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proudsa

Hillary Clinton Sets Up A Fight With Bernie Sanders Over Paid Leave - 0 views

  • Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Thursday offered new details about her plan to make sure all workers can take time off, with pay, in order to care for a newborn or sick relative.
  • During that time, the worker would be eligible to receive replacement wages, up to two-thirds of his or her salary.
  • The proposal, if enacted, would patch a major gap in America’s safety net. Workers in every other developed country are entitled to paid leave, in some cases for more than a year.
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  • Some companies provide paid leave anyway. In the last year, high-profile employers like Facebook and Goldman Sachs introduced or expanded paid leave for their employees.
  • But Clinton’s proposal differs from the bill in one crucial way. In order to finance the replacement wages that workers would get, the Gillibrand-DeLauro bill would impose a small payroll tax, of 0.4 percent, that employers and employees would split evenly.
  • Clinton has criticized that approach repeatedly because it would mean higher taxes on lower- and middle-income workers.
  • Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the only Republican presidential candidate to address the issue formally, has said he’d offer small tax breaks to companies that offer paid leave -- an approach unlikely to have much impact, except perhaps to help well-off workers.
  • “The benefit of being one of the last countries in the world to adopt paid maternity leave is that we have been able to learn from other countries' experiences and the results are clear,” Betsey Stevenson, a University of Michigan economist and former adviser to President Barack Obama, told the Huffington Post on Thursday.
  • To advocates like Heather Boushey, chief economist and executive director of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, that’s a welcome sign that American politics is finally talking about the challenges of parents who also have jobs.
clairemann

Trump Acknowledges Capitol Police Deaths After Staying Quiet For Days | HuffPost - 0 views

  • After staying quiet since last week’s violent insurrection, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Sunday to honor two United States Capitol police officers ― one of whom died at the hands of the mob he incited.
  • The president ordered that “the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels ...  until sunset, January 13, 2021.” The lowered flags are meant to be “a sign of respect for the service and sacrifice of United States Capitol Police Officers Brian D. Sicknick and Howard Liebengood.”
  • Sicknick died on Thursday after Trump-supporting rioters hit him in the head with a fire extinguisher during Wednesday’s siege of the Capitol, where lawmakers were tallying up electoral votes to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. The officer later collapsed in his division office after “physically engaging” with the insurrectionist mob, according to law enforcement.
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  • Trump and the White House did not acknowledge Sicknick’s death until the proclamation on Sunday, which made no mention of the fact that Sicknick died as a result of the violence Trump incited.
  • Capitol Police said Thursday that its officers were attacked during the insurrection with metal pipes, chemical irritants and other weapons when rioters violently stormed the Capitol. Videos of the siege show some officers being overwhelmed by the number of violent rioters, while others appeared to show little resistance.
maddieireland334

Bernie Sanders Demands Resignation Of Michigan Governor Over Flint Water Crisis - 0 views

  • In 2014, the state switched the city's water source to the Flint River to save money and residents began to complain about the quality of tap water. Michigan officials insisted it was safe to drink, even though an internal memo at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services warned that lead poisoning rates were higher than usual for children under 16.
  • The state continued to say the water was safe until a Flint pediatrician reported in September that there was an unusually high level of lead in Flint children.
  • Snyder has apologized for the incident, activated the national guard, called for President Barack Obama to declare an emergency and accepted the resignation of the head of the state's Department of Environmental Quality. Obama declared an emergency on Saturday.
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  • “There are no excuses. The governor long ago knew about the lead in Flint’s water. He did nothing. As a result, hundreds of children were poisoned. Thousands may have been exposed to potential brain damage from lead.
  • Sanders' main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, has also called for an explanation of what Snyder's administration knew and said that the situation was "unconscionable."
  • The former Secretary of State has also called on Michigan to pay for water purchases from Detroit for Flint residents until their water is safe again.
  • "The best thing for the people of Flint is that every effort is focused on solving this emergency, getting the aid needed to help the residents, and ensuring that clean drinkable water is restored to the city," he said in a statement.
proudsa

