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katherineharron

Pence and Trump finally speak after post-riot estrangement - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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

pence

shared by katherineharron on 12 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Vice President Mike Pence received a memento from his aides the other day: the engraved chair set aside for him in the White House Cabinet Room, hauled over-the-shoulder from the West Wing and delivered to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for one of his final staff meetings.
  • Instead of applause, many of Trump's aides -- even those who have stuck with him through myriad scandals and embarrassments -- were voicing shame and disappointment. His circle has shrunk. Many have resigned and others are still considering it.
  • On Monday, after an extended period of silence, Trump and Pence spoke for the first time after a deadly riot of Trump supporters broke out at the US Capitol with Pence inside, according to two administration officials.
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  • "They reiterated that those who broke the law and stormed the Capitol last week do not represent the America First movement backed by 75 million Americans, and pledged to continue the work on behalf of the country for the remainder of their term," the senior official said.
  • Trump had spent the weekend largely in isolation, as aides either distanced themselves from him or limited their time in his presence. Trump canceled a planned trip to Camp David, where his closest aides were hoping he would get into a good mindset ahead of his final stretch in office.
  • The mob event, and Trump's fury at Pence in the lead-up to it, left their relationship in tatters. Before their Oval Office meeting Monday, the pair had not spoken since before Trump's rally on the Ellipse last week. Their last conversation was punctuated by a vulgarity the President uttered after Pence informed him, for a final time, that he could not unilaterally reject the results of the election, something he had already told Trump in previous meetings that often dragged on for hours.
  • Pence finally got "a glimpse of POTUS' vindictiveness," one source familiar with the situation said, using the acronym for President of the United States.
  • And while Pence now appears unlikely to entertain invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office, he has not weighed in on it publicly, allowing the idea to persist, which people close to him described as intentional.
  • Pence, who is often internally mocked for how deferential he is toward Trump, has taken a quiet but defiant stance in their final days in office.
  • The attempted insurrection that Trump incited at the US Capitol last week prompted the permanent suspension of his Twitter account, a looming second impeachment and a wave of administration resignations
  • The final conversation left Trump irate, and his anger emerged during the rally itself, when he told the crowd he hoped "Mike has the courage to do what he has to do" and ignores "the stupid people that he's listening to."
  • It was the first time in their more than four years as political partners that Trump's vengeance had been trained on a man known mostly for his fealty. Even as others once close to Trump -- from his personal attorney Michael Cohen to his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to any manner of former aides -- met similar fates, Pence was spared.
  • Pence also recently learned that pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell was involved in the lawsuit filed by Trump's Republican allies against him. Trump was not only aware, but had encouraged the effort, people close to the situation said.
  • Even when the President returned to the White House while his crowd set off for the Capitol, Trump's anger at Pence did not abate. And as the crowd broke down doors, mobbed the building, and in some cases appeared to be hunting Pence himself, Trump remained focused on the perceived disloyalty.
  • After Wednesday's events, Pence allies were aghast the President did not call to ensure the vice president's safety, or the safety of his wife and daughter, who had accompanied him as he performed the ceremonial role of overseeing the Electoral College tally.
  • "Was he concerned at all that an angry mob that he commanded to march on the Capitol might injure the vice president or his family?" a person familiar with the matter asked.
  • Pence's actions earned him praise within the administration, including from national security adviser Robert O'Brien, who tweeted on Wednesday that Pence "is a genuinely fine and decent man. He exhibited courage today."
  • Democrats, however, remain frustrated at Pence's unwillingness to move on the 25th Amendment, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
  • Other Democrats are skeptical that after four years of standing by Trump -- including through his attempts to cast doubt on the election results using false claims of voter fraud -- Pence can recover his moral standing now.
  • A day later, an attempt by House Democrats to bring up a resolution urging Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power was blocked by Republicans. If that resolution ends up failing, Democrats plan to to vote Wednesday to impeach Trump for his role in the Capitol riot.
  • Advisers have said Pence hopes to provide a bridge to the next administration and do as much as possible to assist Biden's team in preparing for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Pence and Biden consulted regularly in the early days of the Trump administration, including on foreign policy matters.
  • On Monday, Pence's schedule listed a coronavirus task force meeting -- one of the final times the group meets before the end of the administration. Pence did not bring up the siege at the Capitol during the discussion, a person close to the task force said.
zoegainer

Barr Is Said to Be Weighing Whether to Leave Before Trump's Term Ends - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...arr-considering-resigning.html

trump Politics US

shared by zoegainer on 14 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • It was not clear whether the attorney general’s deliberations were influenced by Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede his election loss or his fury over Mr. Bar
  • r’s acknowledgment last week that the Justice Department uncovered no widespread voting fraud. In the ensuing days, the president refused to say whether he still had confidence in his attorney general.
  • By leaving early, Mr. Barr could avoid a confrontation with the president over his refusal to advance Mr. Trump’s efforts to rewrite the election results.
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  • Mr. Barr, 70, is the strongest proponent of presidential power to hold the office of attorney general since Watergate.
  • He managed to heal fissures between the White House and the Justice Department that broke open when the president learned that his campaign was under investigation related to Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
  • But weeks after taking office, Mr. Barr released a summary of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, that a judge later called distorted and misleading
  • And after the election, Mr. Barr opened the door to politically charged election fraud investigations, authorizing federal prosecutors to investigate “specific allegations” of voter fraud before results were certified.
  • Mr. Barr soon asked John H. Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to open an investigation into the Russia inquiry itself to seek out any wrongdoing under the Obama administration
  • Pairing the Durham announcement with that revelation was widely seen as an effort to placate Mr. Trump, who was said to be enraged that Mr. Barr had publicly contradicted him.
  • Throughout the presidential campaign, Mr. Barr was among the loudest voices warning that mail-in ballots would result in mass election fraud. He routinely claimed in speeches and interviews that the potential for widespread voter fraud was high and posed a grave danger. Mr. Barr’s claims were sometimes false or exaggerated and were widely refuted.
  • “I don’t have empirical evidence other than the fact that we’ve always had voting fraud. And there always will be people who attempt to do that,” Mr. Barr said in September. He called his conclusions “common sense.”
  • In October, he secretly appointed Mr. Durham a special counsel assigned to seek out any wrongdoing in the course of the Russia investigation.
  • Mr. Barr broke his silence a few days later, telling The Associated Press that he had not seen evidence of election fraud on a scale that would have changed the fact that Mr. Biden won.
  • “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” he said.
urickni

