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g-dragon

The short life and tragic death of the 6th Dalai Lama - 0 views

www.thoughtco.com/the-sixth-dalai-lama-450197

6th dalai lama short life death

shared by g-dragon on 15 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • He received ordination as the most powerful lama in Tibet only to turn his back on monastic life. As a young adult he spent evenings in taverns with his friends and enjoyed sexual relations with women. He is sometimes called the "playboy" Dalai Lama.
  • a young man who was sensitive and intelligent, even if undisciplined.
  • After a childhood locked away in a country monastery with hand-picked tutors, his assertion of independence is understandable. The violent end of his life makes his story a tragedy, not a joke.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • The "Great Fifth" lived in a time of volatile political upheaval. He persevered through adversity and unified Tibet under his rule as the first of the Dalai Lamas to be political and spiritual leaders of Tibet.
  • Sangye Gyatso and a few co-conspirators kept the 5th Dalai Lama's death a secret for 15 years.
  • the deception averted possible power struggles and allowed for a peaceful transition to the rule of the 6th Dalai Lama.
  • The boy identified as the Great Fifth's rebirth was Sanje Tenzin, born in 1683 to noble family that lived in the border lands near Bhutan.
  • The search for him had been carried out in secret.
  • In 1697 the death of the Great Fifth finally was announced, and 14-year-old Sanje Tenzin was brought in great fanfare to Lhasa to be enthroned as His Holiness the 6th Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso, meaning "Ocean of Divine Song." He moved into the just-completed Potala Palace to begin his new life.
  • The teenager's studies continued, but as time passed he showed less and less interest in them. As the day approached for his full monk's ordination he balked, then renounced his novice ordination. He began to visit taverns at night and was seen staggering drunkenly through the streets of Lhasa with his friends. He dressed in the silk clothes of a nobleman. He kept a tent outside Potala Palace where he would bring young women.
  • The Great Fifth's chief military ally had been a Mongol tribal chief named Gushi Khan. Now a grandson of Gushi Khan decided it was time to take affairs in Lhasa in hand and claim his grandfather's title, king of Tibet. The grandson, Lhasang Khan, eventually gathered an army and took Lhasa by force. Sangye Gyatso went into exile, but Lhasang Khan arranged his assassination, in 1701.
  • To soften this alliance, the Emperor sent word to Tibet's Mongol allies that Sangye Gyatso's concealment of the Great Fifth's death was an act of betrayal. The Desi was trying to rule Tibet himself, the Emperor said.Indeed, Sangye Gyatso had become accustomed to managing Tibet's affairs on his own, and he was having a hard time letting go, especially when the Dalai Lama was mostly interested in wine, women and song.
  • At this time China was ruled by the Kangxi Emperor, one of the most formidable rulers of China's long history. Tibet, through its alliance with fierce Mongol warriors, posed a potential military threat to China.
  • Now Lhasang Khan turned his attention to the dissolute Dalai Lama. In spite of his outrageous behavior he was a charming young man, popular with Tibetans. The would-be king of Tibet began to see the Dalai Lama as a threat to his authority.
  • Lhasang Khan sent a letter to the Kangxi Emperor asking if the Emperor would support deposing the Dalai Lama. The Emperor instructed the Mongol to bring the young lama to Beijing; then a decision would be made what to do about him.
  • Then the warlord found Gelugpa lamas willing to sign an agreement that the Dalai Lama was not fulfilling his spiritual responsibilities.
  • Remarkably, monks were able to overwhelm the guards and take the Dalai Lama back to Lhasa, to Drepung Monastery.
  • He left the monastery with some devoted friends who insisted on coming with him. Lhasang Khan accepted the Dalai Lama's surrender and then had his friends slaughtered.
  • There is no record of exactly what caused the 6th Dalai Lama's death, only that he died in November 1706 as the traveling party approached China's central plain. He was 24 years old
  • The 6th Dalai Lama's chief legacy are his poems, said to be among the loveliest in Tibetan literature. Many are about love, longing, and heartbreak. Some are erotic. And some reveal a bit of his feelings about his position and his life, such as this one:
clairemann

Justices to weigh Kentucky attorney general's effort to intervene in abortion battle - ... - 0 views

www.scotusblog.com/...o-intervene-in-abortion-battle

us SCOTUS justice abortion

shared by clairemann on 12 Oct 21 - No Cached
  • When then-President Donald Trump released his updated list of potential Supreme Court nominees in September 2020, one name that garnered attention was that of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron
  • The case, Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, arises from a challenge to a Kentucky law, H.B. 454, that generally makes it a crime for doctors to use the “dilation and evacuation” method, the procedure most commonly employed to end a pregnancy during the second trimester.
  • They argued that, because the law effectively outlaws the most common procedure used during the second trimester, it imposes an undue burden on the right to an abortion before the fetus becomes viable – normally somewhere between 22 and 24 weeks.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The district court agreed with the challengers that the law is unconstitutional, and it permanently blocked Kentucky from enforcing the law.
  • A divided 6th Circuit panel turned down Cameron’s request to join the case. It explained that Cameron’s plea had come “years into” the case, after both the district court’s ruling and the 6th Circuit’s opinion upholding that ruling. Granting a motion to intervene after the court of appeals has already issued its opinion, the court reasoned, would “provide potential intervenors every incentive to sit out litigation untill we issue a decision contrary to their preferences, whereupon they can spring into action.”
  • Cameron went to the Supreme Court in October 2020, asking the justices to weigh in on whether he should have been allowed to intervene and, if so, to send the case back to the lower courts for another look in light of their June 2020 decision in June Medical. In March 2021, the court agreed to take up only the procedural question.
  • In the Supreme Court, Cameron framed the case as a “dispute about a State’s sovereign ability to defend its laws.”
  • The attorney general’s office can’t enter the case now, the clinic wrote, because the office didn’t file a notice of appeal from the district court’s 2019 ruling. Allowing Cameron to intervene in the 6th Circuit in 2020, the clinic told the justices, “would create an impermissible end-run around Congress’s express statutory limits on appellate jurisdiction.”
  • there is no reason to disturb the denial of that motion by the court of appeals.
  • Arizona and 22 other states filed a “friend of the court” brief supporting Cameron in which they described the question presented by the case as one “of profound substantive importance to our democratic system of governance.” “States,” they wrote, “have a compelling and indisputable sovereign interest in defending the constitutionality of their laws when challenged in federal court.”
malonema1

