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Grace Gannon

In a Safer Age, U.S. Rethinks 'Tough on Crime' System - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-legacy-of-a-violent-age-.html

US crime prison jail security safety Democrat

shared by Grace Gannon on 14 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Grace Gannon on 14 Jan 15
     
    "The judicial system has been a critical element in keeping violent criminals off the street," said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who is co-sponsor of a bill to reduce some federal drug sentences. "But now we're stepping back, and I think it's about time, to ask whether the dramatic increase in incarceration was warranted."
dpittenger

Obama to Senate Dems: 'I'm going to play offense' - Manu Raju - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.com/...ng-to-play-offense-114307.html

obama senate politics US

shared by dpittenger on 16 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • The president said he’s prepared to veto hostile legislation, including an Iran sanctions package.
  • Obama vowed to defend his agenda against Republicans in Congress, promised to stand firm against GOP efforts to dismantle his agenda and called on his Democratic colleagues to help sustain his expected vetoes.
  • At the meeting, Obama, who has rarely used his veto pen in his six years in office, signaled he would do so repeatedly, including on GOP-sponsored legislation to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
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  • “We in the administration believe that, at this time, increasing sanctions would dramatically undermine our efforts to reach this shared goal” of reducing Iran’s nuclear weapon capacity, said Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,
Javier E

After Boris Nemtsov's Assassination, 'There Are No Longer Any Limits' - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-are-no-longer-any-limits.html

assassination russia

shared by Javier E on 01 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Putin’s aggressive foreign policy, his increasingly conservative domestic policy, his labeling the opposition a “fifth column” and “national traitors,” his state television whipping up a militant, nationalistic fervor — all of this creates a certain atmosphere. Putin, after all, has a history of playing with fire, only to have the flames get away from him. After years of the Kremlin tacitly supporting ultranationalist, neo-Nazi groups, the same skinheads staged a violent protest at the foot of the Kremlin walls in 2010 while riot police officers stood by and watched helplessly. Today, a rabid nationalism has swallowed up most of the country, and it is no longer clear that Putin can control it. “In this kind of atmosphere, everything is possible,” Pavlovsky told me. “This is a Weimar atmosphere. There are no longer any limits.”
  • Nemtsov’s assassination took that warning to its logical conclusion. Now, “we live in a different political reality,” tweeted Leonid Volkov, a prominent opposition activist. “The fact that they killed him is a message to frighten everyone, the brave and the not brave,” Yashin said. “That this is what happens to people who go against the government of our country.” Anatoly Chubais — who, like Nemtsov, served in the Yeltsin government, and who remains close to Putin — visited the site of the shooting this morning. “If, just a few days ago, people in our city are carrying signs that say ‘Let’s finish off the fifth column,’ and today they kill Nemtsov,” he said in a statement, referring to the Kremlin-sponsored anti-Maidan protest in Moscow last weekend, “what will happen tomorrow?” Or, as Albats put it, “Hunting season is open.”
Javier E

A Christian Nation? Since When? - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ristian-nation-since-when.html

history politics Christian New Deal libertarian capitalism corporate ideology eisenhower spiritual

shared by Javier E on 18 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • For all our talk about separation of church and state, religious language has been written into our political culture in countless ways. It is inscribed in our pledge of patriotism, marked on our money, carved into the walls of our courts and our Capitol. Perhaps because it is everywhere, we assume it has been from the beginning.
  • the founding fathers didn’t create the ceremonies and slogans that come to mind when we consider whether this is a Christian nation. Our grandfathers did.
  • Back in the 1930s, business leaders found themselves on the defensive. Their public prestige had plummeted with the Great Crash; their private businesses were under attack by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal from above and labor from below. To regain the upper hand, corporate leaders fought back on all fronts. They waged a figurative war in statehouses and, occasionally, a literal one in the streets; their campaigns extended from courts of law to the court of public opinion.
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  • But nothing worked particularly well until they began an inspired public relations offensive that cast capitalism as the handmaiden of Christianity.The two had been described as soul mates before, but in this campaign they were wedded in pointed opposition to the “creeping socialism” of the New Deal
  • Accordingly, throughout the 1930s and ’40s, corporate leaders marketed a new ideology that combined elements of Christianity with an anti-federal libertarianism.
  • Powerful business lobbies like the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers led the way, promoting this ideology’s appeal in conferences and P.R. campaigns. Generous funding came from prominent businessmen
  • In a shrewd decision, these executives made clergymen their spokesmen.
  • businessmen worked to recruit clergy through private meetings and public appeals. Many answered the call
  • Uncoupling the language of “freedom under God” from its Christian libertarian roots, Eisenhower erected a bigger revival tent, welcoming Jews and Catholics alongside Protestants, and Democrats as well as Republicans. Rallying the country, he advanced a revolutionary array of new religious ceremonies and slogans.
  • The most important clergyman for Christian libertarianism, though, was the Rev. Billy Graham.
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfilled that prediction. With Mr. Graham offering Scripture for Ike’s speeches, the Republican nominee campaigned in what he called a “great crusade for freedom.
  • Elected in a landslide, Eisenhower told Mr. Graham that he had a mandate for a “spiritual renewal.”
  • Although Eisenhower relied on Christian libertarian groups in the campaign, he parted ways with their agenda once elected. The movement’s corporate sponsors had seen religious rhetoric as a way to dismantle the New Deal state.
  • But the newly elected president thought that a fool’s errand. “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs,” he noted privately, “you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”
  • Unlike those who held public spirituality as a means to an end, Eisenhower embraced it as an end unto itself.
  • In his initial ministry, in the early 1950s, Mr. Graham supported corporate interests so zealously that a London paper called him “the Big Business evangelist.” The Garden of Eden, he informed revival attendees, was a paradise with “no union dues, no labor leaders, no snakes, no disease.” In the same spirit, he denounced all “government restrictions” in economic affairs, which he invariably attacked as “socialism.”
  • The rest of Washington consecrated itself, too. The Pentagon, State Department and other executive agencies quickly instituted prayer services of their own. In 1954, Congress added “under God” to the previously secular Pledge of Allegiance. It placed a similar slogan, “In God We Trust,” on postage that year and voted the following year to add it to paper money; in 1956, it became the nation’s official motto.
  • During these years, Americans were told, time and time again, not just that the country should be a Christian nation, but that it always had been one. They soon came to think of the United States as “one nation under God.” They’ve believed it ever since.
Javier E

