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Contents contributed and discussions participated by rachelramirez

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rachelramirez

The Creator of Pepe the Frog Talks About The Alt-Right - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...499892

pepe politics US trump

shared by rachelramirez on 03 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • It's Not Easy Being Meme
  • Tuesday morning Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign denounced a cartoon frog named Pepe.
  • For most of his lifespan as a meme on the internet, Pepe the Frog was a benign, if sometimes bawdy figure beloved by pop stars and teenagers alike.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • But reporters today are more likely to encounter Pepe’s smug visage in his latest incarnation, as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes put it, people with “Nazi frog avatars” who are “tweeting about the Jews.”
  • Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out a modified image of the poster for the action movie The Expendables with prominent Trump supporters’ faces photoshopped onto those of the action stars. The image, which introduces the group as The Deplorables, includes Pepe in a Donald Trump wig.
  • Reporters now often describe Pepe as a “white-nationalist symbol”
  • The internet is basically encompassing some kind of mass consciousness, and Pepe, with his face, he’s got these large, expressive eyes with puffy eyelids and big rounded lips, I just think that people reinvent him in all these different ways, it’s kind of a blank slate.
  • The interesting thing about this situation, is that I’m talking to you, and it’s like a newsworthy thing that this cute, generally happy frog character has taken on a life of its own for better or worse.
rachelramirez

Sanders: Clinton 'absolutely correct' in leaked comments on his supporters - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.com/...marks-on-sanders-voters-229016

clinton politics US education

shared by rachelramirez on 03 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Sanders: Clinton 'absolutely correct' in leaked comments on his supporters
  • In audio released last week by the Washington Free Beacon, Clinton described Sanders supporters as "children of the Great Recession. And they are living in their parents’ basement."
  • She said that because of those feelings, voters found the idea of a political revolution appealing, adding, "I think we all should be really understanding of that."
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  • Clinton and Sanders worked together on a "new college compact that will create tuition-free education for people and families earning under $125,000 a year."
rachelramirez

Donald Trump's Pathetic Fraternity - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rumps-pathetic-fraternity.html

election politics US opinion

shared by rachelramirez on 03 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Donald Trump’s Pathetic Fraternity
  • Christie made that deal with shocking alacrity, apparently on the theory that by getting to the table first, he could snag the best seat. It was flawed thinking. Mike Pence was given the marquee assignment; Christie was subjected to repeated public humiliations, including an admonition by Trump to stay away from Oreos.
  • Over recent days, in a spectacularly ill-advised war of words with the former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, he and his minions sought to discredit her by essentially calling her a tramp. Isn’t that precisely what they’re complaining that the Clintons and their minions did to Monica Lewinsky?
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  • It’s all wild hallucination, but he bellows nonetheless, because the television cameras eat it up
  • It’s not exclusive to Republicans. Howard Dean had a Giuliani moment all his own, suggesting that Trump, who doesn’t even drink alcohol, might have a nasty cocaine habit.
  • And it’s amazing how far they’ve fallen. For a significant stretch of the 2008 election cycle, Giuliani was the favorite for the G.O.P. presidential nomination, and not just any favorite.
  • If Trump fails, where does that leave Christie? He was once intent on proving the bipartisan breadth of his outlook and appeal, as his brief bromance with President Obama demonstrated.
rachelramirez

South Carolina school shooting: 2 children, 1 teacher wounded, official says - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...ina-elementary-school-shooting

shooting politics US Policy culture

shared by rachelramirez on 29 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • SC school shooting: 2 children, 1 teacher wounded; suspect's father dead
  • Two children and a teacher were shot at an elementary school playground in Townville, South Carolina, an official with Anderson County Emergency Services told reporters.
  • The father of the suspected shooter was found dead of a gunshot wound
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The suspected shooter, a teenager, is in custody
  • Wednesday afternoon, the three victims at the school were strudck by bullets from a handgun
  • It is unclear whether the alleged shooter knew any of the school victims. Major said the motive is unclear, but terrorism has been ruled out.
  • The incident occurred at the school's playground, officials said.
rachelramirez

How Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would tax the 1 percent, in one chart - Vox - 0 views

www.vox.com/...clinton-trump-taxes-1-percent

clinton trump tax politics US Policy economics

shared by rachelramirez on 28 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • How Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would tax the 1 percent, in one chart
  • there’s at least one issue on which Clinton likes to stress that Trump does in fact have a set policy: tax cuts for the super wealthy.
  • There’s a certain irony to the discrepancy in the candidates’ plans: All of the evidence suggests Hillary Clinton is the candidate overwhelmingly preferred by the super wealthy.
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  • She is, for instance, the first Democratic nominee in more than 20 years to be leading among those making over $100,000, according to a Bloomberg News poll. She clobbered Trump among millionaires by 13 points in a CNBC poll. She also has a 20-to-1 fundraising edge among billionaires, and an even bigger one among top corporate earners.
  • if we’re going by proposed tax policies alone, there really is no dispute about which candidate promises to most advance the interests of America’s 1 percent.
  • As the graphic shows, Clinton’s plan would raise taxes for the top 1 percent — those making over $730,000 — by an average of $123,570 a year. That number is a little misleading —
  • Overall, Clinton’s tax increases on the top 1 percent would increase revenue by somewhere in the order of $140 billion in 2017 alone. That money would then be funneled into an ambitious and extensive array of social welfare programs and other policy initiatives,
  • Among them include raising capital gains taxes, imposing a 4 percent surcharge on incomes over $5 million, advancing a new tax for incomes that surpass $1 million
  • Trump, meanwhile, would give the top 1 percent an extra cash cushion in the range of $162,000 a year.
  • Goldwein’s analysis is based on one think tank’s estimate of incomes for 2017, though Trump’s plan is based on a different think tank’s estimate of incomes for 2016.
rachelramirez

Analysis: Trump, Clinton came out swinging in fiercest presidential debate in modern times - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...91134076

trump clinton debate US

shared by rachelramirez on 27 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • Analysis: Trump, Clinton came out swinging in fiercest presidential debate in modern times
  • In a debate that was scheduled to last 90 minutes but headed into overtime, Trump and Clinton jabbed each other in the fiercest series of exchanges in a presidential debate in modern times.
  • He portrayed her as one of the political hacks who has led the nation dangerously astray.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • She portrayed him as a questionable businessman with few specific plans and a limited grasp of the facts, advocating economic policies she repeatedly dubbed “Trumped-up trickle-down.”
  • The moderator, NBC’s Lester Holt, tried with only limited success to keep control.
  • despite all the speculation beforehand that Trump would try to come across as having a more moderate temperament, he defended himself as fiercely as ever — flatly denying several assertions that have been documented as true by fact-checkers, including that he had supported the invasion of Iraq.
  • Trump needled Clinton a few hours before the debate on Twitter, a platform he has perfected as a political weapon.
  • History demonstrates that the first debate can be powerful enough to boost a candidate or wound one.
  • They typically have had the most impact when an incumbent president isn’t running
rachelramirez

TV Critics Predicted the Rise of Donald Trump in 1960 - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...501230

donald trump politics US history

shared by rachelramirez on 23 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • Donald Trump Is a 1960s Technology Critic’s Worst Nightmare
  • “American Presidential campaigning will never be the same again.” This was the Milwaukee Journal’s response, in 1960, to an event that has since become the stuff of political legend.
  • Rarely are worst-case-scenario fears about emerging technologies realized. The written word certainly diminished the oral tradition, for example, but it didn’t dull human intellect as Socrates feared.
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  • . In one sprawling 1960 essay, published in the Times the day before Nixon and Kennedy took the stage, the writer and former White House aide Emmet John Hughes imagined two starkly different futures—one in which television would help democracy flourish and the other in which television would severely debase the nation’s political culture.
  • Optimists saw the potential for a visual banquet that would bring real intimacy between candidates and voters
  • Pessimists saw a future in which the substance of political discourse would be cheapened dramatically, and a world in which TV would displace more substantive forms of political communication
  • Broadcast media as a legitimizing force might, for instance, create the illusion that a candidate is more qualified than he really is.
  • “It invites, even demands, appeal to emotion rather than intellect. It commercializes, savagely hammering political discourses into capsule banalities to fit one-minute, thirty-second, ten-second ‘spots.’”
  • Just as technology critics feared it would, television helped corporatize American politics. It transformed the conventions into broadcast spectacles. It drove up the cost of campaigning and created the need for a new roster of advisors for candidates—bookers, handlers, media experts, and image consultants who then doubled as additional buffers between the candidate and the public.
  • By several measures, the quality of political discourse—as it plays out on Twitter and Facebook, for example—may be seen as worse than ever, another notch along a continuum of degradation that TV helped promote.
  • Many more will simultaneously track reaction, in real time, on social media—or opt to “watch” reaction by itself, without watching the debate at all. For half a century now, the American voter has turned to screens—televisions and now smartphones—to form political opinions.
rachelramirez

