Comments by "Stella Maris" (@SuperGreatSphinx) on "CNN"
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White nationalism is a type of nationalism (or pan-nationalism) which holds the belief that all white people constitute a single race, and which seeks to develop and maintain a single white national identity.
Its proponents identify with and are attached to the concept of a white nation.
White nationalists seek to ensure the survival of the white race, and the cultures of historically white states.
White nationalists hold that white people should maintain their numerical majority in majority-white countries, should maintain their political and economic dominance, and that their culture(s) should be celebrated and protected.
Many white nationalists believe that miscegenation, multiculturalism, the immigration of nonwhite people, and low birth rates among whites are threatening the existence of the white race, and some argue that all of these factors together amount to a form of white genocide.
White separatism and white supremacy are subgroups of white nationalism.
Separatists seek a white-only state; supremacists believe that white people are superior to nonwhite people, borrowing many ideas from Social Darwinism and Nazism.
Both subgroups generally avoid the term "supremacy" because it has negative connotations.
Critics argue that the term "white nationalism" and ideas such as white pride exist solely to provide a sanitized public face for white supremacy, and that most white nationalist groups promote racial violence.
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California is a U.S. state in the Pacific Region of the United States.
With 39.5 million residents, California is the most populous state in the United States and the third largest by area.
The state capital is Sacramento.
The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 8.8 million residents respectively.
Los Angeles is California's most populous city, and the country's second-most populous, after New York City.
California also has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County; its largest county by area, San Bernardino County; and its fifth most densely populated county, San Francisco.
California's $2.8 trillion economy is larger than that of any other state.
If it were a country, California would be the 5th largest economy in the world (larger than the U.K. or France), and the 36th most populous as of 2017.
The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies ($1.253 trillion and $878 billion respectively as of 2017), after the New York City metropolitan area.
The San Francisco Bay Area PSA had the nation's highest GDP per capita in 2017 (~$99,000), and is home to four of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people.
California is considered a global trendsetter in popular culture, innovation, and politics.
It is considered the origin of the American film industry, the hippie counterculture, the Internet, and the personal computer, among others.
The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and entertainment industries, respectively.
California has a very diverse economy: 58% of the state's economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services.
Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.S. state.
California is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and the Mexican state of Baja California to the south.
The state's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east, and from the redwood–Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast.
The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center.
Although California is well-known for its warm Mediterranean climate, the large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains.
What is now California was first settled by various Native Californian tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony.
The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its successful war for independence but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War.
The western portion of Alta California then was organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850.
The California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom.
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China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the world's most populous country, with a population of around 1.404 billion.
Covering approximately 9,600,000 square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area, depending on the source consulted.
China also has the most neighbor countries in the world.
Governed by the Communist Party of China, it exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
China emerged as one of the world's earliest civilizations, in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain.
For millennia, China's political system was based on hereditary monarchies, or dynasties, beginning with the semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE.
Since then, China has expanded, fractured, and re-unified numerous times.
In the 3rd century BCE, the Qin unified the core of China and established the first Chinese empire.
The succeeding Han dynasty saw some of the most advanced technology at that time, including papermaking and the compass, along with agricultural and medical improvements.
The invention of gunpowder and printing in the Tang dynasty completed the Four Great Inventions.
Tang culture spread widely in Asia, as the new maritime Silk Route brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and Somalia.
Dynastic rule ended in 1912 with the Xinhai Revolution, as a republic replaced the Qing dynasty.
The Chinese Civil War led to the break up of the country in 1949, with the victorious Communist Party of China founding the People’s Republic of China on the mainland while the losing Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan, a dispute which is still unresolved.
Since the introduction of economic reforms in 1978, China's economy has been one of the world's fastest-growing.
As of 2016, it is the world's second-largest economy by nominal GDP and largest by purchasing power parity (PPP).
China is also the world's largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods.
China is a recognized nuclear weapons state and has the world's largest standing army and second-largest defense budget.
The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the UN Security Council in 1971.
China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BCIM and the G20.
China is a great power and a major regional power within Asia, and has been characterized as a potential superpower.
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Korea is a region in East Asia.
