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johnsonma23

Nancy Reagan dies in Los Angeles at 94: Former first lady was President Reagan's closes... - 0 views

www.latimes.com/...dead-at-94-20160306-story.html

reagan los angeles US politics history

shared by johnsonma23 on 07 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Nancy Reagan dies in Los Angeles at 94: Former first lady was President Reagan's closest advisor
  • First Lady Nancy Davis Reagan, whose devotion to her husband made her a formidable behind-the-scenes player in his administrations and one of the most influential presidential wives in modern times, died Sunday of congestive heart failure, her office said
  • Although Reagan pursued some programs of her own as first lady, she considered her most important role promoting the political, physical and mental well-being of Ronald Reagan.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Particularly tough-minded on the hiring and firing of key staffers and Cabinet members, she often played bad cop to his good cop, forcing difficult decisions that the famously easygoing chief executive was loath to make.
  • “Reagan knew where he wanted to go,”
  • “but she had a better sense of what he needed to do to get there.”
  • One of the 20th century’s most popular presidents, Ronald Reagan, who died in 2004, was nicknamed the “Teflon president” because of his ability to deflect almost any controversy or criticism. But his wife was the “flypaper first lady,” as longtime advisor Michael Deaver once quipped, because nearly everything negative stuck to her.
  • she also became a vocal advocate of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, which Bush opposed despite scientists’ belief that it could lead to cures for incapacitating diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
  • Her good deeds were barely noticed. She championed the Foster Grandparent Program, a cause she would continue to promote in Washington. She took a special interest in Vietnam veterans, hosting emotional dinners for returning prisoners of war and sitting at the bedsides of young soldiers at the veteran’s hospital in Westwood.
  • During her husband’s second term in Sacramento, she raised $1 million from Republican donors to build a new governor’s mansion on a scenic site above the American River in nearby Carmichael.
  • “Virtually everything I did during that first year was misunderstood and ridiculed,” Reagan complained in “My Turn.”
  • “She was the personnel director of the Reagan operation, so to speak,”
  • She was widely credited with forcing the departures of several high-level administration figures, including Interior Secretary James Watt, Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan, Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler and two national security advisors, Richard V. Allen and William Clark.
johnsonma23

Boston's struggle with income segregation - The Boston Globe - 0 views

www.bostonglobe.com/...story.html

income US culture

shared by johnsonma23 on 07 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Boston’s struggle with income segregation
  • In a region known for its searing struggles with racial division, another once-secondary form of segregation — income segregation — has become a defining force.
  • The surge in affluence in some areas and poverty in others has wiped out scores of mixed-income neighborhoods. In 1970, 7 in 10 families lived in these places. Now it’s just 4 in 10.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • In 1970, just 8 percent of families in Boston and the surrounding cities and towns lived in the poorest neighborhoods. Now, the figure is more than twice as high — 20 percent
  • Blue- and white-collar families who once lived close enough to bump into each other in the aisles of the local hardware store or chat in the pews of the neighborhood church live in much more homogenous places now.
  • a Harvard social scientist, argues that the biggest threat to national cohesion is not the income inequality that has drawn so much scrutiny from the news media and the political class, but the social segregation that inequality has helped to create — in where people live, where they go to school, and whom they marry.
  • Low-income people bear the brunt of the new segregation. Research shows that poor kids who grow up in poor neighborhoods attend college at lower rates, earn less money as young adults, and are more likely to become teenage parents than poor kids who grow up in better-off neighborhoods.
johnsonma23

When the Tide of Islamophobia Reached My Hometown Mosque - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...eached-my-hometown-mosque.html

new york times muslim culture

shared by johnsonma23 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • When the Tide of Islamophobia Reached My Hometown Mosque
  • THE Islamic Society of North America’s headquarters sit atop a grassy hill overlooking Plainfield, Ind.
  • Anti-Muslim hatred in the United States has grown in recent years. The “Ground Zero Mosque” episode in 2010 and successive anti-mosque protests across the country signaled a simmering Islamophobia.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • . That January, after a pair of terrorist attacks in Paris, pundits and conservative officials propagated a discredited myth about Shariah-run zones in European cities off limits to non-Muslims.
  • Hashtags like #KillAllMuslims trended on Twitter. A month later, three Muslim youths were shot dead in their North Carolina apartment in what many people said was a hate crime.
  • An examination of anti-Muslim hatred in the last few years can easily devolve into a laundry list: armed demonstrators picketing at a mosque in Phoenix
  • Ben Carson compared Syrian refugees to “rabid” dogs. Ted Cruz called for allowing only Christian refugees to enter the United States. And Donald J. Trump, whose statements on Islam seem to be read directly off paranoid chain emails, first stated that American Muslims celebrated the horror of the Sept. 11 attacks (a discredited falsehood), then, after the San Bernardino, Calif., shootin
  • all Muslims should be barred from entering the United States
  • At a news conference, Hazem Bata, the Islamic Society’s secretary general, said: “I’m not here to focus on the negative, because once you start focusing on the negative, you start to take on a victim’s mentality. And as Muslims in America, we refuse to be victims in our own country.
  • e is a fine line between stoic resilience and irresponsible passivity. Muslims in America face a growing threat
johnsonma23