Supreme Court Considers Whether Civil Rights Act Protects L.G.B.T. Workers - The New Yo... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...eme-court-gay-transgender.html

shared by urickni on 09 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • In a pair of exceptionally hard-fought arguments on Tuesday, the Supreme Court struggled to decide whether a landmark 1964 civil rights law bars employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status.
    • urickni
      urickni on 09 Oct 19
       
      this piece of media has a basis in the civil rights movement, with a special focus in the 1964 laws and the stipulations they imply
  • Job discrimination against gay and transgender workers is legal in much of the nation
  • If the court decides that the law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, applies to many millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees across the nation, they would gain basic protections that other groups have long taken for granted.
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  • The cases were the court’s first on L.G.B.T. rights since the retirement last year of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
    • urickni
      urickni on 09 Oct 19
       
      first under Kavanaugh
  • For the most part, the justices seemed divided along predictable ideological lines on Tuesday. But there was one possible exception: Justice Neil M. Gorsuch
  • Justice Gorsuch is an avowed believer in textualism, meaning that he considers the words Congress enacted rather than evidence drawn from other sources.
  • But he added that he was worried about “the massive social upheaval” that would follow
  • Title VII outlawed discrimination based on race, religion, national origin and, notably, sex. The question for the justices was how broadly to read that last term.
  • the justices considered a host of flash points in the culture wars involving the L.G.B.T. community — including sports, dress codes, religious objections to same-sex couples and, especially, bathrooms.
  • Justice Alito suggested that it would be absurd to conclude that when Congress passed Title VII, it intended to protect gay people. “You’re trying to change the meaning of what Congress understood sex to mean and what everybody understood,”
    • urickni
      urickni on 09 Oct 19
       
      historical connotations to terminologies and how they evolve over time
  • “When an employer fires a male employee for dating men but does not fire female employees who date men,” Ms. Karlan said, “he violates Title VII.”
  • Justice Stephen G. Breyer said that firing a member of a gay couple was no different from firing a Catholic for marrying a Jew.
  • “There are many people, at least in the religious context,” he said, “who are against intermarriage and are not against Catholics or Jews. That’s not an unrealistic example.”
  • A lawyer for the employers in the sexual-orientation cases, Jeffrey M. Harris, argued that if Congress had meant to cover L.G.B.T. people, there would have been no need for states to address the question in their own laws, which some two dozen have done.
  • The cases concerning gay rights are Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga., No. 17-1618, and Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, No. 17-1623. The case on transgender rights is R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
anniina03

Argentina Elections 2019: Who's Running, What's at Stake | Time - 0 views

time.com/...argentina-elections-2019

economics politics culture

shared by anniina03 on 26 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Four years ago, Argentina shocked the international community by turning its back on Peronism, the divisive political movement that had ruled the South American country of 44 million consistently since 2001
  • Two decades of economic dysfunction and state intervention made the country a pariah on global capital markets, and, Macri argued, severely limited the country’s growth. Economists around the world rejoiced about the measures he was taking.
  • But today, with the value of the peso plummeting, inflation soaring and several million Argentines falling into poverty in a single year, many inside the country say Macri’s experiment with economic liberalism has failed.
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  • irchner, currently a senator, is back to capitalize on Argentina’s dissatisfaction, this time as a vice-presidential candidate to Alberto Fernández (no relation), a little-known former adviser from the moderate wing of her Peronist Justicialist party. The pair promise to reverse Macri’s economic overhaul and restore standards of living for a suffering working class.
  • Macri says the solution to the country’s current economic crisis is not a return to protectionism, but more jobs. He wants to create a million and a half of them in the private sector by stimulating tourism, agriculture and the creative industries, as well as cutting taxes for younger workers and regulating more of the informal sector
  • Macri’s rival Alberto Fernández served as cabinet chief to his running mate’s husband, Néstor Kirchner (president from 2003 to 2007) and then in the early months of Cristina’s first term. Like the Kirchners, Fernández belongs to the Justicialist Party, the formal home of the ideologically complex Peronist movement.
  • Former President Juan Domingo Perón initiated the Peronist movement in the 1940’s. A populist, he built his support base among trade unions and the working class, advocating state intervention in the economy, strong labor rights and generous public welfare schemes for the poor. But his politics also incorporated elements like nationalism, and an authoritarian strain.
  • But just what Peronism stands for ideologically is extremely complicated. The movement today is sprawling and diverse, containing politicians on both the left and the right. During her two terms from 2008 to 2015, Kirchner pursued welfare programs and subsidies on services. But another nominally Peronist president, Carlos Menem, carried out large-scale privatizations of public assets and reduced budgetary spending during the 1990’s.
  • The pitfalls of Macri’s reform program has proved a defining factor in this election. In an effort to reduce public debt and make the country more appealing to foreign investors, the president has scrapped protectionist policies on industry, cut public spending and cancelled subsidies on gas, electricity and public transport.
  • He also floated the peso, which had been artificially over-valued during the Kirchner era, and removed currency controls that limited the amount of U.S. dollars and other foreign exchange businesses and individuals could buy.
  • Economic hardship under Macri has made it easy for Kirchner and Fernández to promise a return to the good days under Peronism. They did far better than predicted at a king of primary election in August, winning a 15 point lead over Macri.
  • The pair’s success, indicating a possible return to protectionist Peronist economics in Argentina, has spooked financial markets, accelerating the peso’s fall.
niicho

