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wherelibertydwells · 1 year ago

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The most popular host in US cable news history, Tucker Carlson has released the first episode of his new show since his April 24 firing from Fox News. The episode, which for now appears exclusively on Twitter, immediately went viral, having been seen by millions.

The reaction from the corporate media, which often struggle to attract a fraction of that audience, was as predictable as it was negative. CNN expressed that he "has given voice to some of the most extreme ideas in right-wing politics".

The Washington Post called him a "far-right pundit" whose monologue was "tinged with conspiratorial thinking and drenched in disdain by other media and political figures".

The Guardian claimed, without evidence, that the episode was "received with widespread derision" and seemed particularly upset that he "insulted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky".

However, if someone stops to see what he said, he will realize that the terms "left" and "right" have lost their meaning in US discourse, becoming just labels used to stigmatize dissidents.

Calling someone an "extreme right" no longer reveals almost anything about their convictions. Carlson's debut monologue focused almost entirely on the proxy war in Ukraine, waged by the US and NATO against Russia. The Ukrainian war effort is being armed and funded by the US and its Western allies and is the CIA's top priority.

Carlson opposed US involvement from the beginning. In his debut monologue on Twitter, he once again questioned the policy of fueling a war involving the US and Russia, owners of the largest nuclear stocks on the planet; expressed skepticism about Ukrainian claims that it was Russia that blew up the Kakhovka dam , citing numerous examples where Ukraine lied in similar situations, such as when it accused Russia of blowing up the pipeline itself or of being behind the drone strikes against the Kremlin; and recalled that the greatest advocates of this war are the same neoconservatives who falsely told the world that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

This stance of opposition to the US/NATO war puts Carlson on the same side as people like Noam Chomsky, an icon of the global left, from important sectors of left parties in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy; the African National Congress in South Africa; the president of Mexico, the leftist Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador; and, in Brazil, Lula.

If Carlson, therefore, is in agreement with much of the global left, how can he be characterized as an "extreme right" ? It is clear that this term had its meaning completely emptied, starting to be used against anyone who differs from the neoliberal consensus of the West in relation to wars, espionage, censorship and the economic guidelines of the so-called Washington Consensus.

By far what most marks Carlson's work over the last six years is the extreme skepticism, and sometimes disdain, with which he treats America's main institutions of power. Its most frequent targets have been the CIA, the FBI, the NSA (National Security Agency), the corporate media, big tech.

He waged a two-year crusade in favor of pardoning Julian Assange, whom he treats as a hero, in yet another point of convergence with Lula and the international left.

These perspectives, central to Carlson's worldview, are closely associated with the classical left. I felt so comfortable appearing on Carlson's Fox show because the targets of his fiercest criticism are precisely the intelligence agencies and neoliberal institutions that I have denounced in my journalistic career. Carlson's show was one of the few places on US television where this kind of opposition could be heard.

There are, of course, several disagreements between Carlson and most progressives. He is a vehement opponent of illegal immigration and the use of medication and surgery for trans minors, for example.

At the same time, progressive stars like Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez voted to authorize $40 billion to fuel the war in Ukraine and rarely, if ever, express skepticism about the claims of the CIA or the Pentagon.

Carlson is far from a leftist, but there is no world in which he and his core views can be defined as "extreme right", except a world in which that term is just a weaponized instrument to stigmatize dissent from established dogma.

Labeling someone the extreme right today is not about ideology, but only serves to coerce anyone who expresses skepticism about the policies of the US military-industrial complex.

Glenn Greenwald

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quakerjoe · 5 years ago

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It is important to remember that, because, as New York’s Sarah Jones writes: “Tara Reade is difficult to dismiss.”

Since she publicly accused her former boss, Joe Biden, of sexual assault, multiple outlets reported corroborative evidence that supports her account. She says she told her brother; The New York Times and The Washington Post confirmed that she did. She says she told an anonymous friend; reporters confirmed that too. She told the Intercept that her mother, distraught over her treatment in Biden’s office, called into Larry King Live to ask for advice around the time of the attack, and the clip emerged. On Monday, Business Insider reported the most significant piece of circumstantial evidence to date: A former neighbor and a former co-worker of Reade’s both told the outlet that Reade disclosed a traumatic event to them in the mid-’90s.

The news cycle moves at a breakneck pace in the Trump era, and time passes oddly in lockdown, but Joe Biden’s coronation and the third-party support for Tara Reade’s assault allegation (which Biden denies) are both very recent developments. Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, and Amy Klobuchar all endorsed Biden at the beginning of March; Reade’s interview with Katie Halper, containing her new, more serious accusations, came at the end of that month; The Intercept and Business Insider partially corroborated her story over the last week.

It is, as I mentioned, now the start of May. Thus far, the Biden campaign and Democratic Party organizations have, for the most part, dismissed the story. As The New York Times reports, “progressive activists and women’s rights advocates” have spent weeks urging the Biden campaign to “address the allegation” more thoroughly. They drafted a letter pushing him “to model how to take serious allegations seriously.”

Biden simply chose not to. The groups sat on the letter.

As the Times puts it, Biden’s aides have said they “remained unconcerned about any significant political blowback from Ms. Reade’s accusation.” They are “confident that the allegation will not shake voters’ perceptions of Mr. Biden’s character,” and they “believe that voters will view the allegation with great skepticism.”

All of that could be true. It is also answering a different question than the one those activists and organizations thought they were posing. They, ostensibly, should not be worried about whether Biden can win with a strategy of waiting for these allegations to go away on their own. But that is all the Biden campaign can offer them. (So far. Biden is scheduled to appear on Morning Joe today, and he is expected to answer some sort of question about Reade’s allegations.)

What his campaign is trying to imply is that Biden’s nomination is inevitable, instilling resignation in those who feel queasy about the allegations but who desperately want to beat Donald Trump in November. They want people who might, under normal circumstances, push a politician facing an accusation like this one to open up the Senate records that could shed light on the veracity of these claims to instead come up with reasons why Biden should keep them closed. (Biden has reportedly sent operatives to look through the records.) It is hard to ask the Biden campaign to “model how to take serious allegations seriously” when it seems more interested in following the old model—of having your fiercest partisans defend you in the press with blithe hypocrisy.

But instead of throwing up your arms at being forced to choose between either defending Biden or simply holding your nose and voting for a man you now suspect may have done something terrible, remember—it is only May 1.

Biden is the presumptive nominee in large part because the party leadership coalesced around him, signaling clearly to voters that he was the right man. The most respected and admired figures in the party could now coalesce around another path: Biden bowing out and the presidential contest continuing.

The 2020 Democratic primaries were notable for featuring a huge slate of candidates who were all broadly acceptable to the rank and file. The majority of Democratic voters regularly told pollsters they had favorable opinions of all of Biden’s closest competitors for the nomination. The candidates who couldn’t crack 50 percent were, for the most part, not unacceptable to Democrats but mainly unknown. Loyal Democrats paying the closest attention to the race bemoaned the early exits of numerous perfectly qualified candidates.

Guess what? They can return, if they want to.

The right circled the wagons around Brett Kavanaugh when he faced allegations of sexual assault that were hard to disprove, in large part because he was replaceable. To stick with him was an important display of power and dominance; to withdraw his name and advance an ideologically identical replacement would have made no difference to the right’s larger political project, but it would have been a demoralizing surrender to the forces they hate. There are now some on the Democratic side who feel even more tightly attached to nominee Biden because they, too, are determined not to surrender to the forces they hate, citing Bernie Sanders or Vladimir Putin or both.

But (among the commentariat, at least), there are more left-of-center voices responding with hopelessness or helplessness. I can’t believe male politicians, and the political establishment, are making me do this again threatens to become a common refrain. That reaction would be understandable if the bulk of the corroborating evidence had emerged in October (there is suggestive evidence that right-wing groups had had the Larry King Show tape filed away for just such time; suspiciously, they had it ready to post almost as soon as The Intercept published its story). But it is not October. It is May. Joe Biden is not the nominee. The primaries are still happening. It is within your power to demand an alternative.

The organizations that wasted weeks drafting a letter urging the Biden campaign to come up with an acceptable response to all this could now draft one instead urging Biden to step aside and let the primaries continue. Barack Obama could gently suggest that Biden do what he knows is right. Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, and Amy Klobuchar could unsuspend their campaigns. Or some of them could choose, just as they chose to throw their support to Biden, to endorse a well-qualified also-ran they believe deserves another shot, such as Jay Inslee or Julián Castro. And then the Democratic voters could decide. That’s how the system is supposed to work:

Neither the Constitution nor the bylaws of the Democratic National Committee require that the guy leading the delegate count on May 1 win the nomination.

If Biden left now, on his own terms, perhaps with some polite fiction about his health or stamina, the rest of the primaries could play out as designed, in a civil, well-managed continuation of the contests, and the eventual Democratic nominee could emerge without being seriously wounded.

Based on how the Biden campaign has responded to the allegations so far, and on what they have asked the most principled and loyal Democratic partisans to do, or even to think, a Biden victory in November could be nearly as demoralizing (if not as existentially dangerous) as a Biden defeat. His campaign is run by some of the most cynical people in the Democratic Party apparatus, and unless today marks some sea change in the way they view these allegations, they will continue to believe that they can ignore and dismiss this story and still win. They may well be right. And if you are comfortable with that, there’s not much else to say. But no one is under any obligation to adopt that cynical argument and use it to excuse anything. They would like you to believe that the choice before you is-

All In With Biden or another four years of Trump. That is not remotely the case.

The alternative scenario is not some outlandish, unprecedented piece of political-junkie fan-fiction, in which backroom deals at a virtual convention produce an Andrew Cuomo–Stacy Abrams ticket. The elections already on the calendar would simply continue with an existing slate of perfectly qualified candidates.

That is possible. It’s not even unreasonable, nor would it necessarily hand the election to Trump. Barack Obama became the presumptive nominee in June 2008. He had plenty of time to unify the party, introduce himself to the rest of the nation, and win the November election.

But just because Biden could step aside and allow the primaries to continue without him doesn’t mean that he will. And it is worth reflecting on why that is. Democratic leadership would panic, obviously, at the thought of changing horses in what they already view as the middle of the stream. But they also seem to believe their die-hards won’t care and the people most vocal about wishing to change things won’t demand a reckoning. They are relying on people already fully invested in a Joe Biden campaign—not just the campaign operatives and donors and elected officials, but the outside organizations and the professional activists, and the think tanks and the media personalities, and even people who seem to do nothing but post all day—to entertain no possibility of disinvestment. But with months to go before the convention, there is plenty of time for people with power and platforms to use them.

