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In the Face of Weighty Problems, Trump Focuses on Squabbles - The New York Times - 0 views

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shared by redavistinnell on 13 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • In the Face of Weighty Problems, Trump Focuses on Squabbles
  • The morning after North Korea launched a ballistic missile into the sea, apparently to test President Trump’s resolve in his first days in office, the new commander in chief wanted to make one thing very clear to the world: Mark Cuban, the billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner, was not smart enough to have his job.
  • “He backed me big-time but I wasn’t interested in taking all of his calls. He’s not smart enough to run for president!”
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  • The president might have been reacting to a report on Sunday in The New York Post that White House aides view Mr. Cuban as a potential campaign rival in 2020, or to comments Mr. Cuban made to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Friday warning corporate executives to be careful in their dealings with Mr. Trump.
  • It offered a reminder three weeks into his tenure that even as he faces weighty problems, he is often preoccupied with the narrowest of gripes.
  • He swiped at Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, for criticizing the counterterrorism raid in Yemen that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL.
  • Mr. Trump said Mr. McCain’s critique “only emboldens the enemy,” and in a pair of postings on Twitter, he said that the senator, who is the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and was taken prisoner during the Vietnam War, has “been losing for so long he doesn’t know how to win anymore.”
  • “Ask Senator Blumenthal about his Vietnam record that didn’t exist after years of saying it did,
  • Mr. Trump’s swing at Mr. Blumenthal was itself a function of yet another feud he has pursued, often in incendiary tones, against the judicial branch as it weighs the legality of his executive order banning travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
  • He ratcheted up the insults during a speech to law enforcement officials from around the country, calling a hearing by a three-judge appeals court panel to review the stay “disgraceful” and comparing the intellect of the judges unfavorably with a poor student in high school.
  • Days later, Mr. Trump blamed journalists in a posting in which he expressed pride in Ms. Trump, whom he said had been “abused and treated so badly by the media.”
  • That Mr. Trump is willing, and even eager, to ignore those conventions, his aides say, is one reason his supporters adore him.
  • “He doesn’t hold it back, he’s authentic and he’s not going to sit back, I think, when he feels very passionately about something.”
  • “If you go back and listen to the tapes, they would talk privately with members of Congress or their staffs, and Nixon would say some pretty crazy things — about Jews, about people in the media who were out to get him — some of it was very petty, personal stuff,” Mr. Dallek said. “What is unusual is that President Trump is doing this publicly and it’s a near-daily occurrence, it’s multiple times a week.”
  • In a post on Twitter responding to Mr. Trump’s insult on Sunday, Mr. Cuban shared a letter he had written to the president during his campaign last year, in which he advised Mr. Trump to drill down on policy specifics instead of improvisin
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Why Nobody Cares the President Is Lying - The New York Times - 0 views

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  • Why Nobody Cares the President Is Lying
  • On his first full day in office Mr. Trump insisted that his inaugural crowd was the largest ever, a baseless boast that will likely set a pattern for his relationship both to the media and to the truth.
  • For years, as a conservative radio talk show host, I played a role in that conditioning by hammering the mainstream media for its bias and double standards. But the price turned out to be far higher than I imagined. The cumulative effect of the attacks was to delegitimize those outlets and essentially destroy much of the right’s immunity to false information. We thought we were creating a savvier, more skeptical audience. Instead, we opened the door for President Trump, who found an audience that could be easily misled.
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  • Unfortunately, that also means that the more the fact-based media tries to debunk the president’s falsehoods, the further it will entrench the battle lines.
  • The press secretary also declined to answer a straightforward question about the unemployment rate, suggesting that the number will henceforth be whatever the Trump administration wants it to be.
  • In a stunning demonstration of the power and resiliency of our new post-factual political culture, Mr. Trump and his allies in the right media have already turned the term “fake news” against its critics, essentially draining it of any meaning. During the campaign, actual “fake news” — deliberate hoaxes — polluted political discourse and clogged social media timelines.
  • For years, the widely read Drudge Report has linked to the bizarre conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who believes that both the attacks of Sept. 11 and the Sandy Hook shootings were government-inspired “false flag” operations.
  • But now any news deemed to be biased, annoying or negative can be labeled “fake news.” Erroneous reports that the bust of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office or misleading reports that sanctions against Russia had been lifted will be seized on by Mr. Trump’s White House to reinforce his indictment.
  • In that world, the leader becomes the only reliable source of truth; a familiar phenomenon in an authoritarian state, but a radical departure from the norms of a democratic society. The battle over truth is now central to our politics.
  • By now, it ought to be evident that enemies are important to this administration, whether they are foreigners, refugees, international bankers or the press.
  • But discrediting independent sources of information also has two major advantages for Mr. Trump: It helps insulate him from criticism and it allows him to create his own narratives, metrics and “alternative facts.”