Since 1948, it has been divided between two distinct sovereign states: North Korea and South Korea.
Korea consists of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and several minor islands near the peninsula.
Korea is bordered by China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and neighbours Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
Korea emerged as a singular political entity in 676 AD, after centuries of conflict among the Three Kingdoms of Korea, which were unified as Unified Silla to the south and Balhae to the north.
Unified Silla divided into three separate states during the Later Three Kingdoms period.
Goryeo, which had succeeded Goguryeo, defeated the two other states and united the Korean Peninsula.
Around the same time, Balhae collapsed and its last crown prince fled south to Goryeo.
Goryeo (also spelled as Koryŏ), whose name developed into the modern exonym "Korea", was a highly cultured state that created the world's first metal movable type in 1234.
However, multiple invasions by the Mongol Empire during the 13th century greatly weakened the nation, which eventually agreed to become a vassal state after decades of fighting.
Following military resistance under King Gongmin which ended Mongol political influence in Goryeo, severe political strife followed, and Goryeo eventually fell to a coup led by General Yi Seong-gye, who established Joseon in 1392.
The first 200 years of Joseon were marked by relative peace.
During this period, the Korean alphabet was created by Sejong the Great in the 15th century, and there was increasing influence of Confucianism.
During the later part of the dynasty, Korea's isolationist policy earned it the Western nickname of the "Hermit Kingdom".
By the late 19th century, the country became the object of imperial design by the Empire of Japan.
After the First Sino-Japanese War, despite the Korean Empire's effort to modernize, it was annexed by Japan in 1910 and ruled by Imperial Japan until the end of World War II in August 1945.
In 1945, the Soviet Union and the United States agreed on the surrender of Japanese forces in Korea in the aftermath of World War II, leaving Korea partitioned along the 38th parallel.
The North was under Soviet occupation and the South under U.S. occupation.
These circumstances soon became the basis for the division of Korea by the two superpowers, exacerbated by their inability to agree on the terms of Korean independence.
The Communist-inspired government in the North received backing from the Soviet Union in opposition to the pro-Western government in the South, leading to Korea's division into two political entities: North Korea (officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea), and South Korea (officially the Republic of Korea).
Tensions between the two resulted in the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950.
With involvement by foreign troops, the war ended in a stalemate in 1953, but without a formalized peace treaty.
This status contributes to the high tensions that continue to divide the peninsula.
Both governments of the two Koreas claim to be the sole legitimate government of the region.
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Ellen Lee DeGeneres (born January 26, 1958) is an American comedian, television host, actress, writer, and producer.
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She starred in the sitcom Ellen from 1994 to 1998 and has hosted her syndicated TV talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, since 2003.
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Her stand-up career started in the early 1980s and included a 1986 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
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As a film actress, DeGeneres starred in Mr. Wrong (1996), EDtv (1999), and The Love Letter (1999), and provided the voice of Dory in the Pixar animated films Finding Nemo (2003) and Finding Dory (2016); for Nemo, she was awarded the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first time an actress won a Saturn Award for a voice performance.
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In 2010, she was a judge on American Idol for its ninth season.
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She starred in two television sitcoms, Ellen from 1994 to 1998 and The Ellen Show from 2001 to 2002.
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During the fourth season of Ellen in 1997, she came out as a lesbian in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
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Her character, Ellen Morgan, also came out to a therapist played by Winfrey, and the series went on to explore various LGBT issues, including the coming-out process.
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In 2008, she married her longtime girlfriend Portia de Rossi.
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DeGeneres has hosted the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, and the Primetime Emmys.
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She has authored four books and started her own record company, Eleveneleven, as well as a production company, A Very Good Production.
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She also launched a lifestyle brand, ED Ellen DeGeneres, which comprises a collection of apparel, accessories, home, baby, and pet items.
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She has won 30 Emmys, 20 People's Choice Awards (more than any other person), and numerous other awards for her work and charitable efforts.
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In 2016, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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On January 5, 2020, DeGeneres won the Golden Globes Carol Burnett Lifetime Achievement Award.
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Saudi Arabia–United States relations refers to the bilateral relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America.
It is a Special Relationship, which began in 1933 when full diplomatic relations were established.
