| December 30, 2024 07:56:35 AM |
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| December 30, 2024 07:56:35 AM |
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Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, endured humbling defeat after one tumultuous term and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, died Sunday. He was 100 years old.
Welcome to this week’s edition of AP Ground Game. |
Former President Jimmy Carter speaks during a forum at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Nov. 20, 2014. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola) |
Former President Jimmy Carter dies at 100 |
The longest-lived American president died on Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care, at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his late wife, Rosalynn, spent most of their lives, The Carter Center said in a post on X. It added in a statement that he died peacefully, surrounded by his family.
Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world — Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office.
The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s. Read more. |
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Of note:
As reaction poured in from around the world, President Joe Biden mourned Carter’s death, saying the world lost an “extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian” and he lost a dear friend. Biden said he is ordering a state funeral for Carter in Washington. |
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Many evolutions for Carter, centenarian ‘citizen of the world’ |
Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Carter left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world.
Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner to return to the rural life of Plains.
The lieutenant became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” Read more.
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Of note:
Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at the Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity.
Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency.
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Kansas’ cautionary tale on requiring voters to prove citizenship |
Republicans made claims about illegal voting by noncitizens a centerpiece of their 2024 campaign messaging and plan to push legislation in the new Congress requiring voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. Yet there’s one place with a GOP supermajority where linking voting to citizenship appears to be a nonstarter: Kansas.
That’s because the state has been there, done that, and all but a few Republicans would prefer not to go there again. Kansas imposed a proof-of-citizenship requirement over a decade ago that grew into one of the biggest political fiascos in the state in recent memory.
The law, passed in 2011 and implemented two years later, ended up blocking the voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens who were otherwise eligible to vote – 12% of everyone seeking to register in Kansas for the first time. Federal courts ultimately declared the law an unconstitutional burden on voting rights, and it hasn’t been enforced since 2018. Read more.
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Of note:
Kansas provides a cautionary tale about how pursuing an election concern that in fact is extremely rare risks disenfranchising a far greater number of people who are legally entitled to vote. The state’s top elections official championed the idea as a legislator and now says states and the federal government shouldn’t touch it. |
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The flag flies at half-staff for the late President Jimmy Carter at the White House, Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) |
- Trump is expected to be with his transition team in Florida.
- Biden is on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands for his last vacation as president.
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