  • The Russian dissident and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov drew upon long familiarity with that process when he tweeted: “The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
  • Mr. Trump and his allies are empowering this alt-reality media, providing White House access to Breitbart and other post-factual outlets that are already morphing into fierce defenders of the administration.
  • Scottie Nell Hughes, was asked to defend the clearly false statement by Mr. Trump that millions of votes had been cast illegally. She answered by explaining that everybody now had their own way of interpreting whether a fact was true or not.
  • Or as George Orwell said: “The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”
  • In the meantime, we must recognize the magnitude of the challenge. If we want to restore respect for facts and break through the intellectual ghettos on both the right and left, the mainstream media will have to be aggressive without being hysterical and adversarial without being unduly oppositional.
  • There may be short-term advantages to running headlines about millions of illegal immigrants voting or secret United Nations plots to steal your guns, but the longer the right enables such fabrications, the weaker it will be in the long run. As uncomfortable as it may be, it will fall to the conservative media to police its worst actors.
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Donald Trump's most bone-chilling tweet (opinion) - CNN.com - 0 views

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  • Donald Trump's most bone-chilling tweet
  • On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump may have unleashed his most bone-chilling tweet -- at least to those who believe the United States should not become a Trump-led dictatorship
  • Here is Trump's truly jaw-dropping tweet from Saturday morning: "The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!"
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  • But Trump is apparently attempting to delegitimize our federal judiciary by calling Judge James Robart, a George W. Bush-appointed judge, a "so-called" judge while arguing that his decision is "ridiculous."
  • The President truly appears to be leading a master class in transforming the United States into a dictatorship. Trump -- and it's fair to assume it is by design -- has sought to undermine anyone or anything that tries to counter him.
  • The practical result is that when the media calls out Trump's lies and presents objective facts to counter him, his followers will likely dismiss the media reports and instead side with Trump.
  • hen Trump went after our intelligence agencies because he didn't agree with their views on Russia's involvement in our recent election. Trump lashed out, calling these agencies, charged with gathering information for our national security, "disgraceful" and accusing them of leaking information, comparing it to "something that Nazi Germany would have done."
  • But this time it's far more disturbing given Trump is not a candidate, but president of the United States. The rationale must be assumed to be the same, namely that Trump wants to delegitimize the judiciary so that court decisions Trump disagrees with will be viewed by his followers as at the least horribly partisan, or at worst invalid.
  • Would
  • Trump do the same if he had passionately disagreed with the Court's decision or would he simply ignore it while attacking the legitimacy of our judiciary, sparking a constitutional crisis? And would certain Trump-supporting federal agency heads, or even federal officers, refuse to follow court orders (or at least do it very slowly) because Trump has convinced them the federal judiciary's decisions cannot be trusted?
  • And according to a CNN/ORC poll, while Trump has only a 44% approval rating overall, 90% of Republicans think he's doing a good job.
  • Trump's concerted attacks to delegitimize our media, our intelligence community and now our federal judiciary would have no doubt alarmed them. And it should be terrifying to every American who truly believes in our Constitution and in the promise of America.
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Mexico's President Cancels Meeting With Trump Over Wall - The New York Times - 0 views

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  • Mexico’s President Cancels Meeting With Trump Over Wall
  • The president of Mexico said on Thursday that he was canceling his scheduled meeting with President Donald J. Trump in Washington next week, rejecting the visit after the new American leader ordered a border wall between the two nations.
  • “I regret and condemn the United States’ decision to continue with the construction of a wall that, for years now, far from uniting us, divides us,” he said.
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  • The action was enough to prompt Mr. Peña Nieto of Mexico to start discussing scrapping his plans to visit the White House, according to Mexican officials.
  • On Wednesday, the new American president signed an executive order to beef up the nation’s deportation force and start construction on a new wall between the nations.
  • On Twitter, Mr. Trump’s action was referred to by politicians and historians as a “an offense to Mexico,” a “slap in the face” and a “monument to lies.”
  • Historians said that not since President Calvin Coolidge threatened to invade a “Soviet Mexico” had the United States so deeply antagonized the Mexican popula
  • “It is an unprecedented moment for the bilateral relationship,” said Genaro Lozano, a professor at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City. “In the 19th century, we fought a war with the U.S.; now we find ourselves in a low-intensity war, a commercial one over Nafta and an immigration war due to the measures he just announced.”
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Why I Cannot Fall in Line Behind Trump - The New York Times - 0 views

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  • Why I Cannot Fall in Line Behind Trump
  • Republicans who disagree with my stance make the following argument: Mr. Trump, while flawed, is preferable to Hillary Clinton. His cabinet appointments, they say, have been reassuring, and it’s true that several of them are. In addition, the nominee to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court is certain to be more of an originalist than a Clinton appointment would be. On top of that, Republicans are in control of Congress, meaning they are likely to drive much of the agenda, particularly given Mr. Trump’s notable lack of interest in policy. Whatever misgivings anti-Trump conservatives might have had about him, he’ll undo much of the agenda of his liberal predecessor while Mrs. Clinton would have built on it.
