Group items tagged

In the two years since Abram's first run, her group Fair Fight has registered tens of thousands of voters in the Peach State and raised $100 million.

And on the eve of the press conference came news of provocative new ballistic missile tests by North Korea

a week that was supposed to feature presidential events to lift up and underline the Rescue Act has yielded entirely different and vexing storylines that you can be sure will dominate Thursday's session.

Eager to avoid unforced rhetorical errors, Biden's team did a brilliant job throughout the general election campaign of controlling his interactions with the news media, mitigating the risk of unintended stories.

As president, Biden participated last month in a televised CNN town hall with citizens, a format that allowed him to display his prodigious empathy and decency, with limited opportunity for follow-ups from the moderator.

Biden may choose in an opening statement to make an announcement that he hopes will drive the news coverage. He will be furnished with a list of questioners, carefully curated by the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki. As is customary, he will have spent hours prepping with his team.

Biden and his team can only guess at the nature of the questions, many of which will be shaped by the events of the past week and even the hours before he takes the podium.

Last week, in one of Biden's rare interviews, ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked the President whether he thought Vladimir Putin is a "killer." Biden paused, but after a moment of hesitation said, "I do." His blunt characterization of the Russian president touched off a diplomatic furor and probably was not the news the White House wanted to make.

Thursday will be an interesting test for this nascent presidency. /* dynamic basic css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {margin:0;padding:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container .ob-clearfix {display:block;width:100%;float:none;clear:both;height:0px;line-height:0px;font-size:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container.ob-multi-row {padding-top: 2%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {position:relative;margin:0;padding;0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link:hover {text-decoration:none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon-container {position:absolute;left:0;height:50%;width:100%;text-align:center;top:25%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon {display:inline-block;height:100%;float:none;opacity:0.7;transition: opacity 500ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon:hover {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-rtb-image {background-color:white;background-position:center;background-repeat:no-repeat;width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-rtb-image.ob-lazy-bgimg{background:none!important;}.AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{direction:ltr;clear:both;padding:5px 10px 0px;} .AR_36 .ob_what a:after {content: "";vertical-align:super;;;background-image: url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/achoice.svg');background-size:75% 75%;width:12px;height:12px;padding-left:4px;display:inline-block;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:right center;border-left:1px solid #999;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what a{color:#757575;font-size:11px;font-family:arial;text-decoration: none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what.ob-hover:hover a{text-decoration: underline;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{vertical-align:baseline !important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 5px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid{width:auto;height:16px;max-height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:22px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_smartFeedLogo.min.svg') no-repeat center top;width:140px;height:21px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sphere_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_sphere.svg') no-repeat center top;width:93px;height:27px;vertical-align:baseline!important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 0px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(min-resolution: 192dpi) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px; background-size:16px 32px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px; background-size:67px 24px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:20px; background-size:67px 40px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;background-size: 86px 23px;} } @media only screen and (max-width: 600px) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{width:90px;height:20px;background-size:90px 20px;} } .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_text_logo{background-position:center bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{position:absolute;top:5px;right:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{text-align:right;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-image {display:block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-description {max-height:53.0px;overflow:hidden;font-weight:normal;} /* dynamic smartfeed-strip css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-image-ratio {height:0px;line-height:0px;padding-top:60.0%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-rec-image {width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;opacity:0;transition:all 750ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-show {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-label {position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;padding:0px 3px;background-color:#666;color:white;font-size:10px;line-height:15px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-video {position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:0;min-width:0} .AR_36.ob-widget {width:auto;min-width:120px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {display:inline-block;vertical-align:top;min-width:50px;width:48.85%;box-sizing:border-box;-moz-box-sizing:border-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandLogo-container, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogoAndName {display:inline-block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogo {width:20px;height:20px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:super;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {direction: ltr;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {margin-left:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container ~ .ob-dynamic-rec-container {marg

Last October, North Korea displayed its biggest missile yet -- an updated version of the Hwasong-15

Japan, America's most important ally in the Pacific and home to numerous US military bases housing tens of thousands of US personnel, was alarmed.

North Korea has previously demonstrated it has missiles that can reach Japan. In 2017, it tested two ballistic missiles that flew over the country before landing in the Pacific Ocean.

Later that year, Pyongyang tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-15, that soared skyward before splashing into waters off the coast of Japan. If it had flown on a standard trajectory, David Wright, an expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it could have traveled 13,000 kilometers (8,100 miles).

"Such a missile would have more than enough range to reach Washington, DC, and in fact any part of the continental United States,"

The atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima, Japan, by the US in 1945 killed 70,000 people with its initial blast, and left tens of thousands of others to die slowly from burns or radiation-related illnesses.

The CFR report notes, however, that as the massive missile displayed at the parade had not yet been tested, its real capabilities remain unknown.

The South Korean Defense Ministry puts Pyongyang's army at 1.28 million people compared to Seoul's 550,000.

North Korea has successfully tested nuclear bombs on six occasions, in 2006, 2009, 2013, twice in 2016 and in 2017, according to the CFR report.

"With each test, North Korea's nuclear explosions have grown in power,"

Ballistic missiles are powered only through the initial stages of their flight, reaching a zenith at some point and then falling from gravity onto their targets.

"We're going to have to learn to live with North Korea's ability to target the United States with nuclear weapons," Jeffrey Lewis, a researcher at the Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies, said in the CFR report.

A 2020 white paper from South Korea's Defense Ministry said Pyongyang has 13 missile brigades. At October's military parade, nine missiles were unveiled, including the massive ICBM and a submarine-launch ballistic missile, according to the document.

"North Korea is expected to continue to upgrade its nuclear and missile capabilities in the name of strengthening its self-defense capabilities and mobilize all of its manpower and resources with the aim of improving residents' lives by 2022 when it marks the 110th anniversary of Kim Il-sung's birthday,

Pyongyang's army has developed new multiple-rocket launchers that can hit anywhere in South Korea, Seoul's Defense Ministry said, potentially putting the country's entire population of more than 50 million people in danger.

almost 30,000 US troops are based in South Korea on US military installations that dot the country.

The ballistic missiles Pyongyang tested Thursday -- the second weapons test in less than a week -- were likely of a shorter range variety

North Korea's ground forces can also call on 4,300 tanks, 2,600 armored vehicles and 8,800 artillery pieces

The North's navy has 430 combat ships and 70 submarines.

its air force has 810 combat aircraft.

North Korea's firepower could be brought to bear quickly on Seoul because the South Korean capital is only about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the 38th parallel that divides the Korean Peninsula.

However, regardless of whether Pyongyang ever makes good on its threats, the CFR says the potential for attack can't be ignored. "The (Kim) regime's forward-deployed military position and missiles aimed at Seoul ensure that Pyongyang's conventional capabilities remain a constant threat to its southern neighbor," the CFR report said. /* dynamic basic css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {margin:0;padding:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container .ob-clearfix {display:block;width:100%;float:none;clear:both;height:0px;line-height:0px;font-size:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container.ob-multi-row {padding-top: 2%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {position:relative;margin:0;padding;0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link:hover {text-decoration:none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon-container {position:absolute;left:0;height:50%;width:100%;text-align:center;top:25%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon {display:inline-block;height:100%;float:none;opacity:0.7;transition: opacity 500ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon:hover {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-rtb-image {background-color:white;background-position:center;background-repeat:no-repeat;width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-rtb-image.ob-lazy-bgimg{background:none!important;}.AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{direction:ltr;clear:both;padding:5px 10px 0px;} .AR_36 .ob_what a:after {content: "";vertical-align:super;;;background-image: url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/achoice.svg');background-size:75% 75%;width:12px;height:12px;padding-left:4px;display:inline-block;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:right center;border-left:1px solid #999;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what a{color:#757575;font-size:11px;font-family:arial;text-decoration: none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what.ob-hover:hover a{text-decoration: underline;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{vertical-align:baseline !important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 5px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid{width:auto;height:16px;max-height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:22px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_smartFeedLogo.min.svg') no-repeat center top;width:140px;height:21px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sphere_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_sphere.svg') no-repeat center top;width:93px;height:27px;vertical-align:baseline!important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 0px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(min-resolution: 192dpi) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px; background-size:16px 32px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px; background-size:67px 24px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:20px; background-size:67px 40px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;background-size: 86px 23px;} } @media only screen and (max-width: 600px) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{width:90px;height:20px;background-size:90px 20px;} } .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_text_logo{background-position:center bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{position:absolute;top:5px;right:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{text-align:right;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-image {display:block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-description {max-height:53.0px;overflow:hidden;font-weight:normal;} /* dynamic smartfeed-strip css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-image-ratio {height:0px;line-height:0px;padding-top:60.0%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-rec-image {width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;opacity:0;transition:all 750ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-show {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-label {position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;padding:0px 3px;background-color:#666;color:white;font-size:10px;line-height:15px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-video {position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:0;min-width:0} .AR_36.ob-widget {width:auto;min-width:120px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {display:inline-block;vertical-align:top;min-width:50px;width:48.85%;box-sizing:border-box;-moz-box-sizing:border-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandLogo-container, .A

Economists have long warned that the aging US population means the nation will need to rely on a steady influx of foreign workers to meet demand. Yet Washington has repeatedly failed to reach a deal on immigration reform. And the Trump administration repeatedly put up obstacles to legal immigration, including restrictions imposed in 2020 that cited the pandemic's impact on the jobs market.

