointed out that the positioning of the news was very important . Overall , left-wing news tended to be in the top two results , and right-wing news was always below the fold , 12 positions down .
AllSides wrote , β The numbers are so significantly strong and consistent in favor of news media sources from the left that the overall conclusion of a leftward bias is well justified. β Later on in the study , it stated , β AllSides analyzes the news on a daily basis and have often found it difficult to find perspectives from the right when using Google News . β
In the methodology , AllSides noted that sites like ABC , Buzzfeed , CBS , CNN , NBC , NPR , Politico , Time , The Washington Post , The New York Times , The New Yorker , and Huffington Post were heavily favored , while sites like Breitbart , The Blaze , The Daily Caller , Fox News , and the National Review were almost always below the fold . Even some of the news considered to be in the center wasn β t necessarily neutral , as the study included NPR , Bloomberg , Al Jazeera , and BBC .
91 % of the 123 measurements β indicated at least some preference for news media with a left bias over sources with a right bias. β It went even further : apparently 80 percent of the 123 measurements preferred left-wing news over news from a center source .
USA Today reported that AllSides CEO John Gable said , β Right now , technology overly puts a spotlight on the most popular perspective , or the perspective that most fits you , and that cuts out other perspectives . It reduces an individual β s ability to decide for themselves or know the whole story . β
Google told USA Today that the β search is not used to set a political agenda. β The search engine company also denied any bias towards a political ideology . | q1hFraX7bvbCgBrn | 2 | Google | -0.6 | AllSides | 0.2 | Media Bias | 0.2 | Media Watch | 0 | null | null |
polarization | Christian Science Monitor | https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2019/0404/In-SPLC-s-crisis-a-broader-lesson-for-how-to-combat-hate | In SPLCβs crisis, a broader lesson for how to combat hate? | 2019-04-04 | polarization | β If [ the SPLC ] needs to clean house , good , because their work is absolutely essential , β says extremism expert Catherine McNicol Stock . β But this is also a reminder that people on the left have to be careful not to equate the ideas of conservatism [ with extremism ] . β
Critics say that , as the group watches the β gray areas β between free speech and violence-inspiring hatred , it has sometimes skated onto thin ice in labeling individuals as extremists . The organization understands that β there is a danger labeling groups as hate groups when we β re in such a fragmented , polarized , and nuanced sociopolitical climate , β says Brian Levin , a former SPLC worker .
The Southern Poverty Law Center , a group known for combating white supremacy , has recently seen criticism turn inward . Several of its leaders have departed under allegations of racist or misogynist behavior in the workplace . Beyond that , concerns have risen that its efforts to root out extremism are , in some part , based on β selling the idea of Southern intolerance to a do-gooder Yankee donor base , β as a former SPLC staffer wrote .
Once a Democrat living in rural Kansas , Evan Mulch sought to wrench wisdom out of his daily life by reading and debating a full array of moral philosophies .
But one day , he stopped looking . β You can only go down so many rabbit holes , β he says .
He found his philosophical home at the archconservative John Birch Society , which is undergoing a renaissance in the Trump era .
To many progressives in the United States , Mr. Mulch is less a believer in small government than a patriot-movement extremist .
That view has been spread via the Southern Poverty Law Center and its influential Hatewatch project . In 2013 , the SPLC β s Hatewatch blog called the Society a group of β conspiracy theory-loving , U.N.-hating , federal government-despising , Ron Paul-supporting , environmentalist-bashing ... true believers . β
β Nearly everyone I run into says that the SPLC is a hate group itself , β he says . β So when a hate group is calling other groups hate groups , it may have lost all credibility . β
Even as the SPLC , based in Montgomery , Alabama , has become a heavy-hitting counterweight against rising white nationalism in the U.S. , it is in the midst of its own reckoning .
In the past month , three key leaders have either been fired or resigned amid allegations of racism and misogyny in the workplace β an irony for an organization founded to fight those impulses .
But for a lot of Americans , the scandal is much bigger than a tale of workplace hypocrisy . It is about how to police debate in an era when tribalism and name-calling seems to dominate the public square .
β If [ the SPLC ] needs to clean house , good , because their work is absolutely essential , β says Catherine McNicol Stock , author of β Rural Radicals : Righteous Rage in the American Grain. β β But this is also a reminder that people on the left have to be careful not to equate the ideas of conservatism [ with extremism ] . β
Hints of a moral crisis in an organization founded to uphold civil rights may extend beyond the office . Critics have raised concerns that its efforts to root out extremism are , in some part , based on β selling the idea of Southern intolerance to a do-gooder Yankee donor base β that supports a $ 741 million trust fund , as a former SPLC staffer wrote in The New Yorker magazine .
