Skip to main content

Home/ History Readings/ Group items tagged possessions

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
11More

How to understand Trump's perverted version of history - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
shared by katherineharron on 23 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • President Donald Trump's taste for history is moving in new and awkwardly divergent directions as he faces the twin challenges of an impeachment inquiry and a 2020 re-election campaign. He's placing himself alongside the titans of US history one day and comparing himself to the victims of the country's collective sins the next.
  • Early in his presidency he pushed comparisons with his predecessor Andrew Jackson, who was an outsider in Washington and a populist. He was also a racist and anti-abolitionist. Of all the Presidents to put on a pedestal, Trump chose the one that his predecessor, the first black man to hold the job, was trying to take off the $20 bill.
  • And in Trump's mind, that equals injustice, so hours after comparing himself to the greatest presidents, he said the effort to end his presidency is like a "lynching," an incorrect and supremely insensitive historical comparison. Mobs of racists lynched African-Americans in one of the darker periods of US history, part of an effort intimidate, dehumanize and keep power from those who didn't have it. Trump certainly has power now.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • "The word impeachment is a dirty, disgusting word," Trump said."It's supposed to be for high crimes and misdemeanors. I can't believe that this wouldn't be a lawsuit."
  • His gripe is that he's being targeted without, as he puts it, "due process." But the Constitution and the courts are pretty clear that the House has leeway to impeach a President and it's the Senate's job to try him or her once they are impeached. That's the whole point of separation of powers.
  • "You know who was covered worse than me? They say Abraham Lincoln. I've heard the one person -- used to be five or six now it's down to one -- Honest Abe Lincoln. They say he got the worst press of anybody. I say I dispute it.
  • "When it's time to run, I'll run," he said, talking wistfully outside the White House about how soon his first term will end. "Can you believe we're getting down to 12 months. Can you believe it? When I first -- right in that corner of that beautiful building and I was in the first night with the first lady and I'm standing in an area where Abe Lincoln was and all of them were and that's the way it was and I'm standing there and I'm saying wow, four years, that's a long time.
  • "I give away my presidential salary. They say no other president has done it. I'm surprised, to be honest with you. They say George Washington may have been the only other president to do that. See whether or not Obama gave up his salary. See whether or not all of the other of your favorites, your other favorites gave up their salary. The answer is no."
  • Trump is right that the Founding Fathers were against the idea of any President trading on the office of the United States presidency. But he's also, it turns out, right that they didn't really close the loop and spell out how to make sure it didn't happen -- which is how he's been able to remain in possession of his real estate holdings, and to keep his business dealings private, while in office.
  • The Miami Herald reported Congressional Democrats plan to file plan to file a legal brief that alleges Trump's short-lived plan to hold a G7 summit with leaders of other developed democracies at his golf course in Doral, Florida, violates the emoluments clause. Democrats were already suing him for violating the foreign Emoluments Clause, arguing he must get the consent of Congress before accepting money from foreigners.
  • As much as Trump wants to be like Washington or Lincoln, he will always be synonymous with the Trump Organization.
6More

Opinion | The Lesson History Teaches Is Tragic - The New York Times - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-history-lessons.html history tragedy thucydides lessons precedent
shared by Javier E on 16 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • At the heart of any precedent is the belief that once acknowledged, it is actionable. A historical precedent offers not only a pattern but also a promise. We are assured by a rule — given what has preceded, here is how we must proceed — and reassured by a pledge: If we act rightly, we will be around to act again.
  • Is it possible that the real trap, though, is the still widely unquestioned assumption that Thucydides was a political realist? That if he does offer lessons, they are not found in the study of international relations but in the study of human nature
  • The Athenian leader of the Melian expedition, who justifies the destruction of Melos by claiming that might makes right, portends the destruction of the Athenian expedition to Sicily.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Time and again, rational calculations prove as faulty as irrational forces prove overwhelming. Pericles, the Athenian leader praised for his ability to plan for all eventualities, dies in the unanticipated plague that strikes the city
  • In the end, Thucydides’ history does not instruct us on how to exploit or avoid certain situations, instead instilling the simple truth that given our nature, there will always be situations that we cannot avoid and, if we try to exploit, will have unintended consequences.
  • Thucydides’ claim that he wrote his history not to win “the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time” is based on his tragic conception of life. Far from our being able to master events or even our own desires, events and desires will sooner or later master us. While this is not a rousing call for action, it is a call for modesty and lucidity
9More

