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Javier E

Britain entering first world war was 'biggest error in modern history' | World news | T... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...r-biggest-error-niall-ferguson

history UK WWI

shared by Javier E on 22 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • google_ad_client = 'ca-guardian_js'; google_ad_channel = 'worldnews'; google_max_num_ads = '3'; // Comments Click here to join the discussion. We can't load the discussion on theguardian.com because you don't have JavaScript enabled. if (!!window.postMessage) { jQuery.getScript('http://discussion.theguardian.com/embed.js') } else { jQuery('#d2-root').removeClass('hd').html( '' + 'Comments' + 'Click here to join the discussion.We can\'t load the ' + 'discussion on theguardian.com ' + 'because your web browser does not support all the features that we ' + 'need. If you cannot upgrade your browser to a newer version, you can ' + 'access the discussion ' + 'here.' ); } comp
  • Britain could have lived with a German victory in the first world war, and should have stayed out of the conflict in 1914, according to the historian Niall Ferguson, who described the intervention as "the biggest error in modern history".
  • Britain could indeed have lived with a German victory. What's more, it would have been in Britain's interests to stay out in 1914,
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • "Creating an army more or less from scratch and then sending it into combat against the Germans was a recipe for disastrous losses. And if one asks whether this was the best way for Britain to deal with the challenge posed by imperial Germany, my answer is no.
  • "Even if Germany had defeated France and Russia, it would have had a pretty massive challenge on its hands trying to run the new German-dominated Europe and would have remained significantly weaker than the British empire in naval and financial terms. Given the resources that Britain had available in 1914, a better strategy would have been to wait and deal with the German challenge later when Britain could respond on its own terms, taking advantage of its much greater naval and financial capability."
  • He continued: "The cost, let me emphasise, of the first world war to Britain was catastrophic, and it left the British empire at the end of it all in a much weakened state … It had accumulated a vast debt, the cost of which really limited Britain's military capability throughout the interwar period. Then there was the manpower loss – not just all those aristocratic officers, but the many, many, many skilled workers who died or were permanently incapacitated in the war.
  • He concedes that if Britain had stood back in 1914, it would have reneged on commitments to uphold Belgian neutrality. "But guess what? Realism in foreign policy has a long and distinguished tradition, not least in Britain – otherwise the French would never complain about 'perfidious Albion'. For Britain it would ultimately have been far better to have thought in terms of the national interest rather than in terms of a dated treaty."
sarahbalick

Geraldine Largay's Wrong Turn: Death on the Appalachian Trail - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...y-appalachian-trail-maine.html

trail

shared by sarahbalick on 31 May 16 - No Cached
  • She was afraid of being alone and prone to anxiety, a diminutive 66-year-old woman with a poor sense of direction, hiking the Appalachian Trail by herself, who wandered into terrain so wild, it is used for military training. She waited nearly a month in the Maine woods for help that never came
  • Her last entry reflected a strikingly graceful acceptance of what was coming.
  • “When you find my body, please call my husband George and my daughter Kerry,”
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • t will be the greatest kindness for them to know that I am dead and where you found me — no matter how many years from now.”
  • Ms. Largay, a retired nurse from Tennessee, had survived nearly a month on her own
  • that Geraldine had a poor sense of direction,” the Warden Service’s investigative report said. “Ms. Lee said that Geraldine had taken a wrong turn on the trail, more than once,” and Ms. Largay “became flustered and combative when she made these kinds of mistakes.”
  • Her doctor would tell investigators that once she ran out of the medication she took for anxiety, she could suffer panic attacks.
sarahbalick

Leading Hezbollah commander and key Israel target killed in Syria | World news | The Gu... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...lled-israel-mustafa-badreddine

hezbollah commander israel killed

shared by sarahbalick on 13 May 16 - No Cached
  • Leading
  • Hezbollah
  • commander and key Israel target killed in Syria
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • edia reports in Lebanon and Israel quickly suggested the blast had been caused by an Israeli airstrike, a suggestion to which Hezbollah gave weight, announcing it was investigating whether a “missile or artillery strike” had been responsible.
  • Badreddine was the most senior member of the organisation to have been killed since the
  • death
  • of his predecessor and brother-in-law, Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated by a joint Mossad/CIA operation in the Syrian capital in February 2008.
  • Announcing Badreddine’s death, Hezbollah said: “He said months ago that he would not return from Syria except as a martyr or carrying the flag of victory. He is the great jihadi leader Mustafa Badreddine, and he has returned today a martyr.”
  • The investigation will work to determine the nature of the explosion and its causes, whether it was due to an air or missile or artillery strike, and we will announce the results of the investigation soon.”
  • Hezbollah said he had been involved in nearly all the group’s operations since its inception in the early 1980s. Most had targeted Israel, which occupied Lebanon from 1982-2000. However, Badreddine had also been accused of leading a cell that was allegedly responsible for the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri on the Beirut waterfront in February 2005.
  • Despite Israeli protests, Russia has recently proceeded with a long-delayed sale to Iran of the advanced S-300 weapons system, which can shoot down most modern fighter jets. Israeli officials have said they would prioritise tracking the whereabouts of the systems, the position of which in southern Lebanon would pose a potent threat to their air force.
  • Tens of thousands of mourners are expected to pay their respects at a shrine site for Hezbollah dead, which includes the graves of Imad and Jihad Mughniyah. Nasrallah is also expected to make a public statement – his second within a week. More news Topics Hezbollah Lebanon Iran Israel Middle East and North Africa Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on Pinterest Share on LinkedIn Share on Google+ Share on WhatsApp Save for later Article saved <
liamhudgings

