Skip to main content

Home/ History Readings/ Contents contributed and discussions participated by alexdeltufo

Contents contributed and discussions participated by alexdeltufo

alexdeltufo

The year of the hated: Clinton and Trump, two intensely disliked candidates, begin thei... - 0 views

  • If the rise of Trump has no obvious precedent, neither does an election like this. Clinton, whose buoyant favorable ratings in the State Department convinced some Democrats that she could
  • “In the history of polling, we’ve basically never had a candidate viewed negatively by half of the electorate,” wrote Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) in a widely shared note that asked someone, anyone, to mount a third-party run.
  • “Everybody likes her,” said Pamela Hatwood, 51, a nurse on disability leave who was fanning herself with an extra Clinton sign in a sweltering gym in Indianapolis last week
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • “I’m not worried about the polls. They’re good one week; they’re bad the next week. I
  • “You see it on TV, and you assume it’s some place far away, don’t you?” she said. “You hear this hateful talk about women, and you want to say: Enough, enough! That’s not who we are.”
  • “When he first announced, I kind of rolled my eyes, too,” Fuller said about Trump. “But I got it soon enough.
  • Trump meandered his way toward a discussion of why he could win. He has spoken more about poll numbers, in his set speeches, than any candidate in the same position. He tends to focus on the numbers that show him competitive
  • “Look at what went on at the Trump rallies just this week. They were the socialists, the communists, NARAL, Occupy Wall Street. Those people are going to exist, and a lot of them are paid protesters.”
  • Another theory is that his support could be so robust from white voters — who have steadily trended Republican — that he could capi­tal­ize on Clinton’s unfavorable numbers and win.
  • Clinton’s strategy assumes she has lost voters’ esteem since then. Even before the unexpectedly stiff challenge of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont
  • Eight years ago, both she and Obama campaigned on “clean coal.” This year, she has said that “we’ve got to move away from coal” and put “a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” as the economy gets greener. (Sanders has roughly the same position but has not received the same backlash.)
  • Indiana ended the campaign of Trump’s last serious rival, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), another candidate who was navigating soaring unfavorable ratings. In his final days, Cruz regularly made four or five campaign stops, o
  • “Maybe in the Hillary Clinton camp, he’s unpopular. Maybe among some of these other Republicans like John Boehner
  • ‘Well, that is his plateau. He won’t go higher.’ ”
  • Sanders said.
alexdeltufo

Trump v Republican elite - the split explained - BBC News - 0 views

  • Trump isn't your typical conservative.
  • "I think what a lot of Republicans want to see is that we have a standard bearer that bears our standards." House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday,
  • and the fact that his message has earned him millions of Republican votes suggests a fracture between the grassroots and leadership.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Both President Ronald Reagan and President George HW Bush extended amnesty to millions of undocumented workers while in office. Mainstream Republican figures such as Florida Senator Marco Rubio initially favoured similar immigration reforms that would have provided a "path to citizenship",
  • advocated deporting nearly 11 million undocumented workers
  • Almost all Republicans oppose abortion. In recent years, Republican-controlled state legislatures have supported a wave of regulations that have limited access to abortions - new laws that have been met with legal challenges.
  • Although the group is one of the leading abortion providers in the US, the health care organisation also provides cancer screenings, contraception and screening and treatment for sexual transmitted diseases.
  • This flexibility has convinced many social conservatives that Mr Trump cannot be trusted to appoint a Supreme Court justice who would oppose abortion rights.
  • any Republicans in the Congress currently support the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pending trade agreement between the US and many Pacific Rim countries.
  • Most Republicans oppose tariffs, saying they would spark a trade war that would damage the economy.
  • Republicans have long supported a muscular foreign policy and have not shied away from supporting the use of military force aboard. While generally opposed to government spending,
  • While Mr Trump has supported strengthening the military, he says he would do so by extracting concessions from allies.
  • A key faction of the Republican Party is made of fiscal conservatives who view the federal deficit as a major long-term problem for the country.
  • have long supported changes to Social Security and Medicare that would turn those programmes over to the private market.
  • Mr Trump has said he would not make cuts or changes to those programmes and instead he would bolster their funding sources by strengthening the US economy and reallocating some foreign aid to the coffers of Social Security and Medicare.
alexdeltufo

