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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."
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ISIS steps up attacks far from its 'caliphate' - CNN.com - 0 views

  • ISIS steps up attacks far from its 'caliphate'
  • Istanbul, Jakarta, Philadelphia, multiple locations in Libya, the Russian republic of Dagestan: within the past two weeks all have been the target of attacks by ISIS supporters or affiliates, killing and wounding dozens of people.
  • Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is spreading its wings as it comes under greater pressure in its Iraqi-Syrian heartland
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  • Abu Bakr al Baghdad
  • rusader" countries and beyond.
  • indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets
  • , symbols of Western power or decadence
  • Beyond ISIS "branded" attacks -- those launched by affiliates and members -- ISIS also seeks to make political capital out of individuals who claim to be "inspired" by it, such as those in San Bernardino, California, in December and last week in Philadelphia.
  • stage of the investigation, there is no evidence accused gunman Edward Archer was part of an organized cell or that other attacks were in the works.
  • here is no doubting ISIS' lure to a fringe of extremist Muslims and Muslim converts
  • A year ago, ISIS was focused almost exclusively on carving out its self-declared caliphate. Overseas terror attacks in the style of al Qaeda did not appear high on the agenda
  • An early indication that ISIS' leadership favored overseas attacks came when the Belgian jihadist Abdelhamid Abaaoud -- a high-profile member of the group, if only a lieutenant -- plotted a series of gun and bomb attacks against police stations
  • "Know that we want Paris -- by Allah's permission -- before Rome and before Spain, after we blacken your lives and destroy the White House, Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower."
  • the "caliph" himself, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, suggested ISIS will look for further opportunities to export its war to the "far abroad."
  • Throughout 2015, there was a steady stream of terror attacks that could be linked firmly to ISIS-associated groups, even if the relationship between them and the group's central leadership was often opaque
  • What, if any, role the central ISIS leadership had in the bombing of the Metrojet plane is still unknown. Its Sinai affiliate claimed the attack, and it was some time before the ISIS online publication Dabiq referred to it.
  • The suicide bomb attacks in Ankara were likely ordered by ISIS itself
  • The Paris attacks in November were a landmark: the first clearly organized and claimed by ISIS itself from Syria rather than the autonomous actions of affiliates or individuals.
  • t has a growing network of wilayat, or provinces -- places where it has an established presence such as Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan -- where government is weak and conflict endemic. In some instances it has sent fighters from Syria and Iraq to expand its presence in these places, most notably in Libya.
  • It also has a pool of experienced foreign fighters
  • The disappearance of one of the Paris attackers, Salah Abdeslam, and several alleged co-conspirators suggests ISIS may have a network of safe houses and travel facilitators in Europe
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Ted Cruz Says Donald Trump Is to Blame for Violence at His Rallies - First Draft. Polit... - 0 views

  • โ€œBut in any campaign, responsibility starts at the top,โ€ Mr. Cruz continued. โ€œAnd when you have a campaign that disrespects the voters, when you have a campaign that affirmatively encourages violence, when you have a campaign that is facing allegations of physical violence against members of the press, you create an environment that only encourages this sort of nasty discourse.โ€
  • โ€œWhen the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence, to punch people in the face, the predictable consequence of that is that it escalates,โ€ Mr. Cruz said. โ€œAnd today is unlikely to be the last such instance.โ€
  • But at the debate on Thursday, Mr. Cruz declined an opportunity to condemn Mr. Trump for the tenor of his events.
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Trump and the Harsh Truth Exposed by the Midterms - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • In the Trump era, Republicans counter economic security with cultural security. Trump promised to protect Americans from Latino murderers and women who destroy menโ€™s lives by alleging sexual assault. And, to a significant extent, it worked. By mobilizing his white, rural base, Trump matched Democratic enthusiasm in purple states such as Florida and Ohio and overwhelmed Democratic incumbents in red states such as North Dakota, Indiana, and Missouri. Itโ€™s an old game: W. E. B. Du Bois famously called it the โ€œpsychological wage.โ€ Instead of protecting white people from economic hardship, you protect them from the racial demons youโ€™ve stirred up in their minds.
  • The harsh truth is this: Racism often works. Cross-racial coalitions for economic justice are the exception in American history. Mobilizing white people to protect their racial dominance is the norm.
  • The lesson of 2018 is that American politics is not reverting to โ€œnormal.โ€ In many ways, Trumpism is normal. Itโ€™s not Trump who is running uphill against American tradition, itโ€™s the people who are tryingโ€”bravely but with mixed successโ€”to stop him
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Why people like Trump - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • The results of the Helsinki summit are in. President Trump couldnโ€™t handle statecraft or, for that matter, double negatives, but he came out of the meeting undefeated and invincible.
