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malonema1

James Fallows on the Reinvention of America - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...556856

US history politics

shared by malonema1 on 01 May 18 - No Cached
  • After a several-year immersion in parts of the country that make the news mainly after a natural disaster or a shooting, or for follow-up stories on how the Donald Trump voters of 2016 now feel about Trump, I have a journalistic impulse similar to the one that dominated my years of living in China. That is the desire to tell people how much more is going on, in places they had barely thought about or even heard of, than they might have imagined.
  • At the time Deb and I were traveling, sociologists like Robert Putnam were documenting rips in the social fabric. We went to places where family stories matched the famous recent study by the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton of Princeton, showing rising mortality among middle-aged whites without a college degree for reasons that include chronic disease, addiction, and suicide. In some of the same cities where we interviewed forward-moving students, civic leaders, and entrepreneurs, the photographer Chris Arnade was portraying people the economy and society had entirely left behind. The cities we visited faced ethnic and racial tensions, and were struggling to protect local businesses against chain stores and to keep their most promising young people from moving away. The great majority of the states and counties we spent time in ended up voting for Donald Trump.
  • Serious as the era’s problems are, more people, in more places, told us they felt hopeful about their ability to move circumstances the right way than you would ever guess from national news coverage of most political discourse. Pollsters have reported this disparity for a long time. For instance, a national poll that The Atlantic commissioned with the Aspen Institute at the start of the 2016 primaries found that only 36 percent of Americans thought the country as a whole was headed in the right direction. But in the same poll, two-thirds of Americans said they were satisfied with their own financial situation, and 85 percent said they were very or somewhat satisfied with their general position in life and their ability to pursue the American dream. Other polls in the past half-dozen years have found that most Americans believe the country to be on the wrong course—but that their own communities are improving.
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  • I make no pretense that our proposed answers to those questions are precise or scientific. We traveled as broadly as we could. We listened; we learned. We were looking for civic success stories, and we found them. But we also ended up in places where well-intentioned efforts had failed. So we steadily adjusted our conclusions. We ended up convinced that the national prospect is more promising than we’d felt before we started—full of possibilities that the bleak trench warfare of national politics inevitably obscures.
  • America is becoming more like itself again. More Americans are trying to make it so, in more places, than most Americans are aware. Even as the country is becoming worse in obvious ways—angrier, more divided, less able to do the basic business of governing itself—it is becoming distinctly better on a range of other indicators that are harder to perceive. The pattern these efforts create also remains hidden. Americans don’t realize how fast the country is moving toward becoming a better version of itself.
  • During the Pennsylvania part of Romney’s tour, which then went on to Ohio, we stayed in a cheap motel in the hard-luck coal-country town of Hazleton, where the median household income, in the low $30,000s, was much less than the national level of more than $50,000 and the unemployment rate, about 15 percent at the time, was much greater. The few visible signs of after-dark life were bodegas on downtown Wyoming Street, serving the city’s growing Latino population. When we got back from dinner at a small Mexican restaurant, we channel surfed to a local-access TV station and saw Lou Barletta, the longtime Republican mayor of Hazleton who had recently made it into Congress as part of the 2010 Tea Party wave, warn that ongoing immigration was a threat to Hazleton’s safety and quality of life. As mayor, Barletta had been a proto-Trump, championing a city ordinance that, among other anti-immigrant provisions, declared English the “official language” of Hazleton and required that official city business be conducted in English only. The measures were eventually tossed by federal courts.
  • Were we mistaking anecdotes and episodes for provable trends? This is the occupational hazard of journalism, and everyone in the business struggles toward the right balance of observation and data. But the logic of reporting is that something additional comes from traveling, asking, listening, seeing. This is particularly true in detecting a sense of changed course. A political movement, a new technological or business possibility—I have learned through the decades that enthusiasm in any of these realms does not guarantee world-changing success, but it’s an important marker. (The visionary California entrepreneurs I wrote about in the 1980s were confident that their Osborne and Kaypro computers would change the world. They were wrong. The visionary California entrepreneurs I met at Apple in those same years were confident that their dreams would come true. They were right.) And enthusiasm is what we have seen.
  • “Across the country, we’re seeing significant growth in local officials’ training for civic engagement, and the appearance of many new online platforms and other tools to connect citizens and their governments,” Pete Peterson, the dean of Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy, in California, told me. Peterson ran down a list of cities illustrating the effects of a new emphasis on engagement—starting, to my surprise, with the Los Angeles–area city of Bell. In 2010, Bell was the object of an investigative series by the Los Angeles Times showing corruption in the city’s administration top to bottom. (For instance, the city manager of this small, low-income city had engineered pay for himself of well over $1 million a year.) The series was followed by arrests, trials, and prison sentences. “That city has seen nothing less than a civic renaissance, with new leadership and a public much more involved in the future of the city,” Peterson said. “It’s an amazing before-and-after illustration of what happens when people get engaged”—for example, involving citizens in decisions about what had been a notably secretive city-budgeting process.
  • In Wichita, Kansas; in Bend, Oregon; in Duluth, Minnesota; in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; in Fresno, we found people who had already worked in the most expensive and “elite” cities or who had been recruited for opportunities there, and decided instead that the overall life balance was better someplace smaller and less expensive. Steve Case, a co-founder of AOL and now the CEO of the technology-investment firm Revolution, has for several years led “Rise of the Rest” tours across the country to promote new tech businesses and support existing ones in places other than the famous tech centers. “For half a century, there’s been a brain drain, as people who grew up in the ‘rest of America’ left their hometowns for better opportunities elsewhere,” Case told me recently. Case himself grew up in Hawaii but built his companies in the Washington, D.C., area. “We’re starting to see less of that brain drain. We’re seeing more graduates stay in place, in cities like Pittsburgh or Columbus, and a boomerang of people returning to where they’re from—for lifestyle reasons, and because they can see that their communities are rising and opportunities are increasing, and they’d like to be part of what’s going on.”
  • There is of course evidence that this has happened, in the form of the bigotry that has been unleashed since 2017. In the months after Donald Trump took office, we checked back with communities where we’d met immigrants and refugees. Some places had seen a nasty shift, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and police became newly aggressive and local racists felt empowered. A few months before the election, we interviewed Catholic nuns and secular volunteers in Garden City, Kansas, who were bringing surplus food and medical supplies to poor households, many of whose members were immigrants working in the area’s vast beef-packing complex. A few months after the election, a white-extremist hate group in Garden City was arrested while plotting to blow up an apartment building where African immigrants and refugees lived. In Dodge City, we met and wrote about a rising, respected young city-government official named Ernestor de la Rosa. His parents had brought him to the U.S. from Mexico when he was a child, and he had stayed in the country as a “Dreamer,” on a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals waiver, while working toward an advanced degree at Wichita State. Trump carried Dodge City more than two to one. But people we spoke with there after the election said they never intended their preference in national politics to lead to the removal of trusted figures like de la Rosa.
katherineharron