Despite the differences between the two countries—an ultraconservative Islamic absolute monarchy, and a secular, constitutional republic—the two countries have been allies.
Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have close and strong relations with senior members of the Saudi Royal Family.
Ever since the modern US–Saudi relationship began in 1945, the United States has been willing to overlook many of the kingdom's more controversial aspects as long as it kept the oil flowing and supported U.S. national security policies.
Since World War II, the two countries have been allied in opposition to Communism, in support of stable oil prices, stability in the oil fields and oil shipping of the Persian Gulf, and stability in the economies of Western countries where Saudis have invested.
In particular, the two countries were allies against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and in the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait in 1991.
The two countries have been in disagreement with regard to the State of Israel, as well as the embargo of the U.S. and its allies by Saudi Arabia and other Middle East oil exporters during the 1973 oil crisis (which raised oil prices considerably), the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq (which Saudi Arabia opposed), aspects of the "War on Terror", and what many in the U.S. see as the pernicious influence of Saudi Arabia after the September 11 attacks.
In recent years, particularly the Barack Obama administration, the relationship between the two countries became strained and witnessed major decline.
However, the relationship was strengthened by President Donald Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia in May 2017, which was his first overseas trip since becoming President of the United States.
Despite the strong relationship between the two countries, opinion polls between the two nations show negative feelings between the American people and Saudi people in recent years, particularly American feelings towards the desert kingdom.
A poll of Saudis by Zogby International (2002) and BBC (between October 2005 and January 2006) found 51% of Saudis had hostile feelings towards the American people in 2002; in 2005/2006, Saudi public opinion was sharply divided with 38% viewing U.S. influence positively and 38% viewing U.S. influence negatively.
As of 2012, Saudi Arabian students form the 4th largest group of international students studying in the United States, representing 3.5% of all foreigners pursuing higher education in the US.
A December 2013 poll found 57% of Americans polled had an unfavorable view of Saudi Arabia and 27% favorable.
United States President Donald Trump met with the Saudi Government as a display of diplomacy and a political move for open trade on his visit to Ridyah on March 2018.
Reuters reports a 40 billion dollar commitment from the Saudi Government mediated through Black Stone Defense Company and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) for President Donald Trump's ambitious infrastructure plan.
In October 2018, the Jamal Khashoggi case put the US into a difficult situation, as Trump and his son-in-law (Jared Kushner) share a strong personal and official bond with Mohammad bin Salman.
During an interview, Trump vowed to get to the bottom of the case and that there would be "severe punishment" if the Saudi kingdom is found to be involved in the disappearance or assassination of the journalist.
A vexed reply came from the Saudi Foreign Ministry, saying if Saudi Arabia “receives any action, it will respond with greater action,” citing the oil-rich kingdom's “influential and vital role in the global economy.”
According to Turki Aldakhil, Saudi-owned news Channel, Al-Arabiya’s general manager, this clash between the two countries would have a direct effect on the world economy.
"If US sanctions are imposed on Saudi Arabia, we will be facing an economic disaster that would rock the entire world," Aldakhil said.
After weeks of denial, Saudi Arabia accepted that Khashoggi died at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul during a “fistfight.”
Adel al-Jubeir described the journalist's death as a "murder" and a "tremendous mistake."
But he denied the knowledge of whereabouts of the body.
Following the case, the US promised to revoke the visas of Saudi nationals responsible for Khashoggi's death.
In November 2018, Trump defended Saudi Arabia, despite the country’s involvement in the killing of Khashoggi.
Experts in the Middle East believe that Congress could still put sanctions on some Saudi officials and the crown prince.
However, even without the sanctions imposed, it is impossible for Mohammad bin Salman to visit Washington or have a direct relationship with the Trump administration.
However, in November 2018 relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia re-strengthened when Trump nominated John Abizaid, a retired US army general who spoke Arabic, respectively, as US ambassador to the country.
Saudi Arabia is listed as the world's 27th largest export economy.
Saudi Arabia has historically proven to be a successful harbor of trade, exemplified through statistics displaying a positive trade balance of nearly 32 billion dollars in 2016 ("Foreign Trade: Data").
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The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct.
He was obsolete.
