Group items tagged

WASHINGTON — President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday resuming the admission of refugees to the United States under tighter security screening. But administration officials said they will subject 11 unidentified countries to another 90-day review for potential threats.The order lifted a suspension on new refugee admissions that Mr. Trump first imposed shortly after taking office in January. At the time, it was part of a broader effort to limit the flow of foreigners admitted to the United States on the grounds of security, an initiative that has generated one of the sharpest legal and political debates of his nine-month-old presidency.

It was not clear whether the new screening procedures would significantly diminish the chances for many applicants. While refugees who were vetted and approved before Mr. Trump took office have been allowed into the country this year, no new applications have been processed or approved since June. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mr. Trump has already moved aggressively to scale back the nation’s refugee program, imposing a limit of 45,000 — the lowest in more than three decades — on the number of people fleeing persecution that can be resettled in the United States over the fiscal year that started on Oct. 1. The action announced on Tuesday, while restarting the admissions process halted earlier this year, could result in new roadblocks or even outright bans for refugees from the 11 countries, potentially narrowing the pool even further.

The White House said that both reviews — the one that has been completed and the new, 90-day one — both aim to secure the United States from a clear danger from terrorist groups seeking to infiltrate the country. “The review process for refugees” required by the president “has made our nation safer,” the new order said.

Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard said Thursday that she will not run for re-election for her U.S. representative seat, saying she wants to focus on trying to secure her party’s nomination to challenge President Donald Trump.

"I believe that I can best serve the people of Hawaii and our country as your president and commander-in-chief,"

An Iowa Democratic caucus poll out this week put Gabbard at 3 percent, with former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg in the top three spots.

To prevent factions from distorting public policy and threatening liberty, Madison resolved to exclude the people from a direct role in government. “A pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction,” Madison wrote in “Federalist No. 10.”

The Framers designed the American constitutional system not as a direct democracy but as a representative republic, where enlightened delegates of the people would serve the public good. They also built into the Constitution a series of cooling mechanisms intended to inhibit the formulation of passionate factions, to ensure that reasonable majorities would prevail.

Madison, however, thought Plato’s small-republic thesis was wrong. He believed that the ease of communication in small republics was precisely what had allowed hastily formed majorities to oppress minorities. “Extend the sphere” of a territory, Madison wrote, “and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other.” Madison predicted that America’s vast geography and large population would prevent passionate mobs from mobilizing. Their dangerous energy would burn out before it could inflame others.

Several factors may explain the phenomenon, analysts say. “We really should be careful about assuming a cultural or ideological alignment between young voters and the far right,”

“We know in many countries young people are more pro-immigration than older voters. They have not become xenophobic. But their lives are more precarious. These are often votes for what in this Dutch election was called ‘livelihood security’.”

The Dutch word bestaanszekerheid translates roughly as an existence with a sufficient and predictable income, a satisfactory home, adequate access to education and healthcare, and a cushion against unexpected eventualities.

getting Joe Biden elected is important for the left, for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with Biden’s own politics. If Donald Trump is reelected, the chance of serious climate action dwindles to nothing, while there is at least a chance of compelling Biden to actually act on his climate platform. It will not be easy. At every turn the Democratic Party will try to compromise and take measures that are symbolic rather than substantive. But there is a conceivable strategy. 

Understandably, many leftists are not terribly pleased by the prospect of having to vote for Joe Biden, a man who has shown contempt for them and their values, and has a documented history of predatory behavior towards women. But when voting is considered in terms of its consequences rather than as an expressive act, our personal opinions of Joe Biden become essentially irrelevant. If, under the circumstances we find ourselves in, a Biden presidency is a precondition for any form of left political success, and there are no other options, then we must try to bring it about

while they are important, they can also seem strange if we examine how they would sound in other contexts. After all, think back to David Duke in 1991. Or the German election of 1932. Would it have seemed reasonable, faced with a Klan governorship, to ask: “But if I vote for Edwards, won’t I be incentivizing corruption? Isn’t the lesser evil still evil? Shouldn’t I demand Edwards stop being corrupt before I give him my vote?”

History is lauded in China. Ordinary people will tell you every chance they get that they have 5,000 years of culture: wuqiannian de wenhua.

or the government, it is the benchmark for legitimacy in the present. But it is also a beast that lurks in the shadows.

