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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

A Mean Life: Donald Trump And The Purpose Of Politics

NEW YORK — In October 1980, in his first major interview on network television, Donald Trump sat on a couch in his Fifth Avenue apartment discussing the tough decisions he had made as a builder. (“Rona Barrett Looks at Today’s Super Rich” would air the following year.) Then the 34-year-old Trump abruptly turned the casual interview into something more controversial: a lecture on the lack of leadership in the United States. Gas prices were soaring, and inflation was rampant. More than four dozen Americans who had been kidnapped from the U.S. Embassy in Iran were being held hostage while, according […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Melania Trump, A Journey Home To Untangle Her Slovenian Roots

A road trip and reflections from another New York-based Slovenian on a visit back to the homeland of the once Melanija Knavs, who could be the next American first lady.

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Eyes on the U.S. Society

In American Heartland, Swiss Amish Carry On Yodeling Tradition

The Swiss Amish in the United States are keeping alive a vocal art passed down from their ancestors in Switzerland and eastern France. Both a symbol of identity and entertainment, yodeling was also a source of inspiration for American country music.

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Eyes on the U.S.

Dallas Police, A Model Of Improvement Was Targeted Anyway

A sad bit of irony to the deadly assault on police Thursday night is that the Dallas police department had made great strides in reducing cases of excessive use of force.

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Eyes on the U.S.

Guns And Gays After Orlando, Meet The Pink Pistols

PHILADELPHIA — Try as he might, Tom Nelson just could not get any other gay people to the gun range. For the past four years he sent out email invitations to a local mailing list for Pink Pistols, a shooting group that encourages members of the LGBT community to carry concealed firearms. Then, on the third Sunday of each month, he would head to a gun club in the Philadelphia area and wait. Nobody ever showed. “It’s been very lonely out there,” said Nelson, a 71-year-old retiree who continued to make the trek lest his own shooting skills deteriorate. Nelson […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Food / Travel

Las Vegas, How Global Finances Are Burning Sin City

Ever since the financial crisis, casinos have been losing money. To survive, Las Vegas must lose its reputation as a place good only for gambling, boozing and prostitution.

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Eyes on the U.S. Ideas

Divided We Stand: Why Orlando Hurts Three Times More

Three of the most contentious questions in American culture and politics — gay rights, gun control and terrorism — collided in a horrific way in an Orlando nightclub early Sunday. It is not entirely clear what inspired Omar Mateen to commit the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, or what might have been done to stop it. But it happened in a gay club, just two weeks shy of the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, and on a weekend when cities across the country, including Washington, were holding gay pride festivals. It was perpetrated […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

Orlando Shooting, 16 Front Pages From Newspapers Around The World

A day after an attack at a popular gay club in Orlando, Florida killed 50 people and wounded 53, international front pages Monday are mourning the victims of the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Here’s how newspapers from 10 different countries covered the attack: UNITED STATES New York Times Chicago Tribune NY […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Clinton Makes History. My Generation, With No Sense of History, Doesn’t Care

A millennial explains why her peers aren’t excited about the likely first female major-party nominee for U.S. president

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

From Caracas To Pyongyang, Endorsing U.S. Candidates From Abroad

If foreign endorsements are any reflection of the quality of the U.S. presidential campaign, we are most certainly doomed. Democrat Bernie Sanders, who is facing a do-or-die party primary in California on June 7, got the helpful support of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The Latin American leader, himself facing angry calls for his ouster, has […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Ideas Trump And The World

Trump Is Not The Problem — I Blame My Fellow Americans

-OpEd- WASHINGTON — What word comes to mind when you see the name Donald Trump? For some people, it might be “anger,” since he provokes it and stokes it. For others, it might be “ignorance,” since he knows so little and, like many unburdened by knowledge, is untroubled by facts. Some might say “fear,” since it would take some scary police tactics to push 11 million people over the border to Mexico. For me, none of those words suffices. I would say “betrayal.” It is the word that comes to mind almost on a nightly basis when I see some […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

From Hiroshima To Iraq, America’s Long History Of Not Apologizing

This week, President Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, the Japanese city that the United States nearly destroyed with a nuclear bomb in 1945. While the bombing is estimated to have killed as many as 150,000 people, Obama is not expected to apologize during his visit. It’s reasonable to ask, after more than 70 years, why not apologize for Hiroshima? One well-worn argument is that the bombing of the city (and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki that followed) was morally justifiable as it was the quickest way to end World War II — a conflict […]

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Eyes on the U.S.

