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Contents contributed and discussions participated by mcginnisca

mcginnisca

White People Are A Little Too Damn Happy About Trevor Noah vs. Tomi Lahren - Medium - 1 views

  • He tried to articulate the danger in comparing Black Lives Matter to the KKK and asked the important question of “how should black people protest,” which zero percent of angry white people can seem to answer.
  • What they got to witness was the open-minded discussion they’ve been clamoring for since Trump became President-elect. Fans of erasing identity politics who feel the need to reach across the aisle to white people who have no problem voting for a racist absolutely loved watching this debate. And I’ve seen far too many articles celebrating the back-and-forth as some sort of prototype for future discussion
  • Tomi Lahren spouted violent propaganda on national television while Noah tried to get her to value his black life. That’s not a healthy debate. That type of conversation shouldn’t be celebrated. And it damn sure isn’t Trevor Noah’s job to convince a white person why he shouldn’t die.
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  • Tomi Lahren, in the course of 26 minutes, argued that black people are 18 times more likely to kill police (this statistic is nowhere to be found). That a liberation movement in America is tantamount to a group of people who murdered countless people over the course of the 20th century. That the same liberation movement has advocated for and succeeded in murdering police officers. All of these statements are literally life-threatening to black people. She’s saying things that contribute to the deaths of black folks across America. This is not just two people arguing political beliefs. This is one person defending his right to live on national television while a person with a dedicated following spouts lies about why he is a threat to society.
  • But to white people, whose lives aren’t in danger in the way Trevor Noah’s is, this was an entertaining joust that reaffirmed whatever stances they have on a multitude of issues and made them feel good about the belief that we can just talk away hatred without doing anything to actually deter it
  • The fact Trevor Noah was able to face Lahren on his show wasn’t as much a celebration of his ability to cordially talk to her as it was a failure by the same white people so delighted in the debate to check her and her hatred before it became a national phenomenon.
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Sorry, uncovering America's racist underbelly wasn't why Trump won-Commentary - 0 views

  • The last wrong explanation for Clinton's loss is one people both on the Left and the Right are making: The Clinton email scandal. Of course, the continuing cloud of the on again/off again FBI investigation into Clinton's illegal private email server didn't help her campaign
  • The largest single economic group in our country has been sold out and ignored by the leaders of both parties for more than a generation. They are the hourly wage-earning Americans who have been bounced around from good manufacturing jobs, to service jobs, to seasonal work without the rest of us noticing that much. And that's even though there are a lot more of them than the college-educated white collar office workers out there. You know the financial uncertainty you felt last night when you saw the Dow futures crash down by 750 points? That's the kind of emotion millions of your fellow Americans have been feeling every night for years even though they're not "poor" or even necessarily unemployed.
  • And it goes beyond economics. This is a divide that truly began in America during the Vietnam War, which was protested and defended by the rich and upper middle class while the lower middle class and poor actually did the fighting in country. That divide and the wounds from it have never really healed. I doubt we'll ever see an exit poll this specific, but I'd be willing to bet that Trump won 60 percent plus of the Vietnam veterans' vote because he spoke to their past and current pain in a way actual Vietnam vets like John Kerry and John McCain — guys who actually served in the war — never could
mcginnisca

James Comey Reopens Investigation Into Clinton Emails: What Will the Legal Ramification... - 0 views

  • The FBI has announced that it is investigating newly discovered messages related to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. According to The New York Times, these emails were found in the course of the agency’s investigation of the former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner and the longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin.  
  • It’s possible Comey was partly motivated by fear. When he chose not to prosecute Clinton for her use of a private email server, he was brought before Congress to defend his decision; a hearing at the House Judiciary Committee in September lasted nearly four hours
  • “Comey and the FBI are in a terrible position here, one in which they would be accused of playing politics whatever they ended up doing.”
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  • Democrats are already saying Comey has acted irresponsibly
  • At least one group, which is associated with the anti-Trump Keep America Great PAC, announced that it filed a complaint about Comey with the Department of Justice. “It is an obvious attack from a lifelong Republican who used to serve in the Bush White House, just to undermine her campaign,”
mcginnisca