Trump walks back sanctions against Russia, contradicting Nikki Haley - TODAY.com - 0 views

www.today.com/...ting-nikki-haley-1212661827918

trump politics US

shared by malonema1 on 01 May 18 - No Cached
  • Trump walks back sanctions against Russia, contradicting Nikki Haley
  • President Trump is walking back plans to impose new economic sanctions against Russia announced Sunday by U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. 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  • Amid the historic developments formally ending the Korean War, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has promised to close down a nuclear test site in May. 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  • ...1 more annotation...
  • North Korea to close down nuclear test site in May
Javier E

6 things to know about Earth's 6th mass extinction | MNN - Mother Nature Network - 0 views

www.mnn.com/...out-earths-6th-mass-extinction

mass extinction climate change history

shared by Javier E on 11 Aug 19 - No Cached
  • Natural disasters have triggered at least five mass extinctions in the past 500 million years, each of which wiped out between 50 and 90 percent of all species on the planet
  • it's happening again. A 2015 study reported the long-suspected sixth mass extinction of Earth's wildlife is "already underway." And a 2017 study calls the loss of that wildlife a “biological annihilation” and a “frightening assault on the foundations of human civilization.
  • And while previous extinctions were often linked to asteroids or volcanoes, this one is an inside job. It's caused mainly by one species — a mammal,
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • Many scientists have been warning us for years, citing a pace of extinctions far beyond the historical "background" rate. Yet critics have argued that's based on inadequate data, preserving doubt about the scope of modern wildlife declines. To see if such doubt is justified, the 2015 study compared a conservatively low estimate of current extinctions with an estimated background rate twice as high as those used in previous studies. Despite the extra caution, it still found species are disappearing up to 114 times more quickly than they normally do in between mass extinctions
  • six important things to know about life in the sixth mass extinction:
  • 1. This isn't normal.
  • "Even under our assumptions, which would tend to minimize evidence of an incipient mass extinction, the average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 114 times higher than the background rate," the study's authors write. "Under the 2 E/MSY background rate, the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear.
  • ndicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way."
  • 2. Space is at a premium.
  • The No. 1 cause of modern wildlife declines is habitat loss and fragmentation, representing the primary threat for 85 percent of all species on the IUCN Red List. That includes deforestation for farming, logging and settlement, but also the less obvious threat of fragmentation by roads and other infrastructure.
  • 3. Vertebrates are vanishing.
  • The number of vertebrate species that have definitely gone extinct since 1500 is at least 338,
  • Even under the most conservative estimates, the extinction rates for mammals, birds, amphibians and fish have all been at least 20 times their expected rates since 1900, the researchers note (the rate for reptiles ranges from 8 to 24 times above expected). Earth's entire vertebrate population has reportedly fallen 52 percent in the last 45 years alone
  • he threat of extinction still looms for many — including an estimated 41 percent of all amphibian species and 26 percent of mammals.
  • 4. It's probably still worse than we think.
  • The 2015 study was intentionally conservative, so the actual rate of extinctions is almost certainly more extreme than it suggests
  • The study also focuses on vertebrates, which are typically easier to count than smaller or subtler wildlife like mollusks, insects and plants. As another recent study pointed out, this leaves much of the crisis unexamined. "Mammals and birds provide the most robust data, because the status of almost all has been assessed," the authors of that study write. "Invertebrates constitute over 99 percent of species diversity, but the status of only a tiny fraction has been assessed, thereby dramatically underestimating overall levels of extinction.
  • we may already have lost 7 percent of [contemporary] species on Earth
  • 5. No species is safe.
  • "If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on," says Gerardo Ceballos of the Universidad Autónoma de México, lead author of the 2015 study. "We are sawing off the limb that we are sitting on,"
  • 6. Unlike an asteroid, we can be reasoned with.
clairemann

Four new relists include cases on abortion and state secrets - SCOTUSblog - 0 views

www.scotusblog.com/...-on-abortion-and-state-secrets

SCOTUS abortion Politics US

shared by clairemann on 25 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Zayn Husayn, also known as Abu Zubaydah, is a former associate of Osama bin Laden who was detained abroad after his capture in Pakistan and who is now being held at the U.S. government’s Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
  • it determined that certain categories of information — including the identities of its foreign intelligence partners and the location of former CIA detention facilities in their countries — could not be declassified without risking undue harm to national security, and thus invoked the “state secrets” privilege.
  • A district court struck down the law, relying on Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, a 2016 decision involving Texas abortion regulations. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit affirmed this decision, the secretary decided not to pursue any further appeals.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Five days later, the Supreme Court decided June Medical Services LLC v. Russo, a 2020 decision that struck down Louisiana abortion regulations, though Chief Justice John Roberts’ concurring opinion arguably limited aspects of Whole Woman’s Health. In his petition, Cameron argues that he should have been allowed to intervene to defend the Kentucky law and that the 6th Circuit’s decision striking the law down should be reconsidered in light of June Medical.
  • There they found drugs and firearms. Three years later, federal authorities indicted Woodard on several charges stemming from the search; each charge turned on the government’s ability to prove Woodard’s constructive possession of the drugs. Woodard moved to dismiss the indictment, alleging unconstitutional pre-indictment delay.
  • . The government grudgingly concedes there is a split on the issue, and raises a welter of arguments why review nevertheless isn’t warranted. We’ll have a better idea Monday whether the court is persuaded.
aidenborst

