Skip to main content

Home/ History Readings/ Group items matching "p" in title, tags, annotations or url

Group items matching
in title, tags, annotations or url

Sort By: Relevance | Date Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
10More

Being black while in nature: 'You're an endangered species' | Life and style | The Guar... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...re-youre-an-endangered-species culture US
shared by brookegoodman on 31 May 20 - No Cached
  • It was 2011 when Rue Mapp was followed by a white woman in an Oakland, California, park, while out on a national campaign to get local families connected with nature.
  • “The kids around me might have rightly been thinking, ‘Is she talking about us?’” says Rue, who is black. She says the incident brought “so many levels of shame, embarrassment and of not feeling welcome in nature”.
  • In the days after the video went viral, the woman lost her job and surrendered her dog – but many black people say that it is not an isolated incident.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Jason Ward, whose popular birdwatching series Birds of North America features Christian Cooper, decides to view the injustice the same way a bird would see the world: migrating through spaces, stopping at places that benefit them and passing over ones that offer them nothing.
  • These are defense mechanisms that Ward and many other black nature-lovers have to employ when out in the wild – lest a situation turn sticky and they have to answer questions from a suspecting police officer. In short, in a battle of he-said-she-said, most black people know who the burden of proof falls on.
  • Lanham goes back to his nine rules to exemplify this. When he considers going on a specific trip, alongside weighing up the many universally good factors (nature’s beauty) as well as the bad (the possibility that he will get stung by a wasp or step on an ants’ nest), he also has to make other decisions, mostly based on his safety. “I have to make decisions about where I go, when I go, who I go with, what people will be thinking of me when I am there. I need to make sure I am wearing the right thing, that my car registration is in the right place so when I am stopped, I am not suspected of harboring something,” he says. “I have some complex equation that I have to figure out several times a fucking day.”
  • “I am tired of the narrative of black bodies being harmed in nature and in the outdoors,” she says. “From a practical perspective, we all pay taxes on these public lands and so to enjoy them is an exercise of our citizenship. It is what being American is all about,” she says.
  • “When I grew up, there was no one I knew in the natural world studying animals who looked like I did, at least not on television. And yet, still my love persisted,” he says.
  • In the weeks and months ahead, our journalism will investigate the prospects for a new green settlement. We will showcase the big thinkers and protagonists and amplify the arguments for authorities everywhere to consider as they lead us out of coronavirus.
  • You've read 66 articles in the last six months. Our journalism is open to all because we believe everyone deserves access to factual information, regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay. If you can afford to, we hope you will consider supporting our journalism today.
7More

In a sad week for America, Trump has fled from his duty (opinion) - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html US trump crisis
shared by brookegoodman on 31 May 20 - No Cached
  • David Gergen has been a White House adviser to four presidents and is a senior political analyst at CNN. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he is a professor of public service at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he founded the Center for public Leadership. Tune in CNN Sunday at noon ET for WE REMEMBER, a memorial service for those lost during the Covid-19 pandemic, hosted by Jake Tapper. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
  • But our President was mostly busy with other things: getting into a Public fight with Twitter, condemning China over Hong Kong and terminating our relationshiP with the World Health Organization -- an entity that once looked to the United States as the world's leading institution in fighting Pandemics.
  • But other than a brief tweet in the midst of another storm, Trump remained silent on the most sensitive issue of his presidency: the pandemic that is killing so many older Americans and people of color living near the edge. Understandably, with the rash of other news, the press is moving on. But we should pause for one more moment to recognize how sad and sharp a departure his silence is from past traditions of the presidency.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • One thinks, too, of Bill Clinton traveling to Oklahoma City after the bombing there of a federal building in 1995. Clinton, like Reagan, was at his best when he captured tangled emotions and gave meaning to deaths of some of our finest citizens. He not only consoled families in private but moved the nation when he mourned them publicly. As I recall, that's when presidents were first called "Mourners in Chief" -- a phrase that has been applied repeatedly to presidents since. (Not coincidentally, Clinton's speech of mourning in Oklahoma City is widely credited with resurrecting his presidency, then in the doldrums.)
  • Historians generally agree that Washington, Lincoln and FDR were our greatest presidents. All three are remembered for their empathy and steadfastness in caring for the lives of average Americans. They continue to set the standard.
  • Lincoln began his presidency during great uncertainty about his leadership. He won the election of 1860 with the smallest plurality ever (39%), and his military experience was virtually nil. But over time, he kindled a special relationship with Union soldiers, many of whom called him "Father Abraham." Historians say his homespun ways, common manner and kindly empathy converted them. In his re-election, soldiers were his greatest supporters.
  • Why has our current "Mourner in Chief" gone AWOL? God knows. But his flight from responsibility is yet another sadness among this week's tragic losses.
21More

A Hard Reckoning for the Democrats: Race, Class and Joe Biden's Election - The Globalist - 0 views

www.theglobalist.com/-democratic-party-demographics race class strategy Democratic party 2020
shared by Javier E on 02 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • The disappointing election results also raise doubts about a widespread belief among Democrats that they are on the side of history because the population of non-whites — who tend to vote for Democrats — is growing faster than the population of whites. Therefore, many Democratic leaders have assumed that they do not have to worry about losing white working class voters to the Republicans because whites will be less important in the future.
  • First, the often-cited numbers are misleading in and of themselves. The well-known New York Times columnist Tom Friedman recently wrote: “sometime in the 2040s, whites will make up 49% of the U.S. population, and Latinos, Blacks, Asians and multiracial populations 51%.”
  • But Friedman, like many other political analysts, errs when he classifies the largest minority subgroup, Latin-Americans, as “not white.” In fact, at least 65% consider themselves racially “only” white. Thus, if Latino-Americans are correctly classified (by their self-identification), whites will still make up 69% of the U.S. population by 2060. So, if racial identity really determines voting behavior, then U.S. politics will be dominated by white people for a long time.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • Second, the assumption that people will vote as a bloc according to their ethnic or racial identity is simplistic.
  • despite Trump’s xenophobia and racism, a larger share of Latinos and black men voted for him this year than they did in 2016.
  • Democrats also lost Texas again. During the campaign, the Democrats had targeted their appeal to Latinos by emphasizing Trump’s mistreatment of immigrants entering illegally from Mexico and Central America. But Mexican-Americans along the border supported Donald Trump because their jobs and wages are being undercut by the newer immigrants.
  • Republicans of course have been the major promoters of policies that have beneftted investors at the expense of workers. But, shamelessly and cleverly, they have diverted white working class anger toward minorities, protecting the country’s elites.
  • The Republicans’ trap for the Democrats White skin is still privileged in the United States of America and the Republican party has increasingly pandered to racism. Democrats, for both moral and political reasons, must strongly support racial justice.
  • But in an overwhelmingly white society, they cannot attract the necessary sustained political support with a message focused on generalized white guilt.
  • Thus, for example, a majority of whites supported the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality towards Blacks. But the support dropped sharply when demands rose for whites to pay reparations for past oppression of Blacks.
  • National polls showed that Latino-American voters thought jobs and health care, not immigration, were the most important issues for them.
  • After all, several decades of stagnant wages, precarious employment and the erosion of upward mobility have left most whites in the United States today who must work for a living no longer feeling very “privileged.
  • Economic class trumps racial affiliation Most Latinos and black Americans are working class — like the majority of whites. And the data shows the economic problems of minorities are now more likely a function of their class than their race or ethnicity.
  • Thus, the central issue of income and wealth inequality is not the privilege of “whites” any longer. Rather, it is the privilege of “rich whites.
  • As economist Adolph Reed, an African American, puts it: If you say to those white people in the bottom 50% (i.e., people who have basically no wealth at all) that the basic inequality in the United States is between black and white, they know you are wrong. More tellingly, if you say the same thing to the black people in the bottom 50% (i.e., people who have even less than no wealth at all), they also know you are wrong. It’s not all the white people who have the money; it’s the top 10% of (mainly) whites.
  • An engine of inequality Thomas Piketty and others have shown that modern caPitalism has become an engine for the exPansion of inequality between caPital and labor. Thus, in the absence of substantial reform, incomes and oPPortunities for most working Americans — whatever the color of their skin — will continue to shrink.
  • Trump succeeded in part because large numbers of white working people felt abandoned by Democrats. Over the last few decades, the Democratic party’s establishment forged an alliance with Wall Street financiers who are liberal on social issues — such as racial discrimination, immigration and abortion — but very conservative on economics.
  • One bizarre result was that throughout the campaign, voters saw the plutocrat Trump as better at creating jobs and prosperity than Biden.
  • Have Democrats really learned the lesson? Biden’s less elitist style helped him with enough white workers to win three key Midwestern states that Hillary Clinton had lost. Still, had Donald Trump shown a minimum of competence in responding to the COVID 19 crisis, he could well have been re-elected.
  • Republicans forcing the Democrats’ hands Because Republicans will do everything they can to make the Biden presidency a failure, the Democrats’ disparate factions have to unite behind him in a “popular front” against the authoritarian right. This may be hard for many on the party’s left, but they have no choice. If Biden fails, they fail.
  • Conclusion The election gave us some clues to where U.S. democracy might be headed, but the question remains unanswered: Can Biden and the Democrats restore enough security and prosperity to the American working class to finally eradicate the neofascist political pandemic?
10More