'The Diversity Bargain' Dominating Higher Education - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • If I felt guilty about exploiting my background to appeal to colleges looking to build a well-rounded class, I also felt grateful for the opportunity.
  • Yet for something so widely desired, what diversity means and why people want it remain unclear
  • Particularly in the U.S., where universities emphasize their “holistic” evaluations of applicants and, studies show, calibrate SAT scores depending on a variety of factors including race, legacy status, and athletic recruitment, she was curious how students justified the practice. Reasoning that elite colleges tend to espouse relatively progressive views and that their students—having gained entree to the world’s most prized institutions—would presumably have little reason to resent affirmative action, she decided this sample would provide insights into “the best-case scenario in terms of support for racial inclusion.”
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  • Time and again, she comes across students like Stephanie, a white history major at Harvard, who says “race needs to be considered” because an “ethnically diverse community is beneficial to everyone and is such an integral part of the Harvard education.”
  • What if they add no discernibly “unique” perspective of black culture or rural poverty or the immigrant experience to student life?
  • Warikoo is slightly more narrow in assessing this cognitive dissonance, highlighting research (including her own) that reveals the paranoia of many white Americans who are “primed to see reverse discrimination in the future,”
  • “Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it,” reads The Common Application’s most popular prompt. “If this sounds like you, then please share your story.” It’s an appealingly capacious invitation, but it also subtly casts applicants’ “backgrounds” or “identities” in the same terms as an “interest” or “talent,” and it’s perhaps unsurprising that many of the students Warikoo interviewed do the same, recontextualizing the consideration of race and income in admissions with comparisons that avoid questions of inequality altogether. When asked “whether diversity creates problems for the university,
mcginnisca

Election 2016: The Latest Updates - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump in cash on hand by $46 million, according to new Federal Election Commission filings detailing their finances from October 1 to October 19.
  • he Democratic nominee had $62.4 million in her war chest, compared with Trump’s nearly $16 million. Clinton raised $52.8 million and spent $49.6 million. Trump, on the other hand, brought in $30.5 million and spent some $49 million in the same period
  • Trump has no plans to hold “high-dollar fundraising events” in the run-up to Election Day; the money raised at those events had gone, in part, to the Republican National Committee, which spent it on down ballots. Trump has also continued to fall short of his commitment to self-fund his campaign
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  • Trump’s coffers have paled in comparison with Clinton’s.
  • The Democratic National Committee asked a federal judge Wednesday to hold the Republican National Committee in contempt of court, claiming that Donald Trump and his campaign had violated a longstanding consent decree that bans the RNC from intimidating minority voters.
  • In total, he’s given himself a little over $56 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which doesn’t come close to his “more than $100 million” pledge.
  • That connection places the RNC in direct violation of a 1982 consent decree that limits how Republican officials can challenge minority voter qualifications at the polls, the DNC argued.
  • “The RNC is working in active concert with Trump, the Trump campaign, and Stone to intimidate and harass minority voters in violation of this Court’s Consent Decree,” the DNC’s filing said. “The Court should use its inherent contempt powers to remedy those violations, and enforce future compliance with the Consent Decree, with sanctions.”
  • The RNC settled the lawsuit in 1982 and agreed to a consent decree that, among other conditions, required the party and its associates to “refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities…where the racial or ethnic composition of such districts is a factor” and “where a purpose or significant effect of such activities is to deter qualified voters from voting.”
  • “Frankly, if any Catholic votes for Hillary Clinton, if I were a Catholic, I wouldn’t be talking to them anymore,” Trump said. “She’s been terrible in what she said and her thoughts toward Catholics, and to evangelicals—she was mocking evangelicals, also. Why would an evangelical or a Catholic—and almost, you could say, anybody of faith—but in particular, because they were mentioned, evangelicals and Catholics, why would they vote for Hillary Clinton, and how could they vote for Hillary Clinton?”
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News Today - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • Syrian rebels group, including Islamists formerly linked to al-Qaeda, launched a military offensive to break the government’s siege of Aleppo, the last major rebel-held city in Syria where 275,000 people have been trapped for months.
  • Russian and Syrian airstrikes have pounded the rebel-held eastern part of the divided city. Civilian targets, humanitarian convoys, and hospitals have been struck. The government controls the western portion of Aleppo
  • rebels fired missiles at al-Nayrab, in the east of the city, killing 15 people and wounding 100 others
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  • Eastern Aleppo is the last major rebel stronghold in Syria, but taking it won’t be easy. Assad is backed not only by the Russian military—airstrikes and a soon-to-arrive naval fleet in the Mediterranean—but also fighters from Iran, and Hezbollah, the Shia militia from neighboring Lebanon
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US suspends talks with Russia over Syria - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