Even Trump Voters Hate This Bill He Just Signed | The Huffington Post - 0 views

  • Republicans pushed through the resolution last month that overturns Obama administration rules banning internet service providers, or ISPs, from sharing or selling “sensitive” data, like web browsing history and Social Security numbers, without customers’ explicit permission.
    • proudsa
       
      why?
  • 83 percent oppose the concept, according to the HuffPost/YouGov poll
    • proudsa
       
      How reliable is a poll taken by an organization with a clear political leaning (biased readership?)
  • Polarization being what it is, it’s rare for any political issue to face such an overwhelming rejection.
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  • Seventy-four percent of the public—including three-quarters of Republicans—said that Trump should veto the bill, with just 11 percent advocating for him to sign it.
clairemann

FBI Calls For Public's Help In Finding 'Confederate Flag Guy' From Capitol Riot | HuffPost - 0 views

  • A number of high-profile figures from last week’s violent U.S. Capitol insurrection in support of President Donald Trump have already been arrested. Now, the FBI is appealing for the public’s help in finding at least one more. 
  • At least five people died as a result of the violence, which began after Trump and a number of other right-wing figures spoke at a rally blocks from the Capitol as Congress gathered to certify the 2020 election results.
  • “Let’s have trial by combat,” Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who now serves a Trump’s personal attorney, declared.
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  • The image of someone carrying the flag of secession into the Capitol shocked lawmakers and the public alike. House Democratic Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said on CNN that this specific flag was never formally adopted by the Confederacy, but has since been used by the KKK, neo-Nazis and various other white supremacist groups. 
  • “That is something that will stay with me,” Allred told the newspaper. “They set up a noose and scaffolding on the Capitol Hill. This event has to be a wake-up call.”
  • In addition, authorities in Pinellas County, Florida arrested Adam Christian Johnson, who they said was the man who appeared in viral photos carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern. 
clairemann

PGA Strips Trump's Bedminster Golf Club Of 2022 Championship Event | HuffPost - 0 views

  • The PGA has stripped President Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey of its role as host of the 2022 championship tournament after last week’s violent attack on the U.S. Capitol carried out by the president’s supporters. 
  • “Our feeling was given the tragic events of Wednesday that we could no longer hold it at Bedminster,” PGA CEO Seth Waugh told the Associated Press. “The damage could have been irreparable. The only real course of action was to leave.”
  • Trump has held multiple campaign events at the Bedminster course over the years, including his appearance at a largely mask-free fundraiser in October held just hours before he announced his coronavirus diagnosis, which required his hospitalization as well as treatment with experimental medication. 
rerobinson03

She Beat Cancer at 10. Now She'll Join SpaceX's First Private Trip to Orbit. - The New ... - 0 views

  • Ms. Arceneaux, a physician assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, will be one of four people on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Florida
  • Scheduled to launch late this year, it is to be the first crewed mission to circle Earth in which no one on board is a professional astronaut.
  • Ms. Arceneaux could become the youngest American ever to travel to orbit. She will also be the first person with a prosthetic body part to go to space.
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  • Last year, Ms. Arceneaux was hired by St. Jude. She works with children with leukemia and lymphoma, such as a teenage boy she talked with recently.“I shared with him that I also lost my hair,” Ms. Arceneaux said. “I told him: ‘You can ask me anything. I’m a former patient. I’ll tell you the truth, anything you want to know.’ And he said, ‘Will you really tell me the truth?’ And I said yes.”
  • The sweepstakes is structured in a way that effectively limits the size of donations. One entry is free. A minimum donation of $10 buys 100 entries, and each additional dollar donated buys 10 more entries, up to $1,000 for 10,000 entries.
  • The fourth SpaceX seat will go to the winner of a contest sponsored by Mr. Isaacman’s company, Shift4, which sells credit-card-processing terminals and point-of-sale systems to restaurants and other businesses. The “Shark Tank”-like competition calls for entrepreneurs to design an online store using Shift4’s software and then post a video on Twitter describing their business.
Javier E