Will women voters balk at Trump? | MSNBC - 0 views

www.msnbc.com/...will-women-voters-balk-trump

trump women voters US politics

shared by johnsonma23 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Will women voters balk at Trump?
  • “Given Republican candidates’ obsession with talking about the female anatomy, I guess we should take it as a sign of progress that they’re talking about their own,” said Marcy Stech, communications director at EMILY’s List, which works to elect pro-choice Democratic women. 
  • We are past the point at which it can be reasonably expected that Trump’s antics will make a dent with conservative women, who make up a good chunk of his support, if a slightly smaller piece of the Republican electorate overall
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • But four years after the support of women re-elected Barack Obama, the general electorate may be different
  • Women voters, who are, as a whole, slightly less likely to pick Republicans in a presidential election, could be motivated to turn out for Hillary Clinton, particularly if they are women of color, the backbone of the Democratic party.
  • Trump’s sexist remarks, compounded with his demands for Obama’s birth certificate and desire to build a wall between Mexico and the United States, could be motivation enough. 
  • Though national polls only give a limited picture in a country that doesn’t elect presidents by a popular vote, recent surveys that pit Clinton against Trump show a marked gender gap
  • Trump’s pronouncements make Akin look like a diplomat. But the very audacity and vulgarity that seems to delight Republican voters could disgust in a national race.
  • Conversely, Trump’s conditional support of Planned Parenthood – which he has repeatedly said is good for women but should not get federal funding because its affiliates also provide abortions – may be an attempt to reach those same general election female voters
  • Planned Parenthood, whose PAC has endorsed Hillary Clinton, has flatly resisted Trump’s advances. 
  • “Women would lose access to birth control, could be charged more than men for health insurance, could have domestic violence and pregnancy disqualify them from health insurance coverage, would no longer be able to turn to Planned Parenthood for care, and would be banned from accessing abortion safely or legally,
johnsonma23

What if Nixon beat JFK? Everything might be different - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

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

nixon jfk US history

shared by johnsonma23 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • What if JFK had lost? 5 things that might be different
  • If just a few thousand votes in a few key states had gone the other way that day, you could argue that Cuba might now be our 51st state.
  • By the time it was over, Kennedy had won and Nixon's camp was quietly accusing the other side of dirty tricks. The election was about much more than Washington bragging rights.
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  • It ended up influencing events that would drive the next 20 years of the Cold War.
  • When it came to the Soviets, Nixon had more experience than Kennedy. Vice President Nixon had already faced off against Khrushchev in the famous "Kitchen Debate" during a visit to Moscow in 1959.
  • Nixon's language at the time was quite interventionist and hawkish. ... That makes me worry that he might have tried to invade Cuba."
  • A year later, it was discovered that the Soviets had deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba — just 90 miles from the United States.
  • "Kennedy allowed himself to be bullied by Khrushchev [in Vienna] and he regretted it," said Evan Thomas, an award-winning journalist, editor and author of "Being Nixon: A Man Divided."
  • If Nixon had made a stronger impression than Kennedy, perhaps the Soviets would never have put those missiles in Cuba. Then there never would have been a missile crisis at all.
  • In 1961, two months after a failed invasion by CIA-backed Cuban exiles at Cuba's Bay of Pigs, Kennedy met with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Austria.
  • f Nixon had won in 1960, it's likely Kennedy would not have been targeted for assassination -- and that means he might have lived long enough for his infamous sexual dalliances to become fodder for the news media.
  • It's hard to imagine a universe where Neil Armstrong did not walk on the moon. Would Nixon have called for a moon landing, as JFK did?
  • Nixon continued to support the lunar program during much of his presidency, which spanned all six moon landings.
  • "Under Nixon, NASA became just another domestic program, and the agency's budget decreased even as it retained ambitious goals," writes former NASA consultant Jason Callahan of the Planetary Society.
johnsonma23

Neo-Nazis gain parliamentary seats in Slovakia - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...81400716

