Skip to main content

Home/ History Readings/ Group items tagged blocks

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
rerobinson03

Opinion | Why America Can't Fix Its Gun Violence Crisis - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...us-gun-violence.html

shared by rerobinson03 on 24 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • We know what causes America’s gun violence problem. Why can’t we seem to do anything about it? Here are some of the most popular and persuasive explanations.
  • In the minds of many gun control proponents, American life has become — or perhaps always was — a zero-sum game in which one party’s freedom to exist in peace has lost out to another’s prerogative to kill. In this view, mass death is simply the cost gun owners are willing to inflict on the country for the right to bear arms.
  • he different stories Americans tell themselves about the roots of gun violence preclude shared understanding: As long as they disagree about the cause of the problem, they will disagree about how to fix it. “Given the significant proportion of citizens who own guns,” the authors conclude, “the prospect for policy changes that address gun‐related causes of mass shootings is unlikely.”
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Already a counter-majoritarian institution, the Senate was made even more so by the rise of the modern filibuster in the 20th century, which allows a minority to block majority-supported legislation. That means most substantive legislation must get 60 votes in the Senate to pass — often an exceedingly difficult threshold to reach.
  • It was a statement that exemplified a common strain of thought among gun control proponents, one that casts the N.R.A. as the sine qua non of our national deadlock on the issue. As my colleague Nicholas Kristof has explained, the N.R.A. used to be a more moderate organization: It favored tighter gun laws in the 1920s and 1930s, and as recently as the 1960s supported — albeit more grudgingly — some limits on guns.
  • “The N.R.A. is powerful for precisely the reason most potent progressive organizations are powerful,” David French has written in National Review. “Like those progressive counterparts, the N.R.A. is an effective part of a larger community, and it is effective precisely because it persuasively expresses the will of its members and allies.” In his view, the N.R.A. does not manipulate people into supporting gun rights; rather, it reflects and channels the desires of people who already do
  • Gun control proponents often argue that the Second Amendment was meant to protect the right of state militias, not individuals, to bear arms. This interpretation is disputed by gun rights proponents, but not exclusively: The historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, who favors the Second Amendment’s repeal, has argued that it was expressly designed to enshrine not only the right but also the obligation of individual colonial settlers to violently appropriate Native land and to control Black populations, both free and enslaved.
  • This interpretive turn has led to calls for the Second Amendment’s repeal, including from the retired justice John Paul Stevens. Justice Stevens was one of the four dissenters in the Heller case, whose ruling he believed could be overturned only with a new constitutional amendment that voided the second. Doing so, he wrote in The Times in 2018, “would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.”
  • But none of them — not universal background checks, not red flag laws, not even a ban on assault-style weapons — would confront the core issue: America simply has too many guns.That is the view of Mr. Lopez, who contends that stamping out gun violence would require a Green New Deal-size plan that offers solutions at the scale of the problem. “If the key difference between America and other countries is how many more guns the U.S. has, then something has to be done to quickly reduce the number of firearms here,” he writes. “It could mean banning more types of guns — perhaps all semiautomatic weapons or all handguns — and coupling that with an Australian-style mandatory buyback program, which the research supports.”
ethanshilling

Giant Ship Blocking Suez Canal Could Take 'Days, Even Weeks' to Free - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...suez-canal-ship.html

world canal egypt

shared by ethanshilling on 25 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • As tugboats strained against the weight of the mammoth ship and dredgers worked to clear sand and mud, a salvage company working on the operation warned on Thursday that releasing the container vessel blocking traffic in the Suez Canal in Egypt could take days or even weeks.
  • The stuck ship, the Ever Given, has been wedged in the canal since running aground amid the heavy winds of a sandstorm on Tuesday. Its bow is lodged in the canal’s eastern bank and its stern in the western bank.
  • Eight large tugboats were attempting to push and drag the ship from its unintended berth, the Suez Canal Authority said in a statement on Thursday, but at about 1,300 feet long — roughly equivalent to the height of the Empire State Building — and weighing around 200,000 metric tons, dislodging the Ever Given is proving challenging.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The Japanese company that owns the ship, Shoei Kisen Kaisha, acknowledged in a statement on Thursday that the situation was “extremely difficult” and apologized for the disruption caused by the episode. “We will continue to do our utmost” to move the ship, it said.
  • Peter Berdowski, chief executive of Royal Boskalis Westminster, which has been appointed by Ever Given’s owner to help move the vessel, told the Dutch current affairs program Nieuwsuur on Wednesday that the operation to free the ship could take “days, even weeks.”
  • Mr. Berdowski said that the Ever Given, operated by a company called Evergreen, was too heavy for tugboats alone, adding that salvagers might need to extract fuel, pump out water from the ballast tanks and remove some of the containers to make the ship lighter and therefore easier to move.
  • The ship’s manager has said in a statement that a preliminary investigation found that the vessel grounded because of strong winds, not because of mechanical or engine failure.
  • The global shipping and supply industry — already battered by the surge in orders caused by the coronavirus pandemic and recent disruptions at factories in Japan and Texas — waited to see whether the disruption from the traffic jam would amount to a couple of days’ minor inconvenience, or something worse.
  • Egypt opened a new lane in one section of the canal in 2015, an $8 billion expansion that the president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, heralded as a historic national accomplishment. But the Ever Given is sitting diagonally across another section of the canal, one that has only one lane.
cartergramiak

Desperate Italy Blocks Exports of Vaccines Bound for Australia - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...traZeneca-vaccines-Europe.html

politics culture pandemic

shared by cartergramiak on 05 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Italy has blocked 250,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine from being flown to Australia, the government said on Thursday, making good on the European Union’s recent threats to clamp down on vaccine exports amid a global tug of war over desperately needed shots.
  • Australia has reacted calmly, with officials asking the European Commission to review the decision while insisting that the blocked delivery would not have a major impact.
  • Amid vaccination campaigns that have been dominated by rich countries, Italy’s move intensified a global slugfest over doses that analysts have warned could drive up prices and further undercut the fair distribution of vaccines.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • But Europe’s troubles do not stem from supply problems alone: Many European countries have had enormous trouble making quick use of the shots they have already received.
katherineharron

Russia-Ukraine: US considering sending warships to Black Sea amid tensions - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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

russia

shared by katherineharron on 12 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • The United States is considering sending warships into the Black Sea in the next few weeks in a show of support for Ukraine amid Russia's increased military presence on Ukraine's eastern border
  • The US Navy routinely operates in the Black Sea, but a deployment of warships now would send a specific message to Moscow
  • The US is required to give 14 days notice of its intention to enter the Black Sea under a 1936 treaty giving Turkey control of the straits to enter the sea.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • On Wednesday, two US B-1 bombers conducted missions over the Aegean Sea.Read More
  • Although the US does not see the amassing of Russian forces as posturing for an offensive action, the official told CNN that "if something changes we will be ready to respond."
  • On Thursday White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Russia's actions are "deeply concerning."close dialogSign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Sign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Please enter aboveSign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.//assets.bounceexchange.com/assets/uploads/clients/340/creatives/ac22162ccde0493f3e08745fedbf
  • The Biden administration and the international community have expressed concerns about mounting tensions between Ukraine and Russia
  • "The United States is increasingly concerned by recently escalating Russian aggressions in eastern Ukraine, including Russia's movements on Ukraine's border. Russia now has more troops on the border of Ukraine than any time since 2014. Five Ukrainian soldiers have been killed this week alone. These are all deeply concerning signs," Psaki said.
  • "We are concerned by recent escalating Russian aggressions in eastern Ukraine, including the credible reports that have been emanating about Russian troop movements on Ukraine's borders and occupied Crimea," State Department spokesperson Ned Price said this week.
  • Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said this week that it was important "for all sides to comply with the Minsk Agreement" and "for the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of Ukraine to be respected by Russia."
Javier E