Officials want to clear a mile-long homeless camp on a Sonoma County bike trail. Some d... - 0 views

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

US economics Policy Crisis

shared by liamhudgings on 19 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Pest control workers were using the spread as bait as they installed rat traps -- 340 of them -- throughout the mile-long homeless encampment after infrared video from a sheriff's helicopter revealed a major rodent infestation.
  • A popular biking spot, the trail is now the site of the largest homeless encampment in Sonoma County history. It's also a textbook outcome of the 16% surge last year in homelessness in California -- largely fueled by skyrocketing housing costs -- and the myriad problems that go along with it.
  • "It means lower property values. There are people that are 40 feet away who have townhouses. Who would want to buy their house?"
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • "I absolutely acknowledge the tremendous anger and frustration in the community and in the neighborhood, and it's warranted," said County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, whose district includes the trail.
  • "We're legally mandated to provide alternatives to every single resident along the trail before we move forward with clearing the encampment," Hopkins said. "We really need to get an encampment opened in a place that is actually appropriate for it."
  • the encampment still is rife with open drug use, violence and crime, local officials said. Drug needles recently littered the path amid the piles of trash and junk.
  • "Yes, there are thieves and there are addicts,"
  • "But there are also people struggling that just lost their job. You have to take each case individually."
  • Edwards, who said she worked as a nurse's aide in her home state of Nebraska, followed a boyfriend to California, she said. A bad breakup left her homeless."I hate to think that I will die out here and didn't make anything of myself," she said.
  • But like a lot of people on the trail, Edwards seemed to have no plan or path, indicative of broader challenges associated with the homeless crisis.
  • Using meth, she said, helped ease her mental anguish.
mariedhorne

President Trump Trails Joe Biden by 10 Points Nationally in Final Days of Election - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...l-days-of-election-11604239200

election president politics

shared by mariedhorne on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • President Trump trails by 10 percentage points among voters nationally in the final days of his re-election campaign, facing substantial public anxiety over the coronavirus pandemic but with broad approval of his management of the economy, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.
  • Mr. Biden holds a 6-point lead across those states, 51% to 45%, compared with a 10-point lead last month.
  • In the 41 Journal/NBC News surveys that measured views of how Mr. Trump has handled his office, he said, “there was not a single poll that produced a result where more Americans approved than disapproved of his performance as president.”
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  • The president trails Mr. Biden by 20 percentage points among women in the new survey, 57% to 37%, while leading among men by one point, 48% to 47%.
  • n the 12 state battlegrounds, for example, Mr. Trump leads by 21 points among white men, compared with a 12-point lead among that group nationally. Among seniors, Mr. Trump trails Mr. Biden by 11 points in battleground states, compared with the 23-point deficit nationally.
  • The Journal/NBC News poll interviewed 1,000 registered voters nationally from Oct. 29-31. The margin of error for that sample is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
  • President Trump has 37% support among women in his race against former Vice President Joe Biden, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds. A prior version of the story said he had 35% support. (Nov. 1, 2020)
lilyrashkind