Pol Pot - HISTORY - 0 views

www.history.com/...pol-pot
shared by magnanma on 27 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Pol Pot was a political leader whose communist Khmer Rouge government led Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. During that time, an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians died of starvation, execution, disease or overwork.
  • The Khmer Rouge, in their attempt to socially engineer a classless communist society, took particular aim at intellectuals, city residents, ethnic Vietnamese, civil servants and religious leaders. Some historians regard the Pol Pot regime as one of the most barbaric and murderous in recent history.
  • In 1934, Pol Pot moved to Phnom Penh, where he spent a year at a Buddhist monastery before attending a French Catholic primary school. His Cambodian education continued until 1949, when he went to Paris on a scholarship. While there, he studied radio technology and became active in communist circles.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Pol Pot, who had begun to emerge as Cambodian party chief, and the newly formed Khmer Rouge guerilla army, launched a national uprising in 1968.
  • Both the Khmer Rouge and Lon Nol’s troops purportedly committed mass atrocities. At the same time, about 70,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers stormed across the Vietnam-Cambodian border to fight North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops who had taken sanctuary in Cambodia.
  • By the time the U.S. bombing campaign ended in August 1973, the number of Khmer Rouge troops had increased exponentially, and they now controlled approximately three-quarters of Cambodia’s territory. Soon after, they began shelling Phnom Penh with rockets and artillery.
  • Almost immediately after taking power, the Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh’s 2.5 million residents. Former civil servants, doctors, teachers and other professionals were stripped of their possessions and forced to toil in the fields as part of a re-education process.
  • Under Pol Pot, the state controlled all aspects of a person’s life. Money, private property, jewelry, gambling, most reading material and religion were outlawed; agriculture was collectivized; children were taken from their homes and forced into the military; and strict rules governing sexual relations, vocabulary and clothing were laid down.
  • In 1997 a Khmer Rouge splinter group captured Pol Pot and placed him under house arrest. He died in his sleep on April 15, 1998, at age 72 due to heart failure. A United Nations-backed tribunal has convicted only a handful of Khmer Rouge leaders of crimes against humanity.
5More

Opinion | The Lesson History Teaches Is Tragic - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-history-lessons.html history
shared by katherineharron on 20 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • The Athenian writer Thucydides is often considered the father of scientific or objective history — the sort of history, in other words, pregnant with precedent. Modern scholars have described Thucydides’ account of the decades-long Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta toward the end of the fifth century B.C.E. — a struggle that ultimately spelled the decline and fall of both city-states — as a model of realism. Not only did Thucydides tell it like it was, but his telling also served as a blueprint for our own time.
  • Sign Up for DebatableAgree to disagree, or disagree better? We'll help you understand the sharpest arguments on the most pressing issues of the week, from new and familiar voices.
  • Two decades later, in his 2017 book “Destined For War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?,” Allison asserts that the Greek historian provides a timeless rule — that war is more likely than not when a rising power challenges an established power. Allison thus seems to suggest the existence of apparently unchanging laws, first revealed by Thucydides, that — like Newton’s laws for physical matter — govern relations between great powers regardless of place and time.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Time and again, rational calculations prove as faulty as irrational forces prove overwhelming. Pericles, the Athenian leader praised for his ability to plan for all eventualities, dies in the unanticipated plague that strikes the city. The Athenian leader of the Melian expedition, who justifies the destruction of Melos by claiming that might makes right, portends the destruction of the Athenian expedition to Sicily
  • Why bother studying the past, then, if it cannot help us navigating the present? One might as well ask why bother reading Aeschylus or Sophocles if they have no useful advice on how to live our lives. Thucydides’ claim that he wrote his history not to win “the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time” is based on his tragic conception of life. Far from our being able to master events or even our own desires, events and desires will sooner or later master us. While this is not a rousing call for action, it is a call for modesty and lucidity. Especially in our own age, these virtues might still have earned the applause of Thucydides.
5More

Why Changing The Way We See The Civil War Will Help Us Preserve Our Country | Talking P... - 0 views

talkingpointsmemo.com/...il-war-revolution-constitution civil war historiography history revolution Founding
shared by Javier E on 27 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • Once the most popular name in the North was The War of the Rebellion, but to white Southerners that name made it too clear who was at fault. By the late 19th and early 20th century, as white Southerners and Northerners looked for ways to paper over some of the past, forget the overthrow of Reconstruction, and adjust to a reunited nation based on segregation and disfranchisement of the former slaves, the name the Civil War became popular as a way of covering up all the messiness and confusion of the conflict.
  • It wasn’t just a Brothers’ War or a family feud or a restorative war to save the Union, as the name Civil War implies. It was also something bigger than that: It was a revolution that deserved to stand next to the revolutions in England and Haiti and maybe even France. Like those revolutions, it was fought to remake the world, not just to determine who was in charge. And like those revolutions, it did not stay within the old boundaries of law and constitution but instead relied upon blunt, violent tools — military rule and occupation — to force through changes that the leaders could not accomplish by normal means.
  • The name the Civil War covered up the messiness in American history; many great historians have tried to uncover the full story through the language of revolution but they haven’t been able to convince the public or even other social scientists. But if we think of the Civil War as a revolution, we have to face some challenging ideas: that the system set up by the Founders faltered, that the country could not be saved by normal means, that slavery could not be killed by the typical procedures or laws and congressional debate
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The Constitution could not prevent civil war, and it could not end slavery. Therefore, Republicans reluctantly and temporarily abandoned some of their faith in the Constitution to save the country and to end slavery. They broke constitutional norms, relied on military rule, added states, and threatened to dismantle the Supreme Court because they did not believe they could end slavery within the Constitution as it was.
  • As architects of a country that failed, the First American Republic, the First Founders might shimmer as warnings or ideals but not as guides. Americans might have to shed the sense that the Founders possess answers to our current predicaments or blame for our situation. They might retain their glamor — like José Martí in Cuba, Miguel Hidalgo in Mexico, even Toussaint-Louverture in Haiti — as emblems of romantic struggles that do not quite speak to the present political conditions. We might see their work the way the French see the First, Second, Third, or Fourth Republics, as important preludes but also as relics who, having used up their magic, can safely be held and examined. Voices of the past, not oracles of the future.
12More