#democratic party

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hmgautsch · 6 years ago

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⚠️ LONG POST: ⚠️ Life is fucking crazy, but I will express just a small fraction of my gratitude of it though. 💜🖤 This amazing warrior right here! 💜🖤 The bond. The vibes. This is one of the fiercest advocates and women the world will ever have the high honor of witnessing. In the past and presently, we’ve had people try to tear our humanity and core down through reputations, rumors, and just childish shit, but like phoenixes we keep rising from the ashes and continue on our purposes and missions through our lives with determination and attitudes. 💁🏻‍♀️💁🏻‍♀️ As crazy ass youngins’ we only got a small taste of who we were with one another, but just as quickly as we were in each other’s lives, life decided to take us on separate roads for reasons unknown for ten years. Gracefully, we would reunite for the first and final time a few years ago at our deployment reunion for OIF and we solidified a new friendship with one another through writing, advocacy, compassion, and understanding of one another. We had to evolve and grow individually, just to become aware of the power and beauty we both hold in this world separately and together. Today was an amazing day with this lady, although somewhat emotional, yet empowering experience, as we listen to Elizabeth Smart’s story and got to see our friend, Katy, from our deployment as well. *waves at Katy* Never change, Shay! You are beyond beautiful and you deserve all the good things this life has and will offer you! Greatness is coming for the both of us and will continue to come for us. Thank you for being in my life and thank you for today! Your spark was much needed! Keep fighting the good fight, boo! 😘🥰 🖤💜🖤💜🖤💜🖤💜🖤💜🖤💜🖤 . . #amwriting #advocacy #mst #ptsd #rebelwithacause #femaleveterans #warriors #veterans #metoomovement #gratitude #friends #love #life #fight #beauty #socialjustice @shay.vino #military #elizabethsmart #sexualassault #poets https://www.instagram.com/hmgautsch/p/BwnIaFgBbPh/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1toq26l731kbu

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iamlivingproof · 3 years ago

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a letter to little you.

the first boy to break your heart will do so twice, but the second time will shatter you. try not to feel guilty about the last time you spoke…you had no idea (and you know what he would say to you if he could).

the man you think you will marry will marry someone else. and so will you. and it will be the best thing to ever happen to both of you. trust it.

the weird relationship you have with Dad will start to change thanks to a heart attack, but it won’t be his. and your husband will be a driving force in creating the wonderful connection you have now. allow it to happen, and forgive him when it is time - he truly did the best he could with what he had.

the last weeks of grandma’s life will change the world forever. you will feel unbelievably blessed that you were able - and allowed - to be with her in every way until she met God. try to take advantage of every chance you get to touch her cheeks, because you will spend the rest of your life wishing that you could do it again. the end will bring you closer to mom in a way you never imagined, too, and strengthen your relationship ten-fold. do know that after it is over, you will feel as if you are floating through life. you will not be grounded anymore. it will feel like you entered a different reality, like when you shouted out after her last breath, you launched yourself into another dimension. mom will feel the same way, and you will bond over that.

mom. you think you love her now, but you will gain a whole new understanding after she comes minutes from dying in front of you. the dedication you feel for making sure she is “ok”, for caring for her mentally and physically, will be set on fire - and will remain that way. you will become her fiercest protector, her biggest advocate and loudest cheerleader. enjoy this strength, because she will need and appreciate all of it. give her time. give her grace. give her acceptance in everything and in every way so that she knows she is safe with you. and let it ease your soul to know that she does end up finding love, and you will relish in how fitting it is that she will follow in her mother’s footsteps with this man.

your first puppy will be your everything. you will get 11 incredible years with her and you will be an overly-obsessive hover parent towards the end…because, to keep her happy, you will have to be. do not change anything about it. it will be as “worth it” and you imagine, and nothing will compare to it. do not expect quick healing…it will not come, and that is ok. she will be the reason your relationship with her sister deepens, and it will be an unexpected gift that you will come to rely on as heavily as you did with her.

work will always be just that - work. you will put your everything into whatever you do. you will go above and beyond all the time, working harder and smarter than most, just like you learned from watching mom. you will recognize early on that appreciation and recognition for this will not come very often, but you will learn to accept it because it is not the reason you do it. you will take pride in who you are as an employee, and no one will take that from you. but a career you are passionate about? nope. what you are passionate about won’t be work.

your body will continue to be a source of stress for you. it will fluctuate in weight, it will lose the ability to heal itself like “normal”, and it will fight you every step of the way. try not to get angry because it will only prolong what is happening at the time. and remember - you are BLESSED to have a body that works as well as it does.

your mental health will be a battle. it will start as depression and morph to rage and then to anxiety over the years. you will find a medication that helps, you will learn what to do and not do, and you will be lucky enough to spend your life with someone who knows how to care for you when you are slipping.

and speaking of him…him. the man you picture in your head now will not look at all like he does. he will be different in every way imaginable, and it will be perfect for you. you will spend the majority of your years feeling like there is absolutely no way you will find someone that you will like that much for that long. you will be delightfully wrong (and you will remind him of this regularly because it will always surprise you). you will heavily doubt your ability to be a good partner, but you will grow into it together - and you will be a good partner for him. you will make mistakes along the way, both in the people you choose before him and in the decisions you make with him, but know that they will only make you stronger together. you both chose each other the very first day you saw each other. and you will continue to choose each other every day after. the world outside of your home will become scary, but you will be 100% certain that you can handle it all together.

as for you, are you stronger than you know. you will go through things that you will forget about over the years. let them remain forgotten. you will discover just how similar you are to your parents, and you will love it, but you will love the ways you are different just as much. you will be proud of who you have become. in the 2 years that you spend away from your now-husband, you will learn that you don’t need anyone in the ways you think you do. your life will become one of choice, not one of desperation and fear. you are a homebody. you already know that, but remain steadfast in your acceptance of that. people will spend a lot of time shaming you for it, but keep reminding yourself that there isn’t anything wrong with being that way. besides - in 2020, a worldwide pandemic will prove that your years of being a homebody have prepared you for what is about to happen better than anyone else.

enjoy your wedding. it won’t be perfect, but enjoy it anyway because there will be NO doubt in your mind about your future and that is pretty amazing.

those hives you get all the time? they will stop. you’ll develop eczema, but at least the hives will stop.

keep going, baby girl. it is worth it, i promise.

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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How Did The Republicans View The Alien And Sedition Acts

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How Did The Republicans View The Alien And Sedition Acts

How Did Republicans View The Alien And Sedition Acts Quizlet

The Alien and Sedition Acts

How did the Republicans view the Alien and Sedition Acts? Republicans viewed the Sedition Act as an attack on the rights of free speech and free press. Why did most Federalists favor good relations with Great Britain? Some were merchants and shippers whose business depended on trade with Americas former enemy.

John Adams : The Second President Of The United States

John Adams was known for being the second president of the United States. He was a man of will power and strength that was an advocate of independence from Britain. Adams, along with other supporters of America wrote the Declaration of Independence. He was one of the most influential leaders that America has had. He did anything and everything to break away from Britain and become an independent country. Aside from being of the nations greatest leaders he was also a loving husband and a father

Did Democratic Republicans Support The Alien And Sedition Acts

The Alien and Sedition Acts were four laws passed by the Federalist-dominated 5th United States Congress and signed into law by President John Adams in 1798. At the time, the majority of immigrants supported Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans, the political opponents of the Federalists.

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Module 8: Growing Pains The New Republic

Identify key examples of partisan wrangling between the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans

Describe how foreign relations affected American politics

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George Washington, who had been reelected in 1792 by an overwhelming majority, refused to run for a third term, thus setting a precedent for future presidents. In the presidential election of 1796, the two partiesFederalist and Democratic-Republicancompeted for the first time. Partisan rancor over the French Revolution and the Whiskey Rebellion fueled the divide between them, and Federalist John Adams defeated his Democratic-Republican rival Thomas Jefferson by a narrow margin of only three electoral votes. In 1800, another close election swung the other way, and Jefferson began a long period of Democratic-Republican government.

For Discussion And Writing

What was the Sedition Act? Why was it passed? Do you think it was constitutional? Explain.

How did the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans differ regarding criticism of the government and freedom of speech and the press?

Write a letter to the editor of a 1798 newspaper, expressing your views about the Alien and Sedition Acts.

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Federalists Thought Seditious Libel Law Was Part Of Common Law

Federalists genuinely worried that the French threat, both military and ideological, might be enough to topple the infant republic. To them, a seditious libel law was part of the English common law, constitutional under the necessary and proper clause, and an obvious instrument of defense. They believed the First Amendment embodied only the common law protection of forbidding prior restraint. Leading Federalists thought that it was impossible to attack members of the government without attacking the very foundation of;government itself.

The Federalists argued that the Sedition Act in reality expanded civil liberties. The act allowed the truth of the matter contained in publication as evidence in defense and gave the jury a right to determine the law and the fact. This contrasted with English common law, which did not admit truth as a defense and limited the role of the jury to establishing the fact of publication.

Why Did Democratic Republican Leaders Pressure Congress To Repeal The Alien And Sedition Acts

Why did Democratic-Republican leaders pressure Congress to repeal the Alien and Sedition Acts? They argued that the acts violated the Neutrality Proclamation. They believed that the acts hurt the interests of farmers in southern states.

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The United States And The French Revolution 17891799

The French Revolution lasted from 1789 until 1799. The Revolution precipitated a series of European wars, forcing the United States to articulate a clear policy of neutrality in order to avoid being embroiled in these European conflicts. The French Revolution also influenced U.S. politics, as pro- and anti- Revolutionary factions sought to influence American domestic and foreign policy.

From 1790 to 1794, the French Revolution became increasingly radical. After French King Louis XVI was tried and executed on January 21, 1793, war between France and monarchal nations Great Britain and Spain was inevitable. These two powers joined Austria and other European nations in the war against Revolutionary France that had already started in 1791. The United States remained neutral, as both Federalists and Democratic-Republicans saw that war would lead to economic disaster and the possibility of invasion. This policy was made difficult by heavy-handed British and French actions. The British harassed neutral American merchant ships, while the French Government dispatched a controversial Minister to the United States, Edmond-Charles Genêt, whose violations of the American neutrality policy embroiled the two countries in theCitizen Genêt Affair until his recall in 1794.