Westward Expansion - Timeline, Events & Facts - HISTORY - 0 views

www.history.com/...westward-expansion

expansion history

shared by lilyrashkind on 16 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson purchased the territory of Louisiana from the French government for $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to New Orleans, and it doubled the size of the United States. To Jefferson, westward expansion was the key to the nation’s health: He believed that a republic depended on an independent, virtuous citizenry for its survival, and that independence and virtue went hand in hand with land ownership, especially the ownership of small farms.
  • On the contrary, as one historian writes, in the six decades after the Louisiana Purchase, westward expansion “very nearly destroy[ed] the republic.”
  • By 1840, nearly 7 million Americans–40 percent of the nation’s population–lived in the trans-Appalachian West. Following a trail blazed by Lewis and Clark, most of these people had left their homes in the East in search of economic opportunity. Like Thomas Jefferson, many of these pioneers associated westward migration, land ownership and farming with freedom. In Europe, large numbers of factory workers formed a dependent and seemingly permanent working class; by contrast, in the United States, the western frontier offered the possibility of independence and upward mobility for all. In 1843, one thousand pioneers took to the Oregon Trail as part of the “Great Emigration.”
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • to carry the “great experiment of liberty” to the edge of the continent: to “overspread and to possess the whole of the [land] which Providence has given us,” O’Sullivan wrote. The survival of American freedom depended on it.
  • Meanwhile, the question of whether or not slavery would be allowed in the new western states shadowed every conversation about the frontier. In 1820, the Missouri Compromise had attempted to resolve this question: It had admitted Missouri to the union as a slave state and Maine as a free state, preserving the fragile balance in Congress. More important, it had stipulated that in the future, slavery would be prohibited north of the southern boundary of Missouri (the 36º30’ parallel) in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase.
  • They did not necessarily object to slavery itself, but they resented the way its expansion seemed to interfere with their own economic opportunity.
  • In 1837, American settlers in Texas joined with their Tejano neighbors (Texans of Spanish origin) and won independence from Mexico. They petitioned to join the United States as a slave state.
  • This promised to upset the careful balance that the Missouri Compromise had achieved, and the annexation of Texas and other Mexican territories did not become a political priority until the enthusiastically expansionist cotton planter James K. Polk was elected to the presidency in 1844. Thanks to the maneuvering of Polk and his allies, Texas joined the union as a slave state in February 1846; in June, after negotiations with Great Britain, Oregon joined as a free state.
  • Wilmot’s measure failed to pass, but it made explicit once again the sectional conflict that haunted the process of westward expansion.
  • In 1848, the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican War and added more than 1 million square miles, an area larger than the Louisiana Purchase, to the United States. The acquisition of this land re-opened the question that the Missouri Compromise had ostensibly settled: What would be the status of slavery in new American territories? After two years of increasingly volatile debate over the issue, Kentucky Senator Henry Clay proposed another compromise. It had four parts: first, California would enter the Union as a free state; second, the status of slavery in the rest of the Mexican territory would be decided by the people who lived there; third, the slave trade (but not slavery) would be abolished in Washington, D.C.; and fourth, a new Fugitive Slave Act would enable Southerners to reclaim runaway slaves who had escaped to Northern states where slavery was not allowed.
  • A decade later, the civil war in Kansas over the expansion of slavery was followed by a national civil war over the same issue. As Thomas Jefferson had predicted, it was the question of slavery in the West–a place that seemed to be the emblem of American freedom–that proved to be “the knell of the union.”
andrespardo

Will Florida be lost forever to the climate crisis? | Environment | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-crisis-sea-level-habitat-loss

