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Contents contributed and discussions participated by sgardner35

sgardner35

Suicide Attack Kills at Least 13 in Afghanistan - The New York Times - 0 views

  • The attacker, who at midafternoon had not been identified, targeted the home of Malik Usman Shinwari, the father of two prominent government officials, said Attaullah Khogeyanai, a spokesman for the provincial governor. Mr. Shinwari was injured in the attack, but his wounds did not appear to be life-threatening, people who were present said. He was taken by helicopter to Kabul, the Afghan capital, for treatment.
  • There was no immediate claim of responsibility. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said on Twitter that the bombing had “no connection to” the group.
  • Militant activity has made it increasingly dangerous to travel the road between Kabul and Jalalabad, a key artery linking Kabul with points in Pakistan.
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  • The violence in Nangarhar is just one security threat facing the government of President Ashraf Ghani. In the southern province of Helmand, government troops, aided by United States Special Forces, have been fighting for months to contain a Taliban offensive that threatens to wrest the region from state control.
sgardner35

Missing Man Back in China, Confessing to Fatal Crime - The New York Times - 0 views

  • The publisher, Gui Minhai, a naturalized Swedish citizen, was one of five missing employees of Mighty Current Media, a Hong Kong publishing company and bookstore specializing in books about the sex lives and corruption of China’s top leaders. The books are popular with tourists from the mainland.
  • Hong Kong, while part of mainland China since 1997, has a separate government and legal system and guarantees civil rights such as freedom of speech and due process of law.
  • “I do not want any individual or organization, including Sweden, to involve themselves in, or interfere with, my return to China,” Mr. Gui said in the televised report. “Although I have Swedish citizenship, I truly feel that I am still Chinese — my roots are in China. So I hope Sweden can respect my personal choice, respect my rights and privacy of my personal choice and allow me to resolve my own problems.”
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  • Mr. Gui is not the first Hong Kong-based publisher of sensitive political books to be arrested by the mainland police on unrelated charges. In 2014, Yiu Mantin, who had been planning to publish a book critical of President Xi Jinping, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for smuggling industrial chemicals.
  • A press officer for the Swedish Foreign Ministry did not immediately return a phone call and email sent outside of normal office hours.
sgardner35

U.N.-Appointed Panel Calls for a Tax to Pay for Crises - The New York Times - 0 views

  • That idea — a small tax on high-volume goods and services — is among those proposed by an independent panel appointed by the United Nations to figure out how to pay for the staggering humanitarian crises facing the world today
  • Aid for the millions of people affected has sharply risen, but it has not kept pace with demands.
  • The world needs $40 billion each year to meet the needs of those affected by wars and natural disasters and already faces a shortfall of $15 billion for this year. Those needs are expected to grow; as the report stated bluntly, “Never before has generosity been so insufficient.” Already, food aid has been repeatedly slashed for refugees fleeing conflict in places like Somalia and Syria.
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  • “Today’s massive scale of instability and its capacity to cross borders, vividly demonstrated by the refugee crisis in Europe, makes humanitarian aid a global public good that requires an appropriate fund-raising model,” the report says
  • Countries that host refugees feel the impact acutely, but do not always have direct access to donor money. And refugees are often prohibited from working in the countries where they are living.
  • The report urges money transfer agencies to drop their fees, which is a nod to the importance of remittances from migrants to their home countries, especially in times of crisis. The authors of the report also encourage more cash assistance, rather than food, tents and blankets. They cite one 2014 study in which 70 percent of a sample group of Syrian refugees traded “in-kind assistance they received for cash.”
  • The microtax idea is modeled after a tax on airfare that helped raise about $2 billion between 2006 and 2011, largely for immunization programs worldwide.
sgardner35

British Labour Leader Offers Compromise on Trident Program - The New York Times - 0 views

  • and the Irish Republican Army during the decadeslong conflict in Northern Ireland
  • Mr. Corbyn also said there should be a “discussion” with Argentina about the future of the Falkland Islands, and on domestic issues, suggested a repeal of laws outlawing labor action by trade unions in sympathy with other workers
sgardner35