Alien And Sedition Acts

Alien and Sedition Acts

The Alien and Sedition Acts were a series of four laws passed by the U.S. Congress in 1798 amid widespread fear that war with France was imminent. The four lawswhich remain controversial to this dayrestricted the activities of foreign residents in the country and limited freedom of speech and of the press.

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What Was The Purpose Of The Alien And Sedition Acts

As a result, a Federalist-controlled Congress passed four laws, known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws raised the residency requirements for citizenship from 5 to 14 years, authorized the President to deport aliens and permitted their arrest, imprisonment, and deportation during wartime.

What Is The Legal Definition Of Insurrection

insurrection n : the act or an instance of revolting esp. violently against civil or political authority or against an established government. ;also. : the crime of inciting or engaging in such revolt [whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or against the authority of the United States

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What Were The Alien And Sedition Acts

Amid mounting tensions, Federalists accused Republicans of being in league with France against their own countrys government. Writing in June 1798 in the Gazette of the United States, Alexander Hamilton called the Jeffersonians more Frenchmen than Americans and claimed that they were prepared to immolate the independence and welfare of their country at the shrine of France.

Fears of an imminent French invasion led the Adams administration to begin war preparations and pass a new land tax to pay for them.

With fears of enemy spies infiltrating American society, the Federalist majority in Congress passed four new laws in June and July 1798, collectively known as the Alien and Sedition Acts.

With the Naturalization Act, Congress increased residency requirements for U.S. citizenship to 14 years from five.

The Alien Enemies Act permitted the government to arrest and deport all male citizens of an enemy nation in the event of war, while the Alien Friends Act allowed the president to deport any non-citizen suspected of plotting against the government, even in peacetime.

How Does The Constitution Allow For Enduring Debate

America has what Hamilton designed because we have national banks and what Jefferson designed because he disapproved in the Alien and Sedition acts recently history the Patriot act and Obama Care have pushed The Constitution in to debate.The U.S. Constitution is always up for debate and alive though the debates because it has the amendment clause and the Supreme Court. It can also cause debate because it is so vague in the elastic clause. The elastic clause is the

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Effects On Foreign Relations

Genêt continued to defy the wishes of the U.S. government, sending American recruits to capture British ships and rearm them as privateers. Washington sent Genêt an 8,000-word letter of complaint on Jefferson and Hamiltons recommendation. Genêt refused to cease his activities, challenging Washingtons executive authority and blatantly disregarding official American policy.

The Citizen Genêt Affair spurred Great Britain to instruct its naval commanders in the West Indies to seize all ships trading with the French. The British captured hundreds of American ships and their cargoes, increasing the possibility of war between the two countries. The Affair came to an end when the Jacobins, having taken power in France in January 1794, sent an arrest notice to Washington that demanded that Genêt return to France. Genêt, knowing that he would likely be sent to the guillotine, asked Washington for asylum. It was HamiltonGenêts fiercest opponent in the cabinetwho convinced Washington to grant him safe haven in the United States. With his mission and life of public service officially over, Genêt relocated to New York and lived the rest of his life as a private gentleman farmer.

Sketch of Citizen Genêt: Edmond-Charles Genêt came dangerously close to violating President Washingtons Proclamation of Neutrality.

For What Reason Were The Alien And Sedition Acts Unpopular With Most Americans

For what reason were the Alien and Sedition Acts unpopular with most Americans? They were at odds with the U.S. Constitution. Which War of 1812 battle was the most decisive in asserting American dominance over the British in the Old Northwest? What was the importance of the U.S. Supreme Court case Marbury v.

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The Alien Enemies Act In The 20th And 21st Centuries

The Alien Enemies Acts remained in effect at the outset of World War I and remains U.S. law today. It was recodified to be part of the US war and national defense statutes .

On December 7, 1941, responding to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the authority of the revised Alien Enemies Act to issue presidential proclamations #2525 , #2526 , and #2527 , to apprehend, restrain, secure and remove Japanese, German, and Italian non-citizens. On February 19, 1942, citing authority of the wartime powers of the president and commander in chief, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe military areas and giving him authority that superseded the authority of other executives under Proclamations 25257. EO 9066 led to the internment of Japanese Americans, whereby over 110,000;people of Japanese ancestry, 62% of whom were United States citizens, not aliens, living on the Pacific coast were forcibly relocated and forced to live in camps in the interior of the country.

Reaction To The Alien And Sedition Acts

Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798

Matthew Lyon, a Republican congressman from Vermont, became the first person tried under the new law in October 1798. A grand jury indicted Lyon for publishing letters in Republican newspapers during his reelection campaign that showed intent and design to defame the government and President Adams, among other charges. Lyon acted as his own attorney, and defended himself by claiming the Sedition Act was unconstitutional, and that he had not intended to damage the government.

He was convicted, and the judge sentenced him to four months in prison and a fine of $1,000. Lyon won reelection while sitting in jail, and would later defeat a Federalist attempt to kick him out of the House.

Another individual famously prosecuted under the Sedition Act was the Republican-friendly journalist James Callender. Sentenced to nine months in prison for his false, scandalous, and malicious writing, against the said President of the United States, Callender wrote articles from jail supporting Jeffersons campaign for president in 1800.

After Jefferson won, Callender demanded a government post in return for his service. When he failed to get one, he retaliated by revealing the first public allegations of Jeffersons long-rumored relationship with a slave woman, Sally Hemings, in a series of newspaper articles.

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Who Can Suppress An Insurrection

Whenever there is an insurrections in any State against its government, the President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened, call into Federal service such of the militia of the other States, in the number requested by that State, and use such of the armed

How Did People Feel About The Alien And Sedition Act Passed In The 1700s

Who are the experts?Our certified Educators are real professors, teachers, and scholars who use their academic expertise to tackle your toughest questions. Educators go through a rigorous application process, and every answer they submit is reviewed by our in-house editorial team.

The Alien and Sedition Acts, passed by the administration of President John Adams, were hugely controversial. The government claimed that these measures were necessary to protect national security from both internal and external threats. Opponents, however, saw them as unnecessary and draconian . They saw them as…

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Acts Concerning Aliens And Alien Enemies

The Naturalization Act was followed by the Act Concerning Aliens, and the Act Concerning Alien Enemies.

These two bills gave the president sweeping powers to act against those who were still only immigrants, by permitting their arrest and deportation if they were suspected of treasonable or secret leanings.

The bills sponsor, Harrison Gray Otis, explained pretty candidly that his legislation was prompted by his desire that we not wish to invite hordes of wild Irishmen, nor the turbulent and disorderly of all parts of the world to come here with a view to disturb our tranquility, after having succeeded in the overthrow of their own governments. So let immigrants be put on notice by these bills, that if they immigrate to the United States, they can be sent back at a moments notice, by order of the president if there was a suspicion that they have been involved in treasonous or seditious activities. The definition of treasonous or seditious activities was left unexplained.

Learn more about;the place where European ideas of society no longer applied.

Is It Treason To Kill A Swan

All swans are the property of the Queen, and killing one is an act of treason. Not quite Since the 12th century, the Crown has held the right to ownership over all wild, unmarked mute swans in open water. Killing one of the Queens mute swans may be unlawful, but it has never been an act of treason.

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The Xyz Affair And The Threat Of War

Their fight over the Alien and Sedition Acts was just one example of how Americas first two political parties were split over foreign policy. In 1794, Britain was at war with France. When Federalist President George Washington signed the Jay Treaty with Britain it greatly improved Anglo-American relations but enraged France, Americas Revolutionary War ally.;

Shortly after taking office in 1797, President John Adams tried to smooth things over with France by sending diplomats Elbridge Gerry, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and John Marshall to Paris to meet face-to-face with French foreign minister, Charles Talleyrand. Instead, Talleyrand sent three of his representativesreferred to as X, Y, and Z by President Adamswho demanded a $250,000 bribe and a $10 million loan as conditions of meeting with Talleyrand.

After the U.S. diplomats rejected Talleyrands demands, and the American people became angered by the so-called XYZ Affair, fears of an outright war with France spread.

While it never escalated beyond a series of naval confrontations, the resulting undeclared Quasi-War with France further strengthened the Federalists’ argument for passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts.;

What Was The Reaction To The Alien And Sedition Acts

These laws were designed to silence and weaken the Democratic-Republican Party. Negative reaction to the Alien and Sedition Acts helped contribute to the Democratic-Republican victory in the 1800 elections. Congress repealed the Naturalization Act in 1802, while the other acts were allowed to expire.

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How Do You Use Sedition In A Sentence

Sedition in a Sentence ?

The newspaper editor was accused of sedition when he encouraged his fans to rise up against police officers.

In some nations, the government censors television networks in order to prevent sedition.

The rebels were arrested for sedition when they protested outside of the dictators palace.

How Did The Democratic Republicans Viewed The Alien And Sedition Acts

Adams and the Alien and Sedition Act | AF-419

The democratic republicans viewed the alien and sedition acts by the misuse of the government powers unconstitutional

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Alien And Sedition Acts Of 1798

Justin Florence

In the summer of 1798 the young United States was on the brink of war with France, one of the mightiest powers in the world. Some worried America faced not only a powerful enemy abroad, but also a threatening undercurrent of opposition at home. Hoping to strengthen the nation during war, and at the same time crush their political rivals, the Federalist party in power passed a series of four laws collectively termed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Alexander Hamilton, a leading Federalist, believed as a result of the new laws “there will shortly be national unanimity.”

Hamilton, like most other Americans in the eighteenth century, maintained that political factions or parties threatened the stability of the newnation. Yet hardly had the first Congress convened before proto-parties began to form. An array of congressmen known as Republicans joined Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in opposing Hamilton’s economic plans. Newly founded political newspapers helped congressmen and party leaders attract the support of ordinary voters. Newspaper editors in the 1790s actively aligned themselves with national figures and parties, while launching fierce attacks against political rivals.

See also: Naturalization Act; Espionage Act and Sedition Act .

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mauricecherry · 4 years ago

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I can’t tell you how excited I am to share this conversation with Antionette Carroll with you. Longtime listeners of the show may remember her first appearance here back in 2014. In the six years since then, Antionette has risen to become one of the design community’s most outspoken advocates, and one of its fiercest critics. As the founder and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab, her advocacy work has been shared around the world.