Being rich wrecks your soul. We used to know that. - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...7-9fc6-c7ef4bc58d13_story.html rich wealth morality vice evil soul corruption
shared by Javier E on 25 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • We used to think that having vast sums of money was bad and in particular bad for you — that it harmed your character, warping your behavior and corrupting your soul. We thought the rich were different, and different for the worse.
  • Today, however, we seem less confident of this. We seem to view wealth as simply good or neutral, and chalk up the failures of individual wealthy people to their own personal flaws, not their riches.
  • The rich are the worst tax evaders, and, as The Washington Post has detailed, they are hiding vast sums from public scrutiny in secret overseas bank accounts.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The point is not necessarily that wealth is intrinsically and everywhere evil, but that it is dangerous — that it should be eyed with caution and suspicion, and definitely not pursued as an end in itself; that great riches pose great risks to their owners; and that societies are right to stigmatize the storing up of untold wealt
  • Over the past few years, a pile of studies from the behavioral sciences has appeared, and they all say, more or less, “Being rich is really bad for you.” Wealth, it turns out, leads to behavioral and psychological maladies. The rich act and think in misdirected ways.
  • When it comes to a broad range of vices, the rich outperform everybody else. They are much more likely than the rest of humanity to shoplift and cheat , for example, and they are more apt to be adulterers and to drink a great deal. They are even more likely to take candy that is meant for children.
  • The idea that wealth is morally perilous has an impressive philosophical and religious pedigree. Ancient Stoic philosophers railed against greed and luxury, and Roman historians such as Tacitus lay many of the empire’s struggles at the feet of imperial avarice. Confucius lived an austere life. The Buddha famously left his opulent palace behind. And Jesus didn’t exactly go easy on the rich, either — think camels and needles, for starters
  • They also give proportionally less to charity — not surprising, since they exhibit significantly less compassion and empathy toward suffering people.
  • Studies also find that members of the upper class are worse than ordinary folks at “reading” people’ s emotions and are far more likely to be disengaged from the people with whom they are interacting — instead absorbed in doodling, checking their phones or what have you. Some studies go even further, suggesting that rich people, especially stockbrokers and their ilk (such as venture capitalists, whom we once called “robber barons”), are more competitive, impulsive and reckless than medically diagnosed psychopaths.
  • Some studies go so far as to suggest that simply being around great material wealth makes people less willing to share. That’s right: Vast sums of money poison not only those who possess them but even those who are merely around them. This helps explain why the nasty ethos of Wall Street has percolated down, including to our politics (though we really didn’t need much help there).
  • Certain conservative institutions, enjoying the backing of billionaires such as the Koch brothers, have thrown a ton of money at pseudo-academics and “thought leaders” to normalize and legitimate obscene piles of lucre
  • They produced arguments that suggest that high salaries naturally flowed from extreme talent and merit, thus baptizing wealth as simply some excellent people’s wholly legitimate rewards. These arguments were happily regurgitated by conservative media figures and politicians, eventually seeping into the broader public and replacing the folk wisdom of yore.
35More

5-Marx's Comm M. - Google Drive - 0 views

drive.google.com/...0BxWXwwoF4MF-U2xGbnRZYjcwQlU homework
shared by brookegoodman on 15 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism.
  • Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power.
  • It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself.
  • ...32 more annotations...
  • The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.
  • village communities were found to be, or to have been, the primitive form of society everywhere from India to Ireland.
  • the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms.
  • The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie.
  • The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.
  • It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves.
  • the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.
  • The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.
  • The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production,
  • Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones.
  • The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country.
  • The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property.
  • Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association in the medieval commune*
  • In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
  • He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth.
  • Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.
  • Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.
  • Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.
  • And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.
  • Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman.
  • But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases.
  • Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers.
  • Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.
  • At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois.
  • the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes.
  • But every class struggle is a political struggle.
  • a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.
  • The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for
  • The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois.
  • The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.
  • It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.
  • Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
7More

