AMERICAN POLITICS - Resist Trump 1/25/2019

OPINION - President Jimmy Carter

I love this man.

"Jimmy Carter: U.S. on a path of nuclear confrontation with North Korea" (Part 1)  PBS NewsHour 3/27/2018

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SUMMARY:  Former President Jimmy Carter says faith in each other is key to our existence, and we're losing it.  In the first part of a wide-ranging interview with Judy Woodruff, Carter discusses his latest book, America in the age of Trump, his grave concerns about nuclear conflict with North Korea, and John Bolton the President’s pick to be the next National Security Adviser, and the Mueller investigation.

"Jimmy Carter: Supreme Court seems eager to see rich people become more powerful" (Part 2)  PBS NewsHour 3/28/2018

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SUMMARY:  Former President Jimmy Carter says the power wielded by people who give a lot of money to political candidates has resulted in a “vast disparity in income in America” and that has “resulted in polarization more than any other single factor."  In the second part of a wide-ranging interview, Carter talks with Judy Woodruff about how his own faith, the NRA, and allegations against the President.

THE NEW COLD WAR - Expulsion of Diplomats

"Russia vows Cold War-style retaliation over mass expulsion of diplomats" PBS NewsHour 3/26/2018

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SUMMARY:  Including the U.S., over a dozen countries announced expulsions on Monday of more than 100 Russian diplomats accused of being intelligence officials, in a united attempt to isolate and punish Russia for the alleged poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.  Nick Schifrin reports on the Trump administration’s measures, its harshest punishment of Russia to date.

"How will the global effort to expel diplomats affect Russia?" PBS NewsHour 3/26/2018

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SUMMARY:  Sixty Russian diplomats are being kicked out of the U.S. in a bid to punish the Kremlin for an attack on a former Russian spy in the UK.  Is that the right response?  Nick Schifrin gets reaction from two former State Department officials, Victoria Nuland of the Center for a New American Security and Paul Saunders of the Center for the National Interest.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY - President Carter's Chief of Staff

"How a boy from segregated South grew up to be Jimmy Carter’s chief of staff" PBS NewsHour 11/26/2015

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SUMMARY:  Before he was Jimmy Carter’s chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan was just a boy living in a deeply segregated south.  For a decade, he worked on an autobiography about growing up in that place and time, before passing away from mesothelioma.  His daughter, Kathleen Jordan finished the book, and speaks to Judy Woodruff about the work.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  They were known collectively as the “Georgia mafia” — Washington outsiders who played key roles in the Jimmy Carter presidential campaigns, and in the White House.  Among them, Hamilton Jordan, who was the president`s Chief of Staff and top confidant.  He died of cancer in 2008.  He left behind a mostly finished memoir.

His daughter Kathleen has edited and completed the book, “A Boy from Georgia: Coming of Age in the Segregated South.”  She talked to Judy recently.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  So let me — I have to ask you first, it looks like Hamilton Jordan, Kathleen Jordan, but it`s “Jerden;” where did that come from?

KATHLEEN JORDAN, Editor, “A Boy From Georgia”:  You know, my dad always said it`s the Southern pronunciation of the surname.  If you hear it in old spirituals, you`ll hear it pronounced the “River Jerden.”  So I think it`s a long-standing tradition of the South.  At least that`s what we were told and we've taken that forward with us.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  I knew your father, Hamilton Jordan, because he worked for Jimmy Carter.  I covered Carter as governor of Georgia, then as President of the United States.  Your father was a strategist, he was chief of staff, but this book really is about his growing up in South Georgia, growing up in the segregationist South, isn't it?

KATHLEEN JORDAN:  When political junkies hear that my dad has a new book out, they`re excited because they think it may be about the Carter years, and what I say to those people is that it may not necessarily be about his political years, but it`s about his early indoctrination into politics, and kind of learning about politics from the people around him and about the formation of his political skills.

OPINION - Shields and Gerson 8/21/2015

"Shields and Gerson on Trump’s immigration politics, Carter’s cancer news" PBS NewsHour 8/21/2015

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SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the response to Donald Trump’s immigration policy and his effect on Republican race, whether Hillary Clinton can defuse the attention paid to the investigation into her handling of email, plus bad health news from former President Jimmy Carter.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Well, we saw this week someone who was President decades ago, former President Jimmy Carter, I think, very gracefully handled the bad news, the bad medical health news he got in terms of a diagnosis of cancer, melanoma that has spread to his brain.

Mark, this is somebody who’s been — he’s been out of the White House for 35, 40 years.  And yet — I mean, what do you make of this?  It was quite a remarkable performance, that news conference yesterday.

(CROSSTALK)

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist:  It was, in fact, Judy.

We’re in an era — I think Michael would agree — totally, aggressively secular, where church membership is in decline.  And yet, in the last couple of months, we have seen two examples of the value, the social value, as well as the individual value, of religious faith.