This week’s episode is a bit different than usual. You’ll learn about the origins of Creative Reaction Lab, hear about her new venture &Design with Timothy Bardlavens (another past Revision Path guest!), and get some candid talk about the country’s oldest professional organization for designers, AIGA. Antionette is proof that one person can really make an impression in the world through hard work, honesty, and determination!

Revision Path is brought to you by Lunch, a multidisciplinary creative studio in Atlanta, GA.

SUBSCRIBE, RATE, AND REVIEW: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | SoundCloud | Spotify

#Revision Path #Antionette Carroll #Creative Reaction Lab #And Design #Design Plus Diversity #social entrepreneur #equity designer #educator #diversity specialist #international speaker #St. Louis

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confrontingbabble-on · 7 years ago

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When you appreciate that NT fundamentalist Jews (Jesus/Peter/Paul) were arguing that the OT Law did not have to be followed anymore...

...it sure makes fundamentalist Christians (followers of Jesus/Peter/Paul!) look stupid and ignorant...trying to selectively enforce some OT rules...on believers and unbelievers alike...two thousand years later...!

'…I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be (coerced to follow a particular OT law, ie circumcision), Christ will be of no benefit to you. Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be (coerced to follow a particular OT law, ie circumcision) that he is obliged to obey THE ENTIRE (OT) law. You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off (pun intended!) from Christ; you have fallen away (more graphic pun intended!!) from grace.' (Gal. 5:2-4)

******

“... the New Testament is clearly hostile to those who encourage circumcision, and opposes rather than encourages the procedure. The reasons for this are set out plainly in the text and can be seen in the words of Jesus, Saint Peter and Saint Paul. As a result, most Christians throughout history have not practiced circumcision...

When Jesus attributed circumcision to the patriarchs he downgraded the importance of this ancient ritual from a command that comes from God to a custom of the patriarchs. Customs of the patriarchs may be overturned; a command from God is not so easy to ignore. Describing circumcision as an ancient custom undermines the belief that circumcision came from God. It was quite a risky thing for Jesus to say (See John 7:25).

This paved the way for Peter to attack circumcision and Paul to attack those who promote it.

However, Jesus' teaching on circumcision is entirely consistent with Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and other places. He was against over-zealous Sabbath-keeping (John 7), but was stricter in his teaching on anger and murder (Matt. 5:20-22), on adultery and lust (Matt. 5:27-28), divorce (Matt. 5:31-32), the taking of oaths (Matt. 5:33-37), on revenge (Matt. 5:39-42) and loving even your enemies (Matt. 5:43-48).

When he referred to specific examples of the ancient law, Jesus only said: 'You have heard that it was said…!! (Matt. 5:21; 5:27, 5:33, 5:45)

Jesus' teaching on circumcision was also consistent with the Acts of the Apostles, where the ancient food laws and the restrictions on mixing with Gentiles were overthrown (Acts 10:9-16, 24-30, 11:1-14), and where contrary to the Torah (Deut. 23:1), eunuchs were welcomed into the Church (Acts 8:26-39). Indeed, the requirement for circumcision (Acts 15:7-10) was just one of a number of the requirements of the Law that was abolished.

Despite...'God said to Abraham, "As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations.... Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."' (Genesis 17: 9-14),13 No one follows this to the letter. Why? Slavery has been abolished! Today, no Jew, no matter how pious, has the right to hold slaves, and if a master should be so bold as to forcibly circumcise his 'servant' there would be an outcry!

Animal sacrifices have also become obsolete for Christian and Jew alike... Paul warned against following Jewish myths(!) (Titus 1:14) However, as Paul and other early Christians had rejected other parts of the Jewish heritage of that time, he may have considered parts of the Torah as mythical. The idea of rejecting any of the Torah as mythical may strike us as radical, but it certainly was firmly in Jewish tradition.

Look at the words of Jeremiah: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:… [I]n the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them, "Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you." (Jer. 7:22-26)

We might think that Jesus was radical in saying that circumcision came from 'the fathers' (John 7:22), or that Paul may have been referring to Jewish myths outside the Hebrew Scriptures. However, these passages from Jeremiah show that one of the Bible's greatest prophets explicitly rejected animal sacrifices and charged that the false pen of the scribes had made the law - the Torah - into a lie!

(Paul) saw the Jewish law as being abolished, because of Jesus (Eph. 2: 11-20)

(Peter) called circumcision and the Mosaic law an 'unbearable yoke'.

Paul who circumcised Timothy, or at least had him circumcised18, was to become the fiercest critic and opponent of circumcision and circumcisers in the New Testament. As we trace what he said from letter to letter we can see that his feelings about circumcisers and circumcision became more hostile as time went on.

'Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.' (Gal. 5:1-4)

In a later letter, dated between A.D 61 and 63,34 Paul is even more scathing about those who push circumcision. He called them dogs.

In another late letter, one that has been dated as late as A.D. 65 or even A.D. 68,35 Paul slams ‘those of the circumcision’:

This was not the end of it. In a later letter (A.D. 61-63) he accused circumcisers of operating for sordid gain, sowing dissension in families and churches. Most startling of all, Paul called circumcisers mutilators (A.D. 65-68). Note Paul's increasing hatred of circumcisers and circumcision.

In Galatians, Paul was furious with circumcision advocates for upsetting the congregation and leading them away from Jesus and also Christianity but he also raised questions about the sexual motivation of those who pushed circumcision. In Philippians he accused circumcisers of being sexually deviant mutilators. Finally, in Titus, he said they were in it for the money.”

From... http://www.cirp.org/pages/cultural/glass1/

#atheists #agnostic #secular humanist #skeptic #Religion #Christianity #religious insanity

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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Coronavirus Worsens U.S.-China Ties and Bolsters Hawks in Washington

BEIJING — Tariffs and the trade war. Espionage and Huawei. Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South China Sea. Now a spiraling epidemic has become the latest and potentially most divisive issue driving apart the United States and China. For the fiercest critics of China within the Trump administration, the global panic over the new coronavirus has provided a new opening to denounce the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, which they say cannot be trusted to disclose what it knows or properly manage the outbreak. But if the hard-liners were hoping for a united, anti-China message coming from Washington, that goal has been undermined by their own leader. President Trump has publicly commended President Xi Jinping’s handling of the crisis and even called for greater commercial ties, including the sale of jet engines to China. “Look,’’ Mr. Trump said on Tuesday, “I know this: President Xi loves the people of China, he loves his country, and he’s doing a very good job with a very, very tough situation.” It has become a staple of the Trump administration: sending mixed messages that reflect a good-cop-bad-cop tactic, a real internal disagreement over policy or simply the caprice of the president. But overall, the most hawkish voices on China have managed to dominate the conversation, lashing out at Beijing as it reels from one challenge after another — a trade war with Washington, protests in Hong Kong and now the struggle to contain the coronavirus. Mr. Trump’s conciliatory comments this week might be an effort to defuse tensions and keep the U.S. economy and stock market humming as he faces re-election. That approach is backed by a pro-trade faction led by Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin that advocates close ties between the world’s two largest economies. Whether it is because of the assertiveness of the hard-liners, the ambiguities fueled by the competing messages or Beijing’s policies, the relationship between the United States and China has become so strained and unpredictable that even the need for a united effort to address a global health crisis has not overcome the suspicions that have increasingly taken root on both sides. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the administration’s most vocal China critic, on Tuesday took the country to task for a failure to be open and transparent when the coronavirus hit, saying, “It took us too long to get the medical experts into country. We wish that could have happened more quickly.” The China hawks say privately that they see the virus weakening the party’s legitimacy and further separating the two countries. “You are starting to walk back a couple of decades of diplomatic relations,” said Carl Minzner, a professor of Chinese law and politics at Fordham University. The growing friction, he said, “has its own immutable logic that is dragging both countries backward.” New flash points emerge by the day. On Wednesday, China announced that it was expelling three Wall Street Journal reporters in what it said was retaliation for a headline on an opinion essay. The expulsions occurred a day after the U.S. State Department announced that it would treat China’s main state news media organizations operating in the United States as arms of the Chinese government. All three reporters had worked on topics deemed sensitive by Chinese officials. Updated Feb. 10, 2020 What is a Coronavirus? It is a novel virus named for the crown-like spikes that protrude from its surface. The coronavirus can infect both animals and people, and can cause a range of respiratory illnesses from the common cold to more dangerous conditions like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS. How contagious is the virus? According to preliminary research, it seems moderately infectious, similar to SARS, and is possibly transmitted through the air. Scientists have estimated that each infected person could spread it to somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 people without effective containment measures. How worried should I be? While the virus is a serious public health concern, the risk to most people outside China remains very low, and seasonal flu is a more immediate threat. Who is working to contain the virus? World Health Organization officials have praised China’s aggressive response to the virus by closing transportation, schools and markets. This week, a team of experts from the W.H.O. arrived in Beijing to offer assistance. What if I’m traveling? The United States and Australia are temporarily denying entry to noncitizens who recently traveled to China and several airlines have canceled flights. How do I keep myself and others safe? Washing your hands frequently is the most important thing you can do, along with staying at home when you’re sick. The coronavirus epidemic has coincided with recent aggressive moves by Washington that have left many officials in China fuming over what they view as an effort to weaken the Communist Party’s leadership. Those have included criminal cases filed against Chinese military personnel over the 2017 hacking of Equifax, and accusations that Chinese agencies appeared involved in efforts to get hold of research at Harvard University and Boston University. The United States has also leveled accusations of racketeering against Huawei, the telecommunications company whose equipment, officials in Washington have repeatedly warned, could be used by the Chinese government for eavesdropping efforts on a global scale. The Trump administration’s most hawkish officials have seized on the coronavirus epidemic to bolster their arguments that the United States needs to make a more fundamental break with China. Mr. Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, said it was “a wake up call” to avoid relying on Chinese production of medicines and other medical supplies. The commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, said the public health crisis could even lure back manufacturing jobs to the United States. Allies of the administration in Congress, and even some officials speaking privately, have repeated the fringe theory — dismissed by scientists — that Chinese laboratories, not a wholesale food market in Wuhan, might have been the true source of the epidemic and that it started earlier than Beijing has said. The officials assert that China at a minimum had obfuscated the fact that the epidemic began sooner than acknowledged and was then covered up. In China, officials see such statements and actions as evidence of mounting anti-Chinese sentiment, even racism. They also accused the United States of stoking international panic when it withdrew diplomats from a consulate in Wuhan and evacuated its citizens. Although other countries have since followed suit, China’s foreign ministry accused Washington of setting a bad example. “It is a political decision in the final analysis,” said Jia Qingguo, an associate dean at Peking University’s School of International Relations. “It’s time for international cooperation,” he said, “but these people just try to sow hatred, to try to split people up for their own political purposes.” There have been a few signs of cooperation during the crisis. The U.S. State Department said it had delivered 18 tons of donated medical supplies to China and announced that it was prepared to give $100 million to China and other nations. And Beijing, for its part, has not fully unleashed anti-American vitriol. “Unlike with the Hong Kong protests or trade war, the Chinese government has not blamed the United States for the ongoing crisis, and has even cracked down on online commentary calling the virus a U.S.-made biological weapon,” said Jessica Chen Weiss, a professor of government at Cornell University. From the start, the Trump administration has been divided between a pro-trade faction that favors strong business relations with China and a national security faction that promotes the idea of “decoupling” the two economies. Despite starting a damaging trade war with China, Mr. Trump has tended to side with the pro-trade faction led by Mr. Mnuchin. Senior officials advocating aggressive policies regularly criticize the trade proponents in private. They blame Mr. Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive, for blocking efforts to impose sanctions on Chinese officials for the mass detentions of Muslims. They also say pro-business officials are too eager to allow American companies to sell components to Chinese enterprises, especially in the high-tech sector. Since the two nations reached a truce to the trade war in December, China hawks in the Trump administration have seen an opening to push through tougher actions and policies, ones that were criticized earlier by Mr. Mnuchin and his allies for potentially jeopardizing the trade talks. Mr. Pompeo has delivered scathing remarks about the dangers posed by China. He told the National Governors Association on Feb. 8 that China was seeking to exert overt and covert influence from state capitals all the way down to community school boards. He followed that with another speech at the Munich Security Conference this past weekend, declaring that “the West is winning.” On trips this month to Europe, Central Asia and Africa, Mr. Pompeo has told governments to beware of China. His Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, retorted in Munich that the West should “eschew the subconscious belief in the superiority of its civilizations and abandon its prejudices and anxieties regarding China.” The actions and rhetoric coming during the coronavirus epidemic have made the sting even sharper in China. Chinese officials bristled when the State Department raised its travel alert for China to the highest level — “do not travel.” Meanwhile, American officials fumed over China’s unwillingness to allow in teams of international health experts, doctors and scientists. In early January, the United States pressed Chinese officials to allow into Wuhan experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. China ignored the request. Mr. Trump himself pressed the issue in a phone call with Mr. Xi on Feb. 6, administration officials said. Only last Friday did the Chinese government relent and allow two American experts to join an international team. Administration officials say China continues to hide significant facts about the epidemic, its origins and its scale. One official said it was important to get American experts to the outbreak’s epicenter to collect reliable data on things like transmission and morbidity rates. There are already signs that the mutual recriminations could profoundly affect international cooperation — from trade to security to scientific research — as well as popular opinion in both countries. “The level of trust in the relationship is now cratering,” said Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Issues like global pandemics and other issues that fundamentally impact the security of both countries,” he said, “are going to be very difficult to work through given the levels of distrust and disharmony on both sides.” Steven Lee Myers reported from Beijing, and Edward Wong from Washington. Claire Fu contributed research from Beijing. Read the full article