History Lessons For Trump: When America Feared German Immigrants

Donald Trump’s ancestors left Germany for the U.S. with dreams of a better life. They faced longstanding fears about the “Germanization” of America.

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Eyes on the U.S.

What Citizen Kane Tells Us About Donald Trump

Are there clues to Donald Trump’s rise in the celluloid figure of Citizen Kane? It may be that the Orson Welles classic also points to the limits of the billionaire candidate.

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Eyes on the U.S. Future Society

At A Texas Body Farm, Studying The Decay Of Donated Corpses

American forensics researchers place human corpses in so-called “body farms” to study their decomposition for a variety of sometimes surprising reasons.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics Trump And The World

Yes He Can! An Astonished World Reacts To Trump’s Republican Victory

A brash yellow-haired billionaire with no political experience and a willingness to spew racism and sexism is now virtually guaranteed to be the Republican party nominee for president. Donald Trump, mes amis, is huuuge front-page news around the world: Le Monde, France The Times, UK Dagens Nyheter, Denmark Trump’s victory in the Indiana primary on […]

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Economy Eyes on the U.S.

A Yogurt Story, When Immigrant Dreams Feed American Capitalism

Twenty years ago, Hamdi Ulukaya, a Kurdish shepherd born in Turkey, grew tired of eating nothing but yogurt, so he came down from the mountains to seek his fortune in New York. For 10 years, he lived the hard life of an immigrant, and over time, came to miss the very yogurt he had once […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

GMO Arctic Apples, Only The TTIP Of The Iceberg

Health, science, business and consumer rights are driving major differences between the U.S. and the EU in the most far-reaching trade negotiations in history.

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

How The 2016 Campaign Has Rewritten Debate On Economics

-Analysis- PARIS — It all adds up to a major mea culpa. For the most prominent economists, the U.S. presidential campaign feels like an act of contrition. Yes, we were wrong about the virtues of global free trade. No, French philosopher Montesquieu’s beloved doux commerce (“gentle commerce”) thesis wasn’t necessarily a win-win recipe for all. […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Ideas Trump And The World

Why Hillary Clinton Can Count On Bernie Sanders

-Analysis- WASHINGTON — Eight years ago, I spent an election night in a basement gymnasium in Manhattan, watching Hillary Clinton and her campaign advisers take up residence in a parallel universe. It was June 3, 2008, and Barack Obama had just clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, making official a victory that had seemed inevitable for months. But Terry McAuliffe, then the campaign chairman and emcee of this Clinton “victory” party, recited a list of Clinton’s primary wins and introduced her as “the next president of the United States.” Clinton that night made no mention of her defeat, boasting that she […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

For A Damaged Hillary Clinton, Now What?

Though her victory in New York nearly assures a path to the Democratic nominee, the stature of the former Secretary of State has been weakened in her battle with Bernie Sanders. How does she adjust for November?

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Deconstructing The Sexist American Animus Toward Hillary Clinton

A Polish commentator notes that despite Clinton’s fitness for the job, many see her presidential ambitions through a bigoted lens. She’s not just a woman, but one who doesn’t know her place.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics Ideas

For Latin America, Obama Will Leave A Major Legacy

Barack Obama’s recent trip to Cuba and Argentina are the crowning achievement on his administration’s efforts to consolidate peaceful ties with and among Latin American countries.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics Society Trump And The World

The United Divided States Of America

DETROIT — To reach the heart of the matter in Michigan on a late-winter evening, navigate out of downtown Detroit and drive 20 miles north on Interstate 94, and continue for seven miles, the darkening way lit by the flickering yellowish glow of American commerce, until you reach yet another strip mall at the corner of Schoenherr Road. There, in a storefront headquarters stuck between Buy Buy Baby and Long Tall Sally, members of the Macomb County Republican Party emerge from the cold to watch their presidential candidates debate again on television. In the vast suburban landscape above Detroit, Macomb […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Ideas Trump And The World

U.S. Primaries Expose Crisis For Moderates On Both Right And Left

It’s not just Donald Trump …

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Eyes on the U.S. Ideas Trump And The World

U.S. Election 2016: Other Trumps, “Beautiful” Bernie, Bricks For The Wall

From Latin America to Europe, the Middle East and beyond, newspapers around the world have expressed a growing mix of dismay and contempt as Donald Trump continues to rack up victories in the Republican party presidential primaries. But as the American billionaire moves closer to the nomination, international journalists are widening their analysis to note […]

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Economy Eyes on the U.S. Society

Marketer’s Ruse: How To Foment Popularity

Restaurant, cell phone and clothes: People usually buy what others appear to want, so companies use the illusion of low supply to create new demand. But there are paradoxes to human instincts and desires.