Shoe History - 0 views

www.shoepassion.com/...shoe-history

history shoe

shared by niicho on 25 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • 19th of September, 1991 was an important date for shoe history. On this day, a mummy was found in a glacier in the Ötztal Alps. Researchers also discovered a pair of well-preserved primitive shoes on so-called Ötzi's feet. The shoe uppers were made of deerskin, the insides of the shoes were made of woven linden bast, the cushioning and isolating layers were made of grass fibres, and the soles were made of bearskin. The footwear was estimated to be roughly 5,300 years old. This discovery, combined with research conducted upon 40,000-year-old Chinese skeletons as well as paintings found in the Altamira Cave dating back to 15,000 - 12,000 B.C., demonstrates that humans developed the need to protect their feet from the elements quite early on.
  • shoe history cannot be traced back to a single, original shoe. Different climactic regions required different kinds of footwear, from animal furs wrapped around the feet and calves to palm leaves bound beneath the foot. These kinds of early shoes offered protection from the cold and heat, respectively. In cold regions inventions like these were the predecessors of boots, whereas in hot regions they served as the prototypes for sandals. As such, shoe development was strongly influenced by respective conditions.
magnanma

The History of the Computer Keyboard - 1 views

www.thoughtco.com/-the-computer-keyboard-1991402

history culture

shared by magnanma on 26 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • The history of the modern computer keyboard begins with a direct inheritance from the invention of the typewriter. It was Christopher Latham Sholes who, in 1868, patented the first practical modern typewriter. Soon after, in 1877, the Remington Company began mass marketing the first typewriters.
  • In 1948, another computer called the Binac computer used an electro-mechanically controlled typewriter to input data directly onto magnetic tape in order to feed in computer data and print results
  • the original QWERTY layout, which remains the most popular keyboard layout on devices of many types throughout the English-speaking world. QWERTY's current acceptance has been attributed to the layout being "efficient enough" and "familiar enough" to hinder the commercial viability of competitors.
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  • 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.
nrashkind

Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir successfully complete first all-female space... - 0 views

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

shared by nrashkind on 26 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch conducted the first all-female spacewalk outside of the International Space Station.
  • The spacewalk officially began at 7:38 a.m. ET and lasted for seven hours and 17 minutes, ending at 2:55 p.m. ET
  • This was the fourth spacewalk for Koch and the first for Meir. Based on their position on the platform, the astronauts were able to see the Earth pass beneath their feet.
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  • The first woman to conduct a spacewalk was Russian cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya in 1984, followed closely by NASA astronaut Kathy Sullivan.
  • "The job that you do is incredible," President Donald Trump told them. "I'm thrilled to be speaking with two brave American astronauts making history
  • This is the first time for a woman outside of the space station
  • Koch and Meir spoke about women working in human spaceflight during a recent news conference.
  • "I think it's important because of the historical nature of what we're doing and that in the past, women haven't always been at the table,"
  • "There are a lot of people that derive motivation from inspiring stories from people that look like them and I think it's an important aspect of the story to tell,
  • Fellow NASA astronaut Drew Morgan, also currently on the station, tweeted in support of Koch and Meir during the walk. "So proud of my astrosisters @Astro_Christina and @Astro_Jessica! We've been training together since our selection in 2013, and now they're out on a history-making spacewalk! #AllWomanSpacewalk"
  • Koch and Meir replaced a faulty battery charge/discharge unit that failed to activate after a spacewalk on October 11, according to the agency.
  • The space station is powered by solar arrays and four sets of batteries
  • Luckily, the faulty unit hasn't changed anything for the astronauts or experiments on board.
  • Although floating in space looks easy, astronauts say that spacewalks are one of the most physically challenging things they can do, according to NASA.
  • For the intended spacewalk in March, Koch was going to be paired with astronaut Anne McClain
  • "However, individuals' sizing needs may change when they are on orbit, in response to the changes living in microgravity can bring about in a body," Dean said.
  • She and Koch have trained together for the past six years because they're members of the same astronaut class. Meir is set to spend more than six months on board the station.
  • The upcoming spacewalks will help replace solar array batteries and upgrade them to lithium-ion batteries, as well as refurbish the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a scientific instrument "that explores the fundamental nature of the universe," according to NASA.
  • nrashkind on 26 Oct 19
     
    Brief description of the first all-female spacewalk
johnsonel7

Opinion: A gesture too small, a crisis too big - oregonlive.com - 0 views

www.oregonlive.com/...oo-small-a-crisis-too-big.html

homeless epidemic crisis culture class divide

shared by johnsonel7 on 21 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • I am sitting on a chair outside a restaurant in Salem. Perhaps 10 feet from me is a woman who is standing in the middle of the sidewalk peeing in her pants. I see the urine turn the cloth of her jeans dark, then drip out from her trousers to the ground. The woman is perhaps 60 years old, but you know how it goes—hard lives make for hard faces, so perhaps she’s younger. What is certain is that there is a deficit here: a person not only without a home, but now without a dry pair shoes or pants.
  • None of them look at the woman. There are a few grimaces as they catch her scent, which even from where I sit is quite strong.
  • I wonder about the growing chasm between rich and poor, the choices people face between hunger and medicine, the growing parade of the ragged and downtrodden pushing carts filled with cardboard and rags.
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  • According to the statistics, 1309 of them were unaccompanied young adults, 1363 of them were veterans, 1108 were families who could not find affordable housing, and more than 4000 were considered chronically homeless: people who have lived on the street for years without the resources or wherewithal to find their way into a home. It is hard to escape their makeshift shelters. It is harder to escape the feeling that something has gone terribly wrong
  • Set it beside her quietly, not so that I don’t wake her but so I don’t have to speak to her. I don’t want the responsibility of that interaction. I don’t want the obligations it could bring.
  • I put the box of food next to her, I offer nothing of what she really needs.
katherineharron