#Frisco5 protest: US 'police racism' hunger strike ends in San Francisco - BBC News - 0 views

  • Dubbed the Frisco Five, they accuse Greg Suhr of heading a racist force following the shootings by officers of three men from ethnic minority groups.
  • They said their cause would be better served by "staying and fighting" than by "starving and dying".
  • They remain in hospital where they were admitted on Friday to be monitored.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • A statement on the Hunger For Justice #Frisco5 Facebook page said that "the whole community" had asked for Sellassie Blackwell, Ilyich Sato, Edwin Lindo, Maria Cristina Gutierrez and Ike Pinkston to end their hunger strike on Saturday so they could "return to the front lines and help shape this movement and the pursuit of justice for the black and brown citizens of San Francisco".
  • Ed Lee was not in his office, but spoke to the hunger strikers by phone on Thursday, saying he had no plans to fire Mr Suhr.
  • There are more than 1,000 fatal shootings by police in the US each year, and those killed are disproportionately African-American.
alexdeltufo

Israel's Netanyahu criticises military official over Nazi claim - BBC News - 0 views

  • Maj-Gen Yair Golan said on the eve of Thursday's annual Holocaust Day that he detected trends in Israeli society suggestive of "nauseating processes" that occurred in 1930s Nazi Germany.
  • Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said he had "total confidence" in Gen Golan.
  • "There is, after all, nothing easier and simpler than hating the foreigner... arousing fears and terrifying."
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • But Mr Netanyahu said Gen Golan's remarks were "utterly mistaken and unacceptable to me".
  • Correspondents say right-wing members of Mr Netanyahu's coalition have called for Gen Golan's resignation, accusing him of dishonouring the dead.
  • The remarks come at a time of heightened tension between Israelis and Palestinians.
  • There has been debate and controversy over Israelis' response to the attacks.
  • There has been some public sympathy for the soldier but Mr Yaalon backed the military establishment in prosecuting him.
alexdeltufo

Pakistani activist Khurram Zaki murdered in Karachi - BBC News - 0 views

  • Mr Zaki was dining in a restaurant in the city's north when suspects opened fire from motorbikes, reports say.
  • The spokesman for a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban has said they were behind the shooting.
  • He said they killed him because of his recent campaign against a cleric of the Red Mosque in Islamabad.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Attracts students from North-West Frontier Province and tribal areas where militant groups are strong
  • Library named in honour of Osama Bin Laden
  • Staff at the website paid tribute to their murdered colleague, and vowed to continue to stand up to militant groups.
  • "His death is the grim reminder that whoever raises voice against Taliban [and other militant groups] in Pakistan will not be spared. And when they have to murder, they never fail."
alexdeltufo

Philippines election: Security tight as polls open - BBC News - 0 views

  • Five candidates are in the race to become the new president. A vice-president, senators and about 18,000 local officials including mayors will also be elected.
  • On Saturday a mayoral candidate was murdered in the south.
  • The presidential frontrunner is 71-year-old Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte, who has run a campaign focused on law and order issues but made many controversial statements, including saying that he would butcher criminals.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Current President Benigno Aquino is leading attempts to bring together other candidates to defeat Mr Duerte.
  • The economy, crime, corruption, poverty and territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea are all major issues.
alexdeltufo

Greece passes tax and pension reforms - BBC News - 0 views

  • Trade unions say the country cannot bear another round of austerity.
  • Three days of a general strike paralysed public transport and slowed the public sector and the media.
  • Greece agreed to a third rescue package worth €86bn (£60bn) last year.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • She said the people responsible for the yes vote had "promised everything" to protesters in public squares five years ago, but were now "justifiably" frightened to leave their offices.
  • Prime Minister Tsipras was elected initially on an anti-austerity ticket but later signed up to Greece's third international bailout since 2010. He has a thin majority with 153 MPs in the 300-seat parliament.
  • Greece is already looking to implement spending cuts that will amount to 3% of the country's gross domestic product or €5.4bn euros by 2018.
alexdeltufo