  • To understand why, it’s worth keeping in mind that my chief worries about Mr. Trump were never strictly ideological; they had to do with temperament and character.
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  • The more pressing concern many of us had about Mr. Trump is that he simply isn’t up to the job of being president.
  • Last weekend Mr. Trump gave an interview to the Washington Post in which he said his administration would quickly put out its own health proposal, which would cover everyone now insured and cost much less.
  • The extraordinary and unenviable task facing the White House staff is to contain Mr. Trump, to keep a dysfunctional president from producing a dysfunctional presidency.
  • Beyond that, Mr. Trump has continued to demonstrate impulsivity and narcissism, an affinity for conflict and vindictiveness. Which leads to my main worry about Mr. Trump: His chronic lack of restraint will not be confined to Twitter. His Twitter obsessions are a manifestation of a deeper disorder.
  • He thrives on creating disorder, in violating rules, in provoking outrage. He is a shock jock. This might be a tolerable (if culturally coarsening) trait in a reality television star; it is a dangerous one in a commander in chief.
  • For Mr. Trump, nothing is sacred. The truth is malleable, instrumental, subjective. It is all about him. It is always about him.
  • When President Trump is buffeted by events — when hard times hit, when crises arise, when other politicians and world leaders do not bend to his will — pernicious things will happen.
  • Rather than try to address the alienation and anger that exists in America, he will amplify them. He’ll create yet more conspiracy theories.
  • He will also go in search of enemies — the press, the opposition party, other nations, even Republican leaders — in order to create diversions that inflame his most loyal supporters.
  • In failing to distinguish between the good of the nation and his own vanity, the danger is that Mr. Trump will fail to see the limits of his authority and will try to use both the bully pulpit and the power of government — the I.R.S., the F.B.I., regulatory agencies and others — to settle personal scores. He’ll do what he needs to in order to get his way.
  • What this means is that Republican leaders in Congress need to be ready to call Mr. Trump on his abuses and excesses, now that he is actually in office.
  • They need to ask themselves a simple, searching question: “If Barack Obama did this very thing, what would I be saying and doing now?” — and then say and do it.
  • man with illiberal tendencies, a volatile personality and no internal checks is now president. This isn’t going to end well.
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Iceland election could propel radical Pirate party into power | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

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  • Iceland election could propel radical Pirate party into power
  • A party that favours direct democracy, complete government transparency, decriminalising drugs and offering asylum to Edward Snowden could form the next government in Iceland after the country goes to the polls on Saturday.
  • The radical party, founded by activists and hackers four years ago as part of an international anti-copyright movement, captured 5% of the vote in 2013 elections, winning three seats in Iceland’s 63-member parliament, the Althingi.
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  • A poll last week put the Pirates, who hang a black pirate flag in their parliamentary office, on nearly 21% of the vote, far short of the 40%-plus it was polling at the height of mass anti-government protests this spring,
  • The party has ruled out any possibility of forming a coalition with either of the current two ruling parties
  • “the parties forming a government … hiding behind compromises in coalition – enabling them to cheat voters again and again”.
  • nce the 2008 crash when Iceland’s three biggest banks collapsed owing 11 times the country’s GDP, Reykjavík’s stock market fell 97% and the value of the krona halved, Iceland has recovered economically.
  • Support for the Independence party, the Pirates’ rival for the position of largest party, seems to be holding.
  • Birgitta Jónsdóttir, the Pirates’ parliamentary leader, has said her party is willing to form a government with any party that subscribes to its agenda of “fundamental system change”, including the introduction of a new, crowdsourced national constitution.
  • the party advocates an “unlimited right” for citizens to be involved in political decision-making, with voters able to propose new legislation and decide on it in national referendums.
  • This election follows the resignation of Iceland’s prime minister, Sigmundur Davið Gunnlaugsson, who became the first major casualty of the Panama Papers
  • “Across Europe, increasingly many people think that the system that is supposed to look after them is not doing it any more,” Jónsdóttir said. “But we know we are new to this, and it is important that we are extra careful and extra critical on ourselves to not take too much on.”
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Spain urged not to allow refuelling of Russian warships - BBC News - 0 views

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  • Spain urged not to allow refuelling of Russian warships
  • The Spanish government is now reviewing the permit for refuelling at its enclave of Ceuta in north Africa.
  • Nato expressed concern that the ships could be used to help bomb civilians in Aleppo, but said the final decision on resupply rested with Spain.
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  • Nato's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned that warships could be used to target civilians in Syria.