Jayapal asks for investigations into three GOP members for their role in instigating th... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics US history crisis Culture Policy gop Jayapal Capitol-Riots

shared by aidenborst on 11 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington has sent letters to the House Committee on Ethics and the Office of Congressional Ethics requesting they launch investigations into three Republican lawmakers, over accusations of the trio "instigating and aiding" the deadly January 6 riot on the Capitol.
  • Jayapal asks the two groups to "thoroughly investigate" the activity of the three members of Congress -- Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Mo Brooks of Alabama and Paul Gosar of Arizona -- in the time leading up to the insurrection and refer all potential criminal wrongdoing to the Department of Justice.
  • For each member, Jayapal lists examples of their conduct in the weeks before January 6.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Boebert filming herself carrying a concealed firearm around the Capitol Grounds, the fiery speech Brooks gave at the Trump rally on the day of the insurrection and Gosar's ties to extremist groups. The letter also makes note of Boebert's tweets regarding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's location on the day of the insurrection.
  • "It's clear what I believe to be clear violation of our ethical standards and our responsibilities as members of Congress. That is what the House Ethics Committee can look at," Jaypal said in an interview with CNN. "But I also think that there are other pieces here that are even beyond just service in the House that are federal statutes. And so that's why we asked for the referrals to the Department of Justice."
  • "I still worry about my safety and my security when I'm inside Congress, not just when I leave," Jaypal said. "And that is very troubling. I've only been here for four years, but I've not felt that before. And, and I feel it from my colleagues. I don't know, who my colleagues are engaging with, I don't know what their role was. And I do think that that is part of the reason these letters are so important."
  • Gosar's denials have been less clear. In a tweet on that day he posted a photo of rioters scaling a wall of the Capitol "let's not get carried away."
  • Federal authorities have said they are investigating the possibility that some of those that participated in the riot may have been given tours ahead of time, but have stopped short of saying any lawmakers did so with the express purpose of helping the rioters prepare to attack the Capitol.
  • "These three members seem to be emboldened by the fact that there hasn't been really any accountability for them. There hasn't been any accountability at all," she said. "And that is unacceptable I think and that's why I'm asking for these investigations."
  • In a tweet on January 18, Boebert wrote "All claims of my involvement with the attacks on January 6th are categorically false. These lies are irresponsible and dangerous."
  • Jayapal is not the only Democrat looking into the role her colleagues may have played in the events leading up to January 6th. Rep. Zoe Lofgren recently released a 2,000-page report that outlined the social media activity of several GOP members ahead of the insurrection.
katherineharron

Will Donald Trump go down as the worst president in history? - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

trump

shared by katherineharron on 15 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • With just days left in his time as president, Donald Trump undoubtedly has begun to consider how history will remember him. The early returns aren't promising.
  • "On several occasions, Trump has suggested that he expects to take his place on the list of former presidents aside Abraham Lincoln, presumably knocking George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and all the others in the top rank down a tick," wrote presidential historian Joseph Ellis in a op-ed for the Los Angeles Times this week. "To put it politely, he needs to adjust his expectations."
  • "Donald Trump is quite likely to assume the title as the worst president in American history."
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • In 2019, Siena College released its latest rankings, the result of the combined views of 159 presidential scholars who rated each of the 44 men who have been president (Grover Cleveland was president twice!) on 20 different aspects of the job. (The categories range from "integrity" to "willing to take risks" to "luck.")
  • In those rankings, Trump placed third to last -- behind only James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.
  • "The serving president has entered the survey between 15th, Obama, and 23rd, G.W. Bush, as scholars begin to observe their accomplishments, assess their abilities and study their attributes," said Don Levy, who runs the Siena College polling operation. "This year, Donald Trump enters the survey at 42nd, and he is only ranked outside of the bottom five in two of the 20 categories that scholars use to assess the presidents, 'luck' and 'willingness to take risks.'"
  • On "luck," Trump ranked tenth. On "willingness to take risks," he was 25th.
  • The other major recent study of best (and worst) presidents came in 2018 from Brandon Rottinghaus from the University of Houston and Justin S. Vaughn of Boise State University. Known as the "Presidents & Executive Politics Presidential Greatness Survey," this one poll 170 members of American Political Science Association.
  • Trump ranked dead last in this survey, trailing Buchanan, William Henry Harrison, Franklin Pierce and Johnson, respectively
  • Among self-identified conservatives, Trump was ranked as the 40th best president.
  • Among moderates and liberals in the survey, Trump was ranked dead last.
  • That same group was asked who the next president on Mount Rushmore would be. (This is a theoretical question since there is no more room to add a face to Mount Rushmore.) Only two presidents got double-digit votes: Franklin Roosevelt (108) and Barack Obama (12). Trump got a total of 0 votes.
  • "I shook his hand, and I said, 'Mr. President, you should come to South Dakota sometime. We have Mount Rushmore.' And he goes, 'Do you know it's my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?'. "I started laughing. He wasn't laughing, so he was totally serious."
  • Now, making historical judgments about a president in the middle of his term -- or even immediately after his term ends -- is a dicey business. Ulysses S. Grant was widely seen to be a failure in the immediate aftermath of his presidency but has fared far better in the light of history.
  • But at least at first glance, it seems unlikely that time will benefit Trump. After all, what these presidential rankings missed is the second half of Trump's terms in office, which was dominated by his administration's botched handling of the coronavirus pandemic, his tone-deaf response to the "Black Lives Matter" protests in the summer of 2020 and his fact-free allegations of a rigged 2020 election. None of which age well. Not to mention the fact that Trump made history this week as the only president to be impeached twice.
Javier E