The Problem With History Classes - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...387823

history historiography teaching memory AP myth American idea

shared by Javier E on 18 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The passion and urgency with which these battles are fought reflect the misguided way history is taught in schools. Currently, most students learn history as a set narrative—a process that reinforces the mistaken idea that the past can be synthesized into a single, standardized chronicle of several hundred pages. This teaching pretends that there is a uniform collective story, which is akin to saying everyone remembers events the same.
  • Yet, history is anything but agreeable. It is not a collection of facts deemed to be "official" by scholars on high. It is a collection of historians exchanging different, often conflicting analyses.
  • rather than vainly seeking to transcend the inevitable clash of memories, American students would be better served by descending into the bog of conflict and learning the many "histories" that compose the American national story.
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  • Perhaps Fisher offers the nation an opportunity to divorce, once and for all, memory from history. History may be an attempt to memorialize and preserve the past, but it is not memory; memories can serve as primary sources, but they do not stand alone as history. A history is essentially a collection of memories, analyzed and reduced into meaningful conclusions—but that collection depends on the memories chosen.
  • Memories make for a risky foundation: As events recede further into the past, the facts are distorted or augmented by entirely new details
  • people construct unique memories while informing perfectly valid histories. Just as there is a plurality of memories, so, too, is there a plurality of histories.
  • Scholars who read a diverse set of historians who are all focused on the same specific period or event are engaging in historiography
  • This approach exposes textbooks as nothing more than a compilation of histories that the authors deemed to be most relevant and useful.
  • In historiography, the barrier between historian and student is dropped, exposing a conflict-ridden landscape. A diplomatic historian approaches an event from the perspective of the most influential statesmen (who are most often white males), analyzing the context, motives, and consequences of their decisions. A cultural historian peels back the objects, sights, and sounds of a period to uncover humanity’s underlying emotions and anxieties. A Marxist historian adopts the lens of class conflict to explain the progression of events. There are intellectual historians, social historians, and gender historians, among many others. Historians studying the same topic will draw different interpretations—sometimes radically so, depending on the sources they draw from
  • Jacoba Urist points out that history is "about explaining and interpreting past events analytically." If students are really to learn and master these analytical tools, then it is absolutely essential that they read a diverse set of historians and learn how brilliant men and women who are scrutinizing the same topic can reach different conclusions
  • The country’s founding fathers crafted some of the finest expressions of personal liberty and representative government the world has ever seen; many of them also held fellow humans in bondage. This paradox is only a problem if the goal is to view the founding fathers as faultless, perfect individuals. If multiple histories are embraced, no one needs to fear that one history will be lost.
  • Although, as Urist notes, the AP course is "designed to teach students to think like historians," my own experience in that class suggests that it fails to achieve that goal.
  • The course’s framework has always served as an outline of important concepts aiming to allow educators flexibility in how to teach; it makes no reference to historiographical conflicts. Historiography was an epiphany for me because I had never before come face-to-face with how historians think and reason
  • When I took AP U.S. History, I jumbled these diverse histories into one indistinct narrative. Although the test involved open-ended essay questions, I was taught that graders were looking for a firm thesis—forcing students to adopt a side. The AP test also, unsurprisingly, rewards students who cite a wealth of supporting details
  • By the time I took the test in 2009, I was a master at "checking boxes," weighing political factors equally against those involving socioeconomics and ensuring that previously neglected populations like women and ethnic minorities received their due. I did not know that I was pulling ideas from different historiographical traditions. I still subscribed to the idea of a prevailing national narrative and served as an unwitting sponsor of synthesis, oblivious to the academic battles that made such synthesis impossible.
  • Although there may be an inclination to seek to establish order where there is chaos, that urge must be resisted in teaching history. Public controversies over memory are hardly new. Students must be prepared to confront divisiveness, not conditioned to shoehorn agreement into situations where none is possible
  • When conflict is accepted rather than resisted, it becomes possible for different conceptions of American history to co-exist. There is no longer a need to appoint a victor.
  • More importantly, the historiographical approach avoids pursuing truth for the sake of satisfying a national myth
  • Rather than constructing a curriculum based on the muddled consensus of boards, legislatures, and think tanks, schools should teach students history through historiography. The shortcomings of one historian become apparent after reading the work of another one on the list.
  • History is not indoctrination. It is a wrestling match. For too long, the emphasis has been on pinning the opponent. It is time to shift the focus to the struggle itself
  • There is no better way to use the past to inform the present than by accepting the impossibility of a definitive history—and by ensuring that current students are equipped to grapple with the contested memories in their midst.
Javier E

Is There a Silver Lining to Citizens United? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...lining-to-citizens-united.html