Researchers Are Hatching a Low-Cost Covid-19 Vaccine - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...hexapro-mclellan-vaccine.html

vaccine low-cost

shared by Javier E on 18 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • First, however, clinical trials must establish that NDV-HXP-S actually works in people. The first phase of clinical trials will conclude in July, and the final phase will take several months more
  • “It’s a home run for protection,” said Dr. Bruce Innis of the PATH Center for Vaccine Innovation and Access, which has coordinated the development of NDV-HXP-S. “I think it’s a world-class vaccine.”
  • They wanted to use the spike protein as a target. But they had to reckon with the fact that the spike protein is a shape-shifter. As the protein prepares to fuse to a cell, it contorts from a tulip-like shape into something more akin to a javelin.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Scientists call these two shapes the prefusion and postfusion forms of the spike. Antibodies against the prefusion shape work powerfully against the coronavirus, but postfusion antibodies don’t stop it.
  • they discovered a way to keep the protein locked in a tulip-like prefusion shape. All they had to do was change two of more than 1,000 building blocks in the protein into a compound called proline.
  • All three of the vaccines that have been authorized so far in the United States — from Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech — use the 2P spike.
  • Other vaccine makers are using it as well. Novavax has had strong results with the 2P spike in clinical trials and is expected to apply to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization in the next few weeks. Sanofi is also testing a 2P spike vaccine and expects to finish clinical trials later this year.
  • Dr. McLellan’s ability to find lifesaving clues in the structure of proteins has earned him deep admiration in the vaccine world. “This guy is a genius,” said Harry Kleanthous, a senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “He should be proud of this huge thing he’s done for humanity.”
  • The potency of the vaccine brought an extra benefit: The researchers needed fewer viruses for an effective dose. A single egg may yield five to 10 doses of NDV-HXP-S, compared to one or two doses of influenza vaccines.
  • In March, he joined forces with two fellow University of Texas biologists, Ilya Finkelstein and Jennifer Maynard. Their three labs created 100 new spikes, each with an altered building block. With funding from the Gates Foundation, they tested each one and then combined the promising changes in new spikes. Eventually, they created a single protein that met their aspirations.
  • The winner contained the two prolines in the 2P spike, plus four additional prolines found elsewhere in the protein. Dr. McLellan called the new spike HexaPro, in honor of its total of six prolines.
  • The structure of HexaPro was even more stable than 2P, the team found. It was also resilient, better able to withstand heat and damaging chemicals. Dr. McLellan hoped that its rugged design would make it potent in a vaccine.
  • the University of Texas set up a licensing arrangement for HexaPro that allows companies and labs in 80 low- and middle-income countries to use the protein in their vaccines without paying royalties.
  • The first wave of authorized Covid-19 vaccines require specialized, costly ingredients to make. Moderna’s RNA-based vaccine, for instance, needs genetic building blocks called nucleotides, as well as a custom-made fatty acid to build a bubble around them. Those ingredients must be assembled into vaccines in purpose-built factories.
  • The way influenza vaccines are made is a study in contrast. Many countries have huge factories for making cheap flu shots, with influenza viruses injected into chicken eggs. The eggs produce an abundance of new copies of the viruses. Factory workers then extract the viruses, weaken or kill them and then put them into vaccines.
  • once Dr. McLellan and his colleagues handed off the 2P spike to vaccine makers, he turned back to the protein for a closer look. If swapping just two prolines improved a vaccine, surely additional tweaks could improve it even more.
  • PATH then connected the Mount Sinai team with influenza vaccine makers. On March 15, Vietnam’s Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals announced the start of a clinical trial of NDV-HXP-S. A week later, Thailand’s Government Pharmaceutical Organization followed suit. On March 26, Brazil’s Butantan Institute said it would ask for authorization to begin its own clinical trials of NDV-HXP-S.
  • n vaccine maker Avi-Mex as an intranasal spray. The company will start clinical trials to see if the vaccine is even more potent in that form.
martinelligi

Catalonia's bid for independence from Spain explained - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-europe-29478415

independence spain policy

shared by martinelligi on 19 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • Catalonia is one of Spain's wealthiest and most productive regions and has a distinct history dating back almost 1,000 years.
  • efore the Spanish Civil War it enjoyed broad autonomy but that was suppressed under Gen Franco.
  • When Franco died, the region was granted autonomy again under the 1978 constitution and prospered as part of the new, democratic Spain.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Catalonia's pro-independence leaders then went ahead with a full referendum on 1 October 2017, which was also declared illegal by Spain's constitutional court.
  • Carles Puigdemont - then Catalan president - fled abroad with several other leaders. Many who remained were arrested and charged with treason.
  • Using the Article 155 emergency powers, Madrid dissolved parliament, sacked its leaders and called a snap election for 21 December.
  • Separatists won a slim majority. The following May, Catalonia's parliament swore in Quim Torra as their new president, after Madrid blocked several other candidates. Mr Torra vowed to continue fighting for independence.
  • n a febrile atmosphere the separatist majority in the Catalan parliament declared independence on 27 October.
  • Demonstrators took to the streets in fury and have repeatedly clashed with police in some of the worst street violence to hit Spain in decades.If the separatists do ever manage to split away, it would be hard for Catalonia to win recognition internationally.
  • Catalonia has its own language and distinctive traditions, and a population nearly as big as Switzerland's (7.5 million). It is one of Spain's wealthiest regions, making up 16% of the national population and accounting for almost 19% of Spanish GDP.
mattrenz16