Jan. 6th and 'Why We Did It' - by Tim Miller - The Triad - 0 views

thetriad.thebulwark.com/...jan-6th-and-why-we-did-it

conspirators conformism compromise crisis politics history trump

shared by Javier E on 24 Jun 22 - No Cached
  • There was no fraud. They all knew there was no fraud. They all heard Gabriel Sterling’s plea to stop the madness before someone got hurt. And they all knew that in a few weeks Donald Trump would be gone, whether he believed it or not.So the most common rationale presented for sucking up to him—maintaining proximity to power—was moot!And yet, despite all that, we can fit the Republican politicos who actively resisted Trump’s cuckoo coup plot into a single homeroom.Why?
  • the most common rationale presented for sucking up to him—maintaining proximity to power—was moot!
  • despite all that, we can fit the Republican politicos who actively resisted Trump’s cuckoo coup plot into a single homeroom.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • they felt trapped. So they made a disastrous calculation and decided that the only way to win these two Senate seats was to humor the dangerous president for a little while longer.
  • From their perspective, the violence that Sterling had warned about was hypothetical—merely empty threats. Meanwhile, they perceived the threat to Mitch McConnell’s Senate majority to be very real if their candidates didn’t support Trump’s batshit plot.
  • The result? David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler became the only two major-party candidates since the Civil War to run campaigns promising that they would help overturn a legitimate election if they got to Washington.
  • And all of their advisers all agreed that this was the best of the bad options.That’s how quickly it happens. That’s how people like Clarence and all the good ol’ boy consultants on “Team Normal” sacrifice their integrity out of ambition and loyalty to a team . . . in only a few weeks.
  • That’s how quickly it happens. That’s how people like Clarence and all the good ol’ boy consultants on “Team Normal” sacrifice their integrity out of ambition and loyalty to a team . . . in only a few weeks.
  • People prefer to tell themselves stories that are convenient. We prefer stories in which the hardship was out of our hands. Where we did the best we could given the circumstances. Stories that center the trauma we overcame rather than the sacrifice we avoided.
  • And so when the GOP political class was faced with the hardship of a mob demanding they follow the orders of a madman who wanted to undermine our democracy, they began telling themselves a story in which it was not their responsibility to put their own heads on the chopping block.
  • Team Normal went about their business and convinced themselves that doing so was just the latest little sacrifice required by their career. That the bad actors were somewhere out there. On Team Crazy.
  • But inside, they knew that what they were doing was, at best, an icky part of doing business—and at worst, it amounted to direct support for a horror that their kids and grandkids will read about in their history books.
  • So they made a speech on the Senate floor to ease the feeling of guilt. Or tossed a few bucks into Raffensperger’s campaign kitty. Or flattered themselves with daydreams about how next time they’ll take down the real bad guys.
  • Or tossed a few bucks into Raffensperger’s campaign kitty. Or flattered themselves with daydreams about how next time they’ll take down the real bad guys.
  • But we all know they’ll just get in line again.
  • Their mental contortions are not solely to blame for the precipice on which we sit. It’s true that there were more directly implicated evildoers—the Jeffrey Clarks who tried to seize the throne when the moment presented itself.But without the enablers, the evildoers would have had no opportunity to execute their plot.
  • Understanding why the “normals” did what they did is crucial if we want any of them to be shaken free from their cozy complacence. If we are going to avoid the next threat to our democracy, we will need these functionaries to tell themselves a story where they are responsible for getting us out of the hardship. Or, even better, a story where they can be the heroes.
Javier E

Beware of Romneycare : The New Yorker - 0 views

www.newyorker.com/...121029ta_talk_surowiecki

health care

shared by Javier E on 24 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • In most areas of the economy, free-market principles insure that products and services keep improving, and that consumers get better and better deals. But the free market, though it may be the best way of allocating new TVs and cars, falters when it comes to paying for bypass surgery or chemotherapy. The reasons for this were established nearly fifty years ago, by the economist Kenneth Arrow, in a classic article entitled “Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care.” Arrow showed that health care is distinctive in ways that limit the power of the market. Because people don’t have the expertise to evaluate doctors, hospitals, or treatments, it’s hard for them to comparison-shop. Because they can’t pay for major care out of pocket, they must rely on insurance, thereby often losing the final say in what to buy or how much to spend. More fundamentally, markets work only when consumers have the power to say no if the price isn’t right. Yet it’s very hard for people to say no in the case of things like end-of-life care or brain surgery.
  • the truth is that, despite the rhetoric, Romney’s main concern isn’t to bring down over-all health-care costs. In fact, he has regularly attacked one of the Affordable Care Act’s most aggressive cost-cutting measures—the independent board that can make binding recommendations on how to cut Medicare spending. What he wants is just to have the government less involved in health care. Insofar as his plans would lower federal health-care spending, it’s not because of the power of the free market; it’s because a Romney Administration would simply have the government do less. Romney would eliminate the Obamacare subsidies for health insurance. He would turn Medicaid into a block grant to the states and trim its annual budget, with the result that its funding would lag behind the rise in health-care costs. And, if he adopts his running mate Paul Ryan’s premium-support plan for Medicare, he would make Medicare recipients pay higher premiums. With these changes, the government would spend less, but only because it would provide less, and Americans would get less. It’s like saving on defense by protecting only two-thirds of the country.
  • The real issue, come November 6th, isn’t about who has the best ideas for controlling health-care costs. It’s about who has the right idea of what government should do. ♦
maddieireland334

Marco Rubio Changes Course During Thursday Night's Republican Debate - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...424329