  • "The concern is that the Kuznetsov carrier group can be used as a platform for increased airstrikes against civilians in Aleppo."
  • "for each nation to decide whether these ships can get supplies and fuelling and be fuelled in different harbours along the route towards the eastern Mediterranean."
  • The British Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, said: "We'd be extremely concerned that any Nato member should consider assisting a Russian carrier group that might end up bombing Syrian civilians."
  • Led by Russia's only aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, the naval group includes a nuclear-powered battle cruiser, two anti-submarine warships and four support vessels, probably escorted by submarines. The battle group carries do
  • Some 2,700 people have been killed or injured since the Russian-backed Syrian offensive started last month, according to activists.
  • About 250,000 civilians who live in Aleppo have been trapped by the fighting.
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The Russian Govt. has Decided to COMPLETELY BAN the Use of Any & All Genetically Modifi... - 0 views

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  • The Russian Govt. has Decided to COMPLETELY BAN the Use of Any & All Genetically Modified Ingredients in Food Production
  • In other words, Russia just blazed way past the issue of GMO labeling and shut down the use of any and all GMOs that would have otherwise entered the food supply through the creation of packaged foods (and the cultivation of GMO crops).
  • If this announcement were to be made in the United States, for example, it would mean a total transformation of the food manufacturing industry. But in Russia, the integration of GMOs is not close to the same level as in the U.S.
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  • We know that, in the United States, 90 plus percent of staple crops like corn are genetically modified, along with 94 percent of soybeans and 94 percent of cotton. A ban on GMOs in food production would radically change the entire food supply. In Russia, however, the country is much more poised for a GMO food revolution. [
  • President Vladimir Putin believes that he can keep GMOs out of the country, even while staying in compliance with the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) commandments. In a past meeting addressing the members of the Board of the Russian F
  • deration Council he stated:
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'Trump Emergency': World leaders wary of dumping on the Donald - 0 views

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  • ‘Trump Emergency’: World leaders wary of dumping on the Donald
  • WASHINGTON — Foreign leaders who harshly criticized Donald Trump's world views earlier this year have clammed up now that he is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee — and someone they may have to deal with if he winds up in the White House
  • They realize they need to protect their relationship with the world’s most powerful nation by no longer airing their grievances as publicly as before.
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  • President Obama underscored their concerns — expressed privately — when he said Thursday that the leaders at the Group of Seven summit in Japan are “rattled” by the prospect of a Trump presidency.
  • Many leaders, who criticized Trump from December through March, are concerned about Trump’s disdain for free trade agreements negotiated by Obama and past administrations, and his pledge to renegotiate defense agreements to make allies in East Asia and Europe “pay their fair share.”
  • Asked how he would deal with a President Trump, who rejects the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, Trudeau said trade is key to the shared goals of growth and prosperity. "The level of integration between the Canadian and American economies is unlike anything else ... in the world,"
  • Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, a former ambassador to Washington, reflected much of the world’s puzzlement with Trump’s success so far on May 5 during a dinner for the Washington Institute on Near East Policy. But unlike other Saudi leaders earlier in the campaign, he only offered friendly support to his American friends.
  •  Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron said on May 22 he stands by his criticism in December that Trump's proposed Muslim ban was "divisive, stupid and wrong”, and went a step further, saying Trump's ideas are also “dangerous."
  • Mexican Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu said on May 13 that Mexico would fight Trump’s “xenophobic, or racist, or uninformed positions with information, not adjectives,”
  • Ian Brzezinski, a NATO analyst at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, D.C., said European leaders and diplomats have told him of their worries about Trump’s isolationism, aversion to free trade, disregard for human rights, and “his fire-and-forget approach to military force.”
  • Brzezinski agreed, saying leaders are hearing from their embassies in the U.S. that Trump could be the next president. “So why blast away at somebody that could be your next partner, someone who could be the next leader of the free world,” he said.
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Obama in Hiroshima calls for 'world without nuclear weapons' - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

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  • Obama in H
  • iroshima calls for 'world without nuclear weapons'
  • Obama said that "71 years ago on a bright, cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed."
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  • Obama was not expected to apologize for the U.S. action to hasten the end of World War II and he did not during his 20-minute-long remarks.
  • Obama said there is a "shared responsibility" to look into the "eye of history" and ask what must be done to prevent another nuclear weapon being used.
  • "The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of an atom requires a moral revolution as well," Obama said. "That is why we come to this place."
  • The President called for an end to senseless wars, even as he reflected that violence has existed throughout human history.
  • "Those civilizations have given the world great cities, magnificent art, thinkers that advanced ideas of harmony and truth, and yet the war grew out of the same base instinct for domination. Conflicts can cause conflicts among the simplest of tribes."