Out of a modernist six-story edifice set against Montgomery β s modest skyline , the SPLC manages a platoon of lawyers to litigate civil rights complaints . A smaller group is its outward face : the Intelligence Project , widely quoted publisher of Hatewatch , which tracks extremism throughout the U.S .
SPLC β s bankrupting of the Ku Klux Klan has been widely reported , and the group gained still more prominence as it tracked racists and bigots from the Clinton through Obama eras .
But with the Trump election , it took on fresh stature . Last year , it helped force several conservative commentators β including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones , who is currently being sued by parents of slain Sandy Hook children for spreading conspiracy theories that their children β s murders were all a hoax β off mainstream social media platforms . It routinely assists law enforcement , including the FBI , in tracking hate groups , and has been ringing alarm bells about a rising tide of white nationalist violence . In its most recent report , the Intelligence Project also noted a rise in violent black nationalism .
In recent years , the Intelligence Project has apologized to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson for listing him on an extremist watch . It also paid out millions in a libel settlement to a man it misidentified as an anti-Muslim extremist .
And critics have blamed the SPLC β s labeling as extremists mainstream figures like author Charles Murray β who posited in the β Bell Curve β the widely debunked theory that there may be genetic differences between the races β as contributing to hostility toward free speech on college campuses .
And then two weeks ago , a bombshell : The center suddenly announced the firing of co-founder Morris Dees . Late last month , president Richard Cohen and several other principals resigned . The center has been relatively mum about the details , but the shake-up came after a prominent black female attorney resigned , causing employees to write a letter saying that β allegations of mistreatment , sexual harassment , gender discrimination , and racism threaten the moral authority of this organization and our integrity along with it . β
Last week , the center hired Tina Tchen , Michelle Obama β s former chief of staff , to help overhaul its workplace culture . On Wednesday , it announced that an SPLC board member , former juvenile court judge Karen Baynes-Dunning , is taking over as interim CEO .
β It β s clear that our mission and our work combating hate and extremism are as needed as ever , so the vital work of the Intelligence Project goes on , β an SPLC spokesperson writes in an email . β Like all parts of the SPLC , we β re eager to see Tina Tchen β s review process continue and look forward to making any changes needed to ensure we have a workplace that reflects our highest values . β
The news led to eye-opening shellackings from news organizations that routinely use the SPLC β s findings to fuel stories . The Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker were among those that published tough critiques .
But a gentler charge , says Professor Stock , who teaches American studies at Connecticut College in New London , is that the SPLC applies what moral philosophers call a β hero standard β to group membership β the idea , for example , that those not actively trying to rescue Jews during the Holocaust were bad people . That high bar of virtue means that the SPLC β s brush sometimes splatters non-extremist Americans .
The organization understands that β there is a danger labeling groups as hate groups when we β re in such a fragmented , polarized , and nuanced sociopolitical climate , β said Brian Levin , former associate director for legal affairs of the SPLC β s Klanwatch/Militia Task Force , in a conversation before the shake-up .
But it β s the β gray areas β between free speech and violence-inspiring hatred where extremism can flourish β and where hate-watch groups can skate onto thin ice , says extremism expert J.M . Berger .
Last year , the Intelligence Project listed a man named Vince Buckles as a leader of the secessionist and increasingly militant League of the South in Louisiana . Mr. Buckles was at one point a cast member on the β Sons of Guns β reality TV show .
At the time , Hatewatch editor Heidi Beirich told the Monitor β s Christa Case Bryant that it stood by its reporting . She said Mr. Buckles β downplayed his role β because β this guy had a lot to lose by the disclosure of this . I know he was at some league events . β
Reached last year by the Monitor at his gun shop in Louisiana , Mr. Buckles acknowledged that he had been at a league event in New Orleans . But he says all he did was pay a membership fee to the League of the South .
He denies being a racist , claiming his gun shop is one of only a few in his parts of Louisiana that actively caters to a black clientele . For Mr. Buckles , at least , it β s like he woke up one day to find his reputation at stake for simply holding what he sees as traditional American views .