Chattanooga All-Girls Charter School's Path to Success - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...500999

charter US education

shared by rachelramirez on 23 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • The Key Ingredient to Fixing a Failing School
  • More than 90 percent of its students are black or Latino. Nearly all are low income. The school’s brochure says it was founded “to improve educational opportunities for low-income, underserved girls in Hamilton County.”
  • And critics can point to research published in Science magazine that suggests single-sex schools don’t foster better academic outcomes and accuse charters of pulling resources away from neighborhood schools.
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  • Elaine Swafford was hired as CGLA’s executive director in 2012 and given less than a year to transform the then-failing school, which had launched several years earlier as the state’s first single-gender public charter school and then tanked.
  • Math proficiency was in the single digits. Few students had solid prospects for the future.
  • . Last year, the school achieved a 93 percent graduation rate and nearly every graduate went on to college.
  • Over the last decade, new research has increasingly suggested that strong school leaders are a crucial component of success, and even that turning around failing schools is virtually impossible without a strong leader at the helm.
  • On an adjoining wall, hundreds of magnets bearing individual names track each girl’s proficiency in a range of subjects, from below basic to advanced.
  • When she took over, half of the school’s teachers turned over after she informed the staff they would need to reapply for their jobs.
  • Swafford’s way of thinking is based on the idea that if she can’t deliver the well-rounded education both in and out of the classroom that middle-class kids get, her students will never catch up to their more affluent peers
  • Each student at CGLA is assigned an adult mentor and Swafford recently hired a college-access counselor to help students work through the federal financial-aid application and to stay connected with recent graduates
  • After she recently discovered that 85 of the school’s 350 students don’t have internet access at home, Swafford set about securing a hotspot for each wifi-less child.
  • The school receives some extra funding from the government because it serves such a high number of low-income students, but it’s not nearly enough to pay for all of the programs the school offers, so Swafford has gotten very good at raising money
  • Twenty-nine percent of the school’s budget is from fundraising, she told me, which helps fill a $4,500-per-student gap in funding.
  • Teachers are expected to believe that every child is capable of success and then help them achieve it by doing whatever it takes, regardless of any obstacles
  • The school recently implemented “grit” grading, and, Swafford acknowledged unapologetically, “everybody’s not happy about it.”
  • “grit” grading
rachelramirez

The Taliban's Cruel New Leader - The Daily Beast - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/...aliban-s-cruel-new-leader.html

taliban politics US Pakistan

shared by rachelramirez on 02 Jun 16 - No Cached
  • The Taliban’s Cruel New Leader
  • Afghan Taliban leaders have long enjoyed safe haven in Pakistan, especially in Baluchistan, under the watchful eye of the some elements in the country’s intelligence services.
  • As Bruce Riedel of Brookings wrote in The Daily Beast on Sunday, the hit on Mansour was a clear message to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (the ISI) that the days of the Baluchistan refuge may be coming to an end. 
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • But a senior Taliban figure tells The Daily Beast that while Omar was in charge, Akhondzada did not have much seniority and was not on anyone’s list as a potential leader. His rise toward the top of the Taliban hierarchy only came after the announcement of Omar’s death and Mullah Mansour’s succession last year.
  • Within Taliban circles Mullah Haibatullah Akhondzada has the reputation of being very conservative, even by Taliban standards. Some claim he is sadistic with underlings and has little idea about or interest in politics as such
rachelramirez