  • "We do not need apologies," Tsuboi added. "I hope that he will present in Hiroshima what is good for the happiness of humankind. I would like to join hands with each other through the power of reason and beyond hatred."
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How Donald Trump captures the White House - BBC News - 0 views

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  • How Donald Trump captures the White House
  • The Republican Party is too badly divided. His rhetoric is too incendiary. Republican voters may be "idiots", but the general public is wiser. The US electoral map, which places a premium on winning key high-population "swing" states, is tilted against the Republican Party.
  • Those states - which account for 67 electoral votes - all went for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. Add them to the states Republican Mitt Romney carried in 2012, and it delivers 273 electoral votes - three more than the 270 necessary to win the presidency.
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  • That Quinnipiac swing-state poll oversampled white voters - a demographic group that is more inclined to Republicans. In addition, it doesn't represent that big a shift from the group's battleground-state poll from last autumn, which undermines the theory that Mr Trump's support is growing.
  • The challenge for Mr Trump is that the mid-west, particularly, Wisconsin and Michigan, have served as a Democratic firewall that Republicans have been unable to penetrate since 1988.
  • Sweating polls is what US pundits and commentators do, however. And at the very
  • That linchpin of a Trump victory centres on the so-called Rust Belt - states like the aforementioned Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as Michigan and Wisconsin. Even if Florida, due to its rapidly growing Hispanic population, goes to Mrs Clinton, Mr Trump could still win if he sweeps those states.
  • least, signs that Mr Trump is within reach of Mrs Clinton should cast doubts on the early predictions that the Democrats will win in the autumn by historic, Goldwater-esque margins. Mr Trump has a pathway to the presidency.
  • That's a lot of "if's", of course. Young and minority voters - particularly Hispanics - may yet turn out to the polls in high numbers, if only to cast ballots against Mr Trump. There are already indications of record-setting Hispanic voter registration in places like California.
  • Even giving Mr Trump the benefit of the doubt, and viewing the recent polls as a trend and not a blip, there are still more electoral scenarios that end up with Mrs Clinton in the White House come 2017.
  • For Mr Trump, the political stars have to re-align in his favour. For Mrs Clinton, a general-election status quo likely means victory.
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China to send nuclear-armed submarines into Pacific amid tensions with US | World news ... - 0 views

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  • China to send nuclear-armed submarines into Pacific amid tensions with US
  • The Chinese military is poised to send submarines armed with nuclear missiles into the Pacific Ocean for the first time, arguing that new US weapons systems have so undermined Beijing’s existing deterrent force that it has been left with no alternative.
  • They point to plans unveiled in March to station the US Thaad anti-ballistic system in South Korea, and the development of hypersonic glide missiles potentially capable of hitting China less than an hour after launch, as huge threats to the effectiveness of its land-based deterrent force.
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  • “Because China’s SSBNs [nuclear missile submarines] are in the South China Sea, the US navy will try to send spy ships in there and get close to the SSBNs. China’s navy hates that and will try to push them away,” Wu said.
  • Warheads and missiles would be put together and handed over to the navy, allowing a nuclear weapon to be launched much faster if such a decision was taken. The start of Chinese missile patrols could further destabilise the already tense strategic standoff with the US in the South China Sea.
  • China has been working on ballistic missile submarine technology for more than three decades, but actual deployment has been put off by technical failures, institutional rivalry and policy d
  • Behind the ominous warnings is growing concern in the People’s Liberation army that China’s relatively small nuclear arsenal (estimated at 260 warheads compared with 7,000 each for the US and Russia), made up mostly of land-based missiles, is increasingly vulnerable to a devastating first strike, by either nuclear or conventional weapon
  • The decision to deploy Thaad anti-ballistic interceptors in South Korea was taken after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, and the stated mission of the truck-launched interceptors is to shield the south from missile attack.
  • China is developing a similar missile but officials in Beijing fear that the Chinese nuclear arsenal is so small it could be almost completely wiped out without notice, with the few missiles launched in reprisal being destroyed in mid-air by US missile defences.
  • There seems to have been some discussion of moving to a “launch on warning” policy, to fire Chinese weapons before incoming missiles land and destroy them. That appears to be a minority view, however
  • The core aim is to have a second strike capacity that is “survivable” and “penetrative”. Submarines, on patrol in the ocean depths, fulfil the first requirement, they say.
  • Partly to help penetrate US missile defences, China has in recent months also started putting multiple warheads on its largest missile, the DF-5, another development that has set alarm bells ringing in the Pentagon, where some analysts view it as the first step towards a massive nuclear armament drive aimed at obliterating the US arsenal.
  • Evidence for China’s more “relaxed” approach is the length of time it took to deploy multiple warheads, two decades after developing the necessary technology. China has similarly taken decades to deploy nuclear missile submarines.