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Eyes on the U.S. Society

Serpico, Iconic Cop Whistleblower On Snowden And Ferguson

At 79, Frank Serpico, the former New York police whistleblower immortalized by Al Pacino is still a rebel at heart, as cranky and idealistic as ever.

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Eyes on the U.S.

Expat Voters — Will They Start To Matter In 2016?

WASHINGTON — In November 1968, a young Rhodes Scholar by the name of Bill Clinton was “mad as hell,” as he told a friend back in Arkansas in a letter penned from Oxford University. Clinton’s absentee ballot hadn’t arrived in time for him to cast his vote for the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, who lost […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Donald Trump, International Media Darling-Devil

As he rewrites America’s political and media playbook, Donald Trump has also now moved swiftly to the center of the worldwide stage. Wins this week in seven of the 11 states holding primaries put the flamboyant billionaire one big step closer to the Republican nomination — and the world’s newspapers and magazines are dedicating ample […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Donald Trump, The Snowballing Strangelove Effect

WASHINGTON — As the sun rose on Super Tuesday, the D.C. in-crowd still didn’t fully grasp the power of Donald Trump’s message. Elites bemoan The Donald at cocktail parties and take comfort in calling Trump supporters uneducated. But while the Republican Party plunges into civil war, Trump keeps expanding his base. (He won seven of the 11 states with primaries on Tuesday.) Many readers would probably be stunned by some of the people who are secretly supporting Trump but don’t want to admit it on the record. His coalition includes not just rock-ribbed conservatives and God-fearing evangelicals, but also Ivy […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Future

Germany Asks: Is Zuckerberg Criminally Liable For Facebook Hate Speech?

Two German lawyers say the Facebook founder and CEO doesn’t do enough to stop hate speech.

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

U.S. Election 2016: Trump, Le Pen, Millennial-Bashing Down Under

PARIS — Generational and gender debates rumbling inside the U.S. Democratic primary are setting off sparks as far away as Mexico and Australia. In an open letter to young women backing Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the Sydney Morning Herald‘s Julie Szego scolds such millenials for suffering from wide-eyed naïveté. “From the ‘safe spaces’ on […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Ideas Trump And The World

Confused And Angry, How U.S. Voters Look In Latin America

BOGOTA — The U.S. presidential elections have left the two main parties stunned. Amid acrid debates filled with harsh words and the insolence of one billionaire candidate, raw emotions have turned out to be more potent than any substantial solutions proposed by the candidates for their country. Faced with the populism of the tycoon Donald […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Ideas

With Greed For Money, China And U.S. Walk Hand In Hand

-Essay- NEW YORK — A short news flash in early October 2014 made me shoot out of my comfortable chair. For no particular reason, I felt that the news of a Chinese insurer buying the Waldorf Astoria, the world’s most prestigious hotel, was important. For me, it was as big as when the Chinese bought […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics Ideas Trump And The World

The Importance Of Obama, For Both Bernie And Hillary

As Republicans mercilessly attack the sitting president, Democratic hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton should remember that ambivalence never wins elections.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics Ideas

Plan Colombia, A 15-Year Scam Of Yankee Imperialism

Plan Colombia was never the aid program touted by leaders in Washington and Bogota. But it proved to be excellent business for arms dealers and other shady characters.

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

U.S. Election 2016: Trump On Paris, Iran On Beltway, Spain On Sanders

Donald Trump has met his egomaniacal match in Serbian nationalist politician Vojislav Seselj, who boasted that his far-flung support for Trump could be decisive in the U.S. presidential campaign. “I am convinced that all Serbs who live in America will vote for him, also many other Americans who appreciate my political views and the ideology […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Iowa-To-New Hampshire, Through The Eyes Of Foreign Media

Marco Rubio emerges as the international media’s aspirational GOP nominee.

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Economy Eyes on the U.S.

American Banking Hegemony, A View From Europe

More than eight years after the beginning of the financial crisis, U.S. banking groups are dominating the financial world more than ever. This leadership has technical, political and legal grounds. But it also relies on one quintessentially American quali

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