  • The post-summit poll numbers are instructive. While 50 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Trump handled Vladimir Putin, his Republican base stayed both loyal and comatose. In a Post-ABC News poll, 66 percent of Republicans approved of Trumpโ€™s performance. An earlier Axios-SurveyMonkey poll put the GOP figure at 79 percent, not only more impressive but also downright eerie.
  • As far as the evangelical community is concerned, nothing has changed. Trump has been accused of adultery and of buying the silence of his alleged paramours. He has referred to impoverished nations as โ€œshithole countriesโ€ and โ€” unforgivably โ€” belittled the wartime torture of Sen. John McCain. None of this shook his base. On the contrary, his support within the Republican Party has risen and solidified. It now stands at around 90 percent, which is what tin-pot dictators get in rigged elections.
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  • The upshot is that we now have two political parties โ€” one pro-Trump and one anti-. Some celebrated Republicans โ€” George F. Will, for instance โ€” have already declared their apostasy. Will is now โ€œunaffiliated,โ€ but no one runs for president as that. In this country, if youโ€™re anti-Trump, realism says youโ€™ve got to vote Democratic.
  • itโ€™s clear that something beyond economics โ€” and certainly not foreign policy โ€” motivates Trumpโ€™s people. My guess is that itโ€™s a low-boil rage against a vague and threatening liberalism โ€” urbane, educated, affluent, secular, diverse and sexually tolerant. It is, in other words, some of the same sentiment that once fueled European fascism.
  • Those of us who write newspaper columns know that sheer brilliance, should it happen, gets a silent nod of the head, but affirmation โ€” saying what readers already think โ€” gets loud hurrahs. This is Trumpโ€™s appeal as well. He validates the thinking โ€” some of it ugly โ€” of many Americans. To them, Helsinki doesnโ€™t matter and even Putin doesnโ€™t matter. Only Trump does. To them, he hates the right people.
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Today's Voter Suppression Tactics Have A 150 Year History - Talking Points Memo - 0 views

  • The tools that broke American democracy were not just the Ku Klux Klanโ€™s white sheets, vigilantesโ€™ Red Shirts, and lynch mobsโ€™ nooses; they were devices we still encounter when we vote today: the registration roll and the secret, official ballot.
  • Along with exclusions of felons and permanent resident aliens, these methods swept the entire United States in the late 19th century, reducing nationwide voter participation from about 80 percent to below 50 percent by the 1920s.
  • turnout in the United States has never recovered; by one 2018 survey, the country ranks 26th of 32 developed democracies in participation.
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  • Once the war came, hundreds of thousands of Irish and German immigrants enlisted in the U.S. Army. For a time this flood of foreign-born soldiers swept nativism away. In the years after the Civil War, 12 states explicitly enfranchised immigrant aliens who had declared their intention to become naturalized but had not yet been made citizens. Voting by non-citizens who planned to become naturalized was โ€œwidely practiced and not extraordinarily controversialโ€ in this period, political scientist Ron Hayduk argues.
  • In the early 1800s, as organized political parties began to fight over issues like banking and infrastructure, that changed; turnout rose to 70 percent in local and state elections. Still, presidential polls remained dull and ill-attended. That changed in Jacksonโ€™s second run for the presidency in 1828. Heated debates and even-hotter tempers attracted men to the polls
  • Democracy for white men did not, however, spill over to democracy for everyone; in this same period several states rolled back laws that permitted free black men to vote.
  • For white men, the United States became a democracy by degrees, not by design, and it showed in the chaotic voting systems
  • While colonial Americans cast beans, peas, and corn into containers or called their vote aloud, in the 1800s most men either wrote the candidateโ€™s name on a blank sheet of paper or turned in a ballot helpfully printed for them by the local political party or newspaper. Outside of Massachusetts, almost no one registered to vote
  • Today, the ubiquity of voter registration blinds us to its impact. It is a price we all pay for voting and so no longer think of as a price at all. But nineteenth-century Americans understood the costs. Registering in person months before the election minimized the chance of fraud but doubled the difficulty of voting and the possibility of interference
  • Alexander Keyssarโ€™s excellent history of voting called the 1850s a period of โ€œnarrowing of voting rights and a mushrooming upper- and middle-class antagonism to universal suffrage.โ€
  • the flood of 200,000 black men into the U.S. Army and Navy inspired them โ€” and others โ€” to claim the vote as their due. โ€œIf we are called on to do military duty against the rebel armies in the field, why should we be denied the privilege of voting against rebel citizens at the ballot-box?