Biden's Fossil Fuel Moves Clash With Pledges on Climate Change - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ssil-fules-climate-Willow.html

shared by mattrenz16 on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • On Wednesday, the Biden administration defended in federal court the Willow project, a huge oil drilling operation proposed on Alaska’s North Slope that was approved by the Trump administration and is being fought by environmentalists. Weeks earlier, it backed former President Donald J. Trump’s decision to grant oil and gas leases on federal land in Wyoming. Also this month, it declined to act when it had an opportunity to stop crude oil from continuing to flow through the bitterly contested, 2,700-mile Dakota Access pipeline, which lacks a federal permit.
  • The three decisions suggest the jagged road that Mr. Biden is following as he tries to balance his climate agenda against practical and political pressures.
  • As important, Mr. Biden is trying to avoid alienating a handful of moderate Republicans and Democrats from oil, gas and coal states who will decide the fate of his legislative agenda in Congress. Among them is Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator from Alaska for whom the Willow project is a top priority and who grilled Deb Haaland about it during Ms. Haaland’s confirmation hearing for interior secretary in February.Editors’ PicksSummertime … and the Sloganeering Is a Little AwkwardThe Murky World of Private Spies and the Damage They May Be DoingThey’ve Given $6 Million to the Arts. No One Knew Them, Until Now.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The multibillion-dollar plan from ConocoPhillips to drill in part of the National Petroleum Reserve would produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil a day until 2050. It is being challenged by environmental groups who said the Trump administration failed to consider the impact that drilling would have on fragile wildlife and that burning the oil would have on global warming.
  • Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, said in an interview that he, Ms. Murkowski and Representative Don Young of Alaska had all met with Ms. Haaland “ad nauseam” about Alaska issues, including the Willow project. Mr. Sullivan said he had repeatedly made the case that Willow’s projected 2,000 jobs and $1.2 billion in revenues should be seen as part of the Biden administration’s focus on environmental equity, as it would directly benefit local and Alaska Native communities in the North Slope.
  • The decision on the Willow project was made as the Biden administration is trying to win Republican support for its infrastructure package and other policies, said Gerald Torres, a professor of law and environmental justice at Yale University. “He is going to need Murkowski’s vote for some things,” he said. “These are political calculations.”
  • Earlier this month, lawyers for the Biden administration also opposed in court shutting down the Dakota Access pipeline, which is carrying about 550,000 barrels of oil daily from North Dakota to Illinois. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other activists have fought it for more than five years, contending the pipeline threatens water supplies and sacred sites.
  • A few days later, the Biden administration defended 440 oil and gas leases issued by the Trump administration on federal land in Wyoming that is also the critical habitat of the sage grouse, mule deer and pronghorn. Environmentalists successfully sued the government to stop the leases, arguing that they violated a 2015 agreement that protected that land. But in federal appeals court, the Biden administration defended the decision to allow oil and gas drilling.
  • Environmental activists, who campaigned to elect Mr. Biden, said this week that they were “baffled” and “disappointed” by the decisions but avoided criticizing the president.
  • Still, some said they were running out of patience with the distance between Mr. Biden’s climate policies and his actions at a time when scientists say countries need to quickly and sharply cut fossil fuel emissions or risk irreversible damage to the planet.
  • Still, some said they were running out of patience with the distance between Mr. Biden’s climate policies and his actions at a time when scientists say countries need to quickly and sharply cut fossil fuel emissions or risk irreversible damage to the planet.
  • This month the world’s leading energy agency warned that governments around the globe must stop approving fossil fuel projects now if they want to keep the increase in average global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels. That’s the threshold beyond which scientists say the Earth will experience irreversible damage.
mattrenz16

Biden Suspends Drilling Leases in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-national-wildlife-refuge.html

shared by mattrenz16 on 01 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Tuesday suspended oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, unspooling a signature achievement of the Trump presidency and delivering on a promise by President Biden to protect the fragile Alaskan tundra from fossil fuel extraction.
  • The decision sets up a process that could halt drilling in one of the largest tracts of untouched wilderness in the United States, home to migrating waterfowl, caribou and polar bears. But it also lies over as much as 11 billion barrels of oil and Democrats and Republicans have fought over whether to allow drilling there for more than four decades.
  • While the move follows President Biden’s Inauguration Day executive order to halt new Arctic drilling, it also serves as a high-profile way for the president to solidify his environmental credentials after coming under fire from activists angered by his recent quiet support for some fossil fuel projects.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Environmentalists have criticized moves by the White House last month to legally defend a major drilling project elsewhere in Alaska, to pass on an opportunity to block the contentious Dakota Access oil pipeline, and to support a Trump-era decision to grant oil and gas leases on public land in Wyoming.
  • Last month, the world’s leading energy agency warned that governments around the globe must stop approving fossil fuel projects now if they want to prevent the pollution they produce from driving average global temperatures above 2 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels. That’s the threshold beyond which scientists say the Earth will experience irreversible damage.
  • Experts observed that the timing of the announcement to suspend the drilling leases in the refuge, coming on the heels of the fossil-fuel friendly actions by the administration, could be designed to appease Mr. Biden’s environmental critics.
  • Still, the suspension of the leases alone does not guarantee that drilling will be blocked in the Arctic refuge. The administration has only committed to reviewing the Trump leases, not canceling them. If it determines that the leases were granted illegally, it could then have legal grounds to cancel them.
  • Policy experts also noted that any moves by Mr. Biden to block Arctic drilling could be undone by a future administration.
  • Environmental groups applauded the move but called for a permanent ban on Arctic drilling.
  • Also last month, Mr. Biden opposed in court shutting down the bitterly-contested Dakota Access pipeline, which is carrying about 550,000 barrels of oil daily from North Dakota to Illinois. It also could have decided to halt the pipeline while the Army Corps of Engineers conducts a new court-ordered environmental review, but it opted not to intervene.
aidenborst

House Administration Committee to hold hearing after Inspector General report on 1/6 in... - 0 views

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

politics US history crisis Culture policy GOP House insurrection

shared by aidenborst on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • The House Administration Committee announced Wednesday it will hold a hearing to address a new report from the Inspector General of the US Capitol Police related to the deadly riot on Capitol Hill, the first public hearing since the Senate blocked legislation last week to form an independent, bipartisan commission designed to probe the event.
  • In a statement, House Administration chairwoman, Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, promised that despite the commission being blocked, her committee would continue to search for answers as to what went wrong that day.
  • A spokesman for the Administration Committee said that while Lofgren fully supports the formation of an independent commission, the decision to schedule a hearing had more to do with the information that was revealed in the report, not the Senate blocking the commission's formation.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • This hearing will be the fifth public hearing on the Capitol insurrection by the Administration Committee, the most of any in Congress.
  • While the report is currently not available to the public, the committee hopes to release the executive summary before the hearing is held.
aidenborst

Some reluctant Democrats consider ditching filibuster for voting bill despite grim pros... - 0 views