Clinton slams Trump's immigration plans, nudges Sanders to exit race in L.A. stops - LA... - 0 views

  • Every election is a choice,” she said, noting that Trump “doubled down” on his plans to create a deportation force to round up people in the country illegally,
  • We're going to end raids and round-ups. We're going to keep families together. We know we've got work to do but I think winning the election will really set that in motion, don't you?"
  • Clinton said she is more than three million votes and nearly 300 pledged delegates ahead of Sanders. I
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • A handful of Sanders supporters unsuccessfully tried to interrupt her evening speech, and scores more protested outside. Clinton,
  • Clinton said Trump is dangerous and divisive and does not listen to people. He would wreck the economy, try to repeal the Affordable Care Act and would allow other nations to obtain nuclear weapons, she said.
alexdeltufo

The Israeli general who compared the Jewish State to Nazi-era Germany - The Washington ... - 0 views

  • JERUSALEM — On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day last week, a top Israeli general gave a speech saying he saw “revolting trends” in today’s Israel that he compared to Nazi-era Germany and Europe in the 1930s.
  • His speech comes amid revelations that an Israeli soldier shot and killed a wounded Palestinian attacker in the head,
  • The general’s speech may have sparked reflection in some sectors, but mostly it inspired criticism — and calls for his head.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Israel’s culture and sports minister, Miri Regev, said Golan should resign. "It cannot be that the deputy chief of staff, a
  • If there is one thing that frightens me about the memory of the Holocaust, it is identifying the revolting trends that occurred in Europe as a whole, and in Germany in particular, some 70, 80 and 90 years ago, and finding evidence of those trends here, among us, in 2016.
  • Israel and parts of the Jewish world, especially on such a sensitive day, and that he was fully aware that within the space of a few hours he would become public enemy no. 1 for Israeli right wingers and self-styled Jewish patriots abroad.
  • This is not the first time in recent months that Israeli military brass have found themselves criticized by Israel's hard right.
  • It is probably worth noting that the day after Golan gave his speech, he issued a statement in which he walked back his remarks, saying he had not meant to compare Israel to Nazi Germany, nor to criticize the current leadership, nor the Israel Defense Forces,
alexdeltufo

Militants kill eight Egyptian police officers in a Cairo suburb - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • The police, all in plainclothes, were inspecting security in the southern Cairo suburb of Helwan early Sunday when four gunmen in a pickup truck attacked them, according to Egypt’s state-run Middle East News Agency.
  • The Islamic State said in a statement on Twitter that “a carefully selected group of the soldiers of the caliphate” c
  • t said the attack was to commemorate 1,000 days since Egyptian security forces massacred what human rights groups describe as hundreds of protesters in August 2013 at Rabaa Square in Cairo.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • And others have railed against Sissi’s decision to hand over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.
  • These are the heroes of the police. Their blood is mixed with the dust every day, and they rise above all challenges,”
  • he security forces are accused of extrajudicial killings, torture and forced disappearances. Thousands of opponents of the regime have been jailed or placed under travel bans and other restrictions.
  • In October, the affiliate claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula that killed all 224 onboard.
alexdeltufo

North Korea announces five-year economic plan, its first since the 1980s - The Washingt... - 0 views

  • Also at the congress, which got underway Friday, Kim said North Korea would not use its nuclear weapons unless its sovereignty was violated,
  • aid the plan is a “big deal” because Kim is taking public responsibility for economic development, something his father never did.
  • “The announcement of a five-year economic plan slightly proves the hypothesis that Kim Jong Un is ruling like his grandfather — he even appropriated a Kim Il Sung policy direction here — with more formal lines of contro
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Kim said that the period since the last Workers’ Party congress was an “unprecedentedly grim struggle” in North Korea’s long history.
  • “It is necessary to further increase the might of the politico-ideological power and military power.”
  • Recent events also prove that North Korea is making technical advances on its weapons program. North Korean scientists would have learned more about their technical abilities, and shortcomings, during the nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February. They would also have learned from their more recent failed missile launches, Jeffrey Lewis, an
  • As a responsible nuclear weapons state, our republic will not use a nuclear weapon unless its sovereignty is encroached upon by any aggressive hostile forces with nukes,” Kim told the meeting, according to KCNA.
alexdeltufo