Biden White House would welcome Trump's help in promoting vaccine - CNNPolitics - 0 views

edition.cnn.com/...index.html

covid

shared by katherineharron on 15 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The White House said it would welcome former President Donald Trump's help in promoting the coronavirus vaccine to his supporters but says there are other ways to convince conservatives to get the shot.
  • "I discussed it with my team and they say the thing that has more impact than anything Trump would say to the MAGA folks is what the local doctors, what the local preachers, what the local people in the community say," Biden said at the White House on Monday.
  • Earlier, the White House laid out how it was reaching conservatives with vaccine messaging, even as officials acknowledged a Democratic president did not carry the same weight among that population as other public figures.Read More"If former President Trump woke up tomorrow and wanted to be more vocal about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine certainly we'd support that," press secretary Jen Psaki said at a Monday's White House briefing.close dialogThe world is watching as the Biden administration takes office.Get updates on US politics delivered to your inbox daily. Sign Me UpNo ThanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.The world is watching as the Biden administration takes office.Get updates on US politics delivered to your inbox daily. Please enter aboveSign Me UpBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Success! See you in your inbox.//assets.b
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  • Health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, have said Trump's voice in promoting the vaccine would go far in convincing Republicans to get it.
  • Trump has made small efforts to promote the vaccine, including in a speech at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, but he did not appear in a public service announcement featuring former presidents that was released last week.Psaki noted those presidents -- Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter -- "did not need an engraved invitation" to promote the vaccine.
  • "The President's goal is to vaccine all Americans, not just those who voted for him," she said. "We know we need to meet everyone where they are, and that includes conservatives."
malonema1

Trump Lifts Refugee Suspension, but 11 Countries Face More Review - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-lifts-refugee-suspension.html

Trump US refugee

shared by malonema1 on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • 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.
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  • Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, saying that she would have simply dismissed the case and allowed the appeals court decision to remain on the books.Erasing that precedent may have implications for the new challenge to the September order. Last week, in blocking the new order, Judge Derrick K. Watson, of the Federal District Court in Honolulu, relied heavily on the Ninth Circuit’s decision. Continue reading the main story We’re interested in your feedback on this page. Tell us what you think. From Our Advertisers campaign: wm_oct_sale_urgency_1017, creative: Adaptive Articles, source: optimizely, creator: Keith McKellar
Javier E