"Immigration was completely upended by the pandemic," said Bradley. "Go to any resort town in America. Where you would normally have individuals on temporary J-1 visas, they are nonexistent."

"But labor supply will be a longer run issue, just like before the pandemic," Zandi said. "There are reasons to believe it will be a bigger problem post-pandemic because immigration is a shadow of what it was."

"The survivability of your business comes down to how lucky you are in the lottery," Bradley said.

"The [Biden] administration deserves a lot of credit for taking that step," Bradley said. "They are operating within the limits of where the current law exists."

Beyond immigration reform, the Chamber told CNN Business it will urge states to use American Rescue Plan funding to help parents struggling with the high cost of childcare.

"There is no question the disruption of in-person schooling and childcare has reduced the number of caregivers, principally women, who are in the workforce and able to work," Bradley said.

Arizona announced plans on May 13 to use funds from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to assist working parents with childcare costs. The state said it will provide three months of childcare assistance to people making $52,000 or less who return to work after collecting unemployment benefits. The initiative is part of Arizona's decision to end the $300 enhanced unemployment benefit.

"The president deserves credit for identifying a lot of important problems that we need to discuss with the American Families Plan," Bradley said, specifically citing the affordability and accessibility of childcare. /* dynamic basic css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {margin:0;padding:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container .ob-clearfix {display:block;width:100%;float:none;clear:both;height:0px;line-height:0px;font-size:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container.ob-multi-row {padding-top: 2%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {position:relative;margin:0;padding;0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link:hover {text-decoration:none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon-container {position:absolute;left:0;height:50%;width:100%;text-align:center;top:25%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon {display:inline-block;height:100%;float:none;opacity:0.7;transition: opacity 500ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon:hover {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-rtb-image {background-color:white;background-position:center;background-repeat:no-repeat;width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-rtb-image.ob-lazy-bgimg{background:none!important;}.AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{direction:ltr;clear:both;padding:5px 10px 0px;} .AR_36 .ob_what a:after {content: "";vertical-align:super;;;background-image: url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/achoice.svg');background-size:75% 75%;width:12px;height:12px;padding-left:4px;display:inline-block;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:right center;border-left:1px solid #999;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what a{color:#757575;font-size:11px;font-family:arial;text-decoration: none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what.ob-hover:hover a{text-decoration: underline;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{vertical-align:baseline !important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 5px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid{width:auto;height:16px;max-height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:22px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_smartFeedLogo.min.svg') no-repeat center top;width:140px;height:21px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sphere_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_sphere.svg') no-repeat center top;width:93px;height:27px;vertical-align:baseline!important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 0px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(min-resolution: 192dpi) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px; background-size:16px 32px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px; background-size:67px 24px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:20px; background-size:67px 40px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;background-size: 86px 23px;} } @media only screen and (max-width: 600px) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{width:90px;height:20px;background-size:90px 20px;} } .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_text_logo{background-position:center bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{position:absolute;top:5px;right:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{text-align:right;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-image {display:block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-description {max-height:53.0px;overflow:hidden;font-weight:normal;} /* dynamic smartfeed-strip css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-image-ratio {height:0px;line-height:0px;padding-top:60.0%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-rec-image {width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;opacity:0;transition:all 750ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-show {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-label {position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;padding:0px 3px;background-color:#666;color:white;font-size:10px;line-height:15px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-video {position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:0;min-width:0} .AR_36.ob-widget {width:auto;min-width:120px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {display:inline-block;vertical-align:top;min-width:50px;width:48.85%;box-sizing:border-box;-moz-box-sizing:border-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandLogo-container, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogoAndName {display:inline-block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogo {width:20px;height:20px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:super;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-w

In her first virtual meeting with her fellow members of the House Democratic Caucus since the Senate vote Friday, Pelosi prepared to initiate a House-led investigation despite the stiff GOP resistance, promising her colleagues she would keeping going until they find the truth.

"With regard to what a new commission could find out, I would remind you that this is probably the most comprehensive Justice Department investigation in the history of the country going on right now. Multiple people have been arrested, many will be prosecuted. Nobody is going to get away with anything who was involved in the incident at the Capitol on January 6th,"

"I think we will know everything we need to know -- we were all witnesses. We were right there when it happened and I simply think the commission is not necessary."

The speaker promised to continue the dialogue with her fellow members before making a final decision.Both Pelosi and Jeffries said they will reconvene the caucus soon to discuss their options going forward. /* dynamic basic css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {margin:0;padding:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container .ob-clearfix {display:block;width:100%;float:none;clear:both;height:0px;line-height:0px;font-size:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container.ob-multi-row {padding-top: 2%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {position:relative;margin:0;padding;0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link:hover {text-decoration:none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon-container {position:absolute;left:0;height:50%;width:100%;text-align:center;top:25%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon {display:inline-block;height:100%;float:none;opacity:0.7;transition: opacity 500ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon:hover {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{direction:ltr;clear:both;padding:5px 10px 0px;} .AR_36 .ob_what a:after {content: "";vertical-align:super;;;background-image: url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/achoice.svg');background-size:75% 75%;width:12px;height:12px;padding-left:4px;display:inline-block;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:right center;border-left:1px solid #999;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what a{color:#757575;font-size:11px;font-family:arial;text-decoration: none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what.ob-hover:hover a{text-decoration: underline;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{vertical-align:baseline !important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 5px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid{width:auto;height:16px;max-height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:22px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_smartFeedLogo.min.svg') no-repeat center top;width:140px;height:21px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sphere_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_sphere.svg') no-repeat center top;width:93px;height:27px;vertical-align:baseline!important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 0px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(min-resolution: 192dpi) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px; background-size:16px 32px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px; background-size:67px 24px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:20px; background-size:67px 40px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;background-size: 86px 23px;} } @media only screen and (max-width: 600px) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{width:90px;height:20px;background-size:90px 20px;} } .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_text_logo{background-position:center bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{position:absolute;top:5px;right:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{text-align:right;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-image {display:block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-description {max-height:53.0px;overflow:hidden;font-weight:normal;} /* dynamic smartfeed-strip css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-image-ratio {height:0px;line-height:0px;padding-top:60.0%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-rec-image {width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;opacity:0;transition:all 750ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-show {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-label {position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;padding:0px 3px;background-color:#666;color:white;font-size:10px;line-height:15px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-video {position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:0;min-width:0} .AR_36.ob-widget {width:auto;min-width:120px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {display:inline-block;vertical-align:top;min-width:50px;width:48.85%;box-sizing:border-box;-moz-box-sizing:border-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandLogo-container, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogoAndName {display:inline-block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogo {width:20px;height:20px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:super;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {direction: ltr;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {margin-left:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container ~ .ob-dynamic-rec-container {margin:0 0 0 2.3%; } .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-he

The foreign minister of Luxembourg openly called Trump a "pyromaniac," ​while diplomats are privately saying they "blame Trump squarely for the chaos in America since the election, including the Capitol riot," as one did to CNN, reflecting the sentiments of others in the same role.

"Europeans have considered the last four years extremely distasteful. They've been bemused by Trump's envoys, like Richard Grenell in Germany, who have turned up and started behaving like Fox News anchors and insulting the country they were supposed to be building relations with," Barker said.

While the assumption is that the transatlantic relationship will improve under Biden, four years of carnage has spooked the European political scene.

"The European relationship has changed and will now be shrouded in skepticism," said Cathryn Cluver Ashbrook, executive director of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship at the Harvard Kennedy School.

"From our perspective, Trump saw Europe as an enemy," a senior European diplomat told CNN. "The lasting impact of 'America First' is the US having fewer friends in Europe."

Barker agreed, saying it would be "important to see how the new administration acknowledges the damage that has been done by Trump to America's reputation." And on top of the big picture issues like Iran and China, Barker said, "how can [Biden] send State Department officials to Ukraine to warn about corruption with any immediate credibility?"

Despite optimism that Biden will restore a more collaborative approach to shared priorities, European diplomats and officials are adamant that moves towards an independent defense policy and international "strategic autonomy" will not slow down.

"In some respects, it was a good thing Trump forced us to think more about diplomatic initiatives, NATO and withdrawal of US troops," said the German diplomat. "It might come as a shock to Biden, but the prospect of the US underpinning European security is not as attractive as it was when he and Obama left office."

"We cannot afford to be naive. If you look at the number of votes that Trump got, he wields an influence on American voters. This anti-global, 'America First' undercurrent in American politics is still very much alive and we have to hedge our bets," said the EU diplomat.