  • The slow pace has not just been for practical reasons. China’s guiding principle has been to have a capacity for “minimum means of reprisal” while minimising the chance of accidental or unauthorised launch.
  • However, to follow the British Royal Navy model – in which each Trident submarine commander has a signed letter from the prime minister in his safe, to open in the event of a strike on London – would entail a huge leap in the alert status of the Chinese nuclear arsenal, and a similarly huge delegation of responsibility to one of the armed forces.
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Supreme Court sides with death row inmate in race discrimination case - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

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  • Supreme Court sides with death row inmate in racial discrimination case
  • The Supreme Court ruled Monday morning in favor of a death row inmate in a case concerning race discrimination in jury selection.
  • The jury that convicted him was all white. Twenty years after his sentence his attorneys obtained notes the prosecution team took while it was engaged in picking a jury, including marking potential jurors who were black had a "b" written by their name.
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  • The 7-1 decision comes as a welcome relief to critics who say racial discrimination in jury selection persists across the country some 30 years after the Supreme Court ruled potential jurors cannot be struck because of race.
  • Monday's ruling can provide "new life to these so-called Batson claims in the lower courts and the issue of racial bias in jury selection," said Steve Vladeck, CNN contributor and law professor at American University Washington College of Law, referring to the 1986 case Batson v. Kentucky.
  • "This discrimination became apparent only because we obtained the prosecution's notes which revealed their intent to discriminate. Usually that does not happen," said Foster's lead lawyer, Stephen Bright, from the Southern Center of Human Rights. "The practice of discriminating in striking juries continues in courtrooms across the country. Usually courts ignore patterns of race discrimination and accept false reasons for the strikes."
  • "The Court today invites state prisoners to go searching for new 'evidence' by demanding the files of the prosecutors who long ago convicted them . ...I cannot go along with that 'sort of sandbagging of state courts.' New evidence should not justify the relitigation of Batson claims,
  • Nearly 20 years after the conviction, through an open records request, Foster's lawyers obtained the notes the prosecution team took while it was engaged in the process of picking a jury.
  • "The prosecutors in this case came to court on the morning of jury selection determined to strike all the black prospective jurors," Bright said. "Blacks were taken out of the picture here, they were taken and dealt with separately."
  • One set of documents from the prosecution files shows that potential jurors who were black had a "B" written by their name and their names highlighted with a green pen. On some juror questionnaire sheets, the juror's race "black," "color" or "negro" was circled. One juror, Eddie Hood, was labeled "B #1. Others were labeled B#2, and B#3.
  • The Supreme Court's 1986 case held that once a defendant has produced enough evidence to raise an inference that the state impermissibly excluded a juror based on race, the state must come forward with a race-neutral explanation for the exclusion.
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Republicans have a massive electoral map problem that has nothing to do with Donald Tru... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...othing-to-do-with-donald-trump republicans map problem nothing to do
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  • x Republicans have a massive electoral map problem that has nothing to do with Donald Trump
  • Politico reported today on a Florida poll conducted for a business group in the state that shows Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump by 13 points and Ted Cruz by nine.
  • Here's what that map would look like:
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  • If Clinton wins the 19 states (and D.C.) that every Democratic nominee has won from 1992 to 2012, she has 242 electoral votes. Add Florida's 29 and you get 271. Game over.
  • There are 13 states that have gone for the GOP presidential nominee in each of the last six elections. But they only total 102 electorate votes
  • Many Republicans — particularly in Washington — are already preparing to blame a loss this fall, which many of them view as inevitable, on the divisiveness of Trump. That's not entirely fair to Trump, though.
  • Instead they are, largely, demographic problems centered on the GOP's inability to win any large swath of nonwhite voters. New Mexico, a state in which almost half the population is Latino, is the ur-example here.
  • What has become increasingly clear is that any state with a large or growing nonwhite population has become more and more difficult for Republicans to win. Virginia and North Carolina, long Republican strongholds, have moved closer and closer to Democrats of late.
  • At the same time as these states have grown friendlier to Democrats, there are very few states that are growing increasingly Republican. Wisconsin and Minnesota are two, but neither is moving rapidly in Republicans' favor just yet.
  • Yes, Trump as the nominee is more problematic than Ryan as the nominee, but the idea that Ryan would start the general election with a coin-flip chance of being elected president is just wrong.
  • The Republican map problem goes deeper than Trump — or any one candidate. Blaming Trump for a loss this November not only misses the point but could ensure that Republicans are doomed to repeat history in 2020.
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Five states expected to help Trump and Clinton widen their leads - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...6-8ab8-9ad050f76d7d_story.html states expected help trump leads
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  • s Five states expected to help Trump and Clinton widen their leads
  • For Republicans, the race for delegates remains a key focus, with Trump hoping to secure the 1,237 delegates needed before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July.