  • he US announced Monday it is "suspending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia" that had come about as part of the short-lived cessation of hostilities in Syria.
  • Secretary of State John Kerry, who spent months negotiating with his Russian counterpart in order to bring about a ceasefire in Syria, spoke Tuesday about the end of bilateral talks and emphasized that the US was not giving up on peace or the Syrian people.
  • "Together, the Syrian regime and Russia, seem to have rejected diplomacy in furtherance of trying to pursue a military victory over the broken bodies, the bombed-out hospitals, the traumatized children of a long-suffering land," he said.
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  • Earnest said Russia had lost credibility by "making a series of commitments without any indication they were committed to following them," accusing Russia and its Syrian regime allies of trying "to bomb civilian populations into submission."
  • When asked if the US had lived up to its end of the cease-fire deal, Trudeau said, "We believe we did."
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Donald Trump's tough path to the White House - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

  • He largely avoided incessant talk about allegations of sexual assault by multiple women and claims that the election is rigged -- both of which made wavering Republicans nervous.
  • "Just thinking to myself right now, we should just cancel the election and just give it to Trump," he quipped during a rally in Toledo, Ohio.
  • But the Fox News poll, like some other recent surveys, suggested Trump is underperforming 2012 nominee Mitt Romney among this core constituency. Romney won white voters by 20 points over Obama according to exit polls, but Trump is only 14 points ahead of Clinton in the poll with the same voting group.
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  • Trump donated just $31,000 to his campaign in early October despite promises to give up to $100 million to his campaign, according to a fundraising report filed Thursday. He has only donated $56 million to his race as of October 20.
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U.S. economy posts best growth in 2 years - Oct. 28, 2016 - 0 views

  • America finally got some good economic growth. The U.S. economy expanded at a 2.9% annual rate from July through September compared with the same time a year ago -- the fastest economic growth in two years.
  • Working against growth for much of the year was that businesses had lots of unsold items sitting in the back room. This factor, also known as inventories, didn't hold growth back in the third quarter.
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Europe's Aid Plan For Syrian Refugees: A Million Debit Cards : Parallels : NPR - 0 views

  • The European Union is desperate to keep Syrian refugees from bolting from Turkey for Europe. But the prospects for Syrians in Turkey have been slim. Now the EU is launching its biggest aid program yet – more than $375 million aimed at a million of the neediest Syrians in Turkey.
  • a debit card that can be used to buy whatever food, medicine or clothing a family needs, or to get cash.
  • There have been cash-based aid programs before, but not on this scale. Jonny Hogg, spokesmen for the World Food Program, says this is the biggest humanitarian relief contract ever signed by the EU.
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  • Syrians in Turkey are supposed to stay where they're registered. They can rent property if they can afford it, work if they can find a job, and can be eligible for health care and education. But as a practical matter, the demand usually outstrips the supply. Turkey's Ambassador to the U.K. recently wrote that there are around 853,000 school-aged children, 310,000 of which are eligible to receive education.
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2016 President Forecast - 0 views

  • When you vote, you don’t elect the president: You tell your state’s electoral-college electors how to vote. In most states, all electors vote with the state’s popular opinion. If 51 percent of voters in California choose Hillary Clinton, all 55 of California’s electors will vote for Clinton — and none will vote for Donald Trump.(Historically, a few so-called faithless electors have voted against popular opinion. They never changed the outcome of an election, so we don’t model them.)We simulated a Nov. 8 election 10 million times using our state-by-state averages. In 9.8 million simulations, Hillary Clinton ended up with at least 270 electoral votes. Therefore, we say Clinton has a 97.6 percent chance of becoming president.
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Thanks To Trump, RNC Is In A Bad Financial Position Heading Into The General Election |... - 0 views