But so is the State, the entity he worshiped.
Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody.
When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all.
Any state, any entity, any ideology which fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man... that state is obsolete.
A case to be filed under "M" for "Mankind" - in The Twilight Zone.
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The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the U.S. Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the Naval Special Warfare Command.
Among the SEALs' main functions are conducting small-unit special operation missions in maritime, jungle, urban, arctic, mountainous, and desert environments.
SEALs are typically ordered to capture or kill high level targets, or to gather intelligence behind enemy lines.
SEAL team personnel are hand selected, highly trained, and possess a high degree of proficiency in direct action (DA), and special reconnaissance (SR), among other tasks like sabotage, demolition, intelligence gathering, and hydro-graphic reconnaissance, training, and advising friendly militaries or other forces.
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Saul David Alinsky (January 30, 1909 – June 12, 1972) was an American community organizer and writer.
He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing.
He is often noted for his book Rules for Radicals (1971).
In the course of nearly four decades of political organizing, Alinsky received much criticism, but he also gained praise from many public figures.
His organizing skills were focused on improving the living conditions of poor communities across the United States.
In the 1950s, he began turning his attention to improving conditions in the black ghettos, beginning with Chicago's and later traveling to ghettos in California, Michigan, New York City, and a dozen other "trouble spots".
In the 1960s, his ideas were adapted by some U.S. college students and other young counterculture-era organizers, who used them as part of their strategies for organizing on campus and beyond.
In 1970, Time magazine wrote that "It is not too much to argue that American democracy is being altered by Alinsky's ideas."
Conservative author William F. Buckley Jr. said in 1966 that Alinsky was "very close to being an organizational genius".
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Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин; born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician serving as the current President of the Russian Federation since 7 May 2012, previously holding the position from 2000 until 2008.
He was Prime Minister of the Russian Federation from 1999 until 2000, and again from 2008 until 2012.
During his second term as Prime Minister, he was the chairman of the ruling United Russia party.
Putin was born in Leningrad in the Soviet Union.
He studied law at Leningrad State University, graduating in 1975.
Putin was a KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before retiring in 1991 to enter politics in Saint Petersburg.
He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration, rising quickly through the ranks and becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999, when Yeltsin resigned.
Putin won the 2000 presidential election by a 53% to 30% margin, thus avoiding a runoff with his Communist Party of the Russian Federation opponent, Gennady Zyuganov.
He was reelected President in 2004 with 72% of the vote.
During his first presidency, the Russian economy grew for eight straight years, and GDP measured in purchasing power increased by 72%.
The growth was a result of the 2000s commodities boom, high oil prices, and prudent economic and fiscal policies.
Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term in 2008.
The 2008 presidential election was won by Dmitry Medvedev, who appointed Putin as Prime Minister, the beginning of what some opponents considered to be a period of "tandemocracy".
In September 2011, after presidential terms were extended from four to six years, Putin announced he would seek a third term as president.
He won the March 2012 presidential election with 64% of the vote, a result which aligned with pre-election polling.
Falling oil prices coupled with international sanctions imposed at the beginning of 2014 after Russia's annexation of Crimea and military intervention in Eastern Ukraine led to GDP shrinking by 3.7% in 2015, though the Russian economy rebounded in 2016 with 0.3% GDP growth and is officially out of the recession.
Putin gained 76% of the March 2018 presidential vote, and was re-elected for a six-year term that will end in 2024.
Constitutional term limits prevent him from seeking the presidency again at that time.
Under Putin's leadership, Russia has scored poorly in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index and experienced democratic backsliding according to both the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index and Freedom House's Freedom in the World index (including a record low 20/100 rating in the 2017 Freedom in the World report, a rating not given since the time of the Soviet Union).
Western analysts no longer consider Russia to be a democracy.
Human rights organizations and activists have accused him of human rights violations and crackdowns on civil dissent or opposition as well as ordering assassinations of his critics and opponents; he has denied accusations of authoritarianism and human rights abuses.
Officials of the United States government have accused him of leading an interference program against Hillary Clinton in support of Donald Trump during the U.S. presidential election in 2016, which Putin has frequently denied and criticized.