Romney trump US politics

shared by johnsonma23 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Neo-Nazis gain parliamentary seats in Slovakia
  • The leftist ruling party has won the parliamentary election in Slovakia, after campaigning on an anti-migrant ticket, but will need coalition partners to form a majority government, according to results announced on Sunday.
  • In a surprising development, a neo-Nazi party gained parliamentary seats for the first time.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • The prime minister favors a strong state role in the economy, has been critical of Western sanctions against Russia and is known for strong anti-Muslim rhetoric.
  • The party says NATO is a terrorist organization and keeps attacking the European Union and Europe's common currency, the euro, which Slovakia uses.
  • The ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party, Fico's potential partner, returned to Parliament after a four-year-absence with 8.6 percent while the traditional party in the predominantly Roman Catholic country of 5.4 million, the Christian Democrats, didn't get enough votes to be represented.
  • neo-Nazi People's Party — Our Slovakia — got 8 percent, or 14 seats.
  • The pro-business Freedom and Solidarity became the second strongest party with 12.1 percent, or 21 seats, ahead of another center-right party, the Ordinary People with 11.0 percent.
  • Fico said it is his duty as the winner to create a meaningful government. He said he will open a first round of informal consultations with other parties Sunday.
  • Mitt Romney jumps on #NeverTrump: Our view
  • Donald Trump's strong showing on Super Tuesday put prominent Republicans in a tight spot. They have three distinct choices: Jump on the Trump bandwagon. Stay silent, and try to save their own skins if they end up on the November ballot beneath Trump. Or denounce Trump as unfit for the GOP nomination or the presidency.
  • Only a few prominent Republicans have had the courage to take that third path, and on Thursday they were joined by Mitt Romney, the GOP's candidate in 2012
  •  Calling Trump "a phony" and "a fraud," Romney said the billionaire businessman is unsuited by temperament, character and judgment to occupy the Oval Office and represent America on the world stage.
  • Shortly before Romney spoke, dozens of Republican national security experts, including former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, added their voices to the emerging anti-Trump drive by the GOP establishmen
  • , bullying and bigotry is as familiar as it is appalling, and practically every day brings a new outrage. Early in the campaign, he denigrated Mexican immigrants and Arizona Sen. John McCain, one of the nation's iconic war heroes and the party's standard-bearer in 2008.
  • y, he talked about loosening libel laws to make it easier to sue news organizations, and on Sunday, two days before several primaries in the Deep South, he waffled over denouncing David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader who had endorsed Trump.
  • Taking on a bully is much more unpleasant business, as Trump's rivals have discovered. After Romney's speech, Trump fired back with his usual fusillade of schoolyard insults, calling Romney a stiff, a choke artist, a lightweight, and a disaster as a candidate who ran a horrible campaign and begged for his endorsement in 2012.
  • But Americans can hope Romney's speech has the same effect as the confrontation that Army counsel Joseph Welch had in 1954 with Sen. Joseph McCarthy, another demagogue who took America down a dangerous and ugly road before a demand for decency stopped him.
johnsonma23

The Elements of Trumpism - The New York Times - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...the-elements-of-trumpism.html

new york times US trump republicans

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  • The Elements of Trumpism
  • MAYBE Donald Trump is doing us a favor.
  • The United States has long been spared a truly authoritarian element in our politics.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Yes, our political institutions are creaking, and our presidency is increasingly imperial. But there are still basic norms that both parties and every major politician claim to honor and respect.
  • What Trump is doing, then, is showing us something different, something that less fortunate countries know all too well: how authoritarianism works, how it seduces, and ultimately how it wins.
  • he’s doing it in a way that’s sufficiently chaotic, ridiculous and ultimately unpopular that he will pass from the scene without actually taking power,
  • First, his strongest supporters have entirely legitimate grievances. The core of that support is a white working class that the Democratic Party has half-abandoned and the Republican Party has poorly served
  • Trump’s support is broader than just these voters, but they’re the reason he’s a phenomenon, a force.
  • Second, you have the opportunists — the politicians and media figures who have seen some advantage from elevating Trump.
  • There is no real ideological consistency to this group: Trump’s expanding circle of apologists includes Sarah Palin and Steve Forbes, Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie; he has anti-immigration populists and Wall Street supply-siders,
  • The only common threads are cynicism, ambition and a sense of Trump as a ticket to influence they couldn’t get any other way.
  • They include the rivals who denounce Trump as a con artist but promise to vote for him in the fall. They include Republicans who keep telling themselves stories about how Trump will appoint conservative justices or Trump is expanding the party to pretend that Trump versus Hillary would be a normal sort of vote
  • Then, finally, you have the inevitabilists — not Trump supporters, but Trump enablers, who encourage the institutionalists in their paralysis by acting and talking as if the support of 35 percent of the primary electorate means Trump Cannot Be Stopped.
  • I have a little bit of the last vice, which is why I spent a long time being anti-anti-Trump: not rooting for him to win, but appreciating his truth-telling on certain issues, his capacity to upset the stagnant status quo.
  • Fortunately Trump’s fire should still be contained, by the wider electorate if not by his hapless party. Fortunately he’s still more a comic-opera demagogue than a clear and present danger.
johnsonma23