Covering War at Home Costs a Yemeni His Life - The New York Times - 0 views

  • On Sunday, while on assignment for Voice of America, Mr. Mojalli traveled with colleagues outside the capital, Sana, to find witnesses to airstrikes that had killed at least 15 civilians last week. But when they arrived, warplanes with the Saudi-led military coalition began circling overhead, according to Abdulbari al-Sumaei, Mr. Mojalli’s driver.
  • A bomb landed near Mr. Mojalli, spraying shrapnel into his stomach, neck and face, Mr. Sumaei said.
  • y then, Mr. Mojalli was dead.
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  • Nearly a year after the war began between Houthi rebels and forces allied with the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, more than 80 percent of the country needs some form of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations.
  • At least eight journalists or news media workers were killed covering the conflict last year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. As the war has become more treacherous, foreign news organizations have relied on local journalists.
  • Before that attack, he had become desensitized, he said. “I’ve been to dozens of bomb sites,” he wrote. “Every day, I wake up to hear that 10 people were killed last night, or 20, or 40. It almost stops feeling real.”
sgardner35

Mississippi Fights to Keep Control of Its Beleaguered Child Welfare System - ... - 0 views

  • “Who’s the baby?” Terry Latham, the director of the shelter, recalled asking.“I’m no baby,” the girl shouted, her ribs visible in her emaciated body. “I’m 4.
  • The girl, identified as Olivia Y., who suffered from profound malnourishment and possibly sexual abuse, would become one of 13 children whose experiences formed a class-action lawsuit in 2004 against the state’s Division of Family and Children’s Services for “failing in its duty” to protect its own children.
  • Mississippi’s foster care system, like those in other states, is designed to protect children who have been removed from their homes by a court order after a social worker’s investigation into the conditions there. Ideally, children are placed with licensed foster families, who receive between $684.90 and $1,546.50 per month per child, depending on the age and needs of the child. But, according to data provided by the state agency, Mississippi had just 1,486 licensed foster homes for 5,142 children in its custody as of December.
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  • Another ended up with a foster mother who threw the toddler to a pair of snarling dogs. In other instances, the division failed to put homeless or neglected children in custody
  • The lawsuit against Mississippi is not likely to be fully resolved for years, even if the state manages to significantly increase spending. Court supervision of troubled child welfare systems can last for decades, as it has in Maryland, which has been under court monitoring since 1984
  • Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican, made the directorship a cabinet-level position in December and brought in Justice Chandler to head it. Mississippi also hired an agency to analyze its system and make recommendations, which included increasing social workers’ salaries and restructuring the agency. Justice Chandler said he would seek an increase of $34.5 million
  • “I was afraid a child would die on my watch,” he said. Photo
sgardner35

Zika Warning Spotlights Latin America's Fight Against Mosquito-Borne Diseases - The New... - 0 views

  • The warning by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has intensified a debate across Latin America over the hemisphere’s growing vulnerability to mosquito-borne diseases. These concerns are especially acute in Brazil, the region’s largest country, where officials hope that tourism can help revive a beleaguered economy as they prepare to host the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
  • Mr. Alves added that he expected the Zika outbreak to ease to the point that the Olympics here in August would not be affected.Yet others in Brazil applauded the C.D.C.’s alert, pointing to the country’s struggle not just with Zika, a virus with origins in Uganda that is thought to have made the leap to Brazil in 2014, but also with two other mosquito-borne viruses, dengue and chikungunya. Last year, Brazil registered more than 1.6 million cases of dengue, a virus causing fever and joint pain, with 863 people dying from the disease.
  • Dr. Kuri said the C.D.C. was “within its rights” to issue the travel warning, but he argued that the blanket admonition did not make sense when th
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  • El Salvador’s Health Ministry is particularly concerned about the rise of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, which leads to paralysis, usually temporary; researchers are exploring a possible link between Guillain-Barré and Zika. Forty-six suspected cases of the syndrome had been reported as of last week, Violeta Menjívar, the health minister, said in a radio interview.
  • virus has appeared in only three Mexican states. The mosquitoes that carry the virus, he said, could not survive in the high altitudes of the central plateau, including Mexico City.“I think it’s good to have these warnings,” he said, “but these things should be explained to people.”
  • Their model for Zika’s possible spread, using worldwide temperature profiles and air travel routes, also determined that more than 60 percent of the population in the United States lives in areas conducive to seasonal Zika transmission. And about 23 million people in the United States live in places with climates like Florida and parts of Texas where Zika can be transmitted by mosquitoes year-round, the researchers said.The authorities in Brazil insist that they are taking steps to fight Zika, including vaccine research.
sgardner35