  • Another way to bar African-American men was to expand the number of disfranchising crimes. Cuffie Washington, an African American man in Ocala, Florida, learned this when election officials turned him away in 1880 because he had been convicted of stealing three oranges. Other black men were barred for theft of a gold button, a hog, or six fish. โ€œIt was a pretty general thing to convict colored men in the precinct just before an election,โ€ one of the alleged hog thieves said.
  • By the fall of 1867, more than 80 percent of eligible African-American men had registered. During the subsequent elections, at least 75 percent of black men turned out to vote in five Southern states. Democracy has a long history, but almost nothing to match this story.
  • Smalls and his compatriots tore down racial barriers; established public school systems, hospitals, orphanages, and asylums; revised tenancy laws; and tried (sometimes disastrously) to promote railroad construction to modernize the economy. Reconstruction governments also provided crucial votes to ratify the 14th Amendment, which is still the foundation of birthright citizenship, school desegregation, protection against state limits on speech or assembly, and the right to gay marriage.
  • , South Carolina, the counter-revolution was brewing in the upcountry by summer 1868. Ku Klux Klans and other vigilantes there assassinated Benjamin Franklin Randolph, a wartime chaplain, constitutional convention member, and newly elected state senator, as well as three other African-American Republican leaders. Nevertheless black South Carolinians turned out in force, carried the 1868 election, and helped elect Ulysses S. Grant president.
  • In his March 4, 1869 inaugural, Grant called on states to settle the question of suffrage in a new 15th Amendment. Anti-slavery icon Frederick Douglass said the amendmentโ€™s meaning was plain. โ€œWe are placed upon an equal footing with all other men.โ€ But the 15th Amendment did not actually resolve the question of who could vote or establish any actual right to vote. It merely prohibited states from excluding voters based on โ€œrace, color, or previous condition of servitude.โ€ Its own language acknowledged that states could legitimately strip the vote away for other reasons
  • proposed prohibitions on literacy, education, property, or religious tests died at the hands of northeastern and western Republicans who feared expanding the power of Irish and Chinese immigrants.
  • Nor did the 15th Amendment protect voters against terrorism. As Smalls and other African-American Republicans gained seats in Congress, they and their white allies tried to defend black voting through a series of enforcement acts that permitted the federal government to regulate registration and punish local officials for discrimination. But the Supreme Court soon undercut those laws
  • Without hope of victory, federal prosecutions for voting crimes fell by 90 percent after 1873.
  • Keeping African-American people away on election day was difficult, and potentially bad publicity, so white Democrats over the 1870s and 1880s passed registration laws and poll taxes, and shifted precinct locations to prevent black people from coming to the polls at all. In 1882, the South Carolina legislature required all voters to register again, making the registrar, as one African-American political leader said, โ€œthe emperor of suffrage.
  • To disfranchise rural laborers, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, and other Southern states doubled residency requirements.
  • Using data painstakingly compiled by Philip Lampi, historians have discovered that somewhere between half and three-quarters of adult white males were eligible to vote before the Revolution; by 1812, almost the entire adult white male population could cast a ballot.
  • By the 1880s, this so-called โ€œkangaroo votingโ€ seemed the solution to every political problem. Reformer Henry George and Knights of Labor leaders hoped the Australian ballot would free workingmen from intimidation, while reformers in Boston and New York hoped it might eliminate fraud and make it difficult for illiterate men to fill out ballots.
  • Massachusetts leapt first in 1889, and by the 1892 election a majority of states had passed the bill. In Massachusetts, turnout dropped from 54.57 to 40.69 percent; in Vermont from 69.11 to 53.02. One statistical survey estimated that voter turnout dropped by an average of 8.2 percent. The Australian ballotโ€™s โ€œtendency is to gradual disfranchisement,โ€ the New York Sun complained.
  • by stripping political partiesโ€™ names from the ballot, the reform made it difficult for illiterate voters, still a sizable portion of the electorate in the late 19th century. But even more profoundly, the effort to eliminate โ€œfraudโ€ turned election day from a riotous festival to a snooze. Over time many people stayed home
  • In New York, voter participation fell from nearly 90 percent in the 1880s to 57 percent by 1920
  • The 1888 election was almost a very different turning point for voting rights. As Republicans gained control of the House, Senate, and White House for the first time in a decade, they tried to bolster their party by establishing federal control of congressional elections so they could protect African-American voting rights in the south (and, Democrats charged, block immigrant voting in northern cities). The billโ€™s dual purposes were embodied in its manager, anti-immigrant, pro-black suffrage Massachusetts Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge. Although the bill passed the House, it died in a Senate filibuster. Democrats swept the House in the fall 1890 elections and soon repealed many of the remaining voting rights provisions.