Big Win Over ISIS Could Mean a New War - The Daily Beast - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/...isis-could-mean-a-new-war.html

war politics US crisis

shared by rachelramirez on 02 Jun 16 - No Cached
  • Big Win Over ISIS Could Mean a New War
  • But the potential seizure of the Syrian city of Manbij by U.S.-backed forces is only likely to set off a new battle for control—this time pitting Arabs against Kurds.
  • On the other hand, some worry that a Kurdish controlled Manbij could be ethnically cleansed, creating the kind of Sunni disenfranchisement that led to the rise of ISIS.
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  • The U.S.-led airstrike campaign has increasingly assaulted ISIS logistical operations, forcing the terror group to retreat from territory it once controlled. Such losses have made it harder for ISIS to move weapons, food, and fighters around the self-proclaimed caliphate and appear to have weakened the group’s ability to expand its state across the Middle East and Africa.
  • as it appears ISIS has instead spread its foreign fighters across the region to places like Libya and Egypt. The terror group has even asked recruits to stay in Europe and attack from there.
  • The potential fall of Manbij with the help of the Kurds, along with the fall of areas around Raqqa, suggest that the U.S. is willing to risk creating potential new tensions to rid the northern city of ISIS.
rachelramirez

Xi Jinping, China's President, Unexpectedly Meets With North Korean Envoy - The New Yor... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...s-with-north-korean-envoy.html

China North Korea politics

shared by rachelramirez on 02 Jun 16 - No Cached
  • Xi Jinping, China’s President, Unexpectedly Meets With North Korean Envoy
  • what appeared to be a slight thaw in a bilateral relationship that has been strained by Beijing’s concerns about the North’s nuclear weapons program.
  • Mr. Ri, a former foreign minister and a confidant of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, told Chinese Communist Party officials on Tuesday that his country would continue to expand its nuclear arsenal and had no intention of giving up the weapon
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  • Mr. Xi seemed to strike a positive tone, telling him that China “attached great importance to developing a friendly relationship with North Korea” and was seeking “calm” on the Korean Peninsula
  • The surprise meeting is believed to have been the first encounter between Mr. Xi and a senior North Korean official since 2013, when he met with Choe Ryong-hae, who was then a special envoy of the Workers’ Party in the North.
  • China is the biggest benefactor of the North’s rudimentary economy.
  • The Obama administration considers China’s enforcement of United Nations sanctions on North Korea, imposed as punishment for its nuclear program, vital to their success.
rachelramirez

EgyptAir Flight Believed to Have Crashed at Sea; Egypt Cites Possible Terrorism - The N... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...egyptair-flight-804.html

terrorism egypt

shared by rachelramirez on 19 May 16 - No Cached
  • EgyptAir Flight Believed to Have Crashed at Sea; Egypt Cites Possible Terrorism
  • the Greek authorities said debris believed to be from the wreckage had been found at a site around 205 nautical miles southeast of Crete and 190 nautical miles south of the Greek island of Karpathos.
  • Mr. Fathi said. Still, he said, “if you analyze the situation properly,” the possibility of “having a terror attack is higher than the possibility” of technical failure.
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  • At 2:37 a.m., shortly after entering Egyptian airspace, the plane made a 90-degree turn to the left and then a full circle to the right, first plunging to 15,000 feet from 37,000 feet and then to 9,000 feet
  • 30 were from Egypt, 15 from France, two from Iraq and one each from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Chad, Kuwait, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
  • American and European officials have expressed concerns about security gaps in North African airports. Advertisement Continue reading the main story
  • Intelligence analysts who monitor jihadist websites and social media said there had been no claims of responsibility by terrorist groups.
  • At 4:26 a.m. — nearly two hours after the last radar contact — the plane emitted a signal, although it was not clear whether that was an emergency distress signal sent by a crew member or an automated signal from the plane’s onboard computers.
  • Egypt has come under criticism in the past for its lack of transparency in aviation accidents. In 1999, an EgyptAir flight crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, killing all 217 on board.
rachelramirez

Dying Infants and No Medicine: Inside Venezuela's Failing Hospitals - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ezuelas-failing-hospitals.html