β The growing rise of left-wing politics means that stuff that used to be center of the road is now right-wing , β says Mr. Buckles . β Bill Clinton β s policies are not that different from Trump , but Trump is a Nazi and Clinton was a Democrat hero . It β s a very , very left shift . We thought this was healed , but now we have seen that it is not healed . β
Painting Americans like Mr. Buckles and Mr. Mulch as nationalist revolutionaries underscores the lack of a hard definition of extremism , complicated by the difficulty of a majority-white nation to address a surge of white nationalism , argues Mr. Berger , author of β Jihad Joe , β in an email .
In many ways , he says , the Supreme Court β s definition of pornography β β I know it when I see it β β has become the mainstream standard for extremism . β And it β s not a healthy one. β In his view , the extremism label should only be applied to groups that base their existence on the promotion of hostile action against another group .
β If β extremist β is just a label for someone you disagree with , then it β s a pretty useless label , β says Mr. Berger .
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β The Founders feared tyranny of the majority β that over time certain views would become so prevalent that [ Americans ] would exclude from discussion ... ideas that some people considered beyond the pale of acceptability , β says Gene Policinski , president of the Freedom Forum Institute in Washington . β The very reason [ for the First Amendment ] is for the protection of extreme ideas . Justice Jackson said that sometimes we need to hear that which is vile and repugnant only if to be better prepared to argue against it . β
Perhaps more fundamentally , both Mr. Buckles and Mr. Mulch say they have been undeterred by the SPLC β s negative attention . β Heck , β said Mr. Buckles . β it β s a badge of honor . β | cAcdStcOHWfThgyu | 1 | Polarization | -0.6 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
politics | CNN Digital | https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/21/politics/white-house-government-dei-employees-on-leave/index.html | White House orders government DEI employees to be placed on leave | 2025-01-22 | Politics, Donald Trump, DEI | CNN βEmployees in any federal diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility offices will be placed on paid administrative leave βeffective immediately,β according to a post from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.Slashing jobs in federal DEI positions is one move in a series of actions taken by the new administration, after Donald Trump promised to wage a war against such programs and take on the practice on Day 1. Trump has already cut high-profile military personnel and ended the use of DEI in hiring and federal contracting. Some major companies have taken similar measures as they face pressure from conservative critics and customers.A memo issued by the US Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday instructed agencies to notify DEI staffers βno later than 5:00pm EST on Wednesdayβ that they were being placed on administrative leave effective immediately as βthe agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs.βThe memo also directs agencies to remove the officesβ websites and social media accounts and to cancel any DEI-related trainings.CBS News first reported the memo.The move comes just one day after Trump signed an executive order banning DEI programs. On a briefing call with reporters Monday, an official pledged the executive order would βdismantle the DEI bureaucracy, and this includes environmental justice programs, equity related grants, equity action plan, equity initiatives.βThe White House also released a fact sheet Tuesday for an order ending the use of DEI in federal contracting and βdirecting federal agencies to relentlessly combat private sector discrimination.βThe order directs the Office of Management and Budget βto streamline the federal contracting process to enhance speed and efficiency, reduce costs, and require Federal contractors and subcontractors to comply with our civil rights lawsβ and βbars the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs from pushing contractors to balance their workforce based on race, sex, gender identity, sexual preference, or religion,β according to the fact sheet.President Joe Biden expanded government workplace DEI protections by signing a number of executive orders widening them to include a broader group of Americans, from pregnant people and military spouses to rural communities and caregivers.Critics say DEI programs are discriminatory and attempt to solve racial discrimination by disadvantaging other groups, particularly White Americans. But supporters and industry experts insist the decades-old practice has been politicized and is widely misunderstood.Video Ad Feedback Why Musk and Ramaswamy will face challenges purging DEI initiatives 04:21 - Source: CNN Why Musk and Ramaswamy will face challenges purging DEI initiatives 04:21The programs have also been in the crosshairs of Trumpβs new Department of Government Efficiency, which he has tapped tech billionaire Elon Musk to lead.Examples of programs involving DEI in major federal agencies include the the Department of Health and Human Servicesβ Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, Diversity & Inclusion, and the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity Policy at the Department of Defense.CNN previously analyzed the proposed budgets of 20 federal agencies. While each noted diversity initiatives in fiscal year 2024 and fiscal year 2025 budget requests, they didnβt all explicitly detail DEI expenditures.Some federal departments have entire offices dedicated to DEI, like the ones at DOD and HHS. There are also programs across departments that include money for things such as minority-owned business development, as well as diversity recruitment and training efforts.The attack on DEI by the Trump administration will likely face legal challenges. CNN has previously reported that hundreds of civil rights and advocacy groups are preparing for the numerous legal fights that would come from Republican efforts to dismantle DEI, and the American Civil Liberties Union told CNN last month itβs carefully reviewing all public statements from DOGE, the incoming Trump administration, as well as comments made on the campaign trail.This story has been updated with additional details.CNNβs Jack Forrest, Rene Marsh and Pamela Brown contributed to this report. | 08f0855a4a9b132a | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