  • African-American registration in Mississippi soon fell from 190,000 to 9,000; overall voter participation dropped from 70 percent in the 1870s to 50 percent in the 1880s to 15 percent by the early 1900
  • โ€œWe have disfranchised the African in the past by doubtful methods,โ€ Alabamaโ€™s convention chairman said in 1901, โ€œbut in the future weโ€™ll disfranchise them by law.โ€
  • These laws and constitutional provisions devastated voting in the South. When Tennessee passed a secret ballot law in 1889, turnout fell immediately from 78 percent to 50 percent; Virginiaโ€™s overall turnout dropped by 50 percent. For African-American voters, of course, the impact was even more staggering. In Louisiana black registration fell from 130,000 to 1,342. By 1910 only four percent of black Georgia men were registered.
  • Poll taxes, intimidation, fraud, and grandfather clauses all played their part, but the enduring tools of registration and the Australian ballot worked their grim magic, too, and made voters disappear.
  • In the landmark case Shelby County v. Holder, Chief Justice John Roberts turned the disfranchisement of the 1890s into a racial and regional exception, one that had since been overwhelmed by the national tide of democracy. โ€œOur country has changed,โ€ Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.
  • This is part of what political scientist Alexander Keyssar critically called the โ€œprogressive presumptionโ€ that there is an โ€œinexorable march toward universal suffrageโ€ interrupted only by anomalous, even un-American, regional and racial detours.
  • But the tools that disfranchised Jackson Giles were not all Southern and not only directed at African-American men. When the United States conquered Puerto Rico and the Philippines, it imposed the Australian ballot there, too.
  • in 1903, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, a Massachusetts native, denied Gilesโ€™ appeal on the grounds that the court could not intervene in political questions. If citizens like Giles suffered a โ€œgreat political wrong,โ€ Holmes intoned, they could only look for help from the same political system that had just disfranchised them
  • The great writer Charles Chesnutt wrote that โ€œIn spite of the Fifteenth Amendment, colored men in the United States have no political rights which the States are bound to respect.โ€ It was a โ€œsecond Dred Scott decision,โ€ white and black activists lamented.
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A cancer on the presidency - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • Whatever day you are reading this, it is June 1973 in Washington. A lawyer close to the president has turned decisively and damagingly against him. Testifying before a Senate committee investigating the Watergate scandal, John Dean describes a high-level coverup, including the use of hush money, designed to influence the outcome of the 1972 presidential election. And he identifies President Richard M. Nixon as part of that criminal conspiracy.
  • In the course of Michael Cohenโ€™s guilty plea this week, a lawyer close to the president has admitted his part in a high-level cover-up, including the use of hush money, designed to influence the 2016 election. And he accused President Trump of directing this violation.
  • This is different from our daily dose of the presidentโ€™s outrageous tweets and attacks. It is an inflection point in the Trump presidency. He has been credibly accused, not of violating civic norms, but of personal involvement in criminal law-breaking. If Trump were not the president, he might well be indicted, convicted and face jail time.
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  • It took a series of developments to turn the public decisively against Nixon. It was the White House recordings that sealed the presidentโ€™s fate โ€” including the tape on which he said he could raise $1 million in hush money. It took the firing of the special prosecutor, Archibald Cox (whom Nixon later referred to as the โ€œpartisan viper we had planted in our bosomโ€). And the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew. And the allegations of tax evasion. And the missing 18ยฝ minutes on the tapes. And โ€œexpletives deleted.โ€ And โ€œI am not a crook.โ€ It was only in June 1974 that a majority of Americans thought Nixon should resign or be impeached.
  • Removing a president requires not a nasty legal storm, but a hurricane. And the president has a political base โ€” fed on a Fox News diet โ€” that may be impossible to uproot.
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Slovakia's first female president hails victory for progressive values | World news | T... - 0 views

  • Let us look for what connects us. Let us promote cooperation above personal interests,โ€ she told a crowd of supporters in Bratislava. โ€œI am happy not just for the result, but mainly that it is possible not to succumb to populism, to tell the truth, to raise interest without aggressive vocabulary.โ€
  • Across central Europe, liberals have struggled to counter rightwing messaging from governments on migration and social issues. However, ฤŒaputovรกโ€™s message resonated, especially in Bratislava and other cities, tapping into a frustration with career politicians among a young, well-educated demographic.
  • โ€œIt shows that liberals should stay liberal, and not fight propaganda with propaganda. It shows what you can do with a high-quality candidate and a good, positive campaign,โ€ said analyst Balazs Jarabik of the Carnegie Endowment.