venezuela hospitals crisis policy

shared by rachelramirez on 16 May 16 - No Cached
  • Dying Infants and No Medicine: Inside Venezuela’s Failing Hospitals
  • “The death of a baby is our daily bread,” said Dr. Osleidy Camejo, a surgeon in the nation’s capital, Caracas, referring to the toll from Venezuela’s collapsing hospitals.
  • It is just part of a larger unraveling here that has become so severe it has prompted President Nicolás Maduro to impose a state of emergency and has raised fears of a government collapse.
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  • Gloves and soap have vanished from some hospitals. Often, cancer medicines are found only on the black market. There is so little electricity that the government works only two days a week to save what energy is left.
  • At the University of the Andes Hospital in the mountain city of Mérida, there was not enough water to wash blood from the operating table. Doctors preparing for surgery cleaned their hands with bottles of seltzer water.
  • The hospital has no fully functioning X-ray or kidney dialysis machines because they broke long ago. And because there are no open beds, some patients lie on the floor in pools of their blood.
  • This nation has the largest oil reserves in the world, yet the government saved little money for hard times when oil prices were high.
  • So without water, gloves, soap or antibiotics, a group of surgeons prepared to remove an appendix that was about to burst, even though the operating room was still covered in another patient’s blood.
  • Ms. Parucho, a diabetic, was unable to receive kidney dialysis because the machines were broken. An infection had spread to her feet, which were black that night. She was going into septic shock.
  • In a supply room, cockroaches fled as the door swung open.
  • In April, the authorities arrested its director, Aquiles Martínez, and removed him from his post. Local news reports said he was accused of stealing equipment meant for the hospital, including machines to treat people with respiratory illnesses, as well as intravenous solutions and 127 boxes of medicine.
  • A holiday had been declared by the government to save electricity, and the blood bank took donations only on workdays.
  • For the past two and a half months, the hospital has not had a way to print X-rays. So patients must use a smartphone to take a picture of their scans and take them to the proper doctor.
  • Near him, a handwritten sign read, “We sell antibiotics — negotiable.” A black-market seller’s number was listed.
  • The ninth floor of the hospital is the maternity ward, where the seven babies had died the day before. A room at the end of the hall was filled with broken incubators.
  • The day of the power blackout, Dr. Rodríguez said, the hospital staff tried turning on the generator, but it did not work.
rachelramirez

Donald Trump and the Death of the Republican Party - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...481176

trump politics US policy history

shared by rachelramirez on 11 May 16 - No Cached
  • The Day the Republican Party Died
  • Where were you the night Donald Trump killed the Republican Party as we knew it? Trump was right where he belonged: in the gilt-draped skyscraper with his name on it, Trump Tower in Manhattan, basking in the glory of his final, definitive victory.
  • To his left, stopped for the night, was the golden escalator he’d ridden down when he announced his campaign last June with a rambling, unscripted address that invoked the “rapists” he said were pouring over the Mexican border, beginning what would be an uninterrupted series of shocks to the political system.
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  • “We want to bring unity to the Republican Party,” Trump said. “We have to bring unity—it’s so much easier.”
  • David Brooks had proclaimed “a Joe McCarthy moment,” adding, “People will be judged by where they stood at this time.” They had stood athwart Trump’s nomination, yelling, “Stop!”—but the Republican voters had ignored them, and now they feared their party was lost.
  • The New York Daily News’s cover showed a red, white, and blue elephant in a casket.
  • He would “go after” Hillary Clinton. He would attack trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement. He would build up the military and take care of veterans and “bring back jobs” for everyone, including the Hispanics and African Americans. “Our theme is very simple: It’s Make America Great Again,” he said. “We will start winning again, and you will be so proud of this country.”
  • After Trump exited, the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” came on the speakers—a fitting message from the newly minted Republican nominee to his party’s old elites.
  • It was followed by the Puccini aria “Nessun Dorma,”
  • At campaign stops, Cruz was taunted by Trump supporters: “Indiana doesn’t want you!” one shouted. Trump, Cruz told the man plaintively, “is playing you for a chump.”
  • ut the party was broken before Trump came along, and Cruz helped to break it.
  • “Ted Cruz helped create an environment where populist demagoguery would flourish on the right. Of course, he, no doubt, assumed he would be the beneficiary of this,” the conservative commentator Matt Lewis wrote. In the end, he added, “the revolution had turned on Ted Cruz, too.” And Trump, sensing the party’s weakness, steered into the breach.
  • There were no Kasich supporters moved to vote strategically, no former loyalists of Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio. Cruz, it was clear, had not managed to broaden his appeal. It was the establishment’s revenge on the man some regarded as “Lucifer in the flesh.
  • ?A couple of weeks ago, he managed not to say anything bizarre for several days in a row, and even read from a sheet of notes at a few of his rallies. His ragtag, disorganized campaign, of which he has always been the undisputed chief strategist, finally hired a real-deal consultant. He gave a well-mannered victory speech that referred to “Senator Cruz” instead of his habitual “Lyin’ Ted.”
  • Trump’s approval rating among Republicans, he noted, is now positive by a 20-point margin, a sharp reversal from a couple of months ago, and a recent general-election poll had him narrowly beating Clinton.
  • Some of his supporters see him as a new kind of Republican reformer, one whose lack of loyalty to the party frees him to adopt more popular positions that can attract nontraditional GOP voters.
  • Jill McMillan, a 57-year-old environmental-health worker from Elkhart, told me Trump was the only candidate who made her feel safe, protected from the dangers of the world.
rachelramirez