It is hard to overstate history’s role in a Chinese society run by a communist party. Communism itself is based on historical determinism: one of Marx’s points was that the world was moving inexorably towards communism, an argument that regime-builders such as Lenin and Mao used to justify their violent rises to power. In China, Marxism is layered on top of much older ideas about the role of history. Each succeeding dynasty wrote its predecessor’s history, and the dominant political ideology – what is now generically called Confucianism – was based on the concept that ideals for ruling were to be found in the past, with the virtuous ruler emulating them. Performance mattered, but mainly as proof of history’s judgment.

about third parties. There are ways to deal with them without totally discounting a lot of votes. Maine has come up with a system where everybody can rank their preferences on the ballot. If nobody gets over 50 percent of the first choices, the last candidate gets tossed out and her supporters’ next preferences come into play.

“A third party will always be a spoiler one way or the other,” said Sean Wilentz, an expert on American political history at Princeton. In the end, Wilentz said, people who vote for a third party often wind up helping the candidate they’d least like to see win.

BERLIN — Germany inched toward installing a new government as Angela Merkel’s conservatives and leaders of the Social Democrats (SPD) reached agreement on the outline of a legislative agenda after marathon talks. After negotiating non-stop for 24 hours to conclude exploratory talks, the parties agreed on a 28-page position paper, laying out their policy priorities for the coming years. The parties devoted the first three pages of the document to Europe but offered little more than platitudes about the importance of further reform and their support for deeper integration. While they signaled a willingness to spend more on Europe and to work together closely with France, the parties offered no specifics on how much Berlin would be willing to spend and on what.

Though the paper is quite specific in some areas, such as the number of refugees Germany is willing to accept per year (220,000), it is vague in others and contains few surprises. “The results include a number of compromises and few substantial reforms,” said Marcel Fratzscher, the head of the Berlin-based DIW economic research institute. “What’s missing is a clear vision and courageous reforms that will prepare Germany for the future.” While Friday’s agreement boosts the chances for a renewal of a “grand coalition” between the center-left and center-right, negotiators face a circuitous path towards a final deal. Before they can proceed to formal talks, the SPD leadership needs to secure the agreement of a special party convention, scheduled for January 21.

real negotiations are often the very antithesis of thoughtful, systematic, rational and intellectually honest exercises. In fact, they’re driven and shaped by factors, such as luck, politics and personality, that are hard to quantify and more experiential than analytical.

Another Fisher principle was to develop objective criteria so that when there was disagreement, there would be some reasonable baseline to resolve them

What you do try to do is to take each side’s unreasonableness and try to convert it to some common ground by showing both sides they might be able to have their needs met through this bridging idea or that. And if it works, objectivity—whatever that means—is not the relevant factor in any event; the sides’ owning the bridging mechanism and being able to sell it, is.

The significance of birthright citizenship cannot be overstated. We forget how rare it is: No European or Asian country grants this right. It means that being American is not the preserve of any particular racial, ethnic, or religious subgroup. The United States took another century to begin dismantling the legalized racism that continued unabated after the Civil War. Nonetheless, the core constitutional aspiration—in the 1780s, the 1860s, the 1960s, and the present—has been to create a tribe-transcending national identity.

partisan political loyalties can become tribal too. When they do, they can be as destructive as any other allegiance. The Founders understood this. In 1780, John Adams wrote that the “greatest political evil” to be feared under a democratic constitution was the emergence of “two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other.” George Washington, in his farewell address, described the “spirit of party” as democracy’s “worst enemy.”

The causes of America’s resurgent tribalism are many. They include seismic demographic change, which has led to predictions that whites will lose their majority status within a few decades; declining social mobility and a growing class divide; and media that reward expressions of outrage

The “worst deal ever” will most likely live to see another 120 days.The Associated Press reported Wednesday that President Trump will this week extend relief from nuclear-related economic sanctions on Iran. If it seems like a procedural matter, it is, but it also means in practice that it keeps alive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the Iran deal is known. Reinstating the sanctions would have put the United States in violation of the agreement. The president must decide every 120 days whether to waive the sanctions.  

Trump faced two separate choices. One was whether to certify or decertify the JCPOA under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which Congress passed in 2015 to give it the right to review the accord and require the president to verify Iran’s compliance with the agreement every 90 days. In October, Trump declined to certify compliance, but did not tear up the deal—in decertifying the deal, he left to Congress the decision of what to do about it. Congress has been focused on other things, however. The other and more consequential choice was whether to waive or reimpose sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear activities, and it is on this decision that U.S. participation in the deal lives or dies. If AP’s report is correct, Trump has passed up this opportunity to withdraw.  

The new sanctions will almost certainly anger Iranian officials, but are likely to be cautiously welcomed by the other parties to the JCPOA: the European Union, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the U.K., all of which wanted the deal to be preserved because, they said, it had succeeded in freezing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program and its uranium-enrichment activity.The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris climate deal and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, both signature foreign-policy initiatives of President Obama, bolster fears that the JCPOA could go the same way. Trump’s remarks on the presidential campaign trail, where he called the agreement the “worst deal ever,” further cast its future into doubt. But the JCPOA’s other signatories, especially the EU and the U.K., have been vocal in their support of the agreement and have made their case to the White House and lawmakers. China and Russia, who are also parties to the deal, have also signaled they will stay in it.