election financing rich corruption power inequality political politics

shared by Javier E on 28 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Representative John Sarbanes, Democrat of Maryland and lead sponsor of The Government by the People Act, described the current post-Citizens United reform strategy as “the empowerment approach” as opposed to a “rules based approach.
  • “The thing about money is that it always seems to find a way around the rules,” Sarbanes said. A “power-based reform” seeks to “match power with power” instead
  • The first is a shift away from candidate dependence on PACs and other special interest sources and an increase in the amount of money politicians raise from their own constituents.
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  • The second effect cited by reformers is the increased likelihood of adoption of legislation generally opposed by business interests, including increases in minimum wage and liberalized family leave policies
  • The third positive consequence cited by advocates of public financing is the election of more working class and moderate income men and women to state legislatures and city councils.
  • Since the Sarbanes bill uses taxpayer money and raises the possibility of shifting legislative bodies to the left, it has zero chance of enactment as long as Republicans control either branch of Congress.
  • “It’s gotten to the point where the only people who can run are those who have contact lists rich enough to raise millions.”
  • He warned that Congress has become the equivalent of the House of Lords.
  • In testimony to the New York state Moreland Commission in 2013, Malbin argued that increased small donor participation is a way to counteranother kind of more systemic corruption: the corruption of representation that occurs when candidates spend so much of their time raising campaign money from rich contributors.
  • I have nothing against rich contributors, but the system needs broader participation. Surveys make it clear that those who can afford large contributions do not have the same policy interests or priorities as most citizens. When office holders spend so much time hearing from big donors, they get a slanted view of the public’s priorities.
  • The current system of financing federal campaigns is out of whack. The power of the rich – captured in the Oct. 10 Times story about “the 158 families that have provided nearly half of the early money for efforts to capture the White House” – defies even the very elastic boundaries of American democracy.
  • The Roberts court has deregulated campaign finance on the premise that the only legitimate grounds for restricting money in politics is to prevent explicit corruption. In doing so, however, the court has sanctioned a pervasively corrupt regime.
  • The more central problem of money in politics is something just as troubling but much harder to see: systems in which economic inequalities, inevitable in a free market economy, are transformed into political inequalities that affect both electoral and legislative outcomes. Without any politician taking a single bribe, wealth has an increasingly disproportionate influence on our politics. While we can call that a problem of “corruption,” this pushes the limits of the words too far (certainly far beyond what the Supreme Court is going to entertain as corruption) and obscures the fundamental unfairness of a political system moving toward plutocracy.
  • The long run solution, Hasen argues — with reasoning I find unimpeachable — is a Supreme Court “that will accept political equality as a compelling interest that justifies reasonable campaign regulations.”
Javier E

Still Bastions of the Elite, Private City Clubs Fill New Niches - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ity-clubs-fill-new-niches.html

club elite nyc

shared by Javier E on 08 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • what purpose do these places of camaraderie, contemplation and the continuance of manners serve in this digital, disconnected and overworked world?
  • For one, they’re not as expensive to join as their stately facades would suggest. According to members — the clubs don’t like to discuss prices publicly, for the most part — the annual fees generally range from several hundred dollars to nearly $10,000
  • “They have admissions policies, but you meet over drinks,” said a private banker not allowed by his firm to speak on the record but who is a member of the Yale Club and the Links Club. “They’re not nearly as restrictive as they were in 1960. You need a sponsor and letters because all of these clubs need to survive. They may have the characteristic in people’s minds of old, WASP elite clubs, but it’s far less true than it once was.”
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  • And how these clubs are used today is different from how they were used in the past. They’re largely about business, broadly defined
  • “My clients can feel comfortable that it’s safe and no one will intrude on their privacy,” he said. “Members respect privacy, and the staff enforce no photos or no cellphones to keep it a private environment. That provides a kind of safety and comfort for my clients.”
  • “Once a month, they’d have a little gathering, and you’d meet a handful of people,” he said. “Then, you’d go to one of the bars and they’d introduce you to a couple more people, and they’d introduce you to a couple of more people.”
  • “Everyone is working,” she said. “They’re going to bed earlier. They’re drinking less. Everyone is so busy with their activities and their children’s activities. It’s just a much busier, intense New York.”
Javier E

President George W. Bush Is Still To Blame, Not Cheney or Rumsfeld - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...414478

Bush president 43 iraq war temperament history politics

shared by Javier E on 06 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Cheney and Rumsfeld may have provided the ideology that drove the United States to invade Iraq. But Bush provided the temperament. And that mattered even more.  
  • Bush 41 accuses Rumsfeld of “a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks. He’s more kick ass and take names.” But those same qualities describe Bush 43.
  • the common thread between Bush’s behavior before and after taking office was his penchant for high-risk moves based on his own instincts, irrespective of what anybody else thought
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  • George W. Bush, by contrast, was determined to be a “game changer.” Even as a candidate, notes former speechwriter Michael Gerson, “[T]he governor consistently pushed his policy team to ‘think big’; his most damning characterization of any proposal was, ‘This is small ball.’”
  • After 9/11, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz pushed for an attack on Iraq, arguing that the true terrorist threat lay not with Al Qaeda but with terrorism’s alleged state sponsors. But Bush could have overruled them. Secretary of State Colin Powell opposed war with Iraq, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice expressed no strong position. Counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke considered the idea insane.
  • The reason Bush sided with Cheney and company, I suspect, is because attacking Iraq rather than stopping with the invasion of Afghanistan was the bigger, bolder move. During post-9/11 discussions, Bush often said he didn’t want to “pound sand,” as he believed Bill Clinton had done in response to previous terrorist attacks or “swat flies.” He repeatedly described the “war on terror” as a struggle on the magnitude of the Cold War and World War II.
  • Bush never tempered this grandiosity with a serious inquiry into the risks. “I’m not a textbook player. I’m a gut player,” he told his National Security Council two weeks after the attacks. According to Condoleezza Rice, there was little Bush disliked more than being told that a foreign policy issue was “complex.” And he didn’t see invading Iraq as particularly complex, in part, according to Iraqi exiles who met the President in January 2003, because he seemed unaware that Iraq was divided between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
katyshannon