Putin has enjoyed high domestic approval ratings during his career (mostly higher than 70%) and received extensive international attention as one of the world's most powerful leaders.
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Where will he go next, this phantom from another time, this resurrected ghost of a previous nightmare –
Chicago?
Los Angeles?
Miami, Florida?
Vincennes, Indiana?
Syracuse, New York?
Anyplace, everyplace, where there's hate, where there's prejudice, where there's bigotry.
He's alive.
He's alive so long as these evils exist.
Remember that when he comes to your town.
Remember it when you hear his voice speaking out through others.
Remember it when you hear a name called, a minority attacked, any blind, unreasoning assault on a people or any human being.
He's alive because through these things we keep him alive.
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Gloria Laura Vanderbilt (February 20, 1924 – June 17, 2019) was an American artist, author, actress, fashion designer, heiress, and socialite. She was a member of the Vanderbilt family of New York and the mother of CNN television anchor Anderson Cooper. During the 1930s, she was the subject of a high-profile child custody trial in which her mother, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, and her paternal aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, each sought custody of her and control over her trust fund. Called the "trial of the century" by the press, the court proceedings were the subject of wide and sensational press coverage due to the wealth and prominence of the involved parties, and the scandalous evidence presented to support Whitney's claim that Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt was an unfit parent. As an adult in the 1970s, Vanderbilt launched a line of fashions, perfumes, and household goods bearing her name. She was particularly noted as an early developer of designer blue jeans.
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Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos), is a federal republic in the southern half of North America.
It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico.
Covering almost two million square kilometers (over 760,000 sq mi), Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area and the 13th largest independent nation in the world.
With an estimated population of over 120 million, it is the eleventh most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world, while being the second most populous country in Latin America.
Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district (that is also its capital and most populous city).
Other metropolises include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana and León.
Pre-Columbian Mexico was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec before first contact with Europeans.
In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, which was administered as the viceroyalty of New Spain.
Three centuries later, this territory became Mexico following recognition in 1821 after the colony's Mexican War of Independence.
The tumultuous post-independence period was characterized by economic instability and many political changes.
The Mexican–American War (1846–48) led to the territorial cession of the extensive northern borderlands, one-third of its territory, to the United States.
The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, two empires and a domestic dictatorship occurred through the 19th century.
The dictatorship was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country's current political system.
Mexico has the fifteenth largest nominal GDP and the eleventh largest by purchasing power parity.
The Mexican economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) partners, especially the United States.
Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), joining in 1994.
It is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank, and a newly industrialized country by several analysts.
By 2050, Mexico could become the world's fifth or seventh largest economy.
The country is considered both a regional power and middle power, and is often identified as an emerging global power.
Due to its rich culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas and seventh in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Mexico is a megadiverse country, ranking fourth in the world by biodiversity.
In 2015 it was the 9th most visited country in the world, with 32.1 million international arrivals.
Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus and the Pacific Alliance.
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Richard John Santorum (born May 10, 1958) is an American attorney, author, politician, and political commentator.
A member of the Republican Party, he served as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2007 and was the Senate's third-ranking Republican from 2001 to 2007.
He ran as a candidate for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination, finishing second to Mitt Romney.
Santorum was elected as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania in 1994.
He served two terms until losing his reelection bid in 2006.
A Catholic, Santorum is a social conservative who opposes same-sex marriage and artificial birth control.
While serving as a senator, Santorum was the author of what came to be known as the Santorum Amendment, which promoted the teaching of intelligent design.
In 2005, Santorum introduced the Workplace Religious Freedom Act along with Senator John Kerry.
In the years following his departure from the Senate, Santorum worked as a consultant, private-practice lawyer, and news contributor.
On June 6, 2011, Santorum announced his run for the Republican nomination in the 2012 U.S. presidential election.
Upon announcing his campaign suspension on April 10, 2012, he had won 11 primaries and caucuses and received nearly 4 million votes, making him the runner-up to eventual nominee Mitt Romney.
Santorum officially endorsed Romney on May 7, 2012.
On May 27, 2015, Santorum announced his candidacy for the 2016 presidential election.
He ended his campaign on February 3, 2016.
In January 2017, he became a CNN senior political commentator.