Britain entering first world war was 'biggest error in modern history' | World news | T... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...r-biggest-error-niall-ferguson

history UK WWI

shared by Javier E on 22 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • 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,
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  • "Even if Germany had defeated France and Russia, it would have had a pretty massive challenge on its hands trying to run the new German-dominated Europe and would have remained significantly weaker than the British empire in naval and financial terms. Given the resources that Britain had available in 1914, a better strategy would have been to wait and deal with the German challenge later when Britain could respond on its own terms, taking advantage of its much greater naval and financial capability."
  • "Creating an army more or less from scratch and then sending it into combat against the Germans was a recipe for disastrous losses. And if one asks whether this was the best way for Britain to deal with the challenge posed by imperial Germany, my answer is no.
  • He continued: "The cost, let me emphasise, of the first world war to Britain was catastrophic, and it left the British empire at the end of it all in a much weakened state … It had accumulated a vast debt, the cost of which really limited Britain's military capability throughout the interwar period. Then there was the manpower loss – not just all those aristocratic officers, but the many, many, many skilled workers who died or were permanently incapacitated in the war.
  • He concedes that if Britain had stood back in 1914, it would have reneged on commitments to uphold Belgian neutrality. "But guess what? Realism in foreign policy has a long and distinguished tradition, not least in Britain – otherwise the French would never complain about 'perfidious Albion'. For Britain it would ultimately have been far better to have thought in terms of the national interest rather than in terms of a dated treaty."
katherineharron

US Coronavirus: As US inches closer to 350,000 Covid-19 deaths, one model projects abou... - 0 views

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

covid

shared by katherineharron on 02 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The US topped 20 million total infections and inched closer to 350,000 Covid-19 deaths on the first day of 2021 -- proof of a grim reality continuing into the new year.
  • 115,000 could die over the next month
  • The US topped 20 million total infections and inched closer to 350,000 Covid-19 deaths on the first day of 2021 -- proof of a grim reality continuing into the new year.
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  • more than 77,500 died in December, the country's deadliest month.
  • The US reported a record 125,379 hospitalized Covid-19 patients nationwide Thursday, according to the Covid Tracking Project. That number dipped slightly Friday, with 125,057 hospitalizations reported -- about an 163% increase from two months ago.
  • "We're also worried that at some point soon we're going to have a really tough time finding the space and the staff to take care of all the sick patients coming in with Covid-19 who really need our help," said Dr. Nicole Van Groningen of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
  • Experts fear that in the coming weeks -- following holiday travel and gatherings -- the US could see another surge of cases that could drive hospitalizations and deaths even higher.
  • Georgia announced Friday a total of more than 8,700 new Covid-19 cases in the state -- a new high. Maryland on the same day reported its second-highest number of daily cases. New York, meanwhile, added nearly 16,500 new cases -- a day after it hit its highest ever one-day case count.
  • Texas health officials reported record-high Covid-19 hospitalizations across the state for the fifth day in a row, with more than 12,400 patients.
  • ICU capacity in many parts of the state remains dangerously low. In Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, zero beds are available. One health official said earlier this week the surge of patients has been pushing hospitals to the "brink of catastrophe."
  • The variant has been found in at least 30 countries and has also been detected in Colorado, California and Florida.
  • "The discovery of the additional cases leads county health officials to believe that the new strain of the virus is widespread in the community," a county spokesperson said.The new cases were found in two men in their 40s and a man in his 50s, officials said.
  • "Currently, the US is doing less sequencing than many other countries -- a recent report from (genomics database) GISAID estimated that the US is sequencing 0.3% of positive cases versus the UK that's at about 7%."
  • the vaccines approved in the US require two doses based a few weeks apart. And the nation will continue to do it that way and will not follow the UK's decision to potentially delay second doses, Fauci told CNN on Friday.
  • "The fact is we want to stick with what the science tells us, and the data that we have for both [vaccines] indicate you give a prime, followed by a boost in 21 days with Pfizer and 28 days with Moderna. And right now, that's the way we're going with it, and that's the decision that is made," Fauci said. "We make decisions based on data. We don't have any data of giving a single dose and waiting for more than the normal period of time" to give the second dose, he added.
katherineharron

