Tag: university of chicago
Are White Evangelicals Finally Ready To Dump Trump?

Are White Evangelicals Finally Ready To Dump Trump?

A “silent majority” that supported Donald Trump in his 2016 and 2020 presidential runs is now quietly bowing out, Vanity Fair reports.

The University of Chicago Divinity School’s magazine reported that nearly 81 percent of “self-identifying white evangelical voters” voted for Trump in 2016.

However, despite Trump keeping several promises to evangelical voters during his term — including nominating conservative judges to the Supreme Court and successfully overturning Roe v. Wade as a result — it may not be enough to win the voting bloc over again.

Bob Vander Plaats, a noted evangelical pastor said, “There’s a lot of people who share a lot of our similar thoughts but don’t want to go on record.”

Last month, Washington Times columnist Everett Piper penned an article in which she suggested that Trump is “hurting…not helping” evangelicals. She said, “the take-home of this past week is simple: Donald Trump has to go.”

“If he’s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed," Piper added.

Recently James Robison, a prominent televangelist, compared Trump to a “little elementary schoolchild.”

Although many evangelical leaders are not thrilled about another Trump run, some are indeed intrigued by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' potential run, as he was recently a featured speaker at the conservative Faith & Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority conference and endorsed by evangelical pastor Tom Ascol.

Other GOP candidates Vander Plaats mentioned he's willing to support, if they run, include Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, Mike Pompeo, and Nikki Haley.

Even with drastically shifted views, and their newfound support of other possible candidates, Vanity Fair reports that it is still too early to confirm whether Trump has completely lost their support as some evangelical leaders continue to stand by him.

Texas pastor and former faith adviser to the Trump White House Robert Jeffress told Vanity Fair he was "one of the only and first megachurch pastors supporting President Trump during the primary." Jeffress said, "Most were divided among a plethora of other candidates. But as soon as they saw Trump beginning to gain momentum they coalesced around him, and I think the difference in 2024 is that people will coalesce around him much sooner than last time.”

On the contrary, said an evangelical leader who chose not to be named, he has “no doubt” that if Trump is the GOP 2024 candidates, the Republicans will “get crushed in the general [election].”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Eric Holder Has Changed His Mind About Edward Snowden

Eric Holder Has Changed His Mind About Edward Snowden

A year after leaving office, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is singing a different tune about Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked 1.7 million documents back in 2013 and exposed alarming details about the government’s surveillance methods abroad and on its own citizens.

Holder was the head of the Justice Department when the leak occurred. Back then, he maintained that Snowden had to return home and plead guilty, and that the Obama White House was not willing to consider “the notion of clemency.”

But now it seems that Holder has changed his mind. In a conversation with David Axelrod on The Axe Files podcast, which is produced by CNN and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, Holder said that while he still believes Snowden’s actions and the way he carried them out were “inappropriate and illegal,” he thinks that Snowden deserves some credit for shining a light on secret surveillance techniques that he did not even know about, and starting a debate about the importance of individual privacy.

“I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made,” Holder told Axelrod.

Holder stated that Snowden should still come back to the U.S. and stand trial, but that any future judge should take the “usefulness of having had that national debate” into account when deciding on a sentence.

Snowden joined the discussion on Twitter to comment on Holder’s change of heart by highlighting the different stands the government has taken on the leak throughout the years:

The whistleblower, who has lived in Russia under political asylum since 2013, faces espionage charges that could hold a punishment of up to 30 years.
Snowden appeared via video at an event at a University of Chicago Institute of Politics, which produces the Axes Files podcast, earlier this month and said he has always wanted to come back to the U.S. and make his case to a jury, but only if the government guarantees a fair trial. For Snowden, a “fair trial” means being allowed a public interest defense, which is not currently allowed under the Espionage Act.
Endorse This: Jon Stewart Doesn’t Think ‘Man Baby’ Trump Eligible For Office

Endorse This: Jon Stewart Doesn’t Think ‘Man Baby’ Trump Eligible For Office

Ever since Jon Stewart taped his last Daily Show episode nine months ago, the liberal satirist and perennial thorn in the side of America’s political media has emerged periodically to comment on the freak show that’s taken over our election cycle. Yesterday, in front of a packed house at the University of Chicago for a taping of former Obama advisor David Axelrod’s podcast, Jon Stewart spent the hour dissecting the culture that created Donald Trump, and the media that’s profiting from him.

“He’s just doing judo against them. What works for 24-hour networks?” Stewart asked. “The voices that are amplified are the ones that are the most conflict-oriented, the most extreme. Those are the guys that get the most airtime.”

The whole evening is worth a listen, if only to imagine an alternate reality in which Stewart waited just one more year to retire. Jon Stewart’s most pointed remarks, the ones that sounded more like a Daily Show taping than an effete Institute of Politics discussion, came in his description of Donald Trump’s eligibility for office:

Obama Library To Be In Chicago Where ‘All The Strands Of My Life Came Together’

Obama Library To Be In Chicago Where ‘All The Strands Of My Life Came Together’

By Dahleen Glanton, Chicago Tribune (TNS)

President Barack Obama’s presidential library and museum will be built in Chicago.

In a video released early Tuesday morning, the president and first lady Michelle Obama announced that the library will be located on the city’s South Side, though no decision has been made yet whether it will be built in Jackson or Washington parks.

“All the strands of my life came together and I really became a man when I moved to Chicago,” the president said in the video, which showed him seated with his wife. “That’s where I was able to apply that early idealism to try to work in communities in public service. That’s where I met my wife. That’s where my children were born.”

Michelle Obama said she was “thrilled to be able to put this resource in the heart of the neighborhood that means the world to me. Every value, every memory, every important relationship to me exists in Chicago. I consider myself a South Sider.”

The Barack Obama Foundation said it would seek out “academic institutions, thought leaders, community partners, and other organizations” as it sketches out plans for the library.

While the University of Chicago “has pledged to make resources and infrastructure available,” the foundation said it plans to also work with three other universities that were finalists, including the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“The foundation intends to maintain a presence at Columbia University for the purpose of exploring and developing opportunities for a long term association,” the foundation said in a statement.

“In addition, the foundation will work with the state of Hawaii to establish a lasting presence in Honolulu,” the foundation said. “Within Chicago, in addition to its association with the University of Chicago, the foundation also plans to collaborate with the University of Illinois-Chicago.”

For more than a year, the University of Chicago had been engaged in a fierce competition with Columbia University in New York, the University of Hawaii in Honolulu and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Though the U. of C. had long been considered the front runner, its bid to build the library on the South Side has been entangled in a battle over the use of parkland.

Plans to announce the library in March were delayed after Mayor Rahm Emanuel ended up in a runoff election. The foundation then decided to delay the announcement until after the April 7 election, which Emanuel won.

In late April several news organizations, including the Tribune, reported that Chicago was selected to host the library.

The selection caps a yearlong competition that began with 13 bids that eventually were narrowed down to four finalists.

The U. of C., where Obama taught constitutional law for a dozen years and first lady Michelle Obama formerly worked as a hospital administrator, had long been considered the leading candidate. The South Side also is where Obama launched his political career as a state senator in 1996 and where the first lady was born.

(c)2015 Chicago Tribune, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: President Barack Obama delivers an address to the nation on December 17, 2014 in Washington, DC (AFP/Doug Mills)