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moneypedia · 5 years ago

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“…everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious.”

—Arthur Young; 1771

Our popular economic wisdom says that capitalism equals freedom and free societies, right? Well, if you ever suspected that the logic is full of shit, then I’d recommend checking a book called The Invention of Capitalism, written by an economic historian named Michael Perelmen, who’s been exiled to Chico State, a redneck college in rural California, for his lack of freemarket friendliness. And Perelman has been putting his time in exile to damn good use, digging deep into the works and correspondence of Adam Smith and his contemporaries to write a history of the creation of capitalism that goes beyond superficial The Wealth of Nations fairy tale and straight to the source, allowing you to read the early capitalists, economists, philosophers, clergymen and statesmen in their own words. And it ain’t pretty.

One thing that the historical record makes obviously clear is that Adam Smith and his laissez-faire buddies were a bunch of closet-case statists, who needed brutal government policies to whip the English peasantry into a good capitalistic workforce willing to accept wage slavery.

Francis Hutcheson, from whom Adam Smith learned all about the virtue of natural liberty, wrote: ”it is the one great design of civil laws to strengthen by political sanctions the several laws of nature. … The populace needs to be taught, and engaged by laws, into the best methods of managing their own affairs and exercising mechanic art.”

Yep, despite what you might have learned, the transition to a capitalistic society did not happen naturally or smoothly. See, English peasants didn’t want to give up their rural communal lifestyle, leave their land and go work for below-subsistence wages in shitty, dangerous factories being set up by a new, rich class of landowning capitalists. And for good reason, too. Using Adam Smith’s own estimates of factory wages being paid at the time in Scotland, a factory-peasant would have to toil for more than three days to buy a pair of commercially produced shoes. Or they could make their own traditional brogues using their own leather in a matter of hours, and spend the rest of the time getting wasted on ale. It’s really not much of a choice, is it?

But in order for capitalism to work, capitalists needed a pool of cheap, surplus labor. So what to do? Call in the National Guard!

Faced with a peasantry that didn’t feel like playing the role of slave, philosophers, economists, politicians, moralists and leading business figures began advocating for government action. Over time, they enacted a series of laws and measures designed to push peasants out of the old and into the new by destroying their traditional means of self-support.

“The brutal acts associated with the process of stripping the majority of the people of the means of producing for themselves might seem far removed from the laissez-faire reputation of classical political economy,” writes Perelman. “In reality, the dispossession of the majority of small-scale producers and the construction of laissez-faire are closely connected, so much so that Marx, or at least his translators, labeled this expropriation of the masses as ‘‘primitive accumulation.’’

Perelman outlines the many different policies through which peasants were forced off the land—from the enactment of so-called Game Laws that prohibited peasants from hunting, to the destruction of the peasant productivity by fencing the commons into smaller lots—but by far the most interesting parts of the book are where you get to read Adam Smith’s proto-capitalist colleagues complaining and whining about how peasants are too independent and comfortable to be properly exploited, and trying to figure out how to force them to accept a life of wage slavery.

This pamphlet from the time captures the general attitude towards successful, self-sufficient peasant farmers:

The possession of a cow or two, with a hog, and a few geese, naturally exalts the peasant. . . . In sauntering after his cattle, he acquires a habit of indolence. Quarter, half, and occasionally whole days, are imperceptibly lost. Day labour becomes disgusting; the aversion in- creases by indulgence. And at length the sale of a half-fed calf, or hog, furnishes the means of adding intemperance to idleness.

While another pamphleteer wrote:

Nor can I conceive a greater curse upon a body of people, than to be thrown upon a spot of land, where the productions for subsistence and food were, in great measure, spontaneous, and the climate required or admitted little care for raiment or covering.

John Bellers, a Quaker “philanthropist” and economic thinker saw independent peasants as a hindrance to his plan of forcing poor people into prison-factories, where they would live, work and produce a profit of 45% for aristocratic owners:

“Our Forests and great Commons (make the Poor that are upon them too much like the Indians) being a hindrance to Industry, and are Nurseries of Idleness and Insolence.”

Daniel Defoe, the novelist and trader, noted that in the Scottish Highlands “people were extremely well furnished with provisions. … venison exceedingly plentiful, and at all seasons, young or old, which they kill with their guns whenever they find it.’’

To Thomas Pennant, a botanist, this self-sufficiency was ruining a perfectly good peasant population:

“The manners of the native Highlanders may be expressed in these words: indolent to a high degree, unless roused to war, or any animating amusement.”

If having a full belly and productive land was the problem, then the solution to whipping these lazy bums into shape was obvious: kick ‘em off the land and let em starve.

Arthur Young, a popular writer and economic thinker respected by John Stuart Mill, wrote in 1771: “everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious.” Sir William Temple, a politician and Jonathan Swift’s boss, agreed, and suggested that food be taxed as much as possible to prevent the working class from a life of “sloth and debauchery.”

Temple also advocated putting four-year-old kids to work in the factories, writing ‘‘for by these means, we hope that the rising generation will be so habituated to constant employment that it would at length prove agreeable and entertaining to them.’’ Some thought that four was already too old. According to Perelmen, “John Locke, often seen as a philosopher of liberty, called for the commencement of work at the ripe age of three.” Child labor also excited Defoe, who was joyed at the prospect that “children after four or five years of age…could every one earn their own bread.’’ But that’s getting off topic…

Happy Faces of Productivity…

Even David Hume, that great humanist, hailed poverty and hunger as positive experiences for the lower classes, and even blamed the “poverty” of France on its good weather and fertile soil:

“‘Tis always observed, in years of scarcity, if it be not extreme, that the poor labour more, and really live better.”

Reverend Joseph Townsend believed that restricting food was the way to go:

“[Direct] legal constraint [to labor] . . . is attended with too much trouble, violence, and noise, . . . whereas hunger is not only a peaceable, silent, unremitted pressure, but as the most natural motive to industry, it calls forth the most powerful exertions. . . . Hunger will tame the fiercest animals, it will teach decency and civility, obedience and subjugation to the most brutish, the most obstinate, and the most perverse.”

Patrick Colquhoun, a merchant who set up England’s first private “preventative police“ force to prevent dock workers from supplementing their meager wages with stolen goods, provided what may be the most lucid explanation of how hunger and poverty correlate to productivity and wealth creation:

Poverty is that state and condition in society where the individual has no surplus labour in store, or, in other words, no property or means of subsistence but what is derived from the constant exercise of industry in the various occupations of life. Poverty is therefore a most necessary and indispensable ingredient in society, without which nations and communities could not exist in a state of civilization. It is the lot of man. It is the source of wealth, since without poverty, there could be no labour; there could be no riches, no refinement, no comfort, and no benefit to those who may be possessed of wealth.

Colquhoun’s summary is so on the money, it has to be repeated. Because what was true for English peasants is still just as true for us:

“Poverty is therefore a most necessary and indispensable ingredient in society…It is the source of wealth, since without poverty, there could be no labour; there could be no riches, no refinement, no comfort, and no benefit to those who may be possessed of wealth.”