Why Republicans in Congress Are Opposing or Supporting Trump - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-congress-republicans-gop.html

trump republicans politics US

shared by rachelramirez on 09 May 16 - No Cached
  • Why Republicans in Congress AreOpposing or Supporting Trump
  • Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who was one of the 16 other Republicans to run for president and has criticized Mr. Trump in the past, said Friday that he could not support him.
  • Mr. Ryan has serious policy differences with Mr. Trump, and he wants to protect the Republican majority in the House as well as his own political future, which could possibly include a run for president.
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  • Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, ultimately wants to retain Republican control of the Senate in 2016 and protect those up for re-election in 2018.
  • Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who is known for his tough stance on immigration, endorsed Mr. Trump in February, two days before the Super Tuesday primaries.
rachelramirez

The Credibility Trap - Vox - 0 views

www.vox.com/...credibility-foreign-policy-war

credibility vox politics US culture crisis

shared by rachelramirez on 29 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • The Credibility Trap
  • The United States, according to this theory, has to follow through on every threat and confront every adversary in order to maintain America's global credibility. If it fails to stand up to challengers in one place, then they will rise up everywhere, and America will see its global standing, and thus its power in the world, crumble.
  • And American adversaries grew emboldened — including Russia's Vladimir Putin, whose subsequent invasion of Ukraine was said to be a direct result of weakened American credibility.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • In 1950, as the United States considered whether or not to intervene in the Korean War, a CIA report urged the US to intervene so as to uphold its credibility far away in Europe: A failure to draw the line would have seriously discredited the whole US policy of containment, gravely handicapping US efforts to maintain alliances and build political influence with the Western European powers and with other nations closely aligned with the US.
  • Yet the belief in credibility persists, dominating America's foreign policy debate, steering the United States toward military action abroad in pursuit of a strategic asset — the credibility of America's reputation — that turns out not to exist.
  • In political science, "credibility" usually refers to specific promises or threats, and in this case the research does say that credibility is real.
  • It's easy to see how people could be attracted to this idea, which puts complicated geo-politics in simple and familiar human terms. It encourages us to think of states as just like people.
  • The logic of reputational credibility can only ever lead to the same conclusion: toward the use of American military force abroad, even in cases where there is no clear reason to intervene and where the downsides of intervention would seem to outweigh the upsides.
  • But, in reviewing so-called "entanglement theory," Beckley points out that reputational credibility, even if it doesn't exist in the world, is something that definitely exists in the minds of foreign leaders and foreign policy decision-makers.
  • Some scholars, including Levy, argue that America's allies promote the idea of reputation, as a means to convince the United States to commit more resources to serve their own interests.
rachelramirez

Reforming the Republican Party After Donald Trump - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...480249

republican donald trump politics US

shared by rachelramirez on 28 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • How to Save the Republican Party
  • Yet not perhaps since George McGovern in 1972 has a presumptive nominee so signally failed to carry the most committed members of his party with him.
  • What can more credibly be imagined, however, is an Independent candidacy that peels away 7-8 percent of the vote from a Trump-led GOP ticket, as John Anderson peeled votes away from Jimmy Carter in 1980, aiding Ronald Reagan.
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  • There, the Republican majority could—in some apocalyptic remake of Bush v. Gore—defy the popular vote and bestow the presidency this time on the third-place finisher.
  • ” Some anti-Trump conservatives will feel bound to oppose the election of Hillary Clinton—but they guess it wouldn’t hurt too much compared to the Trump alternative.
  • And if, like J. Alfred Prufrock, you murmur, “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all” then it’s time to reckon with the fact that the great American center wasn’t what you imagined it was at all either.
  • Trump’s almost certain failure in November will likewise drag after him other conservative causes, notably immigration restriction. Republican elites will be quick to blame a Trump loss on his immigration message
  • Much of the old conservative message is out of date. Not all of it, but much. Yet the people who formed the conservative coalition remain. They’ve misplaced their faith and trust in Donald Trump.
rachelramirez