India's Move Against the Poor - The New York Times - 0 views

  • The Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act disqualifies from local political office citizens who have been formally charged with serious crimes, citizens who are behind on loan payments to rural cooperative banks, citizens who haven’t paid their electricity bills, citizens who don’t have a functional lavatory at home and citizens who lack certain educational qualifications.
  • For that reason, the Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding the law, “Rajbala and Others vs. the State of Haryana and Others,” is a landmark in conservative jurisprudence and a dangerous departure from the ideal of a participatory democracy.
  • And it paid off: India has had more than six decades of stable, elected governance.So why, then, would the Haryana legislature try to fix something that wasn’t broken? And it’s not just Haryana: Rajasthan, a much larger state, passed a bill with similar educational requirements last March.
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  • Yet the two-judge bench of the Supreme Court, citing judicial restraint, stated that it was its business to examine not the wisdom of the bill, but only its constitutionality: The judges would strike down the law only if the Haryana legislature had exceeded its authority in passing it, or if the law violated the fundamental right to equality of those it targeted by discriminating against them in ways that were arbitrary or irrational.
  • Populist in idiom rather than intent, the B.J.P. appears to be using these two states as laboratories in which to test the chances of a broader conservative move to limit the political participation of the poor.
  • This vision of solid citizens leading the shiftless poor toward civic virtue is un-republican: It constrains liberty, corrodes equality and mocks fraternity
sgardner35

Justifiable Homicides, Taken Off the Books, Alter a Murder Tally - The New York Times - 0 views

  • When the Police Department counts the killings in 2015, a year when the official tally of murder in New York City was only slightly above its historic low, the preliminary figure of 350 homicides will not include the death of Mr. Williams, 26. His shooting was deemed justified by Queens prosecutors and was removed in late December from the official tally of city murders.
  • Mr. Kelly accused the department of underreporting shootings and murders, but provided no examples of when it had done so.
  • “I don’t recall one like this, with the exception of the bodega owner who shoots a guy who tries to rob him; that’s usually the typical scenario,” Stephen P. Davis, the department’s chief spokesman, said. He noted that the determination that the crime was justified rests with the district attorney.
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  • Homicides are often added to the year-end tally of murders when men or women succumb to earlier violent acts. And occasionally the police and prosecutors determine from the outset that a gunman is justified in shooting an armed assailant, as occurred in March when a retired New York City correction officer fatally shot a construction worker after an altercation on a subway train in Brooklyn.
  • Those that are deemed by prosecutors to be justified are not counted in official statistics, nor is gunfire that misses its target.
  • In the case of Mr. Williams, detectives and prosecutors reviewed video showing the shooting in front of 25-76 Steinway Street and determined that the event had been instigated by Mr. Williams.
  • Detectives caught up with Mr. Williams in March when he drove himself to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center after being shot several times in the legs and buttocks while sitting with a friend in a car in front of his home in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
  • It was not clear what spurred the dispute between Mr. Williams and Mr. King early on the morning of Sept. 28 outside the Crystal Lounge in Astoria. Detectives found video showing the shooting, leading prosecutors to rule it a justifiable homicide.“The defendant acted in sel
  • f-defense because at the time he was being shot at he did not have a weapon and he believed he was in imminent danger of being killed or suffering bodily injury,”
sgardner35