***

Yasha Levine is a founding editor of The eXiled. You can reach him at levine [at] exiledonline.com.

Want to know more recovered history? Read Yasha Levine’s investigation into the life of Harry Koch, the man who spawned Charles and David Koch, the two most powerful oligarchs of our time:The Birth of the Koch Clan: It All Started In a Little Texas Town Called Quanah

Want us to stick around? Donate to The eXiled. Read The Invention of Capitalism in PDF form.

#capitalism

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stoweboyd · 7 years ago

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Tumblr is no longer flying under the radar at Mayer’s Yahoo. Now, the company’s part of Verizon, and things have gone sideways:

On the day Verizon’s Yahoo acquisition was completed, Tumblr was hit by a wave of layoffs. A number of current and former employees shared a post by social media industry commentator Andréa López entitled “Layoffs and Tumblr the Centipede.” In it, López theorizes, “In addition to the real life talented human beings impacted by these layoffs, the move is a warning and reminder — Tumblr is no longer in the protective purgatory of pre-Verizon Yahoo.” If Mayer’s Yahoo didn’t really know what it was doing with Tumblr, that meant Tumblr was free to do what it wanted. That extended to politics: Yahoo didn’t give Tumblr any official blessing or encouragement when it decided to become the tech industry’s fiercest net neutrality defender three years ago. Now things are a little bit stickier.

Bryan Irace, an engineering manager who worked at Tumblr from March 2012 to November 2015, explained Tumblr’s culture to The Verge in an email, writing, “We all [participated]. As with many other causes (e.g. SOPA/PIPA), [net neutrality] was a huge part of the company culture. A free and open Internet was a prerequisite for Tumblr to grow from an idea in David’s head into the platform that it is today... During my tenure there, Tumblr never shied away from speaking out about causes that the team collectively believed in.”

But a former employee who recently left Tumblr told The Verge that some employees who wanted to work there because of its culture of community and activism have been feeling uneasy for at least the last several weeks because of what they feel is a shift in Tumblr’s priorities.

“Some of our previous stances on issues that are really important to Tumblr employees and its community are being silenced,” said the former employee. “We've been really noisy about things like net neutrality in the past. We asked the new Head, Simon Khalaf, about it in an all-hands a few weeks ago and he said it was ‘not his problem’ and ‘above his pay grade.’” A current employee and another former employee corroborated this account.

Simon Khalaf is the former CEO of Flurry, an analytics app that was acquired by Yahoo in 2014. Under Yahoo, Khalaf was given a myriad of responsibilities related mostly to mobile app development and publishing partners — including Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports, and Tumblr. He was promoted to senior VP in April 2015, then tapped by Oath CEO Tim Armstrong to head Media Brands and Products. Karp now reports directly to Khalaf.

The Verge spoke to two former employees and one current employee about net neutrality advocacy at the company. One former employee said that the “whole org” is still aggressive on net neutrality and other progressive causes — but that aggression “stops at leadership.”

In addition, at the all-hands meeting at Tumblr last month, all three sources say Khalaf gave a speech that shocked much of the staff. One source described the talk as “a whole bunch of terrible, shitty corporate speak,” in which Khalaf used military metaphors to explain how Tumblr could use content as “a weapon” to beat out its competition.

Two former Tumblr employees said they were alarmed when Khalaf chose Black Lives Matter as an example of a community that the company should focus on converting into Yahoo media consumers. One told The Verge, “Simon explicitly said that Black Lives Matter was an opportunity to [make] a ton of money.” The same person also recalled: “Tumblr employees totally freaked, but couldn't really be vocal about it because we were in [New York City] watching over video cast.” The other said that the meeting was “extremely uncomfortable” and “a lot of people were really upset,” leading to a heated conversation in Tumblr’s Slack, which is separate from Yahoo’s.

One Tumblr engineer did not recall the statement about Black Lives Matter, but remembered staffers discussing the generally “eyebrow-raising” all-hands in Slack, as well as the conversation turning into “a huge mess.” That conversation got back to Khalaf, and it fell to Karp to discipline the Tumblr staff in a weekly meeting. Khalaf did not respond to a request for comment, but a source close to him wanted it noted that Black Lives Matter was only one “community” that Khalaf referenced: he also discussed Game of Thrones and Manchester United fans.

Asked whether progressive politics were still a powerful force at Tumblr, Ari Levine, who worked as Tumblr’s brand strategist from July 2012 to November 2014, told The Verge in a phone call, “I imagine that remains innate on some level. But without question the people that saw their role at Tumblr as being able to empower change and be a voice and motivate the community to be a voice in a meaningful way, those people are gone.”

So now, along with the astonishing lack of innovation at Tumblr, those advocating net neutrality are leaving or already gone. I wonder if Karp will leave? Maybe then he can take another pass at building a better Tumblr.

#tumblr #david karp #net neutrality #verizon

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yesthereisnojustice · 8 years ago

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The Invention of Capitalism: How a Self-Sufficient Peasantry was Whipped Into Industrial Wage Slaves

[ Original article here: https://sustainablehuman.minds.com/blog/view/662863197279100930 ]

Words by Yasha Levine

“…everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious.”

—Arthur Young; 1771

But in order for capitalism to work, capitalists needed a pool of cheap, surplus labor. So what to do? Call in the National Guard!

This pamphlet from the time captures the general attitude towards successful, self-sufficient peasant farmers:

While another pamphleteer wrote:

“Our Forests and great Commons (make the Poor that are upon them too much like the Indians) being a hindrance to Industry, and are Nurseries of Idleness and Insolence.”

To Thomas Pennant, a botanist, this self-sufficiency was ruining a perfectly good peasant population:

“The manners of the native Highlanders may be expressed in these words: indolent to a high degree, unless roused to war, or any animating amusement.”

If having a full belly and productive land was the problem, then the solution to whipping these lazy bums into shape was obvious: kick ‘em off the land and let em starve.

Happy Faces of Productivity…

Even David Hume, that great humanist, hailed poverty and hunger as positive experiences for the lower classes, and even blamed the “poverty” of France on its good weather and fertile soil:

“‘Tis always observed, in years of scarcity, if it be not extreme, that the poor labour more, and really live better.”

Reverend Joseph Townsend believed that restricting food was the way to go:

Colquhoun’s summary is so on the money, it has to be repeated. Because what was true for English peasants is still just as true for us:

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iguana012 · 8 years ago

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Japanese Nats: The Aftermath

This recap is almost 3 weeks late but fwiw I judged the event on The Judges’ Table. If you’re interested in my (serious) opinions about the competition, you can read them there. If you’re interested in my less censored opinions, I will include as much as I can in this post.

So what happened is that Japan crowned their tiniest champions ever, Satoko Miyahara (her 3rd title) and Shoma Uno (his 1st title). But some people were less interested in that and more interested in receiving updates on Yuzuru Hanyu’s recovery after he decided to withdraw from the competition in order to prioritize his health, thus generating earthquakes among his sensitive fans. Other people (those who attended the competition) went just to see Mao Asada but they were polite enough not to get up and empty the arena while Mao wasn’t skating unlike what happened at the Sochi Olympics when Evgeni Plushenko withdrew from the men’s event.

Now I’m not pretending to be some advocate of justice and I’m not intending to preach. But I believe this is a good opportunity to highlight frequent problems in the skating fandom so you won’t be tempted to fall into their traps.

DISCLAIMER: I do realize I’m already in a very high risk of getting attacked by some Yuzu fans via anon asks or salty replies/reblogs but I’m gonna say this again: it’s okay if you’re not into my kind of “”””humor”””. You can ignore me and I promise I won’t get a boo-boo. GETTING TO THE SUBJECT NOW!

THE LADIES EVENT aka Game Of Thrones

Satoko Miyahara waltzed into this event giving negative fucks and the results showed: when she gives negative fucks, that 3Lz-3T combo in the second half of her SP is miraculously rotated. As a consequence she got 76 for her program and further established her new position as one of the most overscored skaters currently competing (don’t believe me? Ask the Russian ubers and Mao ubers). I also thought “damn, this empty program actually looks nice when neither she nor I have to worry about rotations”. But the key here is to make the program look like that when you give a lot of fucks as opposed to negative fucks, and Mie Hamada knew that. So the next day before Satoko skated her FS, Hamada annoyed the crap out of her and pressured her as a strategy to make her get used to skating clean when she gives a lot of fucks, such as when she’s thinking she’s gotta get a medal in a relevant event, including the Olympics. For now, Satoko is still failing that test because she had a step-out on the 3Lz-3T combo and a couple of carrots.

Wakaba Higuchi finally - I repeat - FINALLY skated a clean short program and it was so adorable to see her get all excited and happy about it. Except it wasn’t a squeaky-clean program because she got a wrong edge call on her flip. What can ya do, if ya got a good lutz ya gotta lip and when ya got a good flip ya gotta flutz. She’s gonna have to follow Satoko’s example and replace that lip with a loop and be done with it. Other than that, damn this girl got huge jumps. Everyone loves some huge jumps. However, the disadvantage of huge jumps is that you gotta have very good control of the landing and you have to know how to manage your speed, when to speed up, when to slow down, otherwise you’re doomed to pull a Midori Ito and land your jumps over the cameraman outside the boards. (Have you imagined Evgenia Medvedeva landing one of her 3-3-3 combos on Tarasova’s table cause I did and I cracked myself up really).

Another skater who is fast as crap and has great technique on top of that is Mai Mihara who won the bronze medal and got herself a ticket to Worlds. Just a year ago around this time she was watching Nationals on TV from a hospital bed having been diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Doesn’t that make a great Cinderella story? She is, actually, skating to Cinderella but her style is still stuck somewhere on the road between junior and senior (she was pretty good as a junior but I didn’t like her skating then and I’m not necessarily warming up now) but she seems like a very sweet girl and if there’s anyone who deserved going to Worlds aside from Satoko and Wakaba, it’s this young lady.

Marin Honda is another skater who finally - I repeat - FINALLY skated a clean short program after burying herself in competitions right from the start. The poor girl has been under so much constant pressure this season I feel like she’s always on the verge of having an emotional breakdown. It’s not only the fact that she’s cried a number of times after her performances, but this season she always looked like she was terrified of her results no matter how she skated. I’m not a fan of either of her programs this season (SP is similar to last season’s and the FS is a hot mess combo of Yuzuru’s Romeo & Juliet 1 and 2) but she has excellent skating skills, musicality, expression, projection to the audience for her age. She doesn’t have the best jump technique but she is one of the few lucky ones with a clean lutz AND flip. After a smooth short program, a popped jump in the free prevented her from stepping onto the podium but that’s how it is in competition; it’s not about what you’re able to do, it’s about what you end up doing when it counts.