South Dakota Could Pass 'Bathroom Bill' Affecting Transgender Students | TIME - 0 views

time.com/...athroom-bill-religious-freedom

south dakota pass bathroom bill transgender students lgbt rights discrimination US politics crisis culture

shared by katyshannon on 17 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • South Dakota is on the cusp of becoming the first state in the nation to require public school students to use facilities like bathrooms based on their “chromosomes and anatomy” at birth.
  • The so-called “bathroom bill,” which passed the state House in early February and is being debated by the state Senate Tuesday, marks a revival of the charged fights that played out in states across the country in 2015.
  • At least five other states have considered similar “bathroom bills” this session, and scores of other measures that LGBT rights advocates consider discriminatory are pending in legislatures around the U.S.
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  • Among them are variations on a proposal that exploded in Indiana last year, when controversy over a so-called religious freedom law became a flashpoint in the ongoing debate over religious belief and legal equality. The Hoosier State’s measure led to an estimated $60 million in lost revenue, and after weeks of economic and political pressure, Indiana Governor Mike Pence approved revisions to the law clarifying that businesses couldn’t use it to turn away LGBT patrons.
  • To many supporters, these bills are necessary to protect deeply held religious beliefs and are worth the controversy and lost revenue. To critics, however, the measures seemed aimed at allowing people to treat LGBT citizens differently, based on moral opposition to homosexuality and transgenderism, and serve as a reminder that the lessons of the Indiana fight were fleeting.
  • The fight in South Dakota echoes earlier clashes over gender identity and bathroom use of transgender people. The sponsor of the South Dakota bathroom measure, state Rep. Fred Deutsch, has argued in committee testimony that it is necessary to protect the “bodily privacy rights” of “biologic boys and girls” and that transgender students should be offered alternate accommodations if they do not wish to use the facilities that correspond to their sex assigned at birth.
  • The fight has played out at the state level largely because there is no federal law that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The Equality Act, a federal bill that would create such protections, is unlikely to go anywhere in a Republican-controlled Congress.
  • Rebecca Dodds, the mother of a transgender son who recently graduated from high school in the state’s famed Black Hills, said compelling students to use a separate facility could force them to out themselves to their peers, which could lead to harassment or violence.
  • Though the bill does not specify what those accommodations would be, schools that have dealt with conflicts over bathroom use have often instructed transgender students to use staff or nurse facilities, or facilities in buildings separate from their peers. The Department of Justice has issued several rulings and opinions that say such treatment of transgender students amounts to sex discrimination under Title IX, though federal courts are still weighing the issue.
  • It extends protections for people with three moral beliefs that are laid out in the bill’s text: (1) Marriage is or should only be recognized as the union of one man and one woman (2) Sexual relations are properly reserved to marriage (3) The terms male or man and female or woman refer to distinct and immutable biological sexes that are determined by anatomy and genetics by the time of birth.
  • While critics worry about such bills being used to turn away LGBT people from housing, jobs or businesses, they also worry it could open the door to a broader insertion of personal morality in the public sphere. A pharmacist might, for instance, refuse to fill a birth control prescription for an unmarried woman or a child care agency might refuse to look after a boy or girl with gay parents, without risk of losing their state licenses.
  • Speaking in support of the bathroom bill, a representative from South Dakota Citizens for Liberty said the measure offers a good compromise: “It allows for the sensitive accommodation of students who are experiencing personal trials,” Florence Thompson testified at a hearing of the Senate education committee on Feb. 11. “And does so without giving preferential treatment to a tiny segment of the student population at the expense of the privacy rights of the vast majority.”
  • Meanwhile, the majority of states lack LGBT non-discrimination laws, although a bill in Pennsylvania will likely add sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s non-discrimination protections.
  • In Georgia, where lawmakers are considering at least four religious freedom bills, a group of businesses—including Coca-Cola, AT&T and Delta—has formed to promote “inclusive” policies, explicitly mentioning sexual orientation and gender identity as qualities that should be respected.
  • In South Dakota, dollars and cents may determine whether the bathroom bill passes too, with the ACLU arguing that the passage of such a law would put the state in direct conflict with federal policy—and therefore all but guarantee costly litigation for school districts that are forced to choose to follow one or the other. Failing to comply with guidance from the Department of Education, which has said that students’ gender identities must be respected, could run the risk of costing local districts hundreds of millions in federal funds.
  • Yet supporters like Deutsch say that the guidance coming from the federal government is the reason such bills are needed, so that South Dakota won’t be pressured into providing facility access for transgender students that is not yet explicitly laid out in federal law.
lenaurick

Why Republicans are debating bringing back torture - Vox - 0 views

www.vox.com/...trump-rubio-torture

republicans politics american policy torture

shared by lenaurick on 13 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Several Republicans have suggested that they'd be open to torturing suspected terrorists if elected — especially New Hampshire primary winner Donald Trump.
  • "Waterboarding is fine, and much tougher than that is fine," Trump said at a Monday campaign event in New Hampshire. "When we're with these animals, we can't be soft and weak, like our politicians."
  • Previously, Trump promised to "bring back" types of torture "a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding" during Saturday's Republican debate. The rest of the GOP field took a somewhat more nuanced position. Marco Rubio categorically refused to rule out any torture techniques, for fear of helping terrorists "practice how to evade us."
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  • This debate doesn't have much to do with the merits of torture as an intelligence-gathering mechanism: The evidence that torture doesn't work is overwhelming. Rather, the debate among four leading Republicans over the practice is all about politics, both inside the Republican Party and more broadly.
  • Cruz, for example, has said that waterboarding does not constitute torture, but also that he would not "bring it back in any sort of widespread use" and has co-sponsored legislation limiting its use.
  • Well, under the definition of torture, no, it's not. Under the law, torture is excruciating pain that is equivalent to losing organs and systems, so under the definition of torture, it is not. It is enhanced interrogation, it is vigorous interrogation, but it does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture.
  • international law, under both the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions, considers waterboarding a form of torture and thus illegal.
  • A January 2005 Gallup poll found that 82 percent of Americans believed "strapping prisoners on boards and forcing their heads underwater until they think they are drowning" was an immoral interrogation tactic.
  • In 2007, 40 percent of Americans favored waterboarding suspected terrorists in a CNN poll, while 58 percent opposed. By 2014, 49 percent told CBS that they believed waterboarding could be at least sometimes justified, while only 36 percent said it never could be.
  • Today, 73 percent of Republicans support torturing suspected terrorists, according to Pew.
  • Any Republican who took a strong stance against waterboarding or other torture techniques could be pegged as weak on terrorism — a damning charge in a Republican primary that's been preoccupied with ISIS.
  • Reminder: Torture is morally abhorrent and also doesn't work
  • Some proponents will claim that while morally regrettable, torture is nonetheless necessary to keep us safe. But the best evidence suggests that it this is a false choice: Waterboarding, and other forms of torture, does not work.
  • In most cases, torture is used by authoritarian states to force false confessions
  • The evidence that torture did not aid the hunt for Osama bin Laden is particularly compelling.
  • In other words, some GOP candidates' pro-torture sentiment isn't just a relic of Bush-era partisan debates — it's also totally out of whack with everything we know about the practice of torture today.
maddieireland334