Cardi B should run for office, Bernie Sanders says - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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

shared by katherineharron on 16 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is encouraging rapper Cardi B to run for political office, the latest exchange of compliments and support between the unlikely duo.
  • "Cardi B is deeply concerned about what's happening in the country. She knows what it's like to live in poverty and struggle, and it would be great for her to bring that experience to politics" Sanders told TMZ in an interview posted Tuesday.
  • The pair teamed up in July to film a campaign video discussing the cancellation of student debt, the climate crisis and raising the minimum wage in an effort to appeal to young voters.
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  • "What it means is, what Cardi B does, not only is she an enormously popular entertainer, what she is doing is speaking to young people about the important issues that are on their minds and I applaud that very much" Sanders told CNN in July.
  • "People are not perfect, but he has the perfect intentions. He naturally cares about minorities. He actually cares about people getting Medicare because he knows they can't afford it. I don't feel like he's just saying these things 'cause he want the vote," Cardi B said.
Javier E

The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rivacy-facial-recognition.html

privacy surveillance face recognition

shared by Javier E on 19 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Tech companies capable of releasing such a tool have refrained from doing so; in 2011, Google’s chairman at the time said it was the one technology the company had held back because it could be used “in a very bad way.” Some large cities, including San Francisco, have barred police from using facial recognition technology.
  • without public scrutiny, more than 600 law enforcement agencies have started using Clearview in the past year
  • The computer code underlying its app, analyzed by The New York Times, includes programming language to pair it with augmented-reality glasses; users would potentially be able to identify every person they saw. The tool could identify activists at a protest or an attractive stranger on the subway, revealing not just their names but where they lived, what they did and whom they knew.
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  • it’s not just law enforcement: Clearview has also licensed the app to at least a handful of companies for security purposes.
  • “The weaponization possibilities of this are endless,” said Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. “Imagine a rogue law enforcement officer who wants to stalk potential romantic partners, or a foreign government using this to dig up secrets about people to blackmail them or throw them in jail.”
  • While the company was dodging me, it was also monitoring me. At my request, a number of police officers had run my photo through the Clearview app. They soon received phone calls from company representatives asking if they were talking to the media — a sign that Clearview has the ability and, in this case, the appetite to monitor whom law enforcement is searching for.
  • The company eventually started answering my questions, saying that its earlier silence was typical of an early-stage start-up in stealth mode. Mr. Ton-That acknowledged designing a prototype for use with augmented-reality glasses but said the company had no plans to release it.
  • In addition to Mr. Ton-That, Clearview was founded by Richard Schwartz — who was an aide to Rudolph W. Giuliani when he was mayor of New York — and backed financially by Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist behind Facebook and Palantir.
  • “I’ve come to the conclusion that because information constantly increases, there’s never going to be privacy,” Mr. Scalzo said. “Laws have to determine what’s legal, but you can’t ban technology. Sure, that might lead to a dystopian future or something, but you can’t ban it.”
  • “In 2017, Peter gave a talented young founder $200,000, which two years later converted to equity in Clearview AI,” said Jeremiah Hall, Mr. Thiel’s spokesman. “That was Peter’s only contribution; he is not involved in the company.”
  • He began in 2016 by recruiting a couple of engineers. One helped design a program that can automatically collect images of people’s faces from across the internet, such as employment sites, news sites, educational sites, and social networks including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and even Venmo
  • Representatives of those companies said their policies prohibit such scraping, and Twitter said it explicitly banned use of its data for facial recognition
  • Another engineer was hired to perfect a facial recognition algorithm that was derived from academic papers. The result: a system that uses what Mr. Ton-That described as a “state-of-the-art neural net” to convert all the images into mathematical formulas, or vectors, based on facial geometry — like how far apart a person’s eyes are
  • Clearview created a vast directory that clustered all the photos with similar vectors into “neighborhoods.”
  • When a user uploads a photo of a face into Clearview’s system, it converts the face into a vector and then shows all the scraped photos stored in that vector’s neighborhood — along with the links to the sites from which those images came.
  • Mr. Schwartz paid for server costs and basic expenses, but the operation was bare bones; everyone worked from home. “I was living on credit card debt,” Mr. Ton-That said. “Plus, I was a Bitcoin believer, so I had some of those.”
  • The company soon changed its name to Clearview AI and began marketing to law enforcement. That was when the company got its first round of funding from outside investors: Mr. Thiel and Kirenaga Partners
  • Mr. Schwartz and Mr. Ton-That met in 2016 at a book event at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. Mr. Schwartz, now 61, had amassed an impressive Rolodex working for Mr. Giuliani in the 1990s and serving as the editorial page editor of The New York Daily News in the early 2000s. The two soon decided to go into the facial recognition business together: Mr. Ton-That would build the app, and Mr. Schwartz would use his contacts to drum up commercial interest.
  • They immediately got a match: The man appeared in a video that someone had posted on social media, and his name was included in a caption on the video. “He did not have a driver’s license and hadn’t been arrested as an adult, so he wasn’t in government databases,”
  • The man was arrested and charged; Mr. Cohen said he probably wouldn’t have been identified without the ability to search social media for his face. The Indiana State Police became Clearview’s first paying customer, according to the company
  • “I don’t see a future where we harness the benefits of face recognition technology without the crippling abuse of the surveillance that comes with it. The only way to stop it is to ban it.”
  • The company’s most effective sales technique was offering 30-day free trials to officers, who then encouraged their acquisition departments to sign up and praised the tool to officers from other police departments at conferences and online, according to the company and documents provided by police departments in response to public-record requests. Mr. Ton-That finally had his viral hit.
  • Photos “could be covertly taken with telephoto lens and input into the software, without ‘burning’ the surveillance operation,” the detective wrote in the email, provided to The Times by two researchers,
  • Sergeant Ferrara found Clearview’s app superior, he said. Its nationwide database of images is much larger, and unlike FACES, Clearview’s algorithm doesn’t require photos of people looking straight at the camera.
  • “With Clearview, you can use photos that aren’t perfect,” Sergeant Ferrara said. “A person can be wearing a hat or glasses, or it can be a profile shot or partial view of their face.”
  • Mr. Ton-That said the tool does not always work. Most of the photos in Clearview’s database are taken at eye level. Much of the material that the police upload is from surveillance cameras mounted on ceilings or high on walls.
  • Despite that, the company said, its tool finds matches up to 75 percent of the time. But it is unclear how often the tool delivers false matches, because it has not been tested by an independent party
  • One reason that Clearview is catching on is that its service is unique. That’s because Facebook and other social media sites prohibit people from scraping users’ images — Clearview is violating the sites’ terms of service.
  • Some law enforcement officials said they didn’t realize the photos they uploaded were being sent to and stored on Clearview’s servers. Clearview tries to pre-empt concerns with an F.A.Q. document given to would-be clients that says its customer-support employees won’t look at the photos that the police upload.
  • Mr. Clement, now a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, wrote that the authorities don’t have to tell defendants that they were identified via Clearview, as long as it isn’t the sole basis for getting a warrant to arrest them.
  • Because the police upload photos of people they’re trying to identify, Clearview possesses a growing database of individuals who have attracted attention from law enforcement. The company also has the ability to manipulate the results that the police see.
  • After the company realized I was asking officers to run my photo through the app, my face was flagged by Clearview’s systems and for a while showed no matches. When asked about this, Mr. Ton-That laughed and called it a “software bug.”
  • “It’s creepy what they’re doing, but there will be many more of these companies. There is no monopoly on math,” said Al Gidari, a privacy professor at Stanford Law School. “Absent a very strong federal privacy law, we’re all screwed.”
  • But if your profile has already been scraped, it is too late. The company keeps all the images it has scraped even if they are later deleted or taken down, though Mr. Ton-That said the company was working on a tool that would let people request that images be removed if they had been taken down from the website of origin
  • Woodrow Hartzog, a professor of law and computer science at Northeastern University in Boston, sees Clearview as the latest proof that facial recognition should be banned in the United States.
  • We’ve relied on industry efforts to self-police and not embrace such a risky technology, but now those dams are breaking because there is so much money on the table,”
  • Clearview deployed current and former Republican officials to approach police forces, offering free trials and annual licenses for as little as $2,000. Mr. Schwartz tapped his political connections to help make government officials aware of the tool
  • Mr. Ton-That said he was reluctant. “There’s always going to be a community of bad people who will misuse it,” he said.
  • Even if Clearview doesn’t make its app publicly available, a copycat company might, now that the taboo is broken. Searching someone by face could become as easy as Googling a name
  • Someone walking down the street would be immediately identifiable — and his or her home address would be only a few clicks away. It would herald the end of public anonymity.
mattrenz16