Rika Hongo has been in serious trouble ever since the beginning of this season - or maybe as far as the previous Nationals - and the worst case scenario happened. She finished 5th and now the juniors ahead of her are old enough to go to Worlds in her place. While she was 2nd in the SP with the best performance of the season, she went down to 6th in the FS and finished 5th overall despite bringing back Riverdance, a program that worked for her last year. Unfortunately the spark, the freedom and the joy that was present last season was absent in this competition as she was very nervous even before she took the ice.

Yuna Shiraiwa on the other hand... I’m only going to say this. Clean 3Lz-3T and (second half) 3F-3T combos in the FS. No UR calls. Highest TES (71.74) of the evening. She’s the real MVP in Hamada’s team.

THE OLD(ER) GENERATION

This was Mao Asada’s worst result at Nationals but instead of having retirement thoughts (like she had last season at Nationals even though she skated better), she’s still determined to come back stronger next season. An old knee injury prevented her from landing the 3A and rotating a lot of her jumps but at this point she’s obviously not skating for the medals as much as she’s skating for herself. No skater wants to leave the competitive world with regrets so who are we to judge Mao’s decision to continue in spite of physical difficulties? With Yuzuru absent due to influenza, most fans attended the competition to see Mao and it was obvious just counting the number of flowers that were thrown on the ice for her compared to the other skaters.

Redemption from Kanako Murakami, who is also nearing the end of her career but managed to deliver the first clean FS she’s skated in ages. That’s all she wanted from this competition, she got it, and she awarded the audience with her signature Kanako Smile.

Painful competition for Haruka Imai, former Japanese Jr National Champion and 4th at the 2014 4CC. No GP assignments this season, she was plagued by inflammation of her hips and knees but she fought to land the 3Lz and 3F. This was also the first time we got to see one of her new programs (the FS, which is Primavera by Einaudi) and she’s still beautiful to watch.

SHOMA UNO & CO.

It was kind of depressing to watch the men’s event this year because only a couple of years ago it was the fiercest event at Nationals. Keiji Tanaka seized his chance to grab onto the silver medal while Takahito Mura’s bronze was (once again) useless - as harsh as it sounds. Shoma wasn’t at his best here but he showed that he learned a new lesson (tag a 3T to a different jump if you screw up one of your planned combos!!) and he came out of this alive and well. The added pressure of having to “live up to expectations” in the absence of Olympic King Zuzu was another thing he suddenly had to put up with (good job Fuji). But there’s an old saying; “better here than at Worlds”.

CONTROVERSIES

While Satoko and Shoma are the tiniest champions Japan has ever had, they’re also the most criticized. They both have to skate under the shadows of two skating giants, Mao and Yuzuru, who have hoards of fans. Among those hoards of fans there are ubers, people who have made a habit out of bashing their favorite skaters’ successors. In Japan there already are Mao ubers whose jobs are to tear Satoko apart and the disease has long spread worldwide. You can see it on forums, you can see it on comment sections of YouTube videos, you can even hear it on television (looking at you Simon Reed). People who write passive-aggressive, sarcastic remarks, calling Satoko names and whatnot. Shoma gets similar (though mellower) treatment from overseas fans, but not from Japanese fans, possibly due to the fact that he’s a Daisuke Takahashi fan so most of Dai’s fans are now supporting him.

These two young skaters (and not only) deserve all the support in the world. It’s not easy to become Japan’s supporting pillar and leading lady after the great Mao Asada, but Satoko is doing an incredible job. Appreciate more, bash less. Don’t let the judges cloud your judgement. There’s also a massive amount of PR in figure skating; Mao has so many sponsors you can see her in commercials, you can see fluff videos about her because that’s what the general audience wants. She’s been advertised as a child prodigy (which she was) and people consider her part of their family. Satoko doesn’t benefit from that kind of treatment so people tend to be cold and judgmental towards her because she’s nothing compared to Mao-chan (oh dear those jumps, oh dear the way she bends her knee, oh dear her face).

Recently Marin Honda has been getting the “heir of Mao” treatment, getting sponsorship from JAL, shooting CMs for Ghana and stuff. I feel like I have to point out the fact that all of her siblings, including herself, are managed by a hugely influential management company. If you’re into Japanese entertainment, you might have heard of it. It’s called Oscar Promotion and it’s a talent agency whose famous names include actresses Emi Takei, Aya Ueto and Ayame Gouriki. She’s been promoted and modeled by a talent agency since she was a young child so she’s an expert at working with the camera, the audience and the reporters. As a result she’s also been gathering - well, pretty scary fans who are downright infatuated with her and will start arguments if you dare criticize her. Similar to idol group fans, I’d say.

But this is figure skating and crack commentaries aside we’re talking about real, young people with feelings who are training every day from dawn till dusk, who get injured, who sacrifice their childhood and adolescence. We’re also talking about real fans behind the computer screen who like who they like and no one person is entitled to criticize or ridicule the things that make them happy. At the same time, no one is entitled to attack fans who criticize your favorite skater(s) as long as they bring valid arguments and they’re polite about it. And no one is entitled to attack another fan whose way of seeing or perceiving things is either more or less intense than yours. Be nice to each other. #PEACE

#Yuzuru Hanyu #Mao Asada #Satoko Miyahara #Shoma Uno #figure skating

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shootingforthosestars · 8 years ago

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A must-read.

Excerpts from the report by Philip Rucker and Robert Costa, posted Mon Jan 30th 2017 (emphasis is mine)...

The author of many of Trump’s executive orders is senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, a Sessions confidant who was mentored by him and who spent the weekend overseeing the government’s implementation of the refugee ban.

The tactician turning Trump’s agenda into law is deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn, Sessions’s longtime chief of staff in the Senate.

The mastermind behind Trump’s incendiary brand of populism is chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who, as chairman of the Breitbart website, promoted Sessions for years.

Then there is Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who considers Sessions a savant and forged a bond with the senator while orchestrating Trump’s trip last summer to Mexico City and during the darkest days of the campaign.

Sessions’s connections extend into the White House media briefing room, where press secretary Sean Spicer took the first question at his Jan. 24 briefing from a journalist at LifeZette, a conservative website run by Laura Ingraham, a Trump supporter and populist in the Sessions mold. The website’s senior editor is Garrett Murch, a former communications adviser to Sessions.

Another link: Julia Hahn, a Breitbart writer who favorably chronicled Sessions’s immigration crusades over the past two years, was hired by Bannon to be one of his White House aides.

In an email in response to a request from The Washington Post, Bannon described Sessions as “the clearinghouse for policy and philosophy” in Trump’s administration, saying he and the senator are at the center of Trump’s “pro-America movement” and the global nationalist phenomenon.

“In America and Europe, working people are reasserting their right to control their own destinies,” Bannon wrote. “Jeff Sessions has been at the forefront of this movement for years, developing populist nation-state policies that are supported by the vast and overwhelming majority of Americans, but are poorly understood by cosmopolitan elites in the media that live in a handful of our larger cities.”

He continued: “Throughout the campaign, Sessions has been the fiercest, most dedicated, and most loyal promoter in Congress of Trump’s agenda, and has played a critical role as the clearinghouse for policy and philosophy to undergird the implementation of that agenda. What we are witnessing now is the birth of a new political order, and the more frantic a handful of media elites become, the more powerful that new political order becomes itself.”

* * * * *

“Sessions helped devise the president’s first-week strategy, in which Trump signed a blizzard of executive orders that begin to fulfill his signature campaign promises — although Sessions had advocated going even faster.”

The senator lobbied for a “shock-and-awe” period of executive action that would rattle Congress, impress Trump’s base and catch his critics unaware, according to two officials involved in the transition planning. Trump opted for a slightly slower pace, these officials said, because he wanted to maximize news coverage by spreading out his directives over several weeks.

Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House and informal Trump adviser, said, “Sessions is the person who is comfortable being an outsider to the establishment but able to explain the establishment to Trump. There is this New York-Los Angeles bias that if you sound like Alabama, you can’t be all that bright, but that’s totally wrong, and Trump recognized how genuinely smart Sessions is.”

#jeff sessions #trump administration #trump news #alabama #news #us news #us politics #conservative movement #GOP #republicans #steve bannon #new world order #shadow government #deep state #steve bannon is part of the deep state #true story #today in holy shit

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mastcomm · 5 years ago

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Coronavirus Live Updates: China Changes Diagnosis Criteria, Resulting in Confusion

China again alters the methodology for counting coronavirus cases, as death toll rises to 2,118.

For the second time in a week, China on Thursday changed its criteria for confirming coronavirus cases, throwing into confusion the methodology that the country at the heart of the outbreak uses to track transmissions and resulting in a dramatic decrease in new infections.

The new criteria exclude patients from Hubei Province, the hardest-hit area of the outbreak, who are diagnosed using clinical methods, including CT scans and an assessment of symptoms. Instead, patients there would be counted as having contracted the virus only when confirmed by a specialized nucleic acid test.

Using the new criteria, officials in the province on Thursday recorded 349 new cases in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total national figures to 74,576. New deaths rose by 114 on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to 2,118.

In its sixth iteration of a diagnosis regime, the government said it would differentiate between “suspected” and “confirmed” cases from now on. Cases would only be considered confirmed after genetic testing.

Such tests are notoriously difficult to conduct and the results are often wrong. It takes at least two days to process the results of the test.

The change has caused confusion among public health experts, who said it is now extra difficult to track the outbreak in China.

“For an epidemiologist, it’s really frustrating when case definitions keep on changing,” said Benjamin Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong. “Why can’t they work out what’s a probable, suspected and confirmed case? It’s totally confusing.”

Last week, the government switched to counting cases based on diagnoses made in clinical settings, including scanning patients’ lungs, in an effort to more quickly isolate and treat patients.

Updated Feb. 10, 2020

What is a Coronavirus? It is a novel virus named for the crown-like spikes that protrude from its surface. The coronavirus can infect both animals and people, and can cause a range of respiratory illnesses from the common cold to more dangerous conditions like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.

How contagious is the virus? According to preliminary research, it seems moderately infectious, similar to SARS, and is possibly transmitted through the air. Scientists have estimated that each infected person could spread it to somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 people without effective containment measures.