Money Given to Kenya, Since Stolen, Puts Nike in Spotlight - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...kenya-runners-are-drained.html

Kenya Nike agreement economy

shared by maddieireland334 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • When a Chinese clothing company swooped in and offered to sponsor Kenya’s famed runners, Nike panicked, Kenyan officials say.
  • Kenya’s athletics federation — has led to a major scandal in Kenya, a country in the midst of its biggest war against corruption in years.
  • In a contract signed several years ago, Nike agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in honorariums and a one-time $500,000 “commitment bonus,” which the former employee called a bribe.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • money was supposed to be used to help train and support poor Kenyan athletes who dream of running their way out of poverty.
  • immediately sucked out of the federation’s bank account by a handful of Kenyan officials and kept off the books.
  • does not appear to be under investigation by the United States authorities.
  • all three Kenyan athletics officials accused of taking money from Nike have been suspended
  • For more than 20 years, Nike Inc. has been paying the Kenyan national runners’ association millions of dollars in exchange for the Kenyans wearing Nike’s signature swoosh, superb advertising in the running world.
  • Ethiopian runners, who also excel at middle- and long-distance races, have a sponsorship agreement with Adidas, but an official there said their contract contained no commitment bonus
  • In a sworn statement provided to Kenyan investigators, the former assistant said the $500,000 commitment bonus was “bribe money from Nike” so that the top officials could pay back the $200,000 from the scuttled deal with the Chinese company and then make even more by agreeing to sign up again with Nike.
  • Nearly every day there seems to be allegations of some new scandal: a government ministry buying plastic pens for $85 apiece, a Supreme Court judge taking a $2 million bribe, questions about what exactly happened to the proceeds of a multibillion-dollar bond deal.
  • Kenyan athletes were so outraged when they learned in November that hundreds of thousands of dollars from Nike had been stolen by their bigwigs that they staged a protest at their headquarters in Nairobi, with elite athletes camped out in the grass and holding up signs that read “blood sucers.” (Some of the runners never finished school.) Advertisement Continue reading the main story
  • But those complaints may have been a ruse by Kenyan officials to get out of the Nike contract so they could receive a bribe from another company, said a member of the executive board of Kenya’s track and field federation, known as Athletics Kenya.
  • The sports-marketing agent who made the payment, Papa Massata Diack, was recently banned for life by the International Association of Athletics Federations, a global governing body for track and field.
  • After they received a letter from a Nike lawyer saying there were no legal grounds to terminate the contract, the Kenyan officials abruptly changed course.
  • They negotiated a new contract in which Nike agreed to pay Athletics Kenya an annual sponsorship fee of $1.3 million to $1.5 million — plus $100,000 honorariums each year and a one-time $500,000 “commitment bonus.”
  • Nike executives refused to discuss the contract, issuing a short statement that the money paid to Athletics Kenya was supposed to support the athletes. It said that Nike conducted business with integrity and that “we are cooperating with the local authorities in their investigation,” a point the Kenyan detectives dispute.
  • Western nations have threatened sanctions, and the United States government has been especially vocal about corruption, with White House officials unveiling a 29-point plan to root it out.
  • He said corruption in the athletics federation was so ingrained and so brazen that officials routinely extorted money from athletes who failed drug tests. He also said the organization’s chairman, Isaiah Kiplagat, had asked Nike to wire the bonus directly to his personal account, a request that Nike refused.
  • Within days, according to bank records, the $500,000 was withdrawn by Athletics Kenya’s top officials. There were no major track and field activities going on at the time, and the board member and the former administrative assistant said just about all of the money had been concealed from Athletics Kenya’s executive committee, including $200,000 sent to a bank account in Hong Kong.
  • Analysts said this case was especially tricky because it did not appear to fall under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the American law that covers crimes involving American companies and foreign government officials.
  • The Kenyan running association, while it receives some government money, is not a Kenyan government agency.
  • He noted that sports federations, like Athletics Kenya and FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, which is embroiled in its own corruption saga, often fell between the cracks of the rules that governed businesses, public agencies and traditional nonprofit organizations, even though sports federations have qualities of all three.
zachcutler

Taliban Say They Won't Attend Peace Talks, but Officials Aren't Convinced - The New Yor... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...officials-arent-convinced.html

taliban peace talks US crisis

shared by zachcutler on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban said on Saturday that they would not participate in international peace talks, citing what they claimed were increased American airstrikes and Afghan government military operations.
  • In a statement posted on the insurgents’ website, the Taliban denied that a representative would attend the talks. “We reject all such rumors and unequivocally state that the esteemed leader of Islamic Emirate has not authorized anyone to participate in this meeting,” read the statement, posted in English.
  • The official said the Pakistan military leader, Gen. Raheel Sharif, who visited Kabul last week, had assured Afghan leaders that talks would go ahead.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The Afghan government has given Pakistan a list of specific insurgents with whom it hopes to negotiate, the Afghan official said. Hoping to achieve some immediate reduction in violence, Mr. Ghani’s government wants to engage commanders in the field, as well as political leaders abroad who have direct influence over the level of fighting.
  • While there are no confirmed reports that the United States has increased troop levels in Afghanistan — there are now about 10,000 American service members in the country
  • A spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, Mohammad Nafees Zakaria, said the four countries sponsoring the talks had recommended that there should be no preconditions. “All four countries are making efforts to bring the Taliban groups to the negotiation table,” he said.
jongardner04