President Donald Trump's GOP wall is cracking as he fights election result - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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

trump

shared by katherineharron on 13 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • As President Donald Trump's lawyers cling to their far-fetched schemes to overturn the presidential election, it was increasingly clear Thursday that cracks are forming in Trump's Republican wall of support, as more GOP members stepped forward to say that President-elect Joe Biden should receive national intelligence briefings
  • There is still no sign that Trump and leading Republicans plan to actively congratulate Biden.
  • Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford told a local radio station Wednesday that the President-elect should begin receiving presidential intelligence briefings by the end of the week, a number of senior GOP senators spoke up Thursday to say they shared that thinking,
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  • Lankford noted that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the bipartisan committee that investigated them found that the compressed time frame for the transition after the contested 2000 election may have contributed to the lack of preparedness for the attack.
  • In their report after the attacks, the commission said that the dispute over the election and the "36-day legal fight" following "cut in half the normal transition period." The loss of time, the commission said, "hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing, and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees,"
  • The intermediary step by Republicans in the President's orbit illuminated the widening divide between the practical reality that Biden must be equipped with key national security knowledge to begin running the country in January and the political fiction being perpetrated by the President and his supporters.
  • Ohio's Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who heads a state the President won last week, said on CNN's "New Day" that "we need to consider the former vice president as the President-elect."
  • Trump has showed little interest in addressing the most important issue facing the country: the record-breaking climb in US coronavirus cases.
  • The illusory quality of Trump's election fraud claims was once again underscored by a set of election integrity checks that are being conducted in Arizona, which CNN called for Biden late Thursday night.
  • post-election audits filed with the Arizona Secretary of State's office from more than half of Arizona's counties showed that there is no evidence of systematic voter fraud or major discrepancies that would affect the outcome of the race.
  • A group of national, state and private election officials said in a joint statement Thursday that there is no evidence that "any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."
  • "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result," the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees said.
  • The most surreal feature of the suspended reality at the White House is still the behavior of the President himself. A leader who jealously dominated television coverage on the campaign trail and in office has not made public remarks for an entire week
  • "I'm worried about this virus, I'm not looking at what the merits of the case are. It would appear that Joe Biden is going to be the next president of the United States," DeWine said, adding that America needs to "come together as a country."
  • But the President's Twitter feed Thursday indicated that he was much more fixated on what he views as his mistreatment by Fox News, his once favored network, which he believes should be defending him more vociferously in the midst of the twilight zone that he has created by refusing to acknowledge Biden's victory.
  • The President, whom CNN quoted sources as describing as increasingly "dejected" on Thursday, continues to tweet falsehoods about election fraud.
  • there are few signs that his campaign has convinced any court to take his complaints seriously. In this odd limbo between defiance and admitting defeat, the President is wavering between fighting on and a recognition that his hold on power is coming to an end,
  • While his adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, have urged their father to continue challenging the election results, his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner have taken a more measured approach, CNN reported Thursday, encouraging the President to think about potential damage to his legacy as they weigh their own post-White House ambitions.
  • In addition to Biden's win in Arizona, the President trails in Georgia, where a hand recount is beginning, by 14,000 votes -- a cushion for Biden unlikely to be overturned.
  • Meanwhile, Biden's political choreography -- which late Wednesday included the naming of Ron Klain as his White House chief of staff -- and his departure to his family beach house to decompress after the election is meant to signal that his ascent to power is assured.
  • In what may have been a signal to establishment Republicans -- in a venue that the President himself might take account of -- former George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove wrote in a Wall Street journal op-ed that the election will not be overturned whatever the result of Trump's legal gambits.
  • Lankford, who referred to Biden as President-elect at his church last week, has said he will intervene if the victorious Democrat remains unable to access intelligence briefings.
  • "I've been a little concerned about it," Senate Armed Services Chairman Jim Inhofe said of the Pentagon firings, adding he'd been told "now it's come to an end."
  • As Republican lawmakers stake out safe ground -- trying to appear that they are still supporting the President's legal pursuits while also signaling that the transition should begin -- some Democrats have been hammering their GOP colleagues for indulging the President's election fantasies.
  • "These Republicans are all auditioning for profiles in cowardice," Schumer said.
  • On Thursday, the US broke the record for Covid-19 hospitalizations for the third consecutive day, surpassing 67,000 hospitalizations.
  • The glimmer of hope on the horizon continued to be Pfizer's promising announcement earlier this week that their vaccine trial is more than 90% effective with officials widely expecting that the company will apply for emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration before the end of this month.
  • "By the end of March to early April, we think across all of the vaccines that we have invested in, we have enough for all Americans who wish to get vaccinated," Azar said.
  • "If you think of it metaphorically, you know, the cavalry is coming here," Fauci said, touting the major positive impact that the vaccines will have."If we could just hang in there, do the public health measures that we're talking about," Fauci said. "We're going to get this under control, I promise you."
malonema1

US allies are upset. The top economist quit. Trump doesn't care. - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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