Europe hates Trump. Does it matter? - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...magazine-35702584

europe trump

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  • Europe hates Trump. Does it matter?
  • This is America's choice, not anyone else's. How would British voters feel if Texans weighed in on Brexit? This time, however, the international reaction to Donald Trump is so forceful and so unanimous in its condemnation that it is worth drawing attention to.
  • Back in 2004, Europeans assumed that their own well-publicised opposition to President Bush's Iraq war would make it harder for him to get re-elected. In fact, anti-Americanism had the opposite effect
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  • That same year, Britain's left-leaning Guardian newspaper ran a public campaign targeting a critical county in Ohio with a letter-writing blitz, urging people there to vote for John Kerry.
  • It was a bid to give foreigners a say in the US presidential election. Clark County was a swing district in a swing state; in 2000 Al Gore won the area by a narrow margin.
  • In 2008 of course the world rallied firmly behind Barack Obama. Two hundred thousand people turned out to see the candidate in Berlin before the election. Italian trattorias started a roaring trade in Obama pizzas, a curious, un-Italian mix of ham and pineapple toppings.
  • So, what does the world make of Donald Trump? Mr Trump has some admirers in Europe. A few on the extreme end of the political spectrum like his tough line on immigration. Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the French National Front, said if he were American he'd vote Trump.
  • What really matters is whether the 6-10% of voters in the middle of the American political spectrum, the people who actually decide elections here, are swayed by global opinion. And they may be, for two reasons.
  • middle-class and working-class people have been neglected by the existing political establishment,
  • There are echoes of Trumpism in the nationalist parties of Britain, Denmark, Netherlands, Greece as well as France.
  • Here's a sample of the public disapproval. Germany's Der Spiegel has called Trump the most dangerous man in the world. Britain's David Cameron says his plan to ban Muslims is divisive and unhelpful.
  • The French liberal newspaper Liberation has described him as a nightmare turned reality. JK Rowling tweeted that he's worse than Voldemort
  • Will the international reaction make a shred of difference to Trump's chances of getting nominated and then elected? 2004 would suggest not.
  • But the voices of support are drowned out by almost universal condemnation. When it comes to Trump, Europe is apoplectic. Fascinated, but appalled.
johnsonma23

Hillary Clinton Is Riding High - That's the Problem - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ng-high-thats-the-problem.html

hillary clinton new york times politics US

shared by johnsonma23 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Hillary Clinton Is Riding High — That’s the Problem
  • Hillary Clinton could be in for some political peril.
  • It’s the Republicans, not the Democrats, who face bitter divides that endanger the party’s future.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • “Her history is that whenever she gets ahead and looks in good shape, she reverts to her worst form,” said Peter D. Hart, a leading Democratic pollster, citing Mrs. Clinton’s stellar first debate performance.
  • The Democrats’ confidence is based on the perceived folly of Republicans’ nominating Donald J. Trump
  • There is a demonstrable lack of enthusiasm about Mrs. Clinton, the likely nominee, underscored by the low turnouts in most contests. She is identified as part of the establishment by a restless electorate, and she is neither especially liked nor trusted by many swing voters, and even some Democrats.
  • Mrs. Clinton’s likability issues go back a ways. In New Hampshire eight years ago, Barack Obama cracked, “You’re likable enough, Hillary.” The lack of trust is more recent.
  • The key in this race is to define the race, her opponent and herself.” Mr. Plouffe said this definition has to be “authentic” and “tied to her sense of advocacy, which would reveal interesting sides of herself.”
  • trustworthiness problem is deeper, more difficult. It stems from some issues that are unfair to her, such as the 2012 terrorist attack on a United States diplomatic installation in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed.
  • Democratic strategists suggest that there’s no easy way to deal with it.
  • A general election campaign against Mr. Trump would be filled with fear and loathing. His Republican rivals Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz can tell her how dirty the fight against the New York billionaire can get.
johnsonma23

