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<p>The Iraqi army arrested 20 male Islamic State members in the northern city of Baquba Monday <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/ISIS-fighters-dress-as-women-in-desperate-attempt-to-flee-battlefield-394060" type="external">dressed as women</a>. According to spokesman&#160;Ghalib&#160;al-Jubouri, Iraqi soldiers captured 20 men fleeing the fighting in Tikrit, which was taken back by Iraqi forces last week.&#160;</p>
<p>Images of the captives posted on Instagram, show the fleeing militants using a variety of disguises, including women's dresses and veils, with some fighters even shaving their facial hair, applying eye makeup, and wearing bras.&#160;</p>
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<p>Images via <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/ISIS-fighters-dress-as-women-in-desperate-attempt-to-flee-battlefield-394060" type="external">Jerusalem Post</a>.</p> | Fleeing ISIS Fighters Dress In Drag | true | http://truthrevolt.org/news/fleeing-isis-fighters-dress-drag | 2018-10-02 | 0 |
<p>Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) at the 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen, DenmarkVirginia Mayo/AP</p>
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<p>On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) offered a simple amendment to the controversial bill that would authorize construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. <a href="http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/228909-senate-panel-advances-keystone-bill" type="external">Sanders’ measure</a>, which he proposed to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, would have declared it the “sense of Congress” that climate change is real; that it is caused by humans; that it has already caused significant problems; and that the United States needs to shift its economy away from fossil fuels.</p>
<p>Sanders’ amendment <a href="http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/228909-senate-panel-advances-keystone-bill" type="external">went nowhere</a>. But <a href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?323649-1/senate-energy-committee-markup-keystone-xl-legislation" type="external">Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)</a>, the chair of the committee, used the opportunity to take a shot at climate science. “I do believe that our climate is changing,” she said. “I don’t agree that all the changes are necessarily due solely to human activity.” Murkowski didn’t elaborate on her current thinking about the causes of global warming, but in the past she’s advanced a bizarre theory involving a <a href="" type="internal">volcano in Iceland</a>.</p>
<p>Sanders will get another chance next week, when the full Senate debates the Keystone bill—but he’s likely to run into stiff resistance from GOP climate deniers. As <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/08/3608427/climate-denier-caucus-114th-congress/" type="external">Climate Progress revealed</a> Thursday, more than half of the Republican members of the new Congress “deny or question” the <a href="http://skepticalscience.com/97-percent-consensus-cook-et-al-2013.html" type="external">overwhelming scientific consensus</a> that humans are causing climate change. If you just look at the Senate, the numbers are even more disturbing. Thirty-nine GOP senators reject the science on climate change—that’s 72 percent of the Senate Republican caucus.</p>
<p>The list includes veteran lawmakers like <a href="" type="internal">James Inhofe</a> (R-Okla.), who is the incoming chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) and has written a book titled, The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. And it includes new senators like Steve Daines (R-Mont.), <a href="" type="internal">who thinks</a> climate change might be caused by solar cycles. (For a great interactive map showing exactly how many climate deniers represent your state in Congress, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate-denier-caucus-114th-congress/" type="external">click here</a>.)</p>
<p>What’s more, the Climate Progress analysis shows that many of the congressional committees that deal with climate and energy issues are loaded with global warming deniers:</p>
<p>…68 percent of the Republican leadership in both House and Senate deny human-caused climate change. On the committee level, 13 out of 21 Republican members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, or 62 percent, reject the science behind human-caused global warming, joined by 67 percent, or 21 out of 31 Republican members, of the House Energy and Commerce Committee…In addition to Inhofe, 10 out of 11, or 91 percent, of Republicans on EPW have said climate change is not happening or that humans do not cause it.</p>
<p>All this could have serious policy consequences: Republicans are <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/us/politics/republicans-vow-to-fight-epa-and-approve-keystone-pipeline.html?_r=0" type="external">threatening</a> to use their majority to cut the EPA’s budget and derail the power plant regulations at the heart of President Obama’s signature climate initiative.</p>
<p /> | 72 Percent of Republican Senators Are Climate Deniers | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/republican-climate-denial-caucus/ | 2015-01-10 | 4 |
<p><a href="http://talkpoverty.org/2015/01/22/roe-reality-just-wealthy/" type="external">Roe is not a reality for all</a>.</p>
<p>“I’m going to need your help to find a way out of this definitional problem with rape.” –&#160; <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-22/anti-abortion-activists-rise-up-against-house-gop-s-pain-capable-fumble" type="external">Senator Lindsey Graham to anti-choice activists</a>&#160;</p>
<p>Women share their <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2015/jan/22/-sp-roe-v-wade-42-years-womens-abortion-stories" type="external">abortion stories</a> at The Guardian.</p>
<p>Feministing alum Miriam Perez on&#160;six key <a href="http://colorlines.com/archives/2015/01/a_tale_of_two_movements.html" type="external">differences between the reproductive justice</a> and reproductive rights movements.</p>
<p>Jesus fucking christ. In the US, <a href="http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/01/20/kids-body-image-dieting-young" type="external">80 percent of 10-year-old girls</a> have been on a diet.</p>
<p>The first ever <a href="http://butchbaby.co/" type="external">alternity wear</a> for pregnant masculine, transgender, and queer individuals.</p>
<p>Yesterday was the <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/01/21/378920565/shouts-of-protest-at-supreme-court-on-citizens-united-anniversary" type="external">5th anniversary of the Citizens United decision</a>. RIP democracy.</p>
<p>Melissa on horrible&#160;proposed obesity guidelines that say&#160;doctors should&#160;“treat the weight first” — in other words, <a href="http://www.shakesville.com/2015/01/on-latest-in-fat-eliminationism.html" type="external">deny fat people medical&#160;care unless they lose weight first</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2015/01/stickin-man-stickin-finding-body-acceptance-masturbation/" type="external">Stickin’ it to the man</a>&#160;by stickin’ it to yourself.</p>
<p>“I am a woman. I am a feminist. And it took me 12 years <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/22/why-people-believe-sexual-predators-before-victims" type="external">to admit that someone I loved was a sexual predator</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-new-jersey-police-shooting-20150121-story.html" type="external">It never ends.</a></p>
<p>Brittney Cooper on&#160; <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/01/21/maureen_dowds_clueless_white_gaze_whats_really_behind_the_selma_backlash/" type="external">Selma critics and the white gaze</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/rasmea-odeh-verdict-organizing/" type="external">Rasmea Odeh’s</a> “work calls us to imagine a radical feminist politics where the struggle to&#160;end state violence and&#160;intimate partner violence happens together.”</p>
<p><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/22/3613714/disappearing-wetlands-native-american-tribes/" type="external">“The seas are rising and so are we.”</a></p>
<p><a href="http://socialistworker.org/2014/01/24/before-roe" type="external">Header image via</a></p> | Daily Feminist Cheat Sheet | true | http://feministing.com/2015/01/22/daily-feminist-cheat-sheet-493/ | 4 |
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<p>Week two of the NFL season concludes with the Denver Broncos (1-0) heading to the Georgia Dome to take on the Atlanta Falcons (1-0).</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Broncos head into their second prime time game in two weeks off their opening week victory over the Steelers. QB Peyton Manning, who had not played in 20 months due to complications from multiple neck surgeries, passed for 253 yards and two touchdowns for a passer rating of 129.2, second in the league.</p>
<p>Look for Manning to test the Falcon secondary, which is without CB Brent Grimes, by targeting WR Demaryius Thomas who caught five passes for 110 yards and a touchdown last week, averaging 22 yards per catch. The Broncos should improve their rush offense behind RB Willis McGahee against an Atlanta defense that allowed the 152 yards on the ground last week.</p>
<p>On the defensive side, the Broncos recorded five sacks last week behind a pass rush led by DE Elvis Dumervil, LB Von Miller and DT Derek Wolfe and will look contain and keep pressure on Atlanta QB Matt Ryan. Denver gave up 50 yards to TE Heath Miller last week and one of the keys tonight will be how the Broncos contain Atlanta TE Tony Gonzalez.</p>
<p>The Falcons come into their home opener behind QB Matt Ryan who passed for 299 yards and three touchdowns last week. Ryan has the only passer rating better than Peyton Manning, topping the league at 136.4. Look for the Falcons to use the screen pass to counter an aggressive Broncos pass rush.</p>
<p>On the ground Receivers Julio Jones and Roddy white along with TE Tony Gonzalez can spread a defense, so RB Michael Turner should have opportunities to pick up yards after being held to only 32 yards rushing last week. The Falcons will be without starting corner Brent Grimes, so covering Demaryius Thomas will fall to Asante Samuel and Dunta Robinson. One of the key match ups will be the Falcon pass rush led by DE John Abraham against Denver LT Ryan Clady and RT Orlando Franklin. Abraham had a key strip-sack last week and will look to get after the less-than-mobile Manning.</p>
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<p>Fox Business has evaluated the win/loss and stock market statistics over the past 20 seasons of Monday night NFL games and come up with a Monday Night Markets (MNM) score for each team based on their record and the prior week’s market activity. Let’s take a look at what the markets have to say.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrials ended last week up 2.15% and the S&amp;P 500 was up as well, closing out the week with a 1.94% gain with both indexes up two weeks in a row and eight of the last ten. The markets overcame early jitters leading up to the German high court ruling on a permanent Eurozone bailout fund and a surprise drop in consumer credit in July. The German courts eventually approved the creation of the fund and the markets rallied further after Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke announced the Fed’s new open-ended bond buying plan.</p>
<p>Over the past 20 years, the Broncos have played 38 Monday night games and based on our calculations have a Monday night rank of .429 when the Dow closes the prior week up and .450 when the S&amp;P 500 is up giving them a MNM rank for this week of .440.</p>
<p>During the same 20 year period, the Falcons have played 17 Monday night games and have a rank of .273 when the Dow is up and .300 when the S&amp;P 500 is up giving them an MNM rank this week of .287.</p>
<p>Monday Night Markets picks the Denver Broncos on the road over the Atlanta Falcons.</p>
<p>The Chargers have played 18 Monday Night games over 20 years have a Monday night rank of .500 when the Dow closes the prior week up and .538 when the S&amp;P 500 is up giving them a MNM rank for this week of .519. The Raiders have played 26 Monday night games and have a rank of .389 when the Dow is up and .400 when the S&amp;P 500 is down giving them an MNM rank this week of .395.</p>
<p>Week 2 FBN Staff Picks:</p>
<p>Broncos @ Falcons</p>
<p>Sandra Smith (1-1)</p>
<p>Broncos!</p>
<p>Connell McShane (2-0)</p>
<p>Denver is my pick. Matt Ryan and Atlanta should be tough to beat at home, but I'm not going to bet against Old Man Manning just yet. I had my doubts as to how effective he could be this year, but Peyton certainly looked sharp last week. I'm sticking with him.</p>
<p>Robert Gray (2-0)</p>
<p>Peyton Manning answered many questions about his health and ability with his excellent performance in leading Denver to a week one victory. But tonight they are on the fast track in Atlanta, where the Falcons will use their speed at WR and on defense plus the home field advantage to score a close victory.</p>
<p>The Monday Night Markets (MNM) rank is derived by taking the number of games won during each market condition of up or down during a twenty year period, over the total number of games played. &#160;Each result for the Dow and S&amp;P are averaged to determine a final rank between 0 and 1.</p> | Revitalized Manning to Carry Broncos Past Falcons | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2012/09/17/revitalized-manning-to-carry-broncos-past-falcons.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
<p>UNH Photo Services</p>
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<p>If New Hampshire Republican Dan Innis wins his congressional race, he knows where to send the fruit basket: to the home of mortgage giant Peter T. Paul.</p>
<p>Before running for Congress, Innis served as dean of the University of New Hampshire’s business school, which was renamed for Paul after he donated $25 million. His campaign website touts major building projects he oversaw as dean—projects financed by Paul’s contribution. And Innis’ congressional run is getting a big-time boost from a brand new super-PAC founded and financed by Paul.</p>
<p>“Dan’s a friend,” says Paul, who lives in California. Paul is an alumnus of the University of New Hampshire, and he met Innis through his UNH philanthropy. “He’s the better candidate. He needs to get known.”</p>
<p>Innis, who is one of four candidates running in the Republican primary on September 9 to challenge Democratic Rep. Carol Shea Porter, is socially liberal and favors shrinking the government—exactly the type of politician Paul says he would like to see in Congress. In order to make that happen, Paul created a super-PAC, New Hampshire Priorities PAC, and <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00557561/948901/sa/ALL" type="external">financed it with $562,000.</a> So far, <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00557561/939182/sa/ALL" type="external">$376,000</a> of that has gone into <a href="http://realtime.influenceexplorer.com/committee/new-hampshire-priorities/C00557561/" type="external">radio and TV ads</a> supporting his friend. Innis himself has <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/states/cands.php?cycle=2014&amp;state=NH" type="external">raised</a> a little more than $338,000—about $150,000 less than his closest Republican opponent. With Paul in the mix, Innis is head and shoulders over his GOP competitors.</p>
<p>But Paul’s support is somewhat controversial. Paul made his millions as <a href="http://www.bu.edu/news/2006/05/31/peter-t-paul-pledges-1-5m-to-fund-career-development-professorships/" type="external">a mortgage wholesaler</a>—a middleman who sells mortgages to homeowners and then sells the homeowner’s application for a loan to the bank or lender that will underwrite the loan. Mortgage wholesalers don’t set the terms of a loan—but they aren’t obligated to get a homeowner the best rate. Wholesalers, many argue, helped fuel the housing bubble because they work on commission and face incentives to push as many mortgages as possible. Paul in particular spearheaded the use of Alt-A loans—a marginally less risky cousin of subprime loans, which require sparse documentation to obtain. These loans helped inflate the real estate market in 2004 and 2005. And Paul is credited with helping <a href="http://www.nhbr.com/May-16-2014/Peter-T-Paul-and-the-financial-edge/" type="external">spread easy credit</a> to Americans by pioneering new ways to package mortgage debt for investors. When he closed his company, Paul Financial, at the height of the housing crisis, his firm <a href="http://www.allmortgagedetail.com/mortgages/lenders/paul-financial-llc-san-rafael-ca.asp?yr=2007" type="external">held $3.1 billion</a> in total loan applications.</p>
<p>Armed with these facts, Democrats have tied Paul to the financial crash in 2008. “Paul helped push us to the financial edge,” <a href="http://www.nhbr.com/May-16-2014/Peter-T-Paul-and-the-financial-edge/" type="external">fumed</a> Arnie Arnesen, a liberal talk radio host in New Hampshire.</p>
<p>But Paul stresses that he didn’t sell subprime loans. He describes himself as more of a go-between who merely peddled the kinds of loans requested by banks. It was banks, he says, who bore the burden of making sure they sold a responsible product.</p>
<p>“What am I to do?” he says. “I make stuff to specifications. If they say, ‘I want a purple shirt,’ it’s an awful color, but we say, ‘Sell it to them.’ We don’t make judgments.”</p>
<p>“There’s plenty of blame to go around” for the crash, Paul adds. But as a mortgage banker, he says, “you either lent by the standards set by larger entities up the food chain, or you exited the business.”</p>
<p>But Paul may be downplaying his role in peddling risky mortgages. In 1998, he sold a company he founded in the late 1980s, Headlands Mortgage, to GreenPoint. The sale made GreenPoint a lending behemoth. It went on to be one of the largest subprime lenders in the country.</p>
<p>Paul says was pushed out of day-to-day operations before GreenPoint became heavily involved with subprime lending. “Basically, I had a little company. I made a couple hundred million dollars,” he says. “And then I sold it, and later, the company that I sold it to had lawsuits.”</p>
<p>A reporter for New Hampshire Business Review dug up Securities and Exchange Commission documents showing <a href="http://www.nhbr.com/May-16-2014/Peter-T-Paul-and-the-financial-edge/" type="external">Paul left</a> in the summer of 2003, around the time GreenPoint was getting into the subprime game. But Paul stuck around long enough to conceive of some dubious GreenPoint products. In a recent conversation with Paul, the New Hampshire Business Review reporter brought up a 1999 press release in which Paul announced GreenPoint’s new 103 percent mortgage. The product lent borrowers more than the value of the home they planned to buy. “It may sound very horrendous, but it was maybe a tenth of one percent of what we did,” Paul <a href="http://www.nhbr.com/May-16-2014/Peter-T-Paul-and-the-financial-edge/" type="external">told the reporter</a>. “I probably put slick literature out, because you know, it had sex.”</p>
<p>After resigning from GreenPoint in 2003, Paul started Paul Financial. A 2007 <a href="http://www.law111.com/assets/notice-of-settlement---paul-financial.pdf" type="external">class action lawsuit</a> accused the company of flouting the Truth in Lending Act. The lawsuit paints a picture of Paul Financial as a typical predatory lender, claiming that the company signed-up unwitting borrowers for adjustable rate mortgages that started at a 1 or 2 percent interest rate but shot up after just a few months.</p>
<p>The lawsuit also alleged that Paul Financial gave borrowers repayment plans that resulted in negative amortization—when a borrower pays off less of the total interest owed that month, leading the interest he owes to balloon while the price of his home stays put. Negative amortization was a prime tool utilized during the housing crisis by mortgage bankers looking to loan to individuals who probably couldn’t afford to be homeowners.</p>
<p>Paul Financial closed its door during the housing crisis, before the lawsuit could settle. The Royal Bank of Scotland, which held the loan debt after Paul Financial closed, <a href="http://www.nhbr.com/May-16-2014/Peter-T-Paul-and-the-financial-edge/" type="external">settled the lawsuit</a> for $1.75 million in late 2013.</p>
<p>“Of course some of the loans went down,” Paul says, when I ask about the lawsuit. “Not many.” Overall, he says, the lawsuits targeted a small portion of loans made by his company.</p>
<p>Tough times followed the crash. Shortly after closing his business, Paul had to fulfill the $25 million pledge he made to the University of New Hampshire. It “hurt a little bit,” Paul told the <a href="http://www.nhbr.com/May-16-2014/Peter-T-Paul-and-the-financial-edge/" type="external">New Hampshire Business Review</a>. But Paul is back on his feet now with <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/10/14/us-usa-housing-investors-idUSTRE59D00S20091014" type="external">a new business</a>, Headlands Asset Management, for which he teamed up with a Bear Stearns refugee to buy distressed home loans, fix them, and flip them.</p>
<p>Paul is party of the new breed of political donors that have risen up in the wake of Citizens United v. FEC who are <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/this-man-is-the-future-of-super-pacs-20140505" type="external">dropping money bombs</a> into individual races rather than spreading their wealth around. In 2013, John Jordan, a roguish California vintner, <a href="" type="internal">spent $1.4 million</a> on Gabriel Gomez’s failed bid for the Senate in a Massachusetts special election. This year, an Oklahoma mother spent <a href="" type="internal">more than $225,000</a> supporting her 27-year-old son’s failed campaign for Congress. In her bid for Senate, Oregon GOP candidate Monica Wehby has received the support of a super-PAC primarily funded by two people: <a href="" type="internal">a Las Vegas sex hypnotherapist</a> and <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/ore-senate-hopeful-accused-of-stalking-boyfriend-106751.html" type="external">her ex-boyfriend</a>.</p>
<p>Paul is an especially hands-on donor, who approves the super-PAC’s budget for new ad campaigns and signs off on the finished product. “I’m putting money into it, so I pay attention.” New Hampshire Priorities announced at its founding that it would spend about $500,000 before the September primary. (American Unity PAC, a group started by <a href="" type="internal">hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer</a> to encourage the GOP to embrace same-sex marriage, has donated <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00557561/939182/sa/ALL" type="external">$65,000</a> to the PAC.) “Maybe I’ll do another $100,000 or $200,000,” Paul says. “If it looks like it’ll be effective, I’ll probably just spend it.”</p>
<p>Shea-Porter and Innis’ campaigns did not respond to requests for comment.</p>
<p>“I like the scale of New Hampshire,” Paul adds. “It’s much more manageable.”</p>
<p>Innis’ most serious competition is former congressman Frank Guinta, who defeated Shea-Porter in 2010. Shea-Porter regained her seat in the next election. Given Guinta’s name recognition in the district, Paul hopes his contributions will help get Innis’ name out there. If Innis wins, Paul is open to spending in the general election, too. But he has set a ceiling on what he will spend on this race overall.</p>
<p>“It won’t be more than one,” he tells me.</p>
<p>Meaning $1 million?</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p /> | Meet the Risky Mortgage Pioneer Trying to Pay His Buddy’s Way Into Congress | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/dan-innis-peter-t-paul-new-hampshire-congress/ | 2014-09-02 | 4 |
<p>Hyundai Motor Co. reported Wednesday more than a 20 percent drop in its first quarter profit as the anti-Korean sentiment in China sparked by the deployment of the U.S. missile defense system battered the Korean carmakers' sales in its biggest auto market.</p>
<p>The company said its January-March net profit was 1.3 trillion won ($1.2 billion), down 21 percent from 1.7 trillion won a year earlier.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Its profit slide was smaller than what analysts expected. FactSet, a financial data provider, said the market consensus was 1.22 trillion won.</p>
<p>Sales rose 5 percent to 23.4 trillion won ($20.8 billion). Operating profit fell 7 percent to 1.3 trillion won.</p>
<p>The biggest drag in earnings was the U.S. missile system that triggered China's anger and hurt Korean businesses in the world's most populous country.</p>
<p>Hyundai Motor, the maker of Tucson sports utility vehicles and Sonata sedans, said it sold 206,000 cars in China during the first three months, down 14 percent from a year earlier.</p>
<p>In January and February, Hyundai appeared to have been on track for sales recovery in China. That changed when South Korea's Defense Ministry signed an agreement with Lotte Group in late February to use its golf course in the southwest to deploy the missile defense system, known as THAAD. In March, Hyundai saw a sharp fall in its China car sales.</p>
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<p>"Such sales fall is not due to the internal factor as you know. It is the result of the anti-Korean sentiment that flared up within China since late February and some rivals that launched marketing to exploit the anti-Korean sentiment," said Koo Zayong, a vice president at Hyundai Motor.</p>
<p>South Korea and the U.S. say THAAD is a deterrent against North Korean aggression, but China opposed it because it worries that its powerful radars could peer through its territory.</p>
<p>China has shown its displeasure in other areas too. The once-steady inflows of Chinese tourists to South Korea withered, and Lotte was ordered to stop operations of its big discount chains in China, which cited safety violations. Instances of anti-Korean sentiments also emerged on Chinese social media and some South Korean schools canceled their trips to China.</p>
<p>Hyundai's performance in the U.S., its second-biggest market, also dropped 3 percent, outweighing growth in Western Europe and India.</p>
<p>Hyundai Motor was also hit by massive recalls it estimated to cost around 200 billion won ($178 million) during the first quarter. Earlier this month, Hyundai and Kia recalled 1.4 million cars in U.S., Canada and South Korea due to possible engine failures.</p> | US missile system claims another victim: Hyundai Motor | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/26/hyundai-motor-reports-21-percent-drop-in-1q-profit.html | 2017-04-26 | 0 |
<p>Myanmar's government admitted to launching airstrikes Wednesday against Kachin rebels in the country's northern region.</p>
<p>The statement from government leaders was broadcast on state television, and contradicted earlier reports that the government army was not carrying out such strikes, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/myanmar-military-admits-airstrikes-rebels-18113909#.UOSrGuTfhe8" type="external">The Associated Press reported</a>.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/southeast-asia/myanmar-war-skirting-chinese-air-space" type="external">Myanmar: War skirting Chinese air space?</a></p>
<p>UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced concern over rising violence in the 20-month conflict between rebels and government forces.</p>
<p>"While details of these reports are still emerging and being closely followed, the Secretary-General calls upon the Myanmar authorities to desist from any action that could endanger the lives of civilians living in the area or further intensify the conflict in the region,"&#160;UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said in a statement <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/02/us-myanmar-airstrikes-un-idUSBRE9010NM20130102" type="external">obtained by Reuters</a>.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/southeast-asia/myanmars-first-ever-new-years-countdown" type="external">Myanmar's first-ever New Year's countdown</a></p>
<p>The strikes after weeks of heavy fighting at outposts about 10 miles outside the Kachin Independence Army headquarters on the Myanmar-China border, <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2013/0102/Myanmar-launches-airstrikes-on-Kachin-rebels" type="external">according to the Christian Science Monitor</a>.</p>
<p>Government officials also claimed to have captured a hilltop post from which rebels launched attacks on government supply convoys.</p> | Myanmar launches airstrikes on Kachin rebels | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-01-02/myanmar-launches-airstrikes-kachin-rebels | 2013-01-02 | 3 |
<p><a href="//videos/37/66077" type="external" /></p>
<p>RUSH: The Amtrak crash. Here’s another one. This is falling apart right in front of the left’s eyes but they’re not gonna acknowledge it. But everything they’ve been saying is falling apart. You know, “Infrastructure! Infrastructure!” It turns out that this latest technology that would stop an out-of-control speeding train? It’s there! It’s been installed! It just hasn’t been turned on.</p>
<p>The bottom line is this accident happened because there’s no reason a bureaucracy as large as the transportation department or the federal government should be running the operation. It’s simply incompetent because it’s too big. There are too many people doing too many things with no accountability, no central authority, and things aren’t getting done. And then you have this conductor… Is that what they call these people? Engineer?</p>
<p>He’s out there tweeting all over. A tweet fest of this guy’s has been discovered. He’s apparently a union activist in addition to being a gay activist, and he’s been tweeting and Facebooking, whatever, left and right that the work schedules are causing engineers to work 12/14 hours and he’s worried about engineers falling asleep on the job. These are long-ago tweets, weeks-ago tweets. So it could well be that this was a…</p>
<p>Well, I don’t want to speculate. But it could be self-fulfilling prophecy type of thing.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: No, no. Amtrak… What I was talking about is very simple. There’s a report that the safety equipment that could have prevented the accident hasn’t been held back by lack of funding. You’ve seen that. “It was infrastructure! The Republicans didn’t spend enough money!” You’ve seen all that. That’s BS, folks. It’s BS from the first time the syllables were formed in the first brain of the liberal that first uttered it.</p>
<p>The safety equipment and the installation and turning it on has been held up because it’s so complex, they can’t figure out how to make it work, specifically the FCC, who has to release more bandwidth for the GPS system in this braking system to work. It’s installed! It’s ready to go! They just can’t figure it out. And nobody’s busting their rear end to. That’s the thing about bureaucracies: There’s never any urgency.</p>
<p>In fact, the truth of bureaucracies is the less that gets done, the more the bureaucracy is seen as needed. So the modus operandi for bureaucracies is to do as little as they can to get by. If the bureaucracy accomplishes a lot, at some point people are gonna say it isn’t needed. That’s the perverted way they look at it. So much of government and so much of liberalism is misunderstood because at the top of the list of things that are required is self-perpetuation. Whatever you do as a bureaucrat, you do not do anything that will harm your bureaucracy.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />You do not do anything that will not perpetuate your bureaucracy. You do not do anything that will result in your bureaucracy having a budgeting cut. The best way to see to all of that is to get as little done as possible while having convenient people to blame. In this case, the Republicans — stingy, extremist, mean-spirited, cold-hearted Republicans — when that’s nowhere near the truth. There’s just no urgency. The equipment’s installed. It just hasn’t turned it on because haven’t figured out a bandwidth problem for the GPS.</p>
<p>It’s there!</p>
<p>Saving lives is not even enough to speed up the process.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: First I want to play a couple sound bites, because there is a Republican fighting back on this silly Amtrak stuff about the Republicans being to blame because of lack of funding or lack of compassion or not caring about infrastructure. This is another one of these episodes that is just utterly irresponsible, the way the Democrats and the media are handling this, and it is classic in its illustration that they do not really care about people. Here we have a tragedy, and they don’t even see it.</p>
<p>They see an opportunity.</p>
<p>They see a golden opportunity to rip Republicans and advance their agenda of growing government, when big government is the cause! Big government is the reason that train derailed. Big government is one of the factors. Big government: Out of control, incompetent, unaccountable bureaucracies. It’s not lack of funding. There isn’t anything that’s ever cut. We’re $18 trillion in debt! That ought to be automatically rejected whenever anybody cites it as a reason for anything happening.</p>
<p>Lack of money? That’s the last thing that is relevant. We’re $18 trillion in debt! We’ve spent money that we don’t have and that we’re never going to get back. Yet the Democrats keep talking about budget cuts, and they keep talking about Republicans not caring. It’s just the act opposite. John Mica, who is a Republican from Florida, is finally fed up, and I think this is great. This is what every Republican should be out there doing. This happened this morning on CNN with the clueless Carol Costello.</p>
<p>She said, “You yourself called Amtrak ‘a Third World passenger rail operation.’ Why?” What do you mean, Third World? How dare you say that!</p>
<p>She didn’t say that, but that’s what she’s thinking, ’cause she’s rides Amtrak. <a href="" type="internal">She rides Amtrak from Washington to Boston to see her husband</a>, and she was complaining yesterday about doors and windows that don’t close and windows, and engines that stop working and break down, and heating and cooling systems that don’t work and delays. So he comes out and says, yeah. We basically have “a Third World passenger rail operation.” (Costello impression) “What do you mean, Third World train system!”</p>
<p>Because she is not gonna sit idly by and let her precious government be insulted.</p>
<p>Here’s what he said…</p>
<p>MICA: The United States has a Third World rail system. It’s a monopoly run in a Soviet-style operation, Amtrak. (chuckles) Almost every country in the world is bringing in the private sector to invest to create high-speed rail. The Obama administration took $10 billion, and put most of it into California where cows and vegetables are the only thing that are going to be served between Bakersfield and Fresno. It doesn’t even connect into a major metropolitan area. So it’s not how much money you spend; it’s where you spend the money, and we’re spending billions.</p>
<p>RUSH: And then government’s chief defender here, Carol Costello, said, “The House Appropriations Committee voted down a Democrat amendment that would have offered $825 million for the technology known as positive train control. And according to the NTSB, that technology, if it had been in place, this accident wouldn’t have happened.” So here she is just blindly saying, “That $825 million, why, it would have been magic! If we would have just spent $825 million, why, this wouldn’t have happened!” Just totally clueless, and still gets hired.</p>
<p>Anyway, here’s what Mica said to that…</p>
<p>MICA: We’ve given Amtrak between a billion and a billion and a half almost every one of years I’ve been in Congress. They’re spending money on bonuses for executives. They’re spending money to subsidize losing food service. In about a dozen years, they’ve lost a billion dollars in captive food service operation. The entire world is now opening state-supported rail to competition, and —</p>
<p>COSTELLO: Not Japan or China or Europe! The government pays for their systems!</p>
<p>MICA: (chuckles) See, you’re wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about. In England, Virgin Rail —</p>
<p>COSTELLO: China?</p>
<p>MICA: — is privately operated. In Russia, they’ve actually brought in public-private partners. They have high-speed rail between St. Petersburg and Moscow. Amtrak blocks any competition.</p>
<p>RUSH: And let me give you one other thing to ponder here: How is it possible that Amtrak cannot make any money when terrorists and TSA have made flying such a pain in the rear? And the last we looked a terrorist event has not occurred on a train, has it? Nope. Amtrak has record ridership, and they still can’t make any money. You would think that railroads would be enjoying a golden age here, just on the safety aspect alone. Taxpayers have given Amtrak more than $46 billion.</p>
<p>Amtrak gets a billion and after a year, on top of their outrageous prices to get from the wildly expensive tickets. What he said here about captive food service? How do you lose a billion dollars on catering and food service, when your customers cannot go anywhere else? Do you think they lose on catering operations, concessions at ballparks? Think they lose money there? And you know who’s running those outfits, don’t you? Ha-ha! You know who’s running those things.</p>
<p>I’m telling you, it is just outrageous, and here come these defenders. “But it’s the government, and only the government can make it right! The government can make it fair.” Whatever they come up with to justify the government doing, it’s the government’s the problem. Remember, the system that she’s up here talking about, “That $825 million, why wasn’t it authorized? The Republicans opposed it, and if they hadn’t, a fail-safe system…” The fail-safe, whatever the system is, is in.</p>
<p>The system that would slow down a renegade, runway train, is in. It just hasn’t been turned on. You know why it hasn’t been turned on? Because the FCC too busy out there worrying about net neutrality (which is another misnomer) has not gotten around to approving and finding the spectrum for bandwidth for GPS for the system. ‘Cause there’s no hurry. It’s Amtrak! You want the dirty little secret? Amtrak’s losing money. A Carol Costello points out, the windows and doors stick open or stick closed.</p>
<p>The engines shut down. It’s basically a mess. It’s probably not the cleanest bunch of trains you can get on, and they have no competition. And it’s precisely because they have no competition! It’s just… This is what’s so frustrating to us conservatives, folks, I have to tell you. Because the evidence of government failure is everywhere. The evidence of government incompetence, government waste is everywhere.</p>
<p>Not just Amtrak; I’m talking about everywhere. Whatever government takes over gets worse. The people that run it at government would never be hired for the same job in the private sector. That’s why they’re in government. And it is a very frustrating thing because people still turn to government to fix things. For some reason government’s fair, for some reason government is this or that, and it’s just the nature of bureaucracies. Anyway, been through it, done that.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: Here is Dan in Muskegon, Michigan. Great to have you, sir. Thank you for waiting. You’re up next at the EIB Network. Hi.</p>
<p>CALLER: Hey, Rush. Former mailman dittos to you. I’m wondering, where is the outrage from the independents on the Democrats railing against the Amtrak train that failed, even as people were drawing their last breath, how come the independents aren’t outraged at the Democrats for doing that?</p>
<p>RUSH: This is an excellent question and a question that is born of superior perception and listening skills of the caller. Let me explain. One of the tricks that the Republican — I’m convinced it’s a trick. If it’s not a trick, if we have willingly signed on to this, then our consultants are morons. But he’s asking about something the Republicans have been brought to believe, that the independents do not like bickering; the independents do not like arguing; the independents do not like yelling; the independents do not like raised voices; the independents do not like partisanship; the independents do not like people who are highly opinionated; the independents do not like people who are confrontational.</p>
<p>And the minute any Republican expresses an opinion, the independents don’t like it and run right back to the Democrat Party. See, for some reason the independents are sitting out there undecided. We don’t know why, but it’s just because they’re independents. But it doesn’t take much to send them racing back to the Democrat Party. If a Republican comes along and criticizes Obama, the independents, we’re told, harumpf and say, “Enough of them,” and they run right back to the Democrat Party. If a Republican comes along and questions a Democrat, independents don’t like it.</p>
<p>The bottom line is, the Republican Party’s been made to believe that when Republicans act like Republicans, the independents, who are willing to support them for some other reason, will willingly abandon them and go running right back to the Democrat Party. And the theory is that independents do not like bickering, and they do not like anger, and they do not like this and that.</p>
<p>So the question is, “Well, then, why do the independents put up with all of that from Democrats? Why do the independents put up with riots? Why does that not bother them? Why does the media and the Democrat Party immediately criticizing the Republicans as a cause of a train derailment not bother the independents?” And of course it’s great question.</p>
<p>That’s why I think this is all trick. And it’s an age-old trick. I mean, Republicans have believed this. If you doubt me, have you ever heard a Republican candidate, particularly presidential candidate in 2008 or in 2012 say something like this: “Well, yeah, but if we go after Obama, we have to go after his policy, Rush. We can’t go after him personally, you know what I mean? We go after his policies, but not him, you got it, Rush?” What do you think that’s rooted in? ‘Cause if we go after Obama personally, the independents aren’t gonna like it.</p>
<p>Somehow the independents will put up with us if we only go after his policies, but then we gotta be careful after we go after his policies ’cause we can’t criticize him while we criticize his policies. So that’s why I think it’s a trick. And I think that is why the Republican establishment is hell-bent on being seen as pro-amnesty. I think it’s responsible for a lot of Republican behavior, thinking that behaving in a reasonable and well spoken and nonconfrontational, nonconservative, nonargumentative way, as though we’re all C-SPAN hosts and NPR hosts.</p>
<p>This is the way that we will steal votes from Democrats if we just approach the electorate this way and assure them that we don’t want to kill them and we don’t want to harm them and we don’t want to starve them and we don’t want to take their money. We just assure them that that’s all BS. And speaking to them like this, they should vote for us in droves. That’s the theory.</p> | The Amtrak Funding Narrative Falls Apart | true | http://rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/05/15/the_amtrak_funding_narrative_falls_apart | 2015-05-15 | 0 |
<p><a href="//videos/37/71383" type="external" /></p>
<p>RUSH: During the break at the top of the hour, I came across the latest piece by Victor Davis Hanson writing at National Review. It is a long piece. It prints out to six pages. That pretty much makes it bordering on impossible for me to share the whole thing. I mean, I could do it, I mean, I could read all six pages and I could have you transfixed, but it’s still long. I haven’t had a chance to highlight it, which I always do, pick pull quotes, excerpts, and so forth.</p>
<p>Let me tell you what it’s about. It’s about Trump and Hillary and where principled conservatives find themselves, which is not a good place. Principled conservatives are having a real tough time with all of this. And principled conservatives are worried that the ultimate end of this is the elimination of conservatism as a — I don’t want to say dominant, maybe even relevant force in American politics. In fact, there’s a piece here by Josh Barro writing at Business Insider that deals with that very thing, the crisis in the Republican Party is even worse than it looks. I’ll share that with you in a minute here.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435138/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-conservatives-never-trump-2016" type="external" />But the VDH thing, I’m gonna read this, I’m gonna summarize it when I have time to do it. But his basic premise is that it’s kind of strange that we’re worried about Armageddon being brought on by Trump, when we’re living the apocalypse of Obama and Clinton. Now, this is something I think Trump supporters have already figured out, and I think a lot of people instinctively have come across it, or had it reflected in their minds as they ponder all of this. It certainly spells it out for me. In fact, grab sound bite number five. I was gonna skip past this because I couldn’t find any reason for it to relate to anything other than me being discussed in the media, but actually it now plays off of the VDH thing really well.</p>
<p>You will remember this because it’s by no means the first time I’ve expressed it. Whenever I run across Republicans out there just bellyaching about Trump and losing their minds over Trump, like last Friday when I summarized for you the genuine fatalistic “it’s overism” out there in so many different sectors of American conservatism. I read excerpts of some of these pieces to illustrate, and I asked, “Where was all this during Obama? Where’s all this rage? Where’s all this anger at stuff that actually is happening and has been happening for seven and a half years?”</p>
<p>We haven’t had any anger of the sort from the Republican establishment that’s being directed at Trump. This is not a defense of Trump, by the way. I’m not saying any of this from a pro-Trump position here. I’m simply observing. And it has amazed me. To this day, folks, to be bluntly honest with you, I remain really surprised I had nobody joining sides with me on January 16th of 2009 when I said, “I hope he fails.” When I was telling the story about the Wall Street Journal wanting a 400 word op-ed from a bunch of people on their hopes and expectations of Obama’s presidency.</p>
<p>“I don’t need all that, I can do it in four words: I hope he fails.”</p>
<p>And I got nobody joining me. I got some on my side attempting to explain it, but they wouldn’t join me. And I had a cacophony of people saying, “That’s outrageous. You don’t say that. We should all unify behind our president. We should all come together. Nobody wants our president to fail, because nobody wants our country to fail.”</p>
<p>I said, “You’re missing the point. I want Obama to fail because I want America to survive. I want Obama to fail because I don’t want progressivism and liberalism to win.” What’s so hard about this? I got no joiners. As I say, I had some who defended me on it, but there wasn’t an echo, and there wasn’t a chorus. And I, to this day, remain surprised because I thought that it was a very principled, conservative position to have, to hope liberalism fails. I mean, to me, that’s what this is all about. Meaning this program.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />What this program’s been all about is attempting to educate, inform people of the pitfalls and the dangers of liberalism, progressivism, socialism, the left, or what have you. And we knew enough about Obama weeks before he was inaugurated and know exactly what was going to happen with his administration because he had told us. For example, he told us he was going to shut down the coal industry by making it impossibly expensive to stay in it. He told us that he was going to slither his way to single payer health care. He told us that he was going to do what he could to transform the very identity and makeup of this country, and I said, “Why isn’t there any not just outrage, why aren’t people frightened by this?”</p>
<p>I was. I was scared to death of what President Obama intended to do, and it wasn’t just because I know who liberals are and what they’re gonna do; he had said so, in numerous interviews going all the way back to the early 2000s, not to mention the things he had said in the campaign. Not to mention the Jeremiah Wrights and the Bill Ayers and the people that were his friends. It was all there, every bit of it was foretold. So, to me, it was only natural to say, “I hope he fails.” So, likewise, I have been amazed throughout these entire seven and a half years that there’s been all kinds of outrage that members of the Republican Party express for other Republicans or conservatives, but I haven’t heard anything in any kind of proportion whatsoever aimed at Obama. And now Hillary.</p>
<p>Even during the IRS scandal, even during Obamacare, from the establishment. Sure, there was a conservative media that was all over this stuff, but from the standpoint of anybody else, where was the outrage? And this outrage at Trump, to me, has always been out of proportion. This fear, this shouting of the dangers Trump represents. What the hell do you think we’re living through is?</p>
<p>Anyway, that’s the point of Victor Davis Hanson’s long piece here at National Review. We’re worried about Armageddon on the Trump horizon while we’re living amid the apocalypse of Obama and Clinton. It’s a brilliant piece. And you know why you’ll say it’s brilliant? It’s because it’s so obvious. It’s once again somebody cutting through all the noise and getting to the meat and potatoes of what’s happened.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: Victor Davis Hanson. Let me briefly summarize this for you. This is the first pass, so we’ll have more detail later. At first glance, I’m telling you, the thing appeared brilliant to me. I haven’t had a chance to really read and study this as I do most things. But here’s a basic summary. And his point is that, you know, we’re worried about Armageddon with Trump because Trump’s clueless and Trump doesn’t know anything, and Trump’s a neophyte. We’re worried about Armageddon, when we’re living the apocalypse right now with Obama and Hillary, who don’t know anything, either!</p>
<p>Everything they do is wrong, and dangerous.</p>
<p>So what VDH is saying here is that Trump’s cluelessness — and he’s acknowledging that Trump is clueless on some things. I will get into detail of specifically what. But, you know, all these flip-flops on the minimum wage and tax increases. Tax increases on the rich or not on the rich, that Trump’s just rolling the dice as he goes. Trump’s cluelessness about the nuclear triad. That’s from a debate. He got a question from Hugh Hewitt about the nuclear triad, and Trump didn’t know what it was.</p>
<p>You could tell he didn’t know what it was, and Hugh Hewitt can tell he didn’t know what it was, Hugh Hewitt kind of let him off easy, respecting the fact that a guy was running for president. He didn’t expose him ’cause… I’m sure Hugh thought that he had exposed him, but he didn’t know what the nuclear triad was. He was being asked to comment on it, and to anybody who knows what the triad is, it was — I don’t know — embarrassing or disquieting or a little concerning. Do you know what the nuclear triad is? (interruption) You do? (interruption) Yes, you do. (interruption) What do you mean, you don’t know what the nuclear triad is?</p>
<p>The nuclear triad refers to the three different ways you can launch the SOBs. You can launch ’em from the Trident submarines under the ocean. You can launch ’em from ground based silos, and you can launch ’em from airborne aircraft. The triad, three different ways of delivering nukes. Trump didn’t know.</p>
<p>So Victor Davis Hanson says: “Trump’s cluelessness about the nuclear triad is a lowbrow version of Barack Obama’s ignorance, whether seeking to Hispanicize the Falklands into the Maldives.” The Falklands are referred to by Argentines as the Maldives, not as Obama said the Maldives, “or mispronouncing ‘corpsman,’ or riffing about Austrian-speaking Austrians,” or the 57 states. I mean, his point is that all of these things that you are worried that Trump doesn’t know, Obama is it in spades.</p>
<p>Obama is just as clueless about a lot of things, happily and proudly so. So all these people getting upset that Trump didn’t know about the nuclear triad, how about Obama not knowing how to pronounce “corpsmen” or thinking there are 57 states “or riffing about those Austrian-speaking Austrians; or perhaps of Hillary Clinton’s flat-out lie about the causes of Benghazi, hours after she had learned the truth.</p>
<p>“It is easy to be appalled by crude ignorance, but in some ways it is more appalling to hear ignorance layered and veneered with liberal pieties and snobbery. The choice in 2016 is not just between Trump, the supposed foreign-policy dunce, and an untruthful former secretary of state, but is also a matter of how you prefer your obtuseness — raw or cooked? Who has done the greater damage to the nation: would-be novelist and Obama insider Ben Rhodes, who boasted about out-conning the ‘Blob’ D.C. establishment, or bare-knuckles Trumpster Corey Lewandowski?”</p>
<p>Now, Hanson’s point is, Lewandowski has this dustup with a reporterette, and everybody goes ape and wants to put the guy in jail, wants charges, wants a criminal trial, wants the guy fired, wants the guy strung up. They want Trump disqualified for having such a thug. Meanwhile, we learn that we’ve got a guy lying to the American media but who we are negotiating a nuclear deal with with Iran. Speaking of which we’ve got a guy, Lewandowski, supposedly should be prosecuted, put in jail for grabbing a reporter by the arm.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, we just got an administration here who’s seen to it that the Iranians are gonna have a nuclear bomb. So Hanson, where is the sense of proportion? You think Trump’s an idiot, you think he’s got thugs working for him and it’s gonna be bad? What about what we have had to endure the last seven years and where has been the proportionate outrage? Exactly my point.</p>
<p>And then he points out here in his piece that over the next six months Trump could, not necessarily will, but could reinvent himself into something more responsible, could promise solid conservative appointments, like Cruz to the Supreme Court, John Bolton to state, Larry Arnn of Hillsdale as education sec, things like this are things that Republicans ought to be working with Trump on to try to make happen.</p>
<p>And even if we think if Trump does it, that it’s a naked ploy to get our votes, we still have to ask, isn’t a naked ploy from Trump better than Hillary Clinton? See, Victor Davis Hanson’s coming from the exact place I am: Hillary Clinton, you can’t do worse. You’re not even on the same thing field. This lesser of two evils thing doesn’t even apply, because nobody gets close to the depths of incompetence and depravity and danger posed by another four years of the same crap that we’ve had the last seven and a half.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>I had a little bit more time here to study the Victor Davis Hanson piece that I admittedly lauded prior to having read all of it. It started out and it had some brilliant premises. Here’s the nut of it.</p>
<p>The nut of it is that we’re already in dire straits and we’ve been in dire straits for an entire year, and all this talk about what dire straits are yet to come kind of misses the point. There’s a sense of proportion here that’s missing in all this panic and fatalism over Trump. Where is it with what is being done to us right now and for the last 7-1/2 years? But his point is, we know what we’re gonna get with Hillary and there’s nothing redeeming about it and there’s no way it’s gonna change. There’s literally no way who she is is going to change.</p>
<p>We can make book on what we’re gonna get if she wins the election. His point is with Trump, there’s still six months or some months, a few months to go here before the election, and he mentions that there are opportunities here for those who want to try to take Trump in different directions that he might instinctively go or what have you. Look, he’s trying to be positive. I appreciate that. I don’t think being positive is necessarily absent reality. A lot of people do, but I don’t. I mean, there’s some lost causes, otherwise we wouldn’t have St. Jude.</p>
<p>But still, I also think that one of the things Mr. Hanson is attempting to do with his piece here is to talk some people off the ledge and say: Back off for a minute here. We’ve got a little time here before… I mean, you’re writing about all this as though everything is etched in stone, nothing’s gonna change, it’s only gonna get worse, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. And as I say, some are gonna say that that’s unrealistic, that that’s phony optimism, and it has no place because we’ve gotta be brutally honest with ourselves about who Trump is and what we face.</p>