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

www.cnn.com/...index.html
shared by katherineharron on 17 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • @charset "UTF-8";.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .m-footer__bottom__text a[data-analytics=footer_adchoices]:after{content:"";display:block;margin:0;padding:0}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a{font-size:1rem}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .buckets{list-style:none;margin:0;padding:2rem 0 1.5rem;font-family:CNN Condensed,CNN,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Utkal,sans-serif;-webkit-font-feature-settings:"kern";font-feature-settings:"kern";text-rendering:optimizeLegibility}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .buckets{padding:0}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .buckets:after{clear:both;content:"";display:table}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket{float:left}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a{color:#404040;display:block;font-weight:500;letter-spacing:.9px;line-height:2.1;position:relative;text-align:center;text-decoration:none;text-transform:uppercase}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a{line-height:50px;padding:0 .5rem;font-size:14px;letter-spacing:1px}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a:after{background:#3061f3;bottom:.25rem;content:"";height:.25rem;left:0;margin:0 auto;position:absolute;right:0;-webkit-transition:width .2s ease-in-out;-o-transition:width .2s ease-in-out;transition:width .2s ease-in-out;width:0}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a:after{bottom:.75rem}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a:hover:after{width:25%}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket a:hover:after{width:calc(100% - 1rem)}}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .bucket+.bucket a{margin-left:1rem}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .logo{background:0;height:auto;position:static;width:auto;z-index:auto}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .logo:after{clear:both;content:"";display:table}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .logo:after{content:none}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .logo-links{-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;box-sizing:content-box;height:50px;width:172px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .logo-links__cnn{background-color:#c00;background-image:url(//www.i.cdn.cnn.com/.a/2.183.1/assets/logo_cnn.svg);float:left;height:50px;width:50px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .logo-links__politics{background-image:url(//www.i.cdn.cnn.com/.a/2.183.1/assets/logo_politics.svg);background-position:0;background-repeat:no-repeat;float:left;height:50px;margin-left:.4rem;width:115px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social a{font-size:inherit;color:inherit}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .gigya-sharebar-element+.gigya-sharebar-element{margin:0 0 0 8px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .m-share__rail .gigya-sharebar-element+.gigya-sharebar-element{margin:0 0 8px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social{color:#404040;list-style:none;margin:0 auto;padding:2rem 0;position:relative;width:80px}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social{padding:0}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social:before{background-color:#d9d9d9;content:"";display:block;height:1px;left:0;margin:0 auto;position:absolute;right:0;top:0;width:88px}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social:before{content:none}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social:after{clear:both;content:"";display:table}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link{float:left;font-size:20px;text-align:center;-webkit-transition:color .1s ease-in-out;-o-transition:color .1s ease-in-out;transition:color .1s ease-in-out;width:20px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link:hover{color:#3061f3}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link{height:50px}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link+.social__link{margin-left:10px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link a{line-height:20px}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link a{line-height:50px}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link--facebook a:before{content:"";font-family:cnn-icons}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link--twitter a:before{content:"";font-family:cnn-icons}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .social__link--instagram a:before{content:"";font-family:cnn-icons}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.pg.pg .skinny .nav .buckets{position:static}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-header{height:auto}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open .nav .menu-collapse{background:0}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open .nav .buckets{-webkit-transform:none;-ms-transform:none;transform:none}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav .drawer>.buckets{width:auto}@media (min-width:1024px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics #header-wrap #sticky-ad-wrap,.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics #header-wrap.ad-active{background:#fefefe}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics #header-wrap .ad.ad--epic{background:#fefefe}@media (min-width:800px) and (max-width:899px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open{height:100%;overflow:hidden;overflow-scrolling:none;position:fixed}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav{-webkit-box-sizing:border-box;box-sizing:border-box;position:relative;height:auto}@media (min-width:800px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav{background:0}}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav{background:#fefefe;border-bottom:1px solid #e6e6e6;height:98px;padding:24px 10px 24px 0;-webkit-transition:all .2s ease-in-out;-o-transition:all .2s ease-in-out;transition:all .2s ease-in-out}}@media (min-width:1120px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav{padding:24px 0}}@media (min-width:800px){html:not(.iemobile):not(.ios):not(.android) .pg-vertical--politics .skinny .nav{height:auto}}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.pg.pg .skinny .nav{height:51px;padding:0 10px 0 0}}@media (min-width:1120px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.pg.pg .skinny .nav{padding:0}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav__container{background:#f2f2f2;border-bottom:1px solid #e6e6e6;height:50px;z-index:28}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav__container{background:#fefefe;border-bottom:0;float:left}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search--mobile{position:absolute;right:50px;top:0}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search--mobile{display:none}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search--desktop{display:none;float:right;outline:none}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search--desktop{display:block}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search__icon{display:block;height:50px;overflow:hidden;text-align:center;width:50px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search__icon:before{-webkit-box-sizing:content-box;box-sizing:content-box;color:#404040;font-size:22px;line-height:50px;padding:2px 0 0;-webkit-transform:scaleX(-1);-ms-transform:scaleX(-1);transform:scaleX(-1);content:"";font-family:cnn-icons}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search__icon:before:hover{color:#3061f3}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav-search--mobile .nav-search__icon{width:25px}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .menu-collapse{height:50px;position:absolute;right:0;top:0;width:50px}@media (min-width:800px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .menu-collapse{display:block}}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .menu-collapse{display:none}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .menu-collapse .hamburger,.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .menu-collapse .hamburger:after,.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .menu-collapse .hamburger:before{background-color:#404040}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open .menu-collapse .hamburger{background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0)}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .drawer{overflow:auto;position:relative}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .drawer{overflow:auto}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open .drawer{height:100vh;height:calc(100vh - 50px)}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open .drawer{height:auto}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .drawer__container{background:#f2f2f2;border-bottom:1px solid #e6e6e6;position:absolute;-webkit-transform:translate3d(0,-100%,0);transform:translate3d(0,-100%,0);-webkit-transition:all .2s ease-in-out;-o-transition:all .2s ease-in-out;transition:all .2s ease-in-out;width:100%}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .drawer__container{background-color:#fefefe;border:0;position:static;-webkit-transform:none;-ms-transform:none;transform:none;-webkit-transition:none;-o-transition:none;transition:none;width:auto}}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open .drawer__container{-webkit-transform:translateZ(0);transform:translateZ(0)}.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics.nav-open.breaking-news--showing .drawer__container{padding-bottom:100px}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .nav .buckets{float:left;margin:0 0 0 2.75rem}}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.pg-vertical--politics .skinny .nav .buckets .bucket>a{line-height:50px}}@media (min-width:900px){.pg-vertical.p
  • But the level of not-knowing-what-the-hell-is-going-to-happen is much higher in this race than any we've seen in modern memory. Just four in 10 Iowa Democrats said they were locked in on their candidate choice in a CNN/Des Moines Register poll earlier this month. That's significantly lower than the 59% who said they had made up their minds about a candidate at the same time in 2016.
  • 5. Amy Klobuchar: The Minnesota senator wanted (needed?) a star turn at the debate earlier this week in Iowa to close the gap between herself and the four top candidates in Iowa.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • 3 (tie). Elizabeth Warren: We're moving the senior senator up on our list for two reasons. First, although Warren is arguably in a worse position than Buttigieg in Iowa and New Hampshire, she is in a better position than he is nationally.
  • 3 (tie). Pete Buttigieg: Buttigieg is, weirdly, the most divisive candidate in the field. Just take his debate performance on Tuesday night as an example. Chris wrote that he came across as well-versed on the issues, authoritative and possessing the necessary gravitas to serve as commander-in-chief.
  • . Bernie Sanders: We've both written about how it's not far-fetched at all that the junior senator from Vermont could win the nomination.
  • 1. Joe Biden: The former vice president has the easiest path to the nomination. If Biden wins in Iowa, he is the heavy favorite to be the nominee.
40More