Up to 10 refugees to compete at Rio Games: IOC | MSNBC - 0 views

www.msnbc.com/...refugees-compete-rio-games-ioc

refugees rio games msnbc

shared by johnsonma23 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Up to 10 refugees to compete at Rio Games: IOC
  • A team of refugees that will compete at this year’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics could number as many as 10 athletes, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach on Wednesday.
  • The team, which was officially approved by the IOC Executive Board and called Team of Refugee Olympics Athletes (ROA), will be made up from a pool of 43 prospective Olympians
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Nomination criteria included sporting level, official United Nations-verified refugee status and personal situation and background, the IOC said.
  • “It depends very much on the sporting qualifications. This team may end up between five and 10 athletes maybe.”
  • Hundreds of thousands of refugees, many from Syria, have crossed via Turkey and Greece into Europe.
  • “By welcoming ROA to the Olympic Games in Rio, we want to send a message of hope to all the refugees of the world,” Bach said.
  • “Having no national team to belong to, having no flag to march behind, having no national anthem to be played, these refugees will be welcomed to the Olympic Games with the Olympic flag and with the Olympic anthem
  • ROA will be housed in the athletes’ village along with all other national teams and will enter the stadium as the penultimate team at the opening ceremony, ahead of the host nation.
johnsonma23

Is Donald Trump another Barry Goldwater? (opinion) - CNN.com - 0 views

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

donald trump cnn opinion US politics

shared by johnsonma23 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Is Donald Trump another Barry Goldwater?
  • Some Democrats are giddy about the possibility of Donald Trump winning the Republican nomination.
  • But other Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, fear Trump could prove a formidable general election opponent.
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • Republican Party has moved far to the right over the past few decades. Some controversial statements that got Goldwater in trouble in 1964 would now find support in red parts of the country.
  • They roared with approval when Goldwater responded: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
  • The GOP's choice turned out to be a total disaster: Johnson ran a devastating campaign that effectively portrayed Goldwater as far off center.
  • viewers saw Ku Klux Klan members marching in their regalia and burning crosses, a reference to an endorsement Goldwater received from a leader of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.
  • Johnson won re-election by a massive landslide with 486 electoral votes to Goldwater's 52. Johnson's popular vote, 61%, was the biggest in American history, bigger than FDR in 1936.
  • But will a Trump candidacy be a repeat of 1964? That outcome is far from clear.
  • biggest difference between then and now is the polarization of the electorate. Over the past few election cycles, there has been remarkably little movement of voters between parties in most states
  • It's also important to remember that when Goldwater ran, Democrats were in good shape: The death of a popular Democratic president, John F. Kennedy, had been devastating to many Americans
  • With Trump, the optimists believe, Republicans might have another Barry Goldwater on their hands. This is a reference to the right-wing Arizona senator who ran in 1964 against President Lyndon Johnson, urging his party to embrace conservatism
  • a Trump candidacy would allow Democrats to make huge gains in the House, the base of conservative power.
  • The only opponents who have a chance are those who are even more conservative than current officeholders.
  • The best opportunity would be for Democrats to win control of the Senate, given that there are a number of competitive seats where a Trump candidacy could make a difference
  • Trump is also a very different kind of candidate than Goldwater. Goldwater's candidacy grew out of a growing conservative movement that had a clear set of principles: limited government, strong anti-communism, and opposition to federal civil rights legislation.
  • Trump's campaign, on the other hand, is far more about style than actual policy.
  • Though Goldwater was an effective senator, he was a terrible campaigner, constantly stumbling over his words and making statements that didn't play well with the media. According to one Johnson adviser, Goldwater "scattered his shots too widely, hit too many issues, and thus diffused his impact.
  • Trump, by contrast, is extremely effective with the media. He seems to have a genuine feel for articulating the anger that exists in the electorate
  • Trump is not as much of an outlier as Goldwater was perceived to be in 1964.
  • In this general election, the connection will be more problematic for Hillary Clinton, given Obama's middling approval rating
  • Democrats should thus be careful in thinking through what a Trump candidacy might
johnsonma23