US trump economics policy

shared by malonema1 on 12 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump's demand that new tariffs be slapped on steel and aluminum imports has spooked markets, prompted his chief economist's resignation, rattled major US allies and widened a rift with establishment Republicans.
  • "A strong steel and aluminum industry are vital to our national security -- absolutely vital. Steel is steel, you don't have steel you don't have a country," Trump said Thursday, adding that foreign imports and dumping have led to "shuttered plants and mills" and the laying off of "millions of workers," overstating the job losses in those industries, which his own adviser put at under 100,000.
  • It's not clear what political effect the order would have in the Pennsylvania race. The Democratic candidate in the race supports Trump's tariff proposal.The move is expected to be questioned and countered, and could further put the US at odds with the international community.
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  • Coming on the same day that 11 US allies -- but not the US -- sign a landmark Asia-Pacific trade agreement, the move on tariffs only underscores Trump's embrace of the protectionist policies he believes helped him win the presidency.
  • The tariff signing came after days of confusion over how the President would move forward. On Thursday morning, the situation was still shrouded in uncertainty. Multiple officials awoke with no clear picture of what Trump was prepared to sign during the afternoon event. Advisers have been scrambling since last week to finalize details on the tariffs after Trump announced he would impose them during a meeting with industry executives.
  • "He may be a globalist, but I still like him," Trump said Thursday of Cohn, who was sitting in the room and announced earlier this week he is resigning as director of the National Economic Council. "He is seriously a globalist, there is no question. But in his own way he's a nationalist because he loves our country."
Javier E

Opinion | The Real Reason Facebook Won't Fact-Check Political Ads - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-zuckerberg-political-ads.html

social media media targeting ads facebook ethics political data

shared by Javier E on 03 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • Facebook’s decision to refrain from policing the claims of political ads is not unreasonable. But the company’s officers have been incompetent at explaining and defending this decision.
  • If Facebook’s leaders were willing to level with us, they would stop defending themselves by appealing to lofty values like free speech
  • They would focus instead on more practical realities: Facebook is incapable of vetting political ads effectively and consistently at the global scale. And political ads are essential to maintaining the company’s presence in countries around the world.
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  • The truth or falsity of most political ads is not so easy.
  • During Game 7 of the World Series on Wednesday, the Trump campaign ran a television ad claiming that he has created six million jobs and half a million manufacturing jobs. Is that statement true or false? Was there a net gain of 500,000 more manufacturing jobs in the United States since Jan. 20, 2017? Or is that a gross number, waiting to be reduced by some number of manufacturing jobs lost?
  • Is the ad’s use of the active voice, saying that President Trump is creating those jobs, honest? Is Mr. Trump directly responsible? Or did the momentum of the economic recovery since 2010 push manufacturers to add those positions? Should Facebook block the ad if one of seven claims is false? Vetting such claims takes time and effort, and might not be possible at all.
  • Facebook could also defend political ads by conceding that it must continue the practice to maintain its status and markets
  • Ad fact-checking can’t be done consistently in the United States. It definitely can’t be done at a global scale — 2.8 billion users of all Facebook-owned services posting in more than 100 languages
  • Given the task of policing for truth on Facebook, it’s unrealistic and simplistic to demand veracity from a system that is too big to govern.
  • Might Facebook ban political ads altogether, like Twitter has? Mr. Zuckerberg could concede that it’s not an easy task. What’s not political? If an ad calling for a carbon tax is political, is an ad promoting the reputation of an oil company political?
  • imagine Facebook’s contracted fact checkers doing that sort of research and interrogation for millions of ads from 22 presidential candidates in the United States, from candidates for 35 Senate seats, 435 House of Representatives seats and thousands of state legislative races.
  • Those are the false positives we know of. We have no idea how many false negatives Facebook has let slip through.
  • Over all, Facebook has no incentive to stop carrying political ads. Its revenue keeps growing despite a flurry of scandals and mistakes. So its leaders would lose little by being straight with the public about its limitations and motives. But they won’t. They will continue to defend their practices in disingenuous ways until we force them to change their ways.
  • We should know better than to demand of Facebook’s leaders that they do what is not in the best interests of the company. Instead, citizens around the world should demand effective legislation that can curb Facebook’s power.
  • The key is to limit data collection and the use of personal data to ferry ads and other content to discrete segments of Facebook users — the very core of the Facebook business model.
  • here’s something Congress could do: restrict the targeting of political ads in any medium to the level of the electoral district of the race. Tailoring messages for African-American voters, men or gun enthusiasts would still be legal, as this rule would not govern content. But people not in those groups would see those tailored messages as well and could learn more about their candidates.
  • Currently, two people in the same household can receive different ads from the same candidate running for state senate. That means a candidate can lie to one or both voters and they might never know about the other’s ads. This data-driven obscurity limits accountability and full deliberation.
  • A reason to be concerned about false claims in ads is that Facebook affords us so little opportunity to respond to ads not aimed at us personally. This proposal would limit that problem.
  • The overall regulatory goal should be to install friction into the system of targeted digital political ads
  • This process would not be easy, as political incumbents and powerful corporations that sell targeted ads (not just Facebook and Google, but also Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and The New York Times, for example) are invested in the status quo.
  • We can’t expect corporate leaders to do anything but lead their corporations. We can’t expect them to be honest with us, either. We must change their businesses for them so they stop undermining our democracies.
runlai_jiang