impeachment | The Atlantic | https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/donald-trumps-gangster-white-house/604216/ | A Gangster in the White House | 2019-12-28 | impeachment | While the presumed whistle-blower reportedly remains employed by the government , he is also reportedly subject to regular death threats , including at least implicit threat by Trump himself . Trump was recorded in September telling U.S. diplomats in New York : β Basically , that person never saw the report , never saw the call , he never saw the callβheard something and decided that he or she , or whoever the hell they sawβthey β re almost a spy . I want to know who β s the person , who β s the person who gave the whistle-blower the information ? Because that β s close to a spy . You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart ? Right ? The spies and treason , we used to handle it a little differently than we do now . β
Trump β s tweeting in the past two days was so frenzied and the sources quoted were so bizarreβincluding at least four accounts devoted to the Pizzagate-adjacent conspiracy theory QAnon , as well as one that describes former President Barack Obama as β Satan β s Muslim scum β βas to renew doubts about the president β s mental stability . But Trump β s long reticence about outright naming the presumed whistle-blower suggests that he remained sufficiently tethered to reality to hear and heed a lawyer β s advice . He disregarded that advice in full awareness that he was disregarding it . The usual excuse for Trump β s online abusivenessβhe β s counterpunchingβamounts in this case not to a defense but to an indictment : Counterpunching literally means retaliating , and retaliation is what is forbidden by federal law .
The presumed whistle-blower β s personal remedy for the president β s misconduct is a private lawsuit for monetary damages against the federal government . It β s hard to see how such a lawsuit would do anybody any good . The presumed whistle-blower still draws a salary , and may not have suffered any material costs at all . The presumed whistle-blower β s ultimate compensation for this ordeal should be a future place of honor in the service of the country .
In the meantime , though , the country is left once again with the problem of a president who refuses to obey the law . Trump is organizing from the White House a conspiracy to revenge himself on the person who first alerted the country that Trump was extorting Ukraine to help his reelection : more lawbreaking to punish the revelation of past lawbreaking . Impeaching a president whose party holds a majority in the Senate obviously presents many grave practical difficulties . But Trump β s post-Christmas mania confirms House Speaker Nancy Pelosi β s prediction that Trump would impeach himself .
Donald Trump will not be bound by any rule , even after he has been caught . He is unrepentant and determined to break the rules againβin part by punishing those who try to enforce them . He is a president with the mind of a gangster , and as long as he is in office , he will head a gangster White House . | 96GrWmlb7FIqpMSO | 0 | Donald Trump | -0.2 | CIA | -0.1 | Ukraine | -0.1 | White House | -0.1 | Christmas | 0 |
coronavirus | Associated Press | https://apnews.com/253c16bc5813c5dbec0beafdb53489fc | With results due in Wisconsin election, voters file lawsuit | 2020-04-13 | Elections, 2020 Election, Wisconsin, Coronavirus, Voting Rights And Voter Fraud | Election officials Britt Bermingham , left , and Terry ? Perry count ballots as City of Milwaukee Election Commission workers were processing absentee ballots on the fourth floor of an office building at 501 W. Michigan Ave. in Milwaukee on Monday , April 13 , 2020 . ( Mike DeSisti/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel via AP )
Election officials Britt Bermingham , left , and Terry ? Perry count ballots as City of Milwaukee Election Commission workers were processing absentee ballots on the fourth floor of an office building at 501 W. Michigan Ave. in Milwaukee on Monday , April 13 , 2020 . ( Mike DeSisti/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel via AP )
MADISON , Wis. ( AP ) β A liberal challenger on Monday ousted a conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice endorsed by President Donald Trump , overcoming a successful push by Republicans to forge ahead with last week β s election even as numerous other states postponed theirs due to the coronavirus pandemic .
Joe Biden also emerged victorious , as expected , in the state β s Democratic presidential primary . Biden β s easy victory became academic when Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out , one day after Wisconsin held in-person voting .
But the absentee-ballot-fueled victory by liberal Supreme Court candidate Jill Karofsky was a huge win for Democrats . It reduced conservative control of the court to 4-3 , giving liberals a chance to take control in 2023 .
Karofsky will now be on the court when the Republican-controlled Legislature tackles redistricting next year , a fight many expect to be decided by the state Supreme Court .