Taiwan elects first female president; China ties strain - CNN.com - 0 views

  • That could anger Beijing, which views Taiwan as an integral part of its territory that is to be taken by force if necessary. Beijing has missiles pointed at the island
  • The KMT forged closer ties with China under President Ma Ying-jeou. The new president will take over from Ma, who will step down on May 20 after serving two four-year terms. China and Taiwan -- officially the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China -- separated in 1949 following the Communist victory on the mainland in the civil war.
  • From Taiwan, she is part of the South Korean pop act Twice. She appears in the video reading her apology off a sheet of paper, leading many to speculate that her Korean management company JYP Entertainment had coerced her to appease mainland Chinese fans, who represent a lucrative market
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  • In particular, a younger generation fears a future under the influence of Beijing and doesn't want Taiwan to become another Chinese territory.
  • "Taiwanese people are very peaceful. We want a peaceful relationship with mainland China, but that shouldn't mean we have to sacrifice our way of life and our democracy," said Huang Kuo-chang, leader of the New Power Party, one of a number of smaller opposition parties.
sgardner35

Best of 'State of the Union': Trump, Clinton and Sanders - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

  • And Donald Trump weighed in on everything from Marco Rubio's citizenship to his own relationship with a higher power.
  • "I was a little disappointed that what Chelsea said was just not accurate," he said of Chelsea Clintons's attacks on his health care plan.
  • "I would have not done it because it's confusing. Some people believe me when I said -- I mean, I swear to you, that's true. I had no idea ... I swear to you," Trump said.
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  • "Ted Cruz, he's got a lot of people putting big money in, probably maybe Goldman Sachs, we'll have to ask them. I mean, they have loaned him a million dollars. So, they certainly have control over him," Trump said.
  • "You can't have a cloud. You can't pick a candidate that may have a 5%, 10%, 20% chance. By the way, since that happened, there have been lawsuits filed," Trump said. "Now, he's got a problem. He was born in Canada. He was a Canadian citizen until 15 months ago, I mean, if you can believe that."
sgardner35

Jakarta attack: 12 arrested, police chief says - CNN.com - 0 views

  • Indonesian police have arrested 12 people in connection with Thursday's deadly attack in front of a Starbucks in central Jakarta, including one accused of having received a wire transfer from the alleged ISIS-linked operative suspected of orchestrating the assault, the country's police chief said Saturday.
  • one is suspected to have received a money transfer from the alleged mastermind, Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian militant who authorities believed to have conducted the operation from ISIS' headquarters in Syria, national Police Chief Badrodin Haiti said.
  • They also opened fire at people on the street. One of the injured was also a foreigner.
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  • Naim has formed a Southeast Asian branch of ISIS named Katibah al Nusantara, Indonesia authorities said. His vision is to join, to unite all ISIS supporting elements in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
  • ammunition and was brought to justice. Naim was sentenced to at least 2½ years in prison.
  • He was apprehended in 2010 for illegal possession of
  • In recent weeks, Indonesian police have been on high alert, while military operations focus on hitting the East Indonesian Mujahadeen, helmed by Indonesia's most-wanted terrorist, Santoso, who has pledged support for ISIS.One major worry is that Indonesians fighting in Syria and Iraq will return home, having gained training and combat experience.
sgardner35

3 American contractors missing in Iraq - CNN.com - 0 views

  • The contractors were taken away in a convoy consisting of several vehicles, said the source, who talked to CNN on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media.
  • "We are working with the full cooperation of the Iraqi authorities to locate and recover the individuals," spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
sgardner35