Russia's Money Is Gone - Bloomberg - 0 views

  • One great theme of the post-2008 financial world is that money is a social construct, a way to keep track of what society thinks you deserve in terms of goods and services.
  • 15 years ago it was easier to think that money was an objective fact. Money is a kind of stuff, you might have thought, stuff with some predictable value that you can exchange for goods and services, and you can acquire a quantity of it and then you own that money and can use it however you like to buy things. 
  • The bulk of Russia’s foreign reserves are held in the form of securities, deposits at other central banks and deposits at foreign commercial banks. A ban on transactions with Russia’s central bank means that it can’t sell those securities or access those deposits.
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  • The fiscal response to Covid-19 reinforced this point: Money is a tool of social decision-making, not an objective thing that you get through abstract merit.
  • the value of cryptocurrency is so clearly socially constructed: A Bitcoin was worth roughly nothing a decade ago, and roughly $41,000 today, solely because people collectively decided to ascribe value to Bitcoin.
  • money gets its value from people agreeing that it’s valuable.
  • As of Friday Russia had about $630 billion of foreign currency reserves, a large cushion designed to allow it to withstand economic sanctions and prop up the value of the ruble
  • But “foreign currency reserves” are not an objective fact; they are mostly a series of entries on lists maintained by foreign-currency issuers and intermediaries (central banks, correspondent banks, sovereign bond issuers, brokerages). 1  If those people cross you off the list, or put an asterisk next to your entry freezing your funds, then you can’t use those funds anymore.
  • Russia’s foreign reserves consist, in the first instance, of a set of accounting entries. But in a crisis the accounting entries don’t matter at all. All that matters are relationships, and if your relationships get bad enough then the money is as good as gone.
  • Now you want something for yourself? OK, but that is going to be subtracted from the running total of how much you’ve done for the rest for us.
  • There is a lot to dislike, or at least to be uncomfortable with, in this situation.
  • This is arguably bad for the dollar’s long-run dominance: Russia will develop its own ways around SWIFT, China will push other countries to adopt its digital yuan, everyone will use Bitcoin, etc
  • it is also arguably bad for global prosperity: Trustworthy rules-based trade works better and produces more value than arbitrary uncertain trade.
  • But what I want to suggest is that this weekend’s actions are evidence that the basic structure is good. What I want to suggest is that society is good, that it is good for people (and countries) to exist in a web of relationships in which their counterparties can judge their actions and punish bad actions.
  • If money is socially constructed and property is contingent then money is a continuing, dynamic, ever-at-risk reward for prosocial behavior.
  • one of the ways I suggest students think about money is as a kind of social scorecard.
  • You did something good — made something somebody wanted, let somebody else use something you own, went to work and did everything the boss told you? Good for you, you get a cookie. Or more precisely, you get a credit, in both senses, in the personal record kept for you at a bank.
  • But the response to the 2008 global financial crisis, and to its later European aftershocks, made it clear that something else was going on. Who has money and what they can do with it can be adjusted by the actions of central banks and national treasuries; banks can be bailed out; costs can be socialized.
  • we have exactly this system already. The number is called a bank account. The difference is simply that we have so naturalized the system that “how much money you have” seems like simply a fact about you, rather than a judgment imposed by society.
  • Pervasive social credit systems seem dystopian, and you would not really want the U.S. government making day-to-day decisions about who deserves to keep their bank accounts.
  • But another idea is that money can insulate you from  the obligations of society, and that is also bad.
  • You get a claim on goods and services by being part of society, and having a big number next to your name on a list does not relieve you of your obligations. If you do something so outrageous that society as a whole decides you are a pariah, then money is a way for society to express that.
marleymorton

Draft order: Trump to halt U.S. entry from several Middle Eastern countries - 0 views

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    The Trump administration will temporarily suspend the entry of foreign nationals from some Muslim-majority countries through executive order, according to refugee advocacy groups who have obtained what they say is a draft copy of an order to be signed by the new president.
maddieireland334

The American Prisoners Just Left Iran. But Kerry Almost Got Them Out Months Ago. - 0 views