  • On the Democratic side, polls in recent days suggest that Clinton could win all but one or two of the five states up for grabs —Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware — or potentially sweep the table.
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  • Sen. Bernie Sanders, the upstart White House hopeful who has stirred the passions of liberals, made a final appeal for support in Philadelphia on Monday ahead of primaries that could render his already narrow path to the Democratic nomination virtually nonexistent.
  • “Honestly, it shows such total weakness, and it’s pathetic when two longtime insider politicians — establishment guys, whether you like it or not — have to collude, have to get together to try to beat a guy that really speaks what the people want,” Trump said during a campaign event in Warwick, R.I., on Monday
  • Trump, who has stirred outcry over remarks about women during the campaign, took sharper aim at Clinton, declaring she would be a “terrible president“ who is playing up the fact that she is a woman.
  • “I call her crooked Hillary because she’s crooked and the only thing she’s got is the woman card. That’s all she’s got. . . . It’s a weak card in her hands,” Trump said on Fox. “I’d love to see a woman president, but she’s the wrong person. She’s a disaster.”
  • “Donald Trump says wages are too high in America and he doesn’t support raising the minimum wage,” Clinton said on Monday. “I have said come out of those towers named for yourself and actually come out and talk and listen to people.
  • But less than 12 hours after the pact was announced, Kasich undercut the idea by declaring Monday that his supporters in Indiana should still vote for him. The Ohio governor also plans to keep raising money in the state and to meet Tuesday with Republican Gov. Mike Pence.
  • Cruz, meanwhile, said that Kasich was “pulling out” of the state. A super PAC supporting the senator from Texas also said it would continue to air an anti-Kasich ad in the state — a sign the Cruz camp fears Kasich could still peel away enough support to sink Cruz’s chances in Indiana.
  • And Cruz declared that his supporters should continue to cast ballots for him. He attempted to paint himself as the only candidate who could win both the primary and general elections. Trump, he said, could win the nomination but not the general election and Kasich could win the general election but not the primary.
  • The tumult fueled doubts about the arrangement among voters and Republican elites, who worried that Cruz and Kasich have handed Trump a ready-made argument that the party establishment is plotting against him. The mogul said as much in a series of stump speeches on the eve of primary voting.
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Social Club at Harvard Rejects Calls to Admit Women, Citing Risk of Sexual Misconduct -... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...risk-of-sexual-misconduct.html social club harvard calls new york new york times
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  • Social Club at Harvard Rejects Calls to Admit Women, Citing Risk of Sexual Misconduct
  • This week, that silence was broken when an official with the group, the Porcellian Club, said that admitting women could increase the chances of sexual misconduct.
  • “Forcing single-gender organizations to accept members of the opposite sex could potentially increase, not decrease, the potential for sexual misconduct,
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  • Harvard has a long tradition of all-male social clubs. In 1984, the university required these clubs to admit women. At that point, the clubs broke official ties with Harvard, and they remain unrecognized by the university.
  • Last year, the Fox Club and the Spee Club opened their doors to women. But six clubs, including the Porcellian, still admit only men.
  • Harvard College’s dean, Rakesh Khurana — who said in a statement that the single-sex clubs were “at odds with the aspirations of the 21st-century society” — was set to meet with graduate leaders of the groups, known as final clubs, on Wednesday for one in a series of discussions he has held with club members and alumni.
  • According to The Crimson, Mr. Storey said in his letter that sexual assault was not a problem at the Porcellian and that the club had become a “scapegoat.
  • Some students said they did not understand why the Porcellian had inserted itself into the discussion, because it does not host parties and keeps a low profile.
  • “I think the fact that women aren’t allowed in their clubhouse has nothing to do with it, and I think that was a pretty dumb thing to say,” Ms. Bishai said, adding that she has a number of close friends who are in final clubs.
  • “a really troubling sentiment, and I think it’s a really dangerous idea that men- and women-identified people can’t be in the same space and behave with equal respect and regard for one another.”
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China to increase defence spending by '7-8%' in 2016 - official | World news | The Guar... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ending-by-7-8-in-2016-official china increase defence spending official
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  • China to increase defence spending by '7-8%' in 2016 - official
  • China’s budget will rise to around around 980bn yuan ($150bn) as the Beijing regime increases its military heft and asserts its territorial claims in the South China Sea, raising tensions with its neighbours and with Washington.
  • “China’s military budget will continue to grow this year but the margin will be lower than last year and the previous years,” said Fu Ying, spokeswoman for the national people’s congress (NPC), the Communist-controlled parliament.
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  • Satellite pictures show what US analysts say are deployments of surface to air missiles and facilities with military use, such as runways and radar.
  • Analysts say that for a fraction of the cost of an aircraft carrier – for decades the mainstay of Washington’s ability to project power around the world – the DF-21D missile threatens to alter the military balance in the Pacific.