enviro climate change global warming

shared by andrespardo on 23 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • Few places on the planet are more at risk from the climate crisis than south Florida, where more than 8 million residents are affected by the convergence of almost every modern environmental challenge – from rising seas to contaminated drinking water, more frequent and powerful hurricanes, coastal erosion, flooding and vanishing wildlife and habitat.
  • Below are some of the biggest threats posed by the climate crisis to south Florida today, along with solutions under consideration. Some of these solutions will have a lasting impact on the fight. Others, in many cases, are only delaying the inevitable. But in every situation, doing something is preferable to doing nothing at all.
  • Sea level rise The threat: By any estimation, Florida is drowning. In some scenarios, sea levels will rise up to 31in by 2060, a devastating prediction for a region that already deals regularly with tidal flooding and where an estimated 120,000 properties on or near the water are at risk. The pace of the rise is also hastening, scientists say – it took 31 years for the waters around Miami to rise by six inches, while the next six inches will take only 15 more.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • The cost: The participating counties and municipalities are contributing to a $4bn statewide spend, including Miami Beach’s $400m Forever Bond, a $1bn stormwater plan and $250m of improvements to Broward county’s sewage systems to protect against flooding and seawater seepage. In the Keys, many consider the estimated $60m a mile cost of raising roads too expensive.
  • The threat: Saltwater from sea level rise is seeping further inland through Florida’s porous limestone bedrock and contaminating underground freshwater supplies, notably in the Biscayne aquifer, the 4,000-sq mile shallow limestone basin that provides drinking water to millions in southern Florida. Years of over-pumping and toxic runoff from farming and the sugar industry in central Florida and the Everglades have worsened the situation. The Florida department of environmental protection warned in March that “existing sources of water will not adequately meet the reasonable beneficial needs for the next 20 years”. A rising water table, meanwhile, has exacerbated problems with south Florida’s ageing sewage systems. Since December, millions of gallons of toxic, raw sewage have spilled on to Fort Lauderdale’s streets from a series of pipe failures.
  • The cost: The Everglades restoration plan was originally priced at $7.8bn, rose to $10.5bn, and has since ballooned to $16.4bn. Donald Trump’s proposed 2021 federal budget includes $250m for Everglades restoration. The estimated $1.8bn cost of the reservoir will be split between federal and state budgets.
  • Possible solutions
  • The cost: With homeowners and businesses largely bearing their own costs, the specific amount spent on “hurricane-proofing” in Florida is impossible to know. A 2018 Pew research study documented $1.3bn in hazard mitigation grants from federal and state funding in 2017, along with a further $8bn in post-disaster grants. Florida is spending another $633m from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development on resiliency planning.
  • Wildlife and habitat loss The threat: Florida’s native flora and fauna are being devastated by climate change, with the Florida Natural Areas Inventory warning that a quarter of the 1,200 species it tracks is set to lose more than half their existing habitat, and the state’s beloved manatees and Key deer are at risk of extinction. Warmer and more acidic seas reduce other species’ food stocks and exacerbate the deadly red-tide algal blooms that have killed incalculable numbers of fish, turtles, dolphins and other marine life. Bleaching and stony coral tissue disease linked to the climate crisis threaten to hasten the demise of the Great Florida Reef, the only living coral reef in the continental US. Encroaching saltwater has turned Big Pine Key, a crucial deer habitat, into a ghost forest.
  • As for the Key deer, of which fewer than 1,000 remain, volunteers leave clean drinking water to replace salt-contaminated watering holes as herds retreat to higher ground. A longer-term debate is under way on the merits and ethics of relocating the species to other areas of Florida or the US.
  • Coastal erosion The threat: Tourist brochures showcase miles of golden, sandy beaches in South Florida, but the reality is somewhat different. The Florida department of environmental protection deems the entire coastline from Miami to Cape Canaveral “critically eroded”, the result of sea level rise, historically high tides and especially storm surges from a succession of powerful hurricanes. In south-eastern Florida’s Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, authorities are waging a continuous war on sand loss, eager to maintain their picture-perfect image and protect two of their biggest sources of income, tourism dollars and lucrative property taxes from waterfront homes and businesses.
  • In the devastating hurricane season just one year before, major storms named Harvey, Maria and Irma combined to cause damage estimated at $265bn. Scientists have evidence the climate crisis is causing cyclones to be more powerful, and intensify more quickly, and Florida’s position at the end of the Atlantic Ocean’s “hurricane alley” makes it twice as vulnerable as any other state.
  • With the other option abandoning beaches to the elements, city and county commissions have little choice but costly replenishment projects with sand replacement and jetty construction. Federal law prohibits the importation of cheaper foreign sand, so the municipalities must source a more expensive alternative from US markets, often creating friction with residents who don’t want to part with their sand. Supplementary to sand replenishment, the Nature Conservancy is a partner in a number of nature-based coastal defense projects from West Palm Beach to Miami.
  • benefited from 61,000 cubic yards of new sand this year at a cost of $16m. Statewide, Florida spends an average $50m annually on beach erosion.
  • The threat: “Climate gentrification” is a buzzword around south Florida, a region barely 6ft above sea level where land has become increasingly valuable in elevated areas. Speculators and developers are eyeing historically black, working-class and poorer areas, pushing out long-term residents and replacing affordable housing with upscale developments and luxury accommodations that only the wealthy can afford.
  • No study has yet calculated the overall cost of affordable housing lost to the climate crisis. Private developers will bear the expense of mitigating the impact on the neighborhood – $31m in Magic City’s case over 15 years to the Little Haiti Revitalization Trust, largely for new “green” affordable housing. The University of Miami’s housing solutions lab has a $300,000 grant from JPMorgan to report on the impact of rising seas to South Florida’s affordable housing stocks and recommend modifications to prevent it from flooding and other climate events. A collaboration of not-for-profit groups is chasing $75m in corporate funding for affordable housing along the 70-mile south Florida rail trail from Miami to West Palm Beach, with the first stage, a $5m project under way to identify, build and renovate 300 units.
  • Florida has long been plagued by political leadership more in thrall to the interests of big industry than the environment. As governor from 2011 to 2019, Rick Scott, now a US senator, slashed $700m from Florida’s water management budget, rolled back environmental regulations and enforcement, gave a free ride to polluters, and flip-flopped over expanding offshore oil drilling. The politician who came to be known as “Red Tide Rick”, for his perceived inaction over 2018’s toxic algae bloom outbreaks, reportedly banned the words “climate change” and “global warming” from state documents.
  • Last month, state legislators approved the first dedicated climate bill. It appears a promising start for a new administration, but activists say more needs to be done. In January, the Sierra Club awarded DeSantis failing grades in an environmental report card, saying he failed to protect Florida’s springs and rivers and approved new roads that threatened protected wildlife.
  • The cost: Florida’s spending on the environment is increasing. The state budget passed last month included $650m for Everglades restoration and water management projects (an instalment of DeSantis’s $2.5bn four-year pledge) and $100m for Florida Forever. A $100m bridge project jointly funded by the state and federal governments will allow the free flow of water under the Tamiami Trail for the first time in decades.
  • Florida has woken up to the threat of climate change but it is not yet clear how effective the response will be. The challenges are innumerable, the costs immense and the political will to fix or minimize the issues remains questionable, despite recent progress. At stake is the very future of one of the largest and most diverse states in the nation, in terms of both its population and its environment. Action taken now will determine its survival.
davisem

Obama calls on Americans to reject 'politics of fear' - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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

shared by davisem on 20 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Former President Barack Obama returned the campaign trail Thursday with a warning about the current state of politics in America.
  • The 44th president did not mention his successor by name in his remarks, which were interrupted with chants of "four more years" from the crowd. President Donald Trump has actively taken steps to attack Obama's legacy in recent weeks, including on Iran, immigration and health care.
  • The appearance for Murphy, who served as Obama's ambassador to Germany from 2009 to 2013, marked the first foray onto the campaign trail for the former president since he left office in January.
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  • Obama made another campaign stop Thursday in Virginia, where he campaigned with Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, who is running against Republican Ed Gillespie, a former adviser to George W. Bush and chairman of the Republican National Committee, in the race to succeed Democrat Terry McAuliffe as governor.
  • Obama also touched on the violent clashes that occurred at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville over the summer."We don't rise up by repeating the past. We rise up by learning from the past," Obama said.
anniina03

