stories in need of thought

  And maybe I made a mistake yesterday, but yesterday's me is still me Today, I am who I am with all of my faults and my mistakes. -BTS

If We're together, the desert turns into ocean. When we're together, the desert becomes the ocean. -BTS

 Shifting patterns in Muslim voting Over the past 20 years, Muslim Americans’ party preferences have shifted markedly. Prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, an estimated 80% of non-African-American Muslims were Republican voters, while the majority of African-American Muslims voted for the Democratic candidate Al Gore. This voting pattern changed in the post-September 11 era, when George W. Bush’s administration and the Republican Party spearheaded the “war on terror”. The rhetoric of the war on terror, intrusive surveillance of Muslims under the Patriot Act and military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have created a noticeable anti-Muslim atmosphere in the US. Muslims perceived the war on terror to be a war on Islam and Muslims. As a consequence, the Muslim American vote for Bush plummeted to a mere 7% in the 2004 elections. A significant shift by Muslim voters to the Democrats culminated in the support for Barack Obama in the 2008 elections. The same trend continued

  81% of white evangelists supported Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and 76-81% of white evangelists supported Trump in the 2020 presidential election. What's interesting is that their approval ratings for past Republican presidential candidates remain the same regardless of their candidates. The latest Republican presidential candidates, for example, George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Donald Trump, all received 70 to 80 percent support from white evangelists. But Mitt Romney is from Mormonism, which evangelicals consider heresy. Trump has divorced twice and lives with his third wife, has also appeared as a cameo in a Playboy pornographic film, and is a far cry from Christian life, with a transcript of his lewd remarks being released before the 2016 presidential election. Even Trump, in an interview, asked if he had ever asked God for forgiveness, said, "I have no such experience, and if I do something wrong, I will correct myself, and I do not attract

Chinese experts rated Blinken, 58, a former deputy secretary of state who was nominated as the first secretary of state in the Joe Biden administration, relatively favorably. They say it can help improve U.S.-China relations because it is more predictable than the Donald Trump administration and Secretary of State Mike Pompeii. Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Monday quoted experts as calling Blinken's nominee "a person who can work together in a warm and practical manner." It also predicted such personnel changes as "a positive move for China." "China expects someone to deal with the U.S.-China relationship in a sensible way that suits U.S. interests," said Jia Qingguo, director of the Institute of International Relations at Beijing University. "If things go on in this way, there are many things the U.S. can do with China." Lu Xiang, a U.S. expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also told SCMP, "Blingen is n

Trump has slowed China's technological roll.   Whether he intended it or not, it bought time for countries other than China, and once again provided an opportunity for the U.S. growth technology stock to fly like a rocket.  Now there is no Trump.  What will Biden do to maintain U.S. hegemony? Biden is said to be returning to the Paris Convention. Biden seems to be thinking of slowing down China's rise through international norms, not through strength.

  Blinken, who has been mentioned as the next secretary of state, is a veteran diplomat who is said to be "a person raised to be a diplomat." He worked for the White House National Security Council during the Bill Clinton administration and served as deputy national security adviser to the White House and deputy assistant secretary of state for the Barack Obama administration. As Biden's confidant, he assisted Biden's Senate Foreign Relations Committee activities and served as a security adviser when he was vice president for nearly 20 years. In particular, when Biden was vice president, he was known to have contributed greatly to the creation of the Iran Nuclear Agreement (JCPOA) as a security adviser. In the upcoming presidential election, he also drafted Biden's foreign affairs and security policy. The media explained that considering his expertise as a diplomat and his closeness to Biden, he is considered the right person to implement Biden's pledge to ret