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

politics US history crisis Culture policy GOP Angus-King Voting Tammy-Duckworth Illinois

shared by aidenborst on 03 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Some defenders of the Senate's filibuster rules are reconsidering their past refusal to gut the potent stall tactic if Republicans carry through with their plans to block Democratic legislation to rewrite the nation's voting and campaign finance laws.
  • Democrats say they expect growing demands to change the filibuster rules later this month when the battle over voting rights heads to the Senate floor, hoping that the pressure will be enough to convince their party's most stalwart filibuster defender, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, to buckle and agree to gut the filibuster -- though he's showing no signs of caving.
  • One of them: Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who has been among the handful of members in the Senate Democratic Caucus to embrace overhauling Senate filibuster rules to let legislation advance by a simple majority of 51 senators.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • King is making clear that his view could indeed change if Republicans block the elections bill later this month, something he alluded to earlier this spring and made clear in an interview this week with CNN.
  • "We have to defend democracy," King said. "And I'm afraid that our colleagues have put us in that position. I'm very reluctant to modify the filibuster. But I don't feel I can stand by and see our system subverted."
  • Asked if he'd be open to backing the nuclear option -- a tactic to change Senate rules along straight party lines -- King said bluntly: "Yes."
  • Asked about Manchin's concerns that gutting the filibuster would effectively blow up the Senate, Duckworth said, "They're blowing up the right of Americans to vote all across the country."
  • "I am adamantly opposed to dividing our country any further on anything that basically, such as a major policy change as that, goes down partisan lines and could be very detrimental, I think, very harmful to our country," Manchin said when asked about changing the filibuster rules.
  • Yet the pressure is only bound to be ratcheted up in the days ahead.
  • "I spent 23 years defending people's rights to vote around the world so I'm gonna choose defending Americans rights to vote over 100 senators to mount a filibuster any day," Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois told CNN.
  • "We're still talking," Manchin told CNN last week, referring to his efforts to craft a bipartisan agreement on a narrower piece of legislation aimed at restoring a key aspect of the 1965 Voting Rights Act gutted by the Supreme Court eight years ago.
  • Some defenders of the Senate's filibuster rules are reconsidering their past refusal to gut the potent stall tactic if Republicans carry through with their plans to block Democratic legislation to rewrite the nation's voting and campaign finance laws.
carolinehayter

Pentagon watchdog finds National Guard's use of helicopters to fly over DC protestors "... - 0 views

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

politics trump us

shared by carolinehayter on 28 May 21 - No Cached
  • The Pentagon's watchdog found that the DC National Guard's use of low-flying helicopters in response to protests in DC on June 1, 2020, over the death of George Floyd was "reasonable," but the mission was mired in confusion.
  • The report from the Department of Defense's Inspector General, released Thursday, concluded the deployment of helicopters was justifiable based on the needs of the emergency, as well as the direction from President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Mark Esper to "flood the zone" and "use everything available" to protect "federal property and symbols."
  • A lack of clear guidance on the helicopters' mission compounded the confusion, because Ryan "did not provide clear and consistent direction and mission guidance" and "did not provide his clear and consistent commander's intent to include key tasks and parameters for the operation."Enter your email to sign up for CNN's "What Matters" Newsletter. "close dialog"Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Sign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Please enter aboveSign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters Newsletter<di
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • "No specific training, policies, or procedures were in place for using helicopters to support requests for assistance from civilian authorities in civil disturbances," the report's authors wrote. "Prior to the night of June 1st, 2020, the DC [National Guard] did not have a prepared plan to maintain command and control of aviation assets used to support civil disturbances."Read More
  • Well after the curfew, protesters were still out on the streets, and video captured by CNN showed a military helicopter hovering over a group of them, kicking up strong wind and debris with its downwash. The tactic is a show of force and commonly used by the military in overseas combat zones to drive away targets from a specific area.
  • The Defense Department Inspector General largely agreed with an earlier report from an Army investigation that found the use of helicopters was not against federal laws or policies, though there was a "lack of understanding" about their mission.But the new report contradicted the Army investigation's finding that MEDEVAC helicopters were used against regulations and that the helicopters were used without approval from the chain of command.
hannahcarter11

Tulsa marks race massacre centennial as US grapples with racial injustice | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...ial-as-us-grapples-with-racial

tulsa massacre injustice reparations centennial

shared by hannahcarter11 on 31 May 21 - No Cached
  • On the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre — in which a thriving Black neighborhood was burned to the ground and hundreds of residents were killed by an angry white mob — local and national leaders find themselves grappling with the lasting effects of racial injustice and violence.
  • The centennial comes just a week after the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, an event that sparked nationwide Black Lives Matter protests calling for an end to police brutality and systemic racism.
  • In 1921, Greenwood was a bastion of Black wealth at a time when Jim Crow laws and the Ku Klux Klan hamstrung and terrorized Black Americans in the South.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Dubbed “Black Wall Street,” the northern section of Tulsa was home to dozens of Black-owned businesses, including hotels, restaurants, law firms and medical practices.
  • Despite its prominence, the massacre was little known, if at all, in most parts of the country, until the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 was created in 1997
  • he seeds of violence were planted on the morning of May 31, when the Tulsa Tribune reported that 19-year-old Black shoeshine Dick Rowland had attempted to assault Sarah Page, a 17-year-old white elevator operator in the Drexel Building in the white part of town.
  • The Tribune’s overdramatized account of what happened — the story headline read “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator” — sparked the forming of a lynch mob outside the Tulsa County Courthouse, where Rowland was in custody.
  • A group of roughly 25 Black men from Greenwood went to the courthouse armed to stop the mob from taking Rowland, only to be turned away by authorities.
  • Later, after the white mob continued to grow and a larger group from Greenwood returned, a scuffle broke out, followed by gunfire
  • Tulsa police appointed hundreds of white men and boys “special deputies,” even supplying some of them with guns.
  • It’s a “striking example of how our institutions, particularly policing but not only policing, have played a role over our history in enforcing systemic racism and brutality against Black Americans,” Rep. Steven HorsfordSteven Alexander HorsfordTulsa marks race massacre centennial as US grapples with racial injustice Gun violence: Save the thoughts and prayers, it's time for Senate action Democrats offer bill to encourage hiring of groups hard-hit by pandemic MORE (D-Nev.), second vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told The Hill.
  • The white mob had razed&nbsp;more than 1,200 houses across 35 city blocks, looting hundreds more. The prosperous business district of Greenwood was destroyed.
  • As many as 300 people died, historians say, though the exact number is unknown due to mass gravesites. The destruction displaced about 10,000 Greenwood residents.
  • In total, more than $1.8 million of Black property was destroyed,&nbsp;more than $27 million by today’s dollar.
  • The staggering economic loss was never recovered by Black Tulsans and is seen as a key factor in the stark racial wealth disparity in the city 100 years later.
  • Restorative justice, also known as reparative justice or reparations, was one of the recommendations of the Oklahoma commission’s 2001 report.
  • Steps toward justice, the commission said, could take the form of direct payments to the survivors and their descendants, a scholarship for descendants, economic development in Greenwood and a memorial for the massacre victims.
  • The 100-year anniversary includes events hosted by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, which spearheaded the building of Greenwood Rising, a $30 million history museum and center that will fully open in July.
  • Many advocates&nbsp;have argued&nbsp;that the centennial commission hasn’t done enough to raise up the voices of the survivors and their descendants, but Horsford said he doesn’t want that to detract from the importance of the weekend.The focus should be on “what caused the massacre and those who contributed to it and the systemic reasons for it,” Horsford said.
hannahcarter11