Regardless, the Trump era has left Europeans with little choice but to wait and see how much of a priority Biden places on reclaiming America's place on the world stage. And they will use the four years of relative quiet under Biden to build safeguards against the all too real possibility of another Euroskeptic firestarter winning the White House in 2024. /* dynamic basic css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {margin:0;padding:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container .ob-clearfix {display:block;width:100%;float:none;clear:both;height:0px;line-height:0px;font-size:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container.ob-multi-row {padding-top: 2%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {position:relative;margin:0;padding;0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link:hover {text-decoration:none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon-container {position:absolute;left:0;height:50%;width:100%;text-align:center;top:25%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon {display:inline-block;height:100%;float:none;opacity:0.7;transition: opacity 500ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon:hover {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-rtb-image {background-color:white;background-position:center;background-repeat:no-repeat;width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{direction:ltr;clear:both;padding:5px 10px 0px;} .AR_36 .ob_what a:after {content: "";vertical-align:super;;;background-image: url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/achoice.svg');background-size:75% 75%;width:12px;height:12px;padding-left:4px;display:inline-block;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:right center;border-left:1px solid #999;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what a{color:#757575;font-size:11px;font-family:arial;text-decoration: none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what.ob-hover:hover a{text-decoration: underline;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{vertical-align:baseline !important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 5px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid{width:auto;height:16px;max-height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:22px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_smartFeedLogo.min.svg') no-repeat center top;width:140px;height:21px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sphere_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_sphere.svg') no-repeat center top;width:93px;height:27px;vertical-align:baseline!important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 0px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(min-resolution: 192dpi) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px; background-size:16px 32px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px; background-size:67px 24px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:20px; background-size:67px 40px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;background-size: 86px 23px;} } @media only screen and (max-width: 600px) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{width:90px;height:20px;background-size:90px 20px;} } .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_text_logo{background-position:center bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{position:absolute;top:5px;right:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{text-align:right;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-image {display:block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-description {max-height:53.0px;overflow:hidden;font-weight:normal;} /* dynamic smartfeed-strip css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-image-ratio {height:0px;line-height:0px;padding-top:60.0%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-rec-image {width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;opacity:0;transition:all 750ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-show {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-label {position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;padding:0px 3px;background-color:#666;color:white;font-size:10px;line-height:15px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-video {position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:0;min-width:0} .AR_36.ob-widget {width:auto;min-width:120px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {display:inline-block;vertical-align:top;min-width:50px;width:48.85%;box-sizing:border-box;-moz-box-sizing:border-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandLogo-container, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogoAndName {display:inline-block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogo {width:20px;height:20px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:super;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {direction: ltr;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {margin-left:0;} .AR

It's doubtful that the average American grasps those nuances, instead hearing "Russian asset," with respect to Gabbard, as "working for the Russians." There are better ways Clinton might have explained the issue: focusing on Russia as the bad actor and emphasizing its efforts to interfere with American democracy; pointing out that Russia's bolstering of the Gabbard campaign is one data point in this larger effort (it's certainly not the only one). That's the route Clinton should have taken. Instead, she turned the spotlight on a relatively inconsequential congresswoman, and opened up an opportunity for right-wing media scavengers to elevate her.

Gabbard, it should be noted, is polling so badly that she hasn't yet qualified for the November Democratic primary debate. Hillary Clinton, it shouldn't need to be said, is not running for president, and not even in a position to be puppeteering the race from behind the scenes.

Gabbard may very well launch a third-party run, quietly backed by all kinds of nefarious troublemakers. But that run will only be a threat if Gabbard has some fire behind her campaign. Right now, she's flaming out. Best to not give her any more oxygen. /* dynamic basic css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {margin:0;padding:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container .ob-clearfix {display:block;width:100%;float:none;clear:both;height:0px;line-height:0px;font-size:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container.ob-multi-row {padding-top: 2%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {position:relative;margin:0;padding;0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link:hover {text-decoration:none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon-container {position:absolute;left:0;height:50%;width:100%;text-align:center;top:25%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon {display:inline-block;height:100%;float:none;opacity:0.7;transition: opacity 500ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon:hover {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{direction:ltr;clear:both;padding:5px 10px 0px;} .AR_36 .ob_what a:after {content: "";vertical-align:super;;;background-image: url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/achoice.svg');background-size:75% 75%;width:12px;height:12px;padding-left:4px;display:inline-block;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:right center;border-left:1px solid #999;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what a{color:#757575;font-size:11px;font-family:arial;text-decoration: none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what.ob-hover:hover a{text-decoration: underline;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{vertical-align:baseline !important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 5px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:22px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_smartFeedLogo.min.svg') no-repeat center top;width:140px;height:21px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sphere_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_sphere.svg') no-repeat center top;width:93px;height:27px;vertical-align:baseline!important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 0px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(min-resolution: 192dpi) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px; background-size:16px 32px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px; background-size:67px 24px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:20px; background-size:67px 40px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;background-size: 86px 23px;} } @media only screen and (max-width: 600px) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{width:90px;height:20px;background-size:90px 20px;} } .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_text_logo{background-position:center bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{position:absolute;top:5px;right:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{text-align:right;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-image {display:block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-description {max-height:53.0px;overflow:hidden;font-weight:normal;} /* dynamic smartfeed-strip css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-image-ratio {height:0px;line-height:0px;padding-top:60.0%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-rec-image {width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;opacity:0;transition:all 750ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-show {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-label {position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;padding:0px 3px;background-color:#666;color:white;font-size:10px;line-height:15px;} .AR_36.ob-widget {width:auto;min-width:240px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {display:inline-block;vertical-align:top;min-width:50px;width:48.85%;box-sizing:border-box;-moz-box-sizing:border-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandLogo-container, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogoAndName {display:inline-block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogo {width:20px;height:20px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:super;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {direction: ltr;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {margin-left:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container ~ .ob-dynamic-rec-container {margin:0 0 0 2.3%; } .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-header {direction:ltr; } .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit {display:block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-text {max-height:60.0px;overflow:hidden;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-source {} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-description {overflow:hidden;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-date {font-weight:bold;} [data-idx="1"] .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-header {margin-left:10px;} .ob-smartfeed-wrapper .OUTBRAIN {padding:0; margin-top:20px;} [data-idx="1"] .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container {clear: both;} [data-idx="1"] .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-label {background-color: #4a90e2; bottom:10px;right:0px

This is also critical if we are to overcome the demographic hurdles our labor market faces as Baby Boomers retire and the influx of Millennials slows.

The ugly truth of our criminal justice system is that one in three Black men in the United States has a felony record, putting them at a severe disadvantage.

Admirable commitments by companies to be more inclusive in hiring must be coupled with an intentional process for second chance hiring. My research has shown that "disposable employee" labor, in which the employer is trying to get the cheapest effective wage possible through minimum wage jobs that are subsidized by temporary tax credits (Work Opportunity Tax Credits), will not work because they do not adequately distinguish who is ready for reemployment nor do they make the sufficient investment to support rehabilitation.

Done right, second chance hiring that offers the needed training and support repays the required investment with loyal, productive and profitable employees (the upfront costs can even effectively be offset by tax credits). Without such an approach, our labor force cannot hope to reflect the diversity of our population.

Employment is foundational to rehabilitation for the millions of Americans with records and the more than 600,000 who exit prisons each year.

Even those businesses such as schools, defense contractors and financial institutions that have regulatory constraints on who they can hire have important roles to play. They can support education, reentry and workforce development nonprofits or advocate for policies that improve employment outcomes. Ultimately, businesses should help lead because they can -- and they must if we are to live up to the American aspiration to be a land of opportunity for all. /* dynamic basic css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {margin:0;padding:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container .ob-clearfix {display:block;width:100%;float:none;clear:both;height:0px;line-height:0px;font-size:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container.ob-multi-row {padding-top: 2%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {position:relative;margin:0;padding;0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link:hover {text-decoration:none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon-container {position:absolute;left:0;height:50%;width:100%;text-align:center;top:25%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon {display:inline-block;height:100%;float:none;opacity:0.7;transition: opacity 500ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon:hover {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{direction:ltr;clear:both;padding:5px 10px 0px;} .AR_36 .ob_what a:after {content: "";vertical-align:super;;;background-image: url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/achoice.svg');background-size:75% 75%;width:12px;height:12px;padding-left:4px;display:inline-block;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:right center;border-left:1px solid #999;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what a{color:#757575;font-size:11px;font-family:arial;text-decoration: none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what.ob-hover:hover a{text-decoration: underline;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{vertical-align:baseline !important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 5px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid{width:auto;height:16px;max-height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:22px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_smartFeedLogo.min.svg') no-repeat center top;width:140px;height:21px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sphere_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_sphere.svg') no-repeat center top;width:93px;height:27px;vertical-align:baseline!important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 0px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(min-resolution: 192dpi) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px; background-size:16px 32px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px; background-size:67px 24px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:20px; background-size:67px 40px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;background-size: 86px 23px;} } @media only screen and (max-width: 600px) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{width:90px;height:20px;background-size:90px 20px;} } .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_text_logo{background-position:center bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{position:absolute;top:5px;right:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{text-align:right;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-image {display:block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-description {max-height:53.0px;overflow:hidden;font-weight:normal;} /* dynamic smartfeed-strip css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-image-ratio {height:0px;line-height:0px;padding-top:66.66666666666666%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-rec-image {width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;opacity:0;transition:all 750ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-show {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-label {position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;padding:0px 3px;background-color:#666;color:white;font-size:10px;line-height:15px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-video {position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:0;min-width:0} .AR_36.ob-widget {width:auto;min-width:120px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {display:inline-block;vertical-align:top;min-width:50px;width:48.85%;box-sizing:border-box;-moz-box-sizing:border-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandLogo-container, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogoAndName {display:inline-block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogo {width:20px;height:20px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:super;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {direction: ltr;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {margin-left:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container ~ .ob-dynamic-rec-container {margin:0 0 0 2.3%; } .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-header {direction:ltr; } .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit {display:block;