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Xi Jinping (born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician currently serving as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, President of the People's Republic of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
As Xi holds the top offices of the party, the state, and the military, he is sometimes referred to as China's "paramount leader"; in 2016, the party officially gave him the title of "core" leader.
As General Secretary, Xi holds an ex-officio seat on the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, China's top decision-making body.
Xi Jinping is the first General Secretary to have been born after the Second World War.
The son of Chinese Communist veteran Xi Zhongxun, Xi rose through the ranks politically in China's coastal provinces.
Xi was governor of Fujian from 1999 to 2002, and governor, then party secretary of neighboring Zhejiang province from 2002 to 2007.
Following the dismissal of Chen Liangyu, Xi was transferred to Shanghai as party secretary for a brief period in 2007.
Xi joined the Politburo Standing Committee and central secretariat in October 2007, spending the next five years as Hu Jintao's presumed successor.
Xi was vice president from 2008 to 2013 and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 2010 to 2012.
Since assuming power, Xi has introduced far-ranging measures to enforce party discipline and to ensure internal unity.
His signature anti-corruption campaign led to the downfall of prominent incumbent and retired officials.
Xi has tightened restrictions over civil society and ideological discourse, advocating internet censorship in China as the concept of "internet sovereignty".
Xi has called for further market economic reforms, for governing according to the law and for strengthening legal institutions, with an emphasis on individual and national aspirations under the slogan "Chinese Dream".
Xi has also championed a more assertive foreign policy, particularly with regard to China–Japan relations, China's claims in the South China Sea, and its role as a leading advocate of free trade and globalization.
He has also sought to expand China's Eurasian influence through the One Belt One Road Initiative.
Considered the central figure of the People's Republic's fifth generation of leadership, Xi has significantly centralized institutional power by taking on a wide range of leadership positions, including chairing the newly formed National Security Commission, as well as new steering committees on economic and social reforms, military restructuring, and the Internet.
Xi’s political thoughts have been written into the party constitution, and the state constitution was amended to abolish term limits for the presidency.
Xi has had a cult of personality constructed around himself "with books, cartoons, pop songs and even dance routines".
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North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (abbreviated as DPRK or DPR Korea), is a sovereign state in East Asia constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula.
Officially, its territory consists of the whole Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands.
Pyongyang is the nation's capital and largest city.
To the north and northwest, the country is bordered by China and by Russia along the Amnok (known as the Yalu in China) and Tumen rivers; it is bordered to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two.
Nevertheless, North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula.
In 1910, Korea was annexed by Japan.
After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was divided into two zones, with the north occupied by the Soviets and the south occupied by the Americans.
Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948, separate governments were formed: the socialist Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, and the capitalist Republic of Korea in the south.
An invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War (1950–1953).
The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, but no peace treaty was signed.
North Korea officially describes itself as a self-reliant, socialist state and formally holds elections.
Various media outlets have called it Stalinist, particularly noting the elaborate cult of personality around Kim Il-sung and his family.
The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), led by a member of the ruling family, holds power in the state and leads the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland of which all political officers are required to be members.
Juche, an ideology of national self-reliance, was introduced into the constitution in 1972.
The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises and collectivized farms.
Most services such as healthcare, education, housing and food production are subsidized or state-funded.
From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 people, and the country continues to struggle with food production.
A sizeable amount of the population is thought to suffer from malnutrition, parasite infestations and food and waterborne diseases.
North Korea follows Songun, or "military-first" policy.
It is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve and paramilitary personnel.
Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth largest in the world, after China, the United States and India.
It possesses nuclear weapons.
North Korea is an atheist state with no official religion, and public religion is discouraged or persecuted.
Both North Korea and South Korea became members of the United Nations in 1991.
International organizations have assessed that human rights violations in North Korea have no parallel in the contemporary world.
North Korea operates re-education and prison camps, akin to the gulag prisons of the Soviet Union.
The concentration camps are used to segregate those seen as enemies of the state and punish them for alleged political misdemeanours, or alleged misdemeanours of relatives as part of the "3 generations of punishment" policy instigated by state founder Kim Il-sung.