<p>And his point is, “No, not yet. It’s not over. There’s still lots of time here left.” I think it’s admirable, trying to talk people off of a ledge, if you want to put it that way. But being fatalistic, nobody knows what’s gonna happen in this election today. The idea that we’re gonna lose and lose big — and a lot of people think so, and it’s not totally fatalism. I mean, they’re looking at polling data, and they’re looking at other data, which suggests that Trump’s wildly unpopular with a bunch of different groups of people, wildly unpopular among some Republicans.</p>
<p>You’ve got this push for the third party out there among establishment types. And if they succeed, then all the rest of it’s academic. So, I mean, there’s some genuine challenges out there. But I would side with Mr. Hanson here, at least on his intentions and his motivations.</p> | Victor Davis Hanson Cuts Through the Noise on Trump vs. Clinton | true | http://rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/05/09/victor_davis_hanson_cuts_through_the_noise_on_trump_vs_clinton | 2016-05-09 | 0 |
<p>Stacy Revere/Zumapress.com</p>
<p />
<p>Obama’s election was heralded as the beginning of a new era of “post-racial” American politics—a notion that seems to have been scuttled as quickly as the idea that his presidency would end partisan bickering. The backlash against Obama and his Democratic allies has sped the rise of a right-wing fringe deeply suspicious of immigrants and minorities. While immigration reform stayed on Capitol Hill’s backburner, Arizona’s punitive immigration law set off a political firestorm that spilled over into the 2010 elections—with some decidedly ugly outcomes.</p>
<p>Acknowledging its image problem, the Republican Party recruited minority (and female)&#160;candidates in&#160;droves and managed to achieve some historic, ceiling-shattering victories in the midterms—electing the nation’s first female Hispanic governor, the first female Indian governor, and South Carolina’s first black Republican member of Congess, among other accomplishments. But even the party’s own suffered some withering race-based attacks on the 2010 campaign trail. As the next election approaches, the GOP could face even more of a <a href="" type="internal">conundrum when it comes to race</a>, immigration, and identity politics—squeezed between a right-wing fringe that’s taken hold of its conservative base and a growing minority electorate.</p>
<p>Through it all, the growth of polarized partisanship and an increasingly reactive, scandal-hungry media culture has amplified&#160;fringe voices and stigmatized public figures&#160;who cross the line. Inopportune slips of the tongue ricocheted instaneously from the Twitterverse to the nightly TV networks; race-baiting campaign ads circulated just as quickly, generating an equally heated backlash. Here’s a look back at some of the most racially insensitive moments that dominated the 2010 political season:</p>
<p>1) When it came to race-baiting in 2010, it was nigh impossible to top tea party fave Sharron Angle. Characterizing her opponent Harry Reid as a friend of dark-skinned, Hispanic gangbangers and illegal border-crossers who swarmed the border, Angle’s <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20101025/us_ac/7044650_sharron_angle_political_ad_most_overtly_racist_ad_says_pundit" type="external">anti-immigrant campaign spots</a> topped many a list as the most racist ads of the year. Angle tried to repair some of the damage by speaking to a group of minority high-school students—and only dug the hole deeper by telling them: “I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me.”</p>
<p>2) Even the most die-hard, fiscally conservative Republicans weren’t immune to racially motivated attacks. During the South Carolina gubernatorial primary, state Sen. Jake Knotts <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/jake-knotts-raghead-remar_n_600238.html" type="external">lobbed a racial slur</a> at Indian American (and now governor-elect) Nikki Haley. “We’ve already got a raghead in the White House, we don’t need another raghead in the governor’s mansion,” he joked.</p>
<p>3) The birther conspiracies surrounding Barack Hussein Obama have now thoroughly infected the conservative body politic. But perhaps the most infuriating attempt to cast the nation’s black president as a nefarious, untrustworthy foreigner came from Dinesh D’Souza, the conservative commentator who <a href="http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/adam_serwer_archive?base_name=forbes_embraces_birtherism&amp;month=09&amp;year=2010" type="external">concluded</a> that the guiding philosophy of Obama’s presidency has been “Kenyan anti-colonialism” in an essay for Forbes. The American Prospect‘s Adam Serwer had one of the best <a href="http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/adam_serwer_archive?base_name=forbes_embraces_birtherism&amp;month=09&amp;year=2010" type="external">takedowns</a> of D’Souza’s “birtherism lite,”&#160;describing&#160;the writer’s&#160;attempt to launder racism of the right through a pseudo-intellectual filter.</p>
<p>4) It was a crowded field for extremist kooks who found their way onto 2010 campaign trail. But Ohio GOP House candidate Rick Iott may have left a more memorable impression than most for <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/11/rich-iott-nazi-uniform-gop_n_758380.html" type="external">dressing up in a Nazi uniform</a> to participate in World War II reenactments. Iott denied sympathizing with Nazis or harboring anti-Semitic sentiments, but he staunchly defended his Hitler-inspired dress-up: “I don’t see anything wrong about educating the public about events that happened.”</p>
<p>5) The few more moderate Republicans running in high-profile races were pressed to defend the increasingly anti-immigrant policies of their party—particularly if they themselves were minorities. During his (ultimately successful) run for governor, Mexican-American Brian Sandoval (R-Nevada) provided this <a href="" type="internal">forehead-smacking response</a> when asked whether he would be concerned about racial profiling under Arizona’s immigration law: “My children don’t look Hispanic.” After first denying the comment, Sandoval tried to backpedal furiously: “If I did say those words, it was wrong and I sincerely regret it. I am proud of my heritage.”</p>
<p>6) Scandal-tainted Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) can hardly boast of having a squeaky-clean <a href="http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/10/david_vitter_sex_scandal_gets.html" type="external">record</a>, and he didn’t do his reputation any favors by running one of the most tasteless ads of the 2010 cycle. Another anti-immigrant jamboree, the ad shows “a gang of shady Mexicans sneaking through a fence, being greeted by a welcome sign in both English and Spanish, an oversized novelty check giving them ‘a lot of taxpayer money,’ and a limousine to ride them off in style,” as Talking Points Memo <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/vitter-ad-features-garish-welcome-for-mexican-illegal-immigrants-video.php" type="external">sums up</a>. The spot concludes: “Thanks to Charlie Melancon, it’s no wonder illegals keep coming, and coming…” All but one of the purportedly victimized Americans in the&#160;ad&#160;appears to be white.</p>
<p>7) Republicans weren’t the only ones to spawn an outcry over race this year: California Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez landed in hot water in her reelection race against Republican Vietnamese American Van Tran by <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42673.html#ixzz19WmLjUOg" type="external">declaring</a> that “the Vietnamese” were after her seat. “The Vietnamese and the Republicans are, with an intensity, trying to take this seat from which we have done so much for our community—to take this seat and give it to this Van Tran, who is very anti-immigrant and very anti-Hispanic,” Sanchez told Univision. Sanchez tried to explain that she was referring to the “Vietnamese community” bent on defeating her, but her apology didn’t hold much water. Though Sanchez managed to survive the midterms, she faced a much bigger scare at the polls than expected.</p>
<p>8) New York had more than a dose of cringeworthy moments with Carl Paladino winning the Republican gubernatorial nomination. But the state did have one political hopeful who managed to top Paladino’s <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002299-503544.html" type="external">email forwards</a> of bestiality and racist Obama jokes. Republican Jim Russell, who challenged Nita Lowey (D) for her House seat in the New York City suburbs, had penned a 2001 essay that <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/maggiehaberman/0910/Nita_Lowey_rival_wrote_antiintegration_racially_charged_essay_.html?showall" type="external">lambasted interracial marriage</a> and racial integration, as well as celebrating the anti-Semitic ideas of T.S. Eliot. Parents, Russell wrote, need to teach their children “appropriate ethnic boundaries” for marriage and socializing. The New York GOP hurriedly tried to dissociate themselves from Russell campaign, but they didn’t succeed in forcing him off the ballot.</p>
<p>9) Speaking of throwbacks to a pre-Brown v. Board of Education era, Governor Haley Barbour may have scuttled any chance he had of a presidential bid by praising an infamously racist organization in the South. “You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up North they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders,” he told the Weekly Standard. The real story? “The Citizen Councils did everything they could to preserve racial supremacy, specializing in economic intimidation of citizens who tried to exercise the right to vote or tried to send their children to previously all-white schools,” one history professor <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/beltway-beast/haley-barbour-under-fire-for-revisionist-history/" type="external">told The Daily Beast</a>. Barbour’s blind spot made it clear that at least one wing of the GOP, at least, has yet to shed the deep-seated racism of the South.</p>
<p>10) Amid all the racist flamethrowing of 2010, politicians managed to achieve a bipartisan consensus when it came to one boogeyman. China-bashing profilerated on both sides of the aisle as candidates blamed the ascendant superpower for America’s economic woes, as Salon‘s Adam Hanft <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/10/12/ad_attacks_on_china" type="external">explains</a>. Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) attacked his opponent Pat Toomey as an outsourcing “job-killer” who was even willing “to work for a Hong Kong billionaire who wanted to help the Chinese economy…Maybe he ought to run for Senate—in China.” Incumbent Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio) similarly slammed his opponent Bob Gibbs as free trader who “wants to increase THEIR standard of living.” Space’s ad concludes sarcastically: “As they say in China, xie xie Mr. Gibbs.” West Virginia Republican hopeful Spike Maynard also piled on: “It’s on our jeans. Even children’s toys. Made in China.”&#160;Though the China hatefest ave candidates a handy scapegoat, it didn’t pay off in the end: Sestak, Space, and Maynard all lost in November.</p>
<p /> | The Year in Racism | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/12/2010-racist-politics-gaffes-controversies/ | 2010-12-30 | 4 |
<p>It looks like today is a C-Day. The Convergence Chaser Collective's other work ground to a crawl this morning as we became glued to our televisions, transfixed by C-SPAN's broadcast of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee <a href="http://www.senate.gov/~commerce/hearings/witnesslist.cfm?id=758" type="external">hearings</a> on media ownership. (We're looking for a link to archived video; if you've got one, <a href="" type="internal">let us know</a>.) Offering testimony were:</p>
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<p>Here's a quick Convergence Chaser report:• We saw a surprisingly&#160;amount of skepticism from the committee. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) was cautious; "It's a high-risk proposition if we're wrong," she said. "I think we should hesitate before we go into this June 2 up-or-down decision."• Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) also wanted to know what the rush was for, especially since the public seems so ill-informed.• Mel Karmazin of <a href="http://www.viacom.com/factsandfig.tin" type="external">Viacom</a> responded: "I hear a total disconnect -- I hear, 'no one knew about it' -- but I hear, we've got 20,000 responses [to the FCC's request for comments]. Clearly, someone knew about it." We've got to trust the FCC's process, he said.• Frank Blethen of the <a href="http://www.seattletimescompany.com/" type="external">Seattle Times</a> replied that he was "finding it hard to trust a process that's taking place behind closed doors."• Jim Goodmon of the <a href="http://www.cbc-raleigh.com/default.asp" type="external">Capitol Broadcasting Company</a>, a media company in Raleigh, N.C., highlighted the UHF discount, which the FCC plans to keep in place, according to this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/13/business/media/13FCC.html" type="external">New York Times article</a>. Under the discount, a UHF station only counts half as much as a VHF station toward the national audience cap for broadcasters. It was designed to compensate for the shorter reach of UHF signals.The discount will become more and more important as stations switch to digital signals over UHF; a bit of Googling turned up <a href="http://www.instat.com/abstracts/dt/1999/dt9908nw_abs.htm" type="external">this abstract</a>, which describes the mechanism by which networks might benefit from the rule. Jim Goodmon's message: When you hear "35 percent" or "45 percent," you should think "70 percent" and "90 percent," because that's going to be the reality.</p>
<p>Committee Chairman John McCain promised another hearing before June 2.Convergence Chaser Rob Runett filed this item late Tuesday:The Newspaper Association of America posted <a href="http://www.naa.org/about/pdf/SingletonsWrittenStatement.pdf" type="external">a PDF&#160;version of the written&#160;testimony</a> presented to the Senate committee by William Dean Singleton, vice chairman and chief executive officer of the Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc. and NAA’s immediate past chairman.</p>
<p>The ability of existing newspaper and broadcast combinations to serve the best interests of their markets should "take the guesswork out of eliminating" the cross-ownership ban, Singleton said. He concluded with another plug for the potency of local news combos:</p>
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<p>We'll keep&#160;adding links and other information about this hearing as we find it.</p> | Committee talks convergence on C-SPAN | false | https://poynter.org/news/committee-talks-convergence-c-span | 2003-05-13 | 2 |
<p>BANGKOK — They slink through Chinese streets dropping poop like “land mines.” They are a blight on “social peace and harmony.”</p>
<p>Pet dogs, in the eyes of China’s Communist Party, are a modern-day menace. And the Chinese urbanites who’ve grown infatuated with Spot and Rover are acting out a “crude and ludicrous imitation ... of a Western lifestyle.”</p>
<p>So goes a <a href="http://opinion.people.com.cn/n/2014/0729/c1003-25358373.html" type="external">recent op-ed</a> in the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official news outlet.</p>
<p>The op-ed decries a “dog infestation” in China’s cities. Its urgent message to selfish dog owners: scoop those land mines or else.</p>
<p>And yet the writer concedes that pet ownership is proof of China’s economic ascent. After all, starving peasants can’t afford to pamper Shih Tzus.</p>
<p>The ranks of people who can afford dog chow is rising fast. By 2030, according to the United Nations, China’s middle class will be <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/09/05/within-a-generation-china-middle-class-four-times-larger-than-americas/" type="external">four times the size of America’s middle class.</a> Many Chinese can now seek out what Western consumers have long enjoyed: cars, flat-screen TVs and, yes, pet poodles. In Beijing, the number of registered dogs hit 1 million in 2012.</p>
<p>Foreign social pollution</p>
<p>A pack of "Western imports" takes a walk in Beijing. (AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>The doggie denouncement coincides with a revived effort to stamp out certain Western beliefs and behaviors taking root in 21st-century China. Officials are taking aim at bigger perils to social harmony, including democracy, an obsession with “individual rights” and the “free flow of information on the internet.”</p>
<p>All three are explicitly condemned in an internal party report as serious threats to the party and to the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”</p>
<p>The party memo, <a href="http://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation" type="external">known as “Document 9,”</a> was leaked late last year. It refers to an “ideological battlefield” in which Western notions of individual liberty and freedom of speech are used to “gouge an opening through which to infiltrate our ideology,” which prizes the “unification of thought” and social harmony.</p>
<p>Modern China would be almost unrecognizable to its founder, Mao Zedong, who exalted peasants and decried “petty bourgeois individualism.” Now, as China grows more prosperous and globally connected, top party members are mounting an ideological purification campaign to reconnect the masses with Mao’s ideals. During Mao’s “cultural revolution,” dog ownership was condemned as elitist.</p>
<p>Doggie do’s and don’ts</p>
<p>Excuse me, sir, how tall are those dogs? (AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>China’s authoritarian laws govern many aspects of home life — including pet ownership. Dogs were banned in Beijing through the 1980s. Rules were relaxed in the 1990s. Only in 2003 were all Beijing residents allowed to own dogs.</p>
<p>But city governments have started to push back on the dog ownership boom with a barrage of rules. In Beijing, breeds deemed “dangerous” — including collies and pit bulls — are now forbidden, along with dogs taller than 14 inches.</p>
<p>Officials in Shanghai have experimented with an even stricter edict: If dog owners can’t convince neighbors to approve of their dogs, the animal is confiscated by the state.</p>
<p>Dogs who aren’t up to code can be yanked out of owners’ arms. That was the fate of one white pooch, confiscated by cops in <a href="http://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation" type="external">this cell phone video that went viral in China.</a></p>
<p>All of these rules on dog ownership, however, are increasingly flouted.</p>
<p>A documentary titled <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwCExDxs87k" type="external">“Oversized Dogs”</a> focuses entirely on Chinese citizens defying dog laws. Its director calls this trend <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/03/chinas-new-dissidents-dog-owners/273952/" type="external">“an important part of Chinese dissent.”</a></p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Communist Party’s media arm keeps cranking out editorials about dogs.</p>
<p>Just one month ago, the People’s Daily published <a href="http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/n/2014/0618/c90882-8743109.html" type="external">another piece</a> urging animal rights activists to stop berating fellow Chinese who view dogs as a culinary delicacy.</p>
<p>The op-ed first revives the elitist legacy of pet dogs in China: “Over China’s long history, they have only recently become pets except in the imperial court where Pekingese were kept exclusively for the royals.”</p>
<p>Another group suspiciously fond of canines? That’s right — foreigners. Though Westerners call dogs “man’s best friend,” the People’s Daily states, “Chinese people have only ever kept watchdogs or hunting dogs — along with those to be eaten.”</p> | China denounces pet dogs as filthy imports from the West | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-08-13/china-denounces-pet-dogs-filthy-imports-west | 2014-08-13 | 3 |
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<p>LOUISVILLE (KY)WDRB FOX 41 NEWSSexual abuse victims of a retired Roman Catholic priest said his guilty plea is a first step in dealing with a scandal that has for some shattered the image of the church.</p>
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<p>But beyond the priest's admission of sexual misconduct, they are looking for an acknowledgment from the church itself.</p>
<p>"We have to rebuild the trust one relationship at a time," said Brian Reynolds, chancellor and executive director of the Archdiocese of Louisville, which is facing more than 200 civil lawsuits claiming sexual abuse. "There's no question that we need to respond to these victims, we have to re-earn that trust."</p>
<p>Victims say part of rebuilding that trust is for the church to admit it was aware of sexual abuse incidents, but never reported them to authorities. That's what hundreds of plaintiffs claim in the lawsuits filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court since April 2002.</p>
<p>The Rev. Louis E. Miller, 72, of Louisville, pleaded guilty Monday to 44 counts of indecent and immoral practices with another and six counts of sexual abuse, involving 21 victims. He faces 14 sexual misconduct charges, involving eight victims, in neighboring Oldham County.</p>
<p>Miller is the first of four priests or former priests who are facing criminal charges in the state. Dozens are accused in the wave of lawsuits.</p> | Priest's Guilty Plea Just a Start in Church Abuse Scandal | false | https://poynter.org/news/priests-guilty-plea-just-start-church-abuse-scandal | 2003-04-06 | 2 |
<p>I don't know Dr. Gu, but he seems like a thoughtful, decent man.&#160; In fact, imma go out on a limb and say that all of the people I have seen across social media today declaring that the Republicans now "own" this fiasco are probably thoughtful.&#160;</p>
<p>And decent.&#160;</p>
<p>And wrong.</p>
<p>Because if there is one thing at which the Republican Party (and their enablers in the media) excel at above everything else it is blowing shit up and then not owning it.&#160; In fact, the last 40 year of American politics has been one, long, escalating cycle of Republican lying, cheating, plundering the government and killing everything they touch, and then being promptly and completely excused from taking any responsibility for any of it by their stooges, PR flacks and eager enablers in the press.</p>
<p>It is the foundation on which the entire <a href="http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2017/07/both-siderism-is-corporate-policy.html" type="external">High and Holy Church of Both Siderism</a> was built, and I see no sign that any of the fundamentals of this toxic codependency have changed.&#160; Believe me, I wish I could report little green shoots of Independence growing up between the cracks on the old media institutions, but I see no such thing.&#160; For example. the corporations who own our media are now aggressively using the Rise of Trump not as an object lesson in the dangers of letting Republicans anywhere near the levers of power, but as an opportunity to give every unreconstructed Bush Regime Dead-Ender who is willing to say mean things about Il Douche a quick tuck-and-roll credibility rehab.</p>
<p>Even in the face of President Stupid's daily, public molestation of the basic norms of democracy and civilization our corporate media has used brute economic for to refused to permit our national public political dialogue to expand to create a genuine debate between the creators of the GOP Pretty Hate Machine that manifested Donald Trump, and those who have been warning about the trajectory the Republican Party has been taking for decades.&#160; &#160;Instead, our corporate media has constricted the spectrum to A) Republicans Who Get Paid To Defend Trump and, B) Republicans Who Get Paid To Say Mean Things About Trump But Would Be Defending Marco Rubio If He Were Enacting The Same Depraved Policies But Without The Tweets.</p>
<p>As was true during the Age of Clinton, the Age of Bush and the Age of Obama, our corporate media has no place for those who were right all along, but always has plenty of room for, say, the latest tome by the author of such searing works of political truth as&#160;</p>
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<p>and&#160;</p>
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<p>I understand the opening is quite riveting</p>
<p>Call me Pishmael. Some years ago - let's all agree to forget how long precisely or what I was doing - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me in Canada, I thought I would come to the United States and work very hard to get the worst people in the world elected to high political office...</p>
<p /> | Will Trump Now 'Own' Healthcare? Not If Both Siders Have Their Way | true | http://crooksandliars.com/2017/10/will-trump-now-own-healthcare-not-if-both | 2017-10-13 | 4 |
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<p>The state-backed fund Innovation Network Corp of Japan is looking at the auction of Toshiba Corp's &lt;6502.T&gt; chip unit but did not participate in first-round bidding, INCJ Chairman Toshiyuki Shiga said on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters INCJ may invest in the business as a minority partner - a move that would help the government prevent a sale to bidders it deems risky to national security.</p>
<p>"Given the size of the deal, I cannot say we won't have anything to do with it," Shiga told reporters, adding that INCJ has set up a team to look at publicly available information regarding the deal.</p>
<p>Shiga said, however, that INCJ is not conducting due diligence and that it would be unable to bid by itself.</p>
<p>The auction of Toshiba's prized chips asset is essential to the company's plans to cover multi-billion dollar writedowns at its U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse.</p>
<p>Toshiba has narrowed the field of bidders for its chip unit to four suitors, sources have said: U.S. chipmaker Broadcom Ltd , which has partnered with private equity firm Silver Lake Partners LP; SK Hynix &lt;000660.KS&gt;; Western Digital ; and Foxconn &lt;2317.TW&gt;, the world's largest contract electronics maker.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Broadcom Ltd has put in the highest first-round offer of 2.5 trillion yen ($23 billion) while Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer, offered 2 trillion yen, one person familiar with the matter has said.</p>
<p>INCJ was established in 2009 to promote new and innovative technologies, with a limited fund life of 15 years. About two dozen private-sector companies including Toyota Motor Corp &lt;7203.T&gt; and Sony Corp &lt;6758.T&gt; are also minority participants in the fund. Its past investments include Japan Display Inc &lt;6740.T&gt;.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Taiga Uranaka, Additional writing by Thomas Wilson; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)</p> | INCJ looking at Toshiba chip unit auction; didn't bid in first round | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/18/incj-looking-at-toshiba-chip-unit-auction-didnt-bid-in-first-round.html | 2017-04-18 | 0 |
<p>Two important conservatives departed this life within days of each other. One was a world-historical figure with extravagant political gifts, and she rarely harbored any doubts about the way forward. The other’s misgivings about politics led him to counsel Christians to undertake a political “fast” and “flock to soup kitchens, battered women’s shelters, prison cells and hospitals.”</p>
<p>Margaret Thatcher, who died on Monday, changed Britain and altered the trajectory of global politics. David Kuo, who passed away last Friday, received well-earned attention for his work in and out of politics on behalf of the poor. But he would almost certainly laugh, dismissively if merrily, at the idea of a former White House aide being linked with someone so central to the narrative of our era.</p>
<p>Yet because Thatcher, 87, and Kuo, 44, represented two sides of the conservative disposition and two forms of the “conviction politics” for which the Iron Lady was known, both have much to teach us about the debate we need now.</p>
<p>Thatcher’s was the stern conservatism of the marketplace. She valued the virtues of thrift and enterprise, evangelizing not about religion but about an economic system. She loved capitalism for its “vivacity” and “verve,” for “the energy, the vigor, the dynamism” it promoted, and she set her face against collectivism and socialism.</p>
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<p>Kuo was no less committed to capitalism in principle. But his faith was religious. He was one of the original “compassionate conservatives,” and he remained one to his dying day. As his friend Joe Klein of Time magazine put it: “He was a man of faith, rather than of religion. He called himself a Follower of Jesus. Many of his friends had ministries, but David’s church truly had no walls.”</p>
<p>Kuo’s passions were engaged less by honoring the contributions of the successful than by demanding attention to the suffering of those left out of the grand capitalist party — among them the 35 million Americans “at risk of hunger every day,” and the million people “released from prison every year with virtually no one to help them productively re-enter society.”</p>
<p>Thatcher’s fans loved her for the enemies she made among trade unionists, leftist intellectuals and members of her own Conservative Party (“the wets” as they were labeled) prepared to compromise with the forces of socialism.</p>
<p>Kuo ruffled feelings after he left the White House when he sharply criticized the workings of former President Bush’s faith-based initiative. This disillusionment led to his suggestion of a Christian political fast in his 2006 book, “Tempting Faith.”</p>
<p>But Kuo was allergic to the idea of enmity and spent much of his time pleading with the left and the right to learn from each other. He wanted liberals to understand the power of religious faith “as a catalyst for radical change in people’s lives” and the importance of non-governmental charitable organizations. He urged conservatives to admit that “governmental programs can do — and have done — good,” citing as evidence food stamps, Social Security and Medicare.</p>
<p>Let me be upfront about my own engagement here. I knew Kuo for 17 years and encouraged him in 1997 to write his “Poverty 101” piece urging trans-ideological learning. And while I respected Thatcher’s strength of character (it’s hard not to) and how she personally broke through Britain’s class and gender barriers, I am not an unabashed admirer.</p>
<p>Thatcher made Britain governable again, no small achievement, but her policies left behind a large economic divide between its regions and its classes. The deregulation she championed (kept intact by subsequent Labor Party governments) fostered havoc in the financial sector in 2008.</p>
<p>But the well-known Thatcher statement that ought to call forth the most dissent was this declaration: “There is no such thing as society.” Instead, she insisted: “There are individual men and women, and there are families.”</p>
<p>Prime Minister David Cameron has spoken glowingly of Thatcher. But in defining a post-Thatcher vision after he was elected Conservative Party leader in 2005, he pointedly backed away from her view. “There is such a thing as society,” Cameron said. “It’s just not the same thing as the state.”</p>
<p>This is exactly what Kuo was getting at when he urged cooperation between government and the institutions of civil society in alleviating poverty. You do not have to be a socialist to believe in the social, and you do not have to reject liberty to believe in community. Thatcher and Kuo will never have a chance to argue about that, in this world at least. But we should.</p>
<p>E.J. Dionne’s e-mail address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com.</p>
<p>© 2013, Washington Post Writers Group</p> | Two Conservative Lives | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/two-conservative-lives/ | 2013-04-11 | 4 |
<p>“A group is extraordinarily credulous and open to influence … anyone who wishes to produce an effect upon it needs no logical arguments; he must paint in forcible colors, must exaggerate, and he must repeat the same thing again and again. … (The group) wants to be ruled and impressed, and to fear its masters. … And, finally, groups have never thirst after truth. … They are almost as influenced by what is not true as by what is true. … A group is an obedient herd, which could never live without a master.” —Sigmund Freud</p>
<p>“Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”</p>
<p>“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” —George Orwell</p>
<p>All that Freud and Orwell asserted about groups and political language has been proven anew with the improbable ascendancy of Donald Trump to President of the United States, an apparent doppelgänger of Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard—from his hair to his flair for revenge.</p>
<p>In a few short months of campaigning and governing, the pride of Mar-a-Lago has seemingly wiped out the last vestiges of civility, honesty and common sense in presidential politics and turned the Oval Office into a Ringling Bros., Barnum &amp; Bailey side show.</p>
<p>And yet, after all the lies, position flip-flops, erratic behavior, brazen conflicts of interest, childish, thin-skinned attacks on the media, offensive comments about minorities, women and the entire Middle East, not to mention the investigations into his curious relationship with Russia that has led us to the doorstep of impeachment, many of those who voted for him still maintain their unflagging support.</p>
<p>For the love of sanity, how is this possible?</p>
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<p>I’ve been repeating that phrase for many months now, after each unconscionable act, events that would have torpedoed any other political campaign. And yet, here we are, on the precipice of calamity, with Trump eviscerating regulations that will loose the beasts of Wall Street and the energy industry, threatening to build a wall that will waste billions of dollars, spreading chaos in health and education, proposing massive cuts to programs that benefit the poor and promising to shut down any program or agency that could protect us from climate change and environmental abuses. Do you remember the megalomaniacal general played by Sterling Hayden in&#160;Dr. Strangelove? Don’t look now, but he’s President and commander-in-chief, the man with his finger on the button. Isn’t that a sobering thought?</p>
<p>Of course, you want to know who to blame for this mess. But be careful what you wish for, because here’s the awful truth: Go look in the mirror. We elected this guy, something for which we will all have to atone. But for a variety of reasons, we may not have been in our right minds, a condition that must be fixed if we are to extricate ourselves from this Trumped-up world.&#160; After all, this has been the repeated course of history.</p>
<p>First, think about the world that confronted contestants in the 2016 Presidential election. Our two controlling political parties were locked in a death spiral of gridlock, threatening the modest economic gains eked out of the long and slow recovery from the 2008 collapse. Our education system has long been in decline from general societal woes and a crippling decline in funding. Our general level of civility and morality has also taken a hit, exemplified by the black hole into which our culture has plummeted. Gone are the days of the Greatest Generation and the Golden Rule. We have become a society in which accomplishments of substance have been trumped by celebrity worship, real relationships have been trumped by vulgar and voyeuristic televised displays of family and group dysfunction and sanity, reason and thoughtful discourse have been trumped by, well, Trump.</p>
<p>In such turbulent times, people reach out desperately for alternative solutions. In the 1930s, a lingering World War, and Great Depression stirred greater interest in “isms”—unionism, socialism, communism and Nazism. In the “60s, youthful rebellion against the Vietnam War and a generation of seekers trying to find their better selves led to a societal surge of spiritualism, so-called mind-expanding drugs, communes and the inevitable rise of oppressive cults whose narcissistic leaders claimed that only they knew the path to a glorious new world.</p>
<p>In the traumatic aftermath of&#160; 9/11, this country experienced a period of mass panic and fear unmatched in its history. As the twin towers melted away like the wicked witch, a new reality materialized: We were vulnerable to cult fanaticism—this time represented by terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS. To quell that terrible feeling, we were willing to sacrifice almost anything—even our beloved personal liberty. What’s more, our then–President, George W. Bush, proclaimed that he was on a mission from God to avenge the dead, and like all tyrannical leaders, he issued an ultimatum: the world was “either with us or against us.”</p>
<p>So we looked the other way when the government discarded the presumption of innocence for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and allowed “aggressive” questioning. As the populace rallied around the flag, those who spoke against torture and a war in Iraq built on lies and deception were vilified.&#160; Not until the administration exposed an undercover spy because her husband dared to criticize the&#160;invasion of&#160;Iraq did the media wake up and take back its mandate to question government actions, leading to what amounted to a mass deprogramming of the American people.</p>
<p>The manipulators that arose during these chaotic eras all used variations of a concept which has existed throughout history, but wasn’t defined until Mao Tse-tung refined it and used it on imprisoned U.S. soldiers during the Korean War.&#160; The process was dubbed “brainwashing” by a writer seeking a simplistic explanation for his readers, but it is more complex and chilling than that. In his book about Mao’s experiment on U.S. prisoners, Dr. Edgar Schein called it “coercive persuasion.” Dr. Robert J. Lifton called it “thought reform.” I prefer the term “totalist thinking.”</p>
<p>Dr. Schein also summarized the traits of a person capable of implementing such a regime—a leader who would initiate programs to liquidate those who are useless, to re-educate those needed in the new society, to purge the unfaithful to reaffirm the faith and to consolidate his power, satisfying the leader’s insecurity demands for unanimity and loyalty; a need to upgrade self to savior and judged favorably by history. If that does not sound familiar you have not been reading Trump’s tweets nor listening to his sound bites.</p>
<p>It’s the key to understanding the growth of cults and the manipulation of groups in general. What I have learned in my 40-year career as an attorney, most of it spent freeing people from the oppressive cults, is that totalist thinking infiltrates our everyday lives in ways both mundane and terrifying.</p>
<p>First paranoia will lead to destroying opponents , even murder as Trump’s heros have done, Putin and Kim. He admires the loyalty they receive. Then&#160;he must admire Charles Manson. Who received more loyalty than him?</p>
<p>Forget what you think you know about brainwashing. It isn’t a mind trick, or a way to induce people to do unthinkable things, as in the so-called brainwashed assassin in&#160;The Manchurian Candidate,&#160;whose murderous instincts were triggered by a playing card. What Mao had discovered were tools—repetitive catchphrases, exhaustive schedules filled with didactic lectures, frequent exercises and little sleep, accompanied by constant peer pressure—that broke down people emotionally and psychologically and left them vulnerable to his ideas. His subjects didn’t become hypnotized robots, they became true believers, convinced that the master knew the path to righteousness.</p>
<p>Destructive versions of this coercive persuasion can include churches proselytizing for new members, political parties seeking to sway undecided voters, even sports coaches persuading their young charges to “buy in” to their philosophy. So are advertising and marketing, the massive economic engines that seek to mold our consuming habits in a variety of subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Then there’s the military. How else can young soldiers be convinced to charge up hills and kill strangers?</p>
<p>It’s part of human nature to seek out common cause through groups of peers. But it’s also human nature to over-identify with these causes, which makes us vulnerable to manipulators. For years, I have seen the specter of totalist thinking in everything from self-help groups to religious fanaticism and even the overreaching fiats of our prior two Presidents. It didn’t surprise me. In times of social upheaval, we desperately seek clarity; so we attach ourselves to the appealingly simplistic messages of fanatics and, in our fervor to create a better world, vilify doubters as enemies who need to be conquered.</p>
<p>And so, I give you—I should say, we gave ourselves—Donald Trump, who told us he could drain the swamp, make us winners again, make America great again. The banners and slogans may be somewhat different from tyrants of old but are similar as never backed by facts&#160;while violence and revenge is approved. And in Trump’s words, I hear the chilling echoes of Adolf, Stalin and Mao. Is America First that much different from Deutschland uber alles?</p>
<p>Trump recently asked a group of UN ambassadors whether they liked the U.S. envoy he appointed to the body, Nikki Haley, who had been getting stellar reviews in the press. “Otherwise, she can easily be replaced,” he said. Long-time Trump observers said the joke was a common Trump ploy to keep popular underlings uncomfortable.</p>
<p>Tyrants have always displayed these traits. Messrs. Putin and Kim Jong Un know something about disposing of threats to their power, don’t they? Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey, who represented a threat to his agenda, echoes when Scientology’s David Miscavige took control after Hubbard’s death; &#160;he “retired” Hubbard’s wife as well as the president of Scientology– they were no longer heard from. &#160;Synanon’s Charles Dederich said “you’re fired” to many followers who became too popular and declared a holy war against the press after a&#160;Time&#160;magazine article declared Synanon, which began as a drug rehab center, a “kooky cult.” Jim Jones murdered those who would expose him. And don’t forget Trump’s campaign threats to imprison Hillary Clinton after he was elected. “I would say it’s chilling that Donald Trump thinks that the presidency is like some banana republic dictatorship where you can lock up your political opponent,” Robby Mook, Ms. Clinton’s campaign manager, told&#160;CBS This Morning.</p>
<p>What really troubles me is how willingly we fell into this and how many people still believe he is our savior. It’s easy to look at cults and say it couldn’t happen to you. Jim Jones could never have convinced you to drink that Kool-Aid at the Jonestown Massacre. But 900 people did. And Trump was elected despite media exposing him.</p>
<p>The truth is, the Jonestown victims weren’t bad people, for the most part, and neither are the Trump voters (just misguided). Both groups were and are convinced that they’re doing the right thing. But under the right circumstances, unfortunately, right-minded people can be induced into doing wrong-headed things. In 1974, for example, psychologist Stanley Milgram, attempting to make sense of atrocities like the Holocaust, induced volunteers to deliver increasingly heavy electric shocks to patients who answered questions wrong. The volunteers were told they were contributing to an important study aimed at improving people’s memories under stress. While the shocks were faked, along with the patients’ screaming, 92% of the volunteer pool who tested as “obedient—about two-thirds of the total pool—were willing to deliver lethal doses when paired with more aggressive, willing partners. And these subjects weren’t feeble or addled; they were drawn from a typical working class pool, including professionals and manager.</p>
<p>Likewise, Trump supporters, most far from being the “incorrigibles” described by Ms. Clinton, are largely honest, working-class folks who are angry and frustrated and have every right to be. Their country has passed them by without even acknowledging their pain and their government has largely failed them. No wonder they are ripe for the tempting, easy-to-digest buzzwords served up by Trump along with the straw men—mostly foreigners–he set up to take the fall. “Bad hombres” from Mexico who come to rob and sell drugs; terrorists from the Middle East coming to kill us; foreign leaders from Asia who foisted their terrible trade deals on us and supposed allies from Europe who won’t won’t pay their fair share of NATO costs.</p>
<p>But did we realize he would appoint a Royal Family? &#160;He is like a six-year-old cuddling the title President, secretly preferring to be King, Emperor or Pharaoh. Everyone obeys them and dissenters exiled to towers, chains or death.</p>
<p>So where do we go from here?</p>
<p>America must concentrate on solving the very real, monumental problems we’re facing today and do it with reason and civility. If we continue to demonize those who don’t think like us—which has been a pox on both of our political parties—we will continue to wallow in gridlock. It starts with teaching more than just the structure of government in schools. We have to get the next generation actively involved in the political process and informed on issues. Political candidates should be required to take the MMPI exam. From my personal perspective, we need to stop the worship of sociopaths and cut off their supply of fresh young minds. And the only way to do that is to teach our children the history of tyrants, the emotional hold of movements and the effects of their use of undue influence to sway minds. This is real-world stuff and our kids have to be ready for it.</p>
<p>We can keep blaming the Pharaohs, Emperors, Hitler, Stalin, Manson, Dederich, Jones, Hussein, drug lords. Putin, Bin Laden and ISIS and keep spinning our wheels, or we can point to ourselves and do something about it. The seeds of this revolution are starting to sprout. A young kid has organized a plan for saving the ocean from plastics&#160; Thousands are marching on D.C. and in other locales. Local groups are demanding town hall meetings with their government representatives to keep their feet to the fire. High school kids raised money to stop Trump from destroying the earth. Another group got a school district to declare school grounds a sanctuary for minorities. Scientists have started a foundation to teach scientists how to run for office.</p>
<p>It’s the 60’s again. Our future lies in these grass roots movements. So make a list of companies using fossil fuels, poisoning water or polluting the atmosphere and don’t buy their products. We, as consumers, hold the fate of these companies in our hands. If we want to influence their behavior, we have to organize and leverage our financial power. Pick a day of the week&#160;when people all over the country boycott airlines. As they say, vote with your feet—and your dollars.</p>
<p>And, of course, vote. And I don’t mean just show up and guess. Inform yourselves on issues that really matter and the candidates who stand for what you really believe in. Don’t just listen to buzzwords and simplistic solutions. Even Mr. Trump is learning how wrong-headed that is.</p>
<p>Among the tyrants Trump admires, apparently, now includes Andrew Jackson, our seventh President. Jackson, not such a great guy, once ruined the budding congressional career of one of my personal heroes, Davy Crockett, because the old frontiersman opposed the segregation of Indians on reservations. Crockett, who had quit as Jackson’s scout many years before because of Old Hickory’s wanton slaughter of innocent Indians, couldn’t be swayed. “Go to hell,” he reportedly told Jackson. “I’m going to Texas.”</p>
<p>So who would you rather be? Trump’s hero Jackson, or my man Crockett? Because as Trump’s reign grinds on, we’re all going to be forced to make that choice even if Trump himself doesn’t make it to the next election. Even more important that 2020, however, are the elections of 2018, our next chance to reshape Congress. So vote for people who are interested in serving the people and not themselves.</p>
<p>The next time you vote, be Davy Crockett—“Make sure you’re right, then go ahead.”</p>
<p>If you don’t New York may soon resemble Venice, Italy. Sink or swim.</p> | The Cult of Trump | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/the-cult-of-trump/ | 2018-03-31 | 4 |
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<p>Saturday night at University Stadium, eight members of the University of New Mexico’s 2013 football recruiting class will play their final regular-season game as Lobos.</p>
<p>In a pre-game Senior Day ceremony, those eight Lobos – running back Teriyon Gipson, wide receiver Dameon Gamblin, defensive end Nik D’Avanzo, nose guard William Udeh, inside linebacker Dakota Cox, cornerback Isaiah “I.B.” Brown, outside linebacker Donnie White and offensive tackle Reno Henderson – will be embraced by family members and cheered by fans and teammates.</p>
<p>No one will be cheering harder than the 2013 signees they’re leaving behind.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Four members of the 2013 class, quarterback Lamar Jordan, linebacker Kimmie Carson, cornerback Jadon Boatright and running back Romell Jordan, sat out a year along the way and are juniors this fall.</p>
<p>Saturday night’s game against Wyoming will not be the final game of the 2016 season and might not even be the final game at University Stadium. The Lobos (7-4 overall, 5-2 in Mountain West play) have qualified for a bowl game and might well wind up playing in the New Mexico Bowl for the second straight year.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Boatright and Lamar Jordan said, this Senior Day is special to them – even though it’s not theirs.</p>
<p>Boatright, a football and track star at Liberty Hill High School in the Austin area, committed to UNM – the only NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision school to offer him a scholarship – in August of 2012. He played two years, left school after the 2014 season but returned this fall.</p>
<p>“It was like our brother coming back,” Jordan said.</p>
<p>Of the departing members of the class, Boatright said, “In a way, I feel like I should be there with them. But we’ll definitely try to send them out the best way possible with a win.”</p>
<p>Jordan, a prolific run-pass quarterback at Centennial High School in Frisco, Texas, came to UNM after committing to Arkansas as a wide receiver. After a coaching change at Arkansas – John L. Smith out, Brett Bielema in – he signed instead with New Mexico as a quarterback.</p>
<p>Of Saturday night, he said, “It’s special, because I came in with all these guys that are leaving,” he said. “It shows you that time flies by. It was a blessing to come in with those guys because of what we came into.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>What the Class of ’13 came into was a program that had gone 11-50 the previous five seasons. Second-year coach Bob Davie needed a strong second recruiting class if UNM was to have success in the future. But, given the history, Davie and his staff could not afford to ignore the undersized and under-recruited.</p>
<p>Some of the 2013 recruits, like Cox, D’Avanzo and Jordan, had committed elsewhere but were set adrift by coaching changes. Others, like Boatright and Gamblin, had no other Football Bowl Subdivision offers.</p>
<p>It was a vibrant mix.</p>
<p>Jordan recalls vividly the opening game of the 2013 season, though as a redshirt he didn’t play that night. The Lobos lost 21-13 to UTSA at home.</p>
<p>Afterward, he said, the 2013 freshmen all gathered in White’s room, “all just saying, ‘We’ve got to turn this program around.'”</p>
<p>With help from the recruiting classes that followed, they have. The Lobos went 3-9 in 2013, 4-8 in ’14, but were 7-6 with a New Mexico Bowl appearance last year.</p>
<p>This season, UNM secured bowl eligibility with a sixth win over Nevada on Nov. 5 and equaled last year’s win total with a victory at Utah State on Nov. 12,</p>
<p>Last Saturday, the Lobos lost 49-31 at Colorado State – snapping a five-game win streak, the program’s longest since 2004.</p>
<p>Wyoming (8-3, 6-1) was a three-point favorite as of Wednesday. But the Lobos and the Class of 2013 have been underdogs before.</p>
<p>“I love those guys,” Jordan said of his departing classmates. “Hopefully, we get on a two-game win streak for those guys.”</p>
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<p /> | College football: Seniors have fueled UNM’s turnaround | false | https://abqjournal.com/895518/seniors-have-fueled-unms-turnaround.html | 2 |
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<p>Refugees at a railway station in Hungary&lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?people_number=&amp;commercial_ok=&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchterm=syrian%20refugees&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;anyorall=all&amp;searchtermx=&amp;color=&amp;search_tracking_id=XtfAa1xVmsA7x6PNBQMMyw&amp;media_type=images&amp;photographer_name=&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;use_local_boost=1&amp;language=en&amp;lang=en&amp;version=llv1&amp;ref_site=photo&amp;autocomplete_id=&amp;orient=&amp;people_gender=&amp;show_color_wheel=1&amp;people_age=&amp;safesearch=1&amp;prev_sort_method=popular&amp;sort_method=newest&amp;page=1&amp;inline=421388626"&gt;Alexandre Rotenberg&lt;/a&gt;/Shutterstock</p>
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<p>Last September, President Barack Obama promised to resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States within a year. Seven months have passed since then, but so far, only 1,736 Syrian refugees have been admitted into the country. And it’s not for lack of space. During the same period, we’ve resettled&#160;more than 6,000 refugees from Burma and more than 4,000 from Iraq. Canada—with 11 percent of the United States’ population—has managed to fit 26,000 new Syrian refugees into its communities since November.</p>
<p>Obama now has five months to resettle more than 8,000 Syrian refugees if he wants to meet his goal. Twenty-seven Senate Democrats,&#160;including the number two Democrat in the Senate&#160;Richard Durbin and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, have signed a letter calling on the president to pick up the pace. “In successfully resettling refugees from conflict zones around the world for decades,” they write, “the United States has not be dissuaded by fear and we should not be now.” Read the full text of the letter below.</p>
<p>&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2839055/Letter-to-Obama.pdf"&gt;Letter-to-Obama-Refugee-Resettlement (PDF)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2839055/Letter-to-Obama.txt"&gt;Letter-to-Obama-Refugee-Resettlement (Text)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;</p> | Senate Democrats to Obama: Pick Up the Pace on Syrian Refugee Resettlement | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/leading-democrats-say-syrian-refugee-resettlement-moving-too-slowly/ | 2016-05-18 | 4 |
<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-11/amazon-s-whole-foods-price-cuts-brought-25-jump-in-customers" type="external">Bloomberg</a> from Foursquare Labs Inc. Foursquare told
<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/12/whole-foods-foot-traffic-surges-over-25-percent-post-amazon-discounts.html" type="external">CNBC</a> that Whole Foods stores in New York had the lowest surge in traffic (with a 15% increase) while Chicago had the highest growth in shoppers (with a 35% increase). Amazon also saw an increase in online grocery sales, separate from the increased foot traffic at Whole Foods stores. In addition to increased foot traffic, Amazon sold $500,000 of Whole Foods products online in its first week of availability, according to eCommerce data measurement company One Click Retail. One Click Retail CEO Spencer Millerberg told
<a href="http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Markets/Amazon-sells-500k-of-Whole-Foods-private-label-items-in-week-one" type="external">Food Navigator</a>that Amazon added over 2,000 Whole Foods items to its online catalog. Millerberg said: Millerberg added: On 28 August, Amazon announced the completion of its $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods. Amazon said in the
<a href="" type="internal">announcement that it would immediately cut prices on Whole Foods products</a>. Prior to the price reduction, The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos, reported that Whole Foods’ prices are
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/08/24/amazons-takeover-of-whole-foods-begins-monday-and-youll-see-changes-right-away/?utm_term=.a74c74485c6f" type="external">15% above</a>competitors’ prices. The Wall Street Journal reported that
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/whole-foods-to-cut-prices-on-some-items-1503601404" type="external">six large grocers</a> — including Kroger and Walmart — lost a combined stock value of over $12 billion in the day following the announcement.