El Chapo's capture: Is it really mission accomplished? - CNN.com - 0 views

  • One: Why now? Why was Guzman, the world's most wanted fugitive, found after six months? While facts are still coming in that will shed more light on this, we have to believe that a deal was cut that made this successful raid possible.
  • Again, information is still coming in, but we do know the raid was conducted by the FES, Mexican Marine special forces that do not have a reputation of going to great lengths to take prisoners, especially not high-profile targets like Guzman.
  • Is the "fix" in, as it was the last two times Guzman was in prison and ran his organization from the inside? His first imprisonment was the correctional equivalent of a five-star hotel. He lived in luxury -- prostitutes, movie nights, gourmet meals and parties. He had his own squad of bodyguards armed with baseball bats.
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  • Does he still have sufficient connections to live comfortably behind bars and salvage his damaged position? Or was he not shot because there were orders to bring him in alive, because he is still of some value to someone?
  • Facing charges in California, New York, Illinois, Texas, Arizona and Florida, not to mention federal indictments, Guzman would die in prison, most likely in the Supermax facility in Florence, Colorado, where a number of his rivals now reside. Unless he were to cut a deal. But what sort of deal could he make? He can't trade "up" in the drug world; the only information that Guzman could provide would be against Mexican police and politicians.
  • One plausible theory for his recent "escape" was that the government needed him to preserve the "Pax Sinaloa," the relative calm and lessening of violence that occurred as a result of Guzman and his cartel winning a 10-year war for supremacy that took over 100,000 lives. If, as it appears, Guzman's reign has ended, it means there is no longer any "drug kingpin" in Mexico, leaving a vacuum that others will seek to fill. The short-lived Pax Sinaloa was a period of relative stability that may well now be replaced with chaos as other smaller cartels, once held under the Sinaloan thumb, seek to claim the top of the pyramid.
  • Drugs are more plentiful, more powerful and more available than ever. That's not what winning looks like. No offense to the brave people who captured Guzman, but this will have an identical result. Under his leadership the Sinaloa cartel flooded the American market with cheap black-tar heroin to undercut the pharmaceutical companies who make opiate derivatives such as oxycodone and Vicodin.
sgardner35

Video released of deadly Chicago police shooting - CNN.com - 0 views

  • On Thursday, a judge released video of the deadly shooting. In its wake, a group of activists who have organized previous protests over shootings called for more on Friday.
  • The police department fired Davis, he said, after he ruled Officer Kevin Fry's shooting of 17-year-old Chatman, who was unarmed, unjustified. But he had been at odds with the department over the internal assessment of police use of force for a while.
  • "I pay most attention to Officer Fry. Mr. Chatman is simply trying to get away. He's running as fast as he can away from the officers. Officer (Lou) Toth is right behind him; he's doing the right thing. He's pursuing him. He's trying to capture him, while Officer Fry, on the other hand, has both of his hands on his weapon. He is in a shooter's position. He is looking for a clear shot."
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  • After Davis' firing, a new investigator was assigned, who ruled the shooting justifiable, and police accounts given after Chatman died told a story that differed in important points from Davis' assessment
  • He runs across the street and squeezes between two parked cars as Fry's partner, Officer Lou Toth, gives chase. Chatman then hits an all-out sprint along the sidewalk toward an intersection. Toth sprints behind him.Fry draws his handgun in the middle of the street, plants his feet near the intersection in a firing stance as Chatman appears to still be running away. Chatman is out of camera shot at the time, and it does not reveal his moves.
  • In ordering the videos' release, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Gettleman indicated Fry might have put his partner's life in danger, saying Toth was running so close to the teen when shots rang out "you might say he was in the line of fire."
  • He has had 30 complaints lodged against him over the years, including 10 allegations of excessive use of force. The police department found every complaint against him to be unwarranted.In one case in 2007, Fry and a partner shot a 16-year-old black male in a school alcove after seeing a shiny object around his waist and fearing for their lives. The object wasn't a weapon but a "shiny belt buckle," according to an independent investigation of the shooting.
  • Both were about 10 blocks away at the time of the shooting. The law in Illinois allows for anyone who sets in motion a chain of events that results in the death of another individual to be charged with murder.
  • Outrage over police shootings have rumbled through Chicago since the November release of the fatal police shooting video of Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times. Attorney's for his family accused police of threatening witnesses and falsifying their accounts.Chicago Alderman Anthony Beale has criticized investigations into police violence as being flawed."For years we've had a systemic problem with the police officers protecting one another. And that's why you have such distrust in the community," he told CNN's Don Lemo
  • n.But he also sees police as an essential part of the community and wa
  • s worried that they might feel intimidated by the scrutiny.
  • Judge Gettleman scolded the city and mayor's office, saying it was "irresponsible" to waste taxpayers' money and the court's time with its previous opposition. "I'm very disturbed at the way this happened," he said. "This should not have happened the way it did."He blasted city attorneys for the December motion in which they stated it was not clear from the videos who fired at Chatman. Gettlemen said that wasn't true: "It's clear to me who fired the shots."
sgardner35

