Studied by 16 people
weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
Refers to weapons—nuclear, biological, and chemical—that can kill large numbers of people and do great damage to the built and natural environment. The term was used to refer to nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The Bush administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein had developed WMD provided the rationale for the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003. These weapons were never found after the invasion.
9/11
Common shorthand for the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, in which nineteen militant Islamist men hijacked and crashed four commercial aircraft. Two planes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, causing them to collapse. One plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the fourth, overtaken by passengers, crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania. Nearly three thousand people were killed in the worst case of domestic terrorism in American history.
Al Qaeda
Arabic for “The Base,” an international alliance of anti-Western Islamic Fundamentalist terrorist organizations founded in the late 1980s by veterans of the Afghan struggle against the Soviet Union. The group was headed by Osama bin Laden and has taken responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks, especially after the late 1990s. Al Qaeda organized the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States from its headquarters in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the launch of the “global war on terror,” the group has been weakened but still poses significant threats around the world.
USA Patriot Act
Legislation passed shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that granted broad surveillance and detention authority to the government.
Department of Homeland Security
Cabinet-level agency created in 2003 to unify and coordinate public safety and antiterrorism operations within the federal government.
Guantánamo Detention Camp
Controversial prison facility constructed after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Located on territory occupied by the U.S. military, but not technically part of the United States, the facility serves as an extra-legal holding area for suspected terrorists.
Abu Ghraib prison
A detention facility near Baghdad, Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, the prison was the site of infamous torturing and execution of political dissidents. In 2004, during the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the prison became the focal point of a prisoner-abuse and torture scandal after photographs surfaced of American soldiers mistreating, torturing, and degrading Iraqi war prisoners and suspected terrorists. The scandal was one of several dark spots on the public image of the Iraq War and led to increased criticism of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
No Child Left Behind Act
An education bill created and signed by the George W. Bush administration. Designed to increase accountability standards for primary and secondary schools, the law authorized several federal programs to monitor those standards and increased choices for parents in selecting schools for their children. The program was highly controversial, in large part because it linked results on standardized tests to federal funding for schools and school districts.
Hurricane Katrina
The costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States, which killed nearly two thousand Americans. The storm ravaged the Gulf Coast, especially the city of New Orleans, in late August 2005. In New Orleans, high winds and rain caused the city’s levees to break, leading to catastrophic flooding, particularly in the city’s most impoverished wards. A tardy and feeble response by local and federal authorities exacerbated the damage and led to widespread criticism of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
deleveraging
The inverse of “leveraging,” whereby businesses increase their financial power by borrowing money (debt) in addition to their own assets (equity). In times of uncertainty or credit tightening, the same businesses seek to improve their debt-to-equity ratios by shedding debt through the sale of assets purchased with borrowed money.
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Among the earliest initiatives of the Obama administration to combat the Great Recession. It was based on the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes that called for increased government spending to offset decreased private spending in times of economic downturn. The act was controversial from the outset, passing with no Republican votes in the House and only three in the Senate, and helping to foster the “Tea Party” movement to curb government deficits, even while critics on the left argued that the act’s $787 billion appropriation was not enough to turn the economy around.
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Also known as “Obamacare,” the act extended health-care insurance to some 30 million Americans, marking a major step toward achieving the century-old goal of providing universal health-care coverage.
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank)
Also known as the Dodd-Frank Act, after its Democratic sponsors, Connecticut senator Christopher Dodd and Massachusetts representative Barney Frank. In an effort to avoid another financial crisis like the Great Recession, the act updated many federal regulations affecting the financial and banking systems and created some new agencies, such as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.
Tea Party
A grassroots conservative political movement mobilized in opposition to Barack Obama’s fiscal, economic, and health-care policies. Named after the Boston Tea Party of the Revolutionary Era, Tea Party protestors first demonstrated in early 2009, and they grew steadily in visibility and power as a pressuring force within the Republican Party through the 2010 midterm elections and beyond.
Occupy Wall Street
Name of the original protest that launched the populist, anti-Wall Street “Occupy” movement in late 2010 and early 2011. Youthful radicals pitched tents and occupied Zuccotti Park in New York’s financial district beginning in September 2010 to protest inequality and corporate political power. This demonstration inspired similar occupations in many other cities.
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
Program established by President Obama in June 2012 granting undocumented immigrants work permits and protection from deportations, as long as they were below a certain age (under 16 when they moved to the United States and under 31 years old). Scorned by Obama’s Republican opponents as a misguided overreach of executive power, DACA was rescinded by President Trump in early 2017, even as he suggested that Congress put some version of the program on a statutory basis.
USA Freedom Act of 2015
Replaced the expiring USA Patriot Act of 2001. Passed in the wake of the Snowden revelations (see p. XXX), it attempted to place some restrictions on government collection of metadata concerning American citizens.
confirmation bias
Term coined by psychologists to describe an innate tendency for people to seek out and uncritically accept information that reaffirms their existing beliefs, closing off alternate points of view. Often invoked to explain herd-like online behavior and splintering of the twenty-first-century political landscape.