How Impeachment Will Force Senators Off the Campaign Trail - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...atic-senators-impeachment.html

politics US trump Policy

shared by anniina03 on 15 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • It’s the fourth quarter. The game is close. And you are benched. That could sum up the frustrations of four senators — two of them front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination — who will be duty bound to leave the campaign trail next week to sit in judgment of President Trump.
  • With members of the Senate serving as official jurors who will determine Mr. Trump’s guilt or innocence, three participants in Tuesday’s debate, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, must head back to Washington in the midst of the campaign.
  • During a rally in Iowa last week, Mr. Sanders, a leading contender as well, complained about the interruption, but also emphasized duty. Editors’ PicksThe Sex Scene Evolves for the #MeToo EraTech Bro Uniform Meets Margaret Thatcher. Disruption Ensues.The Cookbooks You Need for 2020, as Selected by ChefsAdvertisementContinue reading the main story“Between you and me I’d rather be here in Iowa, but I have a constitutional responsibility, which I accept as a United States senator, to be a juror in Trump’s impeachment trial,” he said. “So I’ll be there.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • “Having your competitors stuck in Washington, literally in their seat, while you’re hitting the campaign trail? Well, that seems like a pretty good advantage to me,” Mr. Cornyn said on the Senate floor. Mr. Biden, though, pointed out during the debate that his family had also suffered as a result of the allegations that led to Mr. Trump’s impeachment.
rerobinson03

As Election Day Arrives, Trump Shifts Between Combativeness and Grievance - The New Yor... - 0 views

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

shared by rerobinson03 on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • President Trump arrives at Election Day on Tuesday toggling between confidence and exasperation, bravado and grievance, and marinating in frustration that he is trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr., whom he considers an unworthy opponent.
  • Trailing in most polls, Mr. Trump has careened through a marathon series of rallies in the last week, trying to tear down Mr. Biden and energize his supporters, but also fixated on crowd size and targeting perceived enemies like the news media and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s infectious disease expert whom he suggested on Sunday he might try to dismiss after the election.
  • At every turn, the president has railed that the voting system is rigged against him and has threatened to sue when the election is over, in an obvious bid to undermine an electoral process strained by the coronavirus pandemic
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • and perhaps the hope that everything will work out for him in the end, the way it did four years ago when he surprised himself, his advisers and the world by winning the White House.
  • But by enclosing himself in the thin bubble of his own worldview, Mr. Trump may have further severed himself from the political realities of a country in crisis. And that, in turn, has helped enable Mr. Trump to wage a campaign offering no central message, no clear agenda for a second term and no answer to the woes of the pandemic.
  • Beyond the capital, though, some Republicans insist that Mr. Trump can again defy the odds, and that a devoted base will fuel a traditional G.O.P. surge in Election Day voters.
  • Seldom far from Mr. Trump’s thoughts, however, is the possibility of defeat — and the potential consequences of being ejected from the White House.
  • In unguarded moments, Mr. Trump has for weeks told advisers that he expects to face intensifying scrutiny from prosecutors if he loses. He is concerned not only about existing investigations in New York, but the potential for new federal probes as well, according to people who have spoken with him.
  • Mr. Trump’s advisers do continue to believe he has a realistic chance of besting Mr. Biden, but they concede it would take a last-minute breakthrough in one of the Great Lakes states where he is currently trailing.
  • The president himself has done little to strengthen his chances in the final days of the race.
  • He has frequently used his speeches to deliver long diatribes against Mr. Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, even though some Trump advisers believe the whole subject is a sideshow in the midst of a public-health disaster. But Trump associates say he simply enjoys attacking the Biden family.
  • What confounds some Republicans is how little Mr. Trump is discussing last month’s confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court; some G.O.P. senators have made that achievement a centerpiece of their campaigns.
zarinastone

As Election Day Arrives, Trump Shifts Between Combativeness and Grievance - The New Yor... - 0 views

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

election Politics US Trump

shared by zarinastone on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • President Trump arrives at Election Day on Tuesday toggling between confidence and exasperation, bravado and grievance, and marinating in frustration that he is trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr., whom he considers an unworthy opponent.
  • Trailing in most polls, Mr. Trump has careened through a marathon series of rallies in the last week, trying to tear down Mr. Biden and energize his supporters, but also fixated on crowd size and targeting perceived enemies like the news media and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s infectious disease expert whom he suggested on Sunday he might try to dismiss after the election.
  • It is not clear, however, precisely what legal instruments Mr. Trump believes he has at his disposal.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • perhaps the hope that everything will work out for him in the end, the way it did four years ago when he surprised himself, his advisers and the world by winning the White House.
  • Seldom far from Mr. Trump’s thoughts, however, is the possibility of defeat — and the potential consequences of being ejected from the White House.
  • He is concerned not only about existing investigations in New York, but the potential for new federal probes as well, according to people who have spoken with him.
  • He has also mused about prematurely declaring victory Tuesday night, but if there’s any organized plan to do so his top lieutenants are not conveying it to their allies.
  • Mr. Trump’s advisers do continue to believe he has a realistic chance of besting Mr. Biden, but they concede it would take a last-minute breakthrough in one of the Great Lakes states where he is currently trailing.
  • Though Mr. Trump has reconstituted parts of his 2016 inner circle in the waning days of the race, the operation lacks a figure who is both willing and able to force the president to stick to a script.
  • Some Republicans appear to be looking past the end of the Trump era, whether that comes on Tuesday night or in another few years.
Javier E