Democrats set for filibuster brawl amid escalating tensions | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...brawl-amid-escalating-tensions

democrats filibuster senate

shared by hannahcarter11 on 01 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Democrats are setting the stage for a massive brawl over the fate of the legislative filibuster as they face growing pressure to get rid of the roadblock.&nbsp;
  • In June, a number of high-profile measures important to Democrats seem set to be blocked by the GOP’s filibuster, which supporters hope will convince wary Democrats to back ending the filibuster. The blocking of Democratic priorities will certainly enrage those liberals who already want the filibuster killed off.
  • The burgeoning debate is likely to be influenced by a chaotic juggling act from last week, when Senate Republicans used their first filibuster under Biden to block a bill creating an independent commission to probe the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol.&nbsp;
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The setback, while widely expected, poured fuel on calls from a growing number of Democratic senators and progressives to change the Senate’s rules.&nbsp;
  • A coalition of 57 progressive groups released a joint statement arguing that Democrats could either “protect the filibuster or deliver on critical and popular policies.”&nbsp;
  • “The path forward is clear: The filibuster must be eliminated as a weapon that a minority of senators can wield to veto popular democracy-protecting bills,” the groups said.&nbsp;
  • The setback on the commission vote comes as Democrats, and some Republicans, were also frustrated by a group of conservative senators slow-walking a debate on China-related legislation, even after a lengthy committee process and amendment votes on the Senate floor.&nbsp;
  • He is vowing to give a sweeping bill to overhaul federal elections a vote in June, as well as a paycheck bill previously filibustered by Republicans under the Obama administration. He’s also mulling bringing up a LGTBQ protection bill that previously passed the House and gun reforms amid slow-going talks that Murphy is leading with GOP senators.&nbsp;
katherineharron

Opinion: What has to happen after the Colorado killings - CNN - 0 views

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

gun reform

shared by katherineharron on 23 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Once again Americans are grieving over lives lost to another mass shooting. On Monday, 10 people, including a police officer, were killed at a Boulder, Colorado, King Soopers grocery store
  • It quickly became heartbreakingly clear to us that the only bill that may have had a chance of passing in Congress was Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Pat Toomey's compromise bipartisan plan expanding background checks and proposing a ban on some semi-automatic weapons.
  • Sadly, on April 17, 2013, Senate Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, blocked the bill using the filibuster, an arcane Senate rule that enables senators to block bills favored by a majority of its members.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The year after that shameful vote, Democrats lost their Senate majority and Senate Republicans blocked life-saving gun bills for the following six years.
  • These votes came after a gun sold without a completed background check was used to kill nine African Americans during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. These bills were the only two gun violence prevention measures to pass out of the House that year and they ended up on Senate Majority Leader McConnell's desk in his "Senate Graveyard."
  • On March 11, the House passed Thompson and Clyburn's background check bills once again. Sen. Chris Murphy who introduced S.529, the companion bill to Rep. Thompson's bill, is tasked with passing the bill in the Senate.
  • The Brady background check and the assault weapons ban bills were signed into law more than 27 years ago, the last time Congress passed a meaningful gun control bill.
  • The gun violence prevention movement worked tirelessly to secure a Democratic majority in the House, the Senate and the White House. It's time for Democratic senators to reform the rules to force an up-or-down vote on lifesaving gun violence prevention measures. They must not squander this opportunity to take meaningful action to end the gun violence crisis in our nation.
  • Without ending the Senate filibuster, public safety policies with broad American support will not make it onto President Biden's desk. That means we can expect more than 100 Americans to keep dying by guns every single day.
xaviermcelderry

Opinion | Has Trump's Reckoning Come Too Late? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-second-impeachment.html

Trump

shared by xaviermcelderry on 16 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” she said in a statement, adding, “There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”
  • Trump now becomes the first president in American history to be impeached twice. Half of all presidential impeachments since the Republic began have been impeachments of Trump. This latest impeachment is different than the first, and not just because it was bipartisan. It culminates a week in which Trump has finally faced the broad social pariahdom he’s always deserved.
  • hen a mob incited by the president ransacked the Capitol, killing one policeman and pummeling others, it also tore down a veil. Suddenly, all but the most fanatical partisans admitted that Trump was exactly who his fiercest critics have always said he was.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The siege of the Capitol wasn’t a departure for Trump, it was an apotheosis. For years, he’s been telling us he wouldn’t accept an election loss. For years, he’s been urging his followers to violence, refusing to condemn their violence, and insinuating that even greater violence was on the way. As he told Breitbart in 2019, in one of his characteristic threats, “I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”
  • Under Trump, political pressure on federal law enforcement to ignore the far right would only grow. After a white supremacist killed 23 people in a Walmart in El Paso in 2019, Dave Gomez, a former F.B.I. supervisor overseeing terrorism cases, told The Washington Post that the agency was “hamstrung” in trying to investigate white nationalists. “There’s some reluctance among agents to bring forth an investigation that targets what the president perceives as his base,” said Gomez.
  • “We’ve got to get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren’t any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world, we got to get rid of them,” said President Trump. He urged his minions to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the place where Congress was meeting to certify the election he lost: “Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
  • Trump now becomes the first president in American history to be impeached twice. Half of all presidential impeachments since the Republic began have been impeachments of Trump. This latest impeachment is different than the first, and not just because it was bipartisan. It culminates a week in which Trump has finally faced the broad social pariahdom he’s always deserved.
    • kaylynfreeman
      kaylynfreeman on 17 Jan 21
       
      he made history
  • It is not yet clear who Raskin will be up against. Prominent law firms have refused to represent Trump in his postelection legal fights, and Bloomberg News reports that lawyers who have defended the president in the past don’t want to do so anymore. For four years, as Trump has brought ever more havoc and hatred to this country, many have wondered what it would take to dent his impunity. The answer appears to be twofold: Committing sedition, and losing power.
  • The House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment report quotes, at length, the speech that Donald Trump gave to his devotees on Jan. 6 before many of them stormed the Capitol, baying for execution.
  • Banks promised to stop lending to him. Major social media companies banned him. One of the Trump Organization’s law firms dropped it as a client. The coach of the New England Patriots rejected the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the P.G.A. pulled its namesake tournament from a Trump golf course. Universities revoked honorary degrees. Some of the country’s biggest corporations, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, pledged to withhold donations from congressional enablers of his voter fraud fantasy. Bill de Blasio announced that New York City would end contracts with the Trump Organization to run two ice rinks and other concessions worth millions annually.
  • Throughout his presidency, Republicans pretended not to hear what the president was saying. For the last few months, Republican election officials in Georgia have spoken with mounting desperation of being barraged with death threats as a result of Trump’s ceaseless lies about the election, but national Republicans did little to restrain him. There was no exodus away from the president and his brand when, during the debates, he refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power and told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”
  • That is part of the work of the second impeachment. This impeachment may be as much a burden for Democrats as for Republicans; a Senate trial would surely postpone some of the urgent business of the Biden administration. It has gone forward because Democrats had no choice if they wanted to defend our increasingly fragile system of government.
katherineharron