<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/12/whole-foods-foot-traffic-surges-over-25-percent-post-amazon-discounts.html" type="external">CNBC</a> reported that Amazon has reduced prices on some in-store products items by more than 40%. Kirthi Laylanam, director of the Retail Management Institute at Santa Clara University, told
<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-11/whole-foods-deal-boosts-amazon-s-online-grocery-sales-too" type="external">Bloomberg</a>: Amazon Prime customers are eligible to purchase groceries on Amazon Fresh, which delivers same-day delivery from grocery stores to homes. According to
<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/amazon-stock-price-whole-foods-competitors-mapped-2017-6-1002136148" type="external">Business Insider</a>, Morgan Stanley found that Whole Foods’ 450 stores are within a 10-mile radius of 144 million customers. Amazon’s acquisition gives the company control of the store locations.
<a href="https://corporate.target.com/article/2017/09/save-big-during-target-run" type="external">Target announced price cuts</a> on Friday, which some analyst saw as a response to Amazon. Target said in a statement: Burt Flickinger, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, believes the price reductions will lead to a price war among grocers. He told the
<a href="https://nypost.com/2017/09/11/whole-foods-price-slashing-is-paying-off/" type="external">New York Post</a>: Investopedia defines a
<a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/price-war.asp" type="external">price war</a> as “when companies continuously lower prices to undercut the competition.” Lowering prices reduces companies’ profit margins but can increase their market share. Following Target’s announcement, Pan Kwan Yuk at the
<a href="https://www.ft.com/stream/b1f04169-e87b-3b0f-874c-8cee482b65a2" type="external">Financial Times</a> argued that the price reductions would be “likely to fan concerns in the market that the intensifying discounting would only further erode profit margins at the country’s major retailers. Share on
<a href="" type="internal">Facebook</a>
<a href="" type="internal">Twitter</a>
<a href="" type="internal">Email</a> | Whole Foods Price Cuts Increased Traffic by 25% | false | http://thewhim.com/whole-foods-price-cuts-increased-traffic-25/ | 2017-09-12 | 2 |
<p>By Jan Strupczewski and Gabriela Baczynska</p>
<p>BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union is sizing up Britain for a post-Brexit free trade deal along the lines of one it agreed last year with Canada, people familiar with talks among national envoys on Tuesday told Reuters.</p>
<p>Chief negotiator Michel Barnier has long cited the Canadian example, and since EU leaders agreed last month to ready negotiations on the future relationship with the UK, the 27 states have looked closely at the Canadian trade deal as a model, given British demands, EU diplomats said.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Theresa May has ruled out staying in the EU single market, with its obligations of free migration, EU budget payments and obeying EU courts, and so diplomats concluded these terms rule out the models followed by Norway, and by Switzerland which has a web of bilateral agreements.</p>
<p>“From the red lines they have we know there are some things that are clearly off limits and that was clear today,” one of the people familiar with Wednesday’s roundtable discussion said.</p>
<p>“We are in free trade agreement territory. There is no doubt about that. Then you can call it what you want — Canada Plus or Minus, or Korea Plus or whatever, but that’s where we are.”</p>
<p>Like Canada, South Korea signed up to a far-reaching accord with Brussels on goods and services trade in 2011.</p>
<p>The UK economy is nearly twice the size of Canada’s, and British officials have said that their current alignment with EU standards and much closer trading links with the continent give them scope to seek an even deeper relationship some call “Canada Plus”.</p>
<p>For businesses worried about disruption to trade when Britain leaves the bloc in March 2019, a major concern is how quickly such a deal could be concluded. The envoys’ discussions showed there is still no willingness among the 27 to open trade talks with London until May meets conditions set by the Union.</p>
<p>DECEMBER DEADLINE?</p>
<p>At a summit a month ago, the prime minister was encouraged by EU leaders to see the next regular EU summit a month from now as the moment when trade negotiations could be launched, but EU diplomats who took part in talks on Tuesday said there was no sign yet that Britain was doing enough to make that happen.</p>
<p>A key sticking point is May’s refusal to give more detail on what parts of the EU budget Britain would contribute to for some years after Brexit. This “bill” the EU puts at tens of billions of euros. As a result, participants in the talks said, they have yet to start drafting guidelines for EU negotiators to follow.</p>
<p>Barnier has given London until the end of the month to make a new offer on the financial settlement, improve its terms for EU expatriates’ rights, and develop a plan for an open border with Ireland, if May is to secure what she wants on Dec. 14-15.</p>
<p>“The preparatory process for the guidelines starts later and the trigger will depend on sufficient progress on the Phase One issues,” said a second person involved in the discussions.</p>
<p>A third source said that member states were holding back on such detailed preparations to avoid sending the “wrong impression” to London that agreement was a foregone conclusion.</p>
<p>“Many member states said that as long as we don’t see progress there is no need to kill ourselves,” the official said.</p>
<p>Barnier said last week that if there is no deal on Phase One next month, the negotiations will simply continue in 2018.</p>
<p>Many states stressed that broad guidelines for negotiations issued by EU leaders in April still held good, offering Britain a “balanced, ambitious and wide-ranging” free trade agreement.</p>
<p>Barnier has said that it could take about three years to agree a full free trade deal, giving just enough time if talks start in the new year and Britain agrees to a transition period from March 2019 to the end of 2020, during which it would effectively remain bound by EU rules while no longer participating in the setting of them.</p>
<p>(Additional reporting and writing by Alastair Macdonald; editing by Clive McKeef)</p> | Maple Brexit? EU eyes Canada model for UK trade | false | https://newsline.com/maple-brexit-eu-eyes-canada-model-for-uk-trade/ | 2017-11-14 | 1 |
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<p>She <a href="http://concealedcampus.org/2016/01/testimony-of-scc-southwest-director-antonia-okafor-before-the-texas-" type="external">recently testified before the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs</a> about the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston prohibiting firearms in most of their buildings. She also <a href="https://www.nranews.com/series/cam-and-company/video/cam-and-company-2015-antonia-okafor-university-of-texas-faculty-threatens-to-sue-to-stop-campus-carry/episode/cam-and-company-season-11-episode-217" type="external">regularly appears on the NRA News program Cam and Company</a>. We believe her story and her activism are noteworthy. Check out our interview with her below!</p>
<p>GH:&#160;Tell our readers who you are. Why are you conservative/libertarian?</p>
<p>AO: I can honestly say that I wear quite a few hats, but to be concise, I am an aspiring law student and the Southwest Regional Director for Students for Concealed Carry and locally, I am the precinct chair for my local county’s Republican party. I am a conservative, or rather a “conservatarian” because I believe that a limited government allows individuals to be the most free and live a life of freedom, happiness and prosperity. I actually voted for Obama in 2008 and more reluctantly so, in 2012. The ever increasing debt of this country and the ever expanding role of government in my life, changed my mind after 2012. It was shortly after that I realized that I am not only a Republican, but a conservative. Because fiscal issues and gun rights issues are very important to me, I believe getting more involved with the “liberty movement” was a natural progression. Less government, more freedom is a mantra that I hold dear to me, daily.</p>
<p>GH: Discuss your role with Students for Concealed Carry. What role do you have? Why is it important to promote greater gun rights today?</p>
<p>AO:&#160;I have been blessed to be a spokeswoman for Students for Concealed Carry for almost 7 months now. In this role, I write press releases and engage in media interviews in relation to campus carry in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona. I have had my hands full with Texas since I began the role. But being a native Texan and a student, this fight is definitely personal to me in every way. I recently just go back from Austin to testify in front of the Texas Senate State Affairs Committee. Although the “campus carry” bill, SB 11, has passed, there is still a lot of work to do and battles to be won. Right now, the battle to win public opinion can be just as daunting as the battle won last year during the legislative session. I hope to help spin the narrative to show that gun rights are for EVERYONE–white, black, man or woman, student, or professor. They are rights protected by the US Constitution that have no boundaries.</p>
<p>GH: What advice do you have for our peers who are interested in getting involved in politics?&#160;</p>
<p>AO: My advice to my peers that want to get involved in politics is the same advice for anyone who wants to get more involved with anything in life really: show up. Showing up is 90% of the work in politics, if you are passionate or concerned about an issue, of course. If you do not show up and do something about it, then there is this annoying habit of eventually following into the trap of complacency and worse, apathy. I have learned from the great Morton Blackwell of the Leadership Institute that the narrative of today’s youth being mostly liberal is false, but rather they are mostly apathetic. I feel it is my job to get people motivated, excited and active. Those people are the ones that change the world.</p>
<p>To keep up with Antonia, connect with her on&#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/antonia_okafor" type="external">Twitter</a> and follow the <a href="http://concealedcampus.org/" type="external">work of Students for Concealed Carry</a>!</p>
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<p>More of Gabriella’s articles ranging far beyond the 2nd Amendment can be seen at her home&#160;site: <a href="http://thegabriellahoffman.com/" type="external">thegabriellahoffman.com</a>&#160;</p>
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<p>We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.</p> | Interview with 2nd Amendment Defender Antonia Okafor | true | http://bulletsfirst.net/2016/02/11/interview-with-2nd-amendment-defender-antonia-okafor/ | 0 |
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<p>SCARBOROUGH, Maine — A Maine lobsterman says he and his 14-year-old daughter caught a one-in-two-million crustacean: a blue lobster.</p>
<p>WCSH-TV ( <a href="http://on.wcsh6.com/1loUcOM" type="external">http://on.wcsh6.com/1loUcOM</a> ) reports Jay LaPlante of the Miss Meghan Lobster Catch company caught the curious creature in Scarborough around 10:45 a.m. Saturday. LaPlante and daughter Meghan were hauling traps when she discovered the bright blue critter.</p>
<p>The story has a happy ending for the lobster. Meghan says she is naming it Skyler and donating it to the Maine State Aquarium, far from any dinner rolls or pats of butter. The aquarium says it has three other blue lobsters and an orange one.</p>
<p>LaPlante says it’s the first time he has caught a blue lobster.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Maine lobsterman catches rare blue lobster | false | https://abqjournal.com/451925/maine-lobsterman-catches-rare-blue-lobster.html | 2 |
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<p>Our Managing Editor was on NewsMaxTv’s NewsMax Now on Tuesday discussing Donald Trump versus Jeb Bush and immigration.</p>
<p>He was joined by Dave Aronberg, former Florida state senator.</p>
<p>They started off discussing what Donald Trump said about Mexicans. Trump said they are bringing drugs, they are bringing crime and they are rapists.</p>
<p>Manjarres said:</p>
<p>He is actually accurate in everything he said. He just said it wrong.</p>
<p>Manjarres also pointed out Trump is currently up in the polls.</p>
<p>Whereas, Aronberg felt Trump’s comments are going to hurt the GOP. He said Trump is not going to win the primary and his comments will hurt every republican candidate in the general.</p>
<p>Aronberg thinks during the first debate there is going to be fireworks because there are so many republicans in the race. Manjarres thinks if Trump is in the debate he is going to go after Jeb Bush.</p>
<p>Next, they talked about Bernie Sanders gaining traction in the polls against Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>In regards to how Manjarres viewed the Democratic race and Bernie Sanders he said:</p>
<p>God bless him. Look, he is doing very well and I’m not surprised that the base of her party. . . the democratic party, Dave’s party is siding with. . . someone other than Hillary.</p>
<p>He also said back in 2008 Moveon.org was cheering for Elizabeth Warren and that says a lot about how people feel about her.</p>
<p>Aronberg thinks the Bernie bump will not last but he believes it has surprised the Hillary campaign.</p>
<p>Manjarres pointed out what does it say about the Democratic party if they are picking someone who is hard left, Hillary Clinton and a socialist, Bernie Sanders.</p>
<p>Aronberg does not think Sanders has a chance. He believes Hillary will win.</p>
<p>You can watch the rest of the debate by clicking on the link here: <a href="http://www.newsmaxtv.com/shows/newsmax-now/archive/" type="external">NewsMaxTV</a></p> | Democrats Will Pick Between A Leftist And A Socialist In 2016 | true | http://shark-tank.com/2015/07/09/democrats-will-pick-between-a-leftist-and-a-socialist-in-2016/ | 0 |
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<p>Marriott will have to fork over $600,000 in fines to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after an investigation revealed that hotel employees used a Wi-Fi&#160;monitoring system to intentionally&#160;prevent customers from&#160;&#160;connecting to the Internet through&#160;their personal Wi-Fi networks, while at the same time charging them up to&#160;$1,000 per device to access Marriott’s own Wi-Fi network.</p>
<p>As part of the <a href="http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2014/db1003/DA-14-1444A1.pdf" type="external">settlement</a>, Marriott agreed to immediately cease unlawful use of Wi-Fi blocking technology and to “take significant steps” to improve how it monitors and uses such technology. On top of that, the hotel chain will institute a compliance plan for any U.S. property it manages or owns, and file reports with the FCC every three months for the next three years.</p>
<p>“Consumers who purchase cellular data plans should be able to use them without fear that their personal&#160;Internet connection will be blocked by their hotel or conference center,” said FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief&#160;Travis LeBlanc in a <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/document/marriott-pay-600k-resolve-wifi-blocking-investigation" type="external">news release</a>. “It is unacceptable for any hotel to intentionally disable personal hotspots while also&#160;charging consumers and small businesses high fees to use the hotel’s own Wi-Fi network.”</p>
<p>The FCC became aware of Marriott’s shady&#160;Wi-Fi practices when it received a complaint in March 2013 from someone who had&#160;attended a function at the&#160;Gaylord Opryland, alleging that the hotel was “jamming mobile hotspots so &#160;that you can’t use them in the convention space.”</p>
<p>Marriott, for its part, continues to claim that it has done nothing illegal.</p>
<p>“Marriott has a strong interest in ensuring that when our guests use our Wi-Fi service, they will be protected from rogue wireless hotspots that can cause degraded service, insidious cyber-attacks and&#160;identity theft,” Jeff Flaherty, a company spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-03/marriott-fined-600-000-for-blocking-its-customers-wi-fi.html" type="external">Bloomberg</a>.</p>
<p /> | FCC slams Marriott with $600,000 fine for blocking Wi-Fi hotspots | false | http://natmonitor.com/2014/10/04/fcc-slams-marriott-with-600000-fine-for-blocking-wi-fi-hotspots/ | 2014-10-04 | 3 |
<p>(Refile to add dropped word “Airlines” in paragraph ten)</p>
<p>By Hadeel Al Sayegh</p>
<p>DOHA, Jan 22 (Reuters) - The delivery of Qatar Airways’ first Airbus A350-1000 has been delayed until February due to the “complex seat configuration” of the airline’s business class, its chief executive said on Monday.</p>
<p>The major Middle East carrier is the launch customer of Europe’s largest twin-engined passenger jet and was scheduled to receive its first of 37 on order last year.</p>
<p>“We will be taking delivery of this aircraft next month,” Chief Executive Akbar al-Baker told a Doha press conference.</p>
<p>Baker said in August 2017 that the first A350-1000 would be delivered in the same year. On Monday, he said installing the ‘Qsuite’ business class was taking longer than expected and that the aircraft was still being fitted out in Toulouse, France, which is where Airbus is based.</p>
<p>Qatar Airways’ Qsuite, unveiled last year, features forward facing seats and lie-flat double beds.</p>
<p>The “complex seat configuration” has had implications on the certification of the aircraft, though the airline had taken ownership of the aircraft late last year, Baker said, without giving details.</p>
<p>An Airbus spokesman declined to comment, telling Reuters it was “the privilege of customers to make such announcements.”</p>
<p>Qatar Airways, which has a reputation as a demanding customer when reviewing aircraft for quality before delivery, has ordered 80 A350s, including smaller A350-900 jets, some of which are already operating in the airline’s fleet.</p>
<p>The A350-1000, the largest model, was launched to compete against Boeing’s 777s.</p>
<p>Baker also said Qatar Airways was not interested “at the moment” in buying stakes in Air India and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), which the government of India and government of Pakistan are separately trying to privatise.</p>
<p>Qatar Airways owns minority stakes in British Airways-parent International Consolidated Airlines Group, South America’s LATAM Airlines Group SA, Asia’s Cathay Pacific, and Italy’s Meridiana. (Reporting by Hadeel Al Sayegh, writing by Alexander Cornwell, editing by Louise Heavens)</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Starbucks Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SBUX.O" type="external">SBUX.O</a>) and other coffee sellers must put a cancer warning on coffee sold in California, a Los Angeles judge has ruled, possibly exposing the companies to millions of dollars in fines.</p>
<p>A little-known not-for-profit group sued some 90 coffee retailers, including Starbucks, on grounds they were violating a California law requiring companies to warn consumers of chemicals in their products that could cause cancer.</p>
<p>One of those chemicals is acrylamide, a byproduct of roasting coffee beans that is present in high levels in brewed coffee.</p>
<p>Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle said in a decision dated Wednesday that Starbucks and other companies had failed to show there was no significant risk from a carcinogen produced in the coffee roasting process, court documents showed.</p>
<p>Starbucks and other defendants have until April 10 to file objections to the decision.</p>
<p>Starbucks declined to comment, referring reporters to a statement by the National Coffee Association (NCA) that said the industry was considering an appeal and further legal actions.</p>
<p>“Cancer warning labels on coffee would be misleading. The U.S. government’s own Dietary Guidelines state that coffee can be part of a healthy lifestyle,” the NCA statement said.</p> FILE PHOTO - A woman holds a Frappuccino at a Starbucks store inside the Tom Bradley terminal at LAX airport in Los Angeles, California, United States, October 27, 2015. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
<p>In his decision, Berle said: “Defendants failed to satisfy their burden of proving by a preponderance of evidence that consumption of coffee confers a benefit to human health.”</p>
<p>Officials from Dunkin’ Donuts ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=DNKN.O" type="external">DNKN.O</a>), McDonald’s Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=MCD.N" type="external">MCD.N</a>), Peet’s and other big coffee sellers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.</p>
<p>The lawsuit was filed in 2010 by the Council for Education and Research on Toxics (CERT). It calls for fines as large as $2,500 per person for every exposure to the chemical since 2002 at the defendants’ shops in California. Any civil penalties, which will be decided in a third phase of the trial, could be huge in California, which has a population of nearly 40 million.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SBUX.O" type="external">Starbucks Corp</a> 57.89 SBUX.O Nasdaq -0.01 (-0.02%) SBUX.O DNKN.O MCD.N
<p>CERT’s lawyer Raphael Metzger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p>
<p>Starbucks lost the first phase of the trial in which it failed to show the level of acrylamide in coffee was below that which would pose a significant risk of cancer. In the second phase of the trial, defendants failed to prove there was an acceptable “alternative” risk level for the carcinogen, court documents showed.</p>
<p>Several defendants in the case settled before Wednesday’s decision, agreeing to post signage about the cancer-linked chemical and pay millions in fines, according to published reports.</p>
<p>Reporting by Nate Raymond; Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein; Writing by Andrew Hay; Editing by Richard Chang and Leslie Adler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean trade officials braved snowstorms, ate instant noodles to save time and spent weeks hotel-hopping in Washington as they raced to overcome major trade hurdles with their U.S. ally ahead of high-stakes nuclear discussions with North Korea.</p> FILE PHOTO: Rolled steel are seen at a Hyundai Steel plant in Dangjin, about 130 km (81 miles) southwest of Seoul June 15, 2011. REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won
<p>What was meant to be a week-long trip to Washington stretched into a four-week marathon, as dozens of Seoul officials sought to wrap up talks aimed at amending the six-year-old U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement known as KORUS, according to several South Korean officials with direct knowledge of the matter.</p>
<p>U.S. plans announced earlier this month to impose hefty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports added urgency to the trade negotiations. As the third-largest steel exporter to the United States, South Korea had a lot to lose from 25 percent tariffs.</p>
<p>Seoul also felt it couldn’t afford a protracted trade dispute with its most important ally at a time when the two need to work together to contain a nuclear-armed North Korea, the officials told Reuters.</p>
<p>“This had to work well,” a senior official at South Korea’s presidential Blue House told Reuters. “It was right to settle this as soon as possible because if this remains ahead of inter-Korean talks and U.S.-North Korea talks, it could unnecessarily complicate our relationship.”</p>
<p>U.S. President Donald Trump initially welcomed the breakthrough as a “great deal for American and Korean workers”, a marked turnaround from a year ago when he told Reuters he would either renegotiate or scrap what he called a “horrible” trade deal.</p>
<p>But Trump said on Thursday he may hold up signing it until after an agreement is reached with North Korea on denuclearisation, saying such a deal was “a very strong card” to ensure fairness on the new trade pact.</p>
<p>Trump is expected to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in May after the two Koreas hold their first summit in more than a decade in late April. All parties are expected to discuss the denuclearisation of North Korea.</p> “FINALLY WITHIN REACH”
<p>Whenever South Korean President Moon Jae-in had a phone call with Trump to discuss the North Korean nuclear issue in recent months, Moon also raised the trade agenda, the Blue House official said.</p>
<p>In their latest call on March 16, while the two countries’ trade representatives were holding a third round of trade talks in Washington, Moon asked Trump to have a “keen interest” in the matter and work toward a speedy trade agreement before their respective summit meetings Kim, the Blue House said at the time.</p>
<p>Around that time, South Korean negotiators started to see a glimmer of hope they could save the trade pact, which has seen the U.S. goods trade deficit with South Korea double since 2012 when it took effect.</p>
<p>“The negotiations started to make progress around March 17, and that’s why our trade team decided to stay longer because they thought agreement was finally within reach,” said a South Korean senior trade ministry official.</p>
<p>The official and another trade official said nearly 30 South Korean negotiators had to move hotels repeatedly in Washington when their trip took longer than expected, at times finding themselves crammed into one hotel room to work on their negotiation strategy for the next day.</p>
<p>“We mostly lived off on instant noodles and quick seaweed rice wraps bought from Korean supermarkets to save time,” the official said.</p>
<p>The efforts culminated in a revised pact the two countries announced this week that gives U.S. automakers and pharmaceuticals more access to the South Korean market.</p>
<p>It also lifted the threat of a 25 percent U.S. tariff on South Korean steel in exchange for quotas that will cut imports of Korean steel by about 30 percent.</p>
<p>“We swiftly removed potential conflicts between the two countries at a time when close cooperation between South Korea and the United States is more important than ever,” a second senior Blue House official said.</p>
<p>All the South Korean officials interviewed by Reuters asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.</p> “AS COLD AS SIBERIA”
<p>The talks didn’t get off to a good start as the United States “kept asking us to make concessions unilaterally,” South Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong said in an interview broadcast live to the Blue House’s Facebook account on Thursday.</p>
<p>“When we first met to talk, the mood was as cold as Siberia and our meeting only lasted for 21 minutes,” Kim said, referring to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. “Later on, we got closer and our relations developed to something like a bromance.”</p>
<p>From the start, South Korea saw that for the deal to survive, concessions were inevitable in autos, which made up over 70 percent of its 2017 trade surplus with the United States.</p>
<p>“If the free trade deal got terminated and 8 percent tariffs revived on South Korean auto exports, that would have been an absolute nightmare. Problem was, how do we sell a deal that doesn’t do anything good for us?,” a senior South Korean government official said.</p>
<p>“The steel issue effectively provided an opening. We make concessions in autos that we saw as inevitable anyway, and in return become the first country to be exempt from steel tariffs. This suddenly became a win-win.”</p> Kim Jong Un's trip to China shown on state TV
<p>(GRAPHIC: Nuclear North Korea - <a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2lE5yjF" type="external">tmsnrt.rs/2lE5yjF</a>)</p>
<p>Reporting By Jane Chung and Christine Kim. Additional reporting by Cynthia Kim. Editing by Soyoung Kim and Lincoln Feast</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore’s competition watchdog said it had reasonable grounds to suspect competition had been infringed by Uber Technologies Inc’s [UBER.UL] deal to sell its operations in Southeast Asia to rival ride-hailing firm Grab.</p> FILE PHOTO: The Uber logo is seen on a screen in Singapore August 4, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas White/File Picture
<p>In a rare move, the Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS) has begun an investigation into the deal and proposed interim measures that will require Uber and Grab to maintain their pre-transaction independent pricing, the watchdog said in a statement on Friday.</p>
<p>The proposal also requires Uber and Grab not to take any action that might lead to the integration of their businesses in Singapore, a move likely to pose a major hurdle to the U.S. company’s attempt to improve profitability by exiting the loss-making Southeast Asian market.</p>
<p>It is the first time the commission has issued interim measures on any business in the country.</p>
<p>“To address consumer concerns, we have voluntarily committed to maintaining our fare structure and will not increase base fares. This is a commitment we are prepared to give the CCS, and to the public,” Lim Kell Jay, head of Grab Singapore, told Reuters in a statement.</p>
<p>Uber was not immediately available for comment.</p>
<p>Uber and Grab announced the deal on Monday, marking the U.S. company’s second retreat from an Asian market.</p>
<p>Under the deal, Uber will take a 27.5 percent stake in Grab, which is valued at around $6 billion, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will join the Singapore-based company’s board.</p>
<p>CCS proposals also require both Grab and Uber not to obtain from each other any confidential information including pricing, customers and drivers.</p>
<p>The two firms will be given an opportunity to make written representations to the CCS upon receipt of the proposed interim measures, it said.</p> FILE PHOTO: A Grab vehicle is pictured in Singapore March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Edgar Su
<p>Singapore has a voluntary merger notification regime, and CCS has yet to receive the notification from Uber and Grab as of Friday, although the companies have indicated their intention to file a formal merger notification, CCS said.</p>
<p>“We had engaged with the CCS prior to signing and continue to do so,” Lim said.</p>
<p>“We have informed the CCS that we are making a voluntary notification no later than 16 April 2018 to continue to cooperate and engage with the CCS,” he added.</p>
<p>The deal is the industry’s first big consolidation in Southeast Asia, home to about 640 million people, and is widely expected to give Uber more firepower to focus on other markets including India, as it prepares for an IPO in 2019.</p>
<p>Uber lost $4.5 billion last year and is facing fierce competition at home in the United States and across Asia, as well as a regulatory crackdown in Europe. The firm has invested $700 million in its Southeast Asian operations.</p>
<p>Reporting by Miyoung Kim, additional reporting by Fathin Ungku; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Jacqueline Wong and Gareth Jones</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Intercontinental Exchange Inc’s ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ICE.N" type="external">ICE.N</a>) New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is in talks to buy the Chicago Stock Exchange (CHX), the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, a month-and-a-half after U.S. regulators blocked the sale of CHX to China-based investors.</p> Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=ICE.N" type="external">Intercontinental Exchange Inc</a> 72.52 ICE.N New York Stock Exchange +1.07 (+1.50%) ICE.N
<p>NYSE may pay about $70 million for CHX, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.</p>
<p>CHX declined to comment while NYSE did not respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.</p>
<p>CHX said earlier in March it was looking for new potential buyers after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission killed a roughly $25 million deal in February, ending a two-year effort by the exchange to sell itself to a consortium led by China’s Chongqing Casin Enterprise Group and its U.S. affiliate North American Casin Holdings.</p>
<p>The politically sensitive deal was originally approved by the SEC staff, but the agency’s commissioners, led by Jay Clayton, an appointee of U.S. President Donald Trump, stayed the decision pending their own review nL2N1QO1D0.</p>
<p>Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri and Sandra Maler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | REFILE-UPDATE 1-Qatar Airways says delivery of first Airbus A350-1000 delayed until next month Starbucks coffee in California must have cancer warning, judge says How Seoul raced to conclude U.S. trade deal ahead of North Korea talks Singapore watchdog says Uber-Grab deal may have infringed competition NYSE in talks to acquire Chicago Stock Exchange: Wall Street Journal | false | https://reuters.com/article/qatar-airways-airbus-a350/refile-update-1-qatar-airways-says-delivery-of-first-airbus-a350-1000-delayed-until-next-month-idUSL8N1PH26I | 2018-01-22 | 2 |
<p>MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The race for Wisconsin Supreme Court, the first statewide contest of 2018, is shaping up to be a measuring stick for both Republicans and Democrats as they attempt to gauge voter feelings headed into the fall midterm election.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court race is officially nonpartisan but Madison attorney Tim Burns is openly touting his liberal credentials, Sauk County Circuit Judge Michael Screnock is largely backed by conservatives and Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Rebecca Dallet argues she's the only moderate.</p>
<p>The political views of the three candidates were prominent at a debate Monday hosted by the conservative Federalist Society in Milwaukee.</p>
<p>Burns told Federalist Society members in his opening statement that "you weakened our democracy to the point that we elected a perverse show-dog named (President Donald) Trump to lead our great nation," the Wisconsin State Journal reported.</p>
<p>Dallet and Burns often clashed while Screnock looked on.</p>
<p>"The goal here is to improve the Supreme Court, to make sure it works better and improve the terrible, partisan reputation," Dallet said. "By your own behavior, Mr. Burns, you have shown you cannot do that."</p>
<p>Screnock said he found his opponents' political speech "deeply troubling" and promised his election would help keep the court from returning to liberal control.</p>
<p>The two highest vote-getters in the Feb. 20 Supreme Court primary will face each other in the April 3 general election to replace conservative Justice Michael Gableman who is not seeking a second term. The court is currently controlled 5-2 by conservatives.</p>
<p>"This race will be a test of if an outright liberal and progressive message carries the day in an environment in which the support of the party in power and its president are at historic lows," Burns said in a statement to The Associated Press. "A spring victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race will energize the base and help build a movement towards a big November win."</p>
<p>Both liberals and conservatives will work to turn out their supporters, and the results can then be analyzed and compared to past Supreme Court elections to see who is performing better, said Republican strategist Brandon Scholz.</p>
<p>That will make it more instructive than last week's special election for an open state Senate seat, said Scholz, a former state GOP director who's worked on past Supreme Court races for conservative candidates.</p>
<p>Democrats were buoyed last week by the surprise, upset win in the special state Senate election in northwest Wisconsin where about 22,000 people cast ballots. That's just a tiny sampling of the turnout expected for the Supreme Court race, which has fluctuated in recent years from about 800,000 to nearly 2 million.</p>
<p>Burns is a longtime Democratic donor who is openly courting liberals, breaking with tradition and practice to take positions on current issues and blast conservative control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and state government.</p>
<p>Screnock previously worked as an attorney defending Republican-drawn legislative maps and GOP state senators targeted for recall in 2011 over their support for Gov. Scott Walker's union restrictions. Walker appointed Screnock to the bench in 2015. As a college student in 1989, Screnock was twice arrested for taking part in anti-abortion protests, something he's said during the campaign he does not regret doing.</p>
<p>Screnock's campaign advisers both have a deeply partisan background.</p>
<p>Sean Lansing is a former Republican operative who also previously worked for the Koch brothers group Americans for Prosperity in both Wisconsin and Virginia. And Luke Hilgemann is the former state director of Americans for Prosperity in Wisconsin and CEO of Americans for Prosperity nationwide.</p>
<p>Lansing, who works at Madison-based Champion Group as a political consultant, said liberals were targeting the Wisconsin Supreme Court contest.</p>
<p>"I still believe voters will reject such over the top, partisan rhetoric in the Supreme Court race, but I'm sure there are lot of special interest groups on the left urging both Burns and Dallet to double down on messages that will appeal to the far-left crowd," he said.</p>
<p>Dallet, who raised more money than either Screnock or Burns last year, has tried to pitch herself as the only truly nonpartisan candidate in the race.</p>
<p>___</p>
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<p>MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The race for Wisconsin Supreme Court, the first statewide contest of 2018, is shaping up to be a measuring stick for both Republicans and Democrats as they attempt to gauge voter feelings headed into the fall midterm election.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court race is officially nonpartisan but Madison attorney Tim Burns is openly touting his liberal credentials, Sauk County Circuit Judge Michael Screnock is largely backed by conservatives and Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Rebecca Dallet argues she's the only moderate.</p>
<p>The political views of the three candidates were prominent at a debate Monday hosted by the conservative Federalist Society in Milwaukee.</p>
<p>Burns told Federalist Society members in his opening statement that "you weakened our democracy to the point that we elected a perverse show-dog named (President Donald) Trump to lead our great nation," the Wisconsin State Journal reported.</p>
<p>Dallet and Burns often clashed while Screnock looked on.</p>
<p>"The goal here is to improve the Supreme Court, to make sure it works better and improve the terrible, partisan reputation," Dallet said. "By your own behavior, Mr. Burns, you have shown you cannot do that."</p>
<p>Screnock said he found his opponents' political speech "deeply troubling" and promised his election would help keep the court from returning to liberal control.</p>
<p>The two highest vote-getters in the Feb. 20 Supreme Court primary will face each other in the April 3 general election to replace conservative Justice Michael Gableman who is not seeking a second term. The court is currently controlled 5-2 by conservatives.</p>
<p>"This race will be a test of if an outright liberal and progressive message carries the day in an environment in which the support of the party in power and its president are at historic lows," Burns said in a statement to The Associated Press. "A spring victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race will energize the base and help build a movement towards a big November win."</p>
<p>Both liberals and conservatives will work to turn out their supporters, and the results can then be analyzed and compared to past Supreme Court elections to see who is performing better, said Republican strategist Brandon Scholz.</p>
<p>That will make it more instructive than last week's special election for an open state Senate seat, said Scholz, a former state GOP director who's worked on past Supreme Court races for conservative candidates.</p>
<p>Democrats were buoyed last week by the surprise, upset win in the special state Senate election in northwest Wisconsin where about 22,000 people cast ballots. That's just a tiny sampling of the turnout expected for the Supreme Court race, which has fluctuated in recent years from about 800,000 to nearly 2 million.</p>
<p>Burns is a longtime Democratic donor who is openly courting liberals, breaking with tradition and practice to take positions on current issues and blast conservative control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and state government.</p>
<p>Screnock previously worked as an attorney defending Republican-drawn legislative maps and GOP state senators targeted for recall in 2011 over their support for Gov. Scott Walker's union restrictions. Walker appointed Screnock to the bench in 2015. As a college student in 1989, Screnock was twice arrested for taking part in anti-abortion protests, something he's said during the campaign he does not regret doing.</p>
<p>Screnock's campaign advisers both have a deeply partisan background.</p>
<p>Sean Lansing is a former Republican operative who also previously worked for the Koch brothers group Americans for Prosperity in both Wisconsin and Virginia. And Luke Hilgemann is the former state director of Americans for Prosperity in Wisconsin and CEO of Americans for Prosperity nationwide.</p>
<p>Lansing, who works at Madison-based Champion Group as a political consultant, said liberals were targeting the Wisconsin Supreme Court contest.</p>
<p>"I still believe voters will reject such over the top, partisan rhetoric in the Supreme Court race, but I'm sure there are lot of special interest groups on the left urging both Burns and Dallet to double down on messages that will appeal to the far-left crowd," he said.</p>
<p>Dallet, who raised more money than either Screnock or Burns last year, has tried to pitch herself as the only truly nonpartisan candidate in the race.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/sbauerAP" type="external">https://twitter.com/sbauerAP</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Sign up for the AP's weekly newsletter showcasing our best reporting from Texas and the Midwest at <a href="http://apne.ws/2u1RMfv" type="external">http://apne.ws/2u1RMfv</a></p> | Wisconsin Supreme Court race seen as test for partisans | false | https://apnews.com/amp/41424ef037aa4d8ebf2747ef8c0db866 | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
<p><a href="//videos/37/65894" type="external" /></p>
<p>RUSH: Jim in Tampa, you’re next. It’s great to have you. I’m glad you waited. I appreciate your patience. Hello.</p>
<p>CALLER: Hey, how you doing?</p>
<p>RUSH: Very well, sir. Thank you.</p>
<p>CALLER: Yeah, I’m probably one of your few conservative tree hugger movie business followers, supporters. I’m a staunch conservative. I’ve been a wildlife rehabilitator for 15 years and was in the movie business for 15 years before that. I was calling specifically to —</p>
<p>RUSH: What is a wildlife rehabilitator?</p>
<p>CALLER: We rescue injured and orphaned wildlife and nurse it back to health until it can be rereleased.</p>
<p>RUSH: Like pelicans?</p>
<p>CALLER: Yeah, and you do it free. You have to make enough money doing a real job in order to contribute this to society. Nobody pays you to do it.</p>
<p>RUSH: Really?</p>
<p>CALLER: You have to be licensed by the state and the federal government to have the privilege to do it, but you gotta pay all the bills yourself.</p>
<p>RUSH: No kidding. I thought the state had people that did this. US Fish and Wildlife Service and all that?</p>
<p>CALLER: No, and some of the things you gotta do is pay for a $800-a-year rabies shot if you’re gonna handle carnivores like coyotes and wolves because of the —</p>
<p>RUSH: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.</p>
<p>CALLER: No, it’s very expensive to do a favor for the community, but it’s rewarding.</p>
<p>RUSH: Well, hey, we love animals here. I think what you do is admirable.</p>
<p>CALLER: Well, what’s amazing to me, or fascinating, is I think true animal lovers, you know, so often we’re lumped into the tree hugger, you know, crazy, you know, global warming group.</p>
<p>RUSH: No, no, no, no. That’s the PETA crowd.</p>
<p>CALLER: Yeah.</p>
<p>RUSH: They want to place animals on a level equal or above humanity. You’re not that.</p>
<p>CALLER: Right. And one of the things I’ve learned watching animals is how much they reflect society. I mean, we can learn so much from them. Their political world, there are so many similarities with the human world that it’s almost hilarious.</p>
<p>RUSH: Well, what have you learned and from which animal?</p>
<p>CALLER: Well, I’ll just give you a couple of quick examples. Here’s a negative animal. A cowbird lays more eggs than any other bird. They lay like 77 eggs a year. Most birds, 90% of all birds mate for life, so if your mate dies you don’t mate anymore. It’s a lifetime commitment. The cowbird does not. The partnering bird provides no support. Most birds, while the female is on the nest —</p>
<p>RUSH: Let me guess, the partnering bird is a male.</p>
<p>CALLER: Yes, correct.</p>
<p>RUSH: Provides no support.</p>
<p>CALLER: Right.</p>
<p>RUSH: Okay.</p>
<p>CALLER: And so what the cowbird has to do, since it has no support while it’s sitting on a nest, is it lays its nest in another bird’s nest and lets that bird take care of its offspring, very often at the cost of life to those other birds. Because the cowbird hatches faster, grows bigger, eats more, and very often this hosting bird loses its own offspring because it’s raising the cowbird offspring.</p>
<p>RUSH: Right. And what have you learned about humanity from that?</p>
<p>CALLER: Well, I see it paralleling, you know, the same situations that the birds that reproduce the fastest and get the support do so at the expense of the hardworking birds that take care of each other.</p>
<p>RUSH: Yeah, I see that.</p>
<p>CALLER: You see similar things with the riots. You can take a pack of totally domestic, wonderful, loving dogs, and if you put one crazy dog in there, that entire pack can turn vicious and killer. It just takes one aggressive animal to trigger this vicious attack within the entire pack. One of the things that you were talking about a minute ago that I had to chuckle about, if you have a city that’s run by a party for a long time and they have riots, they ought to be disqualified from the solution.</p>
<p>RUSH: Right.</p>
<p>CALLER: And wolves actually do that. We had a pack of wolves that we raised. I say we, my wife and I worked together, she’s a veterinarian technician. So we did this as a joint effort. But the wolves, when I was learning how to care for them, we ended up with them kind of unexpectedly so it was a learning process of when they first come you’re scared to death you’re gonna be eaten by them. But as you watch the way they run their own society, you realize they’re totally self-sufficient and they take care of themselves. But there’s an alpha male and an alpha female that set the rules and discipline and enforce the pack, the entire pack.</p>
<p>RUSH: Were you able to domesticate any of them?</p>
<p>CALLER: In the case of the wolves, half of them were tame. You could go in the enclosure with them, the tame ones would come up and visit. The wild ones would disappear. They wanted nothing to do with you. I mean, there’s only a few cases in the history of the United States where a wolf has ever killed a human.</p>
<p>RUSH: Sounds like women.</p>
<p>CALLER: Despite the Hollywood thing, they’re pretty much self-centered.</p>
<p>RUSH: Yeah, Hollywood devastates wolves. Every movie about wolves, they are just rampant. One of them killed Liam Neeson in a movie.</p>
<p>CALLER: Oh, I know, it’s hilarious. I can tell you in the last 200 years there’s like six cases of a wolf ever killing a person and it’s usually either a rabid animal or an extreme remote —</p>
<p>RUSH: I knew a guy, one of the radio consultants in Sacramento had a pet wolf, called him Jack. He had a cabin out in the woods near I think it was Reno, and he had a wolf that lived in the house with him. He made it sound like it was a pet within certain limits. It wasn’t totally, but he was never afraid of it.</p>
<p>CALLER: We had one that was the lowest ranking wolf that we called the “house wolf.” She was so timid. We raised her with the dogs and she became part of the household. Used to travel with me. She actually — I mean, one of the things about animals is if they’re not in need of food and survival, they’re basically for the most part friendly to other species. I mean, this wolf helped us raise dozens of fawns. She would nurse the fawn, clean it, protect it, provide all the services that the mother did, because she was well fed. She didn’t need to eat it, so the hostility largely disappears.</p>
<p>RUSH: I tell you, this stuff all fascinates me. I don’t mean to sound silly here, but I’ve had a bunch of cats, and, you know, you feed them, you put the food in their bowl, the bowl is on the floor, and after they eat what they want they start covering it. They think they’re covering it. They start pawing the ground. They’re not covering anything and nobody’s gonna steal their food. What is that? It’s not instinct.</p>
<p>CALLER: Animals, you’ve got the ones that have the cognitive ability, the ability to think ahead and to plan. The covering, they may be trying to hide it to save for later. A lot of animals will bury food and then come back to it.</p>
<p>RUSH: Right. Oh, I know that’s what she’s doing, but nobody’s gonna take her food, and she’s not covering it. Can she not see that?</p>
<p>CALLER: We had a funny thing with the wolf that lived with the dogs, because supposedly wolves are much smarter than dogs. So we watched this wolf to try to look for signs of differences of intelligence. Besides the fact she could open doors, windows, you know, door latches, I mean, any kind of door she could open. When we fed the dogs — we had 12 at the time — we put 12 dishes of food down. We usually mixed a little canned food in it, and we’d set the empty can out in the middle of the room so whichever animal was finished first, it would go lick out the can and not bother the other animals who were eating.</p>
<p>And for many, many weeks the hound dog would gobble her food without chewing, run over and grab the can and that was it. The hound dog always got it ’cause she just ate the fastest. Well, one day the wolf left her full dish of food and went over to the empty can, and I’m thinking, “That’s not very smart. You’re supposed to be smarter than the dogs, you’re leaving a full dish to get the empty can.” She picked up the can, brought it back to her dish, set it in the middle of the dish, ate her dinner, then licked the can out after her dinner was done.</p>
<p>RUSH: Wow, that’s brilliant.</p>
<p>CALLER: And she did that forever after. None of the other dogs ever figured out they could do the same thing. (laughing)</p>
<p>RUSH: You just angered after the audience who think the dog is smarter than their spouse.</p>
<p>CALLER: Yeah.</p>
<p>RUSH: Now, look, Jim, hang on, I have to take a break. Jim actually called about Dr. Benjamin Carson.</p>
<p>CALLER: Yes.</p>
<p>RUSH: So let’s get to that, Jim, when we get back to you after the break here.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: Okay. Back to the phones we go, and it’s Jim in Tampa, who actually called about Dr. Benjamin Carson. What is it about Dr. Carson you wanted to say?</p>
<p>CALLER: Well, I saw his announcement this morning and was extremely impressed. I really knew nothing about him. But one of the things he mentioned, is he wanted to dispel the rumor that goes with so many Republicans that they’re out to eliminate what he called the safety net in the form of welfare and supports. What he wanted to eliminate… He said, “I don’t want to eliminate safety nets for people who need them. I want to eliminate dependence of able-bodied people that can work,” and that’s what got me thinking about the wildlife tie-in.</p>
<p>Animals are the same way. We get so many calls as wildfire rehabilitators to relocate problem animals, and so many times it was because people were feeding them, and then the animals become not only dependent, but demanding. We had one story where a lady called and asked if we relocated raccoons. And I said, “Yeah. When you say ‘raccoons,’ are you talking a couple?”</p>
<p>She said, “Twelve,” and long story short, I asked her, “Have you been feeding them?” and she said, “Yes.” I said, “Well, you need to stop feeding them and they will stop bothering you.” She said, “Well, we tried that, but around one in the morning they get rocks and bang on the window. We feed ’em so we can get to sleep.” I said, “Well, you’ve now trained those animals that if they bang on the windows, they’ll get fed.”</p>
<p>RUSH: See, I remember stories of small businesses off the coast of North Carolina that would take people out and basically say, “We’re gonna show you some wildlife in the sea,” and the way they had done it, is they had begun to feed various fish, and the fish came to expect it at the right place. These entrepreneurs just had to take the boats and people out. The people would pay for the food as part of the admission price, and then these fish would come out.</p>
<p>Whatever kind of exotic fish that these people had found, they’d watch and be fed, and it was clear they had become dependent, which in the wildfire sector, is a disservice. They have to be able to provide for themselves or they’re toast, as you well know. But it’s interesting. Of all the things that caught your attention, even though it relates to your work, it was Dr. Carson’s commenting on welfare. I have the sound bite. I’m gonna play the sound bite here, but there’s a lot to be said about this.</p>