Damned by his own words: Democrats follow Trump's wide-open multimedia trail | Trump im... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...nt-trial-evidence-video-tweets

trump multimedia twitter trail impeachment history

shared by Javier E on 11 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • The spectacular irony was that a man who thrived on grabbing attention on TV and social media had left a trail of digital clues that ought to lead all the way to conviction. It was the 21st-century equivalent of a Victorian diary in which the master criminal brags about how he did it.
nataliedepaulo1

Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking - The ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...p-russia-election-hacking.html

shared by nataliedepaulo1 on 02 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON — In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government. Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.
  • Beyond leaving a trail for investigators, the Obama administration also wanted to help European allies combat a threat that had caught the United States off guard. American intelligence agencies made it clear in the declassified version of the intelligence assessment released in January that they believed Russia intended to use its attacks on the United States as a template for more meddling. “We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned,” the report said, “to future influence efforts worldwide, including against U.S. allies.”
Javier E

Russell Brand on revolution: "We no longer have the luxury of tradition" - 0 views

www.newstatesman.com/...russell-brand-on-revolution

revolution activism conservativism crisis politics spiritual

shared by Javier E on 29 Nov 13 - No Cached
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  • The right has all the advantages, just as the devil has all the best tunes. Conservatism appeals to our selfishness and fear, our desire and self-interest; they neatly nurture and then harvest the inherent and incubating individualism. I imagine that neurologically the pathway travelled by a fearful or selfish impulse is more expedient and well travelled than the route of the altruistic pang. In simple terms of circuitry I suspect it is easier to connect these selfish inclinations.
  • This natural, neurological tendency has been overstimulated and acculturated. Materialism and individualism do in moderation make sense.
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  • Biomechanically we are individuals, clearly. On the most obvious frequency of our known sensorial reality we are independent anatomical units. So we must take care of ourselves. But with our individual survival ensured there is little satisfaction to be gained by enthroning and enshrining ourselves as individuals.
  • For me the solution has to be primarily spiritual and secondarily political.
  • By spiritual I mean the acknowledgement that our connection to one another and the planet must be prioritised. Buckminster Fuller outlines what ought be our collective objectives succinctly: “to make the world work for 100 per cent of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous co-operation without ecological offence or the disadvantage of anyone”. This maxim is the very essence of “easier said than done” as it implies the dismantling of our entire socio-economic machinery. By teatime.
  • The price of privilege is poverty. David Cameron said in his conference speech that profit is “not a dirty word”. Profit is the most profane word we have. In its pursuit we have forgotten that while individual interests are being met, we as a whole are being annihilated. The reality, when not fragmented through the corrupting lens of elitism, is we are all on one planet.
  • Suffering of this magnitude affects us all. We have become prisoners of comfort in the absence of meaning. A people without a unifying myth. Joseph Campbell, the comparative mythologist, says our global problems are all due to the lack of relevant myths.
Javier E

The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World's Richest - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...longer-the-worlds-richest.html

income US international comparison rich poor growth

shared by Javier E on 23 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • After-tax middle-class incomes in Canada — substantially behind in 2000 — now appear to be higher than in the United States
  • The poor in much of Europe earn more than poor Americans.
  • Finally, governments in Canada and Western Europe take more aggressive steps to raise the take-home pay of low- and middle-income households by redistributing income.
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  • the most commonly cited economic statistics — such as per capita gross domestic product — continue to show that the United States has maintained its lead as the world’s richest large country. But those numbers are averages, which do not capture the distribution of income.
  • Three broad factors appear to be driving much of the weak income performance in the United States. First, educational attainment in the United States has risen far more slowly than in much of the industrialized world over the last three decades, making it harder for the American economy to maintain its share of highly skilled, well-paying jobs.
  • technology skills that are above average relative to 55- to 65-year-olds in rest of the industrialized world
  • Younger Americans, though, are not keeping pace: Those between 16 and 24 rank near the bottom among rich countries, well behind their counterparts in Canada, Australia, Japan and Scandinavia
  • The struggles of the poor in the United States are even starker than those of the middle class. A family at the 20th percentile of the income distribution in this country makes significantly less money than a similar family in Canada, Sweden, Norway, Finland or the Netherlands. Thirty-five years ago, the reverse was true.
  • Whatever the causes, the stagnation of income has left many Americans dissatisfied with the state of the country. Only about 30 percent of people believe the country is headed in the right direction,
  • both opinion surveys and interviews suggest that the public mood in Canada and Northern Europe is less sour than in the United States today.
  • Elsewhere in Europe, economic growth has been slower in the last few years than in the United States, as the Continent has struggled to escape the financial crisis. But incomes for most families in Sweden and several other Northern European countries have still outpaced those in the United States, where much of the fruits of recent economic growth have flowed into corporate profits or top incomes.
  • Even in Germany, though, the poor have fared better than in the United States, where per capita income has declined between 2000 and 2010 at the 40th percentile, as well as at the 30th, 20th, 10th and 5th.
  • the poor in the United States have trailed their counterparts in at least a few other countries since the early 1980s. With slow income growth since then, the American poor now clearly trail the poor in several other rich countries. At the 20th percentile — where someone is making less than four-fifths of the population — income in both the Netherlands and Canada was 15 percent higher than income in the United States in 2010.
  • By contrast, Americans at the 95th percentile of the distribution — with $58,600 in after-tax per capita income, not including capital gains — still make 20 percent more than their counterparts in Canada, 26 percent more than those in Britain and 50 percent more than those in the Netherlands. For these well-off families, the United States still has easily the world’s most prosperous major economy.
dpittenger