How worried should I be? While the virus is a serious public health concern, the risk to most people outside China remains very low, and seasonal flu is a more immediate threat.

Who is working to contain the virus? World Health Organization officials have praised China’s aggressive response to the virus by closing transportation, schools and markets. This week, a team of experts from the W.H.O. arrived in Beijing to offer assistance.

What if I’m traveling? The United States and Australia are temporarily denying entry to noncitizens who recently traveled to China and several airlines have canceled flights.

How do I keep myself and others safe? Washing your hands frequently is the most important thing you can do, along with staying at home when you’re sick.

As a result, however, the country may have overcounted cases because lung scans are an imperfect means to diagnose patients. Even patients with ordinary seasonal flu may develop pneumonia visible on a lung scan.

Japan records deaths of two passengers who had been aboard a quarantined cruise ship.

Two passengers from the cruise ship quarantined in Japan have died after contracting the new coronavirus, the first deaths among the more than 600 people on board who have been infected, a Japanese health ministry official said on Thursday.

The two people, both Japanese, were an 87-year-old man and an 84-year-old woman, the Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. They were taken to hospitals on Feb. 11 and 12, and both had underlying health issues, the broadcaster said. No other information about them was immediately available.

Hundreds of passengers have begun disembarking from the ship, the Diamond Princess, after Japan declared the two-week quarantine over, even as cases of the virus on the vessel have continued to rise.

The authorities have said they are releasing only people who have tested negative for the virus and are showing no symptoms. But experts on infectious diseases have pointed to deficiencies in the quarantine protocols on the ship and questioned the decision to let them go free.

The first coronavirus patient in the United States has recovered.

A 35-year-old man from Washington State who last month became the first confirmed coronavirus patient in the United States has made a full recovery, health officials in Snohomish County, Wash., said on Wednesday.

Since his discharge from the hospital about three weeks ago, the man has remained at home and in isolation at the request of local health officials. He was supplied with groceries, and on Valentine’s Day was given a cupcake.

But after consulting with state and federal officials, the Snohomish Health District concluded that it was safe to release him from all restrictions.

“He is now considered fully recovered and free to go about his regular activities,” Snohomish officials said in a statement. “We cannot thank him enough for his patience and cooperation throughout the entire process.”

The man tested positive for the virus after returning to his home in Snohomish County, Wash., after visiting family in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak. He was admitted to an isolation unit at Providence Regional Medical Center, where his condition worsened before improving.

Nine days after his symptoms started, an X-ray revealed pneumonia, according to a description of his case published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He received an experimental antiviral drug called remdesivir on a compassionate basis, which the Food and Drug Administration allows for drugs not yet federally approved.

U.S.-China relations were already fraying. The outbreak has damaged them further.

The coronavirus epidemic has become the latest and potentially most divisive issue driving apart the United States and China. For the fiercest critics of China within the Trump administration, panic over the coronavirus has provided a new opening to denounce the rule of the Communist Party, which they say cannot be trusted.

But the hard-liners’ message has been undermined at times by President Trump, who has publicly commended President Xi Jinping’s handling of the crisis and even called for greater commercial ties, including the sale of jet engines to China.

“Look,’’ Mr. Trump said on Tuesday, “I know this: President Xi loves the people of China, he loves his country, and he’s doing a very good job with a very, very tough situation.”

It has become a staple of the Trump administration: sending mixed messages that reflect a good-cop-bad-cop tactic, a real internal disagreement over policy or simply the caprice of the president. But over all, the most hawkish voices on China have dominated the conversation, lashing out at Beijing as it reels from one challenge after another — a trade war with Washington, protests in Hong Kong and now the struggle to contain the coronavirus.

Mr. Trump’s conciliatory comments this week might be an effort to defuse tensions and keep the U.S. economy humming as he faces re-election. That approach is backed by a pro-trade faction led by Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, which advocates close ties between the world’s two largest economies.

Whether it is because of the assertiveness of the hard-liners, the ambiguities fueled by the competing messages or Beijing’s policies, the relationship between the United States and China has become so strained and unpredictable that even the need for a united effort to address a global health crisis has not overcome the suspicions that have increasingly taken root on both sides.

Reporting and research was contributed by Russell Goldman, Sui-Lee Wee, Steven Lee Myers, Elaine Yu, Tiffany May, Edward Wong, Makiko Inoue and Eimi Yamamitsu.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/event/coronavirus-live-updates-china-changes-diagnosis-criteria-resulting-in-confusion/

#Event

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blockheadbrands · 6 years ago

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Meet Representative Earl Blumenauer, the Biggest Legalization Advocate in Congress

Nick Kazden of High Times Reports:

Congressman Earl Blumenauer won’t stop until legalization is accomplished.

Marijuana legalization has been a long, uphill battle, but Representative Earl Blumenauer is positive things will only improve from here.

“I know for a fact that this is the most pro-cannabis Congress in history,” the Portland-based legislator said over the phone. “It’s going to continue.”

The Democratic representative for Oregon’s third district since 1996, Blumenauer is a lifelong public servant who has fought for legalization since his time in the state legislature and Portland City Council. A state legislator fresh out of college when Oregon became the first state to decriminalize marijuana in 1973, Blumenauer points to those early debates as foundational for his long standing outlook on the issue.

“I became firmly convinced then as a part of the debate’s research that the failed policy of prohibition of marijuana was ill-advised and unfair and made no sense. It’s something I have continued to work on, it’s an issue I have felt strongly about in Congress.”

At 70 years old, Blumenauer is the fiercest advocate for marijuana in Congress. Assisting nearly 90 candidates throughout the 2018 campaign season, he has become a source of information for those curious about the substance’s current legal standing and future legislative opportunities. The bow-tie loving Congressman may represent one of the safest Democratic districts in the country, but he understands the importance of working across the aisle to end the federal government’s restrictive outlook on weed.

Blumenauer is a co-founder and co-chair of the Cannabis Caucus, a bipartisan group that works to narrow the cannabis policy gap and support other members of Congress with their legalization proposals. Originally established in 2017, the Cannabis Caucus is now co-chaired by Democrats Blumenauer and Barbara Lee (CA-13) as well as Republicans David Joyce (OH-14) and Don Young (AK), another co-founder. Blumenauer calls it a forum for members and staff “to exchange ideas and work together.”

When asked why legalization is often labeled a Democratic issue, Blumenauer blames President Nixon’s “blatantly political” War on Drugs. The restrictive, law enforcement heavy approach proceeded despite the lenient recommendations made in The Report of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. In Blumenauer’s view, the policies enabled the administration to “demonize people they perceived as their enemies, people of color and kids,” and that attitude set the tempo for the Republican party.

Even though the Congressman can point to numerous examples of Republican leadership torpedoing cannabis legislation, including his own amendments that would have made it easier for the Department of Veterans Affairs to access medical marijuana, he believes federal legalization is becoming an increasingly non-partisan issue.

“We work with Republicans,” Blumenauer said of his ongoing efforts. “All our legislation we work to have bipartisan support to give them another chance, but I think the reason it’s been perceived as something more oriented towards Democrats is Republicans have been on the wrong side of this issue.”

Countering the narrative that marijuana is a gateway drug, the Congressman pointed out that states with legal medical marijuana have fewer opiate deathsper year. Furthermore, he believes that the current system has made it easier for black markets to thrive and target young customers, with dealers often introducing new products as a way to diversify their selection and retain their clientele.

“Having a failed policy of trying to suppress cannabis, failing to regulate, tax and educate, is key to having a thriving black market,” Blumenauer said. “I’ve been campaigning all over the country for years on this and I’ve never been any place where people felt that a young person had a harder time getting a joint than a six-pack of beer.”

To assist his allies in the 116th Congress, Blumenauer released a memo laying out a multi-pronged approach to achieving legalization. With Democrats firmly in control of the House for the first time since the 2010 elections, Blumenauer wants to see a number of different committees hold hearings related to marijuana policy. He even introduced his own bill, the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act, aptly designated H.R. 420, in January.

The Financial Services Committee, chaired by Maxine Waters (CA-43), was recently approved by the House Financial Services Committee. If signed into law, the bill would allow businesses and individuals associated with the legal cannabis industry to use federal banks, allowing them to safely deposit their cash and access expanded lines of credit.

“The problems surrounding denying the state-legal cannabis industry access to banking services is so ludicrous on its face if you care about money laundering, or theft, or tax evasion,” Blumenauer said of his support for the bill. “This is going to be evolutionary.”

Of critical importance to the Congressman are issues related to social justice, like expunging criminal records and performing acts of restorative justice, to make it easier for communities who were impacted by prohibition to benefit from the legal changes.

“Being able to give them a clean slate, give them an opportunity to participate in a growing economic sector, is important. [The marijuana industry is] going to be bigger than the N.F.L. in a few years and I think that’s going to be an important conversation that we’re going to have more attention on.”

As Congress hums along, the early days of the 2020 campaign have also brought renewed attention to the issue with multiple candidates talking about their former use and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) reintroducing the Marijuana Justice Act. No matter what happens in 2020, Blumenauer isn’t ambiguous about his beliefs for the future as more states get behind legalization of some form.

“Let me just state unequivocally: there will never be another president elect who’s anti-cannabis. It will not happen.”

Of the nine states that had legalization measures on the ballot in 2016, including swing states like Florida and Nevada, cannabis often received a higher percentage of votes than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, meaning it has become a nonpartisan issue as far as the electorate is concerned. 2016 even saw medical marijuana breach the Bible Belt with the passage of Arkansas’ Issue 6, breaking the seal for neighboring states to develop their own medical industries in the coming years.

It’s a bit of an understatement to say that Blumenauer is optimistic about where things are headed. Sure, someone may rise up and become the new Pete Sessions, a fiery anti-marijuana Republican who Blumenauer referred to as “public enemy number one” in Congress, but with the debate finally moving towards substantial policy questions that’s not what Blumenauer’s focused on.

“There may be a few other people who are there, but I think in the main, it’s highly unlikely that people are going to run out there and lift this banner and crusade against this,” Bluenauer theorized. “We’ll be ready if they do, but I think it’s much less likely.”

TO READ MORE OF THIS ARTICLE ON HIGH TIMES, CLICK HERE.

https://hightimes.com/news/politics/meet-representative-earl-blumenauer-biggest-legalization-advocate-congress/

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