Her win will also certainly be seen as a bellwether in battleground Wisconsin ahead of the November presidential election . Trump barely carried the state four years ago , and both parties see it as critical this year .
Justice Dan Kelly was an early underdog in the Supreme Court race , given the expected higher Democratic turnout since the election was on the same day as the presidential primary . But the Supreme Court outcome became more uncertain as Biden emerged as the presumptive nominee in March and the coronavirus pandemic led to fears of in-person voting and closure of polling locations .
With so much riding on turnout , the Republican push to proceed with the election was viewed by Democrats as a bid to suppress Democratic votes , particularly among minorities in Milwaukee .
Karofsky credited her win to voters rising up and rejecting Republican efforts to suppress turnout .
β People were willing to do that because they wanted their voices to be heard in this election , β she said . β A lot of times on election day we β re wringing our hands because we β re so upset about voter apathy . That wasn β t the problem on Tuesday . People wanted their voices heard . β
Karofsky voter Caleb Andersen , of Milwaukee , worked the polls on election day and thought the hurdles put up to voting in person motivated some people to come out who wouldn β t have otherwise .
β I β m sure there β s some level of vindication , β Anderson said of the Karofsky win . β I do feel there was a lot of voter activity by people who were angered by the entire thing , the lack of availability of absentee ballots . β
Trump last week broke from health experts and called on his supporters to β get out and vote NOW β for Kelly . He later said Democrats were playing politics by trying to postpone the election .
β As soon as I endorsed him , the Wisconsin Democrats said , β Oh , let β s move the election two months later , β β Trump said . β Now they talk about , β Oh , safety , safety . β β
Trump first voiced support for Kelly at a rally in January , far before concerns over the coronavirus led to calls for a delay in the election .
After Democratic Gov . Tony Evers ordered the election postponed , the highly politicized Wisconsin Supreme Court backed Republicans in proceeding with in-person voting in a ruling issued the day before the April 7 election .
Thousands of voters congregated for hours in long lines on April 7 , defying social-distancing guidelines that led to the postponement of primaries in several other states . Milwaukee opened just five of 180 polling places due to a shortage of workers .
Karofsky surged to victory behind a record-high number of absentee ballots β nearly as many as all the votes cast in a state Supreme Court race last year .
The Wisconsin election crystallized what β s expected to be a high-stakes , state-by-state legal fight over how citizens can safely cast their ballots if the coronavirus outbreak persists into the November election . Democrats are arguing for states to be ready to shift to much greater use of absentee and mailed ballots , while Republicans are raising the specter that such elections could lead to increased fraud .
Karofksy β s win is likely to only add fuel to Democrats β call for more mail-in elections and toughen GOP opposition . Democrats earlier Monday called for moving a May 12 special congressional election in Wisconsin to mail-in only .
Returns weren β t allowed to be reported until Monday due to a quirk in the court battle over the election . Even before the counting began , a group of Milwaukee-area voters filed a federal lawsuit seeking to force a partial revote to protect the β thousands β of voters who they argue were disenfranchised by the turbulent election .
Many voters complained that they had requested absentee ballots that never arrived , forcing them to choose between sitting out the election or risking infection by voting in person . City officials in Milwaukee , as well as Wisconsin β s two U.S. senators , called on the U.S . Postal Service to investigate the complaints .
Evers said on Monday that the election was β a mess that could have been avoided . β | 665384be98c63c6e | 1 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
environment | Washington Times | https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jul/14/biden-outlines-2-trillion-climate-change-proposal/ | Biden outlines $2 trillion climate change proposal | 2020-07-14 | environment | Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden pledged Tuesday to invest $ 2 trillion into combating climate change during his first term in office .
Mr. Biden said President Trump β s refusal to address the mounting problem and his bungled response to the coronavirus calls for a massive down payment on a pro-environment agenda that will lead to new jobs and fewer carbon emissions .
β There is no more consequential challenge that we must meet in the next decade than the onrushing climate crisis , β Mr. Biden said in Wilmington . β Left unchecked , it is literally an existential threat to our planet and to our very survival . β
Mr. Biden said his plan will strengthen the nation β s crumbling roads and bridges and achieve β net-zero emissions no later than 2050 . β
β When Donald Trump thinks about climate change , the only word he can muster is β hoax , β β the former vice president said . β When I think about climate change , the word I think about is β jobs . β β
The proposal is part of Mr. Biden β s economic recovery plan .