The 15 most notable lies of Donald Trump's presidency - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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

trump

shared by katherineharron on 17 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • I fact checked every word uttered by this President from his inauguration day in January 2017 until September 2020 -- when the daily number of lies got so unmanageably high that I had to start taking a pass on some of his remarks to preserve my health.
  • Trump got even worse after November 3. Since then, he has spent the final months of what has been a wildly dishonest presidency on a relentless and dangerous lying spree about the election he lost.
  • The most telling lie: It didn't rain on his inaugurationclose dialogSign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Sign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Please enter aboveSign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.bx-group bx-group-default bx-group-1245864-3DW
  • ...36 more annotations...
  • It rained during Trump's inaugural address. Then, at a celebratory ball later that day, Trump told the crowd that the rain "just never came" until he finished talking and went inside, at which point "it poured."
  • The President would say things that we could see with our own eyes were not true. And he would often do this brazen lying for no apparent strategic reason.
  • The most dangerous lie: The coronavirus was under control
  • This was more like a family of lies than a single lie. But each one -- the lie that the virus was equivalent to the flu; the lie that the situation was "totally under control"; the lie that the virus was "disappearing" -- suggested to Americans that they didn't have to change much about their usual behavior.
  • more than 386,000 Americans have died from the virus.
  • The most alarming lie saga: Sharpiegate
  • Trump tweeted in 2019 that Alabama was one of the states at greater risk from Hurricane Dorian than had been initially forecast. The federal weather office in Birmingham then tweeted that, actually, Alabama would be unaffected by the storm
  • Trump, however, is so congenitally unwilling to admit error that he embarked on an increasingly farcical campaign to prove that his incorrect Alabama tweet was actually correct, eventually showcasing a hurricane map that was crudely altered with a Sharpie.
  • The most ridiculous subject of a lie: The Boy Scouts
  • When I emailed the Boy Scouts of America in 2017 about Trump's claim that "the head of the Boy Scouts" had called him to say that his bizarrely political address to the Scouts' National Jamboree was "the greatest speech that was ever made to them," I didn't expect a reply. One of the hardest things about fact checking Trump was that a lot of people he lied about did not think it was in their interest to be quoted publicly contradicting a vengeful president.
  • A senior Scouts source -- a phrase I never expected to have to type as a political reporter in Washington, DC -- confirmed to me that no call ever happened.
  • The ugliest smear lie: Rep. Ilhan Omar supports al Qaeda
  • The most boring serial lie: The trade deficit with China used to be $500 billion
  • It was a problem for the country that the President was not only a conspiracy theorist himself but immersed in conspiracy culture, regularly stumbling upon ludicrous claims and then sharing them as fact.
  • So he said well over 100 times that, before his presidency, the US for years had a $500 billion annual trade deficit with China -- though the actual pre-Trump deficit never even reached $400 billion.
  • The most entertaining lie shtick: The burly crying men who had never cried before
  • according to the President, they kept walking up to him crying tears of gratitude -- even though they had almost always not previously cried for years.
  • The most traditional big lie: Trump didn't know about the payment to Stormy Daniels
  • he also lied when he needed to. When he told reporters on Air Force One in 2018 that he did not know about a $130,000 payment to porn performer Stormy Daniels and that he did not know where his then-attorney Michael Cohen got the money for the payment, it was both audacious -- Trump knew, because he had personally reimbursed Cohen -- and kind of conventional: the President was lying to try to get himself out of a tawdry scandal.
  • The biggest lie by omission: Trump ended family separation
  • ere's what he told NBC's Chuck Todd in 2019 about his widely controversial policy of separating migrant parents from their children at the border: "You know, under President Obama you had separation. I was the one that ended it." Yes, Trump signed a 2018 order to end the family separation policy.
  • The most shameless campaign lie: Biden will destroy protections for pre-existing conditions
  • When Trump claimed in September that Biden would destroy protections for people with pre-existing health conditions -- though the Obama-Biden administration created the protections, though the protections were overwhelmingly popular, though Biden was running on preserving them,
  • Trump himself had tried repeatedly to weaken them
  • The lie he fled: He got Veterans Choice
  • Trump could have told a perfectly good factual story about the Veterans Choice health care program Obama signed into law in 2014: it wasn't good enough, so he replaced it with a more expansive program he signed into law in 2018.
  • That's not the story he did tell -- whether out of policy ignorance, a desire to erase Obama's legacy, or simply because he is a liar. Instead, he claimed over and over -- more than 160 times before I lost count -- that he is the one who got the Veterans Choice program passed after other presidents tried and failed for years.
  • The Crazy Uncle lie award: Windmill noise causes cancer
  • At a White House event in 2019, Trump grossly distorted a 2013 quote from Rep. Ilhan Omar to try to get his supporters to believe that the Minnesota Democrat had expressed support for the terrorist group al Qaeda.
  • his 2019 declaration that "they say" the noise from windmills "causes cancer."
  • The most hucksterish lie: That plan was coming in two weeks
  • Trump's big health care plan was eternally coming in "two weeks."
  • My personal favorite lie: Trump was once named Michigan's Man of the Year
  • Trump has never lived in Michigan. Why would he have been named Michigan's Man of the Year years before his presidency?He wouldn't have been. He wasn't.
  • The most depressing lie: Trump won the election
  • Trump's long White House campaign against verifiable reality has culminated with his lie that he is the true winner of the 2020 presidential election he clearly, certifiably and fairly lost.
brookegoodman

Tulsi Gabbard, running for president, won't seek re-election to Congress - 0 views

www.nbcnews.com/...on-t-seek-re-election-n1071756

politics us

shared by brookegoodman on 25 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard said Thursday that she will not run for re-election for her U.S. representative seat, saying she wants to focus on trying to secure her party’s nomination to challenge President Donald Trump.
  • "I believe that I can best serve the people of Hawaii and our country as your president and commander-in-chief,"
  • An Iowa Democratic caucus poll out this week put Gabbard at 3 percent, with former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg in the top three spots.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Clinton did not mention Gabbard by name but said she believes one candidate is "the favorite of the Russians."
  • Clinton was referring to the GOP grooming Gabbard, not Russians.
  • Gabbard reacted by tweeting that Clinton is “the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that sickened the Democratic Party for so long."
  • Trump attacked Clinton for the suggestion earlier this week, and said Clinton and other Democrats claim everyone opposed to them is a Russian agent.
  • ratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard said Thursday that she will not run for re-election for her U.S. representative seat, saying she wants to focus on trying to secure her party’s nomination to challenge President Donald Trump.Gabbard, who represents Hawaii, made the announcement in a video and email to supporters."I believe that I can best serve the people of Hawaii and our country as your president and commander-in-chief," Gabbard said in the video.Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.Sign UpThis site is protected by recaptcha&nbsp;Privacy Policy&nbsp;|&nbsp;Terms of Service She also expressed gratitude to the people of Hawaii for her nearly seven years in Congress.In January, Hawaii state Sen. Kai Kahele, a Democrat, said he would run for Gabbard's seat, NBC affiliate KHNL of Honolulu reported.An Iowa Democratic caucus poll out this week put Gabbard at 3 percent, with former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg in the top three spots.She is in a crowded field of Democrats seeking the nomination to run for president. Another candidate, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, ended his long-shot presidential campaign Thursday.RecommendedvideovideoMcConnell: If the House impeaches Trump, Senate will hold trial 'until we finish'2020 Election2020 ElectionTim Ryan drops out of presidential raceHillary Clinton recently suggested that she believed Republicans were grooming one of the Democrats for a third-party candidacy. Clinton did not mention Gabbard by name but said she believes one candidate is "the favorite of the Russians."
katherineharron