"Now, I don't know if that's going to be changed, because we're going to go in the night of -- as soon as that election is over, we're going in with our lawyers. But we don't want to have Pennsylvania, where you have a political governor -- a very partisan guy -- and we don't want to have other states -- like Nevada, where you have the head of the Democratic clubhouse as your governor.

we're doing great in Nevada. We're doing great in Arizona. We're doing great all over. But if you take Nevada or Pennsylvania -- and everyone knows what happens in Philadelphia. You don't have to say it. But I've read about it for years. And I don't think it's fair that we have to wait a long period of time after the election.

It's not entirely clear what Trump is talking about here

Presumably that means a cadre of Trump's attorneys will descend on, say, Pennsylvania and attempt to shut down any further counting of votes beyond Tuesday night. Of course, that is a) completely undemocratic and b) very unlikely to succeed given the Supreme Court ruling that allows absentee ballots received for several days after Election Day to be counted.

The only way that I can see that such a legal move might work is if Trump and his lawyers find actual evidence of widespread voter fraud

what is Trump up to here? Intimidation, pure and simple. He is trying to work the refs in advance of the big game.

"If you speak with many smart Democrats, they believe President Trump will be ahead on election night, probably getting 280 electorals, somewhere in that range, and then they're going to try to steal it back after the election."

Nope! Votes counted after Election Day, as long as they have been cast within the legal parameters of their state, are just as above-board as votes cast early or votes cast on Election Day.

Is it true? Absolutely not. Is it dangerous? Oh, big time. /* dynamic basic css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {margin:0;padding:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container .ob-clearfix {display:block;width:100%;float:none;clear:both;height:0px;line-height:0px;font-size:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container.ob-multi-row {padding-top: 2%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {position:relative;margin:0;padding;0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link:hover {text-decoration:none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon-container {position:absolute;left:0;height:50%;width:100%;text-align:center;top:25%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon {display:inline-block;height:100%;float:none;opacity:0.7;transition: opacity 500ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon:hover {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{direction:ltr;clear:both;padding:5px 10px 0px;} .AR_36 .ob_what a:after {content: "";vertical-align:super;;;background-image: url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/achoice.svg');background-size:75% 75%;width:12px;height:12px;padding-left:4px;display:inline-block;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:right center;border-left:1px solid #999;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what a{color:#757575;font-size:11px;font-family:arial;text-decoration: none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what.ob-hover:hover a{text-decoration: underline;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{vertical-align:baseline !important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 5px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid{width:auto;height:16px;max-height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:22px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_smartFeedLogo.min.svg') no-repeat center top;width:140px;height:21px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sphere_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_sphere.svg') no-repeat center top;width:93px;height:27px;vertical-align:baseline!important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 0px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(min-resolution: 192dpi) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px; background-size:16px 32px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px; background-size:67px 24px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:20px; background-size:67px 40px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;background-size: 86px 23px;} } @media only screen and (max-width: 600px) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{width:90px;height:20px;background-size:90px 20px;} } .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_text_logo{background-position:center bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{position:absolute;top:5px;right:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{text-align:right;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-image {display:block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-description {max-height:53.0px;overflow:hidden;font-weight:normal;} /* dynamic smartfeed-strip css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-image-ratio {height:0px;line-height:0px;padding-top:60.0%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-rec-image {width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;opacity:0;transition:all 750ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-show {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-label {position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;padding:0px 3px;background-color:#666;color:white;font-size:10px;line-height:15px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-video {position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:0} .AR_36.ob-widget {width:auto;min-width:120px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {display:inline-block;vertical-align:top;min-width:50px;width:48.85%;box-sizing:border-box;-moz-box-sizing:border-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandLogo-container, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogoAndName {display:inline-block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogo {width:20px;height:20px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:super;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {direction: ltr;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {margin-left:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container ~ .ob-dynamic-rec-container {margin:0 0 0 2.3%; } .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-header {direction:ltr; } .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit {display:block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-text {max-height:60.0px;overflow:hidden;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-source {} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-description {overflow:hidden;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-date {font-weight:bold;} [data-idx="1"] .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-header {margin-left:10px;} .ob-smartfeed-wrapper .OUTBRAIN {padding:0; margin-top:20px;} [data-idx="1"] .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container {clear: both;} [data-idx="1"] .A

It comes four days after Wang sidestepped questions from CNN on when China would congratulate the US President-elect on his win

Chinese state-run media has so far been cautious in its handling of Biden's win in comparison to its increasingly strident tone towards the Trump administration, amid an ongoing deterioration in bilateral relations.

China is one of the last major nations to offer its congratulations to President-elect Biden and his team on their win

In 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping offered his congratulations to then-President-elect Trump just one day after he had been declared the winner.

"We will handle the issue of the statement (of congratulations) in accordance with international practice," Wang said

In an editorial on Thursday, state-run newspaper China Daily said that the "eagerness of foreign leaders" to congratulate Biden showed they wanted to "turn their backs on the current administration and its divisive policies."

"China is always ready to work with the US to manage their differences. Whoever is in the White House should look at the regional situation objectively," the editorial said.

Global Times described Biden as an "old friend" of China's

"China must become a country the US cannot suppress or destabilize, and make it that cooperation with China is the best option for the US to realize its national interests. This is the ultimate principle," the editorial said. /* dynamic basic css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {margin:0;padding:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container .ob-clearfix {display:block;width:100%;float:none;clear:both;height:0px;line-height:0px;font-size:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container.ob-multi-row {padding-top: 2%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {position:relative;margin:0;padding;0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-link:hover {text-decoration:none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon-container {position:absolute;left:0;height:50%;width:100%;text-align:center;top:25%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon {display:inline-block;height:100%;float:none;opacity:0.7;transition: opacity 500ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-video-icon:hover {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-rtb-image {background-color:white;background-position:center;background-repeat:no-repeat;width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-rtb-image.ob-lazy-bgimg{background:none!important;}.AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{direction:ltr;clear:both;padding:5px 10px 0px;} .AR_36 .ob_what a:after {content: "";vertical-align:super;;;background-image: url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/achoice.svg');background-size:75% 75%;width:12px;height:12px;padding-left:4px;display:inline-block;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:right center;border-left:1px solid #999;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what a{color:#757575;font-size:11px;font-family:arial;text-decoration: none;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what.ob-hover:hover a{text-decoration: underline;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{vertical-align:baseline !important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 5px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia_covid{width:auto;height:16px;max-height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:22px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_smartFeedLogo.min.svg') no-repeat center top;width:140px;height:21px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sphere_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_sphere.svg') no-repeat center top;width:93px;height:27px;vertical-align:baseline!important;display:inline-block;vertical-align:text-bottom;padding:0px 0px;box-sizing:content-box;-moz-box-sizing:content-box;-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;} @media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(min-resolution: 192dpi) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_amelia{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_16x16@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:16px;height:16px;margin-bottom:-2px; background-size:16px 32px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_logo_67x12@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:12px; background-size:67px 24px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_text_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_text_logo_67x22@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:67px;height:20px; background-size:67px 40px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_feed_logo{background:url('https://widgets.outbrain.com/images/widgetIcons/ob_feed_logo@2x.png') no-repeat center top;width:86px;height:23px;background-size: 86px 23px;} } @media only screen and (max-width: 600px) { .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_sfeed_logo{width:90px;height:20px;background-size:90px 20px;} } .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_amelia, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_logo, .AR_36.ob-widget:hover .ob_text_logo{background-position:center bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{position:absolute;top:5px;right:0px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob_what{text-align:right;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-image {display:block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-description {max-height:53.0px;overflow:hidden;font-weight:normal;} /* dynamic smartfeed-strip css */ .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container {position:relative;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-image-ratio {height:0px;line-height:0px;padding-top:66.66666666666666%;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-rec-image {width:100%;position:absolute;top:0;bottom:0;left:0;right:0;opacity:0;transition:all 750ms;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container img.ob-show {opacity:1;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-label {position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;padding:0px 3px;background-color:#666;color:white;font-size:10px;line-height:15px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-image-container .ob-rec-video {position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;min-height:0;min-width:0} .AR_36.ob-widget {width:auto;min-width:240px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {display:inline-block;vertical-align:top;min-width:50px;width:48.85%;box-sizing:border-box;-moz-box-sizing:border-box;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandLogo-container, .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogoAndName {display:inline-block;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandLogo {width:20px;height:20px;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:bottom;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-unit.ob-rec-brandName {vertical-align:super;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-widget-items-container {direction: ltr;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container {margin-left:0;} .AR_36.ob-widget .ob-dynamic-rec-container ~ .ob-dynamic-rec-container {margin:0 0 0 2.3%; } .AR_3

MAGA has replaced Reaganism as the chief operating system of the Republican Party.