Life returns -- slowly -- to MLK's old neighborhood - CNN.com - 0 views

  • Besides, Smith says, he had just about everything he needed up on Auburn Avenue, then the center of black life in Atlanta. In 1956, Fortune magazine dubbed it the "richest Negro street in the world."
  • and the nearby King Center, which pays homage to the neighborhood's most famous resident, the Rev. Martin Luther King. Jr.
  • which led families and businesses to leave the neighborhood, and its struggle to rebuild. In the past five or six years, the narrative has taken a cautiously optimistic turn as new businesses and residential real estate open in the area and Georgia State University's footprint in the neighborhood expands.
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  • Smith's journey from Auburn Avenue to Morehouse College to regional division manager of the Federal Aviation Administration is in many ways a realization of King's dream of upward mobility for African-Americans.
  • ned funeral homes, a fast-food seafood joint and a convenience store -- is the masonic hall that was home to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's first office and its new Atlanta headquarters. Around the corner is a restored Madam C. J. Walker salon featuring antique hair care products.
  • "He would be disappointed in all the violence that still goes on and the crime. He would've thought that we would've advanced more toward peace and liberty and respecting everybody's rights. I know we're not there yet."
  • History hides in plain sight; blink and you might miss the explanatory signs hanging on poles and historic plaques on sides of buildings. One block from Smith's childhood home -- past Atlanta's two oldest
  • Today, the gas station is gone, replaced by a shopping plaza with a barber shop and a store selling homeopathic remedies, both popular with the seniors who live across the street in Wheat Street Towers. Ebenezer is still there, adjacent to the King Center, and King's birth home is up the street. The landmarks are the main destinations for tourists disembarking at the King historic district. Due to its relative high foot traffic, the streetcar stop attracts panhandlers offering tour guide services in exchange for donations to get them a bed at the Atlanta Mission.
  • lack-o
  • Today, it's home to a community urban garden, which started in 2010 and has proven sustainable through community farming initiatives.
  • A professional stylist who moved to Atlanta in the 1980s, de Forest was enchanted by the abandoned storefront with the salon's original signage miraculously preserved. Even better were the antique hair care products left behind.
  • Ten years ago, Sweet Auburn Bread Company owner Sonya James moved from the Sweet Auburn Curb Market on Edgewood into the Odd Fellows building, the former headquarters of the Atlanta Chapter of the Grand Order of Odd Fellows. The building's Jacobean revival architecture recalls the grandeur of the era when it served as a hub for black businesses and the site of a black social club.
  • General manager Douglas Jester, another Atlanta native, remembers when Auburn was the epicenter of the civil rights movement. Some of the pictures hanging on the restaurant's wall are of politicians -- Maynard Jackson, Andrew Young -- who visited Jester's school in the nearby Summerhill neighborhood to talk to students about black pride and the value of an education
  • "You're a product of your environment. I'm a good example of that. I would not have advanced in my life like I did had it not been for the environment I grew up in with Ebenezer and the Kings, feeling that failure is not an option," he said. "Then, there is systematic organized racism, against males and females and Hispanics and it's not getting any better with this presidential stuff we got going now. I think Dr. King and "Daddy King" would disappointed with some of the rhetoric we're hearing and the anti-Muslim stuff."
  • It's just one block away, but unlike on Auburn Avenue, white-owned businesses have anchored Edgewood Avenue for decades, many of which are still standing, said Joe Stewardson, president of the Old Fourth Ward Business Association. Even if white-owned businesses outnumber black-owned businesses on Edgewood, he says it's still among the most diverse business corridors and neighborhoods in Atlanta.
sgardner35