  • Donald Trump has reportedly ceased raising money for the big dollar committee linking his campaign to the official Republican Party.
  • Presidential campaigns are supposed to provide a flush of cash for the party. But Trump’s effort has raised significantly less than previous Republican candidates even though he has been able to collect much larger checks. That has left the RNC in the worst financial shape it has been in at this point in a presidential election since the turn of the millennium.
  • The RNC has raised just $271 million through September, including the money brought in by Trump. This is the lowest amount the party has had at this point since the passage of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law instituted higher contribution limits and banned party soft money. It is lower than the $332 million raised in 2012, the $310 million raised in 2008 and the $306 million raised in 2004 ― and that’s before adjusting for inflation.
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  • This change meant that a single donor could make a $334,000 contribution to the RNC each year. You would think that the ability to raise such bloated checks would actually increase the amount the RNC would raise in 2016, but it clearly has not. The RNC has raised $53.6 million for these separate accounts. This leaves just $217 million available to be freely spent on election activities
mcginnisca

World War 3 Inevitable: Turkey Warns Syrian Conflict Will Bring Russia, U.S. To 'The Po... - 0 views

  • The Syrian civil war, where two of the world’s largest military powers — Russia and the United States — are supporting opposite sides of the conflict, is now being seen, at least by Turkey, as the inevitable theater of the beginning of World War 3. That is, if the two nations cannot somehow come to terms and resolve the situation that has now been raging in Syria for five years.
  • The Daily Mail reported last week that, at least according to Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Numan Kurtulmus, there is little doubt that World War 3 will erupt between Russia and the United States over the Syrian war if that conflict cannot somehow be resolved. Kurtulmus made the foreboding comments soon after the U.S. pulled out of the ceasefire talks regarding the Syrian civil war.
  • U.S. also accused the Russians of the massive computer hack that has disrupted the Democratic Party during the 2016 presidential campaign
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  • That was quickly followed by accusations that Syrians and Russians had committed war crimes in the fighting against Syrian rebels, the contingent supported by Turkey and the U.S
  • Although tensions have been high for some time, they’ve recently spiked around the attacks against Aleppo, which Syria — and, by extension, Russia — sees as a haven and launching area for Syrian rebels
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Trump: Clinton's Syria plan would spark World War III - 0 views

  • Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton's plans for conflict-ravaged Syria would "lead to World War III."
  • Trump said defeating the Islamic State militant group is a higher priority than persuading Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down — a long-held U.S. strategy
  • "You’re going to end up in World War III over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton. You’re not fighting Syria any more, you’re fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk,
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ISIS leaders may flee Mosul as their ranks are decimated - CNN.com - 0 views

  • S military officials expect that senior leaders of ISIS may try to flee Mosul, the capital of ISIS' self-styled caliphate in Iraq, as their control of the city comes under attack from Iraqi forces
  • ISIS leaders will likely take women and children as human shields, or will pose as refugees leaving the battle for the city, according to those officials
  • Their targets include IED construction facilities; the sources of ISIS financing, such as oil-related facilities, and also the group's media production entities, such as ISIS' news agency, Amaq, according to US military officials.
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Russia unveils 'Satan 2' nuclear missile - CNN.com - 0 views

  • A Russian missile design company has unveiled the first image of a new weapon in Russia's arsenal: the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, nicknamed "Satan 2."
  • The RS-28 Sarmat rocket "is capable of wiping out parts of the earth the size of Texas or France," Russian state news outlet Sputnik reported in May.
  • The Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau's website describes it as "one of largest research and design centers in Russia for the development of rocket and space technology."
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  • Earlier this month, Moscow announced that it was suspending an arms reduction agreement with the US in which both countries agreed to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium, enough for thousands of nuclear bombs, over what it called Washington's "unfriendly actions"
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How Hillary Clinton found her stride on gender - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

  • She didn't lecture. She smiled (a lot) — even as he slid into his role of interrupter-in-chief.
  • But it was the former secretary of state who pulled off the more fascinating performance -- taking command of the stage, dominating Trump on a wide array of issues, luring him into ill-advised digressions about the source of his wealth and whether he pays federal taxes.
  • Her team clearly felt her light touch gender strategy -- provoking Trump but not complaining about her treatment -- worked Monday night.
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  • "constant interruption of her was reminiscent of the way a lot of women feel about bullies in their lives,"
  • "I know that person, that person was a Miss Universe person, and she was the worst we ever had. The worst, the absolute worst," Trump said, later adding, "She was the winner and you know, she gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem."
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Stop Pretending You Don't Know Why People Hate Hillary Clinton | Huffington Post - 0 views