  • A Swiss plane carrying American citizens, including a Washington Post reporter, who were released from Iranian prison on Saturday departed Tehran early Sunday morning. The prisoners were freed as part of a prisoner release deal -- the result of 14 months of high-stakes secret negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.
  • Last July, just before the U.S., Iran and five world powers announced they had reached an agreement on Iran's nuclear program, Kerry had a conversation about the prisoners with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and President Hassan Rouhani's brother, Hossein Fereydoun, in Vienna.
  • Afterward, they went to Zarif's hotel room and spoke again about the prisoners. “We actually shook hands, thinking we had an agreement,” Kerry said. “I thought it was done.”
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  • Zarif and Kerry continued to meet, while Brett McGurk, head of the State Department's counter-Islamic State coalition, ran a separate diplomatic track with different Iranian officials as part of the effort to keep the prisoner negotiations separate from the then-ongoing nuclear talks.
  • Ultimately, the two countries agreed on seven Iranians: three who were serving prison time and four who were awaiting trial. All seven were facing charges related to violations of nuclear sanctions -- which were lifted on Saturday. “So there was a symmetry here,” Kerry said.
  • Kerry credits the nuclear deal with showing that Iran and the U.S., despite having no formal diplomatic ties, can work together to resolve issues peacefully.
  • The deal leaves American citizen Siamak Namazi, who was arrested in October, in prison. And it doesn’t provide answers about Robert Levinson, the American CIA contractor who disappeared in 2007.
  • Kerry sees the prisoner deal as a positive precedent for Levinson's and Namazi's cases.
  • Critics of the prisoner agreement, namely Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates, argue that any type of swap or exchange is unjust.
  • According to Kerry, Zarif suggested that there was room for the two countries to work cooperatively on other issues, including in Yemen and Syria, where the U.S. and Iran are effectively fighting on opposite sides of proxy wars.
malonema1

Puerto Ricans Are Struggling To Flee The Island With Their Pets | HuffPost - 0 views

  • Thousands of people are fleeing Puerto Rico as the island remains without power and the death toll continues to climb more than a month after Hurricane Maria. Even for those who can afford plane tickets and get to the airport, there’s another hurdle: evacuating with pets.  Leaving the island with animals in tow has become a huge challenge, said Sarah Barnett of the Humane Society of the United States, which has workers on the ground in Puerto Rico. The pet owners Barnett has spoken with have been “hysterical” with worry, she said.
  • Some pet owners stayed, remaining in dire conditions to care for animals. Others had to make gut-wrenching decisions. Claudia, a single mother who left for North Carolina with her baby and two dogs, left her other three dogs with a friend. She’s now desperately trying to bring those dogs to the mainland, too.
  • “They’re inundated with people wanting to fly their animals out in cargo,” Barnett said. American Airlines is accepting a limited number of pets per flight as checked baggage, and United is transporting animals through its PetSafe program.  Delta did not reply to a query about whether it is flying pets in cargo, though it previously waived fees for pets flying in the cabin from Puerto Rico. JetBlue and Southwest never transport pets in the cargo hold, though they both fly a limited number of small pets in the main cabin. A JetBlue spokesperson told HuffPost the airline has waived all in-cabin pet fees for flights out of Puerto Rico through Nov. 15, and doubled the number of pets per flight from four to eight.
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  • Mostly, animal transport efforts are focused on bringing Puerto Rico shelter animals to mainland cities where they can be adopted. The Humane Society of the United States, in some cases working with volunteer pilots from the nonprofit Wings of Rescue, has evacuated more than 1,500 cats and dogs, as well as a few pigs.
Javier E

The Atomic Bomb, War Room Intrigue and Emperor Hirohito's Decision to Surrender | Histo... - 0 views