<p>I find it… It’s gonna be a little tricky because I don’t want to sound at all like I’m critical of Dr. Carson, ’cause I am not. My only point is he’s not the first to point this out. Now, he may be the first you have heard say it in a way that relates to your business so that you understood it and knew that he was right and so forth. But the intellectual, the societal, the economic arguments against welfare have been made for decades, and they’re all right on the money.</p>
<p>Yet the number of people on welfare continues to expand. The number of people on welfare wanting to be on welfare expands, even though everybody knows it’s a dead-end street. I think largely this is because there’s a political party that has decided to profit from it, and that’s not compassion. A political party profiting from keeping people poor and dependent is not a party that needs to be rewarded by winning elections.</p>
<p>Here’s what Dr. Carson said. He was in Detroit today, his hometown. He announced that he is running for president. We’ve actually got four sound bites. We’ll have time for this one on welfare.</p>
<p />
<p>CARSON: There are many people who are critical of me because they say, “Carson wants to get rid of all the safety nets and welfare programs, even though he must have benefited from them.” This is a blatant lie. I have no desire to get rid of safety nets for people who need them. I have a strong desire to get rid of programs that create dependency in able-bodied people.</p>
<p>AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)</p>
<p>CARSON: And we’re not doing people a favor when we pat them on the head and say, “There, there, you poor little thing. We’re gonna take care of all your needs. You don’t have to worry about anything.” You know who else says stuff like that? (pause) Socialists.</p>
<p>RUSH: He’s exactly right, and what he said here is known and is understood by all kinds of zillions of people. But you notice the way they go after him? “Well, who are you? You know, you want to get rid of all safety nets and welfare programs, even though you must have benefited from them.” That’s the same thing they did to Clarence Thomas in reverse. They accused him of wanting to get rid of affirmative action, even though he benefited from it, to which he replied that he did not.</p>
<p>But anyway, I have to take a break because of time.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: You want a provocative statement? Try this: “Welfare has done more harm to the black community than police brutality ever has.” Yeah, yeah. Think about it before you automatically knee-jerk reject it.</p>
<p>BREAK TRANSCRIPT</p>
<p>RUSH: I got e-mail from some people asking about something that our wildfire caller mentioned. He quoted me as saying, “When something hasn’t worked for 50 years, try something new.” I was quoting Obama. It was Obama, when explaining why he was working with the Iranians to get a nuclear weapon or why he’s doing foreign policy the way he’s doing it on anything else. It was Obama who said, “When you’re doing hasn’t worked for 50 years, it’s time to try something new.”</p>
<p>I simply said, “Okay. Well, then, let’s have a new rule that says any city that experiences riots and economic tumult and distress — any city that experiences riots and economic collapse — that has been predominantly governed by a single political party, then that party should be disqualified from participating in any solutions,” under Obama’s theory that when what you’re doing hasn’t worked for 50 years, it’s time to try something new.</p>
<p>Well, the liberals have been running Baltimore for decades. Liberal Democrats have been running Baltimore for decades. Ditto, Detroit. Ditto any number of cities. They should not be part of the solution. What they’re doing isn’t working! Time to try something new. (whispers) “Capitalism.” I was just making a point. I just taking the guidance offered by our president, Barack Hussein O.</p>
<p>I have other sound bites from Dr. Carson here, who did announce his candidacy today for the presidency. He did so in Detroit. Remember, he’s the former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University Hospital which is in — dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut — Baltimore. We have three bites. Here you go with the first one.</p>
<p>CARSON: One of the rules in Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is you make the majority believe that what they believe is no longer relevant, and no intelligent person thinks that way. And the way you believe is the only way intelligent people believe. And that way, they’ll keep silent. Because I’ll tell you something: They don’t care if you don’t believe what they believe, as long as you keep your mouth shut, and that’s what we have to start doing. We have to start opening our mouths.</p>
<p>RUSH: He’s exactly right. He’s talking about push-back. He’s talking about actually opposing some of this stuff rather than acquiescing to it, which is what the Republican Party establishment (for the most part) in Washington has done. Here’s the next one…</p>
<p>CARSON: This country was envisioned by individuals who wanted everything to be surrounding the people. “Of, for, and by the people.” Not “of, for, and by the” government. And the government was to respond to the will of the people, not the people to the will of the government. We’ve allowed the whole thing to be under upside-down. We’ve gone far beyond what our Constitution describes, and we’ve begun to just allow it to expand based upon what the political class wants, because they like to increase their power and their dominion over the people. And I think it’s time for the people to rise up and take the government back.</p>
<p>AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)</p>
<p>RUSH: And the final bite…</p>
<p>CARSON: We’ve allowed the purveyors of division to become rampant in our society and to create friction and fear in our society. People are afraid to stand up for what they believe in, because they don’t want to be called a name. They don’t want an IRS audit. They don’t want their jobs messed with or their families messed with. But isn’t it time for us to think about the people who came before us, and what they were willing to do so that we could be free? Nathan Hale, a teenage rebel caught by the British ready to be executed! He said, “My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country.”</p>
<p>RUSH: You know, what is remarkable about this and what is great about it is he boils this down to its simplistic eloquence. The founding of this country, how it was envisioned, what it used to be, what it has become. I hope it’s effective. You know, I think it will be with certain groups of people. We’ve all sought ways, every one of us… I know you have. We’ve all sought ways to make gains or inroads with what is called the low-information voter. We’ve all tried to find out how to reach these people.</p>
<p>So we make the assumption that the low-information voter buys into big government, buys into Democrat Party, buys in and supports all of this expansion, for whatever reason. They think it’s compassionate. They think it’s helpful to people, or what have you. In fact, it’s destructive. Dr. Carson has one of the most basic and elementary techniques for explaining this. I mean, this would suffice as a civics class for people learning it for the first time, and it may be that’s what’s called for with certain people in the low-information crowd.</p>
<p>The exposure he gets, it could enlighten who knows how many millions of people, because he clearly says this — all of these things — in a way that is not hard to understand, and it’s not confrontational or provocative or controversial. Of course, until the left and the media get hold of it and get hold of him and start trying to distort his words and his purpose, which they have already done and will continue to do.</p> | A Wildlife Expert and Dr. Carson | true | http://rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/05/04/a_wildlife_expert_and_dr_carson | 2015-05-04 | 0 |
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<p>Calumet Specialty Products Partners LP (NASDAQ: CLMT) may not be a household name, but that doesn't mean you're not familiar with its products. An industry leader in producing high-quality, specialty hydrocarbon products, Calumet serves a wide variety of industries. Finding out you may be using its products on a daily basis is one thing, but there's plenty left to learn. And since the best investors are well-informed investors, let's look at some things that help to provide a more complete view of the company.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Consider your exposure to Calumet's products on a drive to the store: From the asphalt on the road, to the tires rolling over it, to the motor oil in the engine, to the athletic shoes on the gas pedal, Calumet's products may appear in some form. And if you're wearing lip balm while you're in the car, and you just had something to eat, and you have a can of paint in your trunk, you may have even more exposure to Calumet's products. And this is far -- quite far -- from an exhaustive list. According to the company's recent 10-K, it has a range of approximately 4,500 specialty products. It's a lengthy list of companies -- from a diverse range of industries -- that rely on Calumet's specialty products.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images</p>
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<p>Although it currently provides goods to a range of industries, the company had much simpler beginnings. Founded in 1919, Calumet Refining Company was formed in Burnham, Ill., and manufactured only two products: medicinal white oils and package lubrication products.</p>
<p>Throughout its history, the company has sought and completed acquisitions to diversify its portfolio of products. In 1995, for example, the company acquiredthe Louisiana-based Kerr-McGee Corporation refinery, which is the only domestic refinery that focuses exclusively onthe development and production of specialty aliphatic solvents. More recently, the company acquired a refinery from NuStar Energy, L.P. that produces jet fuel, diesel, and other fuel products.</p>
<p>Despite the company's name, Calumet's operating activities transcend the production of specialty products.Calumet's business is also divided into two other operating segments: fuel products and oilfield services. Surprisingly, specialty products doesn't even account for the greatest source of the company's revenue. That distinction goes to the fuel-products segment, which reported $2.3 billion in sales for fiscal 2016; specialty products and oilfield services provided $1.3 billion and $125.1 million in sales, respectively.</p>
<p>Although it plays second fiddle in terms of revenue, it more than proves its worth in terms of profitability -- it's the only segment to report positive adjusted EBITDA in each of the past three years.</p>
<p>In addition to tank trucks and a common carrier pipeline system, Calumet relies on approximately 2,700 leased railcars to receive crude oil -- as well as for distribution of its products through the U.S. and Canada. By using railcars, Calumet is, among other things, keeping things safe. According to the Association of American Railroads, 99.99%of all tank cars containing crude oil arrive at their destination safely.</p>
<p>Calumet maintains operations throughout the U.S: four blending and packaging facilities, six distribution and terminal facilities, and 10 refinery/production facilities. According to the company, its extensive network of facilities is a competitive advantage. In its most recent 10-K, it suggests that it's the only specialty-products company that "produces all four of naphthenic lubricating oils, paraffinic lubricating oils, waxes, and solvents." Furthermore, it states, "A contributing factor in our ability to produce numerous specialty products is our ability to ship products between our facilities for product upgrading in order to meet customer specifications."</p>
<p>One of the reasons investors are attracted to investing in limited partnerships -- like Calumet -- is that the companies are required to distribute a majority of their net income to shareholders. Because they aren't required to pay corporate income tax, these companies are able to distribute more cash to shareholders than they would if they were paying dividends.</p>
<p>Facing numerous challenges last year, Calumet decided to suspend its quarterly distributions after the first quarter of 2016. And there's no clarity into when the distributions will resume. Inproviding a strategic update last April, Tim Go, the company's CEO,said distributions will begin again after "taking into account a number of factors, including our liquidity requirements, the relative health of cash flows from operations, balance sheet leverage, broader market conditions, and the overall performance of our business."</p>
<p>Presenting its initial public offering in 2006, Calumet -- whose common unit was priced at $32.94 -- raised $141 million. In April 2007, the stock reached an all-time high of $55.26, but those glory days are long in the rearview mirror. After the company announced -- on a Friday at the market close -- that it was suspending its distributions, the bottom fell out of the stock, closing 48% lower the following Monday. Currently, things haven't gotten any better. As of this writing, the stock is priced at $3.55 per share.</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of April 3, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/scott81236/info.aspx" type="external">Scott Levine Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 7 Things You Didn't Know About Calumet Specialty Products Partners LP | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/21/7-things-didnt-know-about-calumet-specialty-products-partners-lp.html | 2017-04-21 | 0 |
<p>The band members&#160;took heavy anti-nausea medication, but many others on their 60-person production crew got motion sickness.&#160;</p>
<p>OK Go and their crew shot the more than three-minute-long video for "Upside Down &amp; Inside Out" while on a parabolic flight just outside Moscow, Russia.</p>
<p>It was a monumental logistic feat. The band&#160;worked with cosmonauts from Russia’s space program, a Russian airline, a large crew, and several aerialist acrobats.</p>
<p>Their parabolic flight — often called “the vomit comet” — gave the band and their crew thirty seconds of weightlessness during each flight.&#160;</p>
<p>“We had I think 58 separate regurgitations,” says lead singer Damian Kulash says.&#160;</p>
<p>The band is known&#160;for its geeked-out videos,&#160;featuring a NASA-built Rube Goldberg machine and lyrics played through optical illusions.</p>
<p>But the zero-G flight was "definitely the most adventurous thing I've ever done,” says&#160;bassist Tim Nordwind.&#160;“I think I can safely say it's the most adventurous thing the band has ever done.”</p>
<p>The idea for shooting a music video in zero gravity was born when Kulash began hearing about private space ventures in the mid-2000s.</p>
<p>“I remember thinking to myself, 'Someone's going to get to make art in space soon … I really want to do that,'" he says.</p>
<p>So they started chasing the idea and finally got to production. They shot one long take, falling back into gravity in intervals, and editing those shots out.</p>
<p>“We'd pause the music at that point and restart the music when zero-G came back," he says, "so that we basically did each section sequentially but with these long periods of waiting in between that we later pulled out."</p>
<p>The band used floating disco balls, piñatas, and popped paint balloons to illustrate their story. At the end, they pop paint balloons.</p>
<p>“And we just have paint everywhere,” Kulash says.&#160;“I mean liquids … are one of the things that really does the best job of describing zero-G. Because most things in zero-G actually look like they're just in slow motion … when you see us moving at a real speed and liquids actually hanging in the air around us, you really really get the [feeling that], 'Wow, this is something different.'”</p>
<p>This article is based on an&#160; <a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/launching-the-latest-ok-go-video-in-zero-g/" type="external">interview</a> <a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/confessions-of-a-meteorite-hunter/" type="external">&#160;</a>that aired on PRI's&#160; <a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/" type="external">Science Friday</a>.</p> | Here's how OK Go made that zero-G music video | false | https://pri.org/stories/2016-02-28/heres-how-ok-go-made-zero-g-music-video | 2016-02-28 | 3 |
<p>Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda met with anti-nuclear activists and business leaders in Tokyo on Wednesday. The meeting came as Noda's government is struggling to put together a post-Fukushima energy plan for Japan.</p>
<p>The goal is to balance the country's economic needs with the widespread anti-nuclear sentiment following the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster at the Fukushima power plant.</p>
<p>Since then, Japan has committed to big increases in renewable power.</p>
<p>The big question now is whether the government's plan will also call for phasing out nuclear power and if so, how quickly. Meanwhile, residents of the region affected by the Fukushima disaster are coming to their own conclusions.</p> | Life After the Fukushima Meltdown in Japan | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-08-22/life-after-fukushima-meltdown-japan | 2012-08-22 | 3 |
<p>A SENSE of imminent triumph in the house of labor has been replaced by uncertainty and unease about the prospects for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).</p>
<p>As Politico.com reported on March 26: “Key Democrats fled from the Employee Free Choice Act on Wednesday, saying they couldn’t support the bill unless significant modifications were made, including some ardently opposed by labor unions.”</p>
<p>The same day, Republican Sen. Arlen Spector, who was a co-sponsor of EFCA when it was first introduced in 2003, did an about-face and vowed to oppose the legislation. That means Senate Republicans will have the 40 members they need to use procedural moves to block votes on EFCA.</p>
<p>“The bill, as written,” the Politico article concluded, “appears to have a slim chance of moving forward, and labor union supporters now fear it may be on hold until after next year’s midterm elections.”</p>
<p>EFCA was the major political priority of the U.S. labor movement in the 2008 elections. The proposal would make it easier for workers to join unions by giving them the option of bypassing a drawn-out National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) supervised election–a process frequently abused by corporations to intimidate workers–in favor of a simple majority of workers signing union cards to achieve legal union recognition. EFCA would also increase fines on companies that violate workers’ rights and make it harder for employers to avoid signing initial contracts with newly unionized workers.</p>
<p>Needless to say, Corporate America didn’t take kindly to EFCA, and spent hundreds of millions, mobilizing all its forces to defeat the legislation.</p>
<p>The anti-EFCA war had its intended impact. In addition to Specter’s flip-flop, Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson has called for compromise that would gut the legislation. Even one of EFCA’s authors, Sen. Tom Harkin, has now said he would open up the bill to changes. EFCA isn’t dead yet–but it is in danger. There’s still time to shift things, but that time is growing short.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the blame for what’s happening to the legislation doesn’t lie solely with EFCA’s corporate enemies, but also with the strategy of its supporters.</p>
<p>The AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations have been oriented on the Senate vote-count. Labor focused in on lobbying 10 key senators who wavered on the legislation, running pro-EFCA advertisements in their states.</p>
<p>There are a number of problems with this math-based approach.</p>
<p>First of all, in terms of lobbying and running advertisements, organized labor will always be outgunned by Corporate America. Lobbying is about access to the corridors of power. Running television, radio and newspaper ads takes money. Big business simply has more access and more money.</p>
<p>Secondly, organized labor approached individual senators as allies who just needed to hear good arguments in favor of the legislation and be shored up so they would do “the right thing”–instead of approaching the Senate as a collection of politicians worried about their own power. And by focusing all their energy on lobbying “swing” votes in the Senate, the unions gave the most conservative Democrats the most attention in the political debate about EFCA. Thus, the entire media waited with bated breath for the opinions of two Arkansas senators who, though they are Democrats, are ultimately in the pocket of home-state union-buster Wal-Mart.</p>
<p>This was a lost opportunity. If the unions had launched a mass, grassroots and active campaign for EFCA, the media would be hearing arguments from workers about why labor law reform is needed.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>EFCA’S SETBACKS are in part the result of labor’s misreading of the dynamics of the Democratic Party–again. While the Democrats have long counted the unions as part of their base and the party’s liberal politicians are adept at making pro-worker speeches, the Democrats are, in fact, a pro-business party. The party’s approach to EFCA reflects this contradiction.</p>
<p>On the one hand, the political shift that brought President Barack Obama into the White House and increased the Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress has made it more possible to pass EFCA. But the dirty secret is that that this same Democratic Party is entirely capable of sabotaging its own legislation if Corporate America wants it to.</p>
<p>While Congressional Republicans–backed up by the corporate anti-EFCA blitzkrieg–were confidently denouncing the bill and planning for its defeat, Democratic leaders treated EFCA like a legislative stepchild, professing support, but not getting “too close.” No senior Senate or House leader–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid included–even showed up for the Capitol Hill press conference announcing the reintroduction of EFCA on March 10.</p>
<p>The White House also kept EFCA at arms’ length and avoided putting any pressure on members of congress to support the legislation. And when Vice President Joe Biden spoke to union leaders about EFCA, cameras weren’t allowed to cover the proceedings. Thus, when the bill was reintroduced on March 10, several former sponsors of the 2007 version of the legislation had already gone AWOL.</p>
<p>Why? Well, it’s one thing for the Democrats to vote for pro-union legislation when there’s no chance of it actually becoming law. It’s quite another to do so when it is possible.</p>
<p>In 2007, with George W. Bush in the White House and a bare Democratic majority in the Senate, there was simply no chance of EFCA becoming law. Democrats could vote for the legislation to be on record as fighting for workers, yet be assured that their actions would not actually infringe on the interests of big business.</p>
<p>Now that EFCA is possible, however, some party leaders have apparently concluded that the “best” outcome would be to allow a narrow defeat for EFCA in the Senate, or a compromise that guts the legislation, or indefinite postponement. This would allow the Democrats to defend corporate interests while appearing to be loyal to their pro-union working-class base.</p>
<p>In fact, Congress has been caught in a tug of war between its increasingly discredited corporate patrons and an increasingly angry working-class base. Members have been weighing which course of action–EFCA’s success or failure–poses the greatest risk.</p>
<p>Genuine grassroots pressure could tip the scales back in labor’s favor. Democratic-controlled Congresses have passed pro-union and pro-working-class legislation in the past–in the 1930s and the 1960s in particular–when there was sufficient pressure to force their hand. But lobbying alone can’t produce that sort of pressure. Democrats who have turned on EFCA should not merely be challenged with words or targeted in the next election. Those politicians should be targeted with protests–now.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>ANOTHER THREAT to EFCA comes from supposedly “progressive” companies that are proposing an alternative process to expedite union elections.</p>
<p>Some on the left see this is an advance. In a recent article, titled “Corporate United Front Against EFCA Cracking,” posted on the Web site of the magazine Political Affairs (published by the Communist Party USA), Joel Wendland cites two signs of a supposed corporate retreat–the so-called “compromise” proposal on labor law reform put forward by Costco, Starbucks and Whole Foods, and an admission in the Wall Street Journal that EFCA would not, contrary to the claims of its opponents, prevent the use of secret ballots in union elections if workers decide they want one.</p>
<p>Wendland argues that the Journal’s acknowledgement of the truth about EFCA opened up the potential for Republicans (!) to support EFCA. He adds:</p>
<p>It is likely that many Republicans, without reading the bill, simply accepted the word of anti-worker television entertainers like Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck, and a massive $200 million ad campaign by big business groups like the National Association of Manufacturers.</p>
<p>In fact, one day after Wendland’s article was posted, Specter publicly announced his opposition to the bill. So much for “Republicans for EFCA.”</p>
<p>What about the Costco, Starbucks and Whole Foods proposal? AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff described it this way:</p>
<p>[S]ections of Corporate America have smelled the coffee and are looking for compromise legislation…Though their compromise is totally inadequate, it does signal that the ranks of Corporate America have been broken, and that passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is increasingly inevitable.”</p>
<p>Of course, the fact that Costco, Starbucks and Whole Foods felt compelled to break with the Chamber of Commerce’s strategy of total war is a sign of the times. Big business has been discredited by the crisis and by government bailouts for corporations. The overall terrain should be politically favorable to unions.</p>
<p>But labor needs to take stock of the balance of forces. There are more than 500 business organizations aligned with the Chamber’s hard-line “no-compromise” approach to EFCA. Steven Law, general counsel for the Chamber, made Corporate America’s position clear on March 10 while speaking to businessmen and Republican members of congress: “The only thing that stands between [EFCA] and your workplace is the filibuster. There is no compromise.”</p>
<p>It should be further emphasized that only three companies have “broken ranks”–and there is a reason why it was these three. Starbucks and Whole Foods in particular–despite (or because of) a long and sordid history of union-busting–have tried to present themselves as “socially responsible,” and are worried about their corporate images. Moreover, as most EFCA supporters have argued, including Wendland and Acuff, the “Third Way” proposal (as it has been dubbed) would gut EFCA.</p>
<p>The distressing reality is that things are going the wrong direction on EFCA. The proposal is losing support in the Senate, and Corporate America is increasingly confident that it will be defeated. There is no point in pretending otherwise.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>THE ONLY way to revive chances of passing EFCA is through organization, activism and protest.</p>
<p>Some of this is already taking place. As Acuff wrote of labor’s pro-EFCA activism:</p>
<p>What grassroots movement can in the span of one week run 57 letters to the editor in newspapers across America, send 14,000 handwritten letters to 10 U.S. Senators and simultaneously plan 35 grassroots advocacy events with workers in 10 states?</p>
<p>America’s labor movement, the AFL-CIO can. Now that the Employee Free Choice Act has been introduced in the U.S. House and Senate, organized labor’s multi-state grassroots campaign is running at full throttle.</p>
<p>But is this really all organized labor can do?</p>
<p>Labor’s muscle–its membership–has not been flexed in the battle for EFCA, even though union members and many other workers are itching for a fight, and on exactly this issue. Union members could be mobilized to pressure senators who have dropped their support for EFCA, as well as to protest companies and CEOs involved in the anti-EFCA campaign.</p>
<p>In such an activist pro-EFCA campaign, organized labor could win the support of tens of millions of nonunion workers to back the legislation. For example, a Gallup poll released March 17 showed that a solid majority of 52 percent favored laws making it easier to join a union. Previous polls have shown even greater support.</p>
<p>More worrisome, however, was that the Gallup poll showed only 12 percent of Americans were following the debate around EFCA closely. Another recent poll found that only half of respondents were even clear as to what EFCA was.</p>
<p>Organized labor, by focusing on the Senate vote count at the expense of much else, has simply not done a good enough job educating the people about EFCA and the reasons why working people should pull out all the stops to support it.</p>
<p>While there have been some important rallies and protests called by local union federations, union locals and chapters of Jobs with Justice, more can and should be done.</p>
<p>Certainly, the moment is right to target big business. Today’s corporate giants have clay feet. After Citibank joined fellow ward of the state Bank of America in organizing anti-EFCA conference calls, unions sent a letter to the Treasury Department in protest. But this is a political crack that labor could drive every unionized truck in the country through–if it looked beyond the Beltway.</p>
<p>Some chapters of Jobs with Justice and student groups have organized protests at these banks. Unions and pro-worker groups everywhere should follow this example.</p>
<p>Industrial action could also have an impact. For example, what if Teamsters at UPS refused to deliver packages to Bank of America for just a single day? They would be heroes–and it could connect the struggle for EFCA to the fight against corporate greed in the public imagination.</p>
<p>As the great abolitionist Frederick Douglas famously said, “Without struggle, there is no progress.” At the end of the day, our fight isn’t about one piece of pro-labor legislation–however important it may be–but building a militant rank-and-file workers’ rebellion that can change the world.</p>
<p>EFCA is one battle in that war–and we could still win that battle. But only if we fight.</p>
<p>ADAM TURL writes for the <a href="http://www.socialistworker.org" type="external">Socialist Worker</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Card Check on the Ropes | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/04/08/card-check-on-the-ropes/ | 2009-04-08 | 4 |
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<p>DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — An Islamic television station in Senegal says it has filed a formal complaint against unknown saboteur “X'' for taking over the network and airing pornography instead of its regularly scheduled religious programming.</p>
<p>Viewers tuning into Touba TV on Monday afternoon got a shock when hardcore pornography was aired from 1:10 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.</p>
<p>Touba TV on Wednesday called the broadcasting blunder a “criminal act” and said the formal complaint will make it possible to identify the “authors who have an unknown agenda.”</p>
<p>The broadcaster said its viewers were offended, and it condemned the attempt as a “satanic move” to sabotage the values it advocates.</p>
<p>The privately run station usually broadcasts religious programs advocating Islamic values and teachings, including sermons and prayers.</p>
<p><a href="#7d2952b5-786b-4c3c-b87e-0a7922e818df" type="external">© 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</a> Learn more about our <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/privacy" type="external">Privacy Policy</a> and <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/terms" type="external">Terms of Use</a>.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Religious TV station in Senegal accidentally airs porn | false | https://abqjournal.com/973927/religious-tv-station-in-senegal-accidentally-airs-porn.html | 2017-03-22 | 2 |
<p>The world wide credit crisis started in the heart of America suburbia itself, and primarily through the politics of suburban development that radiated from South Florida. The story of subprime mortgage mess has not yet meshed with the campaign finance supply chain that wrapped up Florida production home builders, lawyers and lobbyists. But from the perspective of Miami and South Florida, it is clear that supply chain was managed by Jeb Bush, the former two-term governor.</p>
<p>Yesterday Bloomberg reported that $700 million in defaulted debt, representing sprawl (asset-backed commercial paper– the exact details have not been disclosed) has vanished from the trust funds invested by the Jeb Bush team, adding to losses that will change American politics in 2008 and beyond.</p>
<p>The world-wide credit crisis is too big to contain in one frame. It still has not come home to roost, how the hundreds of billions of losses reported by the world’s largest financial institutions from Hong Kong to Frankfurt to London to Beijing and Tokyo, have anything to do with politics.</p>
<p>But the most accurate frame to tell this story is the money trail from Jeb’s loss in 1994 governor’s race, to his victory in 1998, and subsequently, the presidential election stolen in Florida by George W. Bush in 2000. Both Jeb and W. were fully engaged in the policies of growth that spurred the hyperventilated housing boom that is now in flames. (for further detail, see eyeonmiami.blogspot.com under the archive feature, “housing crash”)</p>
<p>Their programs and policies were grounded by a strategy to win Republican victories in the fastest growing suburbs in the nation. Today the massive leverage that supported suburbia has deflated, bringing hard currency consequences to taxpayers and voters whether they are Republican or not.</p>
<p>Although the news is now filled the housing market crash (in Miami, it’s the worst in a century), it is not being told in terms of politics. There are news segments on liar loans, reports on mortgage fraud and stories about hastily convened task forces, there are editorials on poor judgment by consumers and investors and efforts to bail them out, or millions of homeowners at risk of foreclosure, or who have been foreclosed.</p>
<p>These are the bits and pieces, and still, even if you laid them side-by-side, they would fail to capture the connections between the so-called fiscal conservatives and ordinary people now paying for the failure of the suburban dream.</p>
<p>How are Americans really hurt by suburbia?</p>
<p>Here is how.</p>
<p>Bloomberg reports today, “School districts and local governments in Florida have pulled $8 billion out of a state-run investment pool, or 30 percent of its assets, after learning that the money market fund contained more than $700 million of defaulted debt.”</p>
<p>The State Board of Administration, that manages about $42 billlion of short-term investments, including the pool, as well as Florida’s $137 billion pension fund, is run by Coleman Stipanovich, brother of “Mac” Stipanovich, a Republican consultant and Bush family loyalist. In 2002, the fund lost $334 million on Enron, investing in the stock as the company was swirling down the drain-three times the loss of any other pension fund. A few years later, the same fund invested in Edison Schools whose stock value had collapsed from $37 to as little as 14 cents.</p>
<p>“Pardon the sacrcasm,” the St. Petersburg Times editorialized after the Edison deal, “but was there no Enron stock left to buy?”</p>
<p>Enron-through its water subsidiary, Azurix-and Edison represented two areas of policy related to manias of the Jeb Bush years: socializing risk and privatizing profits. Jeb had been quietly encouraging the privatization of Florida’s water supply, administered by a network of state water management districts.</p>
<p>Enron’s collapse put a quick end to that, although stalking horses have not given up on the dream of privatizing water resources in Florida. And of course, Jeb’s acolytes, seeded through the Florida legislature, are still promoting charter schools as an answer to the teacher’s and other unions.</p>
<p>Now, to the $500 million plus that Governor Jeb Bush lost in the empowerment of private corporations, it is necessary to add an additional $700 million of defaulted debt tied to the housing market crash.</p>
<p>This is not some abstract penalty imposed by bad leadership on taxpayers.</p>
<p>The suburbs are restless and with good reason: suburbia and its costs are a Ponzi scheme for which no political leader will go to jail.</p>
<p>The scheme starts with local elected officials in control of zoning, up the ladder through lobbyists, land speculators developers and local bankers, all the way to Wall Street where lawyers and financial engineers, from investment bankers to hedge funds, who already spent billions in bonuses and fees for originating debt that has no value on the secondary market.</p>
<p>One reason the mainstream media has a hard time focusing on the heart of the problem, is that so many Americans call suburbia, home.</p>
<p>The mainstream media, in large part supported by the suburban supply chain, has either ignored or lambasted critics as elitists insensitive to the millions of Americans for whom glue gun, pod housing in bland and anonymous housing tracts (in order to conform to the requirements of mortgage backed securities) is an unassailable dream.</p>
<p>No longer. Not when people’s pensions are affected. And not even in Florida, where a Republican legislature still holds firm. For now.</p>
<p>ALAN FARAGO of Coral Gables, who writes about the environment and the politics of South Florida, can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Politics and the Housing Crash | true | https://counterpunch.org/2007/11/30/politics-and-the-housing-crash/ | 2007-11-30 | 4 |
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<p />
<p>According to a police report, Hernandez was believed to be staying in the 1600 block of Virginia Street. Officers of the Silver City Police Department had prior knowledge and dealings with Hernandez and they made sure they had the intersections of Virginia and Hill and Virginia and Howell blocked off before they attempted to serve the warrant.</p>
<p>As officers approached the residence at about 4:30 p.m., they made contact with a resident of the residence who advised them that Hernandez was inside and didn’t have any firearms, but was trying to obtain one. While at the door, detectives could hear someone run upstairs, possibly toward the attic.</p>
<p>The New Mexico State Police SWAT team was contacted and arrived on scene a short while later. Verbal commands were given to Hernandez to exit the residence where he did not comply. The SWAT team took over the incident at about 9:45 p.m. After several hours of trying to get Hernandez to peacefully come out of the residence, flash bangs and tear gas were utilized and then a K-9 was sent into the home where the suspect was eventually drug out.</p>
<p>The police report stated that Hernandez had several lacerations to his arms, legs and chest area. He was treated at the scene and then transported to the hospital where he was later cleared for detention at the jail.</p>
<p>A State Police captain did confirm that Antonio Hernandez had been arrested. Public Information Officer for the State Police Carl Christiansen stated, “NMSP provided manpower and equipment at Silver City’s request.”</p>
<p>Note: Members of the Grant County Sheriff’s Office and New Mexico State Police also assisted in the apprehension of Hernandez.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>©2017 the Silver City Sun-News (Silver City, N.M.)</p>
<p>Visit the Silver City Sun-News (Silver City, N.M.) at <a href="http://www.scsun-news.com" type="external">www.scsun-news.com</a></p>
<p>Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.</p>
<p>_____</p> | Silver City standoff ends with arrest of Antonio Hernandez | false | https://abqjournal.com/1020555/silver-city-standoff-ends-with-arrest-of-antonio-hernandez.html | 2 |
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<p>Attitude over altitude.</p>
<p>Most of the non-Mountain Time Zone competitors who descended on New Mexico and completed their decathlons and heptathlons Friday afternoon were forced to cope, to one degree or another, with Albuquerque’s often-demanding 5,200-foot elevation.</p>
<p>But the 38th annual Great Southwest Track and Field Classic still managed to produce some stellar marks.</p>
<p>Missouri’s Kirstie Leslie broke – convincingly – the meet record in the girls’ decathlon. And Texas’ Wolf Mahler posted a personal-best score in the boys’ decathlon.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“It’s awesome,” Mahler said of his performance in the meet. “It’s one of the best, for sure.”</p>
<p>He didn’t quite reach the meet record, set two years ago by Oklahoma’s Gunnar Nixon, who topped 8,000 points, but the University of Texas-bound Mahler still put together two strong days at the University of New Mexico track complex.</p>
<p>Laura Wendelberger of Los Alamos High School completes in the long jump during the girls’ heptathlon competition.She finished ninth with 5,158 points. (Dean Hanson/Albuquerque Journal)</p>
<p>Facing a strong field of athletes from around the region, Mahler scored 7,420 points in the two-day event – almost a full 1,000 ahead of the second-place finisher.</p>
<p>Cibola’s Cody Bassett was the top New Mexico finisher, in ninth place with 5,168 points. To be fair, Bassett is not a pure decathlete, while Mahler will do the decathlon in college.</p>
<p>Mahler, from Belton, Texas, set a previous personal record of 7,234 at a meet last summer in Houston. He admitted that the mile-high air was problematic at times, especially in the 1,500.</p>
<p>The girls’ heptathlon winner, Alexa Harmon-Thomas of Lawrence, Kan., had similar issues in the thin high-desert air.</p>
<p>But she nevertheless won the event comfortably, with 5,158 points. Los Alamos’ Laura Wendelberger placed ninth with 3,768 points, including a third-place finish in the 800.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“It was a big factor,” Harmon-Thomas said of the altitude. “I was feeling it a lot the last two days. I just tried to stay hydrated.”</p>
<p>She, like Mahler, had a personal record this week. Her previous best was 4,769 points. Harmon-Thomas just completed her junior year and has not committed to a college.</p>
<p>Leslie, from Washington, Mo., broke by almost 400 poin ts the meet record in the decathlon.</p>
<p>Leslie scored 5,676 points this year; Highland’s Anicka Hewell (5,299 in 2011) was the record holder until Friday.</p>
<p>Leslie will compete at Missouri State.</p>
<p>There were only seven girls in the decathlon, and none of them came from New Mexico.</p>
<p>TODAY: Field events will be run from 10:30 a.m. until probably close to 9 p.m. at UNM today as the meet concludes.</p>
<p>The running finals begin for the high-school age athletes with the hurdles at 3 p.m.</p>
<p>The 100-meter dashes – there are four, two for each gender, including an elite race – run from 4-4:35 p.m.</p>
<p /> | Fighting through thin air | false | https://abqjournal.com/239771/fighting-through-thin-air.html | 2 |
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<p>The Defense Business Board, an official oversight body appointed by the secretary of defense, has warned the president-elect that the Pentagon’s bloated budget ($512 billion this year, not including war costs) is “not sustainable.” An unprecedented spending spree since 9/11 has run head-on into a financial meltdown, and Barack Obama is now stuck in the middle.</p>
<p>Boston Globe via <a href="http://thepage.time.com" type="external">The Page</a>:</p>
<p>A senior Pentagon advisory group, in a series of bluntly worded briefings, is warning President-elect Barack Obama that the Defense Department’s current budget is “not sustainable,” and he must scale back or eliminate some of the military’s most prized weapons programs.</p>
<p>The briefings were prepared by the Defense Business Board, an internal management oversight body. It contends that the nation’s recent financial crisis makes it imperative that the Pentagon and Congress slash some of the nation’s most costly and troubled weapons to ensure they can finance the military’s most pressing priorities.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/11/10/pentagon_board_says_cuts_essential/" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Military Spending 'Not Sustainable' | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/military-spending-not-sustainable/ | 2008-11-11 | 4 |
<p>Fire officials say a blaze at a central Florida hotel that displaced about 250 people last week was set on purpose.</p>
<p>A spokeswoman for the state fire marshal's office told the Orlando Sentinel (https://goo.gl/JWHBjt ) on Tuesday that several mattresses outside the Unno Boutique Hotel in Kissimmee were apparently set on fire early Friday morning. Officials haven't released information about a suspect or motive.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The fire started near the back of the building, in a construction area, and moved along to occupied rooms. Officials say firefighters battled the blaze for at least 11 hours. One whole wing of the building was flattened, but no injuries were reported.</p>
<p>Disney and Osceola County have helped place the victims in housing. More than 175 people are being put up in other hotels.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com/</p> | Officials: Florida hotel fire set on purpose | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/27/officials-florida-hotel-fire-set-on-purpose.html | 2016-12-28 | 0 |
<p>Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton is in hot water after saying a "female" sports reporter was "funny" for asking a technical football question about "routes."</p>
<p>Jourdan Rodrigue, the Charlotte Observer's Panthers beat reporter asked Newton what he thought of teammate Devin Funchess's recent improvement. Newton laughed off the question, apparently barely believing a woman journalist could have such a deep understanding of football strategy.</p>
<p>WATCH:</p>
<p>The reporter, of course, didn't think it - or Cam, himself - was very funny at all.</p>
<p>After being questioned on Twitter, Rodrigue says she spoke to Newton about his sexist commentary after the press conference, but that she chose not to print what he said because "it was worse."</p>
<p>The Observer released Rodrigue's official statement on the matter late Wednesday.</p>
<p>Newton, for his part, has not addressed the matter, or his comments, publicly. The Carolina Panthers released a team statement saying Newton had expressed "regret" for making his bizarre observation.</p>
<p>"I have spoken with Jourdan and Cam and I know they had a conversation where he expressed regret for using those words," the Panthers said. "We strive as a department to make the environment for media comfortable for everyone covering the team."</p>
<p>Female sports reporters across social media rushed to Rodrigue's defense, reminding Cam Newton that "females" have been covering sports for decades and that most of the women who handle football reporting are more than familiar with college and NFL routes - and just as capable as analyzing a player's performance as their male colleagues.</p>
<p>The NFL was also quick to respond, perhaps recognizing that, after the national anthem protests of the past several weekends, they can't afford to lose any more viewers.</p>
<p>"The comments are just plain wrong and disrespectful to the exceptional female reporters and all journalists who cover our league," the NFL said in a statement to a major sports radio network. "They do not reflect the thinking of the league."</p>
<p>Frankly, women may have been the only viewers the NFL had left; it's not clear what radical feminists — who also rushed to Rodrigue's defense — will do now. Can "resisting" anti-Trump Women's Marchers really watch the NFL to express their dissatisfaction with a "fascist" regime knowing that sexism may, in fact, run rampant in the league's locker rooms?</p>
<p>Conundrums, conundrums.</p> | Female Fans BLAST NFL QB Cam Newton After He Laughs At A Female Sports Reporter | true | https://dailywire.com/news/21959/female-fans-blast-nfl-qb-cam-newton-after-he-emily-zanotti | 2017-10-04 | 0 |
<p>John Seiler:</p>
<p>Fortunately, California is such a beautiful state that there’s no reason to leave anyway, except to get a job. So I’m staying put until the fascist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel" type="external">TSA</a>stops treating passengers like concentration camp inmates.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/sfl-airport-scans-pat-downs-refual-20101121,0,5604032.story" type="external">Here’s the latest</a>:</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" />If you don’t want to pass through an airport scanner that allows security agents to see an image of your naked body or to undergo the alternative, a thorough manual search, you may have to find another way to travel this holiday season.</p>
<p>The&#160; <a href="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/topic/crime-law-justice/laws/law-enforcement/transportation-security-administration-ORGOV000000157.topic" type="external">Transportation Security Administration</a> (TSA) is warning that any would-be commercial airline passenger who enters an airport checkpoint and then refuses to undergo the method of inspection designated by TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport.</p>
<p>That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest.</p>
<p>“Once a person submits to the screening process, they can not just decide to leave that process,” says Sari Koshetz, regional TSA spokesperson, based in Miami.</p>
<p>What a fascist. Once you’re in the clutches of the TSA goons, they won’t let you go. It’s the very definition of fascism.</p>
<p>And this from <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/70195.html" type="external">LewRockwell.com</a>:</p>
<p>Ever since the initial discovery in the mid 1800s by the great doctor from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ignaz Semmelweis, health professionals have known that it is essential that the hands be washed between patients and after handling unsanitary items in order to minimize the transmission of disease.&#160; With this in mind, all fliers should demand that the TSA agent change into fresh gloves prior to any contact.&#160; The possibility for the transmission of various skin diseases and sexually transmitted diseases is increased exponentially with the enhanced patdown procedures, aka gropings.&#160; Just think how many times the TSA agents use the same gloves for touching the outside of bags, the soles of shoes, as well as various and sundry unsanitary objects and surfaces, only to then use these same gloves to perform physical contact with intimate portions of fliers bodies.&#160; Please advise all air travelers to protect themselves from the TSA and their disease-vector gloves.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t surprise me if the filthy TSA rubbed a plague across America, and the world, like the Bubonic Plague that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague" type="external">wiped out up to 60% of Europe</a> as recently as the 14th Century.</p>
<p>Nov. 20, 2010</p> | I'm Not Flying! | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2010/11/20/im-not-flying/ | 2018-11-20 | 3 |
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<p />
<p>“New Mexico still needs a foundry, so we’re starting a foundry,” said Alex Johnson-Donnatelli, who was foundry manager at Shidoni.</p>
<p>DuWayne Blankley puts bars of bronze into a furnace Wednesday at the now-closed Shidoni Foundry in Tesuque. (Eddie Moore/Journal)</p>
<p>The group has been doing pours for work commissioned by artists at Shidoni in recent days, but much of the equipment will soon be moved to Albuquerque, said Johnson-Donnatelli. “There was a lot of stuff left in limbo,” he said.</p>
<p>He said the Albuquerque Foundry – the name of the new operation – will be located in the Los Ranchos area. Two locations are under consideration. Johnson-Donnatelli said the group “is supposed to be signing papers on a place this weekend.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Others involved in the project include DuWayne Blankley, Josh Ybarra and David Miles. All of them except Johnson-Donnatelli already live in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>Scott Hicks, president of Shidoni Inc., said the new foundry “totally has my backing.”</p>
<p>“I want them to take this and be great with it,” he said</p>
<p>“If I were young and had that energy, I might to want to start over again,” Hicks said. “It’s nice to see them pick up the ball and carry on.”</p>
<p>Workers who plan to start a new foundry in Albuquerque make a bronze pour Wednesday at the closed Shidoni Foundry. (Eddie Moore/Journal)</p>
<p>Hicks also said he’s glad the Albuquerque Foundry group plans to continue Shidoni’s tradition of making “grand scale” casts, such as a huge bucking bronco, with a rider, that will be finished in Albuquerque. “They really wanted to finish that one,” said Hicks.</p>
<p>Johnson-Donatelli said there are advantages to being in Albuquerque. Many Shidoni customers were from out of state and it’s cheaper to ship from Albuquerque, he said.</p>