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  • The presidency has a largely symbolic function in Slovakia, where the prime minister runs the daily business of government, but the president has significant blocking powers, appoints top judges, and is commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
  • The Kuciak murder shocked Slovakia and threw a spotlight on links between officials and corrupt networks. Police have charged five people, including a millionaire with alleged links to Smer, of ordering the killings. ฤŒaputovรก has promised to make changes that will strip the police and prosecutors of political influence.
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Trump Voter Fraud Commissioner Says Panel Should Be More Transparent Or Disband | HuffPost - 0 views

  • A Democratic member of President Donald Trumpโ€™s voter fraud probe said it should urgently disclose what itโ€™s been working on and its future plans, or else disband entirely. Alan King, a probate judge in Jefferson County, Alabama, is one of four Democrats on the 11-member Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. He told HuffPost on Tuesday that he was disappointed in how the commission had conducted business and wouldnโ€™t be surprised if other members of the panel had already drafted a recommendation to the president. โ€œBased on what Iโ€™ve read and accounts, it wouldnโ€™t surprise me,โ€ King said. โ€œIt wouldnโ€™t surprise me if this whole commission was set up and they had an end result in mind when this commission was first originated.โ€
  • While he added that it was possible โ€œthat there are maybe some pockets of folks on both sides of the aisle who perhaps havenโ€™t followed the rules,โ€ he continued, โ€œitโ€™s a huge leap to go from that type of scenario to then go to to this massive plot, conspiracy of almost election mafia standards, to think that there are massive, widespread voting fraud in the United States.โ€ 
  • As some Democrats on the commission have begun openly questioning their fellow commissionersโ€™ activities, Democrats in Congress have asked the Government Accountability Office to review whether the panel is complying with transparency requirements. Several federal lawsuits have also sought to block the commission from operating, alleging it is not complying with federal transparency and privacy requirements. Critics of the panel characterize it as an effort to weaken confidence in American elections, saying it aims to lay the groundwork for more restrictive voting laws and substantiate Trumpโ€™s claim that millions voted illegally last year (several studies and investigations have shown voter fraud is not a widespread problem). Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, the commissionโ€™s chair, have pledged that the panel would be bipartisan and neutral.
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  • Von Spakovsky defended his role on the commission, citing his work on local election boards in Georgia and Virginia and federal agencies dealing with voting. โ€œYou might want to ask him if he knows about any of that experience,โ€ he wrote. After seeing a transcript of Kingโ€™s quote, Logan Churchwell, a spokesman for Adams, wrote, โ€œMr. Adams has endeavored to engage the other Commissioners in serious discussion and constructive ideas. Your characterizations of his comments seem beyond anything Alan King would say, considering the Commissioners have exhibited the utmost courtesy to each other and would have never questioned the qualifications of a Commissioner without knowing what they were.โ€
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Donald Trump's Twitter use is a risk to global security, Hillary Clinton says | US news... - 0 views

  • Donald Trumpโ€™s Twitter account represents a โ€œclear and present dangerโ€ to world security, Hillary Clinton has argued.
  • โ€œI think he is, because he is impulsive, he lacks self-control, he is totally consumed by how he is viewed and what people think of him,โ€ she said.
  • She alleged that Assange cooperated with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to disrupt the US election and damage her campaign for president.
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US withdraws assistance from Myanmar military amid Rohingya crisis | World news | The G... - 0 views

  • The US has announced it is withdrawing military assistance from Myanmar units and officers involved in violence against Rohingya Muslims that has triggered a mass exodus and humanitarian crisis
  • We express our gravest concern with recent events in Rakhine state and the violent, traumatic abuses Rohingya and other communities have endured,โ€ said a state department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, announcing the punitive measures.
  • Militant attacks on Myanmar security forces in Rakhine sparked an army crackdown that has already been likened to ethnic cleansing by the UN. More than 600,000 members of the minority Muslim group have fled across the border into Bangladesh since late August.
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  • The government of Burma, including its armed forces, must take immediate action to ensure peace and security; implement commitments to ensure humanitarian access to communities in desperate need; facilitate the safe and voluntary return of those who have fled or been displaced in Rakhine state; and address the root causes of systematic discrimination against the Rohingya,โ€ Nauert said.
  • The measures announced by the state department are the strongest US response so far to the months-long Rohingya crisis but fall short of the most drastic tools at Washingtonโ€™s disposal, such as reimposing broader economic sanctions suspended under the Obama administration
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North Korea hackers reportedly stole US, South Korea war plans | Fox News - 0 views

  • A plan to assassinate Kim Jong Un and preparations for a potential nuclear showdown with North Korea were among the trove of South Korean military documents reportedly stolen by Hermit Kingdom hackers.