Ranking the Top 5 Democrats in the 2020 race - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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

shared by katherineharron on 17 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • @charset "UTF-8";.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .m-footer__bottom__text a[data-analytics=footer_adchoices]:after{content:"";display:block;margin:0;padding:0}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a{font-size:1rem}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .buckets{list-style:none;margin:0;padding:2rem 0 1.5rem;font-family:CNN Condensed,CNN,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Utkal,sans-serif;-webkit-font-feature-settings:"kern";font-feature-settings:"kern";text-rendering:optimizeLegibility}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .buckets{padding:0}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .buckets:after{clear:both;content:"";display:table}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket{float:left}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a{color:#404040;display:block;font-weight:500;letter-spacing:.9px;line-height:2.1;position:relative;text-align:center;text-decoration:none;text-transform:uppercase}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a{line-height:50px;padding:0 .5rem;font-size:14px;letter-spacing:1px}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a:after{background:#3061f3;bottom:.25rem;content:"";height:.25rem;left:0;margin:0 auto;position:absolute;right:0;-webkit-transition:width .2s ease-in-out;-o-transition:width .2s ease-in-out;transition:width .2s ease-in-out;width:0}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a:after{bottom:.75rem}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a:hover:after{width:25%}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a:hover:after{width:calc(100% - 1rem)}}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket+.bucket a{margin-left:1rem}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .logo{background:0;height:auto;position:static;width:auto;z-index:auto}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .logo:after{clear:both;content:"";display:table}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .logo:after{content:none}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .logo-links{-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;box-sizing:content-box;height:50px;width:172px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .logo-links__cnn{background-color:#c00;background-image:url(//www.i.cdn.cnn.com/.a/2.183.1/assets/logo_cnn.svg);float:left;height:50px;width:50px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .logo-links__politics{background-image:url(//www.i.cdn.cnn.com/.a/2.183.1/assets/logo_politics.svg);background-position:0;background-repeat:no-repeat;float:left;height:50px;margin-left:.4rem;width:115px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social a{font-size:inherit;color:inherit}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .gigya-sharebar-element+.gigya-sharebar-element{margin:0 0 0 8px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .m-share__rail .gigya-sharebar-element+.gigya-sharebar-element{margin:0 0 8px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social{color:#404040;list-style:none;margin:0 auto;padding:2rem 0;position:relative;width:80px}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social{padding:0}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social:before{background-color:#d9d9d9;content:"";display:block;height:1px;left:0;margin:0 auto;position:absolute;right:0;top:0;width:88px}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social:before{content:none}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social:after{clear:both;content:"";display:table}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link{float:left;font-size:20px;text-align:center;-webkit-transition:color .1s ease-in-out;-o-transition:color .1s ease-in-out;transition:color .1s ease-in-out;width:20px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link:hover{color:#3061f3}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link{height:50px}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link+.social__link{margin-left:10px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link a{line-height:20px}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link a{line-height:50px}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link--facebook a:before{content:"";font-family:cnn-icons}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link--twitter a:before{content:"";font-family:cnn-icons}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link--instagram a:before{content:"";font-family:cnn-icons}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.pg.pg .skinny .nav .buckets{position:static}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-header{height:auto}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open .nav .menu-collapse{background:0}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open .nav .buckets{-webkit-transform:none;-ms-transform:none;transform:none}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav .drawer>.buckets{width:auto}@media (min-width:1024px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics #header-wrap #sticky-ad-wrap,.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics #header-wrap.ad-active{background:#fefefe}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics #header-wrap .ad.ad--epic{background:#fefefe}@media (min-width:800px) and (max-width:899px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open{height:100%;overflow:hidden;overflow-scrolling:none;position:fixed}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav{-webkit-box-sizing:border-box;box-sizing:border-box;position:relative;height:auto}@media (min-width:800px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav{background:0}}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav{background:#fefefe;border-bottom:1px solid #e6e6e6;height:98px;padding:24px 10px 24px 0;-webkit-transition:all .2s ease-in-out;-o-transition:all .2s ease-in-out;transition:all .2s ease-in-out}}@media (min-width:1120px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav{padding:24px 0}}@media (min-width:800px){html:not(.iemobile):not(.ios):not(.android) .pg-vertical--politics .skinny .nav{height:auto}}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.pg.pg .skinny .nav{height:51px;padding:0 10px 0 0}}@media (min-width:1120px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.pg.pg .skinny .nav{padding:0}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav__container{background:#f2f2f2;border-bottom:1px solid #e6e6e6;height:50px;z-index:28}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav__container{background:#fefefe;border-bottom:0;float:left}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search--mobile{position:absolute;right:50px;top:0}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search--mobile{display:none}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search--desktop{display:none;float:right;outline:none}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search--desktop{display:block}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search__icon{display:block;height:50px;overflow:hidden;text-align:center;width:50px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search__icon:before{-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;box-sizing:content-box;color:#404040;font-size:22px;line-height:50px;padding:2px 0 0;-webkit-transform:scaleX(-1);-ms-transform:scaleX(-1);transform:scaleX(-1);content:"";font-family:cnn-icons}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search__icon:before:hover{color:#3061f3}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search--mobile .nav-search__icon{width:25px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .menu-collapse{height:50px;position:absolute;right:0;top:0;width:50px}@media (min-width:800px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .menu-collapse{display:block}}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .menu-collapse{display:none}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .menu-collapse .hamburger,.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .menu-collapse .hamburger:after,.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .menu-collapse .hamburger:before{background-color:#404040}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open .menu-collapse .hamburger{background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0)}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .drawer{overflow:auto;position:relative}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .drawer{overflow:auto}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open .drawer{height:100vh;height:calc(100vh - 50px)}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open .drawer{height:auto}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .drawer__container{background:#f2f2f2;border-bottom:1px solid #e6e6e6;position:absolute;-webkit-transform:translate3d(0,-100%,0);transform:translate3d(0,-100%,0);-webkit-transition:all .2s ease-in-out;-o-transition:all .2s ease-in-out;transition:all .2s ease-in-out;width:100%}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .drawer__container{background-color:#fefefe;border:0;position:static;-webkit-transform:none;-ms-transform:none;transform:none;-webkit-transition:none;-o-transition:none;transition:none;width:auto}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open .drawer__container{-webkit-transform:translateZ(0);transform:translateZ(0)}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open.breaking-news--showing .drawer__container{padding-bottom:100px}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav .buckets{float:left;margin:0 0 0 2.75rem}}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .skinny .nav .buckets .bucket>a{line-height:50px}}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.p
  • But the level of not-knowing-what-the-hell-is-going-to-happen is much higher in this race than any we've seen in modern memory. Just four in 10 Iowa Democrats said they were locked in on their candidate choice in a CNN/Des Moines Register poll earlier this month. That's significantly lower than the 59% who said they had made up their minds about a candidate at the same time in 2016.
  • 5. Amy Klobuchar: The Minnesota senator wanted (needed?) a star turn at the debate earlier this week in Iowa to close the gap between herself and the four top candidates in Iowa.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • 3 (tie). Elizabeth Warren: We're moving the senior senator up on our list for two reasons. First, although Warren is arguably in a worse position than Buttigieg in Iowa and New Hampshire, she is in a better position than he is nationally.
  • 3 (tie). Pete Buttigieg: Buttigieg is, weirdly, the most divisive candidate in the field. Just take his debate performance on Tuesday night as an example. Chris wrote that he came across as well-versed on the issues, authoritative and possessing the necessary gravitas to serve as commander-in-chief.
  • . Bernie Sanders: We've both written about how it's not far-fetched at all that the junior senator from Vermont could win the nomination.
  • 1. Joe Biden: The former vice president has the easiest path to the nomination. If Biden wins in Iowa, he is the heavy favorite to be the nominee.
anniina03