  • Was Japan ready to surrender without the bomb? Some of us believe so, in particular if the Allies would have simply guaranteed the preservation of the Imperial System (with the divine Emperor as the embodiment of all sovereign power in the realm). Others contend the Soviet entry into the war actually caused Japan’s surrender.
  • a close look at the deliberations of Japan’s Supreme Council at the Direction of War––known as the “Big Six”—evidence which has been available for decades, shows Japan’s leadership deeply divided into two factions
  • A hardline contingent remained opposed to surrender even after the second atomic attack on Nagasaki and the Soviet Union’s entry into the war
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  • On the flip side, the peace faction used the atomic bombings to engage the Emperor in the surrender decision, an unprecedented move within Japan’s dysfunctional form of government, which required unanimous approval to make any decision.
  • The Emperor instructed Suzuki to muster another Imperial Conference, where, if necessary, he would “command” the cabinet to accept Byrnes’ counteroffer. After listening to Anami, Umezu, and Toyoda’s now familiar arguments for rejecting the Allies terms, Hirohito told his government he wanted the Byrnes offer accepted.
  • The record of the Imperial Conferences extinguishes any notion that the Japanese government was ready to surrender, that it would have surrendered had the Allies guaranteed the Imperial System, or that it surrendered in response to Russia’s entry into the war. It makes clear two salient facts: that Emperor Hirohito ended the war, and he ended it because of the atomic bomb
davisem

Comey Testimony Shows It's Not The Crime That Could Hurt Trump. It's The Cover-Up. | Hu... - 0 views

  • WASHINGTON ― When it comes to President Donald Trump and Russian interference in the election, the issue is the cover-up, not the crime. That’s the takeaway from former FBI Director James Comey’s dramatic testimony before Congress on Thursday
  • By firing Comey, Trump created a powerful enemy no longer entirely constrained by the traditions of the FBI or the desire to keep his job. Compounding their error, the Trump administration and the president himself angered Comey with what Comey called their “shifting explanations” for his firing that left him “confused” and “concerned.”
  • The American people should have full confidence in Mueller, who preceded Comey as head of the FBI, Comey said Thursday. Mueller, he said, is a straight shooter who will “turn over all the rocks” in the course of the investigation. Comey added that Mueller would never have agreed to become special counsel last month “if he wasn’t going to get full independence.”
hannahcarter11

Cori Bush Condemns Republicans Who Skirted Metal Detectors At U.S. Capitol | HuffPost - 0 views

  • Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) lambasted her Republican colleagues who refused to follow new safety rules at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, saying lawmakers who refused to use new metal detectors to do their work in Congress should get another job.
  • Many House Republicans refused to use the metal detectors on Tuesday evening when they entered the chamber to vote on a resolution calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to strip President Donald Trump of his powers
  • “The speaker and her Democratic colleagues think an appropriate response is to prevent members from exercising their Second Amendment constitutional rights in the very place that wasn’t secure a week ago,” Steube said on the House floor. “This attack didn’t come from the inside; it came from the outside. And to respond by restricting members’ Second Amendment rights … is appalling.”
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  • Bush said Tuesday night that her Republican colleagues were simply trying to “push the limits as far as they can.”
  • “If they won’t abide by the simple things this job calls for, then go find another one.”
kaylynfreeman

Trump Says He'll Declare Victory 'Only When There's Victory' | HuffPost - 0 views

  • The president previously refused to say whether he would accept the results of the election and whether he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
  • President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would only declare victory in his reelection bid “if there’s victory,
  • he plans to declare himself the winner on election night even if it only looks like he’s ahead.
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  • When asked in September if he would “commit to a peaceful transferal of power” if he loses, Trump again said: “Well, we’re gonna have to see what happens.”
  • In July, he also said, “I have to see” when asked whether he would accept the results of the general election.
  • Trump has attempted to try to prevent some mail-in ballots from being counted and has also ignited concerns about whether he would concede defeat if he loses.
  • Trump in August said that if he loses it would be because the election was rigged and stolen from him. He has specifically targeted mail-in ballots as a method of cheating, despite there being no evidence of widespread voter frau
kaylynfreeman

Here's What You Need To Know About Exit Polls This Election Day | HuffPost - 0 views