The GOP's electoral-map problem is not about Trump. It's about demographics. - The Wash... - 0 views

  • Start here: Eighteen states plus the District of Columbia have voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election between 1992 and 2012. Add them up, and you get 242 electoral votes.
  • What that means in practical terms is that if Clinton wins the 19 states that every Democratic nominee dating to her husband has won and she wins Florida (29 electoral votes), she wins the White House. It’s that simple.
  • But to do so ignores recent history. Barack Obama won 365 electoral votes in 2008 and 332 in 2012.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Democrats’ electoral-map advantage echoes the clear headstart Republicans had during the 1980s, when Bush’s 426 electoral votes were the fewest that the GOP presidential nominee won that decade.
  • The current Republican disadvantage in the electoral map is less about any individual candidate than it is about demographics.
  • Perhaps the best example of this movement and how it has hurt Republicans is New Mexico, whose population is almost half Hispanic.
  • Obama won the state by 10 percentage points over Mitt Romney; neither side targeted it in any meaningful way. In 2016, it’s not even on the long list of potentially competitive states.
  • At the same time, as these states have grown friendlier to Democrats, there are very few states that are growing increasingly Republican. Wisconsin and Minnesota are two, but neither is moving rapidly in Republicans’ favor just y
  • The counter-argument made by Trump allies is that he can make the industrial Midwest more competitive than past Republican nominees because of his strengths among white male voters.
alexdeltufo

The war against the Islamic State hits hurdles just as the U.S. military gears up - The... - 0 views

  • hen President Obama first ordered U.S. warplanes into action against the extremists sweeping through Iraq and Syria in 2014, U.S. officials put a three- to five-year timeline on a battle they predicted would be hard. After a rocky start, officials say they are gratified by the progress made, especially over the past six months.
  • “So far in terms of what we had hoped to do, we are pretty much on track,” said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive subjects. “We’re actually a little bit ahead of where we wanted to be.”
  • The Islamic State will have occupied those cities for well over two years before the offensives begin, far longer than any of those it has lost so far. The battle for Mosul, long a Pentagon priority, has already been delayed by at least a year
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The extra resources are an acknowledgment, U.S. officials say, that the war can’t be won without a greater level of American involvement.
  • U.S. officials say they have seen no fallout yet from the fracas in Baghdad, but don’t rule out that there could be one if the political instability continues.
  • We have to pause, reset a bit and do some things.”
  • intense Islamic State fire from the small but strategically important village of Al-Nasr, about 40 miles to the south. It was a reminder, said Col. Steve Warren, a U.S. military spokesman, that “we’ve got a foot on his neck but he’s still got some fight in him."
  • One major effort for which the United States needs Turkish engagement is a faltering offensive against the Islamic State in the northern Syrian countryside of Aleppo province, bordering Turkey.
  • Cutting the Islamic State’s vital supply route to Turkey is considered an essential prerequisite for any eventual offensive to retake Raqqa.
  • The recent resumption of fighting around the nearby city of Aleppo has come as a fresh reminder that the war in Syria will continue to draw resources away from the Islamic State fight. Peace talks in Geneva aimed at ending the conflict have deadlocked, eroding hopes that a political solution is in sight.
  • It was repelled, however, only with the help of intense U.S. airstrikes, underscoring the vital role the United States plays in securing recaptured territory.
  • But were you to remove that air power and the capabilities the Americans bring, I could imagine them making gains again on the ground.”
alexdeltufo

Struggle for soul of Democratic Party pits Wall Street-backed think tank against Elizab... - 0 views