One of the murkiest issues has to do with the nature and causes of Stalin’s terror and the question of whether Stalin had broken with Lenin’s policies or continued them. Behind this lay the question of the institutionalization of violence in Bolshevik culture and the Soviet state.

the policies of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party did not at first rely on terror. However, the extreme conditions of the civil war from 1917 to 1922, in which some seven million people were killed, together with Lenin’s ruthless economic policies, led to the destitution and desperation of millions of people who found themselves without food, livelihood, shelter or security.

He concluded this grisly note with the directive: “Find some truly hard people.”The following month, he ordered: “It is necessary secretly — and urgently — to prepare the terror.”

The American economy moved into a higher gear last quarter, expanding at an annual rate of 2.9 percent

For all the quarterly blips, the ups and downs on Wall Street and the back and forth between political parties, the American economy remains more or less on the same trajectory since the recovery began more than seven years ago: modest but consistent growth.

Many experts initially forecast another subdued performance in the third quarter, but estimates crept higher this week after a report on Wednesday showed better-than-expected exports and lower imports in September.

google_ad_client = 'ca-guardian_js'; google_ad_channel = 'worldnews'; google_max_num_ads = '3'; // Comments Click here to join the discussion. We can't load the discussion on theguardian.com because you don't have JavaScript enabled. if (!!window.postMessage) { jQuery.getScript('http://discussion.theguardian.com/embed.js') } else { jQuery('#d2-root').removeClass('hd').html( '' + 'Comments' + 'Click here to join the discussion.We can\'t load the ' + 'discussion on theguardian.com ' + 'because your web browser does not support all the features that we ' + 'need. If you cannot upgrade your browser to a newer version, you can ' + 'access the discussion ' + 'here.' ); } comp

Britain could have lived with a German victory in the first world war, and should have stayed out of the conflict in 1914, according to the historian Niall Ferguson, who described the intervention as "the biggest error in modern history".

Britain could indeed have lived with a German victory. What's more, it would have been in Britain's interests to stay out in 1914,

isgraced former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens is moving closer to a 2022 Senate bid, alarming top Republicans who worry he will jeopardize the party’s grip on the seat and imperil their prospects of seizing the majority.

The maneuvering, which follows Republican Sen. Roy Blunt’s surprise retirement announcement last week, is giving Republicans nightmarish flashbacks to 2012, when they nominated a problematic Missouri Senate candidate, Todd Akin, who went on to lose the election.

ranging from members of the Missouri congressional delegation to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s political operation — have been united in their worry about the former governor and spent the week having conversations about the situation, according to people familiar with the discussions.

and it could be one of tumult, banners colliding, incidents at the polls and attempted hacks galore. More likely than not, it will end without a winner named or at least generally accepted.

America will probably awaken on Nov. 4 into uncertainty. Whatever else happens, there is no doubt that President Trump is ready for it.

They are worried that the president could use the power of the government — the one they all serve or served within — to keep himself in office or to create favorable terms for negotiating his exit from the White House.

n a series of interviews in March of 2014, Donald Trump singled out Russia as the United States' "biggest problem" and greatest geopolitical foe. Trump's comments more than two years ago, which came in the wake of Russian incursions into Crimea, offer a sharp contrast to the Russia-friendly rhetoric he has employed since launching his presidential campaign. In the interviews reviewed by CNN's KFile from March 2014, which occurred on NBC News and Fox News, Trump goes as far as to suggest imposing sanctions to hurt Russia economically and then later says he supports such sanctions

Email<

Washington (CNN)Ohio Gov. John Kasich says he won't "sit silent" and watch the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion get "ripped out" as Republicans work to repeal the law.

Kasich said 700,000 Ohio residents now receive care who did not before Obamacare became law, including "a third of whom have mental illness and need to be treated or drug treatment, which is a problem throughout the country."

Oscar snub: Accountants will never work awards show again

Cheryl Boone Isaacs said Brian Cullinan, the PwC representative responsible for handing over the errant envelope that led to ‘‘La La Land’’ mistakenly being announced as best picture rather than ‘‘Moonlight,’’ was distracted backstage. He tweeted (and later deleted) a photo of Emma Stone with her new Oscar minutes before giving presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway the wrong envelope for best picture. Advertisement

biggest blunder in the 89-year history of the Academy Awards