Prisoners are frequently subject to slave labour, malnutrition, torture, human experimentation, rape, and arbitrary executions.
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George Soros, Hon FBA (born Schwartz György; August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist.
As of February 2018, he had a net worth of $8 billion, having donated more than $32 billion to his philanthropic agency, Open Society Foundations.
Born in Budapest, Soros survived Nazi Germany-occupied Hungary and emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1947.
He attended the London School of Economics, graduating with a bachelor's and eventually a master's degree in philosophy.
Soros began his business career by taking various jobs at merchant banks in the United Kingdom and then the United States, before starting his first hedge fund, Double Eagle, in 1969.
Profits from his first fund furnished the seed money to start Soros Fund Management, his second hedge fund, in 1970.
Double Eagle was renamed to Quantum Fund and was the principal firm Soros advised.
At its founding, Quantum Fund had $12 million in assets under management, and as of 2011 it had $25 billion, the majority of Soros's overall net worth.
Soros is known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England" because of his short sale of US$10 billion worth of pounds sterling, which made him a profit of $1 billion during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis.
Based on his early studies of philosophy, Soros formulated an application of Karl Popper's General Theory of Reflexivity to capital markets, which he claims renders him a clear picture of asset bubbles and fundamental/market value of securities, as well as value discrepancies used for shorting and swapping stocks.
Soros is a well-known supporter of progressive and liberal political causes, to which he dispenses donations through his foundation, the Open Society Foundations.
Between 1979 and 2011, he donated more than $11 billion to various philanthropic causes; by 2017, his donations "on civil initiatives to reduce poverty and increase transparency, and on scholarships and universities around the world" totaled $12 billion.
He influenced the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and provided one of Europe's largest higher education endowments to the Central European University in his Hungarian hometown.
His extensive funding of political causes has made him a "bugaboo of European nationalists".
Numerous American conservatives have promoted false claims that characterize Soros as a singularly dangerous "puppetmaster" behind a variety of alleged global plots, with The New York Times reporting that by 2018 these claims had "moved from the fringes to the mainstream" of Republican politics.
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The Cabinet of the United States is part of the executive branch of the U.S. government that normally acts as an advisory body to the President of the United States.
It is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the U.S. government serving under the President.
Among those are the Vice President and the heads of the federal executive departments, all of whom are by federal law (3 U.S.C. § 19) in the line of succession to the President and have duties under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.
Members of the Cabinet (except for the Vice President) serve at the pleasure of the President, who can dismiss them at will for no cause.
All federal public officials, including Cabinet members, are also subject to impeachment by the House of Representatives and trial in the Senate for "treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors".
The President can also unilaterally designate senior White House staffers, heads of other federal agencies and the Ambassador to the United Nations as members of the Cabinet, although this is a symbolic status marker and does not, apart from attending Cabinet meetings, confer any additional powers.
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Christianity is a universalising Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life, teachings, and miracles of Jesus of Nazareth, known by Christians as the Christ, or "Messiah", who is the focal point of the Christian faiths.
It is the world's largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, known as Christians.
Christians make up a majority of the population in 158 countries and territories.
They believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah (the Christ) was prophesied in the Old Testament.
Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization.
Christianity grew out of Judaism and began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century.
Originating in the Roman province of Judea, it quickly spread to Europe, Syria, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Transcaucasia, Egypt, Ethiopia and the Indian subcontinent, and by the end of the 4th century had become the official state church of the Roman Empire.
Following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization.
Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed.
These professions of faith state that Jesus suffered, died, was buried, descended into hell, and rose from the dead, in order to grant eternal life to those who believe in him and trust in him for the remission of their sins.
The creeds further maintain that Jesus physically ascended into heaven, where he reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, and that he will return to judge the living and the dead and grant eternal life to his followers.
His incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion and resurrection are often referred to as "the gospel", meaning "good news".
The term gospel also refers to written accounts of Jesus' life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—are considered canonical and included in the Christian Bible, as established by the 5th century for the ancient undivided Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions before the East–West Schism.
Throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations.
Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the various denominations of Protestantism.
The Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches broke communion with each other in the East–West Schism of 1054.
Protestantism came into existence in the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, splitting from the Catholic Church.
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