Following the tangled and treacherous trail after France terror attack - 0 views

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

france terror attack crisis

shared by dpittenger on 14 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • dpittenger on 14 Jan 15
     
    This article talks about who is behind the Paris attacks. It talks about the charges that some people are facing and about Hayat Boumeddiene. It ends with questioning if France could be attacked again.
katyshannon

Obama budget rejected by House Republicans - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

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

obama budget republicans house proposal politics US crisis

shared by katyshannon on 10 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • President Barack Obama checked off another "last" of his White House tenure Tuesday, submitting his final budget proposal to Congress amid the growing din from the campaign trail.
  • The $4.1 trillion annual budget plan -- nearly always deemed "dead on arrival" to the Republican-controlled Congress -- appeared particularly lifeless this year: Republicans said before the document even arrived they would break the long precedent of hearing from the President's budget chief as they draft their own fiscal blueprint.
  • Like lame-duck presidents before him, Obama submitted a final budget that includes funding for his top legacy priorities, including combating climate change and expanding health insurance coverage. The plan seeks to increase revenue from taxes by $2.6 trillion over the next decade, largely by changing tax laws.
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  • Obama's budget drafters said the deficit would decrease in the next fiscal year, which begins in October, going from $616 billion to $503 billion. Over the next decade, though, they said the deficit would increase amid increased spending on older Americans' health care.
  • "The budget is a road map to a future that embodies America's values and aspirations: a future of opportunity and security for all of our families; a rising standard of living; and a sustainable, peaceful planet for our kids," Obama wrote in a message to lawmakers. "This future is within our reach. But just as it took the collective efforts of the American people to rise from the recession and rebuild an even stronger economy, so will it take all of us working together to meet the challenges that lie ahead."
  • "It is clear that this President will not put forth the budget effort that our times and our country require. Instead of hearing from an administration unconcerned with our $19 trillion in debt, we should focus on how to reform America's broken budget process and restore the trust of hardworking taxpayers," the Senate Budget Chairman Sen. Mike Enzi wrote.
  • $1 billion in new funding for treating opioid addiction, a national epidemic that's taken prominence on the presidential campaign trail, and another billion for cancer research as part of Vice President Joe Biden's "moonshot" initiative.
  • also includes bolstering spending on national security priorities, including $7.5 billion in new spending to combat ISIS and $3.4 billion to step up military presence in Europe in a bid to counter Russian President Vladimir Putin. Another $19 billion would go toward bolstering the country's cybersecurity through updating information technology systems.
  • The Republican chairmen of the Senate and House budget committees said last week they were forgoing the decades-long tradition of hearing testimony from the director of the Office of Management and Budget, claiming they expected Obama's budget to offer little in debt reduction.
  • In parts, the document reads like a "good riddance" letter to a GOP-led Congress that's offered Obama little in terms of bipartisan compromise. A $10.25-per-barrel fee on oil, meant to pay for needed infrastructure projects and a transition to green transportation systems, only enraged Republicans when it was announced last week. An increase in funding to Wall Street regulators is also unlikely to meet approval from the GOP, as is a $1.3 billion request for accelerating the use of clean energy sources.
  • The decision enraged Democrats, who said the decision broke four decades of precedent. Democrats on the Senate Budget panel noted that a hearing on the President's budget request was held even in 2004, when toxic ricin was found in a Senate office mail room."Even under those extraordinary circumstances, the committee carried out its duties," the panel's Democrats said. "The year, with no unusual circumstances to prevent us from doing our work, we have been provided with no reasonable explanation for the decision not to hold a hearing," wrote Democratic members of the House Budget panel.
johnsonma23

ISIS trail of Terror | Is ISIS a Threat to the U.S.? - ABC News - 0 views

abcnews.go.com/...terror-isis-threat-us-25053190

ISIS US crisis

shared by johnsonma23 on 19 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • AQI was weakened in Iraq in 2007 as a result of what is known as the Sunni Awakening, when a large alliance of Iraqi Sunni tribes, supported by the U.S., fought against the jihadist group. AQI saw an opportunity to regain its power and expand its ranks in the Syrian conflict
  • Although originally an al Qaeda affiliate, ISIS and al-Baghdadi had a public falling out in 2013 with Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s replacement and leader of al Qaeda “core,” over the role of another al Qaeda group, the al-Nursa Front, in Syria
  • ISIS saw a series of successes as it has cut its way from Syria into Iraq and towards Baghdad using a combination of military expertise and unimaginable brutality.
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  • The Iraqi government and much of its military officer corps are mostly made up of Shi’a Muslims, whereas much of the areas ISIS has retained in Iraq are predominantly Sunni
  • the Iraqi military forces are often operating in areas where the local population may be more willing to tolerate, or even support ISIS
  • authorities in the U.S. announced they had arrested an Ohio man and ISIS supporter who planned to bomb the U.S. Capitol.
  • ISIS primarily focused its attention on its regional ambitions prior to the U.S.-led bombing campaig
  • One of the gunmen in a dual terror attack in Paris in January 2015 claimed that he was part of ISIS, though the other shooters in that attack were linked to an al Qaeda affiliate.
  • The U.S.-led coalition against ISIS expanded its aggressive bombing campaign against the group into Syria in September 2014 and has bombarded the terror group virtually daily since.
  • , Western intelligence agencies are concerned about those who travel to Syria and Iraq to fight with ISIS before coming back home.
johnsonma23