shared by maddieireland334 on 16 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • The junior senator from Florida sold his soul in North Charleston, South Carolina, for a shot at winning over the supporters of Donald Trump. 
  • It began early in the night when Rubio said, “Barack Obama does not believe that America is a great global power. Barack Obama believes that America is a arrogant global power that needs to be cut down to size.”
  • His problem is that in a party in which more than 60 percent of the voters don’t think Obama loves America, disagreeing is not enough. So Rubio has begun suggesting that Obama is some kind of Manchurian (or perhaps Mauritanian) candidate, actively seeking to do America ill
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Earlier this month, he claimed the president has “deliberately weakened America.” Donald Trump said Obama’s passport wasn’t American. Now, to compete with Trump, Rubio is saying Obama’s heart isn’t American
  • Instead, he began his answer by praising Trump for having “tapped in to some of that anger that’s out there about this whole issue because this president has consistently underestimated the threat of ISIS.”
  • Rubio declared that, “When I’m president. If we do not know who you are, and we do not know why you are coming when I am president, you are not getting into the United States of America.”
  • When asked in late November about Trump’s call for closing mosques, Rubio said, “It’s not about closing down mosques. It’s about closing down any place—whether it’s a cafe, a diner, an Internet site—any place where radicals are being inspired.”
  • For years now, the Ann Coulter wing of the Republican Party has been pillorying Rubio for having supported a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
  • When profiled on the cover of Time in 2013, Rubio let it be known that his mother had told him in Spanish, “Don’t mess with the immigrants, my son...They’re human beings just like us, and they came for the same reasons we came. To work. To improve their lives. So please, don’t mess with them.”
  • So instead of defending his past support of legal immigration, Rubio abandoned it.
  • “The issue is a dramatically different issue than it was 24 months ago,” he began. “Twenty-four months ago, 36 months ago, you did not have a group of radical crazies named ISIS...The entire system of legal immigration must now be reexamined for security first and foremost.”
  • Yet on the stage in North Charleston, Bush showed some decency, maybe even courage. Asked about Trump’s plan to impose a religious test on entering the country, he warned that, “You cannot make rash statements and expect the rest of the world to respond as though, well, it’s just politics. Every time we send signals like this, we send a signal of weakness, not strength.
  • But for Rubio, it is just politics. Unlike Bush, he possesses the political talent to effectively challenge the paranoia and bigotry coursing through today’s GOP.
  • His strategy for defeating Trump is to ape Trump.
johnsonma23

Amnesty is not immigration reform - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...78943240

shared by johnsonma23 on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Voting rights advocates observe somber King holiday
  • While most of the country will spend the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday remembering the peaceful nature and civil rights successes lodged by the late leader, voting rights advocates say this is a dark time for them.
  • Many might spend Monday reflecting on King's 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march to push for voting equality for black Americans,
  • ...33 more annotations...
  • voting rights advocates note that there has been a major setback in their world.
  • Also, 33 states now have Voter ID laws in place with increased identification requirements for people seeking to cast ballots
  • controversial one for civil rights advocates, who maintain that some groups of Americans, including older people and minorities, are less likely to have the sort of identification that would be required.
  • acts of civil disobedience and even a mid-April march from
  • What many view as the gutting of the Voting Rights Act has prompted civil rights advocates to take action. A coalition of 100 organizations including the NAACP will stage a string of protests
  • “I anticipate arrests, in and outside the Capitol,” Brooks said. “Congress allowing the Voting Rights Act to be gutted has disrupted our democracy … so our democracy should get back to functioning as it should.”
  • Rights that had appeared to be resolved as matters of controversy in American politics are unfortunately once again up for grabs. It’s hard to imagine what’s more American than insuring the right to vote for all Americans, and what could be more un-American than impeding it?”
  • "We are making it very clear that we're protecting the right to vote, insuring the integrity of the right to vote and getting out the vote. This is not all of us registering people to vote and waiting for November with polite patience."
  • Citizen Cruz: Our view
  • Legal case against the Canadian-born senator's eligibility is weak, but not non-existent.
  • The most boisterous exchange in Thursday night's Republican debate was not over terrorism, guns or the economy. It was over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s eligibility under the Constitution
  • to run for president because
  • “Democrats are going to be bringing a suit,” Trump predicted, adding, “There’s a big question mark on your head.”
  • the chances of any litigation proceeding and succeeding on this are zero.”
  • Cruz is as American as anybody born on U.S. soil.  And Trump, by suggesting that the Constitution’s “natural born” citizen clause could actually keep Cruz out of the White House, is trying to eliminate an oppone
  • the founders wrote that only "a natural born citizen" is eligible to be president. They  did not define the phrase further.
  • Cruz was born in Canada, but there is no doubt that he is an American citizen because his mother was a U.S. citizen.
  • 1787, the founders feared that some foreign-born interloper, perhaps from England, might come to the USA and seek the presidency for nefarious reasons
  • candidacies of others have been challenged on this point. Former Michigan governor George Romney, who was born in Mexico to two American parents and ran for the 1968 GOP nomination, was threatened with legal action before he dropped out for other reasons.
  • The overwhelming weight of legal scholarship is on Cruz’s side. Many scholars assert that an infant born to an American parent, regardless of location, acquires citizenship “at birth” and therefore passes the “natural born” test
  • They argue that the meaning of “natural born” should be viewed in the context of the 1700s, when where you were born was the controlling factor.
  • In 2008, a bipartisan Senate resolution was passed by unanimous consent, asserting that McCain was indeed a “natural born” citizen
  • If the problem can't be fixed legislatively, a constitutional amendment would be necessary. Those are hard to pass, as Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, discovered after he introduced one in 2003 that would have allowed anyone who has been a citizen for 20 years, and is otherwise eligible, to become presiden
  • Amnesty is not immigration reform: Opposing view
  • There have been several legislative attempts to overhaul U.S. immigration policy over the past decade. All of them failed
  • how immigration affects the economic, social and national security interests of the American people — was, at best, an afterthought.
  • Immigration has taken center stage in the 2016 campaign because many Americans have come to recognize that it is a policy without any definable public interest objective
  • Granting amnesty — euphemistically called “a pathway to citizenship” — is not immigration reform
  • institutionalizes the government’s failure to protect the interests of the American people, and encourages still more illegal immigration.
  • amnesty benefits illegal aliens, it does not promote any public interest. Nearly half of all adult illegal aliens have not completed high schoo
  • high-productivity, high-earning workers. What it will do, over time, is make them eligible to add to the 51% of immigrant-headed households in the U.S. that rely on some form of welfare.
  • Amnesty would also exacerbate the already alarming erosion of America’s middle class, as former illegal aliens would be eligible to compete legally for all U.S. jobs and petition for millions more similarly skilled relatives to join them here.
  • The American people are seeking a new direction in the long simmering debate over immigration.
fischerry