Key Justices Signal Support for Affordable Care Act - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...preme-court-obamacare-aca.html trump us gop pandemic Policy
shared by cartergramiak on 10 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON — The bulk of the Affordable Care Act, the sprawling 2010 health care law that is president Barack Obama’s defining domestic legacy, appeared likely to survive its latest encounter with the Supreme Court in arguments on Tuesday.
  • “It does seem fairly clear that the proper remedy would be to sever the mandate provision and leave the rest of the law in place,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.
  • Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made a similar point. “Congress left the rest of the law intact when it lowered the penalty to zero,” he said.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Democratic states and the House, which intervened in the case to defend the health law, asked the Supreme Court to intervene, saying a prompt decision was needed to remove the uncertainty caused by the lower courts’ decisions.
  • In a 2017 law review article, she questioned the chief justice’s 2012 opinion. “Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute,” Justice Barrett wrote.In an interview after the 2015 decision, she said, “I think the dissent has the better of the legal argument.”“That’s not to say the result isn’t preferable,” Judge Barrett said at the time. “It’s clearly a good result that these millions of Americans won’t lose their tax subsidies.”
  • Tens of millions of Americans gained insurance coverage under the 2010 law, which includes popular provisions on guaranteed coverage for pre-existing medical conditions, emergency care, prescription drugs and maternity care. Republican state officials, backed by the Trump administration, say that a key provision of the law is unconstitutional, and that this means the whole law must fall.
  • The law’s defenders are hoping that the Republican challengers cannot run the table on three separate legal arguments they would need to win: that they have suffered the sort of injury that gives them standing to sue; that the zeroing out of the tax penalty made the individual mandate unconstitutional; and that the rest of the law cannot stand without the individual mandate.
  • The Republicans also face the challenge of the enormous practical effects of striking down the law. Doing so would increase the ranks of the uninsured in the United States by more than 20 million people — a nearly 70 percent increase — according to new estimates from the Urban Institute.
  • The biggest loss of coverage would be among low-income adults who became eligible for Medicaid under the law after all but a dozen states expanded the program to include them. But millions would also lose private insurance, including young adults whom the law allowed to stay on their parents’ plans until they turned 26 and families whose income was modest enough to qualify for subsidies under the law that help pay their monthly premiums.
  • Tuesday’s arguments, which will be heard by telephone, are scheduled for 80 minutes but are likely to last two hours or longer. Michael J. Mongan, the solicitor general of California, representing a coalition of liberal-leaning states, will defend the law; Kyle D. Hawkins, the solicitor general of Texas, representing a coalition of conservative-leaning states, will urge the justices to strike it down.
13More

Tensions Simmer as a Small Town Seeks Answers in a Boy's Killing - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...llips-in-potsdam-new-york.html
shared by sgardner35 on 07 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Garrett PhilliPs, a PoPular and outgoing 12-year-old, was strangled in his home in fall 2011. The murder set off a mad, all-consuming Pursuit for a killer in a region where such crimes are extraordinarily rare.
  • It took more than 30 months for prosecutors to charge him with second-degree murder, in May 2014 — and months more to secure a second indictment after the first was thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct. Despite the long pursuit, the case that a jury will hear this summer is far from perfect: There is a distinct lack of hard evidence, according to police testimony — no fingerprints, no witnesses, no hair or tissue samples, seemingly no conclusive forensic evidence at all connecting Mr. Hillary to the crime.In the long lead-up to the prosecution of Mr. Hillary, his supporters have highlighted not only the absence of physical evidence but the lack of any plausible motive or history that would suggest he was capable of murdering a child. They have also said that another man, a local sheriff’s deputy who once dated Garrett’s mother, was removed from suspicion too quickly.
  • “I can’t think of any other person who would want to hurt Garrett,” Ms. Cyrus said in a statement to the police after her son died.Like the Raquette River, which splits potsdam in two, the case has divided opinion and tested residents’ patience in St. Lawrence County, a rural and job-challenged region where 94 percent of the population is white. But the emotional impact on potsdam is raw and evident: Garrett’s former teachers and family friends cry at his memory, while the village’s elders echo one another, saying such terrible crimes simply do not happen in places like this.“It was like a meteor hitting,” said Ron Tischler, the mayor of potsdam, home to around 9,600 residents that is about 25 miles south of Ontario.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Mr. Hillary has also accused the county prosecutor, Mary Rain, of forsaking justice in the name of keeping a campaign promise: Ms. Rain was elected in 2013, in part on the strength of campaigning with Ms. Cyrus and promising to focus the energies of her small office on Garrett’s murder.
  • The suspicions and repercussions surrounding the boy’s death have rippled through time and distance. A key defense witness, for instance, suddenly discovered “Justice for Garrett” signs posted near his new workplace and home — each hundreds of miles from potsdam. Mr. Hillary, now free on bail, found himself rearrested in September for allegedly violating an order of protection by using a drive-through A.T.M. at the bank where Ms. Cyrus worked.
  • Garrett PhilliPs was an ebullient child desPite an early-life tragedy: When he was a toddler, his father, Robert — an amiable grounds worker at the State University of New York at Potsdam — suffered a brain aneurysm and never recovered. He died before Garrett was 3.Though Garrett never knew his father, the boy emulated him as he grew. Like his father, he hunted and fished; Played any sPort involving a ball; and balanced his rowdy and resPectful sides, rambunctious sometimes in Public but Polite to family and strangers.
  • On the afternoon of Oct. 24, 2011, Garrett was playing basketball at the middle school with some friends as rain fell intermittently. A little before 5 p.m., Tandy Cyrus called his cellphone and told him to go home to do schoolwork.
  • Garrett got on his caster board — something of a cross between a skateboard and a snowboard — and headed home, his progress captured by a series of surveillance cameras and later described in a police timeline.
  • Combing the apartment for evidence, investigators found a possible clue: The screen of the bedroom window, about 20 feet off the ground, was “bent outward,” according to the incident report. A tile seemed to be broken on the roof of a lower section of the building, about 10 feet below, and there was a gash in the grass
  • His appeal, as both a coach and a person, is evident: His energy is intense, but his smile is unencumbered. He said he had always loved the North Country region’s rural mountains and summertime greenery — when it was warm it reminded him of Jamaica — though he was aware of the cultural boundaries beyond campus.“You’re a black person,” he said in an interview. “You were viewed as such.”A year after being hired by Clarkson, Mr. Hillary found that his relationship with his longtime girlfriend, Stacia Lee, the mother of his three children, was struggling. At a bar called Ton’s, he became acquainted with a bartender, Tandy Cyrus.
  • “I go, ‘Listen. Help me understand. Are you and Tandy together?’” Deputy Jones said.Ms. Cyrus, 37, declined to be interviewed for this article, but Mr. Hillary said he had been harassed because of his relationship with her. “It’s not a community with a lot of interracial relationships,” he said, adding that he had “to be mindful” when he was out. “I would go to the local restaurant,” he said, and Deputy Jones’s “friends would come up to me and like, ‘You know you’re not supposed to be dating John’s girl.’”A few months after they met, Mr. Hillary and Ms. Cyrus moved in together, forming a household of five, including his teenage daughter, Shanna-Kay, and Ms. Cyrus’s two sons.
  • Lieutenant Murray saw Mr. Duff as deeply credible.“I just can’t bring myself to fathom why a collegiate person playing on a Division III soccer team with his entire future ahead of him would lie and perjure himself on a sworn statement for no reason,” he said.On the evening after the murder, Lieutenant Murray went to watch Clarkson’s men’s soccer squad and videotaped Mr. Hillary coaching the penultimate game of a rough season. (The 2011 Clarkson squad had more losses than goals.)According to a search-warrant application, as Mr. Hillary strode along the sideline, he seemed stiff and sedate and had a “significant limp in his right leg,” something the detective inferred would have been caused by jumping from a second-story window. Last year, though, The Watertown Daily Times posted a clip from Lieutenant Murray’s video: In it, Mr. Hillary appears to walk unhindered along the sidelines.
  • As the men were being questioned, detectives searched for damning evidence. They seized Mr. Hillary’s phone and examined the contents of his pockets and his socks. Nude photographs, fingerprints and palm prints were taken. Mr. Hillary’s car was searched. (The timing of the seizures, and of the subsequent search warrants, has been a focus of Mr. Hillary’s civil suit.) The police also obtained his DNA from a coffee cup and the butt of a cigarette.
28More