We saw it at the AME Church, the families, survivors of those victims forgiving the killer who was racially motivated.  And we see it in Jimmy Carter, who has devoted his post-presidency to improving the cause of those less fortunate, but showed such grace and courage and humor and faith in the face of this just daunting and dooming news.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  As somebody who covered the Carter White House a long time ago, Michael, I was struck by the humor — as Mark says, the humor.

He said he’d gotten calls from former President — both Presidents Bush and President Obama and Secretary — he said, “Of course, I hadn’t heard from them in a long time.”

MICHAEL GERSON, Washington Post:  Right, yes.

Well, we often get examples of how to live, live healthy, how to live successfully.  There’s a lot of emphasis on this.  But we don’t really get examples of how we approach death.  This is a really good example.

Now, he — it’s not imminent in his case.  He’s seeking treatment.  He wants to live longer and may well live longer.  But there is a calmness, there is a grace, and there is a courage about what he said that’s an example of how you deal with the end.

And he also dealt with it with gratitude, talking about how grateful he was for his life.  That’s a real model for all of us.

INTERVIEW - Former President Jimmy Carter

"Jimmy Carter on Ukraine, Israel and addressing injustices faced by women around the world" PBS NewsHour 3/26/2014

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SUMMARY:  Former President Jimmy Carter sits down with Judy Woodruff to discuss Russia’s annexation of Crimea, progress and limitations of working with Israel for the Obama administration and his own commitment to fight discrimination and violence against women and girls around the world.  Carter has written his 28th book, “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power.”

HEALTH - Eradication of the Guinea Worm

"Goodbye Guinea Worm: Humanity’s Greatest Accomplishment This Week" by Mark Leon Goldberg, UN Dispatch 8/29/2012

Every once in a while it is important to take a step back from the day-to-day drumbeat of news and consider something from a more world historical perspective. Such is the case with word from the World Health Organization that Guinea Worm is slated for global eradication.

Guinea Worm, also known as Dracunculiasis, is a parasitic disease spread when people injest water tainted with a certain kind of flea that contains larvae. The larvae are hatched within the person’s digestive tract, and they grow into worms — sometimes as long as one meter — that live inside the body and protrude through the skin. It is a painful, debilitating and sometimes deadly. There are no-vaccines or medicines that you can take to cure or prevent Guinea Worm Disease. The most people can do is take appropriate precautions when drinking from stagnant water sources.

In 1986, the disease afflicted an estimated 3.5 million people a year in 21 countries in Africa and Asia. Last year, there were just 1,100 cases. So far this year, there are fewer than 400 cases, in but 4 countries: Mali, Ethiopia, Chad and South Sudan (the latter of which accounts for 99% of the cases). Humanity is very, very close to defeating this crippling disease once and for all.

The Carter Center, along with UNICEF and the World Health Organization helped rally the world around this eradication drive. Much of the credit goes to these organizations.

Small Pox was the first disease to face global eradication thanks to the concerted efforts of NGOs and the UN. Guinea worm may be next. After that–it’s polio.

It probably won’t make the front page of the New York Times. But the fact that we are on the cusp of eliminating a disease that has devastated humanity for centuries is a much bigger deal for more people around the world than anything else that’s happening in the world this week.

WARNING some content may be unpleasant

POLITICS - President Jimmy Carter's "White House Diary"

"Jimmy Carter Calls Congressional Republicans 'Completely Irresponsible'"
PBS Newshour 12/6/2010

Excerpts from transcript

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): The existence of the book at all is kind of interesting to me. And I want to know how your contemporaneous musings, at the end of the day, instead of being locked away until future historians could get at it, came out during your lifetime.

JIMMY CARTER, former President of the United States: Well, three or four years ago, I started reading over some of the diary notes for other purposes. And I realized that so many of the things that I had to deal with that were very serious are on the desk in the Oval Office now for President Obama to address. The Middle East continues, energy, human rights, environment, the Koreas, China, Afghanistan, Iraq, and so forth.

And I would say the main difference between 25 years ago and now is the polarization of the parties. I had tremendous support from Republicans in the House and Senate. One of my closest working allies in the Senate was Howard Baker, was a minority leader of the Republicans.

And, in the House, it was Bob Michel, who was a minority leader of the -- in the House. And so they cooperated with me thoroughly. And that's completely absent now, where the Republicans have been, in my opinion, completely responsible the first 18 or so months of Obama's administration.

And, quite often, he can't get a single vote in the House or Senate for a major goal. And I had good support. So, that's changed.
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JIMMY CARTER: I don't think I have changed in any material way, except I have learned a lot since I left the White House. And the thing that I have learned mostly is the growing chasm between rich people and poor people.

The richer people in America are getting richer and richer. The poorer people in America are getting poorer and poorer. And that is a case in almost every country on Earth. And it's also the issue between rich countries and poor countries. The rich countries are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

And, as we grow further and further apart economically, we grow further and further apart in understanding each other and having mutual respect. And I think that's a challenge that we still haven't faced adequately in this country or around the world.

So, that is what I have learned, one of the things, major things I have learned since I left the White House.