American Involvement in World War I: How the War Changed After America's Entry - Video ... - 0 views

study.com/...nged-after-americas-entry.html

video america wwi world history

shared by fischerry on 21 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • As much as the U.S. wanted to stay neutral during World War I, it proved impossible. This meant the U.S. had to raise the forces and money to wage war. Find out how Americans played their part in WWI in this lesson.
  • April 6th, 1917
  • Britain, propaganda, the sinking of ships by German U-boats, and a German attempt in the Zimmermann Note to get Mexico to declare war on the U.S. pushed the U.S. to getting involved.
oliviaodon

100 Years Ago: France in the Final Year of World War I - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...559454

war europe france

shared by oliviaodon on 05 May 18 - No Cached
  • The American photographer Lewis Hine is perhaps most famous for his compelling images of child labor across the United States in the early 20th century. In 1918, Hine was hired by the American Red Cross to document their work in Europe, as they provided aid to wounded soldiers and refugees affected by World War I. The photographs were also intended to drum up support for the Red Cross, and appeal to an American audience back home who had grown weary of the war, even as it crawled toward a close. Hine traveled across France, photographing refugee families, orphaned children, wounded and shell-shocked soldiers, the nurses and volunteers who cared for them all, the ruined buildings they fled, and the temporary homes they filled. Take a moment to step back in time 100 years, for a visit to France in the final year of World War I, seen through the lens of Mr. Lewis Hine, with original (sometimes dated) captions included when available.
  • Jeanne Septvents is a beautiful French girl, 10 years old, whose father, for nearly a year a prisoner in Germany, has given his life for France. Jeanne has been adopted by Company 'E,' 6th Battalion of the 20th Engineers. When the American Red Cross photographer found her in the garden of her little stone house at Caen, she was playing with knuckle-bones that she had painted red, white, and blue in honor of her godfathers.
  • Group of refugee children who have been received by a French organization, aided by the American Red Cross at St. Sulpice, Paris. They are about to start for Grand Val, the country home which has been opened for them on a large estate near Paris, where an outdoor life will build up their health. August, 1918.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Rene drove cattle for the Germans for over two years. He still walks in his sleep and dreams he is being shot, etc. Rene is a little repatrie who is getting strong at Trudeau Sanitarium. The manor house of Hachette is an American Red Cross hospital for tubercular women. On the grounds, nearby barracks have been built, where about 180 children are housed, each for a period of three months or more. They are under-nourished children of tubercular tendencies, many of whom have tubercular parents. September, 1918.
manhefnawi

The End of the Holy Roman Empire | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...end-holy-roman-empire

Holy Roman Empire End Francis

shared by manhefnawi on 06 May 18 - No Cached
  • it had survived for more than a thousand years since the coronation of Charlemagne in the year 800
  • it was finally destroyed by Napoleon and the French
  • The process began when the German territories on the west bank of the Rhine were annexed to France in 1801
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • the Hapsburg Emperor, Francis II, had no choice but to accept after the French victories
  • German rulers who lost territory west of the Rhine to be compensated elsewhere in the empire at the expense of the ecclesiastical states
  • Napoleon to preside over a reorganisation
  • the effect was to cut the number of the imperial states from more than 300 to fewer than 100 and severely diminish the authority of the Hapsburgs
  • The larger German states were not at all unhappy to swallow their smaller neighbours. Both Austria and Prussia acquired some extra territory in the reorganization of 1803
  • Napoleon made sure that the main gains went to states like Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden, which were not big enough to pose any threat to France
  • Napoleon smashed the Austrian and Russian armies in battle at Austerlitz
  • Sixteen German states joined the Confederation, which stretched from the Elbe to the Alps. It was a French vassal state and Napoleon announced that the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation no longer existed.
  • the 6th the Emperor Francis bowed to the inevitable, renounced the imperial crown which his forebears had worn in virtually unbroken succession for almost four centuries since Albert II in 1438
  • The insatiable Bonaparte went on to create a new kingdom of Westphalia for his brother Jerome and coax or bully all the German states except Austria and Prussia to join the Confederation
g-dragon

Tiantai Buddhism in China - 0 views

www.thoughtco.com/antai-buddhism-in-china-450017

china buddhism Tiantai

shared by g-dragon on 05 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • The Buddhist school of Tiantai originated in late 6th century China. It became enormously influential until it was nearly wiped out by the Emperor's repression of Buddhism in 845.
  • it thrived in Japan as Tendai Buddhism. It also was transmitted to Korea as Cheontae and to Vietnam as Thien Thai tong.
  • Tiantai was the first school of Buddhism to consider the Lotus Sutra to be the most cumulative and accessible expression of the Buddha's teaching.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  •   It is also known for its doctrine of the Three Truths; its classification of Buddhist doctrines into Five Periods and Eight Teachings; and its particular form of meditation.
  • Tiantai Buddhism in Japan as Tendai, which for a time was the dominant school of Buddhism in Japan.
  • In 845 the Tang Dynasty Emperor Wuzong ordered all "foreign" religions in China, which included Buddhism, to be eliminated.
  • However, Tiantai did not become extinct in China. In time, with the help of Korean disciples, Guoqing was rebuilt and copies of essential texts were returned to the mountain.
  • Tiantai had regained some of its footing by the year 1000, when a doctrinal dispute split the school in half and generated a few centuries' worth of treatises and commentaries.
  • The Three Truths proposes a "middle" acting as an interface of sorts between the absolute and the conventional.
  • This "middle" is the omniscient mind of Buddha, which takes in all phenomenal reality, both pure and impure.
  • These were (1) the period in the Buddha's life in which a sutra was preached; (2) the audience that first heard the sutra; (3) the teaching method the Buddha used to make his point.
  • Zhiyi identified five distinct periods of the Buddha's life, and sorted texts accordingly into the Five Periods.
  • He identified three kinds of audiences and five kinds of methods, and these became the Eight Teachings.
  • Although the Five Periods are not historically accurate, and scholars of other schools might differ with the Eight Teachings, Zhiyi's classification system was internally logical and gave Tiantai a solid foundation.
  • In different ways, much of Zhiyi's teaching lives on in Pure Land and Nichiren Buddhism, as well as Zen.
g-dragon