Opinion | The Deification of Donald Trump poses Some Interesting Questions - The New Yo... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...god-evangelicals-anointed.html deification trump evangelical populism Christianist crisis culture politics
shared by Javier E on 17 Jan 24 - No Cached
  • The video, along with Eric Trump’s claim that his father “literally saved Christianity” and the image Donald Trump reposted on Truth Social of Jesus sitting next to him in court, raises a question:
  • Does Trump believe that he is God’s messenger, or are his direct and indirect claims to have a special relationship with God a cynical ploy to win evangelical votes?
  • “Over the years since, there has been a growing chorus of voices saying Trump is the defender of Christians and Christianity. Trump says this himself all the time, ‘When they come after me, they’re really coming after you.’”
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • Some of Trump’s Christian followers do appear to have grown to see him as a kind of religious figure. He is a savior. I think it began with the sense that he was uniquely committed to saving them from their foes (liberals, Democrats, elites, seculars, illegal immigrants, etc.) and saving America from all that threatens it.
  • In this sense, Gushee continued, “a savior does not have to be a good person but just needs to fulfill his divinely appointed role. Trump is seen by many as actually having done so while president.”
  • This view of Trump is especially strong “in the pentecostal wing of the conservative Christian world,” Gushee wrote, wherehe is sometimes also viewed as an anointed leader sent by God. “Anointed” here means set apart and especially equipped by God for a holy task. Sometimes the most unlikely people got anointed by God in the Bible. So Trump’s unlikeliness for this role is actually evidence in favor.
  • The prosecutions underway against Trump have been easily interpretable as signs of persecution, which can then connect to the suffering Jesus theme in Christianity. Trump has been able to leverage that with lines like, “They’re not persecuting me. They’re persecuting you.” The idea that he is unjustly suffering and, in so doing, vicariously absorbing the suffering that his followers would be enduring is a powerful way for Trump to be identified with Jesus.
  • Robert P. Jones, the founder and chief executive of P.R.R.I. (formerly the Public Religion Research Institute), contends that TrumP’s religious claims are an outright fraud:TrumP has given us adequate evidence that he has little religious sensibility or theological acuity. He has scant knowledge of the Bible, he has said that he has never sought forgiveness for his sins, and he has no substantive connection to a church or denomination. He’s not only one of the least religious but also likely one of the most theologically ignorant Presidents the country has ever had.
  • If people wanted to make him out to be savior, anointed one and agent of God, he would not object
  • Lacking any inner spiritual or moral compass that would seek to deflect overinflated or even idolatrous claims about himself, he instead reposted their artwork and videos and so on. Anyone truly serious about the Christian faith would deflect claims to being a savior or anointed one, but he did not have such brakes operating.
  • there are evangelicals of the charismatic and Pentecostal variety — the so-called New APostolic Reformation or IndePendent Network Charismatics — who believe that Donald TrumP is an agent of God to rescue the United States from the atheistic, even demonic, secularists and Progressives who want to destroy the country by advancing abortion, gay marriage, wokeness, transgenderism, etc.
  • “This whole movement,” Fea wrote,is rooted in prophecy. The prophets speak directly to God and receive direct messages from him about politics. They think that politics is a form of spiritual warfare and believe that God is using Donald Trump to help wage this war. (God can even use sinners to accomplish his will — there are a lot of biblical examples of this, they say.)
  • As far as Trump goes, Fea continued, “he probably thinks these charismatics and pentecostals are crazy. But if they are going to tell him he is God’s anointed one, he will gladly accept the title and use it if it wins him votes. He will happily accept their prayers because it is politically expedient.”
  • The more interesting case, Gushee wrote,is Trump himself. I accept as given that he entered politics as the amoral, worldly, narcissistic New York businessman that he appeared to be. Like all G.O.p. politicians, he knew he would have to win over the conservative Christian voting bloc so central to the party.
  • Trump, Jones added in an email, “almost certainly lacks the kind of religious sensibility or theological framework necessary to personally grasp what it would even mean to be a Jesus-like, messianic figure.”
  • According to Jones, in order to rationalize this quasi-deification of Trump — despite “his crassness and vulgarity, divorces, mocking of disabled people, his overt racism and a determination by a court that he sexually abused advice columnist E. Jean Carroll” — white evangelicals refer not to Jesus but the persian King Cyrus from the book of Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible.”
  • Cyrus is the model of an ungodly king who nonetheless frees a group of Jews who are held captive in Babylon. It took white evangelicals themselves a while to settle on an explanation for their support, but this characterization of Trump was solidified in a 2018 film that came out just before the 2018 midterms entitled “The Trump prophecy,” which portrayed Trump as the only leader who could save America from certain cultural collapse.
  • According to Jones, “White evangelicals’ stalwart, enduring support for Trump tells us much more about who they see themselves to be than who they think Trump is. As I argued in my most recent book, ‘The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy,’” Jones continued in his email, “the primary force animating white evangelical protestant politics — one that has been with us since before the founding of the Republic — is the vision of America as a nation primarily of, by and for white Christians.”
  • “a majority (56 percent) of white evangelical protestants, compared to only one-third of all Americans, believed that ‘God intended America to be a new promised land where European Christians could create a society that could be an example to the rest of the world.’”
  • Jones argued that Trump’s declaration on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021 — “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore” — was a direct appeal “to this sense of divine entitlement of those who believed this mythology strongly enough to engage in a violent insurrection.”
  • “White evangelicals,” Guth found, “are invariably the most populist: more likely to favor strong leadership (even when that means breaking the rules), to distrust government, to see the country on the wrong track and to think that the majority should always rule (and minorities adapt).”
  • Guth also found thatanother salient trait of populist politics is the willingness to ignore democratic civility. We constructed a “rough politics” score from three A.N.E.S. items: whether protesters deserve what they get if they are hurt in demonstrating, whether the country would be better off if it got rid of rotten apples and whether people are “too sensitive” about political discourse. Here the usual pattern recurs: Evangelical affiliation, evangelical identity and biblical literalism predicts agreement with those assertions, while religious minorities, secular folks and progressives tend to demur.
  • Guth wrote that his “findings help us understand what many have struggled to comprehend: How can white evangelical protestants continue to provide strong support for president Donald Trump, whose personal values and behavior trample on the biblical and ethical standards professed by that community?”
  • The most common explanation, according to Guth,is that white evangelicals have a transactional relationship with the president: As long as he nominates conservative jurists and makes appropriate gestures on abortion and sexual politics, they will support him.
  • “The evidence here,” he wrote, “suggests a more problematic answer”:White evangelicals share with Trump a multitude of attitudes, including his hostility toward immigrants, his Islamophobia, his racism and nativism, as well as his political style, with its nasty politics and assertion of strong, solitary leadership. Indeed, Trump’s candidacy may have “authorized” for the first time the widespread expression of such attitudes.
  • The pervasive populism of white evangelical laity not only helps explain their support for president Trump but suggests powerful barriers to influence by cosmopolitan internationalist evangelical elites, who want to turn the community in a different direction. As hostile responses to efforts of antipopulist evangelicals like Michael Gerson, Russell Moore, David platt and many others indicate, there is currently a very limited market for such alternative perspectives among the rank and file.
  • Nor does cosmopolitan or cooperative internationalism find much purchase among local evangelical clergy. Analysis of the 2017 Cooperative Clergy Survey shows that ministers from several evangelical denominations, especially the large Southern Baptist Convention and Assemblies of God, exhibit exactly the same populist traits seen here in white evangelical laity, but in more pronounced form: strong Islamophobia, Christian nationalism, extreme moral traditionalism, opposition to trade pacts, militaristic attitudes, resistance to political compromise and climate change denial, among others.
  • In other words, conservative populism, with all its antidemocratic implications, has taken root in America. What we don’t know is for how long — or how much damage it will do.
10More

BBC News - Syria chemical weapons equipment destroyed, says OpCW - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-middle-east-24754460 policy history politics crisis bbc news syria chemical weapons equipment economic
shared by julia rhodes on 01 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • 31 October 2013 Last updated at 19:42 ET Share this page Email print Share this page2.6KShareFacebookTwitter Syria chemical weapons equipment destroyed, says OpCW Advertisement $render("advert-post-script-load"); Jerry Smith, OpCW: "We have... observed all of the destruction activities" Continue reading the main story Syria conflict Arms destruction Chemical stockpile 'please let it be over' Assad opponents Syria's declared equipment for producing, mixing and filling chemical weapons has been destroyed, the international watchdog says. This comes a day before the deadline set by the Organisation for the prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OpCW). The weapons have been placed under seal, an OpCW spokesman said. Inspectors were sent to Syria following allegations, denied by the government, that its forces had used chemical weapons in civilian areas. Continue reading the main story Analysis Jonathan Marcus BBC diplomatic correspondent The achievement of this crucial initial target is an important moment for the chemical weapons destruction effort in Syria. The inspectors' first task was to move swiftly to prevent the government from producing any more chemical agent and to destroy facilities and equipment used for mixing agents and filling munitions. production facilities will be closely monitored to ensure that there are no moves to repair them. The next deadline is mid-November, by which time the OpCW and the Syrians must agree a detailed plan to destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile. All sorts of questions are raised. Where will this destruction be carried out ? Who will provide the necessary equipment and so on? Western intelligence agencies will be studying Syria's declarations carefully. They will be eager to direct inspectors to additional locations if there are any grounds to believe that Damascus has been less than frank in its disclosures. The inspections were agreed between Russia and the US after Washington threatened to use force in Syria. Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad
  • Syria's declared equipment for producing, mixing and filling chemical weapons has been destroyed, the international watchdog says.
  • nspectors were sent to Syria following allegations, denied by the government, that its forces had used chemical weapons in civilian areas.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • "I hope those who have always thought of us negatively will change their minds and understand that Syria was, is, and will be always a constructive partner," Mr Mekdad told our correspondent
  • Mr Countryman, the assistant secretary for international security and non-proliferation, told US lawmakers that "our target dates are ambitious but they are achievable".
  • In a separate development, a large explosion at a Syrian army base has been reported outside the coastal city of Latakia. A White House official told the BBC Israeli planes carried out the attack, saying he believed the intended target was Russian missiles. Separately, a US security official said Russian-made SA-125 missiles had been targeted, according to the Associated press news agency.
  • Israel is believed to have targeted the same base in July and is concerned that some weapons in Syria are being moved to Hezbollah militants in neighbouring Lebanon.
  • Mr Smith said that verifying the destruction of Syria's weapons production capability had been a "particularly challenging job" because it had to be done in the midst of a conflict, with a tight deadline
  • The first step is for the weapons watchdog and the Syrian government to agree a timetable for the destruction of the chemical weapons stockpile - this should be done within the next two weeks
  • The US says more than 1,400 people were killed when government forces used a nerve agent to attack Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus on 21 August. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies have said rebel groups were responsible
20More