Burkina Faso attacks leave 8 dead, 80 injured - CNN - 0 views

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

Burkina Faso terrorism

shared by runlai_jiang on 08 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • At least eight people were killed and more than 80 injured in two attacks in Burkina Faso's capital, one of them targeting the French embassy, security officials said
  • Sawadogo confirmed there were two coordinated attacks: one against the French embassy, the other against the national army headquarters, and said assailants used a "vehicle packed with explosives" against the latter.
  • The UN Security Council issued a statement condemning "in the strongest terms the barbaric and cowardly terrorist attacks" in Ouagadougou.
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  • Its members "expressed their solidarity with Burkina Faso in its fight against terrorism and stressed the need to intensify regional and international efforts to combat terrorism and violent extremism, which may be conducive to terrorism."
  • The West, particularly France, considers Burkina Faso a key ally in the fight against al Qaeda in the region.
  • The country was formerly known as the Republic of Upper Volta when it was established in 1958 as a self-governing colony under France. It gained full independence in 1960.
malonema1

Two GOP chairmen call on Sessions to appoint second special counsel - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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

US politics

shared by malonema1 on 12 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • (CNN)Two Republican House chairmen are calling for the Justice Department to appoint a new special counsel to investigate possible Obama administration abuses of surveillance law, ratcheting up the pressure on Attorney General Jeff Sessions coming from congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump.
  • Goodlatte and Gowdy told reporters a new special counsel was needed because crimes may have been committed and the scope was too broad for the Justice Department inspector general.
  • But the letter from Goodlatte and Gowdy will escalate the pressure on Sessions to appoint a second special counsel alongside Robert Mueller, who is tasked with investigating the 2016 election and Russia -- and has taken a wide mandate to his probe that's led to numerous charges against senior officials in the Trump orbit.
malonema1

Poll: Majority blames Congress, Trump for not doing more to prevent mass shootings - CN... - 0 views

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trump US history crisis

shared by malonema1 on 12 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • Washington (CNN)A majority of Americans blame Congress and President Donald Trump for not doing more to prevent mass shootings, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds. The survey -- conducted in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead -- also finds that significantly more Americans believe mass shootings in the United States are due more to mental health issues than inadequate gun laws.
  • Among those polled, 57% said mass shootings in the United States were more of a reflection of problems identifying and treating people with mental health problems, while 28% blamed "inadequate gun laws." Nine percent blamed both equally. Across party lines, 77% of individuals polled said the Parkland shooting could have been prevented by more effective health screening treatment.
malonema1

Former military officials challenge Haspel nomination to lead CIA - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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US politics

shared by malonema1 on 01 May 18 - No Cached
  • Scores of former military officials signed on to an open letter published by an activist group Monday challenging President Donald Trump's nomination of Gina Haspel to lead the CIA -- and called for the declassification of her agency records
  • Signatories to the letter include former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh H. Shelton, retired Marine Corps Gen. John R. "Jack" Dailey and retired Air Force Gen. Walter Kross.The letter from 109 former military officials pushes back on praise Haspel received from former intelligence leaders, and disputes the notion that she was "just following orders."
  • he CIA declassified a memo last week absolving Haspel of responsibility for destroying tapes showing torture, but key Democrats said the agency should go much further to square their concerns.Raha Wala, national security advocacy director at Human Rights First, told CNN on Monday that retired Gen. Charles Krulak, former commandant of the Marine Corps, led the effort around the letter.
annabelteague02