Biden Transition Live Updates: 117th Congress Convenes for the First Time - The New Yor... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...joe-biden-trump

shared by mattrenz16 on 03 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON — House Democrats returned Representative Nancy Pelosi of California to the speakership on Sunday for what may be her final term, handing a tested leader control of the slimmest House majority either party has faced in two decades.
  • She managed to keep defections to just a handful, winning over several Democrats who had opposed her two years ago when Democrats had a more comfortable majority.
  • On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate convened an even more subdued opening day as both parties await a pair of runoff elections in Georgia on Tuesday that will determine which of them begins the year in control.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Democrats would have to sweep both races to draw the chamber to a tie and effectively take control when Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who would cast tiebreaking votes when needed, is sworn in with Mr. Biden on Jan. 20.
saberal

Opinion | What New Science Techniques Tell Us About Ancient Women Warriors - The New Yo... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...women-hunter-leader.html

US history

shared by saberal on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • As some recent archaeological studies suggest, women have been leaders, warriors and hunters for thousands of years. This new scholarship is challenging long-held beliefs about so-called natural gender roles in ancient history, inviting us to reconsider how we think about women’s work today.
  • There was nothing particularly unusual about the body — though the leg bones seemed a little slim for an adult male hunter. But when scientists analyzed the tooth enamel using a method borrowed from forensics that reveals whether a person carries the male or female version of a protein called amelogenin, the hunter turned out to be female.
  • While the Andean finding was noteworthy, this was not the first female hunter or warrior to be found by re-examining old archaeological evidence using fresh scientific techniques. Nor was this sort of discovery confined to one group, or one part of the world.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The finding led to controversy over whether the skeleton was really a warrior, with scholars and pundits protesting what they called revisionist history.
  • But in 2016 archaeologists conducted a fresh examination of the grave. The two central figures, it turned out, were a male and a female; they were surrounded by other male-female pairs. Thomas Emerson, who conducted the study with colleagues from the Illinois State Archaeological Survey at the University of Illinois, alongside scientists from other institutions, said the Cahokia discovery demonstrated the existence of male and female nobility. “We don’t have a system in which males are these dominant figures and females are playing bit parts,” as he put it.
  • There was inequality, but it wasn’t absolute, and there were a lot of shifts over time. When it comes to female power, and gender roles, the past was as ambiguous as the present.
aidenborst

Opinion: To recharge the country, Biden should give 1 million college students paid gov... - 0 views