  • Fast forward a decade: The philosophy, sketched out privately at the Boston office of Brown Rudnick,is now at the center of an intense struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party.
  • This is more than a grudge match. At stake for the Democratic Party is the support of middle-class, swing voters who decide elections.
  • Many on the left were shocked, and angered. Warren’s allies saw Third Way as a proxy — being used by her enemies on Wall Street to scare off the rest of the party.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • For their part, Third Way representatives bristle at the idea they are doing the bidding of Wall Street power brokers.
  • The philosophy set out by Third Way will be part of that conversation.
  • Third Way raises just over a third of its $9.3 million annual budget from undisclosed corporations. The remainder, the bulk of its funding, is donated by individuals, almost all of whom are members of Third Way’s board of trustees.
  • Both Vogelstein and Heller were major financial backers of Obama, and all three contributed heavily to Senate Democrats.
  • “We’re not remotely aligned with what Wall Street wants,” said Jonathan Cowan, the group’s president and cofounder.
  • “It goes back to what Bill Clinton said, which is ‘You can’t love the job and hate the job creators,’ ” said Matt Bennett, Third Way’s vice president for public affairs and one of its cofounders. “Vilification of industry isn’t helping Democrats.”
  • They insist on deficit reduction and entitlement cuts as conditions for key tax hikes on the wealthy.
  • Third Way’s insistence on linking tax hikes to a grand bargain — which has been impossible to obtain in the Obama era — has a direct bearing on the wallets of the group’s wealthy funders.
  • “If the Democratic Party stands only for raising taxes on the wealthy, not for actually making entitlement reforms and other spending cuts,’’ he said, “then the other half of the equation will never happen.”
  • Bennett said it should not be characterized as a donation from Goldman Sachs, but as a personal contribution from Heller that was made through the Goldman charity.
  • Though Third Way does not report details of its contributions, some of its donors do so through private foundations.
  • Third Way’s 2012 tax filing. Peck Madigan, which did not respond to e-mailed questions, lobbies for several Wall Street-tied clients, including MasterCard, Deutsche Bank, and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.
alexdeltufo

Seven pols who could be Donald Trump's VP pick (and two who won't) - The Boston Globe - 0 views

  • “I have the business, let’s call them talents, and I think I’ll probably go the political route,”
  • He has been one of the most visible Trump supporters on Fox News and reportedly met privately with Trump for 90 minutes last week.
  • Haley has publicly criticized Trump; Capito has not. The latter has more than 14 years of experience on Capitol Hill and hails from an economically depressed state that’s been receptive to Trump’s populist message.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Inside Washington, D.C., Corker is seen as a serious policy pro. Most importantly for Trump, perhaps, he’s been one of the few Republicans in Washington who has said he would be fine with supporting Trump.
  • She didn’t endorse anyone ahead of the Iowa caucuses — although she introduced US Senator Marco Rubio at an event. Ernst was also quite critical of Trump’s comments about women, but that might actually be an asset as he seeks to make up ground with female voters.
  • No matter what words have been said during the primary, a Kasich pick would makes sense for both Kasich and Trump.
  • Consider this math: If the Democratic nominee wins all the states the party won in the last six presidential elections, and then wins Florida, Trump will lose in the Electoral College.
  • It does make some sense politically: Christie was the first establishment politician to endorse Trump, and he took a lot of heat for it.
  • Trump doesn’t need Christie anymore.
  • here is no indication that Ryan would ever accept another ride on the national ticket as a vice presidential candidate, let alone for Trump.
alexdeltufo

The Memphis Massacre of 1866 and Black Voter Suppression in the American South - The At... - 0 views