Iran nuclear deal
Also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Brokered by the Obama administration between Iran and the major world powers in July 2015, the agreement terminated economic sanctions that had hamstrung Iran’s economy. In return, Tehran pledged to reduce its stockpiles of weapon-grade uranium and end its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017
Signed into law by President Trump on December 22, 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act trimmed income taxes across the board for a period of ten years, permanently slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, and removed the individual health-care mandate. Hailed as a major legislative victory for Republicans, the bill was denounced by critics as a plutocratic payout that would only deepen the federal deficit in the coming years.
John McCain
(1936-) Republican senator from Arizona who lost the 2008 presidential election to Democrat Barack Obama. A former navy fighter pilot who spent five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, McCain was known as a maverick senator, frequently departing from his own party to co-sponsor moderate legislation with Democratic allies. Among his most notable legislative achievements were changes in campaign finance and efforts to reform immigration laws.
Sarah Palin
(1964-) Republican vice-presidential candidate with John McCain in the 2008 election. Palin served on the city council and as mayor of her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, from 1996 to 2002, and then in 2006 was elected governor of the state. Relatively unknown nationally, Palin’s social conservatism made her popular among the evangelical members of the Republican party who had been distrustful of McCain.
George W. Bush
(1946-) Forty-third president of the United States, 2001-2009. The son of former president George H. W. Bush and former governor of Texas, he emerged victorious from the contested election of 2000, where he lost the popular vote. As president, he pursued changes in Social Security, immigration, and education laws and appointed two conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Launching and leading the "war on terror" in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush was the architect of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Richard Cheney
(1941-) A former White House staffer, congressman, and secretary of defense during the first Persian Gulf War, Cheney joined the Bush ticket in 2000 to add experience and a link to the first Bush presidency. As vice president, he was more active in policy and politics than his predecessors, playing decisive roles especially in matters of foreign policy.
Nancy Pelosi
(1940-) Democratic congresswoman from California who became, in 2007, the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives. Pelosi proved an effective party leader in securing House passage of the stimulus package, a "cap-and-trade" climate change bill, financial regulation, and the Affordable Care Act, all during Barack Obama’s first term as president. Her tenure as Speaker came to an end as a result of sweeping Republican victories in the 2010 midterm congressional elections.
Barack Obama
(1962-) Forty-fourth president of the United States and first African American elected to that office. A lawyer and community organizer in Chicago, Obama served in the Illinois state senate before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. As president, Obama tackled the effects of the financial crisis while pursuing passage of ambitious reforms in health care and financial regulation.
Joseph R. (“Joe”) Biden
(1942-) United States senator from Delaware from 1973 to 2009 and vice president of the United States since 2009. As a long-time senator and former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden brought Washington experience and foreign-policy expertise to the Obama campaign and subsequent presidency.
Edward Snowden
(1983-) An American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013, when he was an employee and subcontractor.
Donald J. Trump
(1946-) An American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in 1968.
Michael Pence
(1959-) An American politician who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 50th governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017.
2000
George W. Bush wins presidency in Electoral College; Albert Gore takes popular vote
2001
Bush’s $1.3 trillion tax cut passes Congress
2001
Congress passes No Child Left Behind Act
2001
Terrorists attack NYC & Washington, D.C. on 9/11
2001
U.S. invades Afghanistan
2001
Congress passes USA Patriot Act
2002
Bush labels Iraq, Iran, and North Korea “axis of evil”
2002
Congress authorizes use of force against Iraq
2002
U.N. Security Council demands that Iraq comply with weapons inspections
2002
Republicans regain Senate
2003
U.S. invades Iraq
2003
Second Bush tax cut
2003
Saddam Hussein captured in Iraq
2003
Supreme Court narrowly approves affirmative action
2004
Gay marriage controversy erupts
2004
Iraqi interim government installed
2004
Bush defeats Kerry for presidency
2005
Iraq elects permanent government but quickly descends into sectarian conflict
2006
Saddam Hussein executed
2006
Democrats retake control of Congress
2007
U.S. troop surge in Iraq
2008
Barack Obama elected 44th president of the U.S.
2009
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed
2010
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed
2010
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act passed
2010
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy repealed
2010
Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
2010
Republicans retake control of the House
2011
U.S. withdraws from Iraq
2011
U.S. begins troops withdrawal from Afghanistan
2011
U.S. forces kill Osama bin Laden
2011
First debt-ceiling crisis between President Obama and the GOP-led House
2012
Supreme Court upholds the Affordable Care Act
2012
Obama defeats Romney to win reelection
2013
Supreme Court repeals Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act
2013
Supreme Court rules the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional
2013
Second debt-ceiling crisis between President Obama and GOP-led House
2013
Budget dispute causes a sixteen-day federal government shutdown
2013
Edward Snowden exposes extensive NSA spying operations
2014
Republicans win majority in Senate
2015
Supreme Court gives constitutional protection to same-sex marriage
2015
Iran nuclear deal agreed
2016
Donald J. Trump defeats Hillary Clinton for the presidency
2017
Trump signs tax reform bill into law
2017
Congress and the Department of Justice launch investigations of Russian interference in 2016 election
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Flashcard (30)