  • People will still comb over the early results for any hint of who’s likely to win. And it’s still worth using significant caution when looking at those early results.
  • Exit polls are a valuable source of data about who votes and why, but they’re also complex projects that have the potential to be misinterpreted, especially early on. This year, with an unprecedented level of early voting complicating the traditional process, that’s especially true.
  • Since 2004, in an attempt to account for early voters, the exit polls have also used telephone polls conducted over the final weekend of the campaign.
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  • Exit polls, as we wrote back in 2018, serve a couple of different purposes. While they’re not foolproof, in the days to come, they’ll help provide a sense of how and when voters made up their minds. 
  • Exit polls were not, however, designed to help give the American public a sneak peek of who’s likely to win, especially when people are still in the process of voting.
  • It’s just really hard to know in advance what the proportion of in-person Election Day voters and absentee voters will be in 2020,” they added. “This election night especially, it’s best just to wait for the final results — even if it takes a while.”
kaylynfreeman

Republican Roger Marshall Wins Kansas Senate Seat, Spoiling Democratic Hopes Of An Upse... - 0 views

  • Republican U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall held off state Sen. Barbara Bollier to win an open U.S. Senate seat in Kansas, The Associated Press projected Tuesday night, spoiling Democratic hopes of an upset in the deep-red state where they haven’t won a Senate contest since 1932.
  • Marshall will fill the seat Sen. Pat Roberts (R) held for more than two decades. Roberts’ decision to retire at the end of this term set off a heated GOP primary race to replace him, especially after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decided against a run. Marshall defeated former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an anti-immigration hard-liner whose campaign Democrats tried to boost in hopes it would help them turn the seat blue.
  • Democratic upset hopes were driven in part by President Donald Trump’s declining support in a state he won by more than 20 points four years ago. Polling averages ahead of Election Day showed Trump barely above 50% among Kansas voters, at times holding a single-digit lead over Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Bollier, meanwhile, crafted a moderate campaign platform that went heavy on some Democratic priorities ― she advocated for adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act and boosting public education funding ― while avoiding issues like abortion and gun control. Marshall, who opposes abortion rights, focused on the GOP’s confirmation of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, the repeal of Obamacare and Trump’s efforts to build a wall on the southern border.
kaylynfreeman

Obama's Final Message On Election Day: It's Time To 'Decide As A Nation Who We Really A... - 0 views

  • “The actions actions you take today will determine what kind of country we decide to be.”That was the message shared by former President Barack Obama, who released an eleventh hour Election Day video urging Americans to cast their vote for the Democratic ticket: former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).
  • “Consider how tight it was four years ago in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where less than a 1% difference determined the outcome of the entire election,” Obama said. “Right now, today, we have a chance to make it right — to choose a better course.” 
  • Obama has gone all-out in his criticism of President Donald Trump in the months and weeks leading up to Election Day. Most recently, the former president addressed crowds in Florida — a vital swing state with the third-highest number of Electoral College votes — and lambasted his successor, arguing that Trump was “jealous of COVID’s media coverage,” had consistently shown unpresidential behavior during his four years in office, and intolerably bungled the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
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  • The 44th president ended his message by urging Americans to “decide as a nation who we really are.”“Make a decision about what you’re going to do about it and then go do it — our democracy depends on it,” Obama said.
  • “The actions actions you take today will determine what kind of country we decide to be.”
  • “decide as a nation who we really are.”
  • “Make a decision about what you’re going to do about it and then go do it — our democracy depends on it,”
Javier E