  • The unrest started with a rumor of black-on-white crime: Black soldiers stationed at Fort Pickering on the city’s south bluffs had allegedly killed white policemen attempting to arrest an African American soldier.
  • Although much has changed since the end of the Civil War, the fact remains that political violence undermines the democratic process even where civil-rights protections are supposedly in place.
  • Ulysses S. Grant would carry Memphis’s Shelby County in two presidential elections aided by African American men, to whom the state extended voting rights in 1867,
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • But as in so many corners of the Confederacy, the camps where former slaves lived swelled with the hungry, the sick, and those seeking to find opportunity and family.
  • This set the stage for the violent days of May 1866. When the rumor of the black-on-white crime spread, Fort Pickering’s commander, General George Stoneman, confiscated black soldiers’ weapons and ordered them to their barracks.
  • Around the same time, a white mob assembled, including police and firemen, and attacked the camp of former slaves and African American neighborhoods.
  • Violence resumed late the next morning when “a posse of police and citizens again appeared in South Memphis and commenced an indiscriminate attack upon the Negroes,
  • he Massacre showed the failures of Reconstruction even as congressional Republicans seized control from President Andrew Johnson, a Tennessean and former military governor of the state.
  • Newly elected legislators in states like South Carolina showed up in their old Rebel uniforms. And though white civil-rights supporters lived in Memphis and other cities, they were targets of violence—including during the Memphis Massacre.
  • After all, there was political benefit in this kind of aggressive legislating: African Americans made up the largest bloc of Union-loyal Southerners during the war and were potential Republican voters.
  • The Enforcement Act of 1870 outlawed both state and private violence against African Americans, reenacting the 1866 Civil Rights Act under the auspices of the Fourteenth Amendment.
  • In 1871, the federal government placed nine South Carolina counties under martial law, and federal courts convicted more than 100 defendants charged under these acts.
  • he U.S. Supreme Court held in U.S. v. Cruikshank that the perpetrators of the 1873 Colfax Massacre in Louisiana could not be convicted for federal civil-rights violations because the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection clause did not extend to individuals’ crimes,
  • It took 90 years for the state-built edifice of Jim Crow to be torn down by the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964,
  • A new retreat from Civil Rights is getting renewed momentum today in the wake of the 2013 decision Shelby County v. Holder. The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority invalidated sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
alexdeltufo

Donald Trump's Economic Ideas Would Destroy the American Economy - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • "I've borrowed knowing that you can pay back with discounts," he told CNBC. "I would borrow knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal.”
  • Trump has promised to make America great again. But a closer look his policy proposals, such as they are, suggests that within his first few years as president, he would more likely make American recessionary again.
  • Meanwhile, he has no plans to cut spending on Medicare, Medicaid, benefits for veterans, defense, or Social Security, which, along with mandatory payments on the debt,
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • AAF’s analysis found, with the worst of the slump occurring in industries like construction and hospitality.
  • Here is Trumponomics, in a sentence: Create an unnecessary economic downturn by deporting 7 million workers while cutting taxes for the rich and requiring the United States to borrow trillions of dollars from creditors,
  • When interest rates were historically low and infrastructure spending was attractive, Republicans called for deficit reductions.
  • Like so much of his candidacy, those ideas are a joke—one that the country is civically obligated to take seriously.
alexdeltufo

Women's Rising Influence in Politics, Tinted Green - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Women are bankrolling political campaigns this year more than ever, driven by their rising rank in the workplace, boosts in women’s wealth, and networks set up to gather their donations and bolster their influence.
  • Forty-three percent of all reported contributions to federal candidates for this election have come from women,
  • The increase is especially pronounced on the left, with the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton galvanizing female donors. S
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • And she has counted on them to fuel her huge fund-raising operation, which already relies more on women than had any presidential candidate before her.
  • Nearly 60 percent of Mrs. Clinton’s reported contributions, totaling $70 million, have come from women, according to Crowdpac, the most of any presidential candidate by far. (The tally does not include contributions too small to be itemized in election commission reports.)
  • More women are founding their own companies or rising to lead family businesses, or have already sold or retired from them, a common springboard to the upper reaches of political fund-raising.
  • Ms. Rodgers said she began contributing sizable sums after selling her workplace benefits company.
  • The rise of women in business is providing not just the discretionary income required for large contributions, but the kind of personal networks that power presidential and congressional fund-raising.
  • But even among Republicans, female donors are playing a more significant role.
  • “In a very short period of time, the landscape has changed for women,”
  • Ms. Toretti, Mrs. Rao and other prominent bundlers in both parties said their networks of potential donors, almost exclusively men until just a few years ago, were now composed mostly of other women.
  • Most of the largest overall contributors in the country are men, many of them in fields like energy and finance, where women are still exceedingly rare in corporate boardrooms and executive suites.
  • Less visible than the economic inequality that hampers giving by women are the cultural barriers that remain.
  • Women needed to be convinced that they were allowed to write those checks, that they were needed,” said Naomi Aberly, a major Democratic donor and a Clinton bundler.
  • Many of the women in her group are lawyers or worked in finance, Ms. Aberly said, and they typically hold events at night, after working hours.
alexdeltufo