Will Hillary Clinton Lead Us Into Another War in the Middle East? - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...ead-another-war_b_9378252.html

hillary clinton the middle east

shared by jongardner04 on 07 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • In Libya, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton showed herself to be quick to use the American military without thinking about what comes next. As the decisive voice pushing the Obama administration to war, Clinton had no serious plan for a post-Qaddafi Libya, a point driven home forcefully once again in a New York Times cover story on Sunday.
  • Libya was not the first time she endorsed a U.S. military operation in the Middle East without thinking ahead: Clinton voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. She has shown repeatedly that she did not learn the lessons of Iraq, and has yet to admit to the failure of Libya.
  • The second is to acknowledge the limits of the capacity of the United States to transform the world in our interests and image. As explained in the New York Times, "Mrs. Clinton's deep belief in America's power to do good in the world ran aground in a tribal country with no functioning government, rival factions and a staggering quantity of arms."
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The international strategy for post-conflict stabilization differed from that taken in all of NATO's prior military interventions in one important way: No peacekeeping or stabilization forces were deployed after the war -- although many countries, including the United States, sent diplomats to help with the transition from war to peace, Libyans were largely left to fend for themselves. The situation since then has been tumultuous and violent.
  • The third lesson is that foreign policy decision-makers need to think before they act. This requires a clear-eyed assessment of the potential outcomes of the use of American power to overthrow foreign leaders. "You break it, you own it," Colin Powell famously quipped in reference to Iraq.
  • Clinton's failure to plan ahead in Libya contrasts with Vice President Joe Biden's sobering assessment for life in the country after Qaddafi. According to the Times, Antony J. Blinken, then Biden's national security adviser and now deputy secretary of state, said that the Vice President had expressed concern about what he called "not the day after, but the decade after."
  • Clinton is long on triumphalism ("we came, we saw, he died" she is reported to have said upon viewing a video of Qaddafi's brutal death), but short on thinking pragmatically about the consequences for Americans and others.
  • Having publically criticized George W. Bush for failing to plan for a post-war transition in Iraq, Clinton should have known better. Perhaps she does. In a recent town hall hosted by CNN's Chris Cuomo, the Secretary dodged the question about why when it came to Libya she had failed to apply the lessons of Iraq on the need for intelligent and thoughtful post-war planning.
  • The American President has significant powers in foreign policy-making. Hillary Clinton's decision-making is in line with the flawed foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration, repeating the disastrous policies of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz: bomb, invade, overthrow - and then think later, if ever.
  • Hillary and her advisors may want to take the fight to Syria next. But American voters would do well to heed the lessons of failure and anarchy in Iraq and Libya. They would do well to think hard before signing onto an encore presentation of U.S.-sponsored violence in the name of freedom in the Middle East.
Javier E

Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It - The New York Times - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...-an-isis-that-has-made-it.html

saudi arabia wahhabism islamist culture history terrorism

shared by Javier E on 22 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Black Daesh, white Daesh. The former slits throats, kills, stones, cuts off hands, destroys humanity’s common heritage and despises archaeology, women and non-Muslims. The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things
  • Wahhabism, a messianic radicalism that arose in the 18th century, hopes to restore a fantasized caliphate centered on a desert, a sacred book, and two holy sites, Mecca and Medina. Born in massacre and blood, it manifests itself in a surreal relationship with women, a prohibition against non-Muslims treading on sacred territory, and ferocious religious laws. That translates into an obsessive hatred of imagery and representation and therefore art, but also of the body, nakedness and freedom. Saudi Arabia is a Daesh that has made it.
  • The West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia is striking: It salutes the theocracy as its ally but pretends not to notice that it is the world’s chief ideological sponsor of Islamist culture
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • One has to live in the Muslim world to understand the immense transformative influence of religious television channels on societ
  • There are thousands of Islamist newspapers and clergies that impose a unitary vision of the world, tradition and clothing on the public space, on the wording of the government’s laws and on the rituals of a society they deem to be contaminated.
  • Since ISIS is first and foremost a culture, not a militia, how do you prevent future generations from turning to jihadism when the influence of Fatwa Valley and its clerics and its culture and its immense editorial industry remains intact?
  • It is worth reading certain Islamist newspapers to see their reactions to the attacks in Paris. The West is cast as a land of “infidels.” The attacks were the result of the onslaught against Islam. Muslims and Arabs have become the enemies of the secular and the Jews
  • Is curing the disease therefore a simple matter? Hardly. Saudi Arabia remains an ally of the West in the many chess games playing out in the Middle East. It is preferred to Iran, that gray Daesh. And there’s the trap. Denial creates the illusion of equilibrium
  • Jihadism is denounced as the scourge of the century but no consideration is given to what created it or supports it. This may allow saving face, but not saving lives.
  • Daesh has a mother: the invasion of Iraq. But it also has a father: Saudi Arabia and its religious-industrial complex.
  • Until that point is understood, battles may be won, but the war will be lost. Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books.
redavistinnell

Senate rejects gun control amendments offered following San Bernardino shooting - The W... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...of-the-san-bernardino-shooting