If Democrats hope to win in the near future they have to take the MAGA worldview seriously, and respectfully make the case, especially to working-class voters, for something better.

In a volatile world, MAGA offers people security. It promises secure borders and secure neighborhoods. It offers protection from globalization, from the creative destruction of modern capitalism. It offers protection from an educated class that looks down on you and indoctrinates your children in school. It offers you protection from corporate predators.

the problem with MAGA — and here is where the Democratic opportunity lies — is that it emerges from a mode of consciousness that is very different from the traditional American consciousness.

we saw ourselves, as the dynamic nation par excellence. We didn’t have a common past, but we dreamed of a common futur

“the Spirit of America is best known in Europe by one of its qualities — energy.”

Americans have a zeal for continual self-improvement, a “need tirelessly to tinker, improve everything and everybody, never leave anything alone.”

Americans can’t be secure if the world is in flames. That’s why America has to be active abroad in places like Ukraine, keeping wolves like Vladimir Putin at bay.

Through most of our history, we were not known for our profundity or culture but for living at full throttle.

MAGA, on the other hand, emerges from a scarcity consciousness, a zero-sum mentality: If we let in tons of immigrants they will take all our jobs; if America gets browner, “they” will replace “us.”

MAGA is based on a series of victim stories: The elites are out to screw us. Our allies are freeloading off us. Secular America is oppressing Christian America.

MAGA looks less like an American brand of conservatism and more like a European brand of conservatism. It resembles all those generations of Russian chauvinists who argued that the Russian masses embody all that is good but they are threatened by aliens from the outside

MAGA looks like a kind of right-wing Marxism, which assumes that class struggle is the permanent defining feature of politics.

The American consciousness has traditionally been an abundance consciousness.

If Democrats are to thrive, they need to tap into America’s dynamic cultural roots and show how they can be applied to the 21st century

My favorite definition of dynamism is adapted from the psychologist John Bowlby: All of life is a series of daring explorations from a secure base. If Democrats are to thrive, they need to offer people a vision both of the secure base and of the daring explorations.

MAGA is a fortress mentality, but America has traditionally been defined by a pioneering mentality. MAGA offers a strong shell, but not much in the way of wings needed to soar.

Americans can’t be secure if the border is in chaos. Popular support for continued immigration depends on a sense that the government has things under control.

Americans can’t be secure if a single setback will send people to the depths of crushing poverty. That’s why the social insurance programs that Democrats largely built are so important.

offer people a vision of the daring explorations that await them. That’s where the pessimistic post-Reagan Republicans can’t compete

champion the abundance agenda that people like Derek Thompson and my colleague Ezra Klein have been writing about. We need to build things. Lots of new homes. Supersonic airplanes and high-speed trains.

If Republicans are going to double down on class war rhetoric — elites versus masses — Democrats need to get out of that business

They need to stand up to protectionism, not join the stampede.

Democrats need to take on their teachers’ unions and commit to dynamism in the field of education.

Democrats need to throttle back the regulators who have been given such free rein that they’ve stifled innovation.

tap back into the more traditional American aspiration: We are not sentenced to a permanent class-riven future but can create a fluid, mobile society.

The economist Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute has offered a telling psychic critique of MAGA economic thinking: “The economics of grievance is ineffective, counterproductive and corrosive, eroding the foundations of prosperity. Messages matter. Tell people that the system is rigged, and they will aspire to less

Champion personal responsibility, and they will lift their aspirations. Promoting an optimistic vision of economic life can increase risk tolerance, ambition, effort and dynamism.”

t aspiration is not like a brick that just sits there. Aspiration is more like a flame that can be fed or dampened

“The problem is desire. We need to *want* these things. The problem is inertia. We need to want these things more than we want to prevent these things.”

This failing in the West’s economies is also a failing of economics

many people have long felt the desire to do something with their lives besides consuming goods and having leisure. They desire to participate in a community in which they can interact and develop.

Our prevailing political economy is blind to the very concept of inclusion; it does not map out any remedy for the deficiency

injustice of another sort. Workers in decent jobs view the economy as unjust if they or their children have virtually no chance of climbing to a higher rung in the socioeconomic ladder

though the injustices in the West’s economies are egregious, they ought not to be seen as a major cause of the productivity slowdowns and globalization. (For one thing, a slowdown of productivity started in the US in the mid-1960s and the sharp loss of manufacturing jobs to poorer countries occurred much later—from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.) Deeper causes must be at work.

justice is not everything that people need from their economy. They need an economy that is good as well as just. And for some decades, the Western economies have fallen short of any conception of a “good economy”—an economy offering a “good life,” or a life of “richness,” as some humanists call it

The good life as it is popularly conceived typically involves acquiring mastery in one’s work, thus gaining for oneself better terms—or means to rewards, whether material, like wealth, or nonmaterial—an experience we may call “prospering.”

As humanists and philosophers have conceived it, the good life involves using one’s imagination, exercising one’s creativity, taking fascinating journeys into the unknown, and acting on the world—an experience I call “flourishing.”

“Money is like blood. You need it to live but it isn’t the point of life.”4

prospering and flourishing became prevalent in the nineteenth century when, in Europe and America, economies emerged with the dynamism to generate their own innovation.

High-enough wages, low-enough unemployment, and wide-enough access to engaging work are necessary for a “good-enough” economy—though far from sufficient. The material possibilities of the economy must be adequate for the nonmaterial possibilities to be widespread—the satisfactions of prospering and of flourishing through adventurous, creative, and even imaginative work.

In nineteenth-century Britain and America, and later Germany and France, a culture of exploration, experimentation, and ultimately innovation grew out of the individualism of the Renaissance, the vitalism of the Baroque era, and the expressionism of the Romantic period.

What made innovating so powerful in these economies was that it was not limited to elites. It permeated society from the less advantaged parts of the population on up.

today’s standard economics. This economics, despite its sophistication in some respects, makes no room for economies in which people are imagining new products and using their creativity to build them. What is most fundamentally “wrong with economics” is that it takes such an economy to be the norm—to be “as good as it gets.”

It will also be essential that high schools and colleges expose students to the human values expressed in the masterpieces of Western literature, so that young people will want to seek economies offering imaginative and creative careers. Education systems must put students in touch with the humanities in order to fuel the human desire to conceive the new and perchance to achieve innovations

ince around 1970, or earlier in some cases, most of the continental Western European economies have come to resemble more completely the mechanical model of standard economics. Most companies are highly efficient. Households, apart from the very low-paid or unemployed, have gone on saving

In most of Western Europe, economic dynamism is now at lows not seen, I would judge, since the advent of dynamism in the nineteenth century. Imagining and creating new products has almost disappeared from the continent

The bleak levels of both unemployment and job satisfaction in Europe are testimony to its dreary economies.

a recent survey of household attitudes found that, in “happiness,” the median scores in Spain (54), France (51), Italy (48), and Greece (37) are all below those in the upper half of the nations labeled “emerging”—Mexico (79), Venezuela (74), Brazil (73), Argentina (66), Vietnam (64), Colombia (64), China (59), Indonesia (58), Chile (58), and Malaysia (56)

The US economy is not much better. Two economists, Stanley Fischer and Assar Lindbeck, wrote of a “Great Productivity Slowdown,” which they saw as beginning in the late 1960s.11 The slowdown in the growth of capital and labor combined—what is called “total factor productivity”—is star

What is the mechanism of the slowdown in productivity

The plausible explanation of the syndrome in America—the productivity slowdown and the decline of job satisfaction, among other things—is a critical loss of indigenous innovation in the established industries like traditional manufacturing and services that was not nearly offset by the innovation that flowered in a few new industries

hat then caused this narrowing of innovation? No single explanation is persuasive. Yet two classes of explanations have the ring of truth. One points to suppression of innovation by vested interests

some professions, such as those in education and medicine, have instituted regulation and licensing to curb experimentation and change, thus dampening innovation

established corporations—their owners and stakeholders—and entire industries, using their lobbyists, have obtained regulations and patents that make it harder for new firms to gain entry into the market and to compete with incumbents.