<p>Shidoni has been a well-known mainstay in Santa Fe, as both a tourist attraction, with its sculpture garden and public pourings, and as a functioning foundry that produced pieces for the likes of Allan Houser and Glenna Goodacre. Hicks said Thursday he wants the public to know that Shidoni’s galleries and sculpture garden remain open to the public.</p>
<p>Hicks has said the closing resulted from a poor economy and a loss of artistic confidence in the foundry after the Santa Fe New Mexican published a story about the company’s $315,000 in overdue tax bills.</p>
<p /> | Forging ahead | false | https://abqjournal.com/991069/forging-ahead.html | 2 |
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<p>Pro-fracking members of the Nebraska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission were silent when a farmer and former pipeline worker invited them to drink water contaminated with chemicals used in the petroleum and natural gas extraction process.</p>
<p>During the public comment portion of the commission hearing, James Osborne referred to previous testimony by members, saying, “So you told me this morning … that you would drink it, this water, right? So, would you drink it? Yes or no?”</p>
<p>When a commission member told Osborne they would not comment, he replied, “Oh, you can’t answer any questions? So, my answer would be no. I would not drink this.</p>
<p>“There is no doubt there will be contamination,” he added during a brief lecture on how contaminated water flows through the state according to fluid dynamics. “There will be spills.”</p>
<p />
<p>When Osborne’s three minutes were up, he left the water glasses on the table, thanked the commission members and left to applause from the audience.</p>
<p>Below, a similar encounter plays out when an interviewer asks a lobbyist for Monsanto whether the lobbyist would drink glyphosate, a key ingredient in the corporation’s herbicide product Roundup. The clip is from an <a href="http://www.canalplus.fr/c-infos-documentaires/pid3357-c-special-investigation.html?vid=1122650&amp;sc_cmpid=SharePlayerEmbed" type="external">upcoming</a> French documentary.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2015/03/24/monsanto-world-health-organization-cancer-roundup/70399610/" type="external">According</a> to the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic” to humans. The chemical is used in more than 750 products made by Monsanto and other companies and has been found in water, air and food in areas where it is sprayed.</p>
<p>— Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Alexander Reed Kelly</a>.</p> | Nebraska Farmer Invites Pro-Fracking Commission Members to Drink Contaminated Water | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/nebraska-farmer-invites-pro-fracking-commission-members-to-drink-contaminated-water/ | 2015-03-29 | 4 |
<p>The nuclear power industry has spent a lot of money on public relations and national advertizing campaigns aimed at convincing the public and decision makers that atomic energy is a solution to the worsening climate crisis. But extreme weather, likely made more frequent and intense by the growing concentration of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, means that nuclear power is too risky to operate amidst the climate chaos. Current historic floods on the Missouri River, threatening the Fort Calhoun and Cooper (of the same design as Fukushima) atomic reactors in Nebraska, have underscored the point. So has a historic wildfire that recently came dangerously close to tens of thousands of 55 gallon barrels of plutonium-contaminated wastes at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico.</p>
<p>Fortunately, a record number of tornadoes, some of record size, this spring across the Midwest, South, and Southeast, did not strike atomic reactors, although some were forced to shut down as a safety precaution when primary electric grids failed. Previous direct hits by tornadoes at atomic reactors, such as Davis-Besse, Ohio, in June 1998, came close to causing a catastrophic radioactivity release, as did Hurricane Andrew at Turkey Point nuclear power plant near Miami in 1992.</p>
<p>Given their vulnerable locations, on sea coasts, rivers, the Great Lakes, etc., atomic reactors grow more risky with the worsening climate crisis. In fact, the 104 operating reactors at 65 sites in 30 states across the U.S. are almost all vulnerable to extreme weather events.</p>
<p>24 operating reactors at 14 sites are located on our sea coasts, vulnerable to hurricanes and storm surges, and eventually, sea level rise. Not included in this count is River Bend nuclear power plant, on the Mississippi River in Louisiana but far from the ocean, which was forced to shut down during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 for safety’s sake. Thus, even “inland” reactors are at risk from powerful enough hurricanes. 64 operating reactors at 39 sites are located along rivers, potentially vulnerable to floods. Certain rivers, of course, are more likely to flood than others. A total of 88 reactors at 53 sites are vulnerable to inundation.</p>
<p>Such an inundation, although caused by an earthquake-spawned tsunami, led to the ongoing triple reactor meltdown and high-level radioactive waste pool releases at Fukushima Daiichi. Many U.S. reactors are also at risk of earthquakes, and some, as on the California coast at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon, to tsunamis.</p>
<p>13 operating reactors at 9 sites are located on the U.S. side of the Great Lakes. An additional 20 reactors are located on the Canada side of the Great Lakes in Ontario. Among other things, these reactors are vulnerable to tornadoes. A tornado damaged the Fermi 2 nuclear power plant in Monroe, Michigan in June, 2010, knocking out the primary electric grid. Fortunately, this happened after it had been discovered, just 4 years earlier, that Fermi 2’s emergency back-up diesel generators had been inoperable for two decades, from 1986 to 2006. Fermi 2 is the largest General Electric Boiling Water Reactor of the Mark 1 design in the world - a replica of Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 to 4, only significantly bigger, and with more high-level radioactive waste in its storage pool than all four failed Japanese units put together. These Great Lakes reactors are located immediately adjacent to the drinking water supply for 40 million people downstream in the U.S., Canada, and numerous Native American/First Nations, comprising a remarkable 20% of the world’s surface fresh water.</p>
<p>In addition to catastrophic risks from extreme weather, the warming, or absence of enough, cooling water could force atomic reactors to power down, or shut down entirely. In the Southeast, host to dozens of operating reactors, rivers and reservoirs have already grown so warm in recent years that, on some summer days, plants have been forced to cease operating, as at the three reactor Browns Ferry complex in Alabama.</p>
<p>Not only are energy efficiency and renewables such as solar power and wind power ever more cost effective than nuclear power, they are also safer and more reliable in a global warming world. Best of all, they are genuinely clean - representing actual solutions to the climate crisis.</p>
<p>Kevin Kamps is Radioactive Waste Watchdog at <a href="http://www.beyondnuclear.org" type="external">Beyond Nuclear</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | Atomic Power in a Destabilized Climate | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/07/22/atomic-power-in-a-destabilized-climate/ | 2011-07-22 | 4 |
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<p />
<p>Co-founder Julia Mandeville said ArtBar by Catalyst Club organizers decided to close rather than fight the Alcohol and Gaming Division on two recent citations or wait for a potential third citation they believed could lead to the bar’s shutdown.</p>
<p>Even though a spokesman for Alcohol and Gaming said Wednesday that ArtBar legally was clear to continue operating under a temporary 90-day license issued this week, Mandeville said she had not yet seen it.</p>
<p>Even with it, she didn’t necessarily expect the bar to reopen.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Instead, she said ArtBar’s founders hope their situation — the subject of widespread media attention and a fair share of public outrage — would help spur change. They’re asking supporters to sign an online petition they hope will lead to an improved regulatory climate.</p>
<p>“Our primary concern … is this larger environment,” she said when asked if the ArtBar would reopen. “We believe it can change over time. We don’t know if we believe it can change overnight in a way that would give us good confidence about moving forward.”</p>
<p>ArtBar, a membership-only club, opened last summer with a mission to turn its alcohol sales into grants for arts nonprofits. Nearly 2,000 people have joined, and the venue has been host to what Mandeville said were “hundreds” of arts-related events during its inaugural year.</p>
<p>The club received its first citation in January over alleged service of nonmembers.</p>
<p>Mandeville said ArtBar had been offering monthly memberships in addition to annual ones, not knowing monthly members weren’t recognized by the state because the regulatory language didn’t make that clear.</p>
<p>“And as soon as they cited us for it, we stopped doing a monthly membership,” she said.</p>
<p>Mandeville said ArtBar has been trying to challenge that citation, but the state took months to respond, one example of the challenges ArtBar has faced.</p>
<p>The state’s “regulatory environment is not a pleasant one to operate within,” she said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The membership citation, which carries a $500 penalty, is still considered pending, which is why the state only granted ArtBar a temporary, 90-day club liquor license instead of renewing it for the full term, an Alcohol and Gaming spokesman said.</p>
<p>An advertising-related citation issued in June later was reduced to a warning.</p>
<p>Alcohol and Gaming spokesman S.U. Mahesh said both infractions were “technical” in nature and could not ultimately add up to a three-strikes license revocation, but Mandeville said founders were led to believe otherwise.</p>
<p>Mahesh said the state is “willing to meet and work with ArtBar representatives to ensure they stay open while abiding by the state liquor laws.”</p>
<p>Mandeville said the greater hope is the community will come together to help change the system.</p>
<p>Through Facebook, ArtBar organizers are encouraging fans to sign a petition that states in part: “New Mexican political leaders profess a commitment to nurturing innovation and development in our state. However, some of the appointees charged with regulatory oversight are standing in the way. I believe that regulators should work with citizens to ensure compliance with the law and uphold a consistent, objective application of statutes —&#160; not apply subjective interpretations in selective cases.”</p>
<p>More than 1,200 people already have signed.</p>
<p>“If this has to happen this way, it’s unfortunate, but maybe it will allow for some of this larger-scale change and it’s certainly bringing attention to an issue we all believe is of great importance to New Mexico,” Mandeville said. “So if there’s any silver lining, hopefully it’s that.”</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | State citations prompt ArtBar’s closure, but founders hope it also prompts change | false | https://abqjournal.com/424150/state-citations-prompt-artbars-closure-but-founders-hope-it-also-prompts-change.html | 2014-07-02 | 2 |
<p>There's some Kung Fu action in today's Geo Quiz. The Chinese actor and martial artist Jackie Chan is known all over the world.</p>
<p>His latest cinematic display of whirling kicks and bone-breaking punches just opened in Beijing. But he's not just a movie star.</p>
<p>Chan's also a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. He's been urging martial arts youth groups to use their skills to promote peace.</p>
<p>Right now he's on tour in Southeast Asia. Today he visited the city we're looking for. It's the capital of East Timor. The island of Timor is at the southern end of the Malay Archipelago.</p>
<p>We're not picking a fight...we'll leave that to Jackie Chan ....we just want the name of this city located on the northern coast of East Timor.</p>
<p>The answer's coming up</p>
<p>Martial arts legend Jackie Chan is visiting East Timor this week. He's wearing his UNICEF goodwill ambassador hat. He's been talking with youth groups about peace.</p>
<p>Today he was in the capital Dili, the answer to our Geo Quiz.</p>
<p>Dili, East TimorDili, East Timor</p>
<p>Some of East Timor's martial arts groups were involved in the street violence and rioting that swept the country in 2006. As the BBC's Lucy Williamson reports Jackie Chan had a message for them today. Listen:</p> | Geo answer | false | https://pri.org/stories/2008-06-25/geo-answer | 2008-06-25 | 3 |
<p />
<p>Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer and the other “Left, Right &amp; Center” panelists discuss the 2016 Republican budget, Loretta Lynch’s confirmation hearings for the post of attorney general, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s electoral victory.</p>
<p>Editor-in-chief of The Nation magazine Katrina vanden Heuvel said Netanyahu traded his nation’s long-term security and close relationship with the U.S. for personal gain: “He ran a cynical, scorched earth campaign.” Scheer called the election a disaster for people who care about Israel. And Rich Lowry of the National Review said, “We’re witnessing this amazing temper tantrum.”</p>
<p>This week’s show was moderated by Josh Barro of The New York Times.</p>
<p />
<p>Listen <a href="http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/left-right-center/budgets-loretta-lynch-and-benjamin-netanyahu" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>— Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Alexander Reed Kelly</a>.</p> | 'Left, Right & Center': Budgets, Loretta Lynch and Benjamin Netanyahu | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/left-right-center-budgets-loretta-lynch-and-benjamin-netanyahu/ | 2015-03-21 | 4 |
<p>OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Public utility regulators from Oklahoma to Massachusetts are considering lowering the rates that homeowners and businesses pay for electricity and natural gas after a federal tax overhaul signed into law by President Donald Trump reduced the corporate income tax rate by 14 percent.</p>
<p>The tax overhaul that went into effect Jan. 1 lowers the highest corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Now, regulators and consumer groups such as AARP are demanding that the rates consumers pay be rolled back.</p>
<p>Utilities are allowed to incorporate federal income tax obligations into the rates they charge customers. Exactly when and where consumers might see savings remains to be seen as regulators look into the matter.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>SAVINGS FOR UTILITIES IN THE MILLIONS</p>
<p>Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter estimates five public utilities operating in the state will save at least $100 million a year.</p>
<p>In Montana, regulators estimate utilities will save tens of millions of dollars a year in taxes.</p>
<p>In Maryland, where three utilities asked that state's regulators reduce utility rates to reflect tax savings, Baltimore Gas &amp; Electric estimated that it alone will pass $82 million in tax savings on to customers.</p>
<p>Bob Anthony, a member of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates public utilities in the state, said consumers help pay a utility's federal taxes every time they pay their electricity or natural gas bill.</p>
<p>"It's not fair to over-collect for federal corporate income taxes," Anthony said.</p>
<p>Montana Public Service Commission Chairman Brad Johnson said the agency "wants to ensure that this money is not simply captured by shareholders, but instead is directed in a way that provides a long-term benefit to the consumer."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>POTENTIAL CUSTOMER SAVINGS ON HOLD</p>
<p>But many regulators are allowing utilities to collect existing rates while they calculate changes in their tax liability.</p>
<p>The Oklahoma Corporation Commission, for example, voted to require utilities to track savings from the tax cut and report it to the commission within four months. The commission also instructed companies to create an account for the savings and refund those savings to customers later.</p>
<p>But regulators in other states have suggested the money could be used to help pay for capital projects and offset large, unusual expenses.</p>
<p>And some utilities are still seeking rate increases even with the tax savings.</p>
<p>Stan Whiteford, a spokesman for the Public Service of Oklahoma, an affiliate of American Electric Power that's seeking a rate increase of $170 million, said the utility's earnings are "far below the level that we are authorized to earn by the commission." PSO favors "a more thoughtful and comprehensive approach" to dealing with the tax savings, he said.</p>
<p>"We look forward to the opportunity to provide the commission with information in context on all of our costs," Whiteford said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>FEDERAL REGULATORS ASKED TO STEP IN</p>
<p>Attorneys general, consumer advocates and regulators in more than a dozen states — including New York, California, Illinois, Texas and Virginia — have asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to get involved in the issue to ensure customers benefit from any windfalls utilities receive from the tax overhaul. A letter from the coalition calls for an investigation into the "justness and reasonableness" of utility rates following reduction of utilities' corporate tax rates.</p>
<p>AARP, which has supported a reduction of utility rates in Oklahoma and elsewhere, believes regulators "have an opportunity to save ratepayers a significant amount of money each month while still allowing utility companies the revenue necessary to provide reliable and affordable service to their customers," said AARP Oklahoma State Director Sean Voskuhl.</p>
<p>OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Public utility regulators from Oklahoma to Massachusetts are considering lowering the rates that homeowners and businesses pay for electricity and natural gas after a federal tax overhaul signed into law by President Donald Trump reduced the corporate income tax rate by 14 percent.</p>
<p>The tax overhaul that went into effect Jan. 1 lowers the highest corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Now, regulators and consumer groups such as AARP are demanding that the rates consumers pay be rolled back.</p>
<p>Utilities are allowed to incorporate federal income tax obligations into the rates they charge customers. Exactly when and where consumers might see savings remains to be seen as regulators look into the matter.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>SAVINGS FOR UTILITIES IN THE MILLIONS</p>
<p>Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter estimates five public utilities operating in the state will save at least $100 million a year.</p>
<p>In Montana, regulators estimate utilities will save tens of millions of dollars a year in taxes.</p>
<p>In Maryland, where three utilities asked that state's regulators reduce utility rates to reflect tax savings, Baltimore Gas &amp; Electric estimated that it alone will pass $82 million in tax savings on to customers.</p>
<p>Bob Anthony, a member of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates public utilities in the state, said consumers help pay a utility's federal taxes every time they pay their electricity or natural gas bill.</p>
<p>"It's not fair to over-collect for federal corporate income taxes," Anthony said.</p>
<p>Montana Public Service Commission Chairman Brad Johnson said the agency "wants to ensure that this money is not simply captured by shareholders, but instead is directed in a way that provides a long-term benefit to the consumer."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>POTENTIAL CUSTOMER SAVINGS ON HOLD</p>
<p>But many regulators are allowing utilities to collect existing rates while they calculate changes in their tax liability.</p>
<p>The Oklahoma Corporation Commission, for example, voted to require utilities to track savings from the tax cut and report it to the commission within four months. The commission also instructed companies to create an account for the savings and refund those savings to customers later.</p>
<p>But regulators in other states have suggested the money could be used to help pay for capital projects and offset large, unusual expenses.</p>
<p>And some utilities are still seeking rate increases even with the tax savings.</p>
<p>Stan Whiteford, a spokesman for the Public Service of Oklahoma, an affiliate of American Electric Power that's seeking a rate increase of $170 million, said the utility's earnings are "far below the level that we are authorized to earn by the commission." PSO favors "a more thoughtful and comprehensive approach" to dealing with the tax savings, he said.</p>
<p>"We look forward to the opportunity to provide the commission with information in context on all of our costs," Whiteford said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>FEDERAL REGULATORS ASKED TO STEP IN</p>
<p>Attorneys general, consumer advocates and regulators in more than a dozen states — including New York, California, Illinois, Texas and Virginia — have asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to get involved in the issue to ensure customers benefit from any windfalls utilities receive from the tax overhaul. A letter from the coalition calls for an investigation into the "justness and reasonableness" of utility rates following reduction of utilities' corporate tax rates.</p>
<p>AARP, which has supported a reduction of utility rates in Oklahoma and elsewhere, believes regulators "have an opportunity to save ratepayers a significant amount of money each month while still allowing utility companies the revenue necessary to provide reliable and affordable service to their customers," said AARP Oklahoma State Director Sean Voskuhl.</p> | Some utility rates could go down after US corporate tax cuts | false | https://apnews.com/amp/c83e7f0f5b0b4522a539ba720b2d5d64 | 2018-01-12 | 2 |
<p>Donald Trump’s choice of Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate in 2016 seems to confirm one of the oldest dictums about successful VPs:&#160; First and foremost, they should “do no harm.”&#160; Their selection should not&#160;breed conflict&#160;or undermine the achievement of party unity.</p>
<p>Second, the VP should be someone the would-be president feels supremely comfortable working with.&#160; With a spotlight-grabber like Trump, that means a subordinate who takes orders and remains loyal – to some, a “lap dog.” &#160;Pence’s role is to extol Trump’s virtues, reinforce his message, and above all, do nothing to upstage him.</p>
<p>Pundits who assumed that Trump would select Newt Gingrich or Chris Christie seem to have forgotten these two dictums.&#160; Both men remain controversial within the GOP establishment — and Gingrich, especially, has the ability to go rogue and overshadow Trump.</p>
<p>In the end, The Donald was unlikely to pick either one.</p>
<p>Hillary faces a similar conundrum with her own VP selection, which could come as soon as Friday.&#160; Much of the media speculation has focused on Virginia senator Tim Kaine and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren.&#160; &#160;But, in fact, they are a lot like Gingrich and Christie – divisive internally and potentially too threatening to Clinton.</p>
<p>Warren excites the grassroots base but is <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/06/09/rendell_on_clinton_vice_president_elizabeth_warren_is_bright_but_not_ready_to_be_commander-in-chief.html" type="external">opposed by moderate party poo-bahs</a> like former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell and New York senator Chuck Schumer who believe her stridency toward Wall Street will alienate the political center as well as key Democratic donors.&#160; And when she appears on stage with Clinton, you start to wonder why Warren’s not the top candidate instead.</p>
<p>Kaine, by contrast, looks like the ideal VP choice.&#160; His restrained temperament and centrist instincts could help woo independents and disaffected Republicans, his supporters say. &#160;But the former Virginia governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee opposes partial birth abortion and strongly supports parental consent laws.&#160; That makes him <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/tim-kaine-abortion-predicament-225053" type="external">anathema to abortion rights advocates</a>, who in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision on Texas are feeling their oats right now.</p>
<p>So, who’s left?&#160;&#160; Just two candidates it seems:&#160; Colorado governor John Hickenlooper and &#160;former Iowa governor (and current agriculture secretary) Tom Vilsack.&#160; Practically no one’s heard of either one – just like Pence.&#160; That’s actually a&#160;plus:&#160; No one’s likely to get too agitated about them.&#160; And neither&#160;will overshadow Clinton.</p>
<p>Their solid executive experience as governors also makes them effective counterpoints to Pence.&#160; And like Pence, they appeal to the broader more neglected parts of the country – the “American heartland” beyond the Beltway and the orbit of the “Washington establishment.”</p>
<p>Look at&#160;the polls. This is fast becoming “Trump country.”&#160; More than anything right now, Hillary needs a VP who&#160;can help her contest this terrain.</p>
<p>The Clintons and the Vilsacks <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/the-vilsack-clinton-connection/" type="external">go back a long way</a> – to Hillary’s participation in the Senate Watergate investigation forty years ago.&#160; And those ties have continued through the years. &#160;&#160;Both Clintons have been instrumental in supporting Vilsack’s ascendance – Hillary through timely fundraising and political support during Vilsack’s gubernatorial campaign and Bill Clinton through brainstorming and mentoring on national policy issues.</p>
<p>Last year, when Clinton needed an Iowa field manager, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/03/04/top-vilsack-adviser-to-run-hillary-clintons-iowa-campaign/" type="external">Vilsack prevailed upon her to hire one of his top aides, Matt Paul</a>, who’s since become one of her most trusted aides.</p>
<p>And there’s more:&#160; Hillary, unlike Trump, has an agenda for agriculture — and farmers, large and small, are desperate for her support. &#160;Net U.S. farm income is forecast to drop to its lowest level since 2002, largely due to a decline in grain prices.&#160; With Vilsack’s help, Clinton launched a <a href="http://www.agri-pulse.com/Clinton-lays-out-four-part-plan-for-rural-America-08262015.asp" type="external">major Renew Rural America</a> initiative in Iowa last year, focusing on biofuels and biotech.</p>
<p>With Vilsack on the ticket, influential lobbies like CropAmerica will gladly free up campaign funding and publicity support for Clinton at a time when Trump is <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/swing-states-2016-election/2016/07/trump-has-edge-in-key-states-225442" type="external">surging not only in Iowa but in other key swing states</a>.</p>
<p>Vilsack’s considered a “sleeper” pick, and some&#160;Democrats believe Clinton’s still likely to choose Kaine, whose national security chops are impressive, too.&#160; But I’m betting that Clinton views Vilsack as the perfect foil to Pence:&#160; A populist representative of the beleaguered Midwestern family farmer who might somehow help convince Trump-trending voters that she, too, wants to “make America great again.”</p>
<p /> | Iowa’s Tom Vilsack May be Hillary’s “Perfect” Answer to Pence | false | http://natmonitor.com/2016/07/20/iowas-tom-vilsack-may-be-hillarys-perfect-answer-to-pence-2/ | 2016-07-20 | 3 |
<p>“I have seen the enemy.”</p>
<p>This admission, coming from a former Marine intelligence officer with a decade of service that includes 2004 combat duty in Iraq, may not be surprising.</p>
<p>It’s the rest of this thought from Nathan Fletcher, a three-term Republican California assemblyman running for mayor of San Diego, that’s raising some eyebrows across today’s <a href="/content/dailybeast/articles/2012/03/04/olympia-snowe-latest-to-leave-as-the-senate-s-center-collapses.html" type="external">hyperpartisan political divide</a>: “I don’t believe we have to treat people we disagree with as an enemy. I think we can just say sometimes we disagree ... We don’t have enemies in our political environment here.”</p>
<p>Fiscally conservative but socially moderate, Fletcher made headlines in March when he left the Republican Party and reregistered as an independent after the San Diego County GOP endorsed his more dependably conservative opponent, City Council member Carl DeMaio. Though the mayoral race and position in this eighth-largest city in the United States is nonpartisan—no party ID appears on the ballot—party endorsements still carry weight.</p>
<p>Fletcher acknowledged his growing unease with his fit in the Republican Party in an <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/CAANR/703431ceb9e54ef59a493df79e81e2f3/Article_2012-03-28-San%20Diego%20Mayor-Fletcher/id-85d2e18a920f497b9350d8f9911863dd" type="external">interview with the Associated Press</a>, saying, “In all candor, I probably should have done it sooner.”</p>
<p>The author of <a href="/content/dailybeast/cheats/2010/03/14/would-chelseas-law-be-effective.html" type="external">Chelsea’s Law</a>, which strengthens sentencing requirements for sexual predators, Fletcher is a rising star in California.</p>
<p>His policy positions are neither all right nor all left on the traditional political spectrum. He even dared to reach across the aisle to work on tax policy with Gov. Jerry Brown.</p>
<p>But his views are heretical to both parties in the system.</p>
<p>“In today’s political environment you’re expected to play the game,” he said in a <a href="http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2012/03/28/shocker-ca-state-assemblyman-nathan-fletcher-abandons-gop-to-get-things-done-as-independent/" type="external">video statement</a>. “I’ve been told by many in the Republican Party I’m not very good at this. There’s a reason ... I don’t believe this is a game.”</p>
<p>“Focusing on a solution, of trying to get things done, isn’t the preferred method of political party insiders,” he said.</p>
<p>Still, he added, “I am willing to work, or share, or give all the credit to someone if the idea is good.”</p>
<p>Political insiders predicted Fletcher’s defection from the GOP would be a fatal blow to his mayoral candidacy. But he has risen in the polls from a distant third to within just 2 points of the leader DeMaio in an <a href="http://www.10news.com/news/30881187/detail.html" type="external">April 12 SurveyUSA poll</a>, and has taken a commanding lead in a more recent online poll sponsored by the Union-Tribune, in what is shaping up to be the closest race in eight years.</p>
<p>Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.</p>
<p>A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).</p>
<p>“I believe to advance where we want to go, to become the world’s most innovative city, to rebuild our economy, our education system, and our city, it’s going to take something new,” Fletcher says.</p>
<p>He’s right. For the future of our cities, states, and nation, it’s going to take something new.</p>
<p>Two-party “politics as usual,” with its bickering and gridlock, is likely why more Americans today self-identify as independents—a record high of 40 percent, versus 31 percent as Democrats and 27 percent as Republicans, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/151943/record-high-americans-identify-independents.aspx" type="external">according to Gallup</a>.</p>
<p>There is a flight from both parties.</p>
<p>Fletcher has a tough climb in San Diego, where registered Democrats are still the plurality. He needs to win more than 50 percent of the vote in the June 5 California primary, or the top two finishers will compete in the November general election.</p>
<p>Ventura County supervisor and congressional candidate Linda Parks also is turning her back on the two-party system. She is just one of the 36 “no party preference” candidates running for state or federal office in California this year, the first time the option is offered for primary candidates.</p>
<p>“We need to end the divisive partisan politics that is gripping our country and damaging our economy,” <a href="http://sendlinda.com/causes/end-partisan-gridlock/" type="external">Parks says</a>. “The polarization in Washington is not only hurting our nation, it is also hurting our future, and the way to stop it is simple. We need to elect people to Congress who will work toward middle ground with both political parties.”</p>
<p>Parks is running without a party label against one Republican and three Democrats in the U.S. House race for the 26th District of California. If she wins enough votes in the primary, she is likely to face the Republican in the general election, leaving Democrats with no candidate in the race—a shock to the system.</p>
<p>Watch these two fighters. Fletcher and Parks represent the rise of the middle. And they have seen the enemy within. It is the two-party system.</p> | Our True Political Enemy Is the Hyperpartisan Two-Party System | true | https://thedailybeast.com/our-true-political-enemy-is-the-hyperpartisan-two-party-system | 2018-10-06 | 4 |
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<p />
<p>Police said in a statement Wednesday that officer Paul Jerothe has been placed on desk duty.</p>
<p>Prosecutors and Aurora police's internal affairs section are both still reviewing the shooting.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Jerothe fatally shot 37-year-old Naeschylus Vinzant (Na-SHY?-luhs VIHN?-zant) on March 6 as officers tried to arrest the parolee, who had removed a state Department of Corrections ankle monitor.</p>
<p>Jerothe is a member of the city's SWAT team who has been honored for helping save lives during the Colorado theater shooting.</p> | Aurora officer who killed unarmed parolee back at work | false | https://abqjournal.com/577032/aurora-officer-who-killed-unarmed-parolee-back-at-work.html | 2 |
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<p>KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Uganda’s president said Thursday he will sign the first death warrants in nearly two decades to create fear among criminals in the East African country, vowing to “hang a few.”</p>
<p>President Yoweri Museveni said he had not ordered executions in 19 years but was changing his mind because people were taking advantage of the “leniency.”</p>
<p>“I am going to revise this and hang a few,” he said. “We must hang some of these people because if you see how they kill people, they deserve to be killed.”</p>
<p>He was speaking at a graduation ceremony for prison wardens in the capital, Kampala.</p>
<p>Museveni last signed death warrants in 1999, when 28 people were executed.</p>
<p>Uganda Prisons Service data says 278 prisoners were on death row as of December.</p>
<p>The executive director of the local Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, Livingstone Ssewanyana, disagreed with Museveni’s approach, saying that “executing prisoners won’t end crime.”</p>
<p>He instead blamed a recent series of high-profile killings in Uganda, including the murders of 23 women in the city of Entebbe, on the country’s “failed” criminal justice system.</p>
<p>“The police are very weak with no capacity to investigate crimes extensively,” Ssewanyana said. “It is underfunded and the judiciary is also underfunded. As a result, you find serious failures in the systems.”</p>
<p>In a report last year, Amnesty International said sub-Saharan Africa had “stood out as a beacon of hope and positive progress on the abolition of the death penalty” in recent years, though it said two countries in 2016 had resumed executions: Botswana and Nigeria.</p>
<p>The human rights organization as of the end of 2016 listed several African nations that retained the death penalty including Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Zimbabwe.</p>
<p>KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Uganda’s president said Thursday he will sign the first death warrants in nearly two decades to create fear among criminals in the East African country, vowing to “hang a few.”</p>
<p>President Yoweri Museveni said he had not ordered executions in 19 years but was changing his mind because people were taking advantage of the “leniency.”</p>
<p>“I am going to revise this and hang a few,” he said. “We must hang some of these people because if you see how they kill people, they deserve to be killed.”</p>
<p>He was speaking at a graduation ceremony for prison wardens in the capital, Kampala.</p>
<p>Museveni last signed death warrants in 1999, when 28 people were executed.</p>
<p>Uganda Prisons Service data says 278 prisoners were on death row as of December.</p>
<p>The executive director of the local Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, Livingstone Ssewanyana, disagreed with Museveni’s approach, saying that “executing prisoners won’t end crime.”</p>
<p>He instead blamed a recent series of high-profile killings in Uganda, including the murders of 23 women in the city of Entebbe, on the country’s “failed” criminal justice system.</p>
<p>“The police are very weak with no capacity to investigate crimes extensively,” Ssewanyana said. “It is underfunded and the judiciary is also underfunded. As a result, you find serious failures in the systems.”</p>
<p>In a report last year, Amnesty International said sub-Saharan Africa had “stood out as a beacon of hope and positive progress on the abolition of the death penalty” in recent years, though it said two countries in 2016 had resumed executions: Botswana and Nigeria.</p>
<p>The human rights organization as of the end of 2016 listed several African nations that retained the death penalty including Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Zimbabwe.</p> | Uganda’s leader to sign death warrants again after 19 years | false | https://apnews.com/b8edea3763154242bb658270bd64ded8 | 2018-01-18 | 2 |
<p />
<p>U.S. Marines and sailors scrub the flight deck of the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) in the Gulf of Oman. The Harry S. Truman was deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility conducting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. ( <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/marine_corps/11929025445/" type="external">U.S. Navy photo</a> by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Karl Anderson/Released)</p>
<p /> | We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for January 16, 2014 | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/were-still-war-photo-day-january-16-2014/ | 2014-01-16 | 4 |
<p>Pity the poor mainstream news media, confronted with many debates, demands for instantaneous coverage, competition for website traffic and the specter of ever-multiplying Super PACs.</p>
<p>All these factors have changed the dynamics of the presidential campaign, putting election coverage beyond the capabilities of the news media, which has been hit hard by heavy newsroom budget cutbacks.</p>
<p>The loss has been severe for the nation, resulting in harried coverage too often divorced from our national struggles, including the effort to recover from the Great Recession.</p>
<p>I’m looking at this strange campaign year from a viewpoint shaped by covering political campaigns since 1966. I am also a fanatic consumer of political and other news, subscribing to four daily papers, checking websites ranging from the left to the right, listening to NPR, following Twitter, watching the three cable news networks plus Keith Olbermann and maybe more. Worse yet, I think I’ve watched all 19 Republican presidential debates. Maybe I missed one or two. I can’t remember.</p>
<p />
<p>Here are my observations:</p>
<p>The debates: The debates minimized the importance of the traditional features of the first two contests, the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. These events have long been beloved by political reporters, who enjoyed tramping through small towns and diners, checking the popular pulse and hanging out with journalistic buddies and local pols who supposedly knew the score. The debates also were important in shaping the South Carolina and Florida campaigns. In each case, the debates on national television grabbed attention away from grass-roots campaigning.</p>
<p>What’s interesting is how a few lightning quick moments in the debates shape the news—Rick Perry’s “oops” moment, Mitt Romney’s $10,000 bet offer. This is especially true the first minutes of each debate—Newt Gingrich’s blast at CNN moderator John King in South Carolina, Romney’s banging at Gingrich in Florida.</p>
<p>Twitter and blogs: Twitter and instant blogging have made political campaign coverage increasingly high-speed, superficial and often misleading. Gingrich was crowned a winner on the Internet early in the debate seconds after his media-bashing assault on King and just as quickly was written off as a loser when he was too slow to respond to Romney’s assaults a week later. The verdicts came in real time on Twitter and blogs.</p>
<p>Websites desperately compete for traffic. Just how that drive for traffic shapes and distorts political news was illustrated the day after Romney won the Florida primary when Soledad O’Brien interviewed him on the CNN morning show.</p>
<p>Romney said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We’ve got a safety net there. If it needs repair there, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90 to 95 percent of America who now are struggling.”</p>
<p>O’Brien said, “I think there are lots of very poor Americans who are struggling who would say that sounds strange.”</p>
<p>Romney replied, “You have to finish the sentence, Soledad. I’m not concerned about the very poor; they have a safety net and if it has holes in it, I will repair them.”</p>
<p>The video and a story were posted on the CNN website at 8:09 am. Tweets flashed through Twitter, including two from CNN promoting the interview. Politico quickly came through with a story (“&#160;‘Very Poor’ Not a Concern for Mitt”). The always quick-on-the-draw Huffington Post bannered it—“Clueless.” By 9:30 a.m., the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple was blogging a critique of O’Brien’s questioning technique—“Gotta Be Tougher Than That.” Chris Cillizza’s political blog at the Post was in with an analysis at 12:58 p.m. (“Romney plays into Democrats rich-guy attacks”). And so on.</p>
<p>Romney’s a rich-guy candidate. His gift to the middle-class Americans would be tax laws that hurt them and repeal of a health care law that is giving them more protection than they had before. But that’s not the point. Twitter and the blogs gave a speedy but incomplete and misleading account of the Romney-O’Brien dialogue, and it dominated the news through the day. Romney was treated unfairly. I don’t feel sorry for him, but I’ll sure be mad when someone I respect is treated that way.</p>
<p>Super PACs: The super PACS constitute the biggest and worst change in the presidential campaign. These committees collect completely unlimited amounts of money from corporations, unions and individuals with loose requirements for contributor reporting. Reports didn’t have to be in to the federal government until Jan. 31, the day of the Florida Republican primary. In that contest, as well as those in Iowa and South Carolina, super PACS swept in with huge expenditures, most of it for negative advertising. With their help, Newt Gingrich won South Carolina and Romney took Florida. Not since Watergate have the rich been able to jump in practically anonymously and change the course of an election.</p>
<p>We can survive the instant communications on the Internet. You don’t have to pay attention. And nobody is forced to watch all those debates. But the pernicious influence of big money, particularly from the shadowy super PACs, will be a permanent game-changer in this and future elections.</p> | The Thinking Person's Guide to Campaign 2012 | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/the-thinking-persons-guide-to-campaign-2012/ | 2012-02-02 | 4 |
<p>We can take away two lessons from the first high-profile oral argument of the Supreme Court’s new term, which began Monday. Lesson No. 1 is that the court is already a hard-right institution. Lesson No. 2 is that the re-election of President Barack Obama is more crucial than ever if the court’s movement to the right is to be slowed or possibly reversed.</p>
<p>The argument — in the case of Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum — involves an international human rights complaint brought under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) of 1789 against the giant oil conglomerate by 12 Nigerian nationals, all of whom have received political asylum in the United States and at least one of whom is now a U.S. citizen. The plaintiffs contend that Shell assisted and was complicit in the torture and killing of members of the Ogoni tribe in the Niger Delta carried out by the military dictatorship of Gen. Sani Abacha in the early to mid-1990s.</p>
<p>By its terms, the ATS authorizes federal courts to hear civil actions by aliens for torts “committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Although the statute was largely dormant for 200 years, a string of lower-court precedents issued since the 1980s breathed new life into it, sparking a small but important wave of human rights litigation targeting abuses stretching from Paraguay to New Guinea, from Liberia to Mexico. It made sense, therefore, that when the Kiobel plaintiffs were unable to find any semblance of justice in Nigerian courts, they joined the trend, filing suit in 2002 in New York.</p>
<p>Eventually, Kiobel made its way to the Supreme Court for oral argument in February to test the narrow question of whether the ATS could be applied to corporations. But as happened in the infamous Citizens United case — which commenced with a narrow focus before expanding exponentially to rewrite the law of campaign finance — the justices ordered Kiobel to be re-argued Oct. 1 to address the larger issue of whether the ATS can ever apply to acts committed on foreign soil, especially those involving foreign corporations and foreign sovereigns.</p>
<p />
<p>If the tenor of the oral argument holds, the court’s five Republican appointees appear poised not only to dismiss the Kiobel complaint but to rule broadly that the jurisdiction of American courts does not extend beyond U.S. territory absent an explicit grant of congressional authority. As the plaintiffs’ lead attorney Paul Hoffman, a former legal director with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, told the justices, such a ruling would mark the end of a movement in favor of “universal justice” and allow torture and atrocities around the globe to go unpunished. In short, from a human rights perspective, such a ruling would be a game-changing outrage.</p>
<p>Each of the court’s Democratic appointees expressed dissenting views during the Kiobel argument, with 79-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg the most vociferous — a fact that underscores not only how far the court’s majority has moved to the right but also how directly the court’s future is riding on the outcome of the presidential election.</p>
<p>To be sure, Obama has disappointed many progressives, especially in the areas of national security and military engagements around the world. And in the Kiobel case itself, appearing as a nonparty “amicus” (friend of the court), the administration urged a tepid and ultimately unsatisfying middle ground that would permit some ATS lawsuits to proceed against U.S. corporations for acts committed abroad while prohibiting such lawsuits against foreign nations and companies.</p>
<p>Still, despite the disappointments with Obama, only a political purist holding out for perfection could fail to see the difference, going forward, between a court dominated by Mitt Romney appointees and one shaped by Obama, or after a second term, his Democratic successor. In addition to Ginsburg, three of today’s sitting Supreme Court justices — Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer — are 74 or older. Each can be expected to step down over the next four to eight years.</p>
<p>For the remainder of the court’s present term, as the high tribunal takes on challenges to affirmative action, voting rights and same-sex marriage, the best progressives can hope for may well be the kind of damage control afforded by narrowly crafted 5-4 decisions in which Justice Kennedy or Chief Justice John Roberts sides with the liberals. But looking ahead — as progressives must — the court is certain to revisit a host of issues central to the lives of all Americans, including campaign finance, civil rights and abortion.</p>
<p>The concrete question facing us is whether when the court tackles those momentous issues, we want the nation’s highest judicial powers wielded by another Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas or another Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan. The answer, starting with the re-election of the president, should be a no-brainer.</p> | This Far-Right Supreme Court Is Reason Enough to Vote Obama | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/this-far-right-supreme-court-is-reason-enough-to-vote-obama/ | 2012-10-03 | 4 |
<p>On Friday, former President George W. Bush momentarily stole the show during the swearing-in ceremony of President Donald Trump. President Bush, affectionately known as "Dubya" for his middle initial, had a long, hard fought battle with a rain poncho. It was epic and classic Dubya.</p>
<p>Rain poncho 1: Dubya 0 <a href="https://t.co/aD8AFcAl6i" type="external">pic.twitter.com/aD8AFcAl6i</a></p>
<p>Predictably so, Twitter ate-up the adorable exchange with the plastic poncho.</p>
<p>The George W. Bush reaction cam during Trump's inauguration speech was lit <a href="https://t.co/x33V19MLTn" type="external">pic.twitter.com/x33V19MLTn</a></p>
<p>Sideline entertainment provided by Dubya and his poncho <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FunniestPresidentAward?src=hash" type="external">#FunniestPresidentAward</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Inauguration?src=hash" type="external">#Inauguration</a> <a href="https://t.co/51w2vd8RBT" type="external">pic.twitter.com/51w2vd8RBT</a></p>
<p>Dubya battling that Poncho of Mass Disruption was kind of adorable, I’ll admit. <a href="https://t.co/8mG89X5JGh" type="external">pic.twitter.com/8mG89X5JGh</a></p>
<p>US politics in four photos: <a href="https://t.co/zo1e4fSpuo" type="external">pic.twitter.com/zo1e4fSpuo</a></p>
<p>If there's one thing you take away today, let it be Dubya battling his poncho. <a href="https://t.co/eVbiE9J03n" type="external">pic.twitter.com/eVbiE9J03n</a></p>
<p>And although it looks like the poncho got the best of the lovable former president, the short-lived show even cheered up distraught leftists on Inauguration Day.</p>
<p>Some of us are sad today, but others had a great time playing peekaboo with a plastic sheet. <a href="https://t.co/yOE0RJkNx8" type="external">pic.twitter.com/yOE0RJkNx8</a></p>
<p>As wack as today is at least we have George Bush tryna put a rain poncho on lmaooo <a href="https://t.co/n1rbe91gRx" type="external">pic.twitter.com/n1rbe91gRx</a></p>
<p>Dubya, always coming through to unite Americans in the clutch.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/george-bush-poncho_us_58827c7ce4b096b4a231b3af" type="external">H/T</a> the Huffington Post</p> | George W. Bush vs. The Poncho | true | https://dailywire.com/news/12634/george-w-bush-vs-poncho-amanda-prestigiacomo | 2017-01-21 | 0 |
<p>Former New York Gov. George Pataki has officially launched his bid for the GOP presidential nomination, making him the eighth Republican to jump in the race.</p>
<p>He launched his campaign Thursday morning with a four-minute campaign video, where he says "it is time to stand up, protect our freedom and take back this country."</p>
<p>"If we are to flourish as a people, we have to fall in love with America again," he says in the video, which features images of the Freedom Tower and the 9/11 memorial in New York City.</p>
<p>The three-term Republican governor of New York, who was elected in 1994 and ran the state during the September 11th attacks and its aftermath, followed up with a campaign announcement speech in Exeter, New Hampshire. The Granite State is an early primary state and is likely the most in line with his more moderate views.</p>
<p>Pataki, who has an uphill battle to win the nomination, introduced himself to voters who know little about him outside of New York. He invoked his three favorite Republican presidents, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Theodore Roosevelt, a president most modern-day Republicans don't reference because of his positions that would be too moderate for today's Republican Party. But he also knocked the leading Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>"They say we are against the middle class. This too is nonsense," he said. "Unless by middle class, they mean someone who left the White House 'dead broke,' and 10 years later had $100 Million. Unless by middle class they mean someone who charges a poor country $500,000 for a half-hour speech. That’s their party's candidate. She speaks for the middle class? They are the party of privilege; we are the party of the middle class."</p>
<p>"They say we, are anti-immigrant," he said. "We, the proud children, grandchildren, and descendants of immigrants, know that immigration has and will continue to enhance the greatness of this country."</p>