  • The slowdown in spending comes as president Xi Jinping seeks to craft a more efficient and effective People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the world’s largest standing military.
  • Beijing defends its actions as being within its sovereign rights and denies Washington’s assertions that they threaten freedom of navigation.
  • The defence budget was determined by both China’s defence needs and the national economic situation, she added – the country saw its weakest growth in a quarter of a century last year.
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North Korea makes nuclear threat | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...orea-makes-nuclear-threat.html north korea threat
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  • North Korea makes nuclear threat
  •  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his military on standby for nuclear strikes at any time, state media reported Friday, an escalation in rhetoric targeting rivals Seoul and Washington that may not yet reflect the country's actual nuclear capacity.
  • "The only way for defending the sovereignty of our nation and its right to existence under the present extreme situation is to bolster up nuclear force both in quality and quantity," a dispatch from the North's official Korean Central News Agency said, paraphrasing Kim. It said Kim stressed "the need to get the nuclear warheads deployed for national defense always on standby so as to be fired any moment."
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  • Pyongyang is thought to have a handful of likely crude atomic bombs, but there is considerable outside debate about the state of its arsenal.
  • Kim made the most recent warning while guiding the test-firing of a new large-caliber multiple launch rocket system, the report said.
  • at a North Korean launch site where the country fired a long-range rocket on Feb. 6, according to an analysis by the North Korea-focused 38 North website.
  • The U.N. sanctions include mandatory inspections of cargo leaving and entering North Korea by land, sea or air; a ban on all sales or transfers of small arms and light weapons to the North; and the expulsion of North Korean diplomats who engage in "illicit activities."
  • North Korean state media earlier warned that the imposition of new sanctions would be a "grave provocation" that shows "extreme" U.S. hostility against the country. It said the sanctions would not result in the country's collapse or prevent it from launching more rocket
  • South Korea's Defense Ministry said the North Korean projectiles, fired from the eastern coastal town of Wonsan, flew about 60 to 90 miles. Ministry officials said they couldn't confirm whether the projectiles were those fired by the weapons system KCNA referred to.
  • The deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, is opposed by North Korea, China and Russia. Opponents say the system could help U.S. radar spot missiles in other countries.
  • In January, North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test, which it claimed was a hydrogen bomb. Last month, it put a satellite into orbit with a long-range rocket that the United Nations and others saw as a cover for a test of banned ballistic missile technology.
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Migrant crisis: EU meeting seeks to heal growing rifts - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-europe-35657054 crisis meeting growing bbc news
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  • Migrant crisis: EU meeting seeks to heal growing rifts
  • Ministers from EU and Balkan nations are meeting in Brussels to try to heal rifts over migrants that have plunged common policy into chaos.
  • More than 100,000 migrants have entered the EU illegally this year.
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  • An official from the current Dutch presidency of the EU told AFP news agency Thursday's meetings would aim to "avoid surprises - we have to avoid that one country is surprised by the measures taken by another".
  • The new measures - from Austria and its Balkan partners - include fingerprinting all entrants and turning back anyone without a passport or holding fake documents.
  • Greece has threatened to block all decisions at EU migration summits next month if member states do not agree to take in quotas of migrants.
  • Several papers from countries in the thick of the EU migrant crisis are worried about their leaders' approach. Influential journalist Alan Posener, in Germany's Die Welt, believes Chancellor Angela Merkel's "short-sighted actions" on the crisis are helping Russia sow division among European states. "The EU is blowing up around Merkel - to Putin's delight," he writes.
  • "Europeans have a responsibility not to feed the snake of anti-European sentiment in Greece."
  • In September, EU ministers agreed plans to relocate 120,000 migrants from Italy, Greece and Hungary to other EU countries. But the majority vote decision was opposed by Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
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Beijing overtakes New York as new 'billionaire capital' - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-china-35657107 beijing new york york capital bbc news
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  • Beijing overtakes New York as new 'billionaire capital'
  • Beijing has overtaken New York as the city with the highest number of billionaires for the first time, a new report by China-based firm Hurun says.
  • Hurun, which tracks wealth in China, has released an annual Global Rich List for the past five years measuring billionaires' wealth in US dollars.
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  • Hurun found that Beijing had welcomed 32 new billionaires since last year, allowing it to vault past New York which it calculated only saw four new billionaires.
  • Overall, China has overtaken the US as the country with the highest number of billionaires. However, the top 10 billionaires in Hurun's list is still dominated by Americans.
  • He told the AP news agency that it could be due to Chinese market regulators allowing a flood of new share issues after holding back Initial Public Offerings for several years.
  • But he has not cracked the top 10 billionaires in Hurun's list, which is dominated by Americans. It is topped by Bill Gates with a net worth of $80bn, followed by investor Warren Buffett with $68bn.
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