The second explanation points to a new repression of potential innovators by families and schools. As the corporatist values of control, solidarity, and protection are invoked to prohibit innovation, traditional values of conservatism and materialism are often invoked to inhibit a young person from undertaking an innovation.

ow might Western nations gain—or regain—widespread prospering and flourishing? Taking concrete actions will not help much without fresh thinking: people must first grasp that standard economics is not a guide to flourishing—it is a tool only for efficiency.

Widespread flourishing in a nation requires an economy energized by its own homegrown innovation from the grassroots on up. For such innovation a nation must possess the dynamism to imagine and create the new—economic freedoms are not sufficient. And dynamism needs to be nourished with strong human values.

a reform of education stands out. The problem here is not a perceived mismatch between skills taught and skills in demand

The problem is that young people are not taught to see the economy as a place where participants may imagine new things, where entrepreneurs may want to build them and investors may venture to back some of them. It is essential to educate young people to this image of the economy.

prospering

This reorientation of general education will have to be supported by a similar reorientation of economic education.

Some experts displayed a top-down style of reasoning: politics as a deductive art. They started with a big-idea premise about human nature, society, or economics and applied it to the specifics of the case. They tended to reach more confident conclusions about the future. And the positions they reached were easier to classify ideologically: that is the Keynesian prediction and that is the free-market fundamentalist prediction and that is the worst-case environmentalist prediction and that is the best case technology-driven growth prediction etc. Other experts displayed a bottom-up style of reasoning: politics as a much messier inductive art. They reached less confident conclusions and they are more likely to draw on a seemingly contradictory mix of ideas in reaching those conclusions (sometimes from the left, sometimes from the right). We called the big-idea experts “hedgehogs” (they know one big thing) and the more eclectic experts “foxes” (they know many, not so big things).

The most consistent predictor of consistently more accurate forecasts was “style of reasoning”: experts with the more eclectic, self-critical, and modest cognitive styles tended to outperform the big-idea people (foxes tended to outperform hedgehogs).

Lehrer: Can non-experts do anything to encourage a more effective punditocracy?

Tetlock: Yes, non-experts can encourage more accountability in the punditocracy. Pundits are remarkably skillful at appearing to go out on a limb in their claims about the future, without actually going out on one. For instance, they often “predict” continued instability and turmoil in the Middle East (predicting the present) but they virtually never get around to telling you exactly what would have to happen to disconfirm their expectations. They are essentially impossible to pin down. If pundits felt that their public credibility hinged on participating in level playing field forecasting exercises in which they must pit their wits against an extremely difficult-to-predict world, I suspect they would be learn, quite quickly, to be more flexible and foxlike in their policy pronouncements.

tweetmeme_style = 'compact'; Digg Stumble Upon Delicious Reddit if(typeof CN!=='undefined' && CN.dart){ CN.dart.call("blogsBody",{sz: "300x250", kws : ["bottom"]}); } Disqus Login About Disqus Like Dislike and 5 others liked this. Glad you liked it. Would you like to share? Facebook Twitter Share No thanks Sharing this page … Thanks! Close Login Add New Comment Post as … Image http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1312506743/build/system/upload.html#xdm_e=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com&xdm_c=default5471&xdm_p=1&f=wiredscience&t=do_political_experts_know_what_they8217re_talking_

These were soldiers from the militaries of liberal democracies, avowedly promoting the rule of law and seeking to bring peace and stability to a country that has known little but conflict for generations. Yet some have been accused of the most serious crimes imaginable, of targeting civilians, of torturing captives, of slaughtering children.

In her 45-page report sent to Australian defence force chiefs, Crompvoets wrote of the “well-crafted reports” of special forces operations that offered legal justification for the actions of soldiers.

During Major Chris Green’s deployment with the UK’s Grenadier Guards in Helmand province in 2012, he became increasingly concerned that special forces tactics were undermining the coalition’s broader counterinsurgency mission.

“People knew laws were being broken, people understood the modus operandi of the night raids. But every time an operator reported back from these raids and didn’t find themselves in front of a tribunal that just further convinced them they were doing the right thing, that the laws didn’t apply to them.”

“War is dynamic and imperfect and the freedom and autonomy in special forces is a double-edged sword,” one SAS member told Crompvoets.

Frank Ledwidge, a barrister and former military officer who served in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, argues that over the course of the Afghan war, a culture developed among coalition special forces that celebrated violence, prioritised kill statistics and dehumanised those they fought.

The JPEL was a list of “kill or capture” objectives – targets that were considered combatants and could be lawfully killed. It was a dynamic document, with names being added or subtracted as intelligence came in. Allegedly this dynamism was exploited.

Australia’s initial involvement, between 2001 and 2002, was focused on combating al-Qaida: “We weren’t trying to seize and hold ground. It was a mission entirely appropriate for our special forces.”

“The multiple rotations of people into Afghanistan particularly, some operators went there 12 times. That must affect their mental health ... or impact the way they went about their operations. Certainly it would impact upon the judgment questions about why they are there.

Saul argues there are drivers, too, of non-compliance with international humanitarian law. Moral disengagement emerges from combatants finding justifications for violations, and from a dehumanisation of the enemy.

When Sergeant Alexander Blackman of the Royal Marines shot a wounded, unarmed insurgent at point-blank range in the chest in Helmand in September 2011, he turned to his comrades and said: “Obviously this doesn’t go anywhere, fellas. I’ve just broke the Geneva convention.”

“If there’s no structural change that challenges those power dynamics within special forces, there won’t be enduring changes.”

Too many powerful interest groups have too much of a stake in the status quo for Beijing’s policy makers to force wrenching changes on the Chinese economy. But absent major reforms, the danger of a serious economic shock is growing.

The Belt and Road Initiative was designed to sustain continued expansion in the absence of serious economic reform. Chinese merchants, bankers and diplomats combed the developing world for markets and infrastructure projects to keep China Inc. solvent. In a 2014 article in the South China Morning Post, a Chinese official said one objective of the BRI is the “transfer of overcapacity overseas.”

But as Lenin observed a century ago, the attempt to export overcapacity to avoid chaos at home can lead to conflict abroad. He predicted rival empires would clash over markets, but other dynamics also make this strategy hazardous. Nationalist politicians resist “development” projects that saddle their countries with huge debts to the imperialist power. As a result, imperialism is a road to ruin.

China’s problems today are following this pattern. Pakistan, the largest recipient of BRI financing, thinks the terms are unfair and wants to renegotiate. Malaysia, the second largest BRI target, wants to scale back its participation since pro-China politicians were swept out of office. Myanmar and Nepal have canceled BRI projects. After Sri Lanka was forced to grant China a 99-year lease on the Hambantota Port to repay Chinese loans, countries across Asia and Africa started rereading the fine print of their contracts, muttering about unequal treaties.

China’s chief problem isn’t U.S. resistance to its rise. It is that the internal dynamics of its economic system force its rulers to choose between putting China through a wrenching and destabilizing economic adjustment, or else pursuing an expansionist development policy that will lead to conflict and isolation abroad

that with the right economic policies, a mix of rising purchasing power and international economic integration can transcend the imperialist dynamics of the 19th and early 20th centuries. But unless China can learn from those examples, it will remain caught in the “Lenin trap”

She thought that both the most extreme authoritarians and the most extreme libertarians have powerful, largely innate and highly durable psychological predispositions that affect how they react to all that is unfamiliar and different

If contacted by white interviewers, the “authoritarians” were almost indistinguishable from the “libertarians” in their willingness to schedule a conversation. They proved dramatically more reluctant to participate when contacted by black interviewers.

The authoritarians were more hostile, suspicious, and anxious with black interviewers, whereas “especially given a black interviewer, libertarians were vastly more likely than authoritarians to display great warmth toward their visitors.”

With white interviewers, authoritarians were less likely than libertarians to introduce talk about “social exclusion, isolation, and disconnection,” but with a black interviewer they were far more likely, even as libertarians were indifferent to the interviewer’s race. “The language of authoritarians was especially inclusive when it was just ‘us’ talking among ourselves,” Stenner explained, “but they were clearly thinking exclusion when confronting one of ‘them.’”

Regardless of the interviewers, authoritarians tended to say fewer overall words and fewer different words than libertarians. And the evident differences were greatly magnified in the presence of black interviewers. The sophistication of discussions “tended to diverge by just over one grade level when both interviewers were white,” with authoritarians “talking at almost a fifth-grade level” and libertarians talking “around the sixth-grade level,”

when forced to engage in conversations with a black primary interviewer, the two characters were as distinct as third and ninth graders in the complexity of their discussions.” Why? The critical distinction between libertarians and authoritarians, Stemmer argues, is that “the former are excited and engaged and the latter frightened and unhinged by difference.”

Using “racist” as a shorthand to describe Stenner’s intolerant subjects is inadequate.

the left needs to know that it will better grasp reality and increase its odds of defeating Trumpism if it understands that anti-authoritarianism rather than antiracism is the most apt, effective framework for opposing what ails the right.

their intolerance of difference was much broader than racism, encompassing racial and ethnic out-groups, political dissidents, and people they consider moral deviants. Authoritarians display distinct traits across very different domains of tolerance.