  • We go on endlessly about how “untrustworthy” she is, while fact checkers rank her as the second-most honest prominent politician in the country. (And her opponent as by far the least.)
  • History is decidedly unafraid of “the woman card.” It doesn’t care how many people will stand on tables today and swear they’d feel the same if she were a man. It will see us for what we are—a sick society, driven by misogyny and pathetically struggling to come to terms with the fact that women do not exist solely to nurture.
  • When Mitt Romney wiped servers, sold government hard drives to his closest aides and spent $100,000 in taxpayer money to destroy his administration’s emails, it was barely an issue.
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  • When Hillary Clinton asked Colin Powell how he managed to use a Blackberry while serving as Secretary of State, he replied by detailing his method of intentionally bypassing federal record-keeping laws:
  • And view her with contempt for opposing same-sex marriage in 2008, while fawning over men like Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders, who held the same position at the same time
  • Yet, we have all heard and seen countless liberal posers passionately decrying her “far right voting record,” untrustworthy promises or ever-changing policy positions. Jon Stewart recently called Clinton, “A bright woman without the courage of her convictions, because I don’t know what they even are.” Because if he doesn’t know, she must not have any, right?
  • Since then, Clinton racked up a Senate voting record more liberal than any nominee since Mondale. Her 2008 platform was slightly to Obama’s left on domestic issues. Her 2016 platform was barely to the right of self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders.
  • Generations from now, people will shake their heads at this moment in time, when the first female major party presidential nominee—competent, qualified and more thoroughly vetted than any non-incumbent candidate in history—endured the humiliation of being likened to such an obvious grifter, ignoramus and hate monger. We deserve the shame that we will bear.
mcginnisca

What Black Americans Lost by Siding with Democrats - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • Kennedy faced pressure from civil-rights activists to make good on what King called a “huge promissory note” to pass meaningful civil-rights legislation.
  • While the passage of the Civil Rights Act helped Johnson earn support from 94 percent of black voters in 1964, there is a gulf between what black Americans hoped the legislation would achieve and what Democratic politicians actually delivered.
  • Democratic politicians acted more boldly on race issues in Alabama and Mississippi than in New York and Massachusetts. “There is a pressing need for a liberalism in the North which is truly liberal, a liberalism that firmly believes in integration in its own community as well as in the Deep South,”
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  • arry Goldwater described the Civil Rights Act as unconstitutional, black voters essentially found themselves in a one-party system for presidential elections.
  • “There is a pressing need for a liberalism in the North which is truly liberal…”
  • Unfortunately for black voters, most white politicians and voters assume that the civil-rights revolution not only leveled the playing field, but also tilted it in favor of African Americans
  • Democrats running for state or national office aspire to win black votes without appearing to be beholden to black voters
  • When Bill Clinton and the “New Democrats” emerged victorious in the 1990s, thanks in large part to 83 percent support from black voters in 1992 and 84 percent in 1996, they adopted policies, such as welfare reform (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996) and a crime bill (Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994) that proved ruinous for many black Americans.
  • African Americans are challenging Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders to earn their votes. Whoever wins the nomination will likely garner support from over 85 percent of black voters
mcginnisca

Women Are Already Punished for Trying to End Their Pregnancies | The Nation - 0 views

  • There has to be some form of punishment” for a woman who chooses to end a pregnancy, Trump said,
  • What about consequences for the man who got her pregnant? That’s different, said Trump
  • There are a few other conservatives who share this view
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  • Obviously, criminalizing women who end their pregnancies in a country where one in every three women will do so has grotesque implications for public health and the criminal-justice system.
  • Since at least 1500 BC women have risked imprisonment, pain, illness, and death in order to end pregnancies.
  • many states already criminalize women who end pregnancies themselves
  • he same activists who claim women shouldn’t be punished, states have been making legal abortion less and less accessible.
  • Laws that restrict access to legal abortion services and those that criminalize self-induced abortion are on a collision course, and it’s women who are caught in the middle.
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