senate gun control offered following san bernardino shooting washington post

shared by redavistinnell on 10 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Senate rejects gun control amendments offered following San Bernardino shooting
  • The Senate on Thursday voted down two gun control proposals put forward by Democrats in response to this week’s deadly shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., in a series of votes that highlighted the intractable party divide over how to respond to gun violence.
  • Feinstein’s amendment was identical to legislation she previously filed on the same topic, while the expansion of background checks for gun purchases mirrored language championed by Sens. Manchin and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) in 2013, following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School three years ago this month.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • “We have an opportunity to do it now with the height of  everything happening,” Manchin said. “For us not to do anything, just sit here and be mum would be just as bad.”
  • “We need to renew the assault weapons ban. We need to end the sale of high capacity magazines. We need to make gun trafficking a federal crime and give law enforcement the tools they need to get illegal guns off of the streets. We need to close the gun show loophole as well as loopholes that allow gun purchasers to buy a gun after the waiting period expires without a completed background check.”
  • That episode remains the closest the Senate has come to a consensus on gun control and will likely remain a big part of the debate.
  • “The problem with these mass shootings, which seem to be happening with increasing frequency, is too often we propose either more restrictions on gun ownership or more background checks for gun purchasers, versus mental health reform — when in fact we need both. That’s what I would like to see.”
  • To counter Feinstein’s amendment, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) proposed a measure that would give the attorney general the power to impose a 72-hour delay for individuals on the terror watch list seeking to purchase a gun and it could become a permanent ban if a judge determines there is probable cause during that time window.
  • “To use Sen. Kennedy – let him be on the watch list, he’s not going to go buy a gun and hurt anybody,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) argued, calling Cornyn’s alternative “dangerous” and “ridiculous.”
  • Democratic leaders said Grassley’s proposal would roll back gun laws, not improve them
  • Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Collins and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) also voted in favor of Manchin’s amendment to expand background checks. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), who is facing a tough reelection campaign in 2016, abstained from the vote on Manchin’s proposal, though he voted with Republican Party on the other gun control amendments Thursday.
  • Pelosi said she believes there are sufficient votes in the House to expand background checks to Internet sales and gun shows and to block individuals on the terrorist watch list from purchasing weapons.
  • Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chair Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) pledged Democrats won’t give up the battle.
  • With the San Bernardino rampage marking the 355th mass shooting this year, Congress has repeatedly talked about action but hasn’t taken it. Senate Democrats recently tried unsuccessfully to jump-start a campaign to pass gun control legislation in the wake of a deadly shooting at a college campus in Roseburg, Ore.
  • “To be honest with you, I don’t see it moving now,” said Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), who noted he has been sponsoring the bill for the last nine years.
  • Overall, Democrats do not support the budget reconciliation package, which would repeal large portions of Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood.
katyshannon

House Reaches Accord on Spending and Tax Cuts - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...gency-workers-zadroga-act.html

house accord spending tax cuts new york times politics US

shared by katyshannon on 18 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Republican and Democratic negotiators in the House clinched a deal late Tuesday on a $1.1 trillion spending bill and a huge package of tax breaks.
  • Legislative drafters, racing a midnight deadline, met the time limit for issuing the tax package but apparently missed it for the spending bill. That could push back a vote on the House floor by one day, until Friday.
  • The late-hour tension emphasized the deep disagreements over an array of policy provisions that have left weeks of negotiations tinged with acrimony. Since the Republicans took back control of the House in 2011, a majority in the party has routinely opposed compromise budget and spending measures, forcing party leaders to rely on Democrats for votes to clear the bills. All signs indicate that the same dynamic is playing out now.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • But the House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, has voiced angry opposition to the huge package of tax breaks, saying it would unfairly benefit big business.
  • And even Tuesday night, some Democrats in the House leadership said Ms. Pelosi was on the verge of turning against the omnibus spending measure because of her opposition to a Republican provision that would lift the 40-year ban on exports of crude oil from the United States.
  • The question of delaying important provisions of the Affordable Care Act provided a surprising area of common ground — among Republicans who have sought to dismantle President Obama’s signature health care law, and Democrats who had reservations about a tax on generous health plans. The White House and many economists have defended the “Cadillac tax” on high-cost employer-sponsored health plans as a way to reduce health costs and make the health care system more efficient.
  • Throughout Tuesday, major components of the spending legislation appeared to be falling into place, including a tentative agreement to alter major provisions of the Affordable Care Act, delaying a planned tax on high-cost health insurance plans and suspending a tax on medical devices for two years.
  • Paul D. Ryan has gained momentum in his early weeks as speaker, clearing a major highway bill and an important education measure. But the omnibus spending bill, needed to keep the government functioning, presented a particular challenge given the Obama administration’s opposition to numerous policy prescriptions that Republicans wanted to attach to the must-pass bill.
  • And while Mr. Ryan has won plaudits from his rank and file for running a more inclusive House, the late rush to finish the spending deal seemed likely to test him on that front.
  • Republican congressional leaders and the White House reached a budget accord in late October that set top-line spending levels for 2016 and 2017.
  • But lawmakers said they had tentatively agreed to delay the tax, originally scheduled to take effect in 2018, by two years. Labor unions strenuously opposed the tax, saying it could lead to reductions in health benefits prized by their members.
drewmangan1

Syrian President Assad visits Putin in Moscow for talks - CNN.com - 0 views

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

shared by drewmangan1 on 22 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Embattled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has flown to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is now his chief sponsor.
  • But Ru
  • On September 30, the Russian Air Force began pounding Assad's opponents with airstrikes
redavistinnell

Athletics doping crisis: UK Athletics wants to reset world records - BBC Sport - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...35277793

athletics crisis wants reset world records

shared by redavistinnell on 11 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Athletics doping crisis: UK Athletics wants to reset world records
  • The sport's governing body has made 14 proposals, among them longer bans for drug cheats and a public register of tested athletes.
  • UKA chairman Ed Warner said it was time for "radical reform", adding: "The integrity of athletics was challenged as never before in 2015."
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Russia was barred from international competition for alleged "state-sponsored doping".
  • And three IAAF figures - including Diack's son, Papa Massata Diack - were given lifetime bans after a report claimed they "conspired" to blackmail a Russian athlete in order to cover up her doping violations.
  • Warner says trust in the sport is at its "lowest point for decades", adding clean athletes and fans "have been let down".
  • Some of the key recommendations:
  • Warner says it is all about provoking a discussion and defended the UKA's decision to go it alone.
  • Warner points out that London is hosting the World Championships next year and wants athletics to take steps to clean up its act before then.
  • In response to UKA's manifesto, the IAAF said it had already begun implementing its own proposals and would "look forward to reviewing" the UKA recommendations in full.
  • UKA had already found that there was "no evidence of any impropriety" from Farah, Britain's multiple Olympic gold medallist, and no reason to "lack confidence" in his elite training programme.
  • Athletes in receipt of support from UKA should also be required to sign an agreement which outlines "moral and ethical" obligations.
  • At the time, Dick Pound, chairman of the independent commission, warned the public to expect further revelations.
  • "It believes the IAAF, run by Lord Coe, is too preoccupied with salvaging its own credibility after recent corruption allegations.
  • "It may also decide to raise concerns over the lengthening of bans given it feels the current four-year sanction is proportionate.
katyshannon