With Impounding of Ship, Philippines Set to Be First Enforcer of New North Korea Sancti... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ations-cargo-ship-seizure.html

north korea sanctions new york times

shared by johnsonma23 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • With Impounding of Ship, Philippines Set to Be First Enforcer of New North Korea Sanctions
  • The Philippines will become the first country to enforce tough new United Nations sanctions on North Korea
  • The MV Jin Teng, which is suspected of being a North Korean ship, arrived Thursday at Subic Bay, a commercial port about 50 miles northwest of Manila
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • impounded, its crew deported
  • The vessel is registered and flagged under multiple countries, but it is one of 31 listed as being owned by North Korea, Philippine
  • One component of the new sanctions requires countries to inspect all cargo passing through their territory to or from North Korea
  • . The sanctions are the result of a United Nations Security Council resolution passed Wednesday, following a North Korean nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a long-range rocket test on Feb. 7.
  • “The world is concerned over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and as a member of the U.N., the Philippines has to do its part to enforce the sanctions
  • North Korean citizens and was in the Philippines to unload a shipment of agricultural byproducts often used as livestock feed.
  • and found no prohibited items
johnsonma23

Iraq suicide attack: 47 dead, dozens injured in blast south of Baghdad | MSNBC - 0 views

www.msnbc.com/...ns-injured-blast-south-baghdad

iraq attack msnbc

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  • Iraq suicide attack: 47 dead, dozens injured in blast south of Baghdad
  • BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber on Sunday rammed his explosives-laden fuel truck into a security checkpoint south of Baghdad, killing at least 47 people and wounding dozens
  • No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which bore the hallmarks of an ISIS attack.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • militant group and other Sunni militants frequently use car bombs and suicide attacks to target public areas and government buildings
  • 39 civilians, while the rest were members of the security forces
  • He added that up to 65 other people were wounded and nearly 50 cars were damaged. Hillah is located about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
  • Iraq has seen a spike in violence in the past month with suicide attacks in and outside Baghdad, all claimed by the ISIS, killing more than 170 people
  • ISIS controls large swaths of Iraq and neighboring Syria and has declared an Islamic “caliphate” on the territory it holds.
  • at least 670 Iraqis were killed last month due to ongoing violence,
johnsonma23

Marco Rubio's Policies Might Shut the Door to People Like His Grandfather - The New Yor... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...o-immigration-grandfather.html

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  • Marco Rubio’s Policies Might Shut the Door to People Like His Grandfather
  • Pedro Victor Garcia had left behind a home and a job with the government in communist Cuba, intent on never returning.
  • immigration officials stopped him.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • “I always thought of being here in the United States as a resident, living permanently here,” the slight 62-year-old grandfather, speaking through an interpreter, said at a hearing five weeks later.
  • The immigration officer was unmoved. He did not see an exiled family man — just someone who had no visa, worked for the Castro government and could pose a security risk.
  • “It is ordered that the applicant be excluded and deported from the United States,”
  • As he campaigns for president, Mr. Rubio, a Florida senator, says that the United States cannot accept refugees from Syria and Iraq because of the potential security risk
  • has called for a tightening of immigration law so that if the United States cannot identify with 100 percent certainty who immigrants are and why they want to enter, he says, “We’re not going to let you in.”
  • But under the stricter screening he now supports, his grandfather would most likely have been deported, depriving him of knowing the man he has called his mentor and closest boyhood friend.
  • Despite Mr. Garcia’s insistence that he was fleeing oppression, immigration officials raised suspicions that he might harbor communist sympathies, the records reveal.
  • In an interview, Mr. Rubio acknowledged that some would see a conflict between the stricter immigration and refugee policies he supports and his grandfather’s experience.
  • But Mr. Rubio said the difference between then and now is how much more sophisticated foreign infiltrators like the Islamic State have become, and how dangerous they are.
  • “I recognize that’s a valid point,” the senator said, “But what you didn’t have was a widespread effort on behalf of Fidel Castro to infiltrate into the United States killers who were going to detonate weapons and kill people.”
  • He says at the hearing that what made him decide he wanted to leave for the United States to join his wife and seven daughters, one of whom was Oria, Mr. Rubio’s now 85-year-old mother, was when Castro confirmed suspicions that he was a Marxist.
johnsonma23

Oscars So White? Or Oscars So Dumb? Discuss. - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...or-oscars-so-dumb-discuss.html