It grew out of the recommendations from the Biden-Sanders unity task on climate change co-chaired by former Secretary of State John Kerry , the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee , and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York .
The Biden camp believes that it can make inroads against Mr. Trump by highlighting his failure to deliver on his promise to revamp the nation β s infrastructure
Mr. Biden said his plan would generate well-paying union jobs , improve air quality , and restore the nation β s β crumbling roads and bridges and ports . β
β When Donald Trump thinks about renewable energy , he sees windmills somehow causing cancer , β Mr. Biden said . β When I think about these windmills , I see American manufacturing , Americans workers racing to dominate the market . β
Mr. Biden said Mr. Trump and Republican lawmakers have failed to act .
Mr. Biden said he can pass an infrastructure bill , citing the lead role he played in passing the 2009 stimulus bill that included big investments in infrastructure and clean energy .
Washington Gov . Jay Inslee , who made climate change the centerpiece of his failed 2020 presidential run , applauded Mr. Biden β s approach , saying he β decided to go big . β
β Joe Biden β s modern infrastructure and clean energy plan shows that he β s serious about defeating climate change and has a road map to become the Climate President that America needs , β Mr. Inslee said .
House Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana panned the Biden plan , reminding reporters in a conference call how Solyndra , a solar panel maker , defaulted on a $ 528 million federal loan it had received through the 2009 stimulus package .
β That is Solyndra on steroids , β Mr. Scalise said on a conference call with the Trump campaign . β It β s a track record of failure . β
A spokesman for the Republican National Committee said the proposals show Mr. Biden is β beholden to left-wing ideologues and not to the American people who face the prospect of eliminated jobs and higher taxes under his plan . β
Steve Milloy , former Trump EPA Transition Team member , panned the plan , saying his vow to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants is a β false fantasy β that would β wreck our economy and standard of living . β
β This campaign promise is nothing but a transparent attempt to excite the Ocasio-Cortez wing of the Democrat Party about the Biden candidacy , β Mr. Malloy said .
Mr. Biden β s plan calls for a β carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 , β retrofitting 4 million buildings in an environmentally friendly way and establishing universal broadband access .
Mr. Biden also borrowed from the plan that Mr. Inslee laid out during his presidential run , calling for the establishment of the Environmental and Climate Justice Division within the U.S. Department of Justice that would be tasked with holding corporate polluters accountable . | CKfb0wFmWCmq0NpR | 2 | Climate Change | 1.4 | Joe Biden | 1.2 | Elections | -0.9 | Environment | 0.9 | Business | 0 |
culture | National Review | https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/jordan-peterson-kanye-west-challenge-political-correctness/ | The Coalition for Cultural Freedom | 2018-05-12 | culture | Kanye West , Jordan Peterson , and the revolt against political correctness
On May 15 , 1939 , philosopher John Dewey issued a statement to the press announcing the formation of the Committee for Cultural Freedom . Attached were the committee β s declaration of principles and the names of 96 signatories . The following day , at a meeting inside Columbia University β s Low Library , the committee adopted its official manifesto . β Never before in modern times , β the document began , β has the integrity of the writer , the artists , the scientist , and the scholar been threatened so seriously . β
The committee β s members included anthropologists , philosophers , journalists , dramatists , attorneys , educators , and historians . Politically , they ran the gamut from democratic socialists to New Deal liberals to 19h-century liberals who embraced the market without serious qualification . What unified them was their commitment β to propagate courageously the ideal of untrammeled intellectual activity. β The β fundamental criteria for evaluating all social philosophies today , β their manifesto read , are β whether it permits the thinker and the artist to function independently of political , religious , or racial dogmas. β The basis for this alliance between such disparate persons , they continued , was β the least common denominator of a civilized culture β the defense of creative and intellectual freedom . β
It was the existence of Popular Front groups who toed the Stalinist line in science , literature , social thought , and the arts that moved the committee β s chief organizer , Sidney Hook , to action . β It seemed to me that it was necessary to challenge this massive phenomenon that was corrupting the springs of liberal opinion and indeed making a mockery of common sense , β Hook wrote in his autobiography , Out of Step ( 1987 ) . β I decided to launch a new movement , based on general principles whose validity would be independent of geographical or national boundaries and racial or class membership . β
Hook β s committee was the precursor of the international Congress for Cultural Freedom , convened in Berlin in June 1950 , and the affiliated American Committee for Cultural Freedom organized in 1951 . At that first meeting in Berlin , Arthur Koestler read from the dais the β Manifesto of Freedom , β which held β as self-evident β that β intellectual freedom is one of the inalienable rights of man , β and that such freedom β is defined first and foremost by his right to hold and express his own opinions , and particularly opinions which differ from those of his rulers . Deprived of his right to say β no , β man becomes a slave . β
The America of 2018 , needless to say , is a much different place from the America of 1939 and 1951 . Nazi Germany is long gone , extinguished in a war that killed 60 million souls . The Soviet Union disappeared 27 years ago , after a Cold War that lasted some five decades . Print media have collapsed and been replaced by digital and social media that limit the power of gatekeepers and extend the reach of minority viewpoints . If the late 1930s and early 1950s are the baseline , the world of 2018 is much more free .