Marco Rubio's mind-blowing explanation of his impeachment vote - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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shared by annabelteague02 on 01 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • "Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office. ..."... I will not vote to remove the President because doing so would inflict extraordinary and potentially irreparable damage to our already divided nation."
    • annabelteague02
      annabelteague02 on 01 Feb 20
       
      proof of how politics are getting in the way of a fair trial
  • New witnesses that would testify to the truth of the allegations are not needed for my threshold analysis, which already assumed that all the allegations made are true
    • annabelteague02
      annabelteague02 on 01 Feb 20
       
      this just doesn't make sense. why wouldn't witnesses be helpful to prove the truthfulness of the case? and if the argument is that they aren't needed because everyone knows he did it, then people are openly admitting to ignoring the truth
  • Wouldn't that make the impeachment bipartisan? And therefore nullify -- or at least mitigate -- the core of his argument that the country would see all of this as nothing more than a partisan affair?
    • annabelteague02
      annabelteague02 on 01 Feb 20
       
      yes, but i don't think it will actually change anything.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Attempting to please all sides is what produces statements like Rubio's. In trying to thread such a fine political needle, his position on the removal of the President reads like satire. Sure, Trump probably did it. And, yeah, it's impeachable. But I'm not going to impeach him because, uh, partisanship.
    • annabelteague02
      annabelteague02 on 01 Feb 20
       
      so ridiculous that a fair trial is being avoided.... and it is literally the president involved who is supposed to represent what this country stands for (fair trials, truth, justice)
johnsonel7

Coronavirus crisis could shut auto plants around the world - CNN - 0 views

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coronavirus china economics

shared by johnsonel7 on 09 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • The human cost of China's coronavirus outbreak is tragic, mounting and already readily apparent. The cost to businesses around the world could also become severe in the coming weeks.
  • "It only takes one missing part to stop a line," said Mike Dunne, a consultant to the auto industry in Asia and the former head of GM's operations in Indonesia. He said there have been many examples in the past where problems like a fire or natural disaster shutting a single supplier plant can affect auto plants around the world. This could be far worse depending on how widespread the shutdown of plants due to the virus becomes.
  • "It's difficult to say when it will start to bite here," she said. "I would expect to see a cascading global impact by the end of February if Chinese production doesn't come back [this week]. All automakers have a supply chain war room going on right now to determine what they can be doing. But China is so huge, there is no way they cannot be impacted."
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Experts say the global auto industry hasn't seen the full impact before now because the plants had been scheduled to closed for the lunar new year. So many assembly plants had an extra inventory of parts going into the holiday. While the shutdown was extended by a week due to the outbreak, most plants haven't run out of Chinese parts yet. But that can't last.
katherineharron

Market politics: Trump loses his touch with the markets as coronavirus threat grows - C... - 0 views

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shared by katherineharron on 19 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • The stark news came in shortly after noon on Wednesday: The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped almost 10%, wiping out all the gains logged since President Donald Trump took office, thanks to investors craving more government spending to offset the impact from the coronavirus.
  • Trump has often dismissed market fluctuations as part of a natural correction, but several people close to the President say he places as much importance on the health of the Dow Jones Industrial Average for validation of his job performance as he does on his polling numbers.Unlike previous Presidents, who traditionally avoided trying to influence the market, Trump's closest advisers say he's not concerned with fueling market volatility every time he appears at the podium. Read MoreIn part, he doesn't believe he's to blame, said a senior administration official.
malonema1

Trump's strain with Obama marks departure - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

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US trump politics obama

shared by malonema1 on 10 Jun 17 - No Cached
  • Trump's strain with Obama marks departure from presidential fraternity
  • Nearly five months ago, President Donald Trump bid farewell to a grinning Barack Obama, waving as the military helicopter shuttling his predecessor into post-White House life got smaller and smaller.They haven't spoken or seen each other since. For a President who seeks extensive counsel from outside the White House -- in calls to old friends, business executives, and even despotic foreign leaders -- Trump has largely forgone advice or guidance from any of the men who have held his job previously. In the months after Trump and Obama carried out a peaceful hand off of power, the two have failed to develop any sort of working relationship, according to White House advisers and former administration officials.
davisem

Pruitt: Scientists receiving federal grants will be cut from EPA advising roles - CNNPo... - 0 views

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  • Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt says scientists who sit on EPA advisory boards and committees who have also received federal grants for studies could be cut from their roles as soon as next week, citing a lack of objectivity in their research.
  • Pruitt said having individuals on EPA advisory boards who have received grants from the agency raises red flags.
  • Jennifer Sass, the Natural Resources Defense Council's health program senior scientist, said Pruitt's goal was to "get rid of scientists who tell us the facts about threats to our environment and health."
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • During his speech at the Heritage Foundation, Pruitt also confirmed that he's looking at a red team-blue team approach into questions about climate change.
  • Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Bruce also opposed Pruitt's announcement.
  • "Of course Scott Pruitt doesn't want to support science, because science makes clear that Pruitt's policies are disastrous for the health of our kids and our communities," Bruce said. "For Pruitt, anything that helps corporate polluters make money is good and science and facts are just roadblocks he wants to tear down."
katherineharron