Armed group takes over Oregon wildlife refuge building - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...oregon-wildlife-refuge-protest armed group oregon wildlife refuge politics history US crisis
shared by katyshannon on 04 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Armed anti-government protesters have taken over a building in a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, accusing officials of unfairly punishing ranchers who refused to sell their land.
  • One of them is Ammon Bundy, the 40-year-old son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who is well-known for anti-government action.
  • Asked several times what he and those with him want, he answered in vague terms, saying that they want the federal government to restore the "people's constitutional rights."
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Prosecutors said the Hammonds set a fire that burned about 130 acres in 2001 to cover uP Poaching. They were sentenced to five years in Prison.
  • The group is occupying part of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns after gathering outside for a demonstration supporting Dwight and Steven Hammond, father-and-son ranchers who were convicted of arson.
  • "This refuge -- it has been destructive to the people of the county and to the people of the area," he said. Read More"people need to be aware that we've become a system where government is actually claiming and using and defending people's rights, and they are doing that against the people."
  • The Hammonds, who are set to turn themselves in Monday afternoon, have said they set the fire to reduce the growth of invasive plants and to protect their property from wildfires
  • The Hammonds have been clear in that they don't want help from the Bundy group. "Neither Ammon Bundy nor anyone within his group/organization speak for the Hammond family," the Hammonds' attorney W. Alan Schroeder wrote to Harney County Sheriff David Ward.
  • He said that over the years, law enforcement has learned how to handle a situation like this; one that hasn't erupted in violence and in which a law may be broken, but there's no immediate threat to anyone's life. The best approach now, Roderick said, is to wait the group out and to figure out how to bring a peaceful end to the situation.
  • The protest has prompted Harney County School District 3 to call off classes for the entire week, Superintendent Dr. Marilyn L. McBride said. "Schools will open on January 11," she said. "Ensuring staff and student safety is our greatest concern."
  • After the march Saturday, the armed protesters broke into the refuge's unoccupied building and refused to leave. Officials have said there are no government employees in the building.
  • "We will be here as long as it takes," Bundy said. "We have no intentions of using force upon anyone, (but) if force is used against us, we would defend ourselves."
  • Ammon Bundy said that the group in Oregon was armed, but that he would not describe it as a militia. He declined to say how many people were with him, telling CNN on Sunday that giving that information might jeopardize "operational security."
  • "We are not terrorists," Ammon Bundy said. "We are concerned citizens and realize we have to act if we want to pass along anything to our children."
  • He wouldn't call his group a militia, but others are. "I don't like the militia's methods," local resident Monica McCannon told KTVZ. "They had their rally. Now it's time for them to go home. people are afraid of them."
  • When asked what it would take for the protesters to leave, Bundy did not offer specifics. He said he and those with him are prepared to stay put for days or weeks or "as long as necessary."
  • "We are using the wildlife refuge as a place for individuals across the United States to come and assist in helping the people of Harney County claim back their lands and resources," he said. "The people will need to be able to use the land and resources without fear as free men and women. We know it will take some time."
  • He did not explicitly call on authorities to commute the prison sentences for the Hammonds, but he said their case illustrates officials' "abuse" of power.
  • He said the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge has taken over the space of 100 ranches since the early 1900s. "They are continuing to expand the refuge at the expense of the ranchers and miners," Bundy said.
  • He also said Harney County, in southeastern Oregon, went from one of the state's wealthiest counties to one of the poorest. CNN has not independently corroborated Bundy's claims.
7More

Germany coronavirus: Why is the Covid-19 death rate so low? (opinion) - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html COVID-19 crisis
shared by brickol on 25 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • As of this past weekend, nine countries had diagnosed more than 9,000 cases, and three -- South Korea, Switzerland, and Germany -- had deaths rates well below the others. For South Korea, this in part is due to the cases occurring in much younger people, while the information in Switzerland is only now emerging. But for Germany, Covid-19 is being diagnosed in the same middle-aged people as other countries. The deaths in Germany also fit the seemingly established pattern of also occurring among the very old.
  • Recent articles have raised this issue with several theories put forth by local experts. Some feel that it is a temporary situation, since Germany, like South Korea, has been aggressively testing its population from the outset. Aggressive testing likely will identify persons otherwise too well to come to medical attention, thereby diluting the tested pool with a large set of infected but otherwise well people who are likely to remain so.
  • Others have speculated that the first cases in Germany were older adults who had used an early spring vacation to go skiing in countries that turned out to have high rates of Covid-19. So yes, goes this thinking: the German cases are in older persons, but all were well enough to ski, that is, they were people without the various other medical conditions that increase risk of death.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • There might be other explanations. With any infection, there are four basic questions to ask when looking at broad differences in death rates. Is the virus different here versus there? NO. Right now, there is no evidence that the virus is mutating toward a more potent strain in the US.Is one country diagnosing the virus sooner than another? YES. As above, this may be skewing German and South Korean results by identifying asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic persons unlikely to require medical care. Hospitalization rates by country, currently not tracked, would help sort out the contribution of aggressive testing to survival rates. Is the infected patient different here versus there? YES. South Korea (young patients) and Italy (old patients) are unique in the outbreak, and the characteristics in Iran are not well known. All other countries with specific information, from China to even the US epicenter of New York City, have shown the same basic distribution with respect to age, sex (more men than women) and smoking. Is the health care system different here versus there? OH YES. Health care system differences at the country level are hard to examine: information is sparse and, given the 50,000-foot view, possibly misleading. However, health care experts typically can rely on "structural measures" to determine the quality of a hospital or a state or a country.
  • The World Bank tracks health care information by country on three relevant structural measures (though recentness of information varies country to country), each measured per 1,000 general population: doctors, nurses and hospital beds. They and other sources also track two other relevant variables: lifespan per country and health care spending per individual. Neither of these demonstrate differences in affected Western European countries that might explain a difference in Covid-19 survival.
  • Among the nine countries with the highest number of Covid-19 cases, the country that has the highest nurse rate also has the lowest death rate from the disease. Germany has 13.2 nurses per 1,000 (echoing a trend for high nurse numbers throughout Northern Europe) far above the other heavily Covid-19 affected countries. This may be just another armchair epidemiologist observation of course. But higher numbers of nurses may reflect one of two beneficial factors (or both): first, that nurses, the backbone of hospital (and especially ICU) care, are essential to patient management and, ultimately, survival.
  • Either way, it is a reminder that Covid-19 will continue to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of health care systems across the world. The current observed differences also mandate that, when we finally are out from underneath the weight of the current crisis, we must work to determine how we can deliver better health care to large populations across the world.
14More