But threats remain . Totalitarian systems in Russia , China , and their former Marxist-Leninist satellites have transformed , with the exception of North Korea , into systems of authoritarian control that permit some economic liberty while maintaining state sovereignty over politics , society , and culture . The authoritarians use β sharp power β to interfere in democratic elections , bully and exploit Western corporations and universities , and influence public discourse through information warfare . A renascent Marxism competes with , and to a large extent has been subsumed by , the ideology of multiculturalism and its attendant identity politics .
It is this ideology and politics that have captured America β s most prestigious intellectual , cultural , and media institutions . The university , Silicon Valley , Hollywood , and increasingly formerly β neutral β and β objective β platforms such as the New York Times and The Atlantic have come under the sway of racial and sexual dogmas and attitudes that brook no disagreement . Membership in these institutions , which play a crucial role in elite opinion formation , and the social networks in which they are embedded , is contingent on agreement with or silence about certain ideas of β white privilege , β patriarchal β oppression , β β Islamophobia , β and β gender fluidity. β To dissent from these ideas β to exercise one β s right to say no β invites not only anathematization from polite society but also the loss of one β s job and , in some cases , physical threats .
The ferocity with which challenges to the ideology are met signifies not power but weakness . All it takes to end the hegemony of political correctness is to combat or ignore its will to intimidation . And that is happening .
Just as happened in the 20th century , an unlikely group of compatriots has emerged to resist the contemporary domestic challenge to cultural freedom . Reading Bari Weiss β s recent article on the β intellectual dark web , β one can not help being struck by the diversity of opinion and partisan allegiance among the renegade thinkers challenging political correctness and its stigmatization of arguments that violate its axioms of group identity , racial strife , and transgenderism . A stultifying intellectual atmosphere , in which the subjective emotional responses of designated victim groups take precedent over style , argument , and empirical evidence , makes for unexpected alliances . Who would have thought that Kanye West would become , in the space of a few tweets , the most famous and recognized champion of individual free thought in the world today ? Who could have anticipated that New Atheist Sam Harris would find himself in a united front with Jordan Peterson , who instructs his millions of acolytes in the continued relevance of biblical stories ?
The new advocates for cultural freedom are different from their forebears . They are more ethnically and sexually diverse . Practically all of them operate outside the academy . They are not self-consciously organized as a movement . To some extent , of course , this lack of institutionalization is related to present historical conditions . The mid 20th century was an era of bigness , of vast bureaus , of hierarchical corporations where political life , especially on the left , was divided and subdivided into party , committee , and cell . The early 21st century is too fractured , disaggregated , and anarchic for such precise construction and coordination . This is a time of weak relationships , of loose affiliations . People drop in and out of movements at the press of a β like , β β tweet , β or β send β button . And because our media is unbundled , and the multiple means of personal expression so accessible , no one authority has monopoly power to distinguish reasonable dissenters from cranks . This creates an opportunity for the enforcers of political correctness , who are quick to associate the enemies they unfairly deride as racists with genuine ones .
What has come into being is not a committee or congress but a Coalition for Cultural Freedom . This wide-ranging assembly of critics opposed to the consensus that dominates the commanding heights of culture , entertainment , and media is neither centrally directed nor unified , not precisely delineated or philosophically consistent . But they do all believe in what Gaetano Mosca called β juridical defense , β pluralism in opinion and institutions to guard against conformity and repression . And the fact that Kanye β s heresy and Weiss β s reporting were greeted with contumely , derision , outrage , and agony is evidence for the strength of such conformity , the desire for such repression .