Donald Trump goes to Liberty U. - CNN.com - 0 views

  • Other presidential candidates, including Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush and Bernie Sanders, have addressed Liberty students in recent months. So did Ted Kennedy in 1983. But Trump is the only one of them asked to speak on the King holiday. As Falwell Jr. told the Lynchburg News & Advance, "We chose that day so that Mr. Trump would have the opportunity to recognize and honor Dr. King on MLK Day.
  • In a Bicentennial rally held on July 4, 1976, he told his followers that "this idea of 'religion and politics don't mix' was invented by the devil to keep Christians from running their own country."
  • . "All the moral issues that matter today are in the political arena," Falwell said. "There's no way to fight these battles except in that arena."
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  • "The Religious Right did not start because of a concern about abortion," says Ed Dobson, who as an associate pastor at Falwell's church, was present at the founding of the Moral Majority. "I sat in the non-smoke-filled back room with the Moral Majority, and I frankly do not remember abortion ever being mentioned as a reason why we ought to do something.
  • "In one fell swoop," writes political scientist Corey Robin, "the heirs of slaveholders became the descendants of persecuted Baptists, and Jim Crow a heresy the First Amendment was meant to protect."
  • Falwell would repudiate his segregationist past and his movement would pivot from race to "family values." Yes, abortion was murder and homosexuality was unnatural. But each also undermined family life.
  • Trump, who has been married three times and derives his language more from the vulgarities of bathrooms than from the niceties of the pulpit, has also taken stances on key cultural issues, including abortion and gay rights, that are at odds with the Republican Party's white evangelical base.
  • Other presidenti
  • al candidates, including Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush and Bernie Sanders, have addressed Liberty stud
  • With this promise in sight, it seems like a good time to revisit what Falwell Sr. said about King before and after he co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979 as a "pro-life, pro-family, pro-moral, and pro-American" organization.
  • This ruling stripped tax-exempt status from all-white private schools formed in the South in reaction to the Brown v. Board of Education mandate to desegregate public schools.
  • Their intent was safeguard children from secularization, not racial integration, but their schools had been unfairly and illegally targeted by a federal government hell-bent on making secular humanism the nation's false faith.
  • "There was an overnight conversion," recalled Paul Weyrich -- the conservative strategist who coined the term "moral majority" -- as conservative Christians realized that "big government was coming after them as well."
  • Similarly, feminism was dangerous because it confused the distinct roles men and women and boys and girls were to play in the "traditional family," which Falwell and his fellow travelers understood to be of a singular sort: one male breadwinner and one female homemaker, married, with children, living under one roof and the patriarchal authority of the man of the house.
  • Nonetheless, he does have a story to tell that resonates not only with white evangelicals' complaints about the decline of a Christian America, but also with the broad contours of the Christian story, which runs from The Fall in Eden to redemption at the hands of the crucified and resurrected Christ. Both of these narratives get going with a fall from grace and point toward an upcoming revival.I know many evangelicals, and Trump is not one of them.
sgardner35

Republicans to President Barack Obama: Keep Syrian refugees out - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

  • GOP governors and lawmakers were quick to announce they wouldn't allow Syrian refugees into their states and are appealing for stronger control of U.S. borders.
  • people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism," Obama said in Antalya, Turkey, at a meeting of the G20. "It is very important ... that we do not close our hearts to these victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism."
  • Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee similarly heaped pressure on Ryan, saying in a statement: "Speaker Ryan
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  • eeds to make it clear that if the President won't stand to protect America from wholesale open borders, then Republicans will."
  • In a radio interview with Bill Bennett, Ryan also said he has tasked all committees of jurisdiction to come up with recommendations about how to ensure the thousands of Syrian refugees the President wants to settle in the United States won't be involved in terrorism
  • "When I hear folks say that maybe we should just admit the Christians and not the Muslims (refugees), when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who's fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted -- when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution -- that's shameful. That's not American," Obama said
  • The refugees have been admitted to 138 cities and towns in a total of 36 states -- with California, Texas, Michigan, Arizona and Illinois taking the most, according to wrapsnet.org, where the U.S. government keeps its official numbers
  • "Scapegoating an entire religious community and rejecting those fleeing ISIL's terrorism and persecution is what the terrorists want," O'Malley said in a statement.
  • House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, took a more direct shot at Obama in previewing a Thursday subcommittee hearing on the Syrian refugee crisis.
  • "When will President Obama take ISIS threats seriously, as well as the warnings of national security officials within his own administration, and cease his plan to bring thousands of Syrian refugees into the United States?" Goodlatte said in a statement. "His disconnectedness to reality is needlessly jeopardizing national security and Americans' lives."
  • Indiana Gov. Mike Pence similarly ordered his state to suspend the resettlement of Syrian refugees, "pending assurances from the federal government that proper security measures have been achieved."
  • New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan is the only Democrat to oppose Syrian refugees' resettlement in the United States -- a stance that's particularly notable since she is challenging Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte in 2016. A spokesman said Hassan "believes that the federal government should halt acceptance of refugees from Syria.
sgardner35