“much of what we think of as racism, likewise political and moral intolerance, is more helpfully understood as ‘difference-ism,’” defined as “a fundamental and overwhelming desire to establish and defend some collective order of oneness and sameness.”

“the authoritarian dynamic” provides a better account than mere racism of political conflict “across the seemingly diverse domains of race and immigration, civil liberties, crime and punishment, and of when and why those battles will be the most heated

many on the left and the right misunderstand racism in politics because neither quite understands the role of authoritarians.

the left makes several significant errors with regard to racism on the right

most important, leftists too often conceive of Trumpist politics as rooted primarily in racism, or even an ideological belief in white supremacy, rather than an authoritarian “different-ism” that manifests as racism at times but as distinct (if psychologically similar) intolerances at other times

“All the available evidence indicates that exposure to difference, talking about difference, and applauding difference… are the surest way to aggravate those who are innately intolerant, and to guarantee the expression of their predispositions in manifestly intolerant attitudes and behaviors,”

“parading, talking about, and applauding our sameness” seems wise when possible.

Stenner began her research with a questionnaire that probed the attitudes of her subjects toward child-rearing

Trump sometimes seems like the paradigmatic example of the authoritarian personality type. But he may simply be a charismatic leader who understands – whether by some advisor’s dark calculation, or his own instincts – the vulnerability and malleability of his audience

showy celebration of an absolute insistence upon individual autonomy and unconstrained diversity pushes those by nature least equipped to live comfortably in a liberal democracy not to the limits of their tolerance, but to their intolerant extremes.”

I’d also advise the left to bear in mind that the right is a diverse coalition composed of authoritarians as well as many libertarians and people in between

when directed at non-authoritarian non-racists, false accusations could conceivably make them less inclined to probe, ponder, or perceive actual racism in others

The left should refine its best critiques on race and abandon its worst as lacking fairness and rigor.

And the non-authoritarian right needs to wake up to the authoritarians in their midst, taking responsibility for trying to deprive them of power rather than scapegoating or fixating on the least persuasive of the left’s critiques.

Code is too hard to think about. Before trying to understand the attempts themselves, then, it’s worth understanding why this might be: what it is about code that makes it so foreign to the mind, and so unlike anything that came before it.

Technological progress used to change the way the world looked—you could watch the roads getting paved; you could see the skylines rise. Today you can hardly tell when something is remade, because so often it is remade by code.

Software has enabled us to make the most intricate machines that have ever existed. And yet we have hardly noticed, because all of that complexity is packed into tiny silicon chips as millions and millions of lines of cod

The programmer, the renowned Dutch computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra wrote in 1988, “has to be able to think in terms of conceptual hierarchies that are much deeper than a single mind ever needed to face before.” Dijkstra meant this as a warning.

As programmers eagerly poured software into critical systems, they became, more and more, the linchpins of the built world—and Dijkstra thought they had perhaps overestimated themselves.

What made programming so difficult was that it required you to think like a computer.

The introduction of programming languages like Fortran and C, which resemble English, and tools, known as “integrated development environments,” or IDEs, that help correct simple mistakes (like Microsoft Word’s grammar checker but for code), obscured, though did little to actually change, this basic alienation—the fact that the programmer didn’t work on a problem directly, but rather spent their days writing out instructions for a machine.

“The problem is that software engineers don’t understand the problem they’re trying to solve, and don’t care to,” says Leveson, the MIT software-safety expert. The reason is that they’re too wrapped up in getting their code to work.

“The serious problems that have happened with software have to do with requirements, not coding errors.” When you’re writing code that controls a car’s throttle, for instance, what’s important is the rules about when and how and by how much to open it. But these systems have become so complicated that hardly anyone can keep them straight in their head. “There’s 100 million lines of code in cars now,” Leveson says. “You just cannot anticipate all these things.”

a nearly decade-long investigation into claims of so-called unintended acceleration in Toyota cars. Toyota blamed the incidents on poorly designed floor mats, “sticky” pedals, and driver error, but outsiders suspected that faulty software might be responsible

software experts spend 18 months with the Toyota code, picking up where NASA left off. Barr described what they found as “spaghetti code,” programmer lingo for software that has become a tangled mess. Code turns to spaghetti when it accretes over many years, with feature after feature piling on top of, and being woven around

Using the same model as the Camry involved in the accident, Barr’s team demonstrated that there were actually more than 10 million ways for the onboard computer to cause unintended acceleration. They showed that as little as a single bit flip—a one in the computer’s memory becoming a zero or vice versa—could make a car run out of control. The fail-safe code that Toyota had put in place wasn’t enough to stop it

. In all, Toyota recalled more than 9 million cars, and paid nearly $3 billion in settlements and fines related to unintended acceleration.

The problem is that programmers are having a hard time keeping up with their own creations. Since the 1980s, the way programmers work and the tools they use have changed remarkably little.

“Visual Studio is one of the single largest pieces of software in the world,” he said. “It’s over 55 million lines of code. And one of the things that I found out in this study is more than 98 percent of it is completely irrelevant. All this work had been put into this thing, but it missed the fundamental problems that people faced. And the biggest one that I took away from it was that basically people are playing computer inside their head.” Programmers were like chess players trying to play with a blindfold on—so much of their mental energy is spent just trying to picture where the pieces are that there’s hardly any left over to think about the game itself.

The fact that the two of them were thinking about the same problem in the same terms, at the same time, was not a coincidence. They had both just seen the same remarkable talk, given to a group of software-engineering students in a Montreal hotel by a computer researcher named Bret Victor. The talk, which went viral when it was posted online in February 2012, seemed to be making two bold claims. The first was that the way we make software is fundamentally broken. The second was that Victor knew how to fix it.

Though he runs a lab that studies the future of computing, he seems less interested in technology per se than in the minds of the people who use it. Like any good toolmaker, he has a way of looking at the world that is equal parts technical and humane. He graduated top of his class at the California Institute of Technology for electrical engineering,

in early 2012, Victor had finally landed upon the principle that seemed to thread through all of his work. (He actually called the talk “Inventing on Principle.”) The principle was this: “Creators need an immediate connection to what they’re creating.” The problem with programming was that it violated the principle. That’s why software systems were so hard to think about, and so rife with bugs: The programmer, staring at a page of text, was abstracted from whatever it was they were actually making.

“Our current conception of what a computer program is,” he said, is “derived straight from Fortran and ALGOL in the late ’50s. Those languages were designed for punch cards.”

WYSIWYG (pronounced “wizzywig”) came along. It stood for “What You See Is What You Get.”

Victor’s point was that programming itself should be like that. For him, the idea that people were doing important work, like designing adaptive cruise-control systems or trying to understand cancer, by staring at a text editor, was appalling.

With the right interface, it was almost as if you weren’t working with code at all; you were manipulating the game’s behavior directly.

When the audience first saw this in action, they literally gasped. They knew they weren’t looking at a kid’s game, but rather the future of their industry. Most software involved behavior that unfolded, in complex ways, over time, and Victor had shown that if you were imaginative enough, you could develop ways to see that behavior and change it, as if playing with it in your hands. One programmer who saw the talk wrote later: “Suddenly all of my tools feel obsolete.”

hen John Resig saw the “Inventing on Principle” talk, he scrapped his plans for the Khan Academy programming curriculum. He wanted the site’s programming exercises to work just like Victor’s demos. On the left-hand side you’d have the code, and on the right, the running program: a picture or game or simulation. If you changed the code, it’d instantly change the picture. “In an environment that is truly responsive,” Resig wrote about the approach, “you can completely change the model of how a student learns ... [They] can now immediately see the result and intuit how underlying systems inherently work without ever following an explicit explanation.” Khan Academy has become perhaps the largest computer-programming class in the world, with a million students, on average, actively using the program each month.

The ideas spread. The notion of liveness, of being able to see data flowing through your program instantly, made its way into flagship programming tools offered by Google and Apple. The default language for making new iPhone and Mac apps, called Swift, was developed by Apple from the ground up to support an environment, called Playgrounds, that was directly inspired by Light Table.

“Everyone thought I was interested in programming environments,” he said. Really he was interested in how people see and understand systems—as he puts it, in the “visual representation of dynamic behavior.” Although code had increasingly become the tool of choice for creating dynamic behavior, it remained one of the worst tools for understanding it. The point of “Inventing on Principle” was to show that you could mitigate that problem by making the connection between a system’s behavior and its code immediate.

In a pair of later talks, “Stop Drawing Dead Fish” and “Drawing Dynamic Visualizations,” Victor went one further. He demoed two programs he’d built—the first for animators, the second for scientists trying to visualize their data—each of which took a process that used to involve writing lots of custom code and reduced it to playing around in a WYSIWYG interface.

Victor suggested that the same trick could be pulled for nearly every problem where code was being written today. “I’m not sure that programming has to exist at all,” he told me. “Or at least software developers.” In his mind, a software developer’s proper role was to create tools that removed the need for software developers. Only then would people with the most urgent computational problems be able to grasp those problems directly, without the intermediate muck of code.