  • South Koreaโ€™s Defense Ministry did not comment on the alleged hack
  • South Korea announced in May a โ€œlarge amount of dataโ€ was stolen during a cyber attack that was possibly orchestrated by Kim Jong Unโ€™s rogue regime.
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  • The hack consisted of 235 gigabytes of military documents and about 80 percent of what was stolen hasnโ€™t been identified.
  • North Korea denied stealing the documents
  • Kim Jong Un's regime is suspected of hacking South Korean military documents.
  • Pyongyang is suspected of having expert hackers attack South Korean government websites and facilities for years.
  • you have got to be ready to ensure that we have military options that our President can employ if needed
  • Trump, meanwhile, has continued his attacks against โ€œlittle rocket manโ€ Kim Jong Un and his regime
  • Policy didnโ€™t work!โ€
  • Kim Jong Un promoted his sister, Kim Yo Jong, to become an alternate member of the countryโ€™s top decision-making body, the politiburo.
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Opinion | How Giuliani Might Take Down Trump - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Those explosive โ€” and arresting โ€” hearings led to the 1970 passage of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO, a law designed to allow prosecutors to go after enterprises that engaged in extended, organized criminality. RICO laid out certain โ€œpredicateโ€ crimes โ€” those that prosecutors could use to stitch together evidence of a corrupt organization and then go after everyone involved in the organization as part of an organized conspiracy. While the headline-grabbing RICO โ€œpredicatesโ€ were violent crimes like murder, kidnapping, arson and robbery, the statute also focused on crimes like fraud, obstruction of justice, money laundering and even aiding or abetting illegal immigration.
  • What lawmakers heard Wednesday sounded a lot like a racketeering enterprise: an organization with a few key players and numerous overlapping crimes โ€” not just one conspiracy, but many. Even leaving aside any questions about the Mueller investigation and the 2016 campaign, Mr. Cohen leveled allegations that sounded like bank fraud, charity fraud and tax fraud, as well as hints of insurance fraud, obstruction of justice and suborning perjury.
  • RICO was precisely designed to catch the godfathers and bosses at the top of these crime syndicates โ€” people a step or two removed from the actual crimes committed, those whose will is made real, even without a direct order.
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  • Exactly, it appears, as Mr. Trump did at the top of his family business: โ€œMr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. Thatโ€™s not how he operates,โ€ Mr. Cohen said. Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen said, โ€œdoesnโ€™t give orders. He speaks in code. And I understand that code.โ€
  • The sheer number and breadth of the investigations into Mr. Trumpโ€™s orbit these days indicates how vulnerable the presidentโ€™s family business would be to just this type of prosecution. In December, I counted 17, and since then, investigators have started an inquiry into undocumented workers at Mr. Trumpโ€™s New Jersey golf course, another crime that could be a RICO predicate
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Saudi crown prince allegedly stripped of some authority | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

  • The king is understood to have been particularly displeased with his sonโ€™s absence from the cabinet meeting on Tuesday, during which the king discussed the many challenges facing the kingdom. In a two-hour address, the king is understood to have raised concerns over alleged lost investments into Saudi Arabia. It led to a demand that all major future financial decisions would, for the time being, need the kingโ€™s personal approval, according to the account given to the Guardian. The decision was considered effective immediately and concerned major investments by the kingdom and other contracts.
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Donald Trump's Words Are Reshaping American Politics - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • Do the presidentโ€™s words matter?In Donald Trumpโ€™s first year in office, there has been a surprisingly widespread effort to argue that they do not. Liberals and moderates occasionally insist that the media and the public should shift their attention from the presidentโ€™s vulgar statements to the real policy work happening at federal agencies.
  • The upshot seems to be: Ignore the words, heed the substance.
  • But Trumpโ€™s words are his substance. โ€œPolitics is persuasion as well as coercion,โ€ the political scientist Jacob Levy wrote last week, rightly arguing that Trump has โ€œchanged what being a Republican means.โ€
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  • through persuasive insistence. On issues as diverse as the alleged dangers of immigration and the nature of truth, Trumpโ€™s words have the power to cleave public opinion, turning nonpolitical issues into partisan maelstroms and turning partisan attitudes on their head.
  • Years ago (even months ago) it would have been absurd to imagine โ€œlaw and orderโ€ Republicans souring on the FBI; or that the party of Reagan and Bush would turn on the NFL, Americaโ€™s most orgiastically patriotic sport.
  • In 2014, about 60 percent of both Republicans and Democrats said the FBI was doing an "excellent" or "good" job. Last year, their views forked: Republican approval of the agency fell by about 10 points, while Democratic opinion improved by a similar margin.