white new york times

shared by johnsonma23 on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Oscars So White? Or Oscars So Dumb? Discuss.
  • Are these the whitest Oscar nominations ever? Or just the most recent Academy Award whiteout? For the second year in a row, the nominations failed to recognize any minority actors.
  • The black directors of each movie along with their nonwhite actors were shut out
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Last year, Vin Diesel boldly predicted that “Furious 7” would win the Academy Award for best picture, “unless Oscars don’t want to be relevant, ever.”
  • s “the economy of prestige”
  • done a reasonably good job of recognizing black talent, belatedly making up for decades of neglect. “12 Years a Slave” won best picture.
  • whiteness of this year’s field of nominees exposes not only the myopia of the nominating body but also the deep structural biases of the industry that feeds it.
  • I love that so many people are enraged at this year’s whiteout — anyone who yells at the Academy is a friend of mine — but I wish that this anger was being expressed 365 days a year and not when the nominations are announced
  • I mean, half of me really doesn’t care. There’s obviously a serious problem with regard to race, sexuality and gender in Hollywood. B
  • . The Oscars aren’t full-time jobs. To hear some voters talking about this time of year, it sounds like tax season or exam tim
  • In the case of both “Creed” and “Compton,” I just don’t think the campaigns were there for these movies. Just as I don’t think they were there for “Selma” the previous year.
  • But I don’t want to let the Academy and its members off the hook. Or rather, I want to broaden the indictment beyond the specific complaints that they ignored Mr. Elba, “Creed,” “Straight Outta Compton” and Will Smith’s excellent Nigerian accent in “Concussion.”
  • I think it’s when you get to that one that race sneaks back into the picture. The Academy, in its function as the culture industry’s upholder of the ideology of Quality, has for a long time been open to African-American talent and even eager to promote and reward it.
johnsonma23

6 takeaways from the Democratic debate - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

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

debate US politics

shared by johnsonma23 on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • But as the primaries draw near, voters often spend time thinking about the commander-in-chief test -- and Sanders has a long way to go in convincing voters of his readiness to handle foreign affairs.
  • On gun control, health care, financial regulation, her "many hours in the Situation Room advising President Obama" and more, Clinton cast herself as the defender of Obama's legacy
  • Sanders had said many Democrats are "deeply disappointed" in Obama's shifts rightward, and a primary opponent could "begin contrasting what is a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing."
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Purity vs. pragmatism on health care
  • "He has voted with the NRA, with the gun lobby, numerous times. He voted against the Brady Bill five times. He voted for what we call the Charleston loophole. He voted for immunity for gun makers and sellers," she said.
  • Nobody's hitting the Republicans
  • Health care and gun control, in particular, have emerged as key splits in the Democratic race where Clinton believes she can win liberal voters from Sanders.
  • 6 takeaways from the Democratic debate
  • Sanders willing to throw punches
  • "You've received over $600,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs in one year," he said, later turning his focus to criminal justice and noting that "not one of their executives is prosecuted" for actions during the 2008 economic crisis.
johnsonma23

The Gospel According to Trump - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...gospel-according-to-trump.html

trump new york times US

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  • The Gospel According to Trump
  • IT is no secret that Donald J. Trump’s ruinous rise in the Republican presidential primaries has been powered, in large part, by a naked agenda of religious division and fear-mongering
  • But while his anti-Muslim provocations have rightly drawn the largest share of public outrage, Mr. Trump has in fact been using his bully pulpit throughout this election season to attack religious minorities of all stripes.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • In the Gospel According to Trump, there is only one blessedly normal, all-American faith: mainline Protestant Christianity.
  • Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Baptists
  • are Mr. Trump’s “chosen ones.
  • Take Mr. Trump’s bizarre speech last month to the Republican Jewish Coalition, where he kept inexplicably returning to the same well-worn tropes that anti-Semites have been using for a century
  • “I’m Presbyterian,” Mr. Trump said. “Boy, that’s down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness. I mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I don’t know about. I just don’t know about.”
  • More recently, he tried to blunt Ted Cruz’s surge in the Iowa polls by using the senator’s Cuban heritage to exoticize his Christian faith. “I do like Ted Cruz,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in Des Moines, “but not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba.”
  • But Mr. Trump’s religious posturing is not about theology, it’s about branding — and if his religious worldview seems impossibly dated, that’s by design.
  • s “Make America Great Again”
  • Mr. Trump’s target demographic is not America’s most devout, but its most anxious and aggrieved, and what he’s selling isn’t salvation, but a bygone era of plentiful factory jobs
  • By focusing his rhetorical firepower largely on minority faiths that have grown in size and influence in the United States over the past 60 years — displacing the old Protestant monopoly — Mr. Trump is stoking a tribal hostility toward those who worship differentl
  • He promptly recalibrated, telling me about a Jewish friend (“great guy, rich guy”) who had moved to Utah and fallen in love with the local creedal breed. “You know,” he said, “people don’t understand the Mormon thing. I do. I get it. They are great people!
johnsonma23