Muslim Leaders Wage Theological Battle, Stoking ISIS' Anger - The New York Times - 0 views

  • As the military and political battle against the Islamic State escalates, Muslim imams and scholars in the West are fighting on another front — through theology.
  • The Islamic State, however, has taken notice.
  • The danger is real enough that the F.B.I. has contacted some of those named in the Islamic State’s magazine “to assist them in taking proper steps to ensure their safety,”
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Their growing influence also contradicts those who claim that Muslim leaders have been silent in the fight against violent extremism.
  • Several of the targeted Muslim leaders said in interviews that, while they were taking the threat seriously, they had no intention of backing off. They have hired security guards and fortified their workplaces, and some keep guns at home.
  • “It’s an honor to be denounced by ISIS,” said Imam Webb, who frequently engages young Muslims over social media,
  • “It has only reinvigorated me,” he said, “to provide the antivenom to the poison of ISIS.”
  • only three days after the group’s suicide bombers had attacked the Brussels airport and train station.
  • He argued that the terrorist attacks of recent years had clearly violated Islamic teaching because they “cause more harm than good,”
  • These scholars ridicule the Islamic State’s claim to have created a “caliphate” ruled by a successor to the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. Instead, in a highly effective bit of rebranding,
  • To the Islamic State’s propagandists, it does not matter that the imams are fervent Muslims or critics of American foreign policy
  • This is not the first time that the Islamic State has targeted Muslim leaders in the United States, but this is the longest list yet.
  • a Syrian preacher based in London who has spoken in support of Al Qaeda, according to news reports.
  • but that all it would take is one deluded or mentally unbalanced “lone wolf.”
  • Sheikh Hamza will soon air a television series in the Middle East, “Rihla With Sheikh Hamza Yusuf” (rihla is “quest” in Arabic).
  • “I’m not scared of ISIS in America,” he said. “I feel very safe in every mosque I go to. But I am scared of other people in this land who are very ignorant and bigoted.”
alexdeltufo

Republican Party Unravels Over Donald Trump's Takeover - The New York Times - 0 views

  • By seizing the Republican presidential nomination for Donald J. Trump on Tuesday night,
  • Rarely if ever has a party seemed to come apart so visibly. Rarely, too, has the nation been so on edge about its politics.
  • They fear their party is on the cusp of an epochal split — a historic cleaving between the familiar form of conservatism forged in the 1960s and popularized in the 1980s and a rekindled, atavistic nationalism,
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Yet if keeping the peace means embracing Mr. Trump and his most divisive ideas and utterances, a growing number are loath to do it.
  • “Because Paul Ryan, and I love him to death, but he’s one of those career politicians.
  • “Trump leveraged a perfect storm,” said Steve Case, the founder of AOL, in an email message. “
  • After seething at Washington for so long, hundreds or thousands of miles from the capital, many of these voters now see Mr. Trump as a kind of savior.
  • Many Republican voters trudged along with those earlier nominees, but never became truly animated until Mr. Trump offered them his brand of angry populism: a blend of protectionism at home and a smaller American footprint abroad.
  • “Everything is subject to negotiation, but I can’t and won’t be changing much, because the voters support me because of what I’m saying and how I’m saying it,” Mr. Trump said.
  • . Leaders such as Mr. Romney warned in the direst terms that Mr. Trump’s nomination would stain the party and lead it to ruin. Venerable media outlets on the right,
  • On the left, too, Senator Bernie Sanders has built his own movement with millions of voters, and $210 million in fund-raising, by using online tools as simple as email to seek support.
  • The adhesive that once held Republicans together — a shared commitment to a strong national defense and limited government
  • Alongside the turbulent economy were signs of something more profound plaguing blue-collar white communities, which have increasingly become core Republican constituencies: an increase in children born to single parents, higher rates of addiction and suicide, and shortened average life spans.
  • The party has never been more out of touch with our voters,” Vin Weber, a former Minnesota congressman, said of the two factions, acknowledging that Republicans could splinter completely after this election. “I don’t know how you reconcile a lot of them.”
1 - 20 of 55 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page