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.
  • ...37 more annotations...
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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,”
  • “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.”
  • 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.
11More

caret-down - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-us-canada-55540347
shared by anonymous on 05 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • He has reportedly admitted torching a banner taken from a black church during a rally in December in the city.
  • On Wednesday, members of Congress are due to certify Democratic President-elect Joe Biden's election victory before he takes office on 20 January.
  • the Proud Boys will "turn out in record numbers on Jan 6th", referring to his members as "the most notorious group of extraordinary gentlemen".
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The 36-year-old was also found during his arrest to be in unlawful possession of two devices that allow guns to hold additional bullets,
  • Police said more than three dozen people were arrested and four churches were vandalised.
  • Mr Tarrio - who lives in Miami, where he also reportedly runs a grassroots organisation called Latinos for Trump
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 05 Jan 21
       
      That's a literal joke.
  • the Asbury United Methodist Church, where the flag had reportedly flown, was predominantly attended by African American worshippers.
  • Mr Tarrio also said Proud Boy members have had their flags and hats stolen in past demonstrations without anyone being arrested for those alleged incidents.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 05 Jan 21
       
      Stealing something is different from burning.
  • "Black churches and other religious institutions have a long and ugly history of being targeted by white supremacists in racist and violent attacks meant to intimidate and create fear.
10More

Trump supporters also mobilized at state capitols. - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...bilized-at-state-capitols.html US trump politics crisis
shared by ethanshilling on 07 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • As supporters of President Trump breached the nation’s Capitol on Wednesday, hundreds of other Trump supporters across the country gathered at state capitols, in some cases prompting evacuations and law enforcement mobilizations.
  • In New Mexico, a lawmaker reported that the State Police were evacuating the Capitol, while Mayor Michael B. Hancock of Denver instructed city government buildings to close as about 700 people gathered outside the statehouse there.
  • In Washington State, a crowd of Trump supporters, some of them armed, breached the fence surrounding the governor’s residence and approached the building before state troopers mobilized to keep them away.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • “Those acts of intimidation will not succeed,” said Mr. Inslee, a Democrat. No arrests were made.
  • Chris Hill, the leader of a right-wing militia, said he called some of his “troops” to the statehouse to protest, repeating the president’s false claim that the election was “rigged.”
  • As supporters of President Trump breached the nation’s Capitol on Wednesday, hundreds of other Trump supporters across the country gathered at state capitols, in some cases prompting evacuations and law enforcement mobilizations.
  • More than 500 people gathered in Lansing, Mich., praying and carrying a mix of flags and guns.
  • In Sacramento, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California canceled a news briefing on the coronavirus to ensure the safety of his staff, he said in a statement.
  • The Sacramento police reported “physical altercations” between the group and counterprotesters and several arrests for possession of pepper spray before the gathering was organically dispersed by a cold afternoon rainstorm.
  • And in Portland, Ore., dozens of left-wing demonstrators gathered late Wednesday for a “Stop the fascist coup” event. Police said the group broke windows at multiple businesses in downtown.
4More

After refusing to do so, Trump orders flags to be flown at half-staff. - The New York T... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...to-be-flown-at-half-staff.html politics trump US
shared by saberal on 11 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • President Trump on Sunday issued a proclamation ordering that the American flag at the White House and at all federal buildings and grounds be lowered in honor of two U.S. Capitol police officers who died after the violent riot by the president’s supporters at the Capitol on Wednesday.
  • The move came after the flags at the Capitol complex had been lowered in honor of Officer Brian Sicknick, who died from injuries he sustained engaging with the mob of Trump supporters who broke in and overtook the building. Another officer, Howard Liebengood, died by suicide over the weekend.
  • “I hereby order 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 of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, January 13, 2021,
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • “I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same length of time at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.”
8More