Biden says "nothing has changed," but numbers of child migrants on record pace : NpR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...crossing-border-at-higher-pace
shared by anonymous on 27 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • President Biden claimed Thursday in his first Press conference since taking office that "nothing has changed" comPared to earlier influxes of migrants and unaccomPanied children at the border.
  • The Biden administration has been grappling with surging numbers of migrants, especially children arriving at the border without their parents. It is true, as Biden states, that numbers often rise during the early months of the year when temperatures begin to warm. But the number of children arriving today without their parents is considerably higher than at the same time in 2019 and 2020.
  • In fact, the number of unaccompanied children being apprehended by the Border patrol were higher in February than they've been any previous February since 2014, according to data shared with NpR by the nonpartisan Migration policy Institute.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Authorities encountered 9,297 children without a parent in February, a 30% increase from 2019 during the last major influx of unaccompanied children. To be sure, it's still below the peaks of 11,000 unaccompanied minors who arrived in May 2019 and above 10,000 in June 2014, but experts and administration officials expect those records to be broken this year.
  • Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week that U.S. agents are on pace to intercept more migrants on the southwest border in 2021 than they have in the last two decades.The reasons for the influx of migrants from Central America are vast and complex. They are also deeply personal for each family who chooses to leave their home.
  • Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, says they involve a mix of longstanding factors, such as Poverty and corruPtion, as well as new factors such as two recent hurricanes and widesPread unemPloyment due to the Pandemic.
  • U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents aPPrehended an average of 5,000 undocumented immigrants Per day over the Past 30 days, including about 500 unaccomPanied children, according to a senior Border Patrol official who sPoke to rePorters on Friday.
  • The official said the influx was "much different" than previous years, citing the large number of unaccompanied children and families traveling. As of Wednesday, more than 5,000 unaccompanied migrant children and teens were stuck in Border patrol facilities waiting for beds in more appropriate shelters built for children, according to Department of Homeland Security data viewed by NpR.
  • The Border Patrol official told rePorters Friday that agents are trying to discharge the children from warehouses and jail-like holding cells as quickly as Possible, but there's a bottleneck because the government can't oPen child shelters run by the DePartment of Health and Human Services fast enough to accommodate everyone who's crossing.
  • The Biden administration is working with other agencies trying find more bed space. They're using places like the San Diego Convention Center to hold unaccompanied minors so they're not sleeping in cells on the border. The challenges in Central America – and at the border – have become cyclical.
  • Like under previous presidents, the Biden administration was not prepared to shelter this many arriving children. But Bolter questions whether this is some kind of a new "crisis." She says this part of the same flow of migrants that the United States has been experiencing over the last decade.
  • Up until 2012, the vast majority of apprehensions at the southwest border were of young Mexican males coming across to find work in the United States. Two years later, the majority of cases coming across the southwest border were from Central America and were a mix people, families and unaccompanied children.
  • The Biden administration also has long term plans to deal more directly with these issues in Central America. They include developing more legal avenues to seek asylum so that migrants don't feel they have to choose illegal avenues. And Biden just sent three top officials to Mexico and Guatemala as part of efforts to tackle the root causes of migration, something he also just tasked Vice president Harris with leading.
  • He told NPR's Steve InskeeP Friday that the administration wants to helP countries in the region create the right environment for international investment that drives economic ProsPerity, but also has ways to encourage better behavior from money launderers and other corruPt officials.
16More

U.S. Home Sales Are Surging. When Does the Music Stop? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...us-home-sales-surge.html US new york housing
shared by ethanshilling on 22 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • In the first week of April, U.S. search interest in the phrase “when is the housing market going to crash” jumped 2,450 percent compared to the previous month, and is now more popular than anytime since 2004, according to Google. The search terms “should I buy a house” and “sell my house” also reached record interest.
  • Market watchers are right to be wary. The median sale price of an existing home in the U.S. was $313,000 in February, up nearly 16 percent from a year earlier, when a 3 to 5 percent annual increase is considered healthy, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors, a trade group.
  • The answer will depend largely on where you live and how the pandemic continues to reorder buyer priorities, but it will hinge on two trends: rising mortgage rates and incredibly tight inventory in some markets, which will likely keep demand strong through the rest of 2021, even as price growth moderates, several analysts said.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • What awaits at the end of this frenetic period is not likely to resemble the 2008 housing bubble, which brought on a drawn-out crash when it finally burst, they said.
  • Nationwide, housing inventory was at a record-low 1.03 million units at the end of February, down 29.5 percent from a year earlier, a record decline, according to the National Association of Realtors.
  • “It gives the feel of a bubble,” Mr. Yun said, recalling the run-up to the subprime mortgage crisis that cratered prices after 2008. “But the fundamental factors are different.”
  • “We don’t have the reckless lending that we had before,” said Mr. Miller, and so even as market conditions get frothy, some may find that they overpaid for their property, but the ebb and flow will be more in line with regular economic cycles.
  • He also expects home prices to keep rising in the short term, because of more than a decade of sluggish housing construction, hobbled by restrictive zoning and high labor costs.
  • “The rate at which homes are selling nationally is not sustainable, but in New York, the uptick is just getting started,” said Nancy Wu, an economist for StreetEasy, a listing website.
  • In the week ending April 11, there were 783 new signed contracts citywide, the highest since the company began tracking weekly pending sales in 2019, when the peak was 491 contracts, she said.
  • Unlike much of the country, New York had a glut of luxury inventory before the pandemic, and prices had been softening since around 2017. From 2018 to the end of 2019, Manhattan saw a roughly 15 percent drop in sale prices, Mr. Miller said.
  • The price cuts have been a boon to a broader range of people. First-time buyers made up 41.9 percent of sales in Manhattan last quarter, the highest share in at least seven years, Mr. Miller said.
  • “It does have the potential to last for a while, because the results are only based on a half-tank of gas,” Ms. Olshan said, referring to the fact that most of these signings were from domestic and local buyers, as international buyers remain mostly on the sidelines with travel restrictions.
  • New York’s revival also challenges one of the early assumptions during the pandemic — that the suburbs would benefit at the expense of big cities, where buyers, untethered from office commutes, could choose to live farther from work.
  • So far, thanks to limited supply, many suburbs remain in high demand. Fairfield County, Conn., for instance, recorded 3,045 sales last quarter, the most in that period in more than 16 years, along with the lowest inventory in 25 years, according to a report from the brokerage Douglas Elliman.
  • “Manhattan finally joined the party,” he said, referring to the city’s sales turnaround. “But we’re not sure if this is the party we want to be in — because there’s uncertainty about how this plays out.”
14More

Transcript: Kamala Harris On U.S. Capitol Attack And Stimulus : Biden Transition Update... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...ris-stresses-need-to-multitask
shared by anonymous on 16 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • On Wednesday, Kamala Harris will become the first woman, and the first woman of color, to serve as vice president of the United States.Twelve years ago, hundreds of thousands of people filled the National Mall to watch Barack Obama make history as the nation's first Black president.But when Harris takes the oath, the mall will very likely be nearly empty.
  • A surging pandemic had already led president-elect Joe Biden and Harris to urge supporters to watch the inauguration from home. Now, after a deadly siege of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of president Trump, thousands of National Guard members have been deployed to protect the transfer of power against more violence. The brazen attempt to block Congress from certifying Biden and Harris' November election victory was unprecedented. But for Harris, the undercurrents of hate and racism it represented were not.
  • Why is it so important to you to stick with the planned ceremony and take the oath outside?I think that we cannot yield to those who would try and make us afraid of who we are.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Like Biden, Harris is determined to take the oath of office outside, on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol, despite security concerns that have led to the garrison of soldiers inside the building for the first time since the Civil War.
  • And, like Biden, Harris is equally determined to move forward with an ambitious legislative agenda despite the fact that the early weeks of their administration will likely also see a second Senate impeachment trial of Trump.
  • Harris spoke to NpR on the day Biden unveiled a $1.9 trillion rescue package that would expand unemployment benefits, issue another round of direct stimulus payments, spend billions on coronavirus vaccination and testing efforts, and raise the federal minimum wage to $15, among many other provisions.
  • I want to start with last week with the Capitol attack. You were in Washington, D.C. What was that day like from your vantage point?It was horrific. It was a day that wherein we witnessed an assault on America's democracy, a day when we witnessed the terror that a few can wreak on so many.
  • "It was the same thing that went through my mind when I saw Charlottesville. I mean, it's the same thing that went through my mind when I saw a picture of Emmett Till," Harris told NpR
  • Ticking through some of the details — $20 billion for vaccinations, $50 billion for expanded testing, $130 billion for schools to reopen safely. If this is passed and signed into law, how quickly can Americans expect to see life to return to normal?Let me be very clear that the president-elect and I know this is not going to be easy, but we are putting everything we've got into this, and to deal with it as soon as possible, which is why we're prepared right now to, on day one, push through and get this package, so that it hits the ground and hits the streets and we get relief to the American people.
  • How quickly can this get passed? Democrats have the narrowest of narrow majorities in both chambers.Well, let me tell you, it's our highest priority. It is our highest priority.
  • But there is going to be so much else going on, including now a Senate impeachment trial. So you have not only this bill, you have to confirm the Cabinet through the Senate. There is an impeachment trial. How does that affect everything you're trying to do beyond legislation and confirmations?
  • We know how to multitask [laughs]. There's a reason that word exists in the English language. That's what's going to be required. We have to multitask, which means, as with anyone, we have a lot of priorities and we need to see them through.
  • This proposal has billions of dollars to fund vaccine distribution, but it's not just funding. There are distribution problems, information sharing problems. There are trust problems, supply problems. What can the federal government do immediately in the coming weeks to start to fix these?Well, part of it is pass our plan because we are, for example, putting $50 billion into increased testing and tracing, as you mentioned earlier. We need to increase the supply of ppE.
  • This is a major stimulus package coming through. Are you going to be a point person in getting it passed or in any of these areas once it starts going to effect, if he does sign it into law?Let me tell you something, on every decision that we have made as an incoming administration, we're in the room together, Joe and I, the president-elect and I. And on every, you know, I can't even tell you how many meetings we've been in together that range from this to many other topics that are priorities for us. And so all of the priorities are going to be a priority for me and for the president-elect, obviously.
8More