House gears up for vote on Biden's Covid relief plan - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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covid

shared by katherineharron on 09 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The US House of Representatives is gearing up for a final vote on President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid relief plan in an effort to send it to the White House to be signed into law later this week.
  • the Senate passed its version of the bill over the weekend
  • House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters a final vote will come "Wednesday morning at the latest" and that the timing depends on when they get the bill back from the Senate, but that there are no hang-ups to the legislation.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • "It depends on when we get the paper from the Senate," Pelosi said on Monday. "It has to be very precise, and it takes time to do that. It has some changes that they have to precisely write. It could be that we get it tomorrow afternoon and then it has to go to Rules. And we'd take it up Wednesday morning at the latest."
  • House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Monday that the relief bill had not made its way back to the House yet. "I talked to Leader Schumer. He said as soon as they could get it ready, but it was complicated and they were working on it," Hoyer said when asked about the delay in sending the bill back to the House.
  • that a final vote on the bill could come Tuesday or Wednesday.
  • "We are very excited that this bill will pass imminently. If not today, it will be scheduled for a vote tomorrow," Clarke said
  • The sweeping aid legislation originally passed the Democrat-controlled House at the end of February, but it needs to be taken up in the chamber again following changes made to the legislation in the Senate.
  • The Senate version of the bill largely mirrors the $1.9 trillion package first approved by the House and laid out by President Joe Biden in January.
  • The nearly $2 trillion package includes a slate of Democratic priorities, including up to $1,400 stimulus checks to many Americans, and billions of dollars for states and municipalities, schools, small businesses and vaccine distribution. It also extends a 15% increase in food stamp benefits from June to September, helps low-income households cover rent, makes federal premium subsidies for Affordable Care Act policies more generous and gives $8.5 billion for struggling rural hospitals and health care providers.
  • Pelosi said she does not expect more Democrats to vote against the bill because of the changes that were made in the Senate, saying, "I think more will vote for it," and that she felt "sad" for Republicans who will vote against it
  • Asked about bipartisanship, Clark told Berman this is a "time of great divide" but said they'll find issues to work on together. She also said the lack of support by Republicans on certain measures was "stunning."
  • Progressive Democrats have expressed frustration over changes made to the legislation, but top progressives are not signaling that they will jeopardize its passage in the House.
  • "I don't think that the changes the Senate made were good policy or good politics," Jayapal said. "However, they were relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, with the exception of course in the $15 minimum wage."
  • An estimated 11.4 million workers will lose their unemployment benefits between mid-March and mid-April unless Congress passes its next coronavirus relief package quickly, a recent study by The Century Foundation found.
mattrenz16

Opinion: What happens next in Congress will determine future of country, writes Bernie ... - 0 views

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shared by mattrenz16 on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • In this pivotal moment in American history, Democrats in the US House of Representatives and US Senate, working with the White House, have proposed several pieces of legislation which can strengthen working families, protect the planet and save American democracy from right-wing extremism.
  • We can create millions of good paying union jobs rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, water systems and constructing the millions of units of affordable housing we desperately need. We can also end starvation wages in America by raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. At a time when real wages for American workers have been stagnant for decades, these actions will be a major step forward in improving the standard of living of a declining middle class.
  • Further, we can create millions more jobs by taking the global leadership in combating climate change -- the existential threat to our planet -- and transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • By extending the child tax credit, we can cut childhood poverty nearly in half and end the international embarrassment of the US having one of the highest rates of childhood poverty in the industrialized world.Read More
aidenborst

Amari Nicholson: Las Vegas man accused of killing his girlfriend's 2-year-old son plead... - 0 views

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US history crisis Culture policy Law

shared by aidenborst on 03 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • The man accused of killing his girlfriend's 2-year-old son in Las Vegas pleaded not guilty Wednesday.
  • Terrell Rhodes, 27, appeared in court, confirming to a judge that he understood the charges against him and pleading not guilty. Bail was not discussed, and Rhodes remains in custody.
  • He faces 11 charges: first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder with the use of a deadly weapon, four counts of assault on a protected person using a deadly weapon and four counts of resisting a public officer with a firearm.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The child, Amari Nicholson, was last seen May 5.Read MoreLas Vegas police questioned Rhodes on May 11 and a police report says he confessed to the killing and was arrested.
  • Rhodes "was briefly able to retrieve an officer's firearm" during a scuffle as the arrest was being made, but no shots were fired, according to Lt. Richard Meyers with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
  • Rhodes' next hearing is scheduled for June 11. His attorney, Robert Langford, has asked that his client be allowed to appear remotely from jail.
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