China Poses 'Existential' Threat to Human Rights: Report | Time - 0 views

time.com/...china-human-rights-report

politics US history trump culture crisis

shared by anniina03 on 17 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • hina poses an “existential threat” to the international human rights system, according to a new report released today by Human Rights Watch (HRW) after the organization’s executive director was denied entry to Hong Kong at the weekend. “It’s not simply a suppression at home, but it’s attacks on virtually any body, company, government, international institution that tries to uphold human rights or hold Beijing to account,” HRW’s executive director Kenneth Roth told TIME ahead of the report’s release.
  • Roth said he had been in Hong Kong to release a report on gender discrimination in the Chinese job market less than two years ago. He said he believes this year was different because the Chinese government “made the preposterous claim that Human Rights Watch is inciting the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests.”
  • China’s detention of a million members of the Uighur ethnic minority group in Xinjiang province, and an “unprecedented regime of mass surveillance” designed to suppress criticism are among the human rights violations described in the mainland, while the report also Beijing’s intensifying attempts to undermine international human rights standards and institutions on a global scale.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • The effective barring of Roth from entering Hong Kong is not an isolated incident, happening days after a U.S. photographer covering the pro-democracy protests was also banned from entering the financial hub.
  • “I think it’s worth stressing that what happened to me pales in comparison to what is happening to the pro-democracy protesters on the streets of Hong Kong. They’re the ones who are facing tear gas, beatings and arrest, and I just had another 16 hour flight [back to New York],” Roth says. “But what it does reflect is a real worsening of the human rights situation in Hong Kong.”
  • At a press briefing on Monday after the incident involving Roth, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that “allowing or not allowing someone’s entry is China’s sovereign right,” adding that foreign NGOs were supporting “Hong Kong independence separatist activities.”
  • “The justification they put forward was laughable, and insulting to the people of Hong Kong,” says Roth. “They don’t need me to tell them to take to the streets — they are looking to defend their own human rights, their own political freedoms and their own rule of law.”
  • Roth says Beijing’s explanation for barring him shows how fearful the authorities are of demonstrations in the city, and is an attempt to persuade those in the mainland not to emulate the pro-democracy protests. “They simply cannot admit to people on the mainland that hundreds of thousands Chinese citizens would take to the street in opposition to the increasingly dictatorial rule that is coming from Beijing.”
  • The Chinese government has attempted to deter, track and deport journalists and foreign investigators from reporting on forced indoctrination and detention of at least a million Uighur Muslims in internment camps in China’s western province of Xinjiang, highlighted in Roth’s lead essay in the HRW report.
  • On Monday, Chinese state media reported that the semi-autonomous region of Tibet would introduce forthcoming regulations to “strengthen ethnic unity;” echoing language used in regulations introduced in Xinjiang four years ago.
  • Beyond the worrying crackdown within China’s own borders, HRW’s report highlights Beijing’s efforts to deter the international community from scrutinizing its human rights abuses, taking “full advantage of the corporate quest for profit to extend its censorship to critics abroad.”
  • And at the individual level, the export of censorship is reaching dissidents and even universities in Australia, Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.; the report notes that students from China who wanted to join campus debates felt unable to do so for fear of being monitored or reported to Chinese authorities.
  • The export of the Chinese censorship system also permeates governments and international institutions, and has “transformed into an active assault on the international human rights system,”
  • China has also consistently worked with Russia at the U.N. Security Council to block efforts to investigate human rights abuses in Syria, Myanmar and Venezuela. “China worries that even enforcement of human rights standards someplace else will have a boomerang effect that will come back to haunt it,” says Roth.
  • Aside from China, the report also looks at several other concerning situations around around the world, including civilians at risk from indiscriminate bombing in Idlib province in Syria, the desperate humanitarian crisis resulting from Saudi-led coalition’s actions in Yemen, the refugee crisis emerging from Maduro’s grip on power in Venezuela, and Myanmar’s denial of the genocide of the Rohingya at the International Court of Justice. And while Roth is encouraged by a growing international response to China’s actions in Xinjiang, particularly from Muslim majority nations, there remains much more to be done. From a U.S. perspective, the report notes that strong rhetoric from officials condemning human rights violations in China is “often undercut by Trump’s praise of Xi Jinping and other friendly autocrats,” as well as the Trump-administration’s own policies in violation of human rights, including forced separation at the U.S.-Mexican border.
aidenborst

Stocks week ahead: Saying goodbye to a wild 2020 - CNN - 0 views

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

Politics US history crisis economics stocks stock-market rebuild

shared by aidenborst on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The Dow and the S&amp;P 500 ended the year at record highs and the Nasdaq Composite logged its best performance since 2009 with a whopping 43.6% jump. Overall, the indexes registered gains for the second year in a row.
  • Nobody could have predicted the market mayhem of 2020. Stocks hit record highs at the start of the year, before worries about the coronavirus pandemic — first abroad and then closer to home — pushed US markets into a spiral in February and March. The Dow routinely set new records for worst one-day point drops in history, and the New York Stocks Exchange had to suspend trading in the S&amp;P 500 multiple times as the selloff triggered circuit breakers.
  • But in the months that followed, the market recovered — and faster than many had expected.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Some of the year's biggest winners are investors who closed their eyes and muffled their ears during the pandemic selloff and held onto their stocks. By the end of the year, their portfolio balances were looking pretty good
  • "This year was a year with a lot of reminders for investors: number one, don't overreact," Leo Grohowski, chief investment officer at BNY Wealth Management, told CNN Business.close dialogBefore Markets OpenStart your day smartGet essential news and analysis on global markets with CNN Business’ daily newsletter. Sign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Before Markets OpenStart your day smartGet essential news and analysis on global markets with CNN Business’ daily newsletter. Please enter aboveSign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Before Markets Open
  • The disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street will likely be a topic that follows us into the New Year.
  • The US economy is operating at 82% of where it was in early March, according to the Back-to-Normal Index from Moody's Analytics and CNN Business.
« First ‹ Previous 101 - 120 of 1084 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page