Rural Oregon's Lost Prosperity Gives Standoff a Distressed Backdrop - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...off-a-distressed-backdrop.html

new york times US economics

shared by johnsonma23 on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Rural Oregon’s LostProsperity Gives Standoffa Distressed Backdrop
  • a lifelong resident who has lost his job twice and has filed for bankruptcy once, said that was not the case anymore. He now works for the state as a prison guard, a job he said he hated.
  • “You do what you have to do to stay alive,”
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Times were once very good out here on the high desert of east-central Oregon, and a place like Burns — remote and obscure until a group of armed protesters took over a nearby federal wildlife sanctuary early this month
  • These days, cities like Portland, Salt Lake City and Boise, Idaho, are gobbling up more of the jobs than ever, especially the good ones.
  • Half the jobs in Oregon, for example, are now clustered in just three counties in and around Portland, according to a study by Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit research group in Bozeman, Mont
  • So the population grows ever older, poorer and less educated, and opportunities continue to dry up: The county has 10 percent fewer jobs than it did in 1979, according to state figures.
  • The pattern of poverty has shifted nationally as we
  • poverty rates fell or remained stable across the Northeast, South and Midwest — but rose significantly across the West, a Pew Research Center study said in 2014
  • What happened was a steep downturn, especially in the timber industry, which has all but disappeared
  • Changes in the wood industry were clearly also having an effect over those years, with more wood buyers shopping in Canada and more mills becoming automated, but many people here also said they thought the United States Forest Service
  • . Comparatively speaking, there are now much higher numbers of people in their prime working-age years whose incomes are below the federal poverty measure for a family.
  • But the role of government in what happened here is also more nuanced and complex than the black-hat-white-hat imagery presented by Mr. Bundy and his companions.
  • Government paychecks, like the one Mr. Ward earns at his job at the prison, have helped keep Harney County afloat as private jobs have declined
  • People like the Wards said that when environmental groups filed lawsuits and applied pressure at the State Capitol in Salem or in Washington, D.C.,
  • Some residents and local officials say they believe the history and relationship between the people and the government is being distorted by the protesters,
  • “People feel powerless,” said State Representative Cliff Bentz, a Republican whose district covers much of eastern Oregon, includ Harney County. “As the rural areas grow more and more poor and urban areas grow more and more wealthy, there’s a shift in power.”
johnsonma23

Deir Ezzor: Hundreds may be dead after ISIS abductions - CNN.com - 1 views

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

dead hundreds cnn isis intensifying tragic frightening

shared by johnsonma23 on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Hundreds may be dead after ISIS abductions in Deir Ezzor
  • The city of Deir Ezzor in northern Syria has seen more than its share of conflict and suffering since the Syrian insurgency began
  • The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Sunday that at least 400 civilians -- including families of pro-regime fighters -- had been abducted by ISIS during the latest fighting and taken to the surrounding countryside.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • There is no way to independently verify the reports by the Observatory and SANA; other opposition outlets have put the number of casualties lower.
  • The Observatory also reported Saturday that ISIS had killed or executed some 50 soldiers and 85 civilians during its offensive against al-Bagaliyeh.
  • Fighting between government and ISIS forces continued Monday, the Observatory reported.
  • The ISIS-affiliated news agency Aamaq said Sunday that 167 regime fighters had been killed and many more wounded. A video released by ISIS Sunday purported to show heavy artillery and tanks being used as well as abandoned regime positions.
  • Neighborhoods where the regime is holding out have been under siege by ISIS for a year, with medical supplies and food scarce and generators the only source of electricity. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has reported massive price inflation, as products had to be smuggled across the Euphrates River.
  • ISIS has stepped up offensives against several of these areas.
  • several neighborhoods, capturing and killing dozens of Syrian soldiers but also seizing many civilians, according to reports from activists.
  • As ISIS has gone on the offensive, Russia has stepped up its support for the regime in and around the city.
  • As the situation has worsened, some civilians have managed to escape the city, which had nearly 1.5 million inhabitants before the Syrian conflict began
  • Most of the city has been controlled by ISIS for well over a year, but some neighborhoods and the military airport to the south have remained in the hands of the regime
johnsonma23

Clinton raises women's rights in Democratic debate | MSNBC - 0 views

www.msnbc.com/...omens-rights-democratic-debate

clinton debate rights

shared by johnsonma23 on 18 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Clinton raises women’s rights in Democratic debate
  • There were no explicit questions about women’s rights in the fourth Democratic debate Sunday night, but the candidates, particularly Hillary Clinton, did what they could to insert them into the conversation anyway. 
  • “we have seen women no longer paying more for our insurance than men.” 
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • “The pay equity for women, the American people want it.”  
  • But the fact that there were no explicit questions about abortion rights, and that there have been none in the Democratic debate to date, rankled some activists on Twitter.
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