<p>He also said the first part of immigration reform "must secure the border," which is a common position among Republicans. But the son of immigrants who speaks Hungarian, Spanish, French and German, also sent a message that his is not anti-immigrant. He spoke a line of Spanish in his speech and implored that "everyone coming here is coming not to harm us, but to be a part of a better America."</p>
<p>While Pataki pointed out that he is not a product of the more liberal New York City but rural New York, which is more conservative, he falls on the more moderate scale of Republican candidates, especially since he is pro-choice -- a position he didn't mention in his speech. His speech was, however, peppered with issues that appeal to the Republican base.</p>
<p>"I'd repeal oppressive laws like Obamacare and end Common Core," he said without noting that ending Common Core will be difficult since the education standards are adopted by the states.</p>
<p>"And I'd shrink the size of the federal work force, starting with bureaucrats overseeing Obamacare, and fire every corrupt IRS employee abusing government power to discriminate on the basis of politics or religion," he added.</p>
<p>In addition, Pataki said he would invoke a ban on members of Congress from lobbying.</p>
<p>"Today, there is one former member of Congress lobbying for every current member and the first thing I would do is ban members of Congress from ever lobbying. If you serve one day, you are banned, go home," he said.</p>
<p>His personal website, which sports a new "Pataki for President" banner, emphasizes that he'll place "people over politics."</p>
<p>- Leigh Ann Caldwell and Carrie Dann</p> | Former N.Y. Gov. George Pataki 8th Republican To Announce Bid | false | http://nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/former-n-y-gov-george-pataki-announces-2016-white-house-n365861 | 2015-05-28 | 3 |
<p />
<p>In the aftermath of the midterm election of 1994, the Republicans are repeating the same mistake the Democrats made after the 1992 election. Then, the Clinton administration misinterpreted its narrow win over George Bush as a mandate to create the kinds of programs liberal Democrats historically support. It wasn’t until the stunning defeat of the Clinton health care bill, followed by the 1994 election, that the administration realized its error.</p>
<p>The Republicans are busy making the same kind of mistake. They, too, have misread their electoral victory as a blanket endorsement of conservative Republican values and now find themselves entering the 1996 presidential campaign far to the right of the electorate, giving Bill Clinton a real shot at re-election–an unlikely prospect just a few months ago.</p>
<p>More importantly, liberals have a second–desperately needed–chance to repair some of the damage done to their moral authority. For many voters, the “L-word” has become a term of contempt. And, if current trends continue, liberalism as we know it could self-destruct.</p>
<p>A liberalism in total disarray is not good for the nation: A weak left makes for an irresponsible right. Liberal values, which a majority of the electorate continues to embrace (as distinct from specific liberal policies), grow endangered.</p>
<p>In the past, liberalism has made irreplaceable contributions to the nation: helping to create the American middle class, lifting millions out of poverty, and developing humane social policies. There is no inherent reason why a redeemed liberalism cannot make equally valuable contributions in the future.</p>
<p>By “liberalism” I simply mean the values, views, and policies that people who consider themselves liberals or progressives generally support. From Franklin Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, liberalism has meant greater concern for the problems of poor people and workers than with the interests of rich people and employers. Since the 1960s, liberalism has also emphasized environmental protection, expanding individual rights based on need, and advancing the interests of women and minorities.</p>
<p>Liberalism’s greatest strengths are its three core values:</p>
<p>*Inclusiveness. Liberals extend their world beyond their own family, community, and ethnic group to include a wide range of “others”–have-nots, minorities, the homeless, people with disabilities, people from other nations, and even the earth itself.</p>
<p>*Social justice. Liberals believe a civilized and humane society ensures its weaker and poorer members are treated fairly.</p>
<p>*A positive role for government. By and large, liberals see a strong government as a counterbalance to special interests and as a restraint assuring that an economy based on maximizing profits does not trample fundamental human needs.</p>
<p>Over the years, liberals have attempted to translate these values into legislation through an array of policies: entitlement programs that guarantee benefits to all who qualify; regulations covering everything from clean air and water to protecting the rights of people with disabilities; and affirmative action programs designed to give an edge to women and minorities to compensate for existing prejudices and past wrongs.</p>
<p>These policies trouble an ever-increasing number of Americans. But the reason is not that they reject liberalism’s underlying values. Almost two-thirds of the public continues to believe the government should take care of people who can’t take care of themselves (New York Times/CBS, February 1995). It is the values of liberalism, in contrast to specific policies, that gave liberalism its moral authority with the electorate and enabled it to exercise a powerful political hegemony for so many years.</p>
<p>But liberalism’s moral authority has now waned, and liberals seem unclear on how to regain it. Policy-wonkish ideas do not convey moral authority. Many such ideas afloat these days, whether about how to balance the budget or control health care costs or improve the transportation system, communicate no special moral authority to the public. There is no way liberalism can win back its good name solely through technical and legal strategies.</p>
<p>Voters do not weigh policies on their technical merits, since they believe they don’t have the knowledge to make such evaluations; they judge ideas and policies for their moral authority.</p>
<p>Ideas that possess moral authority have two characteristics–practicality and moral rightness. The average American is very down-to-earth. Abstract, vague, idealistic proposals, especially if they cost a lot of money, arouse public suspicion. Ideas must also strike people as morally “right”–in the sense of fair, decent, and humane. Unfortunately, many liberal policies now lack moral authority because in the eyes of the public they fail on both these counts.</p>
<p>The Clinton health care plan shows how moral authority can be won–and then lost. The president’s announcement of the plan in September 1993 won acclaim across the land. The idea of providing health insurance to all Americans, including the 41 million uninsured, struck the majority of voters as morally sound, and the idea of controlling costs by cutting waste and greed appealed to them on both moral and practical grounds.</p>
<p>As the debate unfolded, however, the Clinton plan progressively lost credibility. The mechanisms for saving money seemed unrealistic and overly complex, and the addition of costly new entitlements and the massive effort to fix those parts of the system that, in the public mind, were not broken failed both tests–practical and moral.</p>
<p>There is a simple reason why regaining moral authority is so important for liberals, more so than for conservatives: Liberals are badly outnumbered in the voting population–and not just today when their popularity is low. Even from 1932 to the mid-1970s, people who identified themselves as liberals in opinion polls rarely accounted for more than one out of three voters. Yet during that period, the liberal agenda dominated American politics and was even advanced by conservative Republican presidents like Eisenhower and Nixon. Liberals exercised that disproportionate influence because their ideas blended moral authority and common sense in ways that appealed to the moderate-conservative majority (e.g., offering a safety net for those momentarily in need, Social Security, Medicare, and guaranteed health care for the poor and old).</p>
<p>In what follows, I sketch a four-step strategy to regain liberalism’s moral authority: The first step is for liberals to reach a deeper, more sympathetic understanding of the public’s quarrel with current liberal policies. Second is to give top priority to offsetting the harmful effects of today’s lopsided economy. Third is to reduce the role of the federal government in social policy while strengthening its role in economic policy. Fourth is to rebuild institutions, helping teachers, doctors, lawyers, and unions to restore the public confidence they once enjoyed.</p>
<p />
<p>Step I: Internalizing the public’s point of view</p>
<p />
<p>The public has a serious quarrel with many liberal policies. Without a better understanding of the quarrel’s nature and causes, liberalism’s chances of redeeming its moral authority are slim. Typically, liberals attribute the public’s hostility to a “swing to the right,” an outbreak of national selfishness, or a grab for power by special interests. Liberals feel misunderstood, besieged, demoralized. They point to the mean-spiritedness of conservative proposals and deplore manifestations of the public’s lack of information (e.g., “The public thinks we spend 20 times as much on foreign aid than we actually do. How can the public be trusted when they don’t get the facts straight?”).</p>
<p>The main cause of the public’s animosity, however, is not ignorance or a swing to the right. It is anger with liberal attitudes: the apparent unwillingness of liberals to change outmoded policies and the apparent refusal–or inability–to originate bold new ideas for solving today’s problems.</p>
<p>Many liberal policies were established under radically different conditions. As conditions have changed, these policies have created a variety of situations the public finds intolerable. Liberals themselves are not overjoyed with all the unintended consequences of their own welfare, criminal justice, entitlement, and affirmative action policies. But liberals nonetheless defend them, criticize conservative alternatives, and devote more energy to arguing why these policies should not be changed than to developing new solutions to the problems now facing us.</p>
<p>To regain credibility, liberals must overhaul old policies. Welfare is perhaps the most profound example of an obsolete policy where liberal attitudes frustrate the public.</p>
<p>Welfare legislation was put into place in a historic context that has now changed almost beyond recognition. Up to the 1960s, the social morality of earlier eras of American life still prevailed. Having children out of wedlock was taboo. The prevailing norm was that even married couples ought to postpone having children until they could afford to give them a good home and raise them properly. When people were obliged to accept welfare, they did so with a sense of shame, hurrying to escape its humiliations as quickly as possible. In this moral environment, most Americans supported providing temporary help to those down on their luck.</p>
<p>In today’s moral climate, however, legislation that made sense in an earlier era is now seen as having perverse effects. The majority of the public perceives welfare as encouraging women on welfare to produce children without the resources to take care of them, fostering the breakup of families and discouraging the work ethic (Los Angeles Times, April 1994). Polls also show that people believe welfare recipients get government benefits and give nothing in return (Times Mirror, April 1995).</p>
<p>Similarly, the public feels the direct costs of welfare legislation pale beside the indirect costs of contributing, however inadvertently, to a culture of drugs, crime, violence, and dependency. The fact that a disproportionate number of welfare recipients are minorities feeds racist tendencies in society.</p>
<p>This situation frustrates the majority of Americans: People feel they are being obliged, through their taxes, to pay for the very violence that threatens their security. Compounding a pervasive sense of economic insecurity, this perversion of well-meaning social legislation fans cynicism about government’s ability to address society’s real problems.</p>
<p>This troubles liberals as well as conservatives, but liberals focus on social causes, not on the policies themselves. One typical attitude liberals express in focus groups is, “Yes, it’s too bad so many children are born out of wedlock, but that’s not unique to welfare families. It’s happening everywhere. It’s not the fault of welfare policies; it’s part of today’s scene.”</p>
<p>Another typical reaction is to give less attention to new ideas for solving the problem than to cite reasons why these proposed solutions are immoral or impractical. In focus groups, liberals vigorously defend existing policies. Their most frequent rejoinders to criticism are: “You can’t punish the children for the mistakes of the parents,” or, “Welfare mothers don’t have babies for the sake of a measly 62 bucks a month.” Yet neither of these responses directly addresses the public’s concerns.</p>
<p>Why is it so important that liberals take public attitudes more seriously? The answer is not that liberals should pander to popular opinion. In fact, if liberals better understand the public’s point of view, they can mount more persuasive arguments when they are convinced the public is wrong.</p>
<p>The main reason to take the public’s concerns seriously is that it offers liberals the opportunity to exercise moral leadership again. Voters expect leaders to make mistakes. They expect circumstances to change. But they also expect leaders to learn from experience–and to change policies that no longer work.</p>
<p>If circumstances have changed so drastically that welfare policies now undermine social morality rather than support it, liberal leaders have a special responsibility to initiate welfare reform in ways that acknowledge moral authority in today’s world. Liberals argue that it is foolish to think young women get pregnant out of wedlock for the sake of a paltry $60 to $80 a month. Factually this may be correct, but it misses the moral point. From the point of view of moral principle, even a $5-a-month benefit is a message that the government thinks it is all right to have children out of wedlock, however stingy it may be in helping to support them. From the point of view of moral leadership, the worst thing liberal leaders can do is promote government policies that the public sees as encouraging immoral behavior, giving the opposition the opportunity to attack liberal doctrine.</p>
<p>The fact that the present welfare system doesn’t work well does not mean we should just cut it without putting some alternative safety net into place. In making reforms, voters have two concerns: cost and moral rightness. Of the two, moral rightness is by far the more important. My firm’s research shows the public is turning away from the moral relativism that took hold in the 1960s toward more strict, absolute forms of social morality. The public increasingly supports a moral principle of reciprocity rather than entitlement–that is, when people receive a public benefit they should give something back unless they are too aged or infirm to do so.</p>
<p>If liberals want the nation to bear the costs of a strong safety net for those in need, they can persuade the public to support it financially only if they are willing to change its moral underpinnings. This includes obliging fathers to be more responsible, discouraging teenage out-of-wedlock births, encouraging independence rather than prolonged dependency, and developing programs so recipients can give something back to the society that gave them a helping hand when they were in need.</p>
<p>Liberals need not compromise their principles; they need to bring their self-critical and leadership faculties to bear on social values. This means responding to the public with swift and pre-emptive initiatives when the public is right, and–when they believe the public is wrong–engaging their fellow citizens in serious dialogue. If liberals guided the nation down a path that no longer makes sense, then they have a responsibility to take the lead in changing direction.</p>
<p />
<p>Step II: Correcting the lopsided economy</p>
<p />
<p>Taking into account the public’s point of view can re-establish rapport with the electorate, making dialogue possible. But it won’t, by itself, redeem liberalism’s moral authority. For this to happen, we turn to the second–and most important–thrust of a new liberal strategy: correcting the lopsided effects of the new American economy.</p>
<p>In the post-World War II decades, from the 1950s to the 1970s, the American economy was far less lopsided. Then, the economy offered Americans two paths to make a good living: a blue- collar path through well-paid, heavily unionized manufacturing jobs, and a white-collar path through technical, managerial, and professional jobs requiring higher education. Jack Kennedy praised economic growth as a rising tide that lifted all boats.</p>
<p>Today’s economy is radically different. The rising tide now lifts only the yachts and big boats. Less well-educated workers–the majority of working Americans–face a bleak future: low and stagnant wages, erosion of benefits, job insecurity.</p>
<p>This lopsidedness arises in large part from the competitive pressures of the global economy. So new is this reality that our leaders and experts have not yet digested it. Operating under the old economic rules, leaders make false promises to the public that growth still means good times for all. But when there is growth without good times for all, people feel let down.</p>
<p>This sense of betrayal creates much of the fear, confusion, and anxiety driving the current public mood. The lopsided economy benefits about 40 percent of working Americans while closing off the American dream for the 60 percent majority. Even if this were tolerable from an economic point of view, it is not from a political one. It threatens to destabilize our politics and to turn problems such as crime, drugs, race, welfare, and illegal aliens into scapegoat issues.</p>
<p>To date, liberals have paid little attention to the reality that a global marketplace, combined with the impact of technology, has created a different economy, with new strengths and weaknesses. Its major strength is that it opens the prospect of growth for all nations, the poorer developing nations as well as the rich nations of the industrialized West. Managed wisely and with generosity of spirit, the new global economy could fuel a new boom for generations of Americans, similar to the sustained period of world growth after World War II.</p>
<p>If, however, it is managed unimaginatively and in a mean-spirited fashion, it threatens to deprive the majority of their birthright as Americans: the opportunity to better themselves through their own efforts. In my view, this is the single most important domestic issue facing the nation today.</p>
<p>Some liberal leaders, such as Labor Secretary Robert Reich, are concerned with aspects of this problem, such as the need for worker retraining. But unfortunately, other issues have deflected liberal attention, with the result that neither the president nor the liberals in Congress have yet come to grips with this issue.</p>
<p>It was an economic issue, the Great Depression, that gave birth to modern liberalism. The consequences of the new lopsided economy are more subtle and less drastic in the short run. But in the long run they pose a problem of equal gravity–and an opportunity for liberals to reseize the initiative from conservatives.</p>
<p>The stakes are momentous. If our nation falters in dealing with the problems posed by our lopsided economy, the results can lead to class warfare, social pathology, and political demagoguery.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, implementing this step of the strategy will be quite difficult. No one knows how to make our economy less lopsided. Even the best of our economists don’t know: Their tools are blunted by several decades of sluggish growth, low savings rates, massive budget deficits, a political mood of hostility toward government, and the fact that the payoff for present investments may take years to achieve in a society that expects quick results. Nor can we return to the two-track job system of the past, which depended heavily on low-skilled manufacturing jobs, strong unions, and an economy more insulated from world markets. Those conditions are gone forever.</p>
<p>Many experts despair at these realities. But I believe despair is unwarranted. The problem is not exclusively one of technical economics; it also is moral and political. It embraces education and saving as well as job creation and economic growth. It involves our culture and social institutions as well as our economy. For these reasons, it has to be attacked as a broad political problem rather than a narrow economic one. What this involves is a series of actions I can indicate here only schematically. Liberals must:</p>
<p>*Become identified in the public’s mind with the moral will to correct the distortions of our lopsided economy. Liberals should focus on this issue to the exclusion of almost all others.</p>
<p>*Show that unless this problem is solved, other issues such as race, crime, drugs, and welfare are unsolvable, and conversely, with it solved, these other issues become manageable.</p>
<p>*Persuade the public–and themselves–that only a genuine partnership between government and industry can solve the problem.</p>
<p>*Learn how to break down the artificial walls that now exist between high school, job training, and job experience.</p>
<p>*Concern themselves with job creation (for instance, by revitalizing the nation’s infrastructure) as well as job training.</p>
<p>*Bring imagination to the task of creating a new two-track job system allowing people without a four-year college education to make a good living. One example would be to develop new jobs in childcare, elder care, and other services that use the skills of those Americans who may lack technical training but who have the gifts of compassion, caring, and responsibility.</p>
<p />
<p>Step III: Altering the role of government</p>
<p />
<p>As a matter of principle as well as practicality, liberal strategy should seek to strengthen the federal government’s economic policy role but reduce its role with regard to social policy.</p>
<p>This suggestion cuts across traditional political lines. Conservatives see red whenever anyone suggests strengthening the role of government in the economy; their desire is to weaken it. Liberals fear that, if the federal government reduces its involvement in social policy, we will revert back to the bad old days of trampling on the rights and needs of minorities and others who require protection.</p>
<p>Both of these convictions have merit. Government regulation of the economy is often ill-conceived and poorly implemented, doing more harm than good. And liberal fears about turning welfare over to the states, reforming affirmative action and other retreats from federal engagement are also justified. It is possible, perhaps even likely, that more suffering and injustice will result.</p>
<p>Despite these drawbacks, there is, I believe, an even more powerful case to be made for ratcheting up the federal government’s involvement in the economy and ratcheting down its involvement in matters of social morality.</p>
<p>This is what the public wants. It is a well-documented fact that the public holds the president personally responsible for the health of the economy. George Bush learned this the hard way in 1992. He took the traditional conservative (and classical economic) view that the recession had to play itself out without interference on his part. To the voters he conveyed an attitude of detachment from the vicissitudes of the economy. Technically, he may have been right. But politically, it was a disastrous position for him to take. A large body of opinion poll data suggests that this position, more than any other, cost him the election.</p>
<p>The argument for greater government involvement in the economy is that its present lopsidedness will not straighten itself out automatically without intelligent intervention. As it grows worse, it presents a politically intolerable threat to our society, and only the most skillful forms of business-government cooperation can correct it. As some European parties of the left, such as Britain’s, are learning, a market economy can be a powerful tool to help realize their values and goals. The traditional prejudice of the left is that the market is always to be mistrusted. The new insight of some European left leaders now is that the market can be a friend as well as an enemy and that, in any event, it is too good an asset to abandon exclusively to the right. We can learn from their experience in rethinking the liberal position toward market economies.</p>
<p>While voters assume the health of our economy is simply a political rather than an economic issue–and hold the government responsible for it–they take a very different attitude toward the role of government on matters of social morality. My firm’s studies show that the majority of Americans have concluded that, as a society, we don’t know how to use government to achieve social objectives (in contrast to economic ones). Affirmative action, abortion, prayer in the schools, public housing, drugs, bilingual education, regulations governing the rights of the handicapped, and welfare are all examples of social agendas that divide the public rather than unite it.</p>
<p>As long as government is seen as imposing liberal social values on a largely conservative population, at a high tax cost and without much competence, antagonism toward the government will continue to grow. People will then resist using the government for purposes for which it is well-suited, especially in the economic domain.</p>
<p>Yet if this were the only reason to reduce federal involvement in social policy, it would not constitute a strong enough argument. The main argument for doing so is subtle but cogent. It is one that thoughtful individuals like Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) are starting to make. Bradley’s position is that on complex national problems, we assume there are only two alternative sources of solutions: the government (for liberals) or the market (for conservatives). This, he says, is like trying to sit on a two-legged stool. When the third leg–civil society–is missing, the stool doesn’t work.</p>
<p />
<p>Step IV Strengthening social institutions</p>
<p />
<p>If we rely solely on the government or the market for our rules of behavior, our society will grow ever more unworkable. This, indeed, has been happening for some years now. From the time of de Tocqueville to the present day, the U.S. has enjoyed what is arguably the world’s most highly developed civil society. What the public is now sensing, correctly in my view, is that the core values and institutions that hold us together as a civil society (and constitute the “unum” in our national slogan “e pluribus unum”) have started to unravel. An overwhelming 87 percent of the public holds this view (DYG’s SCAN, April 1995).</p>
<p>More government is not the solution to this problem. Here, it seems to me, the moderate elements in the electorate are correct: The role of government in advancing a social agenda should be reduced. (The far right, of course, holds no such view: It wants government to enforce its social morality–prayer in the schools, abortion, guns, etc.) If liberals accept the moderates’ position, then the only way to fill the vacuum is to revitalize the social institutions that constitute our civil society.</p>
<p>The government is not the only institution suffering from low credibility with the public. That “honor” is shared by most institutions. In the past few decades, the medical profession has slipped from confidence ratings of 73 percent to 26 percent. Institutions such as big business, organized labor, and the press all have confidence ratings below 30 percent (Louis Harris poll, 1995).</p>
<p>The main cause for the slippage is simple. People believe these institutions are failing to serve those they are supposed to serve. The reason: the public’s perception that the professionals who run them are more interested in their own careers and interests than in the public interest. This perception is leading to what sociologists call a crisis of legitimacy where institutions lose public credibility, trust, and authority.</p>
<p>In some instances the perception is unfair, but in many it is not. Moreover part of the problem can be blamed on another liberal doctrine that may be less appropriate now than it was in the past. Traditional “interest-group liberalism” held that the interplay of special interests would automatically represent the general interest. But it is increasingly clear that this view is just as flawed as the conservative economic theory that the invisible hand always converts greed into public good.</p>
<p>American society has evolved toward ever-more highly organized special interests, each of which pursues a more extreme agenda than most of the citizens it represents. That is, after all, the job of organized special interests: to look out for the narrow interests of their members. But this evolution is gradually squeezing out the general interest, leaving the public frustrated and discouraged.</p>
<p>A revitalized liberalism would build up civil institutions by infusing the professionals who manage them with a stronger commitment to the public good. Business leaders, union leaders, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and universities used to do a better job of balancing the public interest with their own special interests. If liberal theory inadvertently contributed to the present imbalance, then liberal theory should seek to redress it.</p>
<p />
<p>Creating a liberal political movement capable of challenging the current conservative trend is not as impossible as it might seem. In today’s America, it takes only two conditions to launch an influential social movement: the existence of a small group of determined activists, and a large public receptive to one or two key points in the small group’s agenda.</p>
<p>Consider such diverse events over the past 30 years as the civil rights, environmental, and women’s movements, Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and the Gingrich conservative revolution.</p>
<p>In almost every instance, the general public did not buy the full agenda of the activists who launched these movements. It endorsed particular points–often a single point–rejecting most of the activists’ programs. The typical public response to successful activist movements, whether on the left or the right, is, “I don’t agree with much of what they say, but they have a point.” It is this seemingly simple judgment–they have a point–that fuels the engine of America’s social and political transformations.</p>
<p>At the moment, the public believes the conservative attack on liberalism “has a point.” This doesn’t mean that the public is buying the full conservative agenda or swinging wildly to the right. It does mean that the public agrees with conservatives that government has grown too obtrusive and incompetent, especially when it comes to social issues.</p>
<p>But although “liberalism” has become a dirty word in the strident debates of the moment, liberals have lost neither the opportunity nor the ability to appeal to the broad majority of the American electorate. In order to do this, however, liberals may have to choose between liberal values and many traditional liberal policies. A dogged defense of these policies will only consolidate conservatism’s recent gains. Adopting new strategies to enhance liberal values and redeem liberalism’s moral authority, by contrast, offers great promise both for liberals and for the country as a whole.</p>
<p><a href="/toc/1995/11/contributors.html" type="external">About the Author</a></p>
<p /> | Restoring Public Trust | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/1995/11/restoring-public-trust/ | 2018-11-01 | 4 |
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<p>The three lawsuits asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review the validity of the directive, which the Federal Aviation Administration issued in June. The agency said the directive is an attempt to clarify what is a model aircraft and the limitations on their operation.</p>
<p>The FAA has been working on regulations that would permit commercial drone flights in U.S. skies for more than 10 years, but the agency is still at least months and possibly years away from issuing final rules to permit flights by small drones. Regulations for flights by larger drones are even farther away.</p>
<p>Part of the agency’s challenge is to distinguish between planes flown by hobbyists and those used for commercial applications, a distinction that’s become harder to draw as the technology for model planes has grown more sophisticated.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>A law passed by Congress in 2012 directed the FAA to issue regulations permitting commercial drone flights by the fall of 2015, but prohibited the agency from imposing new regulations on model aircraft.</p>
<p>The FAA directive is a backdoor imposition of new regulations on model aircraft hobbyists and commercial drone operators without going through required federal procedures for creating new regulations, said Brendan Schulman, a New York attorney representing the groups that filed the lawsuits. Federal procedures require an opportunity for public comment on proposed regulations and an analysis of the potential costs of the regulations vs. the benefits.</p>
<p>“People who have been using these technologies for years in different ways are concerned that they are suddenly prohibited from doing so without having their voices heard, and without regard to the detrimental impact on the commercial drone industry,” he said. Schulman pointed out that hobbyists have been flying model aircraft nearly 100 years, but he knows of no instance in which a model aircraft has caused the crash of a manned plane or helicopter.</p>
<p>“In situations where there really is no safety issue there appears to be not just some restrictions, but an outright prohibition on activities that have been done for a long time very safely,” he said.</p>
<p>FAA officials had no immediate comment on the lawsuits.</p>
<p>The lawsuits were filed by the Academy of Model Aeronautics, which represents more than 170,000 model aircraft hobbyists; the Council on Governmental Relations, an association of 188 research universities; and UAS America, a fund that invests in the commercial drone industry. All argued that the FAA policy would impede their activities, from hobby use to research and innovation.</p>
<p>———</p>
<p>Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AP—Joan—Lowy</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Lawsuits challenge FAA drone, model aircraft rules | false | https://abqjournal.com/450540/lawsuits-challenge-faa-drone-model-aircraft-rules.html | 2014-08-22 | 2 |
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<p>Shares ofHeidrick &amp; Struggles, International, Inc.(NASDAQ: HSII) were getting shellacked today after the human resources specialist posted a disappointing first-quarter earnings report. As of 12:30 p.m. EDT, the stock was down 15.5%.</p>
<p>Heidrick &amp; Struggles, which specializes in executive search and other staffing needs, said adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.19, up from $0.07 a year ago, but short of expectations at $0.21. On the top line, revenue increased 7.6% to $140 million, but that also missed estimates at $145 million.</p>
<p>Image source: Heidrick &amp; Struggles.</p>
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<p>Despite falling short of analyst estimates, CEOKrishnan Rajagopalan said, "We are pleased with first quarter growth in revenue and profitability," and noted the company had improved its backlog. Executive Search, which is by far the biggest component of the company's business, saw revenue increase 7.6% to $124.5 million, or 9.1% after adjusting for currency fluctuations.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, Heidrick &amp; Struggles projected revenue of $153 million to $163 million for the current quarter, which compares to the analyst consensus at $160.9 million.</p>
<p>While the executive search company's overall business looks solid after the quarterly report, the market seemed to punish the stock simply for missing estimates and the weak guidance. However, the with the solid growth in Executive Search, the sell-off seems overdone. I'd expect the stock to eventually bounce back.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Heidrick &amp; Struggles InternationalWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
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<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=89add905-cb5b-45b4-9f44-a1f93e203173&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of April 3, 2017.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFHobo/info.aspx" type="external">Jeremy Bowman Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc. Stock Tumbled Today | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/25/why-heidrick-struggles-international-inc-stock-tumbled-today.html | 2017-04-25 | 0 |
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<p>PARIS — French President Francois Hollande has postponed a visit to Poland after the country backed off from a multibillion-euro purchase of French-made Caracal helicopters.</p>
<p>Hollande had been expected in Warsaw on Thursday for French-Polish talks.</p>
<p>The decision to postpone was made Friday, following the confirmation by Poland’s defense minister that his country was breaking off offset negotiations with Airbus Helicopters, which produces the Caracal, Hollande’s office told The Associated Press.</p>
<p>The offset deal had been a major condition for Poland’s purchase of 50 Caracal helicopters for 13.5 billion zlotys (3.14 billion euros).</p>
<p>In an offset agreement, the seller of a product agrees to invest in sectors or goods on the buyer’s side as a way of compensating or enhancing the value of the deal.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | France’s Hollande cancels visit to Poland over copter deal | false | https://abqjournal.com/862738/frances-hollande-cancels-visit-to-poland-over-copter-deal.html | 2 |
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<p>Remember burning ants with a magnifying glass as a kid? Now imagine the ants are cars and the magnifying glass is a 37-story building in London.</p>
<p>A skyscraper, nicknamed “Walkie Talkie” because of its shape, is causing quite a stir in the U.K. this week. When Martin Lindsay parked his Jaguar in front of 20 Fenchurch Street, he didn’t expect to come back and find bits of it had melted. The <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23930675?ocid=socialflow_facebook_bbcnews" type="external">BBC</a> recounts the tale:</p>
<p>Mr Lindsay, director of tiling company Moderna Contracts Ltd, said: “I was walking down the road and saw a photographer taking photos and asked, ‘what’s happening?’</p>
<p>“The photographer asked me ‘have you seen that car? The owner won’t be happy.’</p>
<p />
<p>“I said: ‘I am the owner. Crikey, that’s awful.'”</p>
<p>The wing mirror, panels and Jaguar badge had all melted, Mr Lindsay said.</p>
<p>“You can’t believe something like this would happen,” he added. “They’ve got to do something about it.</p>
<p>“It could be dangerous. Imagine if the sun reflected on the wrong part of the body.</p>
<p>“On the windscreen, there was a note from the construction company saying ‘your car’s buckled, could you give us a call?'”</p>
<p>In a joint statement, developers Land Securities and Canary Wharf said: “We are aware of concerns regarding the light reflecting from 20 Fenchurch Street and are looking into the matter.</p>
<p>The Walkie Talkie has also been melting other objects, including a plastic lemon in a display case and a section of a hair salon’s rug. Apparently, the building reflects light at such intensity only two hours a day during summer, when the sun hits it at a certain angle. For now, the city has blocked off the three parking spots in front of the building, but the construction company is still looking for a long-term solution. The owner of the Jag received £946 ($1,469) as compensation for the damage done, and, of course, a polite apology.</p>
<p>—Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Natasha Hakimi</a></p> | Beware of Car-Melting Skyscrapers | true | http://truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/watch_out_for_car-melting_skyscrapers_20130903/ | 2013-09-03 | 4 |
<p>a katz / <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-287370899/stock-photo-new-york-city-june-former-secretary-of-state-hillary-rodham-clinton-formally-announced.html?src=GEhCAPFdmeeTJwteyyP0Ow-1-15" type="external">Shutterstock.com</a></p>
<p>Well, this doesn’t make Hillary Clinton look so great, unless what was on her server was worse: Last week, the Democratic front-runner’s lawyer informed a Senate committee investigating her email practices during her tenure at the State Department that Clinton’s email server was wiped clean before it was turned over to authorities.</p>
<p>The Associated Press delivered that news Wednesday (via <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-lawyer-says-her-email-server-was-wiped-clean/2015/08/19/26a5bfac-46a9-11e5-9f53-d1e3ddfd0cda_story.html" type="external">The Washington Post</a>):</p>
<p>In a letter sent last week to the Senate Homeland Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Johnson, Kendall said the server was transferred to the FBI on August 12 by Platte River Networks, a Denver firm hired by Clinton to oversee the device. Federal investigators requested custody of the server to learn whether the data stored on it was secure.</p>
<p />
<p>In exchanges with reporters earlier this week, Clinton said she was not aware if the data on her server was erased.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee, GOP governing body and entrepeneurial organization, spotted an opportunity to <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/19/rnc-is-trolling-hillary-by-selling-a-secret-server-wiper-for-5/" type="external">clean up</a> a little with this mess.</p>
<p>The AP also pointed out that the emails sought by Clinton’s investigators are not lost in the ether forever. One thing’s clear: She’s not shaking them off anytime soon.</p>
<p>–Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Kasia Anderson</a></p> | Lawyer: Hillary Clinton's Email Server Was Wiped Before Feds Got It | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/lawyer-hillary-clintons-email-server-was-wiped-before-feds-got-it/ | 2015-08-20 | 4 |
<p>SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Latest on a Utah plan to specifically legalize free-range parenting (all times local):</p>
<p>3:27 p.m.</p>
<p>A panel of Utah lawmakers has approved a proposal aimed at ensuring parents aren’t investigated for letting their kids do things like walk to school or play outside alone, known as free-range parenting.</p>
<p>The bill passed unanimously Tuesday would revise state law to say allowing mature kids to do things like travel to school or play outside isn’t neglect if the children are otherwise well cared-for. It now moves to the Senate floor.</p>
<p>Republican sponsor Sen. Lincoln Fillmore told several stories of parents investigated and some who briefly lost custody after people reported seeing their kids playing basketball in their yards or walking to school alone. None happened in Utah.</p>
<p>Democratic Sen. Luz Escamilla says she’s glad people report unsupervised children, though she said the official responses may have been overzealous.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>12:19 p.m.</p>
<p>Free-range parenting is a modern buzzword for families aiming to raise self-sufficient kids, but how much freedom at what age remains a fierce debate.</p>
<p>Now, one Utah lawmaker wants to ensure parents are not accused of neglect for allowing mature kids to do things alone like travel to school, explore a playground or stay in the car.</p>
<p>A panel of lawmakers is set to hear the bill on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Republican Sen. Lincoln Fillmore says allowing kids to make their own way helps keep the joy in childhood and prepare them for the future.</p>
<p>Still, some question whether the measure is needed. Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill says Utah authorities don’t micromanage parents. He worries such a law could be used as a defense in child abuse cases.</p>
<p>SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Latest on a Utah plan to specifically legalize free-range parenting (all times local):</p>
<p>3:27 p.m.</p>
<p>A panel of Utah lawmakers has approved a proposal aimed at ensuring parents aren’t investigated for letting their kids do things like walk to school or play outside alone, known as free-range parenting.</p>
<p>The bill passed unanimously Tuesday would revise state law to say allowing mature kids to do things like travel to school or play outside isn’t neglect if the children are otherwise well cared-for. It now moves to the Senate floor.</p>
<p>Republican sponsor Sen. Lincoln Fillmore told several stories of parents investigated and some who briefly lost custody after people reported seeing their kids playing basketball in their yards or walking to school alone. None happened in Utah.</p>
<p>Democratic Sen. Luz Escamilla says she’s glad people report unsupervised children, though she said the official responses may have been overzealous.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>12:19 p.m.</p>
<p>Free-range parenting is a modern buzzword for families aiming to raise self-sufficient kids, but how much freedom at what age remains a fierce debate.</p>
<p>Now, one Utah lawmaker wants to ensure parents are not accused of neglect for allowing mature kids to do things alone like travel to school, explore a playground or stay in the car.</p>
<p>A panel of lawmakers is set to hear the bill on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Republican Sen. Lincoln Fillmore says allowing kids to make their own way helps keep the joy in childhood and prepare them for the future.</p>
<p>Still, some question whether the measure is needed. Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill says Utah authorities don’t micromanage parents. He worries such a law could be used as a defense in child abuse cases.</p> | The Latest: Utah lawmakers OK free-range parenting bill | false | https://apnews.com/dc6faaa559654530bc0d0dc773469640 | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
<p>The maker of the popular mobile game Angry Birds is reportedly eyeing an initial public offering sometime over the next three or four years, Rovio’s chief marketing officer, Peter Vesterbacka, told Finnish business daily Kauppalehti on Monday.</p>
<p>The game, which is played on millions of mobile devices such as the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) <a href="" type="internal">iPhone</a> and <a href="" type="internal">iPad</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Google</a>’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android smartphones, has reaped substantial profits on ad revenues since its introduction in 2009.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Players in the puzzle video game use a digital slingshot on a touch screen to launch wingless birds at pigs sitting on or inside various structures. Customers advance when all pigs are destroyed.</p>
<p>While an IPO is not necessary at the moment for Rovio to achieve its current plans, Vesterbacka said it would offer a more meaningful direction down the road than would selling the company.</p>
<p>The Finnish gaming company operates a new office in <a href="" type="internal">China</a> and has mulled new facilities in Japan and the U.S.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Angry Bird's Rovio Mulling IPO | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/05/09/angry-birds-rovio-mulling-ipo.html | 2016-01-28 | 0 |
<p>U.S. worker productivity has picked up modestly from recent dismal readings, but shows little sign of breaking out from a sluggish trend that threatens to hold back U.S. standards of living.</p>
<p>Nonfarm business-sector productivity, measured as the goods and services produced per hour worked, increased at a 0.9% seasonally adjusted annual rate in the second quarter, up from a 0.1% growth rate for the first three months of 2017, the Labor Department said Wednesday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a 0.6% growth rate for the latest quarter.</p>
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<p>Output rose at a 3.4% rate from the first quarter, while hours worked were up at a 2.5% pace.</p>
<p>Compared with a year earlier, productivity was up 1.2% in the second quarter, an improvement from last year's stall but still well below historical levels.</p>
<p>A similar annual trend "is likely to persist in the near to medium term, " MFR Inc. chief U.S. economist Joshua Shapiro said in a note to clients.</p>
<p>Productivity data tend to be volatile from quarter to quarter, and Wednesday's report included revisions going back several years. The productivity trend was slightly stronger than earlier estimated in 2014 and 2015, and slightly weaker than initially thought in 2016. Productivity fell 0.1% last year, the first calendar-year decline since 1982.</p>
<p>Annual growth averaged 1.2% from 2007 to 2016, versus the long-term average of 2.1%.</p>
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<p>Unit labor costs at nonfarm businesses rose at a 0.6% rate in the second quarter; economists had expected a 1.0% growth pace. From a year earlier, unit labor costs fell 0.2%.</p>
<p>In theory, higher labor costs can be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, though wage growth and consumer-price inflation have both been sluggish in recent years.</p>
<p>Productivity is a critical factor for determining the future trajectory of wages, prices and overall economic output. Rapid productivity gains, as seen during the information technology-fueled boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s, can boost household incomes and economic growth.</p>
<p>Sluggish productivity growth, on the other hand, can cause slower economic growth and prevent wages from rising much without generating uncomfortably high inflation.</p>
<p>"If labor productivity grows an average of 2% per year, average living standards for our children's generation will be twice what we experienced," Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said in a July speech. "If labor productivity grows an average of 1% per year, the difference is dramatic: Living standards will take two generations to double."</p>
<p>In the U.S., productivity growth was slowing before the recession began in December 2007 and has been historically weak throughout the recovery that began in mid-2009. That may have restrained wage growth and overall growth in economic activity in recent years.</p>
<p>Looking forward, some forecasters think continued sluggish productivity gains will help keep overall economic growth from exceeding its modest recent pace of roughly 2% a year. President Donald Trump has said he wants to boost U.S. economic growth above 3% a year, which likely would require a significant pickup in productivity growth.</p>
<p>Government policies could help promote stronger productivity growth, Mr. Fischer said, mentioning the potential for investment in basic research, early childhood education programs, infrastructure and other priorities.</p>
<p>"Reasonable people can disagree about the right way forward, but if we as a society are to succeed, we need to follow policies that will support and advance productivity growth," Mr. Fischer said. "That is easier said than done. But it can be done."</p>
<p>Write to Ben Leubsdorf at [email protected]</p>
<p>U.S. worker productivity picked up modestly in the second quarter but showed little sign of breaking out of the sluggish trend that has prevailed for more than a decade, holding back economic growth and living standards.</p>
<p>Nonfarm business-sector productivity, a measure of the goods and services produced per hour worked by individuals, rose at a 0.9% seasonally adjusted annual rate in the second quarter compared with the first three months of 2017, up from a 0.1% growth pace in the first quarter.</p>
<p>Compared with a year earlier, which is how economists often look at the longer-term trend, productivity was up 1.2% in the second quarter. That was a pickup from last year, when productivity posted its first calendar-year decline since 1982. It also matched the average pace since 2007, but remained well below the post-World War II average of 2.1% annual growth.</p>
<p>Following an "unusually bad" stretch in 2016, "we're pretty much on track with where we've been," said economist Martin Baily, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "That's a very slow rate of growth, and something that I think all of us would like to see going faster."</p>
<p>Productivity is a critical factor for determining the future trajectory of wages, prices, overall economic output and government budget balances. Rapid productivity gains, as seen during the information technology-fueled boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s, can boost household incomes, economic growth and government tax receipts.</p>
<p>Sluggish productivity growth, on the other hand, can slow economic growth and prevent wages from rising much.</p>
<p>"If labor productivity grows an average of 2% per year, average living standards for our children's generation will be twice what we experienced," Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said in a July speech. "If labor productivity grows an average of 1% per year, the difference is dramatic: Living standards will take two generations to double."</p>
<p>In the U.S., productivity growth was slowing before the recession began in December 2007 and has been historically weak throughout the recovery that began in mid-2009. That likely restrained wage growth and overall growth in economic activity.</p>