What Is a Khan? - 0 views

www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-khan-195348

khan meaning influence

shared by g-dragon on 15 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • Khan was the name given to male rulers of the Mongols, Tartars, or Turkic/Altaic peoples of Central Asia, with female rulers called khatun or khanum.
  • it spread to Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Persia through the expansion of the Mongols and other tribes.
  • The first known use of the word "khan," meaning ruler, came in the form of the word "khagan," used by the Rourans to describe their emperors in 4th to 6th century China. The Ashina, consequently, brought this usage across Asia throughout their nomadic
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • However, it wasn't until the great Mongol leader Genghis Khan formed the Mongol Empire — a vast khanate spanning much of South Asia from 1206 to 1368 — that the term was made popular to define rulers of vast empires.
  • The Mongol Empire went on to be the largest land mass controlled by a single empire, and Ghengis called himself and all his successors the Khagan, meaning "Khan of Khans."
  • Still today, the word khan is used to describe military and political leaders in the Middle East, South a
  • nd Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Turkey, especially in Muslim-dominated countries. Among them, Armenia has a modern form of khanate along with its neighboring countries.
  • However, in all of these cases, the countries of origin are the only people who might refer to their rulers as khans — the rest of the world giving them westernized titles like emperor, tsar or king. 
manhefnawi

France, Burgundy and England | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...france-burgundy-and-england

England France 16-18THC

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  • The treaty of marriage between Henry V of England and Catherine of France, daughter of Charles VI, sworn in the Cathedral of Troyes on May 21st, 1420, marks the darkest hours of the French monarchy in the fifteenth century. In thirty-one short articles, the treaty made Henry the son of Charles VI and heir, with Henry's own heirs, to the Crown of France. It also made Henry regent until the king's death and gave him the government of the kingdom of France. The 'so-called' dauphin, Charles, was thought to be definitively isolated, having already forfeited his rights after he had had John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, assassinated at Montereau on September 10th, 1419
  • On the borders of the territories where he strove to impose his authority as regent and heir to France, the Dukes of Brittany (John V) and of Burgundy (Philip the Good), contrived to safeguard their de facto independence
  • The unexpected death of Henry V on August 31st, 1422, and the long-awaited death of Charles VI (October 21st, 1422), the brutal regency of the Duke of Bedford, and the Amiens alliance of April 1423 between the three dukes (Bedford, Brittany, Burgundy), all contributed, to different extents, to aggravate the political conflict
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • The recovery of Orleans and the coronation of Charles VII at Reims on July 17th, 1429 mark a turning point for the future also because, by that time, a real national feeling and the concept of patriotism had gained ground
  • Furthermore, the result of Henry V's and Bedford's policy of granting newly conquered land to the English soldiers, was that those who had nothing in England stayed in France to defend and increase their new possessions. For those who already had land in England, the time came when holding estates on both sides of the Channel became impossible and they had to make their choice.
  • Never did Henry VI acknowledge the Duke of Burgundy's claims on the French monarchy and, for his part, the Duke obstinately refused to meet Henry VI during the period the latter was in France from April 1430 to February 1432. Excluded from any participation in the control of the government of France, Philip the Good was able, at leisure and under cover of this alliance, to increase his possessions in the Low Countries
  • In an article published in England and her Neighbours 1066-1453: Essays in Honour of Pierre Chaplais edited by M.C.E. Jones and M.G.A. Vale (Hambledon Press, 1989), Maurice Keen offers a stimulating explanation of the English disaster in the 1450s.
  • Armstrong has drawn attention to the close cultural links between England and Burgundy in the early fifteenth century and has shown that the real instigator of the treaty of Troyes was Philip the Good. For his part, Andre Legay (Poitiers colloquium) developed the idea that, if the Anglo-Burgundian alliance did last until the reconciliation of Charles VII and Philip the Good at the treaty of Arras (September 21st, 1435), it remained nevertheless fragile and limited
  • After Formigny (April 15th, 1450) and Castillon (July 17th, 1453), the inglorious truce agreed upon by Edward IV and Louis XI at Picquigny on August 29th, 1475, was yet another injury to England's pride. However, as Charles Ross in Edward IV (Methuen, 1974) points out, 'the days when England, even in alliance with Burgundy, could seriously challenge the most powerful and wealthy state in Europe were long since past
  • The very title of the colloquium, 'La France de la Fin du XV' siecle: Renouveau et Apogee' (published in 1985 by Editions du CNRS), shows to what extent the fundamental research carried out over the last twenty years has improved our understanding of the kingdom of Louis XI, Charles VIII and Louis XII, and has altered the old image of a France lacking any real identity and torn between the waning of the Dark Ages and the emergence of modernity
  • The incorporation of the ducal apanage of Burgundy was one of the major preoccupations of Louis XI
  • Therefore, Louis XI and Charles VIII had to battle against a real state, which had its own institutions and an efficient and organised army, and which was the mainstay of all the French and foreign oppositions (particularly English) to the progression of the French monarchy. It was only at the end of the 1487-91 war, and after the marriage of the Duchess Anne to Charles VIII (December 6th, 1491) and later to Louis XII (January 8th, 1499) that Brittany was united with France
  • The custom was first followed in France in the case of the funeral of Charles VI, a few weeks after the funeral of Henry V of England where this practice had been followed, and it is likely that the English presence in Paris influenced French custom in this respect
  • The failure of Richard II who, in the 1390s, instead of building up a retinue which reflected, and therefore drew strength from the realities of local politics, 'tried to establish local power-structures which reflected the image of his own court', is similar to the one Richard lII suffered in 1483-85
  • The monarchs were able to rely on a more numerous and permanent administration, loyal to the continuation of the State, and therefore they were less dependent upon their network of patronage. Peter Lewis (Tours colloquium, 1983) refutes the idea that Louis XI's pensioners could have formed a royal clientage: 'they did not represent a monarchical clan, but were para-administrators carrying out para-administrative tasks
  • a group of men, most of them closely related, who monopolised the most eminent functions and offices and who behaved as the masters of the realm (Recherches sur le personnel du Conseil du Roi sous Charles VIII et Louis XII, Librairie Honori Champion, 1980)
manhefnawi