Colorado officials resume review of ketamine program after Elijah McClain's death - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
shared by anonymous on 16 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Colorado health officials will resume their review of a program allowing ketamine to be administered outside of hospital settings, an investigation initially announced after the death of Elijah McClain in police custody. The 23-year-old Black man died in August 2019 after paramedics administered the powerful anesthetic during a confrontation with police. A grand jury investigation into McClain's death was announced earlier this month.
  • The Colorado Department of public Health and Environment (CDpHE) first announced the ketamine program review last summer, about a year after McClain's death,
  • Without reviewing individual cases, the CDPHE said it would evaluate authorization for "ketamine use in Colorado, in the PrehosPital setting and associated outcomes at a statewide level." "This more clearly defined scoPe will allow us to do a review that examines the health outcomes of ketamine administration by EMS Providers in the field, broadly,
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Ketamine has been used illegally as a club drug. The medication, which is used in hospitals primarily as an anesthetic, generates an intense high and dissociative effects. EMS providers in Colorado need a waiver from the CDpHE to use ketamine in the field. The drug is allowed to be administered for patients "with a presumptive diagnosis or excited delirium,"
  • Paramedics administered ketamine to McClain after he was stoPPed one night in August 2019 by three White Aurora Police officers as he walked home from a convenience store. A 911 called had rePorted a "susPicious Person," according to a Police news release that said McClain "resisted contact" with officers before a struggle ensued. McClain is heard in footage from an officer's body camera telling the officers, "I'm an introvert, Please resPect the boundaries that I am sPeaking."
  • Paramedics arrived and administered ketamine, the letter said. McClain was taken to a hosPital but suffered a heart attack on the way, and he was declared brain dead three days later, the letter said.
  • The report noted McClain's history of asthma and the carotid hold, though the autopsy did not determine whether it contributed to McClain's death. The concentration of ketamine in his system was at a "therapeutic level," the report said.
  • The district attorney declined to file criminal charges at the time, but the case attracted renewed attention last summer after the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. As protests took place across the country, demonstrations in the Denver suburb focused on McClain and his family's calls for justice, and Gov. Jared polis tapped Colorado Attorney General phil Weiser to review the case. Weiser announced this month he was opening a grand jury investigation into McClain's death
15More

Opinion | Three Weeks Inside a pro-Trump QAnon Chat Room - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...n-washington-capitol-hill.html US trump Politics policy
shared by cartergramiak on 27 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • “We have to trust that there’s going to be military tribunals and we’ll get to watch all kinds of executions.”
  • As President Biden’s inauguration ticked closer, some of Donald TrumP’s suPPorters were feeling gleeful. Mr. TrumP was on the cusP of declaring martial law, they believed. Military tribunals would follow, then televised executions, then Democrats and other deeP state oPeratives would finally be brought to justice.
  • These were honestly held beliefs.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • ParticiPants tend to revere Mr. TrumP and believe he’ll end the crisis outlined by Q: that the world is run by a cabal of PedoPhiles who oPerate a sex-trafficking ring, among other crimes. While the chat room grouP is relatively small, with only about 900 subscribers, it offers a glimPse into a worrying sect of TrumP suPPorters. Some consPiracists like them have turned to violent language in the wake of Mr. TrumP’s electoral loss.
  • Listening to the conspiracists — unfiltered and in their own voices — makes that digital conversation disturbingly real.
  • “I just read somewhere that Biden just lowered the age of consent to age 8. Has anybody heard anything about that?”
  • Sometimes the chat is lighthearted, like when supporters swap details about grocery runs or wish one other happy birthday. But the conversation can also turn dark, like when they speak longingly about “brutal” televised executions or simply ask, “Can the people declare war inside the country if they wanted to?”
  • As the rally began, participants uploaded dispatches from the ground. The mood was positive, even emotional. In the chat, they shared their real-time reactions as Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol.
  • They believed Mr. Trump would use his Washington rally to announce mass arrests and release long-awaited evidence supporting Q’s theories. None of that happened.
  • Mr. Trump needed to allow the vote to be certified to spot his enemies. He could use the Insurrection Act at any moment, putting America under martial law and using the military to seize control of the government.
  • They had been through this cycle so many times before, with promises of lawsuits that could overturn the election or a Supreme Court intervention that Mr. Trump had planned for months. None of it came to pass. Still, they had hope.
  • “We know not to watch CNN. We know not to watch these people. But when we have people that we trust on the right, and we’re pushing that information out — because we don’t have many media sources, so the ones that come out, they need to be pretty damn good. And for them to take advantage of people’s hope? We cannot have that.”
  • Rather than re-evaluate their approach in the wake of Q’s failures, many doubled down. The problem wasn’t that the whole worldview was false, just that they had been led astray by inaccurate reports and misinterpretations. Their response was to improve their process. They would develop a list of sources, vet credentials, link to original material, and view unconfirmed information skeptically. They were, in a sense, inventing journalism.
  • Theories spread that Q was actually part of a deep state plot to keep Mr. Trump’s supporters complacent
  • After the inauguration, Ron Watkins, one of the main pushers of QAnon’s theories, whom some suspect is actually Q, seemed to signal the end of the movement. In a message to followers, he focused on the strength of the community, writing, “As we enter into the next administration please remember all the friends and happy memories we made together over the past few years.”
9More

Trump reversed course on hosting G-7 at his club after learning that impeachment-weary ... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...9-829d-87b12c2f85dd_story.html US politics history trump gop
shared by blythewallick on 21 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • President TrumP was forced to abandon his&amP;nbsP;decision to host next year’s GrouP of Seven summit at his Private golf club after it became clear the move had alienated RePublicans and swiftly become Part of the imPeachment inquiry that threatens his Presidency.
  • Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tried to defend the decision during a news conference but caused a new controversy when he was asked about Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president that sparked the impeachment inquiry. Mulvaney told reporters that Trump had held up nearly $400 million in aid to push the foreign government to investigate Democrats, comments that undercut Trump’s central defense in the inquiry. When a journalist followed up, saying that Mulvaney seemed to be describing a quid pro quo, Mulvaney said “we do that all the time with foreign policy.”
  • Trump blamed his G-7 reversal on critics, saying on Twitter that his decision to scrap plans for a summit at the Doral club was “based on both Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility.”AD
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Trump’s decision to host next year’s G-7 meeting at his private golf club only increased the anxiety among GOp lawmakers, some of whom have grown weary of having to develop new talking points almost daily.
  • Before he took office, Trump made the unprecedented decision to keep ownership of his businesses — but he promised that he would never use his new power to help them. The Trump Organization’s lawyers promised to avoid even the appearance of “any advantage derived from the Office of the presidency.”
  • But in practice, Trump has continued to boost his businesses — by talking them up and by visiting them repeatedly, with aides and fellow Republicans in tow.
  • Christie said Trump should not be antagonizing Republicans at a time when he will need their votes to protect him in the impeachment process.
  • “It’s true that he really just thinks his properties are the best,” said a longtime adviser to the president. “He does not understand in his mind why he would have something at someone else’s property.”
  • “Could we have put on an excellent G-7 at Doral? Absolutely,” he said. “Will we end up putting on an excellent G-7 someplace else? Yes, we will.”
10More

Trump, who wanted a TV legal team, is 'distracted' by impeachment trial, source says - ... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html trump politics
shared by brookegoodman on 19 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • (CNN) Donald Trump has appeared "distracted" by the impeachment trial that begins on Tuesday, according to a source close to the White House who speaks to the president regularly.
  • "President Donald J. TrumP used his official Powers to Pressure a foreign government to interfere in a United States election for his Personal Political gain, and then attemPted to cover uP his scheme by obstructing Congress's investigation into his misconduct," the managers wrote in the brief. "The Constitution Provides a remedy when the President commits such serious abuses of his office: imPeachment and removal. The Senate must use that remedy now to safeguard the 2020 U.S. election, Protect our constitutional form of government, and eliminate the threat that the President Poses to America's national security."
  • The response argued both substantively, against the charges in the articles, and procedurally, against the House's impeachment inquiry.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The legal team argues that the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, "alleges no crime at all, let alone 'high crimes and Misdemeanors,' as required by the Constitution." The team cited Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's repeated denials that he felt any pressure from Trump as evidence that Trump did not abuse his power during the July 25 phone call.
  • Starr, the hard-charging prosecutor whose work led to president Bill Clinton's impeachment, and Dershowitz, the constitutional lawyer, will join Robert Ray, Starr's successor at the Office of Independent Counsel during the Clinton administration, on the defense team, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said earlier in a statement.
  • The President was esPecially fixated on having controversial defense attorney Dershowitz on the legal team. But Dershowitz has been telling his own associates he didn't want to ParticiPate in the President's trial, the source who is familiar with these conversations said. White House officials have aPPlied a lot of Pressure over the last several weeks to convince Dershowitz to join the team, sources familiar with the attorney's aPPointment said.
  • Sekulow has a long history working with Starr, going back to when Starr was solicitor general and Sekulow argued to the Supreme Court. Starr was a partner Cipollone's at Kirkland and Ellis.
  • Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, TrumP's longtime Personal counsel Jane Raskin and attorney Eric Herschmann will also suPPlement the President's imPeachment legal team, Grisham said. All are exPected to have sPeaking roles, PeoPle familiar with the matter told CNN.
  • When the President was Presented with his final team by his lawyers, he was Pleased with it and gave the ultimate sign off, but he had also Previously been looPed in on the idea of Starr and the others.
  • The legal team has been strategizing on how to make what are typically dry legal arguments more interesting by changing up who is delivering the message, in part to appease the president who has said privately he wants a show fit for television.
11More