<p>Some forecasters think continued modest productivity gains will help keep overall economic growth from exceeding its recent pace of roughly 2% a year.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump has said he wants to boost U.S. economic growth above 3% a year.</p>
<p>"If we can't get productivity up, it's just not going to happen," said Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School and a former top White House economist under President George W. Bush.</p>
<p>Mr. Hubbard said the government can help to boost productivity growth by overhauling business taxes, rolling back regulations and supporting basic research. Such steps could increase business investment and the know-how that helps to fuel growth.</p>
<p>"Those would be the ingredients," he said. "I would start with tax reform, and I hope that's coming."</p>
<p>Mr. Baily, who was chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, said a corporate-tax overhaul, deregulation and other actions by the Trump administration could help improve the productivity outlook, but likely not enough to generate sustained 3% growth in gross domestic product.</p>
<p>"Assuming they're able to do what they say they're going to do...I could imagine this could add perhaps a half percentage point to productivity growth," he said.</p>
<p>"That would be an achievement," he added, though "it's not going to give this administration the GDP growth rates that they're looking for."</p>
<p>Mr. Fischer, the U.S. central bank's No. 2 official, said in his speech last month that "reasonable people can disagree about the right way forward, but if we as a society are to succeed, we need to follow policies that will support and advance productivity growth."</p>
<p>"Government policy works best," he added, "when it can address a need that the private sector neglects, including investment in basic research, infrastructure, early childhood education, schooling, and public health."</p>
<p>Productivity data tend to be volatile from quarter to quarter, and the Labor Department released revisions going back several years. The productivity trend was slightly stronger than earlier estimated in 2014 and 2015, and slightly weaker than initially thought in 2016. Productivity fell 0.1% last year, the first calendar-year decline since 1982.</p>
<p>Unit labor costs at nonfarm businesses rose at a 0.6% rate in the second quarter, less than economists had expected. From a year earlier, unit labor costs fell 0.2%.</p>
<p>Write to Ben Leubsdorf at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>August 09, 2017 12:46 ET (16:46 GMT)</p> | U.S. Productivity Rose at 0.9% Rate in Second Quarter--2nd Update | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/08/09/u-s-productivity-rose-at-0-9-rate-in-second-quarter-2nd-update.html | 2017-08-09 | 0 |
<p>Two different Secret Santas have been paying off tens of thousands of dollars of layaway accounts at discount stores in Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>A man who goes by the name "Santa B" has been paying off layaways at central Pennsylvania Wal-Marts for at least three years.</p>
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<p>This year, he paid off $166,000 worth of accounts at stores in Swatara Township, near Harrisburg; Lebanon; and Everett in Bedford County.</p>
<p>A different anonymous Santa paid off some layaway accounts at Kmart's Ridley Township store, near Philadelphia.</p>
<p>Employees say he's done that every Christmas for several years and specifically asks to pay off those with toys and other Christmas presents.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: WPVI-TV, http://www.6abc.com</p> | Secret Santas paying tens of thousands in layaway balances | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/13/secret-santas-paying-tens-thousands-in-layaway-balances.html | 2016-12-13 | 0 |
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<p>He’s been working his way from south to north most of his coaching career — and on Monday, he landed his latest position, taking over the Manzano High School boys basketball program.</p>
<p>Manzano High School basketball coach Dominick Romero courtesy Dominick Romero</p>
<p>“I’m excited,” said Romero, 47. “It’s a great opportunity to walk into Manzano with all those talented underclassmen coming in.”</p>
<p>Manzano marks Romero’s fifth head coaching stop in boys basketball.</p>
<p>His journey as a boys head coach began at Cobre, then later continued at Hot Springs and Socorro.</p>
<p>He was Valencia High’s first head coach, from 2008-12. And he also once was the head women’s coach at Western New Mexico.</p>
<p>Now he moves into Albuquerque at the highest prep level.</p>
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<p>“It’s a young and talented group I’m inheriting,” said Romero. “We’re gonna try to get the tempo going a little faster, both defensively and offensively, but it’ll be a slow process as far as getting our system in.”</p>
<p>Romero has been an assistant on Danny Brown’s staff at Highland the past two seasons, and was on Frank Castillo’s staff at La Cueva the year before that.</p>
<p>He is one of many metro-area coaching disciples of Mike Brown, and Romero had his first assistant coaching job at Albuquerque Academy for two seasons in the mid-1990s.</p>
<p>Romero is a 1988 Belen High graduate. He believes he can get Manzano — which was a 6A-worst 2-23 last season — to start winning again.</p>
<p>“I’m optimistic that we’ll be competitive and successful right away,” he said.</p> | Manzano names Romero boys basketball coach | false | https://abqjournal.com/992742/manzano-names-romero-boys-basketball-coach.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>For recent and soon-to-be college grads that are frustrated with their lack of response from sending out countless emails with resume and cover letter attachments, it’s time for them to step out from behind the computer.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p><a href="http://millennialbranding.com/2012/09/multi-generational-job-search-study/" type="external">A new study Opens a New Window.</a> by Millennial Branding and Beyond.com recently reported that all generations are spending almost their entire time job searching online instead of offline, spending between five and 20 hours per week searching online and using job boards as their top resource.</p>
<p>The study shows 92% of Gen Y only job hunt online, which means they are not using all the tools and resources available to aid their search.</p>
<p>“To find a job in today’s economy requires the effective use of both online and offline strategies,” says Bob Prosen, executive hiring expert and creator of the <a href="http://www.mycareeraccelerator.com/sq/13279-career-accelerator-by-bob-prosen" type="external">Career Accelerator Program Opens a New Window.</a>. “Relying solely on online methods significantly reduces your chances of getting hired.”</p>
<p>Hiding Behind the Computer</p>
<p>Hopping online to look for jobs is convenient for job seekers, whether they are unemployed and searching from home or are employed and want to change jobs but don’t have time during working hours to contact and meet potential employers.</p>
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<p>“It’s a lot easier, and much less effective, to scour the job boards and send out electronic resumes most of which never receive a reply,” Prosen says.</p>
<p>He also points out that many may find it daunting to approach people directly with the confidence required to have a meaningful conversation or set up a meeting, so they hide online.</p>
<p>Dan Schawbel, managing partner of <a href="http://millennialbranding.com" type="external">Millennial Branding Opens a New Window.</a> and author of&#160;Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future, explains that removing the personal aspect of the job hunt can work against candidates.</p>
<p>“They just see the internet as a path to a job but what’s forgotten is that the person hiring you is a real person, not a machine,” he says. “That human element is still there and that’s why people should still network offline.”</p>
<p>To be more successful in landing a job, here’s how job seekers can improve their prospects by taking their search offline.</p>
<p>Use the internet as a tool to accelerate offline success. Schawbel recommends using the internet as a filter to find the right people at a company to reach out to and meet offline.</p>
<p>“You analyze their backgrounds and make connections with them online,” he says. “If they live in your area or you’re going to be in their area, meet for a coffee or something like that.”</p>
<p>Using LinkedIn, <a href="http://www.hoovers.com/" type="external">Hoovers Opens a New Window.</a> and other online tools can help uncover openings, research companies, and find out more about hiring managers, Prosen says.</p>
<p>Creating professional blogs or websites to promote skills is also a great way to meet contacts online and ease into a more personal relationship, says Leonora Valvo, founder and CEO at <a href="http://etouches.causeroom.com/" type="external">etouches Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>“Rather than expecting a direct return on time investment, we should think of it as a way to hone social skills, meet interesting people, and learn from others.”</p>
<p>Get face time. Arrange informal meetings with people in a desired field who can talk about trends in the industry, potential areas of job growth and necessary skills.</p>
<p>“Speaking with professionals in your industry of interest will help you learn how to ‘talk the talk,’ which will help you showcase your knowledge in an interview situation,” says Kimberly Baker, career services manager at <a href="http://online.bryantstratton.edu/" type="external">Bryant &amp; Stratton College Online Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Whether they join industry associations or attend networking events, Schawbel recommends job seekers genuinely reach out to others about their search efforts and talk about their investment in that particular field.</p>
<p>“People start to know what you’re looking for and then when the opportunity comes up, they’ll think of you,” he says. “There might not be a career opportunity immediately, but if you put it in their mind, then they’ll remember you.”</p>
<p>Attend informational interviews. For recent grads or those unsure of the career path, informational interviews are a great way to get better acquainted with the industry-- but Schawbel says it’s important to thoroughly research the company beforehand.</p>
<p>“There’s more of an expectation to do your homework before you go in--on the company, on the industry, on people who are going to be speaking with you,” he says.&#160; “Just like a company is trying to match you up with the right position to see if there’s a fit for you, you have to see if it’s a fit for you as well.”</p>
<p>Although these interviews allow job seekers to make personal connections, learn more about the industry and highlight their skills, don’t approach these meetings expecting a job offer, warns Baker.</p>
<p>“Personal meetings like this allow job hunters to get underneath what they're seeing in job posts online and decipher some of the nuanced language,” she says.</p> | It’s Time to Take Your Job Search Offline | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/10/15/its-time-to-take-your-job-search-offline.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p>Columbia University release Six of the 13 winners are investigative reports produced by networks, cable news and local television stations reporting on hard-hitting issues, such as terrorism, Wal-Mart's business practices, and corruption in municipal government. Awards also go to CNN and ABC News for live coverage of international events, the tsunami disaster and the death of Pope John Paul II.</p> | Winners of '06 duPont-Columbia University Awards named | false | https://poynter.org/news/winners-06-dupont-columbia-university-awards-named | 2005-12-15 | 2 |
<p>LONDON (Reuters) – Bank of England Governor Mark Carney is widening his influence by becoming chair of two global central bank groups which monitor risks from the economy and financial system.</p>
<p>Carney will chair the Global Economy Meeting (GEM), part of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which is made up of 30 central banks and monitors the global economy and financial system.</p>
<p>The 52-year-old Canadian, who has been Bank of England Governor since 2013, will also chair the Economic Consultative Committee (ECC), which prepares proposals for GEM.</p>
<p>GEM flags risks to governments from the economy, and oversees work by other BIS panels on standards for market infrastructure, payments and markets.</p>
<p>He starts in December, when Augustin Carstens, who currently chairs both bodies, becomes general manager of the BIS.</p>
<p>Carney already chairs the Financial Stability Board at the BIS in Basel. The FSB coordinates new regulation for banks, insurers and asset managers introduced since the financial crisis that began a decade ago.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Bank of England's Carney expands influence with two new global roles | false | https://newsline.com/bank-of-england039s-carney-expands-influence-with-two-new-global-roles/ | 2017-09-11 | 1 |
<p>Photo Credit: Restaurant Opportunities Centers United</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Good ole’ Costco made national news again during this year’s State of the Union. Why? Because Costco is a corporate empire that pays livable wages.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this type of business model is treated as if it’s an endangered species, even more so within the restaurant industry. With 13 million employees nationwide and&#160; <a href="//www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/03/29/the-10-lowest-paid-jobs-in-america" type="external">six of the 10 lowest</a>&#160;paying jobs in the country, the restaurant industry can be a rather unpleasant place.</p>
<p>However, there are&#160;a growing number of restaurant owners championing Costco-like policies—living wages for their tipped and non-tipped staff, paid sick days, and other worker-friendly policies. Despite corporate America telling us that raising wages will kill jobs, these restaurants are extraordinarily successful. At Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United), we call them “high road” restaurants; and these owners would tell you themselves that living wages are good business.</p>
<p>Let’s start with Miami’s&#160; <a href="//mychoicescafe.com/" type="external">Choices Vegan Cafe</a>. Their food is organic, products recycled and/or compostable, and chemicals minimal. Just as importantly, their sustainable ethos carries over to labor practices. Although Florida’s minimum hourly wage for tipped workers is just $4.91, Choices Vegan Cafe starts all tipped workers off at $8.50. In fact, they never even considered paying tipped workers the bare minimum. Lori Zito, Senior Director, says, “If we can do it, anybody can.” They’re gearing up to open another location within the next month.</p>
<p>Ann Arbor Michigan’s&#160; <a href="//www.zingermansroadhouse.com/" type="external">Zingerman’s</a>&#160;is a family-run chain with nearly 600 employees. From day one, they have paid well above the federal minimum wage and offered company-subsidized health care and paid time off. According to Paul Saginaw, one of 16 partners, “We have never considered these critical costs of doing business obstacles to profitability or our annual compounded growth rate of 10 percent.”</p>
<p>In 1997, Johnny Livesay started out as a busboy. Today he’s a founding member of&#160; <a href="//www.blackstar.coop/" type="external">Black Star Co-op</a>&#160;in Austin, Texas. “Paying people well for the work they do is just the right thing to do,” he says. Their business model doesn’t allow tips, everyone makes a living wage after their first three months, and they encourage ownership of the business. “People should be able to afford to take care of their loved ones regardless of their jobs,” Livesay says. “It's not fair to pay so little to workers making your money for you.” Black Star Co-op thrives in Texas, one of many states where it is still legal to pay tipped workers $2.13 an hour.</p>
<p>In Los Angeles, one of the largest restaurant industries in the US, Diep Tran owns and operates the popular <a href="//goodgirldinette.com/" type="external">&#160;Good Girl Dinette&#160;</a>. California is one of few states that has eliminated the tip credit, requiring all workers to be paid a minimum of $9.00 an hour. All her employees start above the minimum wage. “What’s a sustainable restaurant?” Tran asks, “It’s one in which as the restaurant grows, the people grow with it.”</p>
<p>It’s especially significant that all these restaurants employ tipped workers. Fervent lobbying by the corporate restaurant lobby, the National Restaurant Association, has kept the federal tipped minimum wage stuck at $2.13 an hour since 1991. As a result, servers—a majority of whom are women—use food stamps at double the rate of the rest of the workforce and are three-times as likely to live in poverty. They typically get $0 paychecks because their base wage is swiftly eaten up by taxes. Although labor laws require owners to ante up and pay their staff the federal or slightly higher (where applicable) minimum wage when tips&#160;don’t fill the gap, enforcement is alarming sparse.&#160; <a href="//www.epi.org/publication/attack-on-american-labor-standards/" type="external">According to research</a>&#160;from the Economic Policy Institute, employers have a .001 percent chance of being investigated in a given year, making wage theft pretty common, and easy to get away with. If you’re familiar with living paycheck-to-paycheck, servers are quite literally&#160; <a href="//rocunited.org/living-off-tips/" type="external">living shift-to-shift</a>.</p>
<p>Yet corporate executives and CEOs <a href="//www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/business/proposal-to-raise-tip-wages-resisted.html?emc=eta1&amp;_r=0" type="external">still claim</a> they can’t afford to pay more, and are actively involved in rolling back wages, blocking paid sick days, and fighting other worker-friendly regulations. In stark contrast, most small business owners&#160; <a href="//www.smallbusinessmajority.org/small-business-research/minimum-wage/" type="external">already pay</a>&#160;more than the minimum wage, and a large majority support raising it to $10.10 and indexing it for inflation. While putting forward publicity-ready talking points lauding the small business owner, the National Restaurant Association is lobbying at local and national levels against things that most small business owners are already doing.</p>
<p>All of which makes it even more salient that restaurants like Choices Vegan Cafe, Zingerman’s, Good Girl Dinette and Black Star Co-op are opting out of—or completely bypassing—the corporate-led ‘race to the bottom.’ Their success proves that restaurants can value employees and be financially viable. And consumers feel good knowing all the employees at their favorite spots can afford to make ends meet. And although each High Road restaurant is quite popular locally, these owners play an important role in shifting the national conversation on raising labor standards across this industry. Some&#160; <a href="//www.youtube.com/watch?v=14t7gRwxzao" type="external">regularly make it to DC</a>&#160;to stand up for workers rights and support bills that would require better wages. They’ve joined a like-minded restaurant association called&#160; <a href="//rocunited.org/our-work/high-road/raise/" type="external">RAISE</a>,&#160;Restaurants Advancing Industry Standards in Employment, and have invited elected officials to be a “server for a day” to help bring attention to local proposals to raise the tipped wages.</p>
<p>Nationwide, there are nearly 100 other High Road restaurants listed in our &#160; <a href="//rocunited.org/dinersguide/" type="external">Diners Guide to Ethical Eating</a>. Support them and thank the owners for doing the right thing. To track down High Road restaurants in your neck of the woods, the guide is also available as an&#160; <a href="//rocunited.org/dinersguide/" type="external">app</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>Maria Myotte is National Communications Coordinator for <a href="http://rocunited.org/" type="external">Restaurant Opportunities Centers United</a>.</p> | Where to Eat If You Want to Support Restaurants That Pay Their Workers a Living Wage | true | http://alternet.org/economy/where-eat-if-you-want-support-restaurants-pay-their-workers-living-wage | 2014-01-29 | 4 |
<p>By Tim Hepher and Andrew Callus</p>
<p>The United States and <a href="" type="internal">European Union</a>, both trading superpowers, have been fighting cases against each other in the WTO for more than six years over each other's subsidies for manufacturers of large passenger aircraft.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Thursday's document will contain the WTO's 1,000-page findings on European Union claims that U.S. planemaker <a href="" type="internal">Boeing</a> won billions of dollars in unfair U.S. support.</p>
<p>The trade bloc brought the case after the United States protested against subsidies benefiting European planemaker Airbus. The WTO found parts of the financing for Airbus planes was illegal in its report on that case last year.</p>
<p>The two cases represent the world's largest trade dispute and could help determine how not only Airbus and Boeing, but potential future competitors in <a href="" type="internal">China</a>, Russia, Brazil, Japan and Canada, run their growing aircraft sectors for years to come.</p>
<p>However, analysts say it could be months or even years before appeals and possible compliance procedures are exhausted.</p>
<p>DISAGREE STRONGLY</p>
<p>EADS subsidiary Airbus said the final report on the case against the United States over Boeing subsidies would damage its rival's past claims that it was market-funded. The EU says NASA, states and <a href="" type="internal">the Pentagon</a> all pumped in funds unfairly.</p>
<p>"Boeing can no longer hide they received massive illegal subsidies that have severely harmed Airbus. Despite years of denial and attempts to minimize the research grants and state subsidies it receives, the public report will show the contrary," spokeswoman Maggie Bergsma said.</p>
<p>Boeing has acknowledged that the WTO backed some of the EU claims. However, the two sides disagree strongly over the amount of condemned Boeing subsidies and how they compared in size and effect with those given to Airbus.</p>
<p>"We are fully confident that the WTO will reveal tomorrow the massive market advantage Airbus has enjoyed from illegal government subsidies for more than 40 years," Boeing spokesman Charlie Miller said.</p>
<p>"From media reports quoting people who have seen the ruling, it is clear that the WTO has rejected the vast majority of the EU's claims in sharp contrast to last year's ruling that Airbus had received illegal subsidies totaling more than $20 billion."</p>
<p>After an interim confidential report was delivered to the parties in January, Airbus said it showed Boeing had received at least $5 billion in illegal subsidies and was only able to launch its 787 <a href="" type="internal">Dreamliner</a> with such support.</p>
<p>Boeing denied the assertions and said Airbus had in any case received a much larger boost from taxpayers.</p>
<p>The two sides also disagree over whether the WTO's findings in the earlier case will automatically disqualify possible future government loans for the Airbus A350, an aircraft which is being developed to compete with the Dreamliner.</p>
<p>European sources say both cases should be considered together and say the best outcome would be political compromise.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | WTO to rule on claims Boeing received subsidies | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2011/03/30/wto-to-rule-on-claims-boeing-received-subsidies.html | 2016-01-28 | 0 |
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<p>He’s been enjoying the trip and finding inspiration.</p>
<p>“It’s nice to get off the grid for a bit,” he says during a recent interview. “There’s not too much cellphone service. So I get a chance to disconnect from the world.”</p>
<p>Longoria is a singer-songwriter based in Austin, Texas.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>He performs under the moniker Longriver and has been touring in support of his 2015 self-titled album.</p>
<p>And he has been writing new material for his next album.</p>
<p>Longoria says his writing process always begins with the guitar.</p>
<p>“It opens up a different pathway,” he says. “I will sit and wait for it to come. I find myself in the basement of my house a lot writing.”</p>
<p>Longoria says he takes inspiration from everything.</p>
<p>“There are times I have to ask for permission to write about a song,” he says. “It has to feel right in all its components. I also write about death and lust a lot. It’s whatever sticks with me.”</p>
<p>Longoria says that in his newest songs, he’s been getting a lot more introspective.</p>
<p>It’s a different aspect to his writing process, but he’s embracing it.</p>
<p>“I’ve been holding back on a lot of stuff,” he says. “But there’s been some feedback from listeners, and it’s overwhelming. The connection with other is something that keeps me going. I don’t have doubts about what I write about now. I use my intuition.”</p>
<p>Longoria’s three shows in New Mexico will be his in the state.</p>
<p>“There will be stuff from the self-titled album, and I’ll also play some of the new stuff,” he says.</p>
<p>Longriver WHEN AND WHERE: 5-7 p.m. Wednesday, July 12, Mine Shaft Tavern, 2846 N.M. 14, Madrid; 6 p.m. Thursday, July 13, Dustin’s Place, Silver City; 7 p.m. July 14, Steve’s Place, Las Cruces HOW MUCH: Free</p>
<p /> | Wild inspiration: Longriver gets off the grid in Yellowstone | false | https://abqjournal.com/1028514/wild-inspiration.html | 2017-07-07 | 2 |
<p>There has never been a more highly anticipated episode of “poorly rated Morning Joe,” as <a href="" type="internal">President Donald Trump calls it</a>, than the one that aired this morning.</p>
<p>Co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough were supposed to be off on a July 4th vacation, but they changed their plans so they could respond live on air to Trump’s incendiary tweets.</p>
<p>As a reminder to anyone who was living under a rock Thursday, the president <a href="" type="internal">tweeted these comments</a>just as Morning Joe ended, as to ensure they could not respond on television:</p>
<p />
<p>That gave the co-hosts a full 24 hours to decide exactly how to respond. And after <a href="" type="internal">putting out an op-ed in The Washington Post</a> Friday morning in which they concluded Trump is “not mentally equipped to continue watching our show,” they made viewers wait until the program’s second hour, leaving NBC News’ Willie Geist to inform viewers at 6 a.m. that they would not be there until 7 a.m. to address the situation.</p>
<p>“We’re supposed to be on vacation, but we’re here,” Brzezinski said. Instead of going to Boston, she said, “it was me and TMZ and my dogs on the streets.”</p>
<p>“It’s been fascinating and frightening and really sad for our country,” Brzezinski added. “I mean, I’ve been getting a lot of texts and hearing you all talking. Thank you. I’m fine. My family brought me up really, really tough. This is absolutely nothing, for me, personally. But I am very concerned as to <a href="" type="internal">what this once again reveals about the president of the United States</a>. It’s strange.”</p>
<p>Scarborough added that he found it “funny” how many people were calling and texting to see how he and Brzezinski were holding up. “We’re OK,” he said. “The country is not.” When he first saw the tweets, he thought, “This has to be a joke. The president of the United States, as bad as he’s been in the past, he hasn’t really gone over the cliff. Then, unfortunately, we learned what we’ve always learned. And that is that he, for some reason, takes things so much more personally with women. He’s so much more vicious with women.”</p>
<p>No matter what Scarborough says about Trump, he always seems to go after Brzezinski instead. “And it’s always personal with Mika,” he said. “And he packed about five lies into the tweets, which very productive—two tweets to pack five or six lies into two tweets—but yesterday was another example of how deeply personal he is. He attacks women because he fears women.”</p>
<p>Looking at the “big picture,” Brzezinski noted that her <a href="" type="internal">father just passed away</a>, her mother has had two heart attacks, her daughter just lost a friend. “Those are the things I’m really worried about,” she said. “Those are the things that really deeply impact me, and leave me thinking about at night, and hurting and worrying and thinking about the future. The president’s tweets? Whether they’re personally aimed at me or aimed at me in some way, that doesn’t bother me one bit. It does worry me about the country.”</p>
<p>Brzezinski went on to describe Trump as having a “fragile, child-like ego” that cannot handle criticism over something as ridiculous as the <a href="" type="internal">fake Time magazine cover he hands at his golf resorts</a>. “The White House claims we attack him,” she said of Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ <a href="" type="internal">bizarre response at Thursday’s briefing</a>. “No, we report on his lies. We are upset when he doesn’t tell the truth and he bullies people. That is true.”</p>
<p>She knew that Trump would be bothered by their jokes about the Time cover, but she did not imagine it would go this far. “It is unbelievably alarming that this president is so easily played,” she said. “He’s so easily played by a cable news host. Now, what is that saying to our allies? What is that saying to our enemies? That this president is so easily played?”</p>
<p>Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.</p>
<p>A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).</p>
<p>The group’s live reaction to Trump’s tweets continued uninterrupted for more than 30 minutes before Brzezinski and Scarborough decided it was finally time for them to leave for their much-needed vacation.</p> | Mika Brzezinski Fires Back at Trump: This Is ‘Sad for Our Country’ | true | https://thedailybeast.com/mika-brzezinski-fires-back-at-trump-this-is-sad-for-our-country | 2018-10-07 | 4 |
<p>Back in the day, lions had it made. They roamed freely across the Mediterranean, the Americas, the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa. They were the top of the food chain, the King of Beasts. They were in the Bible.&#160;</p>
<p>You could say it's been relatively downhill since then.</p>
<p>There are two kinds of lions, <a href="http://worldlionday.com/african-lion/" type="external">African lions</a> and <a href="http://worldlionday.com/asiatic-lion/" type="external">Asiatic lions</a>. In 1975 there was an estimated 250,000 lions in Africa. Today there are only about 30,000. Meanwhile, the Asiatic lion population stands at just 411.&#160;</p>
<p>As many as&#160; <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/07/10/kendall_jones_the_texas_cheerleader_and_big_game_hunter_makes_people_very.html" type="external">600 lions are killed</a>&#160;every year by trophy hunters in Africa. Which hits especially hard when one of those hunters is a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/kendalltakeswild" type="external">perky blonde cheerleader from Texas</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>And that's to say nothing about threats to lions posed by poaching, disease and habitat loss. It's extremely sad. Enough to make you want to stay in bed all day.</p>
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<p>Enough to make you a real grouch.</p>
<p />
<p>Enough to make it so you just can't even hear one more PSA.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>In honor of today being World Lion Day, here's a list of the King of Beasts' biggest beef:</p>
<p>(Armin Weigel/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Sebastian Willnow/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Jean-Francois Monier/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Lex Van Lieshout/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(NORBERTO DUARTE/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Rodrigo Arangua/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Radek Mica/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Radek Mica/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Arno Burgi/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Morne de Klerk/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Dan Kitwood/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Lintao Zhang/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(John Moore/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Radek Mica/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Jochen Luebke/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Patrik Stollarz/AFP/Getty Images)</p>
<p>(Pedro Armestre/AFP/Getty Images)</p> | In honor of World Lion Day, a list of their top 30 complaints | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-08-10/honor-world-lion-day-list-their-top-30-complaints | 2014-08-10 | 3 |
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<p>AAA forecasts that 48.7 million Americans will travel, the busiest Thanksgiving period on U.S. roads and skies since 2007, the year before the global financial crisis plunged the U.S. economy into a deep recession.</p>
<p>The auto club AAA said Tuesday that it expects 1 million more Americans to venture at least 50 miles from home, a 1.9 percent increase over last year.</p>
<p>The forecast was assembled at research firm IHS, which said it considered jobs, household net worth, the stock market, prices for gasoline and airline tickets, and other factors.</p>
<p>The researchers did their number crunching in mid-October, about three weeks before the surprising outcome in the presidential election.</p>
<p>The AAA forecast predicts that from Wednesday, Nov. 23, through Sunday, Nov. 27, about 43.5 million Americans will take long car trips, 1.9 percent more than last year. AAA expects 3.7 million will travel by air, a 1.6 percent increase. Bus and train trips will grow less than 1 percent, the auto group said.</p>
<p>An airline-industry trade group is a bit more bullish. Airlines for America predicts that air travel will rise 2.5 percent over last year’s holiday, although the group considers Thanksgiving travel spanning a 12-day period that begins Nov. 18.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>AIR TRAVEL TIPS</p>
<p>Planes are likely to be packed over the holiday, and bad weather or airline computer malfunctions can slow things to a crawl. If the unexpected happens, be ready to react quickly.</p>
<p>–Arrive early. At some airports, including Dallas-Fort Worth International and Dallas Love Field, garages and other facilities are under construction, making matters worse.</p>
<p>–Pack smart. Don’t put anything you really need — medicine, passport, other important papers — in your rollaboard bag; or remember to remove it if the airline orders you to gate-check your bag, which happens when flights are full and bins are overstuffed.</p>
<p>–Customer assistance. If your flight is canceled, get in line to talk to an airline customer rep but call the airline too. You might have better luck reaching an overseas number — look up the numbers before your trip.</p> | AAA predicting biggest Thanksgiving travel rush in 9 years | false | https://abqjournal.com/889339/aaa-predicting-biggest-thanksgiving-travel-rush-in-9-years.html | 2016-11-15 | 2 |
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<p>ZIA PUEBLO – An up-and-coming rock band is drawing heat for its use of a symbol sacred to an American Indian tribe in New Mexico.</p>
<p>KOAT-TV reported that Bad Suns is using the Zia symbol front and center on its new album, and Zia Pueblo officials aren’t too happy about it.</p>
<p>Pueblo Gov. David Pino says the image is so sacred that only medicine men are allowed to use it during ceremonies.</p>
<p>Christine Cao, a representative for the band, says the symbol used is the band’s own interpretation of the image.</p>
<p>Pino says he hopes the band will reach out to the pueblo and ask for its blessing before the album is released.</p>
<p>The Zia is the official New Mexico insignia and appears on the state flag.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Rock band’s use of Zia upsets pueblo | false | https://abqjournal.com/411499/rock-bands-use-of-zia-upsets-pueblo.html | 2 |
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<p>The San Antonio police who was shot in the head while investigating a vehicle break-in has died. Authorities said in a statement that officer Miguel Moreno died Friday morning.</p>
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<p>Moreno along with a partner approached two men involved in a vehicle break-in just north downtown San Antonio when one of the men immediately pulled a handgun and shot the officers, seriously injuring Moreno, which ultimately led to his death this morning. Moreno's partner was also shot and underwent surgery. He is expected to survive.</p>
<p />
<p>The two officers were shot at as soon as they exited their patrol car to approach and question the two men. The police officers engaged in gunfire exchange, leading to the death of the gunman. The second man said he was unaware that his companion would bring out his gun and shoot at the officers. He is currently cooperating with the investigation.</p>
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<p>San Antonio Chief William McManus said during a news conference Friday that Moreno was hit in the head. At the time of the news conference, the police were already aware that their colleague stand little or no chances of surviving, while his companion showed better signs of surviving the wounds.</p>
<p />
<p>McManus reiterated that the police officers merely wanted to question the men, and at that point, did not even consider them as suspects yet. The officers also shot the gunman in the buttocks and had no intention to kill him, but he attempted to escape and suffered a head injury that authorities believe may have been self-inflicted.</p>
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<p>Source:</p>
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<p><a href="https://apnews.com/447c8bf6f929467ca585b719eb2c246futm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_medium=AP" type="external">apnews.com/447c8bf6f929467ca585b719eb2c246futm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_medium=AP</a></p> | San Antonio Police Officer Miguel Moreno has Died | true | http://thegoldwater.com/news/4545-San-Antonio-Police-Officer-Miguel-Moreno-has-Died | 2017-06-30 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Image Source: CBS.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It's been over two years since CBS (NYSE: CBS) launched its over-the-top, OTT, streaming service, CBS All Access. In that time, it's added 1.2 million subscribers, according to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal. That number is up from the 1 million subscribers CBS reported for both All Access and its Showtime OTT service in July.</p>
<p>But CBS has a lofty goal of reaching 8 million subscribers across the two services by 2020, expecting them to be about evenly split. If CBS is going to reach that goal, it needs to accelerate its growth. The slow pace over the last six months -- about 0.4 million net additions per year for All Access -- is concerning, but CBS may just be getting started.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, CBS inked a deal to bring the NFL to All Access. CBS's regular Sunday games and its five Thursday Night Football games throughout the season were a huge hole in All Access's programming. CBS is now able to stream everything its regular broadcast channels offer.</p>
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<p>Additionally, CBS is launching several new original series for All Access. It premiered a Big Brother spinoff at the end of September, and plans to launch a new Star Trek series in January. A Good Wife spinoff is also in the works, slated for the spring. CBS is planning the new series launches such that there's always a new episode of something every week. It hopes that will reduce <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/what-is-churn-rate.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">subscriber churn Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>CBS also includes the archives of many of its shows from this century and last. In fact, it seems many All Access subscribers are signing up for access to the archives as seventy-five percent of subscribers still pay for traditional cable.</p>
<p>The addition of the NFL and exclusive original programming could broaden All Access's subscriber base to more cord-cutters or cord-shavers. Most households are still able to pick up a strong CBS broadcast signal via a set of rabbit ears, but they won't be able to watch the new Star Trek series without an All Access subscription.</p>
<p>CBS developed All Access as a tool to leverage against big distributors like Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR). With another way to distribute its content -- i.e., directly to consumers -- CBS can stay strong at the negotiating table knowing it has All Access to fall back on. That's extremely important, as CBS has a goal of reaching $2 billion in retransmission fees -- the fees cable distributors pay to carry the network -- by 2020.</p>
<p>But Comcast and Charter may see it the other way around. With the availability of All Access, traditional distributors may not need to carry CBS at all. They can offer customers a free year of the service for roughly $70, and it becomes a customer-acquisition cost. That would certainly boost All Access subscribers, but it would come at the cost of its main business. And All Access doesn't have the benefit of long-term contracts with large distributors.</p>
<p>There are roughly 39 million video subscribers between Comcast and Charter. If either dropped the network, it would be a major blow to its plans to increase its retransmission rates. CBS would have to bring in at least one-fourth of those lost subscribers to All Access to recoup the revenue loss, since management says <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/23/3-things-cbs-wants-you-to-know-about-its-streaming.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">it nets about $8.25 per month Opens a New Window.</a> per subscriber.</p>
<p>But All Access comes with additional costs over traditional distribution, such as customer management and content delivery. If All Access's path to about 4 million subscribers over the next four years comes with the loss of a big pay-TV customer, it's not great for CBS's bottom line.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than CBS When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=1b7b03f3-6cf9-4ae4-9428-e597e1926c13&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and CBS wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=1b7b03f3-6cf9-4ae4-9428-e597e1926c13&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of Nov. 7, 2016</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/adamlevy/info.aspx" type="external">Adam Levy Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | CBS Expects to Add 3 Million More Streaming Subscribers by 2020 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/28/cbs-expects-to-add-3-million-more-streaming-subscribers-by-2020.html | 2016-12-28 | 0 |
<p>Estate planning isn't a fun topic, but it's a vital one to tackle in order to take care of your loved ones.</p>
<p>On this Halloween edition of <a href="http://www.fool.com/podcasts/industry-focus?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Industry Focus: Financials Opens a New Window.</a>, Fool analyst Gaby Lapera and Dan Caplinger, the Fool's director of investment planning, talk about this scary subject, breaking it down into manageable bits you can plan for. You'll learn what documents you need, whether a will or a trust is better for you, various types of trusts, the taxes some estates have to pay, and how you can tell your loved ones what they'll need to know after your death. Make it your Halloween resolution (that's a thing, right?) to tackle your estate planning and put a plan in place that will protect your family from financial harm.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>A full transcript follows the video.</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early, in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2759&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>This podcast was recorded on Sept. 22, 2016.</p>
<p>Gaby Lapera:Hello, everyone! Welcome to Industry Focus, the podcast that dives into a different sector of the stock market every day. You'relistening to the Financials edition, taped on Thursday, September 22nd, 2016, but you're listening to this on Monday, October 31st, at the earliest. I am in Hong Kong or San Francisco, hence the pre-tape, but I should be back in two days. My name is Gaby Lapera, and joining me onSkypeis Dan Caplinger, personal finance guruextraordinaire at The Motley Fool. How's it going, Dan?</p>
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<p>Dan Caplinger:I'm doing good, Gaby. You ready for vacation?</p>
<p>Lapera:I'm so ready! Today, we're going to channel the spirit of Halloween, so I'm going to tell you happy Halloween, Dan! Pretend it's Halloween.</p>
<p>Caplinger:[SPOOKY GHOST NOISES]</p>
<p>Lapera:That's a great spooky voice. I loveHalloween. I don't know if you know what you're going to be for Halloween this year, but I totally do.</p>
<p>Caplinger:I don't. I haven't figured it out. It's not today in my world right now, I still have a month to figure it out.</p>
<p>Lapera:Fair enough. I was Ruth Bader Ginsburg last year.</p>
<p>Caplinger:Sweet.</p>
<p>Lapera:ButI accidentally got mixed up and realized I had another greatcostume idea for this year, which is Ruth Gator Ginsburg. Next year,I'm going to be Ruth Darth Vader Ginsburg. [laughs]</p>
<p>Caplinger: Awesome!</p>
<p>Lapera: I'mjust going to iterate on my theme for the next two years. Plus, she's a lovely lady. Since today is Halloween in a month,we decided that what we we're going to do was talk about something that isa little ghoulish,but very important, and that is estate planning. Estate planning is things you need to do before you die. I think most people have in their heads, "Ireally need to get a will."I don't think they even think about other stuff thatcould be attached to that. So, to get us started, Dan, what documentsdo you need to prepare before death?</p>
<p>Caplinger: There area bunch of documents that are really helpful to have in a number of situations,not just in preparation for death, but also in case youactually manage to keep living. Having a full set of these estate planning documents can help you and your family in awide range of situations.</p>
<p>First, you mentioned the will. Very basic, it's definitely a good idea to have, because it's the primary instrument forfiguring out where your stuff goes after you die. But it's not the only documentthat does that. A lot of people get confused about this. One thing youhave to be absolutely sure that you do iscomplete what are known as the beneficiary designations. These forms are used foraccounts that you have at financial institutions that require them --it's like an IRA, forinstance. If you have a retirement account,whether it's an IRA or 401(k), they will have you fill out abeneficiary designation. On that, you'll say, "Who'sgoing to take this account after I pass away?" Alot of people mistakenly think that their will says where their IRA or 401(k) orother types of these accounts, where these will goafter they die. Your will does not control that; it's yourbeneficiary designation that controls that. It's important onnot only retirement accounts, but also life insurancepolicies. Check with your financial institution -- a number ofplaces will have these forms available onother types of accounts as well on what's called "payable on death" accounts. So,make sure, if you have one of those, you'vefilled out that necessary paperwork.</p>
<p>Theother major class of documents you should have arewhat's known as powers of attorney. Those fall into two categories. One covers financial elements, so it lets you namesomeone else who can take care of things likewriting checks on your bank account,paying your bills,making trades in your investment account. Thishappens if you're incapacitated -- so, you'restill living, but something's happened to you, you'vehad a major accident or a major illness, and you're unable to take care of those affairs on your own, thisperson can step in and handle that. So, that's the financial side.</p>
<p>Then,you have another power of attorney on the healthcare side. That's the person who can make medical decisions on your behalf. Going with that power ofattorneyalso what is sometimes known as anadvanced medical directive -- some people call it a living will. That's where you set out what your wishes are for whether you want life-savingtechniques used, life support systems, or other measures taken to extend your life, or whether you don't want those -- it's an opportunity to express that. It's a wide rangeof documents, but they covera bunch of different situations.</p>
<p>Lapera: Andsuffice to say thatfor all of these things,you should choose, for your power of attorney,both medical and financial,you should choose people that you really trust. And you can change that over time,that's not a problem. But you alsowant to make sure that this is legally binding,so you want to find a lawyer to helpyou do these things. There's lawyers that specialize in this.</p>
<p>Caplinger: It's not just that you should pick people you trust, butyou should pick people who knowthe gravity of the situation,who are prepared to deal with thehard decisions they might be asked to make. It's important that you be able to trust them,but they also have to have a comfort level thatif they're called upon to act, they feel comfortable,they know what you want, they know what you would do. It'sso much easier to do thatwhen everything is great, upfront, well before any of those documents are needed, so that if that crisis happens,the person you name will be ready to handle it.</p>
<p>Lapera: Yeah,you definitely want to be prepared. I do have a question for you, though. Wetalked about wills, but I also know that trusts aresomething that is commonly recommended to peoplewho are doing estate planning. Can yougo over what the difference is between a will and a trust?</p>
<p>Caplinger: Basically, what a will does is, it's adocument that sits there, but it doesn't really take effectuntil the time of your death. Then, at that point,that's when the will kicks in and youfollow the instructions that are given in it. A trust, on the other hand, issomething that you can set upduring your lifetime,it has the same instructions thatyou would find in a willto handle what happens to your assets after your death,but it can also make provisions forwhat happens to your assets during your lifetime.</p>
<p>For instance, a lot of the time, the way that a trust gets drafted,the person who's the trusteeafter the person who's created the trustessentially takes onthe same role inmanaging that trust asset as someone who's given thepower of attorney over your financial matters would be given to the assets that aren't in a trust setup. It's that same level of trust that you areestablishing with the person that you name to take over if you'reunable to do so. Now, the big advantage of having a trust over a will is, having a trustgenerally prevents you from havingto go to a probate courtto have your matters dealt withafter your death. A trustdoesn't have to be a public document. A trustee has the power after your death to take action as specified in its instructions. So, it doesn'tgenerally need to have any court oversight to follow those instructions.</p>
<p>On the other hand, a will, in general,needs to be adjudicated before a court judge, and your will becomes a publicdocument. In those situations,it's something that a lot of people are less comfortable with,having those documents be out there in the public eye. It'snot like everybody's looking at them, necessarily, but they are availablein case anyone is curious. For many people who are interested inmaintaining their privacy, that's really not something that they need to have in everybody's business. They prefer theconfidentiality that a trust setup allows you to maintain.</p>
<p>Lapera: So, with the wills, do they all have to be sent to probate?</p>
<p>Caplinger: The processes for dealing with wills differ from state to state. Some states havewhat are known as simplified proceedingsin order to handle the vast majority of situationswhere there aren't that many assets, where you'reonly talking about transfers ofa minimal amount of money, or a minimumnumber of pieces of property. But, a lot of time, thethresholds for those simplifiedprocedures arepretty low. If you have more than just a minimal amount of assetsthat you're trying to pass on to your heirs, thosesimplified processes aren't available, and you do have to do a full-blown probate proceeding thatinvolves hiring an attorney,getting thenecessary court documents written up, and figuring out how to navigate that probate process,which could take months, or even years, and be extremely costly,especially if there are any complicated situations that arise.</p>
<p>Lapera: Can people challenge your will,if it ends up in probate court?</p>
<p>Caplinger: Yes.</p>
<p>Lapera: So,that would be another advantage of having a trust --no one is going to be able to go to court, or, they'rea lot less likely to be able to go to court and challenge it in court, right?</p>