Joe Biden praises Bernie Sanders on income inequality, calls Hillary Clinton 'relativel... - 0 views

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

biden inequality hillary US politics

shared by johnsonma23 on 12 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Biden praises Sanders on income inequality, calls Clinton 'relatively new' to the fight
  • anders has sufficiently come around on the issue of gun control, Biden said, even as the Clinton campaign continued to launch withering criticism of Sanders' past vote allowing legal immunity for gun manufacturers
  • he suggested Clinton was a newcomer to issues like the growing gap between rich and poor.
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  • "It's relatively new for Hillary to talk about that," Biden continued, acknowledging that Clinton has "come forward with some really thoughtful approaches to deal with the issue" of income inequality.
  • "Hillary's focus has been other things up to now, and that's been Bernie's -- no one questions Bernie's authenticity on those issues," he said.
  • Biden expressed little shock that Sanders was drawing ample support among Democrats, claiming that Sanders' self-identification as a socialist mattered little to his party's voters.
  • Vice President Joe Biden offered effusive praise for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders Monday, lauding Hillary Clinton's chief rival for doing a "heck of a job" on the campaign trail
  • you can limit who can own a gun, that people who are criminals shouldn't have guns,
  • "People who are schizophrenic and have mental illnesses shouldn't own guns. And he has said that."
  • Biden offered little praise for the leading Republican in the presidential race, saying Donald Trump would likely come to wish he hadn't used such disparaging language in this year's context.
  • "If Donald Trump gets the nomination and wins the election, if he's as smart as I think, he's going to regret having said the things he's said and done,
  • But Biden did reveal a longing for the campaign trail, a setting he occupied regularly for four decades as a U.S. senator,
  • The onetime prospect that Beau might have to resign as Delaware's attorney general, due to potential cognitive complications after a stroke, prompted a striking moment between Obama and the vice president, Biden recalled
Javier E

Review: Eric Fair's 'Consequence,' a Memoir by a Former Abu Ghraib Interrogator - The N... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...r-abu-ghraib-interrogator.html

torture US policy mideast

shared by Javier E on 05 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Powerful and damning accounts of the Bush administration’s determination to work what Vice President Dick Cheney called “the dark side” and its elaborate efforts to legalize torture (including arduous attempts to narrowly define torture as leading to “serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage” is likely to result) can be found in two essential books, “The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib,” edited by Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel, and “Standard Operating Procedure,” by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris
  • An important personal perspective is now provided by Eric Fair’s candid and chilling new book, “Consequence,” which is at once an agonized confession of his own complicity as an interrogator at Abu Ghraib and an indictment of the system that enabled and tried to justify torture.
  • In 2007, Mr. Fair says, he confessed everything to a lawyer from the Department of Justice and two agents from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, providing pictures, letters, names, firsthand accounts, locations and techniques. He was not prosecuted. “We tortured people the right way,” he writes, “following the right procedures, and used the approved techniques.”
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  • Mr. Fair, however, became increasingly racked by guilt. He begins having nightmares. Nightmares in which “someone I know begins to shrink,” becoming so small “they slip through my fingers and disappear onto the floor.” Nightmares in which “there’s a large pool of blood on the floor” that moves as if it’s alive, nipping at his feet.
  • Mr. Fair draws an alarming portrait of CACI as “disorganized and unprofessional” in its deployment of civilians, not to mention “dangerous and irresponsible”: “as former soldiers and marines, none of us were comfortable with the lack of planning, lack of support and lack of proper supplies,” he writes. “No weapons, no communications equipment, no maps and nothing for first aid. We all expect something to go wrong very soon.”
  • detainees “are given no information about their status,” he observes, “and they have no way of knowing when or if they will see their families again. Some of them are guilty; some of them are not. All of them are jailed under intolerable circumstances.” Military intelligence officers would tell the Red Cross that an estimated 70 percent to 90 percent of the detainees had been arrested by mistake.
  • He writes that he and his colleagues were encouraged by supervisors to be “creative,” that they often struggled to understand what detainees were saying because of dialect problems, and that they learned to justify “the use of different forms of torture by calling them enhanced techniques and filling out the appropriate paperwork.
  • At home, he will come to realize that he needs to earn his way back as a human being: He does not believe he will ever be redeemed, but thinks he is “obligated to try.”
  • He is still haunted by voices: “the voice of the general from the comfortable interrogation booth, the cries from the hard site, the sobs from the Palestinian chair and the sound of the old man’s head hitting the wall.”“It is nearly impossible to silence them,” he writes. “As I know it should be.”
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