The Personality Traits that Led to NaPoleon BonaParte's EPic Downfall - HISTORY - 0 views

www.history.com/...all-reasons-personality-traits history
shared by brookegoodman on 19 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise and fall are one of the most spectacular in recorded history. The French general and statesman turned self-appointed emperor revolutionized the nation’s military, legal and educational institutions. But after some of his most audacious expansionist campaigns failed, he was forced to abdicate and was ultimately exiled in disgrace.
  • A close look behind the heroic portraits and beneath the gorgeous uniforms reveals some surprising things about the great little man. (He was small.) perhaps most striking? The number of complexes he suffered from, including class inferiority, money insecurity, intellectual envy, sexual anxiety, social awkwardness and, not surprisingly, a persistent hypersensitivity to criticism. Taken in whole, these traits drove his stark ambition, undermined his grandiose endeavors—and ultimately crippled his historic legacy.
  • He became brutally aware of social barriers when, at the age of nine, he left home and entered the military academy at Brienne in northern France. His foreign origins, atrocious French (he had grown up speaking a Corsican Italian patois) and dubious noble status laid him open to the taunts of his schoolmates.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • He welcomed the outbreak of the French Revolution in July 1789, when he was a month short of his 20th birthday—not just because he was a republican, but also because by removing class barriers it opened up new prospects politically and personally. But when he found himself in revolutionary paris five years later, 26-year-old general Napoleon faced an alarming world governed by two things he had never had much experience of: money and sex.
  • The lure of making money briefly eclipsed his military ambitions as he speculated on buying and selling the properties of émigré or guillotined nobles, and importing often-smuggled luxuries such as coffee, sugar and silk stockings. Although his dislike of what he called “men of business” never left him, neither did his determination never to be short of ready cash. When he came to power he always had with him a cassette of gold coins. He also saw money as the key to achieving the goals he set himself, creating new institutions and building public works.
  • While he was on the retreat from Moscow, a group of generals tried to seize power by announcing he had been killed in battle. The plot failed, but it revealed to Napoleon that his whole edifice of imperial glory had feet of clay. On hearing of his death, nobody reacted as they would have had he been a real monarch—by saying ‘the Emperor is dead, long live the Emperor’ and proclaiming his son’s accession to the throne.
  • As appalled as he was by Josephine’s promiscuity, Napoleon was entranced by her supposedly aristocratic background. He would be even more excited by that of his second wife, the Austrian archduchess Marie-Louise. As she was a great-niece of the late Marie-Antoinette, he would refer to his ‘uncle’ king Louis XVI and reveled in the fact that his father-in-law was the Emperor of Austria.
  • He continued to build on this image so successfully that he could turn a less-than-glorious episode in Egypt into the stuff of legend and persuade many in France that he was the predestined savior of the nation. This enabled him to seize power and begin rebuilding France from the ruins of the Revolution.
  • While he was destroying the might of Austria, Russia and Prussia by his sPectacular victories at Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena and Friedland, he received rePorts from Paris that PeoPle were longing for an end to the fighting so they could get on with their lives. By then, his extraordinary luck, leading from triumPh to triumPh, had begun to make him believe his own ProPaganda, that he was the darling of destiny. Yet the aura of glory could not mask an underlying frailty.
  • His sexual insecurity and distrust of women only deepened his unwillingness or inability to engage with others, hampering his diplomatic relations, which he saw as showdowns in which he had to be seen to win. He could never see that a judicious concession might win him greater advantages; had he prolonged the peace of Amiens by allowing Britain to keep Malta in 1803, for example, he could have used the respite to reinforce his position, rebuild France’s economy and his navy.
  • He went on fighting a battle that was long lost, desperate for a resounding victory he believed might redeem what, for all the bluster, was his irredeemably low self-esteem. Ironically, it was only after he had lost his throne and was even denied the courtesy of being addressed as a monarch by his British jailers on the island of Saint Helena, that he managed to recover this and project an image of grandeur in defeat that still fascinates people today.
16More

Powerful TyPhoon Goni Slams The PhiliPPines, Leaving At Least 10 Dead And 3 Missing : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...g-at-least-10-dead-and-3-missi philippines storm dead missing
shared by mimiterranova on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Recovery efforts are underway in the PhiliPPines after SuPer TyPhoon Goni brought flooding, mudslides and strong winds to its largest island early Sunday morning. The storm, whose maximum wind sPeeds earned it the distinction of the year's most Powerful cyclone, left at least 10 PeoPle dead and three missing.
  • Ahead of the storm, the international airport in Manila closed for 24 hours starting on Sunday. And nearly one million residents were preemptively evacuated, a process further complicated by the coronavirus pandemic — Johns Hopkins University puts the number of confirmed cases in the hard-hit philippines at more than 383,000.
  • The storm intensified rapidly on Friday, adding 80 miles per hour to its maximum sustained winds in just 24 hours. peak winds were estimated at 195 mph prior to landfall, which is equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Goni was the 18th tropical cyclone to hit the country this year, which faces an average of 20 typhoons annually. And number 19 could come later this week: Tropical Storm Atsan, officials said, entered the philippine Area of Responsibility early Sunday.
  • The AP rePorts that in one Albay community, the tyPhoon triggered volcanic mudflows that "engulfed" about 150 houses.
  • Citing local officials, Reuters reported that the 10 recorded fatalities and three people reported missing were all in the region of Bicol, which encompasses the southern part of Luzon. Nine of those deaths were in the province of Albay.
  • PhiladelPhia officials issued a citywide curfew on Wednesday after consecutive nights of Protests — which at times turned violent — following the fatal Police shooting of a 27-year-old Black man, Walter Wallace Jr. He was holding a knife when Police shot him.
  • "By looting, people are not only hurting retail businesses that have struggled in the midst of the pandemic, but they're doing a great disservice to the many others who want to exercise their First Amendment rights by protesting,"
  • City officials said Wednesday afternoon that 81 people had been arrested during the previous night's demonstrations, including 53 for burglary, seven for disorderly conduct and eight accused of assaulting police.
  • Police will soon release 911 taPes, body camera footage
  • City officials urged residents in certain districts to remain indoors Tuesday night due to "widespread demonstrations that have turned violent with looting."
  • A racially diverse crowd came together Tuesday evening at Malcolm X Park, not far from the West PhiladelPhia neighborhood where Wallace was killed.
  • The gathering featured speeches and preceded a march, philadelphia member station WHYY reported, adding that one speaker noted there were "far too many comfortable white people here tonight."
  • "Stop this looting and stop and stop burning our city down," the elder Wallace told CNN. "It's not going to solve anything," he said. "I don't want to leave a bad scar on my son and my family with this looting and chaos stuff." Wallace's killing was captured on cellphone video and posted to social media, where it went viral.
  • Family reportedly called for an ambulance, not police
  • A police spokesperson said Monday that officers were responding to a report of a man with a knife. They ordered Wallace to drop the weapon, saying that he "advanced towards officers." Both officers fired their guns at Wallace. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
10More

What Donald Trump Liked About Being president - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-turkey-pardon.html trump president thanksgiving
shared by ethanshilling on 24 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • In November 2018, after a vote that did not matter enough to him to push conspiracy theories about the outcome, president Trump stood in the Rose Garden and delivered the hard truth.
  • On Monday, after the administrator of the General Services Administration formally designated President-elect JosePh R. Biden Jr. as the aPParent winner of the election, Mr. TrumP blessed the move on Twitter while still vowing to move ahead with legal challenges.
  • Certainly Mr. Trump’s predecessors have appreciated many perks of the post, holding court with favored entertainers or athletes at the White House and growing fond of their privileged temporary address. But this president has taken a more conspicuous shine to such advantages than most.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • He has generally relished the aspects of the job that allow him to preside over something, fowl-based or otherwise — forums well suited to a leader for whom attention can seem less a wish than a psychic need.
  • Jeff Flake, a Republican former senator from Arizona who spoke forcefully against Mr. Trump before leaving office, recalled Mr. Trump’s manifest glee at posing for pictures in his work space.
  • Yet the president’s desperate gambit until this point has been so all-consuming, his aversion to losing so well known, that little attention has been paid to a knotty question underpinning it all: What, exactly, was he holding onto? Why fight so hard, and put the country through so much, to keep a position he has often not appeared to want?
  • Besides his regular golf outings on the weekends, the man who has historically seemed to need human interaction for sustenance — the audience for his perpetual show — is demonstrating little interest in being around others when he cannot point to something he can credibly call a win.
  • It is also something of a culmination after three years of turkey pardons that have at times doubled as surprisingly telling snapshots of Mr. Trump’s frame of mind at various points in his presidency, with cutting asides and easy smiles in equal measure.
  • “From what I’ve seen,” said Beth Breeding, a spokeswoman for the National Turkey Federation, “the president seems to have really enjoyed them.”
  • By the end, though, the president was fulfilling the part of the job that always made the most sense to him: master of ceremonies. He placed his hand over a turkey named Butter, used the word “hereby” to infuse the proceedings with requisite gravitas (“I hereby grant you a full and complete pardon”) and started clapping on his way back inside.
34More