Good Friends and Brothers? Francis I and Henry VIII | History Today - 0 views

www.historytoday.com/...thers-francis-i-and-henry-viii

Tudor France England Henry VIII Francis I Political

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  • One was of Henry VIII of England and the other was of Francis I of France. Their symbolic presence at the beginning of an ambitious project designed to link England and France was especially appropriate. Henry VIII is often called a 'Renaissance prince' and is popularly remembered for his ebullience and the extraordinariness of his reign
  • influenced by his relationship with that other 'Renaissance prince', Francis I
  • France and England been so drawn together by some higher ideal or imperative
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • The Angouleme family was a cadet branch of the royal house of Valois. Francis' father, Charles, died on January 1st, 1496, and in 1498, the boy became heir presumptive to the reigning monarch, Louis XII
  • Louis XII died leaving no surviving son and Francis succeeded him as king on January 1st, 1515. Francis's accession was greeted favourably by the French nobility
  • His mother, Louise of Savoy
  • He was determined to avenge the defeats which Louis XII had suffered there and to capture the duchy of Milan which he regarded as his inheritance
  • On September l4th, 1515, at the Battle of Marignano, Francis defeated a large Swiss army allied to the duke of Milan and so regained the duchy. He secured his prize by a concordat with Leo X and, later, by treaties with the Swiss, with Charles of Spain and with the Holy Roman Emperor, Maxmillian
  • In 1533, Francis concluded a marriage alliance with Clement VII which he hoped would detach the pope from his allegiance to Charles V and thus help both him and Henry VIII
  • The young Tudor's great role-model was Henry V and he regarded northern France as his inheritance, rather in the way Francis saw Milan
  • In 1513, Henry had invaded France in alliance with the pope, the emperor and the king of Spain
  • Nevertheless, these victories and the subsequent peace treaty with Louis XII, allowed Henry to feel that controlling France was a great way of demonstrating his own impressive royal power
  • In England, Francis found an ally in the person of Anne Boleyn who virtually replaced Wolsey as the lynch-pin in Anglo-French contacts
  • Like Wolsey before her, Anne encouraged continued exchanges between the two monarchs and she also patronised English scholars in France
  • Henry then allowed himself to believe, incorrectly, that Francis approved of these claims
  • Henry VIII's accession in 1509 had generated the same kind of excitement as witnessed in France in 1515. The two kings did indeed have many personal similarities and rivalry between them was almost inevitable
  • Against this background and despite the difficulties, Anglo-French contacts were maintained and Francis constantly sought Henry's financial and military support against Charles V
  • Francis spent increasing amounts of time in Paris and at Fontainebleau where his steadily expanding artistic collections and library were shown to all important visitors
  • During the 1540s, Henry VIII also insisted, more than ever, that his was an imperial kingship
  • Much of this augmentation work was undertaken by the same John Leland who had witnessed Bude's work for Francis in the 1520s
  • Francis discussed Henry's building ideas with his ambassador, Sir John Wallop, to whom he also gave a guided tour of his private gallery and baths at Fontainebleau.
  • Henry's personal Psalter, in which he is depicted as King David, his second great role-model after Henry V, was produced by Jean Mallard who had been Francis I's court poet in the 1550s
  • In July 1544 thirty-one years after his first invasion, Henry once again crossed the Channel to set about the conquest of France. He managed to capture Boulogne
  • Francis I died on March 51st, 1547, barely two months after Henry VIII's death in January
  • that of the king as the warrior-leader whose greatness lay in military success and the distribution of largesse to his elite companions
  • Henry VIII's concept of his kingship was centred on the same ideal and his efforts to make his monarchy conform to it, partly through competition with France, pre-dated the start of Francis I's reign
  • This sophistication was particularly evident in Francis's artistic and intellectual patronage and it is here that his 'Renaissance' influence on Henry VIII is most apparent
  • On May 6th, 1994, after opening the Channel Tunnel jointly with President Mitterand, the Queen observed that Britain and France, 'for all their ages-long rivalry, complement each other well, perhaps better than we realise'
Javier E

Our Towns: The American 'Empire of Obedience' - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...597952

empire government decline roman american obedience

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  • In my mind, here’s the most relevant lesson from Rome for current US developments: The emperors didn’t make the empire. The empire made the emperors.
  • The US has had an emperor for decades, both through the taking of power and, more importantly (and in Roman fashion), through Congress delegating its powers to him. Trump’s willingness to use those powers has revealed what has been the case for some time.
  • One fact seldom mentioned about Romanity and Greco-Roman culture is how the people that lived under it seemed to deeply hate it. A reoccurring fact of the era is how local populations defected to the barbarian tribes massively. People joined the Goths, the Lombards, the Franks and even the Huns in their wars against their own country! Goths were very popular among the population, even when then besieged Rome, we hear about the Roman plebs joining forces with their attackers.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Whole provinces that had been deeply Romanised, even colonized by Romans adopted Barbarian customs so quickly it looks like they were not conquered but liberated. Gaul, Italy, Moesia (in today’s Bulgaria) went over the Barbarians in some cases as fast as a generation. By the 6th century, Italians—Italians!—were proud to call themselves Lombards. …
  • There are many reasons for that; the institution of slavery, the degradation and corruption of civic institutions and services, the turbulent switch from a multireligious Empire to a monotheist and rigidly orthodox quasi-Theocracy.
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