  • And yet, because Democrats have become more pro-immigrant under Trump, a record-high share of Americans now say "immigrants strengthen the country.โ€
  • Trump evinces not a Midas touch, but a Moses touchโ€”an extraordinary talent for planting a stake in the ground and dividing the landscape before him.
  • In mid-2016, 20 percent of both Republicans and Democrats considered Russia an โ€œallyโ€ or โ€œfriendly.โ€ One year later, Republicans were more than twice as likely as Democrats to say the same.
  • Immigration had for years been a marginal political topic, especially when compared with issues like jobs and terrorism. But Trump effectively recast immigration as a question of American identity and national security.
  • The construction of a wall along the Mexican border, once a fringey scheme, became the centerpiece of the GOP presidential candidateโ€™s agenda. Today, three-quarters of Trump supporters say that โ€œbuilding the wallโ€ should be the highest priority of his presidency
  • Less than 20 percent of Republicans said they had unfavorable views of the NFL in the summer of 2017. But their disapproval had more than tripled by October, after Trump blasted players for kneeling to protest police violence during the national anthem
  • It's tempting to downplay the power of Trump's words by saying their influence is โ€œmerelyโ€ shifting public opinion. But that's not quite right. First, thereโ€™s nothing subtle about Republican voters clutching nativism, the far-right right clutching Nazism, or Democratic voters radicalizing in defiance of the president.
  • Trumpโ€™s โ€œmereโ€ words could starve his party of moderate legislators, while encouraging Democratic candidates to embrace more liberal positions to distinguish themselves as distinctly anti-Trump.
  • Second, Trumpโ€™s rhetorical posture has some real policy implications. Though he hasnโ€™t yet signed any major legislation on immigration, his harsh stance on undocumented workers empowered the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to increase arrests by 40 percent in his first year, often to shocking effect
  • And his constant disparagement of experts who refuse to parrot his policies has sucked the talent out of several government agencies, notably the State Department.
  • Trumpโ€™s refusal to accept critical information as trueโ€”from his denial of Russian interference in the 2016 election to the โ€œalternative factsโ€ about his inauguration sizeโ€”has demolished the rightโ€™s faith and trust in a free press. Three-quarters of the GOP now say that news organizations make up anti-Trump stories.
  • Even worse, a January study found that nearly half of Republicans believe that accurate stories that โ€œcast a politician or political group in a negative lightโ€ are โ€œalwaysโ€ fake news. Trump, along with Fox News, has given his supporters the license to self-deport from reality.
  • Trumpโ€™s obsession with building and broadcasting an alternative ledger of facts has made epistemology the fundamental crisis of his term
  • In its first month, the administration invented or mainstreamed a new vocabulary of mendacityโ€”e.g., fake news, alternative factsโ€”and within 10 months, Trump made more than 1,500 false or misleading claims, according to The Washington Post. Thatโ€™s roughly six lies, exaggerations, or omissions per day
  • No legislation, no executive order, and no official speech has caused this shift. It is the presidentโ€™s words, delivered often via Twitter and amplified on Fox News, that have exploded the very notion of a shared political truth.
  • The insistence that Trumpโ€™s words donโ€™t matter isnโ€™t incidental to the GOPโ€™s broader strategy. It is the strategyโ€”to quarantine Trumpโ€™s most noxious rhetoric and proceed apace with traditional Republican governance.
  • The idea that a presidentโ€™s words donโ€™t matter is a deeply ahistorical position. And thatโ€™s particularly true for the GOP
  • Perhaps Republicans donโ€™t treat Trump as a typical Republican president because, in a very real sense, Trump is not really the president. Instead, he has become a kind of nationalist identity guru for the new American right.
  • an anonymous White House source all but acknowledged this strategy, telling Axios that the president would spend 2018 seeking โ€œunexpected cultural flashpoints,โ€ like the NFLโ€™s kneeling controversy. The White House sees Trumpโ€™s principle talent as the ability to activate cultural resentment among his supporters, encouraging them to redefine their identity and values around a nativist anger.
  • Politics is downstream from persuasion, and law is downstream from language.
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The week in patriarchy: women are strong when we stick up together | Jessica Valenti | ... - 0 views

  • This week reminded me that #MeToo isnโ€™t going anywhere, and that anyone who tries to punish the leaders will be stopped
  • What a week itโ€™s been. Between the Golden Globes and Times Up, Oprah and the slew of new allegations against powerful men โ€ฆ itโ€™s a lot. But I have to say that this week gave me hope.
  • In the end, what stuck with me was the way women stuck up for each other. It reminded me that #MeToo isnโ€™t going anywhere, and that anyone who tries to punish the leaders - whether they are behind the scenes or on the front the lines - will be stopped. In a time when everything feels so hard, thatโ€™s something to be grateful for.