Man Armed With Assault Rifle Texted Plans To Shoot Nancy Pelosi, Officials Say | HuffPost - 0 views

www.huffpost.com/...eat_n_5ffb4922c5b656719886c1e5 policy gop trump US history
shared by clairemann on 11 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • A Georgia man texted people his intentions to shoot House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “on live TV” while making his way to the nation’s capital with an assault rifle for Wednesday’s pro-Trump rally, authorities said.
  • Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr. was arrested at a Washington, D.C., hotel on Thursday after his disturbing plans were discovered in text messages that he had sent to friends, The New York Times reported, citing federal documents.
  • “I predict that within 12 days, many in our country will die,” he said in one text.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • “ton of 5.56 armor piercing ammo” and wanting to run over the Democratic leader. He texted one person saying he had planned to attend Wednesday’s rally near the Capitol, but had vehicle trouble. Authorities said he arrived after the rally.
  • A trailer that he had attached to his vehicle had three guns inside: a Glock 19, a 9 mm pistol and a Tavor X95 assault rifle. He also had hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Meredith, who told authorities he was traveling from Colorado, said he knew Washington has strict gun laws and so he put the weapons in his trailer.
  • In 2018, Meredith paid to install a QAnon billboard near his business, Car Nutz Car Wash, in Acworth, Georgia, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Meredith told the local news outlet that he erected the sign because he’s “a patriot among the millions who love this country.”
  • “I sincerely believe the New World Order, Cabal, Deep State ― whatever you want to call it ― wants society to devolve into a race war so that it’s much easier to take over,” he told a local reporter.
  • Another Alabama man arrested Thursday in Washington, D.C., was found carrying 11 Molotov cocktails in his pickup truck. A handgun, assault rifle and magazines were also found inside. When owner Lonnie Leroy Coffman, 70, returned to his parked truck, he was found armed with two additional handguns on him. None of the firearms were registered to him, federal authorities said.
15More

The Failure of Rational Choice Philosophy - NYTimes.com - 0 views

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...the-failure-of-rational-choice rational choice philosophy economics theory individualism ethics conservatism conservative GOP liberalism libertarian
shared by Javier E on 21 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • According to Hegel, history is idea-driven.
  • Ideas for him are public, rather than in our heads, and serve to coordinate behavior. They are, in short, pragmatically meaningful words.  To say that history is “idea driven” is to say that, like all cooperation, nation building requires a common basic vocabulary.
  • One prominent component of America’s basic vocabulary is ”individualism.”
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • individualism, the desire to control one’s own life, has many variants. Tocqueville viewed it as selfishness and suspected it, while Emerson and Whitman viewed it as the moment-by-moment expression of one’s unique self and loved it.
  • individualism as the making of choices so as to maximize one’s preferences. This differed from “selfish individualism” in that the preferences were not specified: they could be altruistic as well as selfish. It differed from “expressive individualism” in having general algorithms by which choices were made. These made it rational.
  • it was born in 1951 as “rational choice theory.” Rational choice theory’s mathematical account of individual choice, originally formulated in terms of voting behavior, made it a point-for-point antidote to the collectivist dialectics of Marxism
  • Functionaries at RAND quickly expanded the theory from a tool of social analysis into a set of universal doctrines that we may call “rational choice philosophy.” Governmental seminars and fellowships spread it to universities across the country, aided by the fact that any alternative to it would by definition be collectivist.
  • rational choice philosophy moved smoothly on the backs of their pupils into the “real world” of business and governme
  • Today, governments and businesses across the globe simply assume that social reality  is merely a set of individuals freely making rational choices.
  • At home, anti-regulation policies are crafted to appeal to the view that government must in no way interfere with Americans’ freedom of choice.
  • But the real significance of rational choice philosophy lay in ethics. Rational choice theory, being a branch of economics, does not question people’s preferences; it simply studies how they seek to maximize them. Rational choice philosophy seems to maintain this ethical neutrality (see Hans Reichenbach’s 1951 “The Rise of Scientific Philosophy,” an unwitting masterpiece of the genre); but it does not.
  • Whatever my preferences are, I have a better chance of realizing them if I possess wealth and power. Rational choice philosophy thus promulgates a clear and compelling moral imperative: increase your wealth and power!
  • Today, institutions which help individuals do that (corporations, lobbyists) are flourishing; the others (public hospitals, schools) are basically left to rot. Business and law schools prosper; philosophy departments are threatened with closure.
  • Hegel, for one, had denied all three of its central claims in his “Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences” over a century before. In that work, as elsewhere in his writings, nature is not neatly causal, but shot through with randomness. Because of this chaos, we cannot know the significance of what we have done until our community tells us; and ethical life correspondingly consists, not in pursuing wealth and power, but in integrating ourselves into the right kinds of community.
  • By 1953, W. V. O. Quine was exposing the flaws in rational choice epistemology. John Rawls, somewhat later, took on its sham ethical neutrality, arguing that rationality in choice includes moral constraints. The neat causality of rational choice ontology, always at odds with quantum physics, was further jumbled by the environmental crisis, exposed by Rachel Carson’s 1962 book “The Silent Spring,” which revealed that the causal effects of human actions were much more complex, and so less predicable, than previously thought.
5More