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

Politics US Biden policy pandemic Culture crisis history college students future-generation change

shared by aidenborst on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • There are 16 million college students in America. These young people hold the promise of being our next generation of innovators and leaders. But once they graduate, they face student debt repayments and a labor market that has been ravaged by the pandemic.
  • Over the next four years, our country can give 1 million college students a paid internship in federal, state or municipal government, plus a chance to compete for a college scholarship in exchange for their service.
  • Pew polling shows trust in government at near-record lows, and interest in public service is also eroding. America's poor response to the pandemic and concerns about the abuse of executive power have driven many young prospects away.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Analysis of government data shows that just 6.7% of federal employees are under the age of 30 — compared with 20.6% of those in the employed labor force. That's even more problematic when you consider that about one-third of federal workers will be eligible to retire in the next five years.
  • We need talented young folks in government, not only to replace those coming to the end of their careers of service, but also to bring new skills that will help the country confront a wide array of public challenges and opportunities.
  • The administration should greatly expand its efforts to encourage talented college students to apply for paid internships at government entities.
  • The nonprofit Partnership for Public Service would provide initial staff and infrastructure to help facilitate the recruitment, selection and matching operations for the federal component to ensure that participants are placed in internships.
  • For the duration of the administration, the government could arrange about 20,000 internships a month at a time — for example, 400 dedicated to federal, state or city government in each state if distributed evenly.
  • Second, the program could be expanded through competition
  • Third, given their prior experience, participants in the internship program could have fast-tracked access to compelling projects upon completion of their college degrees
  • The program could include a mentorship component, pairing experienced leaders with prospective new talent, aimed at guiding participants in their work and encouraging and helping them pursue a career in public service
  • Challenges like protecting the population against pandemics and unwinding centuries of racial injustice will not be solved in the span of a single presidency, or even within a single generation. To tackle these and other challenges, the American government — and its ability to attract innovative talent — has to be built for the long haul. And we have to start building it now.
martinelligi

Live Results: Georgia Senate Runoff Elections : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...e-which-party-controls-chamber

georgia senate

shared by martinelligi on 05 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The 2020 election is still not over. A pair of Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Tuesday will decide which party will hold the majority in the upper chamber. And despite his loss in November in the presidential election, President Trump looms large in the campaign.
  • With Democrats keeping control of the House of Representatives and President-elect Joe Biden slated to be sworn in on Jan. 20, the results of Tuesday's election will shape how much Biden will be able to steer his party's agenda through a Congress with razor-thin margins on both sides of the Capitol.
  • He has touted false claims and, in a stunning one-hour phone call with Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Saturday, pressed him to overturn the results of that election. Audio of that call has put GOP lawmakers in the awkward position of answering questions about the legality of the discussion initiated by the president at a time when they want to mobilize supporters.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • In Monday's rally, Trump repeated those claims. "They're not going to take the White House. We're going to fight like hell," he said. "When you win in a landslide and they steal it and it's rigged, it's not acceptable."
  • He added, "One state can chart the course not just for the next four years but for the next generation."
leilamulveny

Man Who Broke Into Pelosi's Office and Others Are Charged in Capitol Riot - The New Yor... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...capitol-riot-charges.html

capitol trump crisis

shared by leilamulveny on 09 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Law enforcement officials also backed off a suggestion that Mr. Trump could face criminal charges for inciting the riot after a top prosecutor had said a day earlier that investigators were examining anyone involved, “not only” the rioters.“Don’t expect any charges of that nature,” Ken Kohl, a top prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, told reporters in a telephone briefing on Friday.
  • Law enforcement officials also sought to explain the security failure, saying that they had no indication that the day would turn violent
  • pledged to fight for their cause.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • And some could face more serious charges, including in the death of Brian D. Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who was overpowered by rioters who, according to two law enforcement officials, struck his head with a fire extinguisher. He was rushed to the hospital and died on Thursday.
  • He also rebutted the notion of any involvement in the violence by left-wing antifascist agitators, whom Mr. Trump’s supporters have falsely tried to blame.
  • One of the most serious federal cases involved Lonnie L. Coffman of Falkville, Ala. In the bed of his truck, officers found what they described as an M4 assault rifle and magazines loaded with ammunition. They also found rags, lighters and 11 glass Mason jars filled with a liquid later identified as gasoline.
  • “The goal here is to identify people and get them,” Mr. Kohl said.The Washington police have also arrested dozens, mostly on charges of unlawful entry and curfew violations.
  • The images of Mr. Barnett were “shocking” and “repulsive,” said Jeffrey A. Rosen, the acting attorney general.
  • Prosecutors charged the leader and founder of the Hawaii chapter of the far-right Proud Boys group, Nicholas Robert Ochs, with unlawful entry after he posted a picture on Twitter from the Capitol and told a CNN reporter that he had gone inside.
  • A pair of pipe bombs found on Wednesday afternoon outside the Democratic and Republican Party headquarters, blocks from the Capitol, contained crude mechanical timing devices, according to an official familiar with their initial examination, suggesting they were intended to be detonated. It was not clear when they were meant to explode.
  • Other close allies of the president made similar comments at the rally. His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said that Republicans should back Mr. Trump’s efforts to undo the election result or face consequences. “We’re coming for you,” he said.
  • Incitement of a riot is a misdemeanor crime in Washington that carries up to 180 days in prison or a $1,000 fine, but the maximum sentence increases to 10 years if victims suffer serious bodily harm or serious property damage occurs.
martinelligi