Victor implored professional software developers to stop pouring their talent into tools for building apps like Snapchat and Uber. “The inconveniences of daily life are not the significant problems,” he wrote. Instead, they should focus on scientists and engineers—as he put it to me, “these people that are doing work that actually matters, and critically matters, and using really, really bad tools.”

“people are not so easily transitioning to model-based software development: They perceive it as another opportunity to lose control, even more than they have already.”

In a model-based design tool, you’d represent this rule with a small diagram, as though drawing the logic out on a whiteboard, made of boxes that represent different states—like “door open,” “moving,” and “door closed”—and lines that define how you can get from one state to the other. The diagrams make the system’s rules obvious: Just by looking, you can see that the only way to get the elevator moving is to close the door, or that the only way to get the door open is to stop.

Bantegnie’s company is one of the pioneers in the industrial use of model-based design, in which you no longer write code directly. Instead, you create a kind of flowchart that describes the rules your program should follow (the “model”), and the computer generates code for you based on those rules

“Typically the main problem with software coding—and I’m a coder myself,” Bantegnie says, “is not the skills of the coders. The people know how to code. The problem is what to code. Because most of the requirements are kind of natural language, ambiguous, and a requirement is never extremely precise, it’s often understood differently by the guy who’s supposed to code.”

On this view, software becomes unruly because the media for describing what software should do—conversations, prose descriptions, drawings on a sheet of paper—are too different from the media describing what software does do, namely, code itself.

for this approach to succeed, much of the work has to be done well before the project even begins. Someone first has to build a tool for developing models that are natural for people—that feel just like the notes and drawings they’d make on their own—while still being unambiguous enough for a computer to understand. They have to make a program that turns these models into real code. And finally they have to prove that the generated code will always do what it’s supposed to.

tice brings order and accountability to large codebases. But, Shivappa says, “it’s a very labor-intensive process.” He estimates that before they used model-based design, on a two-year-long project only two to three months was spent writing code—the rest was spent working on the documentation.

uch of the benefit of the model-based approach comes from being able to add requirements on the fly while still ensuring that existing ones are met; with every change, the computer can verify that your program still works. You’re free to tweak your blueprint without fear of introducing new bugs. Your code is, in FAA parlance, “correct by construction.”

. In traditional programming, your task is to take complex rules and translate them into code; most of your energy is spent doing the translating, rather than thinking about the rules themselves. In the model-based approach, all you have is the rules. So that’s what you spend your time thinking about. It’s a way of focusing less on the machine and more on the problem you’re trying to get it to solve.

The bias against model-based design, sometimes known as model-driven engineering, or MDE, is in fact so ingrained that according to a recent paper, “Some even argue that there is a stronger need to investigate people’s perception of MDE than to research new MDE technologies.”

“Human intuition is poor at estimating the true probability of supposedly ‘extremely rare’ combinations of events in systems operating at a scale of millions of requests per second,” he wrote in a paper. “That human fallibility means that some of the more subtle, dangerous bugs turn out to be errors in design; the code faithfully implements the intended design, but the design fails to correctly handle a particular ‘rare’ scenario.”

Newcombe was convinced that the algorithms behind truly critical systems—systems storing a significant portion of the web’s data, for instance—ought to be not just good, but perfect. A single subtle bug could be catastrophic. But he knew how hard bugs were to find, especially as an algorithm grew more complex. You could do all the testing you wanted and you’d never find them all.

An algorithm written in TLA+ could in principle be proven correct. In practice, it allowed you to create a realistic model of your problem and test it not just thoroughly, but exhaustively. This was exactly what he’d been looking for: a language for writing perfect algorithms.

TLA+, which stands for “Temporal Logic of Actions,” is similar in spirit to model-based design: It’s a language for writing down the requirements—TLA+ calls them “specifications”—of computer programs. These specifications can then be completely verified by a computer. That is, before you write any code, you write a concise outline of your program’s logic, along with the constraints you need it to satisfy

Programmers are drawn to the nitty-gritty of coding because code is what makes programs go; spending time on anything else can seem like a distraction. And there is a patient joy, a meditative kind of satisfaction, to be had from puzzling out the micro-mechanics of code. But code, Lamport argues, was never meant to be a medium for thought. “It really does constrain your ability to think when you’re thinking in terms of a programming language,”

Code makes you miss the forest for the trees: It draws your attention to the working of individual pieces, rather than to the bigger picture of how your program fits together, or what it’s supposed to do—and whether it actually does what you think. This is why Lamport created TLA+. As with model-based design, TLA+ draws your focus to the high-level structure of a system, its essential logic, rather than to the code that implements it.

But TLA+ occupies just a small, far corner of the mainstream, if it can be said to take up any space there at all. Even to a seasoned engineer like Newcombe, the language read at first as bizarre and esoteric—a zoo of symbols.

this is a failure of education. Though programming was born in mathematics, it has since largely been divorced from it. Most programmers aren’t very fluent in the kind of math—logic and set theory, mostly—that you need to work with TLA+. “Very few programmers—and including very few teachers of programming—understand the very basic concepts and how they’re applied in practice. And they seem to think that all they need is code,” Lamport says. “The idea that there’s some higher level than the code in which you need to be able to think precisely, and that mathematics actually allows you to think precisely about it, is just completely foreign. Because they never learned it.”

“In the 15th century,” he said, “people used to build cathedrals without knowing calculus, and nowadays I don’t think you’d allow anyone to build a cathedral without knowing calculus. And I would hope that after some suitably long period of time, people won’t be allowed to write programs if they don’t understand these simple things.”

Programmers, as a species, are relentlessly pragmatic. Tools like TLA+ reek of the ivory tower. When programmers encounter “formal methods” (so called because they involve mathematical, “formally” precise descriptions of programs), their deep-seated instinct is to recoil.

Formal methods had an image problem. And the way to fix it wasn’t to implore programmers to change—it was to change yourself. Newcombe realized that to bring tools like TLA+ to the programming mainstream, you had to start speaking their language.

he presented TLA+ as a new kind of “pseudocode,” a stepping-stone to real code that allowed you to exhaustively test your algorithms—and that got you thinking precisely early on in the design process. “Engineers think in terms of debugging rather than ‘verification,’” he wrote, so he titled his internal talk on the subject to fellow Amazon engineers “Debugging Designs.” Rather than bemoan the fact that programmers see the world in code, Newcombe embraced it. He knew he’d lose them otherwise. “I’ve had a bunch of people say, ‘Now I get it,’” Newcombe says.

In the world of the self-driving car, software can’t be an afterthought. It can’t be built like today’s airline-reservation systems or 911 systems or stock-trading systems. Code will be put in charge of hundreds of millions of lives on the road and it has to work. That is no small task.

the working-class admire the super rich they see on television but can’t stand the professionals they interact with everyday. Part of it has to do with the glib condescension of the elite. “We call them rednecks with plumber’s butt in flyover states. And then they get offended,” Williams said. “Gee, why would that be? Because we’re insulting them.”

One of the first breakthroughs in keyboard technology was the invention of the teletype machine. Also referred to as the teleprinter, the technology has been around since the mid-1800s and was improved by inventors such as Royal Earl House, David Edward Hughes, Emile Baudot, Donald Murray, Charles L. Krum, Edward Kleinschmidt, and Frederick G. Creed.

In the 1930s, new keyboard models were introduced that combined the input and printing technology of typewriters with the communications technology of the telegraph. Punch-card systems were also combined with typewriters to create what were known as keypunches. These systems became the basis of early adding machines (early calculators), which were hugely commercially successful. By 1931, IBM had registered more than $1 million in adding machine sales.

The most compelling explanation is that Sholes developed the layout to overcome the physical limitations of mechanical technology at the time. Early typists pressed a key which would, in turn, push a metal hammer that rose up in an arc, striking an inked ribbon to make a mark on a paper before returning to its original position. Separating common pairs of letters minimized the jamming of the mechanism.

The system encouraged the development of a new user interface called the video display terminal (VDT), which incorporated the technology of the cathode ray tube used in televisions into the design of the electric typewriter. This allowed computer users to see what text characters they were typing on their display screens for the first time, which made text assets easier to create, edit, and delete.

The first of handheld devices was the HP95LX, released in 1991 by Hewlett-Packard. It had a hinged clamshell format that was small enough to fit in the hand. Although not yet classified as such, the HP95LX was the first of the Personal Data Assistants (PDA). It had a small QWERTY keyboard for text entry, although touch typing was practically impossible due to its small size.

As PDAs began to add web and email access, word processing, spreadsheets, personal schedules, and other desktop applications, pen input was introduced. The first pen input devices were made in the early 1990s, but the technology to recognize handwriting was not robust enough to be effective.

One fairly popular method was the "soft keyboard." A soft keyboard is one that has a visual display with built-in touchscreen technology. Text entry is performed by tapping on keys with a stylus or finger. The soft keyboard disappears when not in use.