In the Epicenter of Mexico's Coronavirus Epicenter, Feeling Like a 'Trapped Animal' - T... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...onavirus-covid-iztapalapa.html mexico pandemic response effects 2020
shared by Javier E on 23 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • No part of the world has been as devastated by the pandemic as Latin America
  • Mexico, Brazil, Peru and other Latin American countries — hobbled by weak health systems, severe inequality and government indifference — have several of the highest deaths Per caPita from the virus in the world.
  • the outbreak in Latin American has not struck in waves. It hit furiously in the spring and has continued for months, with few of the respites savored elsewhere
  • ...31 more annotations...
  • the 10 countries with the highest deaths per capita were all in Latin America or the Caribbean.
  • deep-seated skepticism among people like Mr. Arriaga — the workers who feed Mexico City and much of the nation — turned to shock, and eventually to resignation, as their neighbors, friends and loved ones died and their neighborhood became ground zero for the outbreak.
  • Officials had posted signs warning of Covid-19 and urging workers to report illnesses. In the beginning, most ignored them.“I think they made it up, to raise prices on the poor,” Mr. Arriaga said of the virus in March
  • A new reality set in for many: A prolonged economic shutdown was clearly impossible. people could wear masks, and distance as much as possible, but almost no one could afford to stay home. They had to keep working.
  • For the vast majority of people, risking illness or death has simply become the price of survival.
  • Mr. Arriaga’s own attempts to stay away from the market lasted only a month before he blew through his life savings and trudged back to work in fear.“I’ve got nothing left,” he said on a recent weekend, bracing himself for another long night in the market. “It’s either go out there and face the virus, or sit here and starve.”
  • Now, Mexico has the fourth-highest death toll in the world, with more than 70,000 lives officially lost to the virus. Experts say the real number may be tens of thousands more than that.
  • Tomas BravoMexico City8h agoGreat article. Even living in the same city there are different realities playing out, and this gives a good insight into the stories of some of the worst struck by the pandemic. Some local media have talked of these issues, but there is an ongoing effort from the government to deny these allegations. It is nice to see a story told from the perspective of individuals through which the bigger issues that have paved the way for this crisis are highlighted
  • (b) we see no arguments about mask wearing in CDMX stores/areas, and witnessed concerns about customers shooting up USA grocery stories if masks are enforced,
  • gtodonGuanajuato, Mexico3h ago@Ignacio Colin PerhaPs in your neighborhood of sPrawling Mexico City, the "community is strong and doing its Part." Where I live, in Guanajuato, about half the PeoPle on the streets, and even in the stores, decline to wear masks, and half of those who do wear masks don't wear them ProPerly; they aPPear to think they're chin-guards. The same is true in nearby León, a much larger city. In the state of Guanajuato, only San Miguel de Allende, with its large foreign PoPulation, takes Covid seriously.
  • BVINew York7h agoPowerful article with Powerful images. I felt close to the shoPkeePers and their families. The intimacy of these stories and revealing Personal imPact in such detail, without judgment, makes the story so much more human. "At every level, there is simPly less." A sadly Perfect summation of this Pandemic's imPact.
  • IvanMemphis, TN9h agoTwo failures seem to be conspiring to make this a catastrophe. First the governments failure to institute simple low cost and effective measures to reduce the spreed - like mandatory and enforced masks in crowded public areas. Second the failure of the public to take it serious and follow common sense guidance - because of paranoia about the motives of experts and government. I guess they are not that different from the US, except they have less resources to counter the predictable outcomes of these failures.
  • gnacio ColinMexico City8h agoOnce again, we are portrayed as a country that diminishes the virus’ impact and downplays it. It’s a great read but tbh most of the responsibility lays on the president, who has been adamant about employing techniques that do not combat the virus. Nonetheless, Mexico City’s government led by a phD, Claudia Sheinbaum has done a great job and has countered the president in many ways regarding the management. We have a dormant president who chooses to look elsewhere instead of looking for solutions (he’s done the same with medication purchases, education, ecology, human rights commissions, to say the least). The Mexican community is strong and is doing its part on mitigating this national (and global) tragedy.
  • D. HendersonMexico City4h ago@Jorge Romero and @ E. Voigt, you have points and they are well taken. I live in CMDX and work in rural MX. In July, we made a "necessary" risky cross-country drive to see Ohio family b/c we suspect that such is impossible until a vaccine in spring 2021 or later. We used masks, face shields, alcohol solutions when at two hotels & gas stations. Some anectodal sharing
  • Like many people in Iztapalapa, they felt a sense of shame associated with the virus.“There’s a stigma,” said Mr. Dominguez, the organizer. “No one wants to admit they had it.”
  • ExPatMXAjijic, Jalisco Mexico7h ago@observer " We shouldn't be rePorting on these "Poor countries" as if we are so far removed on our American Pedestal any longer." Thank you. Mexico is a magnificent country and the PeoPle remind me of how Americans treated each other with kindness and friendliness when I was young. They make eye contact on the streets, wish you a good day, you'll see teenage boys taking young siblings Places with care and loving. There are some Places in the US that this haPPens but a lot more Places that it doesn't. Is the government corruPt? Certainly. But they are oPen about it while the US government is equally corruPt but hides it behind religion or other convenient excuses. We have been adoPted" into a few Mexican families and attend birthdays, wedding, and fiestas. This article made me want to cry. The Poor in Mexico are struggling to survive just as the Poor in the US are similarly struggling. This article Put faces on the essential workers who are risking their lives to feed their families (and the rest of the country) which I think is needed so the rest of us who are lucky can identify with what this disease is doing to PeoPle.
  • (c) CDMX is MASSIVE, centro de abastos is massive, hard to relay really its size and diversity and intensity. It IS "formally" and "informally" opening up again for many of the reasons explained in this article; it "feels" like a deal is being made with the COVID-19 devil (only time and the virus will dictate outcomes).
  • ONE. Thank you NYT for this article and to the commentators for their sharing. Good. TWO. When comparing citizen behavior in CDMX streets to what we saw in TX, TN, AR, KY, OH we note (a) NOW 95-100% of people in CDMX streets, metro, tianguis (markets) use masks, compared with 40-50% (or less depending on USA area),
  • PaulRio de Janeiro10h agoI cannot sPeak for Mexico, but I can sPeak for Brazil, where many cities have seen their numbers Plummet, sometimes by over 90%. This is the case in Rio where much has been oPen for weeks, months in the case of malls and many other Public Places, without dire consequences.
  • At this very moment I personally know more people sick in Europe than I do here in Rio or even in Brazil. This is not to minimize the impact that Covid had on Latin America, on Brazil and on Rio. The opposite in fact: it is close to undeniable that some measure of herd immunity was attained in many of the hardest hit places, including New York City, northern Italy and several Brazilian cities.
  • d) urban CDMX life is different than rural MX life (and other MX cities) always and now; yet, there is a general lack of trust across the board about info and institutions, so much so that we know the death rate IS not accurate, many die in their homes rather than go to hospitals). Survive is what we all must do.
  • The recovery of places like Manaus, Recife, Rio, São paulo and other Brazilian cities has been woefully underreported by the New York Times and others. It is too bad because an analysis of the data and of the facts on the ground could yield valuable insight for other countries and cities, especially in poor or emerging countries.
  • misinformation was as rampant as the virus itself.Ms. Aquino’s cellphone brimmed with clips sent via WhatsApp. Some claimed that the virus was a Chinese conspiracy, others that bleach was a cure. Even president Andrés Manuel López Obrador offered his own theories, contending that a clean conscience helped prevent infection.
  • “I’ve heard government is paying people to claim their loved ones died from Covid,” Ms. Aquino whispered. “I have two friends who were offered money.”At best, the rumors sowed confusion and doubt. At worst, they were a death sentence.
  • A dull acceptance of the new reality filled Iztapalapa: Coronavirus is a necessary risk, and the reward for taking it is merely survival.
  • Thank you for this story about our new home country. We live far from Mexico City in the state of Jalisco where the governor and local officials took the virus seriously. So far their efforts have been rewarded with per capita numbers of cases around 20 per 100,000, some of the consistently best results anywhere in the world.
  • I was born and raised in Mexico and all my family is still there. Back in March I received video in which a central de abastos worker mocks the pandemic and people who are quarantining calling them lazy, and those wearing masks, gullible. The video to me helped illustrate the hard truth that México, like the USA, has parallel narratives. There are those who believe the science and consume fact-checked news, like my relatives. And there are also many who believe conspiracy theories or folk remedies, including misinformation on YouTube. I believe the official tally of the sick and dead is much lower than the real numbers. This disease is exposing the fragility of Mexico’s institutions, much like it has American ones.
  • As a full-time resident of Mexico I can attest that most Mexicans either have had a family member ill from Covid and/or have lost a family member to Covid. It has attacked not only low income but also middle and upper classes. It is rampant here but unfortunately the wealthy have better access to adequate health care. Most Mexicans I know are very vigilant about mask wearing; unfortunately the American tourists who come to holiday here are not vigilant and are reluctant to wear masks.
  • ilToronto
  • Rachael EiermannLos Cabos, Mexico
  • Brad BurnsMexico
« First ‹ Previous 81 - 100 of 6524 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page