Taiwan's coronavirus response is among the best globally - CNN - 0 views

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

taiwan pandemic

shared by martinelligi on 04 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • During the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2003, Taiwan was among the worst-hit territories, along with Hong Kong and southern China. More than 150,000 people were quarantined on the i
  • sland -- 180 kilometers (110 miles) off China's southeastern coast -- and 181 people died.
  • "Taiwan rapidly produced and implemented a list of at least 124 action items in the past five weeks to protect public health," report co-author Jason Wang, a Taiwanese doctor and associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford Medicine, said in a statement. "The policies and actions go beyond border control because they recognized that that wasn't enough."
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Among those early decisive measures was the decision to ban travel from many parts of China, stop cruise ships docking at the island's ports, and introduce strict punishments for anyone found breaching home quarantine orders.
  • Johns Hopkins University said Taiwan was one of the most at-risk areas outside of mainland China -- owing to its close proximity, ties and transport links
  • In addition, Taiwanese officials also moved to ramp up domestic face-mask production to ensure the local supply, rolled out islandwide testing for coronavirus -- including retesting people who had previously unexplained pneumonia -- and announced new punishments for spreading disinformation about the virus.
  • One contributing potential factor many observers have pointed to is that Taiwan, unlike most every other governments, is not a member of the World Health Organization (WHO).
  • "We want to help -- to send out our great doctors, our great researchers, our great nurses -- and to share our knowledge and experience with countries that need it," Vice President Chen Chien-jen, a Johns Hopkins-trained epidemiologist, told the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei last week. "We want to be a good global citizen and make our contribution, but right now we are unable to."
Javier E

Opinion | The Real White Fragility - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ite-fragility-meritocracy.html

white fragility meritocracy exhaustion crisis culture

shared by Javier E on 19 Jul 20 - No Cached
  • In 2001, when I was still attending college, David Brooks wrote an essay for The Atlantic called “The Organization Kid,” in which he spent a lot of time with young Ivy Leaguers and came away struck by their basic existential contentment. Instead of campus rebels, they were résumé builders and accomplishment collectors and apple polishers, distinguished by their serenity, their faux-adult professionalism, their politesse.
  • he was entirely correct that most of my peers believed that meritocracy was fair and just and worked — because after all it seemed to work for us.
  • talking to students and professors, the most striking difference is the disappearance of serenity, the evaporation of contentment, the spread of anxiety and mental illness — with the reputed scale of antidepressant use a particular stark marker of this change.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • It also reflects a transformation within the meritocracy itself — a sense in which, since 2001, the system has consistently been asking more of ladder climbers and delivering less as its reward.
  • the “overproduction of elites.” In the context of college admissions that means exactly what it sounds like: We’ve had a surplus of smart young Americans pursuing admission to a narrow list of elite colleges whose enrollment doesn’t expand with population, even as foreign students increasingly compete for the same stagnant share of slots.
  • Then, having run this gantlet, our meritocrats graduate into a big-city ecosystem where the price of adult goods like schools and housing has been bid up dramatically, while important cultural industries — especially academia and journalism — supply fewer jobs even in good economic times
  • And they live half in these crowded, over-competitive worlds and half on the internet, which has extended the competition for status almost infinitely and weakened some of the normal ways that local prestige might compensate for disappointing income.
  • And wouldn’t it be especially appealing if — and here I’m afraid I’m going to be very cynical — in the course of relaxing the demands of whiteness you could, just coincidentally, make your own family’s position a little bit more secure?
  • if your bourgeois order is built on a cycle of competition and reward, and the competition gets fiercer while the rewards diminish, then instead of young people hooking up safely on the way to a lucrative job and a dual-income marriage with 2.1 kids, you’ll get young people set adrift, unable to pair off, postponing marriage permanently while they wait for a stability that never comes.
  • the increasing appeal, to these unhappy young people and to their parents and educators as well, of an emergent ideology that accuses many of them of embodying white privilege, and of being “fragile,”
  • there is also something important about its more radical and even ridiculous elements — like the weird business that increasingly shows up in official documents, from the New York Public Schools or the Smithsonian, describing things like “perfectionism” or “worship of the written word” or “emphasis on the scientific method” or “delayed gratification” as features of a toxic whiteness.
  • Wouldn’t it come as a relief, in some way, if it turned out that the whole “exhausting ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Red Queen Race of full-time meritocratic achievement,” in the words of a pseudonymous critic, was nothing more than a manifestation of the very white supremacy that you, as a good liberal, are obliged to dismantle and oppose?
  • If all the testing, all the “delayed gratification” and “perfectionism,” was, after all, just itself a form of racism, and in easing up, chilling out, just relaxing a little bit, you can improve your life and your kid’s life and, happily, strike an anti-racist blow as well?
  • These stresses have exposed the thinness of meritocracy as a culture, a Hogwarts with SATs instead of magic, a secular substitute for older forms of community, tradition or religion
  • For instance: Once you dismiss the SAT as just a tool of white supremacy, then it gets easier for elite schools to justify excluding the Asian-American students whose standardized-test scores keep climbing while white scores stay relatively flat
  • it’s worth considering that maybe a different kind of fragility is in play: The stress and unhappiness felt by meritocracy’s strivers, who may be open to a revolution that seems to promise more stability and less exhaustion, and asks them only to denounce the “whiteness” of a system that’s made even its most successful participants feel fragile and existentially depressed.
Javier E

Opinion | Trump's Taste for Blood - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-violence.html