Political correctness reigns in San Francisco , Hollywood , and Berkeley , and it is making inroads into New York and the permanent bureaucratic government in Washington , D.C. , but its position is insecure , unstable . The ferocity with which challenges to the ideology are met signifies not power but weakness . All it takes to end the hegemony of political correctness is to combat or ignore its will to intimidation . And that is happening . The simple truth is that people do not like being reduced to their skin color , and they hate being called racists . So they tend to abandon the figures and organizations that see them as nothing but biased , sexist , bigoted dullards who belong in a basket of deplorables . They may not voice their opinion to a pollster for fear of social ostracism . But they reveal their preferences through action .
Hillary Clinton can tell you as much . So can ESPN and the NFL and the Hollywood studios whose social-justice masterworks are rewarded at the Oscars but not at the box office . Google and Facebook have also felt the backlash from censoring non-woke voices . Conversely , the success of American Sniper , Donald Trump , Jordan Peterson , and Roseanne has revealed the size of the audience willing to abandon the poses of political correctness for authenticity and disruption .
β The defense of intellectual liberty today imposes a positive obligation : to offer new and constructive answers to the problems of our time , β wrote the authors of the Freedom Manifesto . β We address this manifesto to all men who are determined to regain those liberties which they have lost and to preserve and extend those which they enjoy. β Those ranks included Sidney Hook and Arthur Koestler . Today they have been joined by Jordan Peterson , Charles Murray , Christina Hoff Sommers , and , yes , Kanye West . | n32Cr1yYmQbS9ClD | 2 | Political Correctness | 2 | Culture | -0.4 | null | null | null | null | null | null |
economy_and_jobs | CNN (Web News) | http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/02/news/economy/october-jobs-report/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 | October jobs report: Hiring increases, unemployment up | 2012-11-02 | Economy And Jobs | Hiring was surprisingly strong in October , while the unemployment rate ticked higher , according to a report released just four days before the presidential election .
The economy added 171,000 jobs in October , and unemployment inched up to 7.9 % , from 7.8 % in September , the Labor Department said Friday .
Obama 's economy View photos A look at where the economy stood when Obama took office and what 's changed since .
Economists surveyed by CNNMoney had expected employers to add 125,000 positions , so the boost in hiring was mostly seen as a positive surprise .
Superstorm Sandy , which devastated the northeastern part of the U.S. this week , had no impact on the report since the survey was taken earlier in the month , the Labor Department said .
Another good sign was that job growth in recent months was even stronger than originally reported . The number of positions added in August and September were revised sharply higher , adding a combined 84,000 more jobs than first thought .
`` We are again seeing a quickening in the rate of hiring , '' said Heather Boushey , senior economist at the left-leaning Center for American Progress . `` It 's moving in the right direction . ''
However , the pace of hiring has not regained the force it had in January and February , when more than 250,000 jobs were added each month .
The rise in unemployment was expected by economists , and was mainly because more people joined the labor force . Some economists believe that September 's drop in unemployment encouraged those out of work to reenter the labor force .
The job gains were spread across varying industries , with the entire private sector adding 184,000 people to the payroll . Professional and business services added 51,000 positions , while health care employment rose by 31,000 . The construction sector continued to bring on employees , adding 17,000 jobs last month . Retail and leisure and hospitality also boosted payrolls .
But government employers took a step back , shedding 13,000 jobs after several strong months of gains . Manufacturing was little changed and mining lost 9,000 jobs .
`` A few more people are working , but they are not making any more , '' said Keith Hembre , chief economist at Nuveen Asset Management .
The report , the last before Tuesday 's election , will likely be picked apart by politicians as well as economists . September 's report , which showed an unexpected drop in the unemployment rate , prompted an outcry from Republican supporters , including Jack Welch , claiming the figure had been manipulated .
The monthly jobs report has taken on increased importance as the nation struggles to recover from the economic downturn . Roughly 12.3 million people remain unemployed , 40.6 % of whom have been so for more than six months . And presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are centering much of the campaigns on who can create more jobs .
Obama touted the rosy report on the campaign trail Friday , noting that employers have picked up hiring lately .
`` This morning we learned that companies hired more workers in October than at any time in the last eight months , '' he said in Ohio .
Romney , meanwhile , swiftly issued a statement saying the report was `` a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill . '' He noted the jobless rate is higher than it was when Obama took office . In January 2009 , the unemployment rate was 7.8 % .
While many industries are adding jobs , the current tepid pace of growth is not enough to climb out of the jobs hole , economists said . Companies remain hesitant to boost payrolls . One of their main worries ? How the president and Congress deal with the looming fiscal cliff .
`` The broader economy is still just limping along , '' said Bill Dunkelberg , chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business . `` We do n't really see any major pickup in job growth . '' | 2c0a4c4c996ebf79 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null |
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