Growing scale of Cologne attacks stokes German debate on migrants | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...tigation-idUSKCN0UO0G920160110

growing scale cologne attacks german debate immigration crisis culture policy

shared by katyshannon on 11 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Attacks on women in Cologne and other German cities on New Year's Eve have prompted more than 600 criminal complaints, with police suspicion resting on asylum seekers, putting pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel and her open door migrant policy.
  • The attacks, mostly targeting women and ranging from theft to sexual molestation, have prompted a highly-charged debate in Germany about its welcoming stance for refugees and migrants, more than one million of whom arrived last year.
  • The sudden nature of the violent attacks and the fact that they stretched from Hamburg to Frankfurt prompted Germany's justice minister Heiko Maas to speculate in a newspaper that they had been planned or coordinated.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • The debate on migration will be further fueled by the acknowledgement by the authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia that a man shot dead as he tried to enter a Paris police station last week was an asylum seeker with seven identities who lived in Germany.
  • In Cologne, police said on Sunday that 516 criminal complaints had been filed by individuals or groups in relation to assaults on New Year's Eve, while police in Hamburg said 133 similar charges had been lodged with the north German city.
  • Frankfurt also registered complaints, although far fewer.
  • The investigation in Cologne is focused largely on asylum seekers or illegal migrants from north Africa, police said. They arrested one 19-year-old Moroccan man on Saturday evening.
  • In Cologne, where a 100-strong force of officers continued their investigations, around 40 percent of the complaints included sexual offences, including two rapes.
  • The attacks, which prompted violent far-right protests on Saturday, threatens to further erode confidence in Merkel, and could stoke support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party ahead of three key state elections in March.
  • Merkel's popularity has dwindled as she refused to place a limit on the influx of refugees.
  • A survey sponsored by state broadcaster ARD showed that while 75 percent of those asked were very happy with Merkel's work in April last year, only 58 percent were pleased now.
  • Almost three quarters of those polled said migration was the most important issue for the government to deal with in 2016.
  • The Cologne attacks also heated up the debate on immigration in neighboring Austria.
  • There had been a handful of similar incidents in the border city of Salzburg. "Such offenders should be deported," she said, backing a similar suggestion by Merkel.
  • Swiss media contained numerous stories about sexual assaults on women by foreigners, fuelling tensions ahead of a referendum next month that would trigger the automatic deportation of foreigners convicted of some crimes.
  • The anti-Islam PEGIDA, whose supporters threw bottles and fire crackers at a march in Cologne on Saturday before being dispersed by riot police, will later hold a rally in the eastern German city of Leipzig.
  • The far-right will likely seize on reports that the Paris attacker, who was shot last week as he wielded a meat cleaver and shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is Greatest), was known to police for drug dealing and harassing women.
  • He had an apartment in an accommodation center for asylum seekers in Recklinghausen, north of Cologne, where he had painted the symbol of Islamic state on the wall of two rooms.
alexdeltufo

GOP debate: Donald Trump-Ted Cruz 'bromance' is over - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

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

shared by alexdeltufo on 15 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Trump and Ted Cruz clashed Thursday in their sharpest -- and most personal -- encounters of the campaign season
  • The 2.5-hour event sponsored by Fox Business Network was filled with testy exchanges between the seven candidates on stage.
  • sparks flew between Marco Rubio and Chris Christie.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • Cruz forcefully responded to Trump's accusations that he isn't eligible to be president because he was born in Canada -- a controversy that Trump has only recently embraced. Read More
  • "There was nothing to this birther issue."
  • "That is not consistent conservatism," he says. "That is political calculation."
  • has repeatedly questioned whether Cruz, whose mother was a U.S. citizen, is a natural born citizen.
  • Cruz noted that some of the more extreme theories on the topic would conclude that someone can only become president if both parents were born in the United States. Under that standard, Cruz noted
  • neligible for the presidency because his mother was born in Scotland.
  • onald, I'm not going to use your mother's birth against you," Cruz said.
  • "Because it wouldn't work."
  • Rubio slammed his fellow senator for hiding behind the pretense of conservative values.
  • "I've said from the beginning, we should take no Syrian refugees of any kind," Christie said.
  • While there has been plenty of animosity between Trump and most of his rivals, the billionaire businessman and Cruz have been on largely friendly territory for much of the campaign season.
  • Asked to explain what that meant, Cruz said New Yorkers tend to hold "socially liberal" views
  • "Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan," he said.
  • "We rebuilt downtown Manhattan and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made."
  • ut if that's the best hit the New York Times has got, they better go back to the well."
  • "Unfortunately, Gov. Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports," the Florida senator said.
  • It appears that "same someone has been whispering in old Marco's ear, too," Christie said.
  • Two years ago, he called me a conservative reformer that New Jersey needed. That was before he was running against me."
  • Trump said, insisting he would not change his mind on the issue.
  • "All Muslims? Seriously? What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world?" Bush said.
  • Trump was more dominant Thursday than in previous debates
  • Christie, meanwhile, blasted the actions as inconsistent with democracy.
  • Fiorina's candidacy has largely been defined by memorable debate performances. And even though she was dropped from the prime-time stage at the debate, she still delivered. Right out of the gate, she dealt a sharp personal attack on Clinton, the Democratic front-runner.
  • "Despite Donald Trump's bromance with Vladimir Putin ... Russia is our adversary," she said.
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