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  • A bill in California could make medication abortion available at colleges, a move that would be tremendous for the pro-choice movement and for students in desperate need of increased access.
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Reductress ยป I Believe Women, Unless They're Talking About Me - 0 views

  • It has only been a couple of weeks, but 2018 is already shaping up to be the Year of Women. The #metoo movement of 2017 paved the way for so many women to finally come forward and publicly name their sexual abusers, and weโ€™ve already started the new year with the Timeโ€™s Up initiative in Hollywood. Iโ€™m excited by this new era of accountability and Iโ€™m proud to say that I, a man, believe women when they share their stories with the public. Unless, of course, theyโ€™re talking about me.
  • they deserve our wholehearted support and respect. But not if the women are talking about me or something I did. In that case you should not listen to them. You can respect them but definitely donโ€™t believe what they say about me because itโ€™s wrong.
  • They say only 3% of sexual assault allegations are misreported each year.
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  • You see, โ€œI believe women,โ€ is really more of a sentiment than a fact, which is why you see so many men willing to say it out loud all the time.   Iโ€™m always out there talking about how much I love and respect women, reminding people that I listen to women and telling women what an incredible ally I am. Iโ€™m one of the best allies I know. I guess sometimes women do lie โ€“ like when they say they donโ€™t want to have sex me. Those women are also lying! I mean, look at me!
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George Nader's 1985 Obscenity Indictment - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • A political operative who frequented the White House in the early days of President Trumpโ€™s administration, George Nader, was indicted in 1985 on charges of importing to the United States obscene material, including photos of nude boys โ€œengaged in a variety of sexual acts,โ€ according to publicly available court records. Nader pleaded not guilty, and the charges against him were ultimately dismissed several months after evidence seized from Naderโ€™s home was thrown out on procedural grounds. โ€œMr. Nader vigorously denies the allegations now, as he did then,โ€ a lawyer representing Nader said.
  • Nader often visited the White House in the months after Trump was inaugurated, Axios reported earlier this year. On January 17, he was en route to Trumpโ€™s Palm Beach estate, Mar-a-Lago, to celebrate the anniversary of the inauguration when he was served a grand-jury subpoena at Dulles Airport outside of Washington, D.C.
  • Nader, an influential yet under-the-radar operative who edited a foreign-policy magazine in the 1990s, had โ€œremarkable access to key political and business leaders throughoutโ€ the Middle East, former West Virginia Representative Nick Rahall said in 1996, according to a Congressional Record transcript of his remarks. In May 1987, for example, Nader described a meeting he had attended with Iranโ€™s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, along with โ€œleaders of the Afghan mujahedin, some senior officials of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, and some Islamic fundamentalists from Egypt.โ€
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  • Thereโ€™s little known about Naderโ€™s recent visits to the White House. The Times reported that Nader has been questioned about his meetings there with Kushner and Stephen Bannon, a former Trump adviser. Bannon did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
  • The government argued that the search was justified because Nader, โ€œa suspected pedophile, was likely to seek to contact children.โ€ But, 18 months later, the court ruled that the latter part of the warrant was impermissibly general, and threw out additional evidence that had been seized from his home. The evidence that was discarded included material that was described in the court ruling as obscene.
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Trump unlikely to change policy on violent video games - 0 views

  • Trump on Thursday hosted a White House roundtable with video game company CEOs and representatives, who defended their industry in an ongoing debate about the alleged links between violent games and real-life violence. The advocates were matched by a number of critics, including Republican lawmakers, who have suggested a causal relationship between violent media and behavior.
  • The meeting, according to the White House, was an opportunity "to discuss violent video game exposure and the correlation to aggression and desensitization in children" in the wake of the shooting massacre of 17 students and adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14.
  • "We discussed the numerous scientific studies establishing that there is no connection between video games and violence, First Amendment protection of video games, and how our industry's rating system effectively helps parents make informed entertainment choices. We appreciate the President's receptive and comprehensive approach to this discussion," the group said.
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  • Five years later, Republicans and Democrats alike forged a link between video games and school shootings. After it was revealed that the two teenagers who killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado were fans of first-person shooting games, President Bill Clinton slammed violent games as tools that "make our children more active participants in simulated violence."
  • The National Rifle Association, in particular, has blamed video games as a major factor in mass shootings. After the December 2012 massacre of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, NRA leader Wayne LaPierre said: "Guns don't kill people. Video games, the media and Obama's budget kill people." Video game industry analysts strongly dispute the connection. "If there was actually a correlation between gun violence and video games then everywhere where violent video games are released you would find a similar level of gun violence, or at least a correlation," said Lewis Ward, research director of gaming at International Data Corporation. Industry analysts sa
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