Iran prisoner swap: How 14 months of secret diplomacy ended in a deal - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

  • The prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Iran capped 14 months of secret diplomacy and talks between Washington and Tehran as the U.S. and world powers negotiated the pact to curb Iran's nuclear program
  • The secret talks were led by Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy tapped by President Barack Obama to coordinate the global fight against ISIS, the officials said.
  • The names of the Iranians have not yet been released, the officials said, adding that the four Americans had not left Iran as of late Saturday morning.
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  • "This is a unique arrangement," one U.S. official said. "This is a humanitarian gesture."
  • The Obama administration has been criticized by several Republican presidential candidates, including GOP front-runner Donald Trump, for reaching the nuclear deal with Iran while the Americans remained imprisoned.
  • When news first broke of the incident involving the sailors, tensions were high, the official said. But the way it was quickly resolved allowed the parties to return to wrapping up negotiations on the prisoners.
  • Iran had initially insisted Jason Rezaian's fate could only be decided by Tehran's judicial system rather than through political accommodation with the U.S. But the nuclear deal, reached last year, held out hope for increased dialogue about Rezaian and the other Americans.
  • "There are a number of Iranians in the United States who are imprisoned, who went to prison as a result of activities related to the nuclear industry in Iran," he said through an interpreter.
  • "I have raised them in all of our sessions. We've had a lot of conversations. We are continuing those conversations now. And I am hopeful that the day will come soon, obviously sooner rather than later, but soon, when all of our citizens can come home," Kerry said.
sgardner35

Obama's Afghanistan call: Sanity prevails (Opinion) - CNN.com - 0 views

  • Earlier this year the administration had announced plans to draw down to a skeleton force of around 1,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of its term. That decision would have tied the hands of the next president as it is much easier to maintain an existing troop presence -- both from a logistical point of view as well as politically -- than it is to ramp one up substantially.
  • two-thirds of Afghans favored a long-term role for U.S. and other international forces, while the Afghan government, led by President Ashraf Ghana and CEO Abdullah Abdullah, have been imploring U.S. officials to maintain a substantial troop presence.
  • Amnesty writes: "Mass murder, gang rapes and house-to-house searches by Taliban death squads are just some of the harrowing civilian testimonies emerging from Kunduz. ...Women human rights defenders from Kunduz spoke of a 'hit list' being used by the Taliban to track down activists and others, and described how fighters had raped and killed numerous civilians."Third, an overwhelming 92% of Afghans prefer the current government to the Taliban, according to a poll taken earlier this year. In other words, not only is the United States on the right side of history in supporting the Afghan government against the Taliban, the Afghan people also overwhelmingly support this.
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  • Fourth, ISIS is establishing something of a foothold in areas of Afghanistan. ISIS has taken over portions of the eastern province of Nangarhar. ISIS executions there involve piling men alive into a mass grave and then using explosives to blow them up. ISIS fighters also torture their victims by thrusting their hands into boiling oil. ISIS' reign of terror even has ordinary Afghans pining for the Taliban!
  • Instead of constantly announcing new U.S. drawdowns from Afghanistan as the Obama administration has done repeatedly over the past few years, which has the unintended consequence of sapping Afghans' confidence, Americans should get used to the fact that the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan should be for the long term and U.S. politicians should say so publicly
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