19-Year-Old Boy in Oregon Shot Dead in Hotel's Parking Lot for Playing Loud Music - 0 views

www.news18.com/...laying-loud-music-3131318.html dead guns police
shared by mimiterranova on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • n incident that took place in Oregon last week has sent shockwaves around the world. A man got rather gravely upset with a teenager as he was playing loud music. The confrontation escalated into a verbal spat followed by a fatal shooting.
  • “The victim had apparently been playing some music loudly in the parking lot and this upset the suspect, which caused the suspect to go down and engage him in an argument,”said the Ashland Police Department in a news release.
  • Keegan pulled a gun from inside his coat and let out a bullet striking Ellison. The 19-year-old was pronounced dead at the spot. Keegan was at the scene when police reached. The killer was immediately arrested and taken to the Jackson County Jail.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Keegen has been charged with first-degree manslaughter, second-degree murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, and reckless endangering another person in connection with murder of an Oregon teen.
  • Keegan’s 3-year-old son was in the Stratford Inn room when the shooting took place. The boy was handed over to his grandparents after his father’s arrest.
14More

4 Dead, Dozens Arrested After U.S. Capitol Siege : Insurrection At The Capitol: Live Up... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...after-siege-at-the-u-s-capitol
shared by anonymous on 07 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Washington, D.C., officials say four people have died, including one in a shooting inside the U.S. Capitol, and more than a dozen police officers were injured after a mob of supporters of President Trump stormed the nation's legislative building, temporarily shutting down a vote to certify his successor's win.
  • At least four people were arrested for carrying a pistol without a license and having a large capacity ammunition feeding device, including one instance of possessing a firearm on Capitol grounds.
  • As Congress began debate over the certification of Electoral College ballots that would finalize President-elect Joe Biden's victory, a large mob decked in red "Make America Great Again" hats and carrying "Trump 2020" and Tea Party flags burst through barricades, overcame Capitol Police and entered the legislative chambers.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Numerous videos shared online showed how the noise of protesters could be heard from inside the Senate and House chambers. In an hours-long siege, the rioters tore through the building, breaking windows, attacking police and ransacking lawmakers' offices. Lawmakers, staffers, reporters and other Capitol building workers were forced into hiding while heavily armed police and federal agents rallied a response.
  • D.C. officials said one woman was shot by a Capitol Police officer amid the chaos. Three others died after separate medical emergencies,
  • Police also responded to reports of suspicious packages discovered on Capitol grounds and in other areas of the city. Two pipe bombs left at the Republican National Committee headquarters and the Democratic National Committee headquarters were discovered by police and safely detonated, police said.
  • Yet, there were few arrests in relation to the scope of the unrest as of Wednesday night, despite clear evidence on video of hundreds of rioters gaining access to the Capitol and damaging government property.
  • Police arrested 70 people on charges related to unrest from Wednesday through 7 a.m. Thursday, Washington's Metropolitan Police Department said. Most of those arrests were for violating curfew, with many also facing charges of unlawful entry
  • D.C. police will be releasing information later Thursday asking the public's help identifying individuals who breached the Capitol so that they "can be held accountable," he said.
  • Videos taken of the chaos appeared to show, at best, an unprepared police force easily overrun by rioters or, at worst, one that appeared to acquiesce to the mob. Unverified videos shared on social media showed a police officer taking selfies with some rioters who entered the Capitol, and another appeared to show officers moving barricades to allow a large crowd of people to approach the building.
  • According to D.C. law, Metropolitan Police can only make arrests on Capitol grounds with the consent or at the request of Capitol Police.
  • Lawmakers already promised a full investigation into the actions by Capitol Police Wednesday.
  • The FBI has set up a tip line website for information tied to the riots. The agency said it's seeking information to "assist in identifying individuals who are actively instigating violence in Washington, D.C."
  • Stephanie Grisham, the chief of staff for first lady Melania Trump, submitted her resignation effective immediately. As did White House social secretary Anna Cristina Niceta and White House press aide Sarah Matthews.Deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger reportedly also resigned Wednesday, according to Bloomberg News.
9More

DC Protests: Pro-Trump Protesters Gather Amid Warnings of Violence - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...dc-protests.html
shared by rerobinson03 on 06 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Thousands of Trump supporters are expected to gather Wednesday in the nation’s capital to hear a defeated president and his allies amplify false claims of election fraud during a rally steps from the White House.
  • But he plans to make an appearance on Wednesday at one of the events near the White House that he has promoted relentlessly for weeks as a show of force as he struggles to overturn the legitimate election results.
  • By Tuesday night, the Metropolitan Police Department recorded arrests of five people on charges of assault and weapons possession, including one person who was charged with assaulting a police officer
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Organizers were preparing for an expected crowd of 5,000 on Tuesday and more than 30,000 throughout the week, according to permits issued by the National Park Service.
  • Some of the speakers during the rally at the Freedom Plaza delivered aggressive speeches claiming the groups were “at war,” targeting Republicans in Congress who have refused to protest the results of the election.
  • “I hope the Democrats, and even more importantly, the weak and ineffective RINO section of the Republican Party, are looking at the thousands of people pouring into D.C. They won’t stand for a landslide election victory to be stolen,” Mr. Trump said, using the acronym for “Republican in Name Only.”
  • Yet despite Mr. Biden’s clear win, many of Mr. Trump’s allies were slated to speak at the protests this week and continue to promote the president’s false claims, including Roger J. Stone Jr. and George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign advisers who recently received pardons.
  • In December, violent clashes in Washington between supporters of Mr. Trump and counterprotesters left four people with stab wounds. Preparing for similar brawls, the National Guard said on Monday it would dispatch about 340 troops to the rallies, responding to Ms. Bowser’s request for additional security.
  • Protesters have trickled to the Capitol since Monday, many without masks and crowded close together as they carried Trump flags and “Stop the Steal” banners.
5More