Book 'FDR and the Jews' Looks at Roosevelt-Holocaust Issues - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • they maintain that his overall record — several hundred thousand Jews saved, some of them thanks to little-known initiatives — exceeds that of any subsequent president in responding to genocide in the midst of fierce domestic political opposition.
  • “The consensus among the public is that Roosevelt really failed,” Mr. Breitman said in a recent interview. “In fact, he had fairly limited options.”
  • “FDR and the Jews” offers no dramatic revelations of the sort Mr. Breitman provided in 2009, when he and two other colleagues drew headlines with evidence, discovered in the papers of a former refugee commissioner for the League of Nations, that Roosevelt had personally pushed for a 1938 plan to relocate millions of threatened European Jews to sparsely populated areas of Latin America and Africa. But it does, the authors say, provide important new detail and context to that episode, as well as others that have long loomed large in the popular imagination.
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  • the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, a research organization in Washington, has circulated a detailed rebuttal, as well as a rival book, “FDR and the Holocaust: A Breach of Faith,” zeroing in on what it characterizes as Roosevelt’s personal desire to limit Jewish immigration to the United States.
  • The idea that the Allies could and should have bombed the crematories or the rail lines leading to them came to wide public attention with a 1978 article in Commentary by Mr. Wyman, who reprised it in a best-selling book, “The Abandonment of the Jews,” which became the basis for the 1994 PBS documentary “America and the Holocaust: Many people, the authors say, believe that Roosevelt refused to bomb the camp (an option, historians note, that became feasible only in May 1944, after 90 percent of Jewish victims of the Holocaust were already dead). But the book contends that there is no evidence that any such proposal came to him, though a number of Jewish leaders did meet with lower-level officials to plead for bombing. And while the authors call the objections raised by those officials “specious,” they maintain (echoing others) that bombing would not have significantly impeded the killing.
  • They pointed in particular to the fate of the 937 German Jewish refugees on the ocean liner St. Louis, who were turned away from Cuba in May 1939 and sent back to other European countries, where 254 died after war broke out. The episode, made famous in the 1974 novel “Voyage of the Damned” and a subsequent film, has come to seem emblematic of American callousness. There is simply no evidence, Mr. Breitman and Mr. Lichtman say, to support accounts that the United States Coast Guard was ordered to prevent the refugees from coming ashore in Florida. What’s more, they were turned away from Cuba, the authors argue, as part of a backlash against a previous influx of some 5,000 refugees to that country, who may have been admitted under the terms of a previously unknown deal between Roosevelt and the Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista, who got reduced tariffs for his nation’s sugar in return. The book notes that the St. Louis affair unfolded against a backdrop of intense isolationist and anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States while Roosevelt was preparing to press Congress to allow the sale of weapons to nations victimized by German aggression.
  • the book points to the War Refugee Board, established by Roosevelt in 1944, which they say may have helped save about 200,000 Jews — a number that, if even 50 percent accurate, they write, “compares well” with the number that might have been saved by bombing Auschwitz.
  • In “A Breach of Faith” Mr. Medoff argues that Jewish immigration levels in the 1930s were largely below established quotas because of Roosevelt’s animus, not as a result of anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic sentiment in Congress and the State Department. Roosevelt’s vision for America was “based on the idea of having only a small number of Jews,” Mr. Medoff said in an interview. Mr. Breitman and Mr. Lichtman’s book, he added, is just an effort “to rescue Roosevelt’s image from the overwhelming evidence that he did not want to rescue the Jews.”
  • Mr. Breitman and Mr. Lichtman scoffed at that charge, noting that their book is certainly not always flattering to Roosevelt. They depict him as missing many opportunities to aid Jews and generally refusing to speak specifically in public about Hitler’s Jewish victims, lest he be accused of fighting a “Jewish war.” “This is not an effort to write a pro-Roosevelt book,” Mr. Breitman said. “It’s merely pro-Roosevelt in comparison to some things that are out there.”
  • In the end, however, their verdict is favorable, crediting Roosevelt’s policies with helping to save hundreds of thousands of Jews, as well as preventing a German conquest of Egypt that would have doomed any future Jewish state. “Without F.D.R.’s policies and leadership,” they write, “there may well have been no Jewish communities left in Palestine, no Jewish state, no Israel.”
  • Henry L. Feingold, the author of “The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1945,” bemoaned the rise of “accusatory” history that elevates retrospective “what ifs” over historical context. Roosevelt, he said, had one overriding concern: to win the war. “The survivors said, ‘You didn’t do enough to save us,’ and who could deny it?” Mr. Feingold said. “But do you write history as it should have been or as it was?”
fischerry

European exploration | Britannica.com - 0 views

  • the exploration of regions of the Earth for scientific, commercial, religious, military, and other purposes by Europeans beginning in the 15th century
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    This is Britannica's entry on the Age of Exploration. 
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