trump blood violence mob tyrant demagogue

shared by Javier E on 13 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • The first time I realized that Donald Trump took pleasure in violence was back in March 2016. In an interview, I asked him about the brutish rhetoric and violence at his rallies and the way he goaded supporters to hate on journalists and rough up protesters. Even then Mitch McConnell was urging Trump to ratchet down the ferocity.I told Trump that I had not seen this side of him before and that he was going down a very dark path. With his denigrating mockery of rivals and critics, he had already taken politics to a vulgar place, and now it was getting more dangerous.Shouldn’t parents be able to bring children to rallies without worrying about obscenities, sucker punches, brawls and bullying, I wondered?
  • He brushed off the questions and blithely assessed the savage mood at his rallies: “Frankly, it adds a little excitement.”
  • A couple weeks later, I pressed him again on his belligerence and divisiveness, and, with utter candor, he explained why he was turning up the heat.“I guess because of the fact that I immediately went to No. 1 and I said, why don’t I just keep the same thing going?” he said. “I’ve come this far in life. I’ve had great success. I’ve done it my way.” He added, “You know, there are a lot of people who say, ‘Don’t change.’”
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • everything bloodcurdling that happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6 flowed from his bloodthirsty behavior. He had always been cruel and selfish, blowing things up and reveling in the chaos, gloating in the wreckage. But it was only during his campaign that he realized he had a nasty mob at his disposal. He had moved into a world that allowed him to exercise his malice in an extraordinary way, and he loved it.
  • He became his own Lee Atwater, doing the dirty stuff right out in the open. He embraced the worst part of his party, the most racist, violent cohort.
  • once Trump got into politics, he realized, with growing intoxication, that the more incendiary he was, the more his fans would cheer. He found that he could really play with the emotions of the crowd, and that turned him on. Now he had the chance to command a mob, so his words could be linked to their actions.
  • Trump not caring about the fate of his vice president was the inevitable sick end of the pairing of the Sociopath and the Sycophant.
  • if the Republicans won’t convict him, then bring on the criminal charges. Republicans say that’s how it should be done when someone is out of office, so let’s hope someone follows through on their suggestion.
Javier E

Isabel Wilkerson's 'Caste' Is an 'Instant American Classic' About Our Abiding Sin - The... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rigins-of-our-discontents.html

caste racism discrimination white supremacy us culture

shared by Javier E on 06 Aug 20 - No Cached
  • Wilkerson’s book is a work of synthesis. She borrows from all that has come before, and her book stands on many shoulders. “Caste” lands so firmly because the historian, the sociologist and the reporter are not at war with the essayist and the critic inside her.
  • avoids words like “white” and “race” and “racism” in favor of terms like “dominant caste,” “favored caste,” “upper caste” and “lower caste.”
  • Some will quibble with her conflation of race and caste. (Social class is a separate matter, which Wilkerson addresses only rarely.) She does not argue that the words are synonyms. She argues that they “can and do coexist in the same culture and serve to reinforce each other. Race, in the United States, is the visible agent of the unseen force of caste. Caste is the bones, race the skin.”
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • She persuasively pushes the two notions together while addressing the internal wounds that, in America, have failed to clot.
  • A caste system, she writes, is “an artificial construction, a fixed and embedded ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups on the basis of ancestry and often immutable traits, traits that would be neutral in the abstract but are ascribed life-and-death meaning.”
  • She observes that caste “is about respect, authority and assumptions of competence — who is accorded these and who is not.”
  • Wilkerson’s usages neatly lift the mind out of old ruts. They enable her to make unsettling comparisons between India’s treatment of its untouchables, or Dalits, Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews and America’s treatment of African-Americans.
  • Each country “relied on stigmatizing those deemed inferior to justify the dehumanization necessary to keep the lowest-ranked people at the bottom and to rationalize the protocols of enforcement.”
  • What these pundits had not considered, Wilkerson writes, “was that the people voting this way were, in fact, voting their interests. Maintaining the caste system as it had always been was in their interest. And some were willing to accept short-term discomfort, forgo health insurance, risk contamination of the water and air, and even die to protect their long-term interest in the hierarchy as they had known it.”
  • .She poses the question so many intellectuals and pundits on the left have posed, with increasing befuddlement: Why do the white working classes in America vote against their economic interests?
  • As if pulling from a deep reservoir, she always has a prime example at hand. It takes resolve and a strong stomach to stare at the particulars, rather than the generalities, of lives under slavery and Jim Crow and recent American experience
  • Wilkerson has written a closely argued book that largely avoids the word “racism,” yet stares it down with more humanity and rigor than nearly all but a few books in our literature.
  • In its suggestion that we need something akin to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, her book points the way toward an alleviation of alienation. It’s a book that seeks to shatter a paralysis of will.
  • I thought often of a pair of sentences from Colson Whitehead’s novel “The Underground Railroad.” “The Declaration [of Independence] is like a map,” he wrote. “You trust that it’s right, but you only know by going out and testing it for yourself.”
  • In her novel “Americanah,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie suggested that “maybe it’s time to just scrap the word ‘racist.’ Find something new. Like Racial Disorder Syndrome. And we could have different categories for sufferers of this syndrome: mild, medium and acute.”
  • “Caste” deepens our tragic sense of American history
chrispink7

Trump's Response to Protests Draws Bipartisan Rebuke in Congress - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...gress-protesters-tear-gas.html

shared by chrispink7 on 04 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders in Congress and a pair of Republicans on Tuesday condemned President Trump for his response to protests around the country and in the capital, the day after peaceful demonstrators were gassed in front of the White House so he could pose for a photograph with a Bible.The rare bipartisan rebukes reflected a broad sense of alarm at the president’s behavior as protests of police violence and racial discrimination reach a boiling point throughout the country. They followed a remarkable spectacle that unfolded Monday evening, when the police fired flash-bang explosions and tear gas and used officers on horseback to drive away peaceful protesters as Mr. Trump appeared in the Rose Garden and threatened to send the United States military into states where governors could not bring protests under control.He then left the White House and, with Attorney General William P. Barr and other aides, crossed a park that had been cleared of demonstrators to have his picture taken holding the Bible outside a historic church that had been vandalized in the unrest.“After the president’s reality show ended last night, while the nation nervously watched the chaos that engulfs us, President Trump probably laid in bed pleased with himself for descending another rung on the dictatorial ladder,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor on Tuesday morning. “He probably wore out his remote control watching the clips of General Barr’s victory over the unarmed in the battle of Lafayette Square.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyHe added: “It’s all so sad, so pathetic, so weak.”On the other side of the Capitol, wielding her own Bible and quoting from the Book of Ecclesiastes, Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the president to focus on “a time to heal,” adding that the aggressive scene that played out in Washington on Monday had “no place” in the nation’s capital.
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