Opinion | How Trump Made the Fantasy Real - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-capitol-riot-legacy.html fantasy trump insurrection election crisis politics Culture gop
shared by Javier E on 10 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • This was not a coup by any traditional definition of the term (as authors of books on coups quickly took to Twitter to explain), nor was it the kind of Bill Barr-abetted, Supreme Court-stamped use of constitutional trickery that liberals feared. But it was still something more than just a riot. And not merely because of where and with what encouragement it happened, but because it extended from an immersive narrative that made many of its participants fervently believe that they were actors in a world-historical drama, saviors or re-founders of the American Republic.
  • And because Trump is, however incompetently, actually the president and not just a character in an online role-playing game, by turning to the dreamworld he made himself a conduit for the dream to enter into reality, making the dreamers believe in the plausibility of direct action, giving us the riot and its dead.
  • Meanwhile, the politicians who went along with him partway — Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and Kevin McCarthy above all — were like cynical characters in a horror movie who thought they could siphon a little power from an occult dimension, never imagining that the veil would actually be torn.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • What happens to the Republican Party under these conditions? A deeper burrowing into unreality, a partial restoration of realism (depending on liberalism’s own ongoing experiments with fantasy politics) and a permanent fracture are all possible.
  • we can say this much, at least, about Trump himself. By allowing his presidency to be possessed by the occult online, he sealed his legacy to the populist causes he sometimes pretended to serve: Their fate, for the time being, can be counted with the bodies of his own supporters, the pitiful, deluded dead.
11More

Opinion | Trump's Goodbye to Principled Conservatism - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...donald-trump-conservatism.html conservatism gop politics trump Culture history liberalism
shared by Javier E on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • This form of politics — not as a complement to statecraft, but as the outpouring of resentment — is what has come to define the conservative movement in the age of Trump.
  • Conservatives used to admire Edmund Burke. Not anymore, insofar as Burke stood for the importance of manners and morals to the health of the state.
  • In place of all this, what today’s debased conservatism now boils down to is anti-liberalism
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Conservatives used to admire Scoop Jackson. Not anymore, insofar as the Washington state Democrat was a champion of the idea that human rights should stand at the center of U.S. foreign policy.
  • Conservatives used to admire Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Not anymore, insofar as both Reagan and Bush believed in humane immigration reform, international coalition building, standing up to Russian tyrants and, when possible, making deals with Democrats.
  • Conservatives used to admire Milton Friedman. Not anymore, insofar as Friedman stood for free trade, sound money and a balanced budget.
  • But anti-liberalism is not conservatism. At its principled best, conservatism holds that liberal ends — the right of the individual to enjoy the maximum degree of freedom compatible with the right of his neighbor to do the same — are best secured by conservative means.
  • Ultimately, the goal of conservative politics is to produce competent citizens capable of responsible self-government.
  • Anti-liberalism, by contrast, seeks self-serving ends through illiberal means
  • The ends are the benefits that accrue from the possession of political power, ethnic dominance, or economic advantage. The means are the demonization of competitors for power and the delegitimization of people, laws, and norms that stand for the ideals of an open society
  • As for the Republican Party, Trump’s re-election would make it the most potent force for anti-liberalism in the Western world today. Anyone — liberals included — who believes that every democracy needs the anchor of a principled conservatism should pray for his defeat.
11More

Bail set at $2M for teen accused in Wisconsin shootings - ABC News - 1 views

abcnews.go.com/...d-wisconsin-shootings-73977794 Politics US racism
shared by zarinastone on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Bail was set at $2 million on Monday for a 17-year-old from Illinois accused of killing two men during an August protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after the father of one victim told the court the teen “thinks he's above the law" and would disappear if freed before the trial.
  • Kyle Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, is charged with fatally shooting Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber during a protest over a police shooting in August.
  • In addition to the homicide charges, Rittenhouse faces counts of attempted homicide, reckless endangerment and being a minor in possession of a firearm.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Police later explained that they didn't arrest him at the scene because it was chaotic.
  • “The defendant doesn't want to be here and if released won't come back,” Binger said.
  • A legal defense fund for Rittenhouse has attracted millions of dollars in donations.
  • “Kyle Rittenhouse thinks he's above the law,” Huber said. “He's been treated as much by law enforcement. For him to run wouldn't surprise me.”
  • President Donald Trump has said Rittenhouse's actions might have been warranted, suggesting that the protesters might have killed him.
  • Grosskreutz's attorney, Kimberley Motley, asked for $4 million bail, calling Rittenhouse's behavior “inexcusable.”
  • Keating set bail at $2 million, saying Rittenhouse has no ties to Kenosha, he fled the state after the shootings and he faces life in prison if convicted.
  • The shootings happened two days after a white police officer trying to arrest Jacob Blake shot the 29-year-old Black man seven times in the back, paralyzing him from the waist down. Video of the shooting sparked several nights of protests in Kenosha, a city of about 100,000 on the Wisconsin-Illinois border.
« First ‹ Previous 201 - 220 of 273 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page