Congress Is Running Out of Time to Save Puerto Rico - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...480027

congress puerto rico politics crisis economic policy

shared by rachelramirez on 27 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • A Commonwealth in Crisis
  • On Sunday, Puerto Rico will likely default again on some of its debts, which now total over $70 billion.
  • It is an entity that is often almost completely at the whim of Congress, the most dysfunctional body in national politics today.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • . Its economy has not grown in over a decade, and there is a $28 billion gap in funding over the next five years alone.
  • Public hospitals and health-care facilities may close, exacerbating an ongoing crisis that already sees Puerto Rican patients receiving far worse health care than their mainland counterparts.
  • Puerto Rico has attempted to solve its debt issues by granting itself bankruptcy powers under rules that grant service providers in the states the ability to seek relief, but that decision remains under Supreme Court review and has been opposed in no uncertain terms by the federal government.
  • The plan also exempts Puerto Rican workers under 25 years old from the labor protections of a federally-mandated minimum wage and overtime regulation, with the goal of making Puerto Rico’s job market more competitive in comparison to its neighbors.
  • Representatives of those who hold the territory’s general obligation bonds oppose the bill as well, because it would allow Puerto Rico to restructure its debts and delay payment, as well as limit the ability of bondholders to sue if it defaults.
  • In 1984 Congress specifically carved Puerto Rico out from Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy protections that it once had, offering no reason for singling out the territory.
  • Also in 1996, Congress passed legislation to phase out Section 936 of the federal tax code, a law that exempted U.S. industries from taxes on income in Puerto Rico. With no replacement plan to promote development or growth, Puerto Rico’s economy suffered.
  • The Medicaid underpayment deficit alone accounts for almost one-fifth of the current total deficit in the territory. A legislative medical-funding scheme could both help right the financial ship in Puerto Rico and help its crippled health-care system face the siege of Zika.
  • Granted, the government of Puerto Rico is not blameless in this saga. Its public-services monopolies are extraordinarily inefficient; the territorial government has not been good with spending, budgeting, or long-term fiscal planning; and the two major parties––for statehood and the status quo––have supported some congressional reforms with the goal of forcing the other side’s hand, instead of promoting good governance.
  • Congress’s dysfunctions might run so deep that they keep it from even addressing a humanitarian crisis in the country, a total failure of the body’s special duty towards Puerto Rico. Congress’s current plan might provide short-term relief, but it is a bit of a Hobson’s choice.
rachelramirez

The GOP Delegate Race After Tonight | The Weekly Standard - 0 views

www.weeklystandard.com/...2002130

gop politics US crisis

shared by rachelramirez on 27 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • The GOP Delegate Race After Tonight
  • But the real race to watch is Pennsylvania, where an additional 54 unbound delegates are up for grabs. These delegates are elected directly on the ballot, but the ballot does not say which presidential candidates they support
  • Some percentage of Trump voters will take the time to figure out which delegates publicly back Trump. But there's really no way to know right now whether Trump ends up with half the unbound delegates or close to all of them.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Almost all of the unbound delegates from North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Louisiana seem unlikely to back Trump
  • But as Scott Rasmussen points out in this video, Indiana and California still appear to be the two most important states still left to vote in the GOP race.
rachelramirez

Results From the Democratic Senate Race in Maryland: Chris Van Hollen vs. Donna Edwards... - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...479970

senate maryland gender politics US culture policy

shared by rachelramirez on 27 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • How Race and Gender Shaped the Senate Race in Maryland
  • Race and gender are front and center in the Maryland U.S. Senate primary race between Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards. Van Hollen, a white man, and Edwards, a black woman, are both Democratic members of Congress from Maryland competing to replace the state’s retiring senator, Barbara Mikulski.
  • No matter who wins, the contest has exposed a rift among Democrats over the relative importance of identity and the extent to which it should be emphasized in politics.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • If elected, Edwards would become the second black woman ever to join the Senate.
  • Still, the term “identity politics” is frequently used as a pejorative by conservatives who accuse liberals of provoking division on issues of race and gender for political gain.
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