<p>Caplinger: Yeah. Again, that becomesone of the elements of the confidentiality aspect of it. A trust document doesn't have to be public. Thatdoesn't mean that it's invisible. For instance,in order for a trust to work, you have to actuallyput your property into the trust. For instance,if you own a house, you're going to want to do a deed transfer out of your ownindividual name into the name of the trust. So, anybody who looks upreal estate property records, which are public documents, will know that your house is owned in the name of a trust. So, they'll know it exists. That opens the door to potential challenges. Butit's not quite as simple of a process as it is when you have a will that's just out in the open.</p>
<p>Lapera: OK. So,what I'm hearing is that trusts are potentially abetter vehicle for a lot of people. And I knowthere's different types of trusts. The ones that we've been talking about have been living trusts, and of those living trusts, there's bothrevocable and irrevocable trusts.</p>
<p>Caplinger: Yeah, a living trust,when you hear somebody talking about a living trust, they're generally talking aboutrevocable living trusts,because that's the kind of trust that you can make changes toduring your lifetime. As you pointed out,irrevocable trusts are things that, once you create that trust, you can't change the aspects of it,you can't change the instructions. For the most part, there are morespecific, specialized reasons to useirrevocable trusts during your lifetime, but in the vast majority of cases, when you're talking about basic estate planning, you're talking aboutsetting up a revocable trust.</p>
<p>Lapera: I know -- or,I think I know, because I'm not 100% clear on trusts -- the irrevocable trust, while you can't make changes to it, I was under the impression that theappreciated assets aren't going to be subject to estate trust,which might be one of the reasons why you might be interested in opening anirrevocable one versus a revocable living trust. Of course, you can have multiple trusts set up, right?</p>
<p>Caplinger: That's true. You can havemultiple trusts set up. And you're right that,when you're talking about gift and estate tax, by setting up an irrevocable trust that vested the time of theinitial formation of the trust, thevaluation of that trust at its formation is the value that will be used fordetermining the gift and estate tax valuethat is charged against your unified gift and state tax credit at your death. That's very complicated.</p>
<p>Lapera: It's so complicated. [laughs]</p>
<p>Caplinger: But as you say, the net result of that is, if you give property that's worth $10,000, you put that into anirrevocable trust now,over the next 30 or 40 years, it climbs up to $100,000, the value that will be treated as the appropriate value for gift and estate tax purposes will be that $10,000 value at the time that youmade the gift, not the $100,000 that's theappreciated in value at the time of your death. That's assuming you made an irrevocabletrust that's not subject to being clawed back into your estate. Those rules areprobably more technical than we want to get intoat this point. In general, you can --with the help of your attorney -- set up an irrevocable trust to achieve those ends and get the estate tax relief that you want.</p>
<p>Lapera: I have a series of questions for you about trusts, and then I want to get into the estate tax. Rapid-fire. Where can I get a trust?</p>
<p>Caplinger: Anestate planning attorney is probably the best way tostructure a trust. An estate planning attorney will know what questions to askin order to figure out exactly what you want to have under what circumstances, and to get thedocument set up the way that you want.</p>
<p>Lapera: How much does it cost to set up a trust?</p>
<p>Caplinger: It usually costs...legal fees from place to place vary greatly, but what I will say is this: It usually costs more up-front to set up a trust than it does to draft a simple will. But,when you consider the additional costlater on of a will, the cost ofhiring an attorney to go through the probate process, the total costs that you'll spend on estate planningthroughout your lifetime and after your death in the case of a will and the probate proceeding are often roughlycomparable. So, it's more a matter of timing than it is a matter of how much you'll spend. You might save more up-front on a will, but if it's costly to administer in probate after your death, thenthat's when the costs will catch up to the total amount you would have paid to the trust.</p>
<p>Lapera: So,it's kind of whether or not you want your kids to have to deal with it, or you.</p>
<p>Caplinger: Yeah.</p>
<p>Lapera: Shouldyou update a trust? If so, how oftenshould you update a trust?</p>
<p>Caplinger: Whether you have a will or a trust,it makes sense to have it taken a look atregularly in a number of situations. In general,every three to five years is a good idea just to make sure that there aren't any major legal changes that would affect thesituation. However, you should have it looked at morefrequently than that if there are major changeseither to your financial situationor to your family situation.</p>
<p>For instance, if you get married,if you get divorced, if you have a child, these things aregenerally going to change the way that you want your assets to pass after you die. So, it makes sense to have your estate planning documents taken a look at to make sure that they still do what you want to do. Andthat goes not just for the will and for the trust, but it also goes for thosebeneficiary designations thatwe were talking about earlier. You definitely don't want anaccount that you set up when you were married to go to your ex-spouseafter you get divorced. And yet,there are a huge number of beneficiary designations out there that do that, just because the person forgets that thatbeneficiary designation was out there in the first place.</p>
<p>Lapera: AndI want to listeners know that your estateattorney will probably charge you a fee to update your trust and/or will,but it's a lot less than it was to set it up in the first place.</p>
<p>Caplinger: Often, yes. Moreimportantly, it avoids somemajor problems that canoccur if you have an out-of-date document thatmight not actually meet the needs and wishes that you have because of thesechanges that can occur.</p>
<p>Lapera: Definitely. Let's move on toestate taxes. This is something thathappens after you die, obviously, and your estate gets passed on to someone.I think most people have this conception thateveryone gets charged an estate tax, andyou're going to lose half the value of whatever gets passed on to you. That'snot true at the federal level. Estate taxes only apply on the part of the estate that exceeds $5.45 million, which is, for most people, a lot of money.</p>
<p>Caplinger: That's right. Alot of people pay a lot of attention to the 40% rate,which is very high. It's higher than any of the income tax bracketsthat are out there. But you're right, you have what's known as thelifetime exemption amount that coversnot just what's in your state when you pass away but also taxable gifts that you make during your lifetime. You can give up to a total of $5.45 million to heirs, either during yourlifetime or in your estate when you pass away,without having to pay any estate taxesat all. And that doesn't even includea lot of the exemptions that are available for estate tax. Forinstance, you can give an unlimited amount to your spouse, andyou won't have to pay any estate taxes on that. There are other exemptions. If you make a gift of money that goes toward someone'seducational expenses, as long as that gift is madedirectly to the educational institution, thatqualifies for an exemption. There are all kinds of these exemptions that can add up. Even if you do have a large enough estate that you have to worry about that amount,there are still techniques that you can use either to reduce your estate tax or eliminate it entirely at the federal level.</p>
<p>Lapera: Andthe other thing to think about is that,although this probably won't apply to you from the federal level -- though it might -- some states have not increased their estate tax level in the same way the federal government has. Currently, there are 14 states that have estate taxes, plus D.C., and most have farlower thresholds than the federal estate tax.New Jersey is the lowest, at $675,000. But then, there'sother states like Maryland and New York thatcurrently have estate taxes thresholds that are lower than the federal government, but they're working to raise theirs until it's on par with the federal government. So,if you live in one of those 14 states,you might want to take that into account when you're crafting your post-death what-to-do documents.</p>
<p>This brings us up on the lastportion of our show. We talked about all these things that you need to think about before you die. This isalso something you need to think about before you die, but it's something that will make whoever you leave behind's life a lot easier. This is something that another podcast voiceyou might be familiar with wrote, this is Robert Brokamp, "Letter From Your Dead Husband." I can send you guys that PDF if you want. It has all sorts of things. There'sfrequently -- I know when my parents' relationship,my father handles a lot of thefinancial stuff, and my momdoesn't really think about it too much,in terms of actually managing accounts and stuff like that. So,I think it would be really helpful for her, when my father passes away, if she had a letter that listed, for example, what all accounts they have, do they have any storage units, who should you call when he dies, whatattorney should be called that can be trustedthat has all of their information, who their broker is, who their accountant is. These arethings that people don't really think about, but when you die, you'renot alive to tell peoplewhere all this stuff is. So, having it all written down in one central location is really important forthe people that you leave behind.</p>
<p>Caplinger: That'sabsolutely correct. It's something thata lot of people never really think to do. But, at least giving yourloved ones some sense of what's out there, what they need to be paying attention to,like you say, even if it's justpointing them in the right direction of, "Do I call our accountant? Do we have an attorney? How do Iget in touch with our attorney? Is it justgoing down to the bank down the street that I know really well?" Justgetting a sense of the lay of the landas far as how you manage your financial affairs is important. Oneaspect that a lot of people don't think about now is justhow much of their financial lives are online or on mobile devices. So,having some way of giving people the password access that they'll need is important so that things can run smoothly.</p>
<p>A lot of financial institutions are a little bit behind when it comes to this. I know I've heard stories of peoplebeing able to log into deceased people'saccounts and even conduct transactionsafter someone's death. From a family member's perspective,that might be exactly what you want to be able to do. But technically, it's something thatfinancial institutions are going to have very different policies governing. So,it's important to understand that in an after-death situation, family members are going to have to navigate very different situations, even across similar types of things. You have a bank account at one bank,you might end up having to do something completely different from a bank account at another bankjust because of the policies and procedures that eachinstitution happens to have in place.</p>
<p>Lapera: So, I think if you take one thing away from this podcast, it should be, you should prepare,before you die, a lot of stuff. I think a lot of people think, "I'll be dead and gone, what does it matter?" Itmatters to the people you're leaving behind. Even if you'renot leaving anyone behind, you should still be prepared, you should still be organized. I know that sometimes it'sreally hard to think about these things. People don't really want to think about dying. For example, my parents and I had a couple chats about what they want to do with their estate when they die. And I'm like, "That's great,but I have no power to enforce that. I really need you guys to go to a lawyer and write all this stuff down,because otherwise I'm going to have to go to court." And I thinkmentally, they have accepted that, but emotionallythey're not quite ready to do it yet. This is just an ongoingconversation that I thinkpeople need to continue to have with their spouses and parents, whoever it is, so you guys can be prepared when thateventuality happens. Death and taxes.</p>
<p>Caplinger: That'sa very difficult conversation to have, but it is a very important one to have, just making sure, as a child or grandchild, you don'tnecessarily need to know the specifics. You just need to know that the people you care for have taken care of things, that they're seeing the right people to get stuff in place to make everything easier down the road.</p>
<p>Lapera: Yeah. So, Mom and Dad,if you're listening, please visit that estate lawyer. I know I keep nagging you about it. Hopefully it will have more weightcoming over the airwavesrather than in person.</p>
<p>Caplinger: Do it, Laperas!</p>
<p>Lapera:[laughs] Thank you so much, Dan Caplinger, for joining us.I hope you think of a totally radHalloween costumebetween here and October 31st.</p>
<p>Caplinger: I guarantee it.</p>
<p>Lapera: Listeners,if you want to send me pictures of your Halloween costumes,I will think that's hilariouswhen I'm super sleep deprivedwhen I get back here on November 2nd.</p>
<p>As usual, people on the program may have interests in the stocks that they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. Contact us at <a href="http://mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected] Opens a New Window.</a>, or by tweeting us @MFIndustryFocus. Thank you again to Austin Morgan.I hope that we've made you think about your deatha little bit more today [laughs]. And thank you to y'all for joining us. Everyone, have a great week!</p>
<p>Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | How to Stop Estate Planning From Spooking You | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/02/how-to-stop-estate-planning-from-spooking.html | 2016-11-02 | 0 |
<p>CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A federal judge wasn’t influenced Monday by dozens of letters supporting a Wyoming psychologist who admitted to stealing money from Medicaid and ordered him to serve a three-year prison sentence and pay nearly $2.3 million in restitution.</p>
<p>U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson on Monday also imposed three years of supervised release after Gibson Condie, of Powell, serves his prison time for one count of health care fraud.</p>
<p>Johnson ordered Condie, 57, to report to federal prison authorities on Feb. 12. Condie remains free until then.</p>
<p>Condie was originally accused of submitting about $6.8 million in fraudulent bills to Wyoming Medicaid between June 2012 and February 2016.</p>
<p>The prison sentence and restitution adhere to a plea agreement reached last October despite more than 30 letters of support attesting to Condie’s character and his personal efforts to help neighbors, patients and the community. Some letters noted Condie’s financial help to others, including paying another man’s rent for months and paying to rebuild an elderly neighbor woman’s broken lawn sprinkler system.</p>
<p>“I would say I am the man who is represented in those letters,” Condie, dressed in a dark suit and purple tie, told Johnson.</p>
<p>But Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Heimann countered that much of Condie’s financial generosity resulted from the money he took from Medicaid.</p>
<p>“His generosity was funded by stealing,” Heimann said.</p>
<p>Johnson said it was “disheartening” to see a man like Condie standing in his courtroom but it appears Condie was “lining his own pocket” with state and federal money at a time when Wyoming was cutting its budgets for needed services.</p>
<p>Under terms of the plea agreement, Wyoming and the federal government will equally split the nearly $2.3 million in restitution Condie will have to pay.</p>
<p>Condie was indicted last May by a federal grand jury.</p>
<p>Prosecutors said the crux of Condie’s fraud involved him claiming to be the treating provider even though almost all services were provided by unenrolled, and often unlicensed, persons who could not provide mental health services under Wyoming Medicaid.</p>
<p>They said he also routinely endorsed mental health assessments for Medicaid beneficiaries that found a qualifying mental health disorder even though he neither performed nor properly supervised the assessments.</p>
<p>Condie then submitted false bills for the bogus assessments and subsequent treatment that was not medically necessary therapy.</p>
<p>CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A federal judge wasn’t influenced Monday by dozens of letters supporting a Wyoming psychologist who admitted to stealing money from Medicaid and ordered him to serve a three-year prison sentence and pay nearly $2.3 million in restitution.</p>
<p>U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson on Monday also imposed three years of supervised release after Gibson Condie, of Powell, serves his prison time for one count of health care fraud.</p>
<p>Johnson ordered Condie, 57, to report to federal prison authorities on Feb. 12. Condie remains free until then.</p>
<p>Condie was originally accused of submitting about $6.8 million in fraudulent bills to Wyoming Medicaid between June 2012 and February 2016.</p>
<p>The prison sentence and restitution adhere to a plea agreement reached last October despite more than 30 letters of support attesting to Condie’s character and his personal efforts to help neighbors, patients and the community. Some letters noted Condie’s financial help to others, including paying another man’s rent for months and paying to rebuild an elderly neighbor woman’s broken lawn sprinkler system.</p>
<p>“I would say I am the man who is represented in those letters,” Condie, dressed in a dark suit and purple tie, told Johnson.</p>
<p>But Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Heimann countered that much of Condie’s financial generosity resulted from the money he took from Medicaid.</p>
<p>“His generosity was funded by stealing,” Heimann said.</p>
<p>Johnson said it was “disheartening” to see a man like Condie standing in his courtroom but it appears Condie was “lining his own pocket” with state and federal money at a time when Wyoming was cutting its budgets for needed services.</p>
<p>Under terms of the plea agreement, Wyoming and the federal government will equally split the nearly $2.3 million in restitution Condie will have to pay.</p>
<p>Condie was indicted last May by a federal grand jury.</p>
<p>Prosecutors said the crux of Condie’s fraud involved him claiming to be the treating provider even though almost all services were provided by unenrolled, and often unlicensed, persons who could not provide mental health services under Wyoming Medicaid.</p>
<p>They said he also routinely endorsed mental health assessments for Medicaid beneficiaries that found a qualifying mental health disorder even though he neither performed nor properly supervised the assessments.</p>
<p>Condie then submitted false bills for the bogus assessments and subsequent treatment that was not medically necessary therapy.</p> | Wyoming psychologist sent to prison for health care fraud | false | https://apnews.com/2e9db97e278447e5ab4f2cfb496a4697 | 2018-01-08 | 2 |
<p>There are times when I think that this tired old world has gone on a few years too long. What’s happening in the Middle East is so depressing. Most discussions of the eternal Israel-Palestine conflict are variations on the child’s eternal defense for misbehavior — “He started it!” Within a few minutes of discussing/arguing the latest manifestation of the conflict the participants are back to 1967, then 1948, then biblical times. I don’t wish to get entangled in who started the current mess. I would like instead to first express what I see as two essential underlying facts of life which remain from one conflict to the next:</p>
<p>1. Israel’s existence is not at stake and hasn’t been so for decades, if it ever was. If Israel would learn to deal with its neighbors in a non-expansionist, non-military, humane, and respectful manner, engage in full prisoner exchanges, and sincerely strive for a viable two-state solution, even those who are opposed to the idea of a state based on a particular religion could accept the state of Israel, and the question of its right to exist would scarcely arise in people’s minds. But as it is, Israel still uses the issue as a justification for its behavior, as Jews all over the world use the Holocaust and conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>2. In a conflict between a thousand-pound gorilla and a mouse, it’s the gorilla which has to make concessions in order for the two sides to progress to the next level. What can the Palestinians offer in the way of concession? Israel would reply to that question: “No violent attacks of any kind.” But that would still leave the status quo ante bellum — a life of unmitigated misery for the Palestinian people forced upon them by Israel. Peace without justice.</p>
<p>Israel’s declarations about the absolute unacceptability of one of their soldiers being held captive by the Palestinians, or two soldiers being held by Hezbollah in Lebanon, cannot be taken too seriously when Israel is holding literally thousands of captured Palestinians, many for years, typically without any due process, many tortured; as well as holding a number of prominent Hezbollah members. A few years ago, if not still now, Israel wrote numbers on some of the Palestinian prisoners’ arms and foreheads, using blue markers, a practice that is of course reminiscent of the Nazis’ treatment of Jews in World War II.</p>
<p>Israel’s real aim, and that of Washington, is the overthrow of the Hamas government in Palestine, the government that came to power in January through a clearly democratic process, the democracy that the Western “democracies” never tire of celebrating, except when the result doesn’t please them. Is there a stronger word than “hypocrisy”? There is now “no Hamas government,” declared a senior US official a week ago, “eight cabinet ministers or 30 percent of the government is in jail [kidnapped by Israel], another 30 percent is in hiding, and the other 30 percent is doing very little.” &#160;To make the government-disappearance act even more Orwellian, we have Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking in late June about Iraq: “This is the only legitimately elected government in the Middle East with a possible exception of Lebanon.” What’s next, gathering in front of the Big Telescreeen for the Two Minutes Hate?</p>
<p>In addition to doing away with the Hamas government, the current military blitzkrieg by Israel, with full US support, may well be designed to create “incidents” to justify attacks on Iran and Syria, the next steps of Washington’s work in process, a controlling stranglehold on the Middle East and its oil.</p>
<p>It is a wanton act of collective punishment that is depriving the Palestinians of food, electricity, water, money, access to the outside world … and sleep. Israel has been sending jets flying over Gaza at night triggering sonic booms, traumatizing children. “I want nobody to sleep at night in Gaza,” declared Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert; words suitable for Israel’s tombstone.</p>
<p>These crimes against humanity — and I haven’t mentioned the terrible special weapons reportedly used by Israel — are what the people of Palestine get for voting for the “wrong” party. It is ironic, given the Israeli attacks against civilians in both Gaza and Lebanon, that Hamas and Hezbollah are routinely dismissed in the West as terrorist organizations. The generally accepted definition of terrorism, used by the FBI and the United Nations amongst others, is: The use of violence against a civilian population in order to intimidate or coerce a government in furtherance of a political objective.</p>
<p>Since 9/11 it has been a calculated US-Israeli tactic to label the fight against Israel’s foes as an integral part of the war on terror. On July 19, a rally was held in Washington, featuring the governor of Maryland, several members of Israeli-occupied Congress, the Israeli ambassador, and evangelical leading light John Hagee. The Washington Post reported that “Speaker after prominent speaker characteriz[ed] current Israeli fighting as a small branch of the larger U.S.-led global war against Islamic terrorism” and “Israel’s attacks against the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah were blows against those who have killed civilians from Bali to Bombay to Moscow.” Said the Israeli ambassador: “This is not just about [Israel]. It’s about where our world is going to be and the fate and security of our world. Israel is on the forefront. We will amputate these little arms of Iran,” referring to Hezbollah.</p>
<p>And if the war on terror isn’t enough to put Israel on the side of the angels, John Hagee has argued that “the United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West”. He speaks of “a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.”</p>
<p>The beatification of Israel approaches being a movement. Here is David Horowitz, the eminent semi-hysterical ex-Marxist: “Israel is part of a global war, the war of radical Islam against civilization. Right now Israel is doing the work of the rest of the civilized world by taking on the terrorists. It is not only for Israel’s sake that we must get the facts out — it is for ourselves, America, for every free country in the world, and for civilization itself.”</p>
<p>As for the two Israeli soldiers captured and held in Lebanon for prisoner exchange, we must keep a little history in mind. In the late 1990s, before Israel was evicted from southern Lebanon by Hezbollah, it was a common practice for Israel to abduct entirely innocent Lebanese. As a 1998 Amnesty International paper declared: “By Israel’s own admission, Lebanese detainees are being held as ‘bargaining chips’; they are not detained for their own actions but in exchange for Israeli soldiers missing in action or killed in Lebanon. Most have now spent 10 years in secret and isolated detention.”</p>
<p>Israel has created its worst enemies — they helped create Hamas as a counterweight to Fatah in Palestine, and their occupation of Lebanon created Hezbollah. The current terrible bombings can be expected to keep the process going. Since its very beginning, Israel has been almost continually occupied in fighting wars and taking other people’s lands. Did not any better way ever occur to the idealistic Zionist pioneers?</p>
<p>But while you and I get depressed by the horror and suffering, the neo-conservatives revel in it. They devour the flesh and drink the blood of the people of Afghanistan, of Iraq, of Palestine, of Lebanon, yet remain ravenous, and now call for Iran and Syria to be placed upon the feasting table. More than one of them has used the expression oderint dum metuant, a favorite phrase of Roman emperor Caligula, also used by Cicero — “let them hate so long as they fear”. Here is William Kristol, editor of the bible of neo-cons, “Weekly Standard”, on Fox News Sunday, July 16:</p>
<p>“Look, our coddling of Iran … over the last six to nine months has emboldened them. I mean, is Iran behaving like a timid regime that’s very worried about the U.S.? Or is Iran behaving recklessly and in a foolhardy way? … Israel is fighting four of our five enemies in the Middle East, in a sense. Iran, Syria, sponsors of terror; Hezbollah and Hamas. … This is an opportunity to begin to reverse the unfortunate direction of the last six to nine months and get the terrorists and the jihadists back on the defensive.”</p>
<p>Host Juan Williams replied: “Well, it just seems to me that you want … you just want war, war, war, and you want us in more war. You wanted us in Iraq. Now you want us in Iran. Now you want us to get into the Middle East … you’re saying, why doesn’t the United States take this hard, unforgiving line? Well, the hard and unforgiving line has been [tried], we don’t talk to anybody. We don’t talk to Hamas. We don’t talk to Hezbollah. We’re not going to talk to Iran. Where has it gotten us, Bill?”</p>
<p>Kristol, looking somewhat taken aback, simply threw up his hands.</p>
<p>The Fox News audience does (very) occasionally get a hint of another way of looking at the world.</p>
<p>Iraq will follow Bush the rest of his life</p>
<p>Here comes now our Glorious Leader, speaking at a news conference at the recent G8 summit in St. Petersburg, referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin. “I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq where there’s a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same thing.”</p>
<p>It’s so very rare that Georgie W. makes one of his less-than-brilliant statements and has the nonsense immediately pointed out to him to his face — “Putin, in a barbed reply, said: ‘We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly.’ Bush’s face reddened as he tried to laugh off the remark. ‘Just wait’,” he said.</p>
<p>It’s too bad that Putin didn’t also point out that religion was a lot more free under Saddam Hussein than under the American occupation. Amongst many charming recent incidents, in May the coach of the national tennis team and two of his players were shot dead in Baghdad by men who reportedly were religious extremists angry that the coach and his players were wearing shorts.</p>
<p>As to a “free press”, dare I mention Iraqi newspapers closed down by the American occupation, reporters shot by American troops, and phony stories planted in the Iraqi press by Pentagon employees?</p>
<p>The preceding is in the same vein as last month’s edition of my report in which I listed the many ways in which the people of Iraq have a much worse life now than they did under Saddam Hussein. I concluded with recounting the discussions I’ve had with Americans who, in the face of this, say to me: “Just tell me one thing, are you glad that Saddam Hussein is out of power?”</p>
<p>Now we have a British poll that reports that “More than two thirds who offered an opinion said America is essentially an imperial power seeking world domination. And 81 per cent of those who took a view said President George W. Bush hypocritically championed democracy as a cover for the pursuit of American self-interests.” The American embassy in London was quick to reply. Said a spokesperson: “We question the judgment of anyone who asserts the world would be a better place with Saddam still terrorizing his own nation and threatening people well beyond Iraq’s borders.”</p>
<p>They simply can’t stop lying, can they? There was no evidence at all that Saddam was threatening any people outside of Iraq, whatever that’s supposed to mean. It may mean arms sales. Following the Gulf War, the US sold around $100 billion of military hardware to Iraq’s “threatened” neighbors: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Gulf States, and Turkey.</p>
<p>As to the world being a better or worse place … only Iraq itself was and is the issue here, not the world; although if the world is a better place, why am I depressed?</p>
<p>The peculiar idea of tying people’s health to private corporate profits</p>
<p>Steven Pearlstein is a financial writer with the Washington Post, with whom I’ve exchanged several emails in recent years. He does not ignore or gloss over the serious defects of the American economic system, but nonetheless remains a true believer in the market economy. In a recent review of a book by journalist Maggie Mahar, “Money-Driven Medicine”, Pearlstein writes that the author tries to explain “why health care costs so much in the United States, with such poor results.” She has focused on the right issues, he says, “the misguided financial incentives at every level, the unnecessary care that is not only wasteful but harmful, the bloated administrative costs.” However, “in making the case that the health-care system suffers from too much free-market competition and too little cooperation, Mahar means to drum up support for a publicly funded national system. But in the end, she mostly makes a convincing case that no health-care system will work unless we figure out what really works and is cost effective and then get doctors, hospitals and patients to embrace it.”</p>
<p>“Unless we figure out what really works and is cost effective” … hmmm … like there haven’t been repeated studies showing that national health plans in Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and elsewhere cover virtually everyone and every ailment and cost society and individuals much less than in the United States. Isn’t that “working”? I spent five years in the UK with my wife and small child and all three of us can swear by the National Health Service; at those times when neither my wife nor I was employed we didn’t have to pay anything into the system; doctors even made house calls; and this was under Margaret Thatcher, who was doing her best to cripple the system, a goal she and her fellow Tories, later joined by “New Labor”, have continued to pursue.</p>
<p>And then there’s Cuba — poor, little, third-world Cuba. Countless non-rich ill Americans would think they were in heaven to have the Cuban health system reproduced here, with higher salaries for doctors et al., which we could easily afford.</p>
<p>It should be noted that an extensive review of previous studies recently concluded that the care provided at for-profit nursing homes and hospitals, on average, is inferior to that at nonprofits. The analysis indicates that a facility’s ownership status makes a difference in cost, quality, and accessibility of care.</p>
<p>Sale! Western Civilization! New, Improved! $99.99, marked down from $129.99. Sale!</p>
<p>There’s currently a call in the United States to get rid of the one-cent coin because it costs 1.2 cents to make the coin and put it into circulation and because many people find the coins a nuisance. I have another reason to get rid of the coin — hopefully, doing so would put an end to the ridiculous and ubiquitous practice of pricing almost everything at amounts like $9.99, $99.99, or $999.99. Or $3.29 or $17.98. What is the reason for this tedious and insulting absurdity? It began as, and continues to be, a con game — trying to induce the purchaser to think that he’s getting some kind of bargain price: Less than $10! Less than $100! In my local thrift shop, catering almost exclusively to poor blacks and Hispanics, virtually all prices end in .97 or .98 or .99. Every once in a while, when the nonsense has piled up to my nose level, I ask a shop manager or corporate representative why they use such a pricing system. They scarcely have any idea what I’m talking about. Sometimes in a shop when I’m discussing with a clerk the various price options of something I’m thinking of buying, and I say, “Okay, let’s see, this model is $60 and …” S/he’ll interrupt me with: “No, it’s $59.99.”</p>
<p>And let’s not forget gasoline. Priced at $2.60.9 per gallon. Or $3.24.9 per gallon. That’s 9/10. It’s been suggested that it was the oil companies that began this whole silliness.</p>
<p>Is this any way for people to relate to each other? Comes the revolution, and we write a new constitution, Paragraph 99 will ban this practice.</p>
<p>You can’t make this stuff up</p>
<p>“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” Anatole France, 1844-1924</p>
<p>On April 14 a federal appeals court ruled that the Los Angeles Police Department cannot arrest people for sitting, lying or sleeping on public sidewalks on Skid Row, saying such enforcement amounts to cruel and unusual punishment because there are not enough shelter beds for the city’s huge homeless population. Judge Pamela A. Rymer issued a strong dissent against the majority opinion. The Los Angeles code “does not punish people simply because they are homeless,” wrote Rymer. “It targets conduct — sitting, lying or sleeping on city sidewalks — that can be committed by those with homes as well as those without.”</p>
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<p>William&#160; Blum is the author&#160; of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512526/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Killing&#160; Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II</a>,&#160; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511945/counterpunchmaga" type="external">Rogue&#160; State: a guide to the World’s Only Super Power</a>. and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1887128727/counterpunchmaga" type="external">West-Bloc Dissident: a Cold War Political Memoir</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511945/counterpunchmaga" type="external">.</a></p>
<p>He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Is There a Stronger Word Than “Hypocrisy”? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/07/26/is-there-a-stronger-word-than-hypocrisy/ | 2006-07-26 | 4 |
<p>Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Government and Public Policy Lawrence Wilkerson's last positions in government were as Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff (2002-05), Associate Director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff under the directorship of Ambassador Richard N. Haass, and member of that staff responsible for East Asia and the Pacific, political-military and legislative affairs (2001-02). Before serving at the State Department, Wilkerson served 31 years in the U.S. Army. During that time, he was a member of the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College (1987 to 1989), Special Assistant to General Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-93), and Director and Deputy Director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia (1993-97). Wilkerson retired from active service in 1997 as a colonel, and began work as an advisor to General Powell. He has also taught national security affairs in the Honors Program at the George Washington University. He is currently working on a book about the first George W. Bush administration.</p>
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<p /> PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. And we pick up our series of interviews with Larry Wilkerson. Thanks again for joining us.
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<p />LAWRENCE WILKERSON, FMR. CHIEF OF STAFF TO COLIN POWELL: Sure.
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<p />JAY: So in '93, Colin Powell retires and you go back to teaching. So pick up the story.
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<p />WILKERSON: Let me just back up a little bit and say that the first Gulf War, which of course was Powell's first we're going to cut it off and then we're going to kill it with regard to the Iraqi army, opened my eyes to a certain extent about the Middle East and about the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf and about Saudi Arabia and others. The reason we fought that war was not to uphold UN mandates. It was not to prove that the new world order was going to be established well by George Herbert Walker Bush. It was to protect oil. The reason we put forces down in the desert early was to keep Saddam Hussein from turning right and going into Saudi Arabia. We knew if he did, his tanks would roll over the 82nd Airborne Division we'd put on the ground, but his tanks would be rolling over US soldiers, and that would be cassus belli for sure. So my eyes began to be opened even more in this pragmatic way as to why the United States was using force in the world these days. In this case it was all about oil. Of course, that would come back again in 2003 when we re-invaded Iraq and threw out all kinds of aspersions for reasons to the contrary, but we still were going back to oil, basically. So this is a continuity, if you will, that gets established in terms of abusing me of my naivete, what little was left, as to why the United States in the post-World War II period uses force so often.
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<p />JAY: Now, before we pick up the line of the narrative, let's just go back to one thing. You grew up in a family that voted Republican. When you became of age to vote, you voted Republican. You had a certain loyalty to the party. As you're getting to this stage and as you're talking about the reasons for this first Gulf War, what's your thinking in terms of politics and the Republican Party?
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<p />WILKERSON: The Republicans had always been, at least according to my father, and certainly my belief, too, had always been for individualism, for hard work, for rising because of your own talents and skills, for merit, for a country full of individualists who could do whatever they wanted to do. They could be bums, or they could be president of Sears and Roebuck. That was what my father used to say. And he got real close to being--.
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<p />JAY: All a matter of choice.
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<p />WILKERSON: Yeah. And he got real close to being president of Sears and Roebuck: vice president. So I guess I'd have to say at the same time that I was being disabused of my naivete with regard to the Armed Forces and what the country used them for, I was also being disabused of my naivete about the Republican Party. Not to say that it hasn't transmogrified in those years. It has. It's not nearly what it was. My icon in that would be Dwight Eisenhower. Dwight Eisenhower--. And here again you had a man who merged both worlds, the ultimate military responsibility with the ultimate civilian responsibility. We don't get those kind of people very often. Now, here's a man who knew both worlds in a sense that he knew the bad and the good from both worlds. He once said, according to his granddaughter Susan Eisenhower, God help the United States if anybody ever sits in the Oval Office who doesn't understand the military the way I do. This is a man who understood what was happening to post-World War America, that it was turning into a military-industrial-congressional-dominated national security state. And the Republicans have cheered that transmogrification--cheered it. Indeed, they've gained their power, their political power, from helping it, from moving it in the right direction when it needs to be moved, so that now you have guys like Mitch McConnell and Darrell Issa and Eric Cantor from Virginia, my state.
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<p />JAY: And Kyl.
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<p />WILKERSON: And Kyl. They live, breathe, drink, and sleep the military-industrial complex. They love war, they love this business, because it keeps them in power.
<p />
<p />JAY: Now, where were you--what was your thinking during Reagan's days? Here's the ultimate cold warrior, the ultimate deregulator, and started making major moves in terms of the US economy, weakening union rights, and other kinds of things. At the time of Reagan, do you share his vision of the world?
<p />
<p />WILKERSON: I think it's fair to say that--I voted for Ronald Reagan both times. I think it's fair to say that I shared his vision from the perspective of what I've just described about the old Republican Party--rugged individualism, achieving on your own hard work and your own merits and your own skill. It wasn't that I was a social--as Colin Powell once said, I guess I'm a Republican for national security policy, foreign policy, and I'm a Democrat for social policy. It wasn't that I wasn't from time to time a Democrat for social policy, that I didn't see that there were a need for government programs, there was a need for things to help poor people, to help people get a leg up, and so forth. I certainly did see that. But I saw Reagan as coming after the Vietnam malaise, if you will, and particularly after the immediate problem with the Carter presidency and the 444 days with our hostages in Iran and so forth and sort of resurrecting the country. It was only later when I began as an academic to study his presidential decision-making that I began to understand that he probably of all the presidents was the one who started the most accelerated movement away from what were the traditional political and cultural values of America, especially economically, but at the same time masquerading it as or covering it, camouflaging it as a return to the shining city on the hill and a return to previous values and so forth, which it was anything but. I mean, just eliminating the regulation that he eliminated, leading to what Clinton did in his eight years, where Bob Rubin was his most important player and his most powerful player, both as secretary of the Treasury and head of the National Economic Council, we essentially emasculated all the things that had been put in place prewar and postwar in order to protect us from what I call predatory capitalism or the kind of capitalism that runs amok and produces, as you and I were talking earlier, sociopaths. That's what we've got today, and we're in a mess because of it. So my view, obviously, of Ronald Reagan is quite different today as an academic studying his decision-making than it was at the time when I voted for him.
<p />
<p />JAY: Alright. Take us back. Ninety-three, Colin Powell retires and you go back to teaching. And bring us up from there to when you go back in again.
<p />
<p />WILKERSON: Well, I went to the Marine War College and taught there for four years. And we went through the Balkans, we went through Kosovo, we went through the end of Somalia, and so forth. So we got some real insights into--from serving marine and other officers coming into my seminars, the continued use by America of military force. We often commented that we were using the military, the Armed Forces more often in the post-Cold War than we did during the Cold War. And was that all because of the relaxation of there not being a superpower opponent out there? Or was it because the United States really was turning into a national security state that increasingly turned to the only element of its bureaucracy that it seemed to get to work for it, and that was the Armed Forces? I think it was a mixed answer at that time. It's later, when I joined Powell at the State Department and see Bush-Cheney up close, Rumsfeld up close, that I begin to understand that indeed we have turned into a national security state. We do function for that national security state, for its interest, and the old federal democratic republic is dying. What we have today is not what we thought we would have post-World War II as we tried to design an apparatus to deal with the immense power we'd accumulated as a result of World War II.
<p />
<p />JAY: But you don't come to these conclusions by the end of the '90s like the way you're articulating now.
<p />
<p />WILKERSON: No, this is a slow--I'm a slow learner. This is a slow-growth process. It takes a very vivid look inside the Cheney-Bush administration to understand that decision-making had taken on a new tone and tint, if you will, with the Bushes, a tone and tint that President Obama has to some extent erased. But the basic structure is still there and the basic reason for operating the way we do is still there. We're in four wars today. We're in Afghanistan, we're in Iraq, we're in the so-called global war on terror (and don't believe that's over; we're still fighting in certain countries), and we were in Libya. And my God, we could be in Syria tomorrow and Iran next week. This is crazy. This is what we do today. We do war. And increasingly we do it with less than 1 percent of the population, less than 1 percent. This is unconscionable. George Washington would not claim us today.
<p />
<p />JAY: Okay. In the next segment of the interview, let's talk about the day you get a call from Colin Powell. He says, I'm going to be the next secretary of state; come work for me. And please join us for the next segment of our interview on The Real News Network.
<p />
<p />End of Transcript
<p />
<p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. | Predatory Capitalism and War for Oil (4/8) | true | http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D6873 | 2011-06-03 | 4 |
<p>Gold prices suffered their largest decline in more than two months as investors reacted to a hawkish outlook from the Federal Reserve.</p>
<p>Gold for December delivery closed down 1.6% at $1,294.80 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the largest drop since July 3.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Fed left rates unchanged Wednesday and hinted it could raise rates again in 2017, even though persistently low inflation has given some officials second thoughts about a move by then. Officials also said they would begin shrinking the U.S. central bank's portfolio of bonds in October.</p>
<p>Expectations of a more hawkish Fed tend to weigh on gold, which struggles to compete with yield-bearing investments when rates rise.</p>
<p>The Fed's statement " temporarily takes the shine off gold," analysts at Standard Bank said in a note to clients. They believe gold prices can drift lower in the short term as investors continue adjusting their positions to account for a more hawkish-than-expected Fed.</p>
<p>Gold prices are up around 11% this year.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, prices for copper and other base metals took a hit after Standard &amp; Poor's became the last of three major ratings firms to downgrade China, the world's largest consumer of raw materials.</p>
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<p>In a statement Thursday, S&amp;P said the downgrade to A+ from AA- reflected its assessment that "a prolonged period of strong credit growth has increased China's economic and financial risks." Moody's Investors Service lowered its China rating in May, while Fitch Ratings did so in 2013.</p>
<p>The downgrade pushed some investors to lock in gains on industrial metals, after a sharp rally during the summer sent prices to multiyear highs.</p>
<p>Copper for December delivery closed down 1.2% at $2.9345 a pound. Nickel for delivery in three months was down 3.3% at $11,005 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange.</p>
<p>Write to Ira Iosebashvili at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>September 21, 2017 14:43 ET (18:43 GMT)</p> | Gold Has Biggest Drop in Two Months Due to Fed Effect | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/21/gold-has-biggest-drop-in-two-months-due-to-fed-effect.html | 2017-09-21 | 0 |
<p />
<p>Selling your home can significantly impact your bottom line. Depending on how long you’ve lived in your home and the nature of your move, your tax liability, as well as what you can deduct, changes.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>“For most people, a home is the single biggest investment they make so you want to maximize the tax benefits you get from that,” says Susan Howe, certified public accountant in Philadelphia.</p>
<p>You may receive a tax break on the gain from selling your principal residence depending on whether you meet the eligibility criteria. Experts suggest planning your home sale so you maximize your sale proceeds and gain, or the difference between your sales price and what you paid for your home.</p>
<p>“If you’re thinking of retiring and moving away to a different state, you want to plan when you sell your house so you have the money when you buy a house in the new location,” says Michael Eisenberg, a certified public accountant in Los Angeles. “You want to plan in advance the time of year when you sell your house as well.”</p>
<p>You may owe taxes or benefit from deductions, and experts provide answers to questions about these.</p>
<p>Is the gain from a home sale tax-free?</p>
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<p>Up to $500,000 for married couples with a jointly owned home and $250,000 for single people of the gain is tax-free on the federal level. “Once you go beyond the exception, you’ll be subject to capital gains,” says Lauren Foster, certified public accountant in Chicago.</p>
<p>The gain is tax-free in most states, too, but every state is different and experts advise checking your state’s rules.</p>
<p>Is there a residency requirement?</p>
<p>To benefit from the tax-free gain, you must live in your home for at least two of the five years leading up to the sale. “If you keep the house and rent it for more than three years, you’ll lose that tax-free benefit so planning for the sale is very important,” says Eisenberg. The process starts again once you buy a new home.</p>
<p>Are there exceptions?</p>
<p>“Everybody’s circumstance is different so you want to know how your personal situation will qualify or disqualify you from the main capital gain exemption,” says Foster.</p>
<p>Your eligibility criteria changes if you’re disabled, own more than one home, or your home was destroyed in a casualty, for example, or in the event of marriage, separation or death. If you have a disability, for example, the residency requirement becomes 12 instead of 24 months out of the five years.</p>
<p>“If you’re going to sell your home, you should read [Publication] 523, which is the IRS publication for selling your home,” suggests Foster. “It explains how you would or wouldn’t qualify.”</p>
<p>How is the gain calculated?</p>
<p>The gain or loss is your home’s sales price minus your basis. “When you’re selling your home, nothing is flat out deductible,” says Howe. “It all goes into the calculation of the gain or loss.”</p>
<p>Basis. What you paid for your home plus the cost of any renovations or repairs is your home’s basis.</p>
<p>“The general rule for adding something to the basis as opposed to a personal expense is that it needs to add to the value of the home or increase the life of the home,” says Howe. For example, planting a tree would add to the value of your home, but paying for general lawn maintenance doesn’t affect the basis. Painting could add to the basis since this increases the life of your home.</p>
<p>“Those improvements, depending on what they are, may disappear over time,” says Foster. “If you owned you home for 30 years and at some point, replaced your furnace, it loses its value.”</p>
<p>You also need accurate records to correctly calculate the basis, which may be a problem if you’ve lived in your home for years and weren’t organized, says Foster. “The onus is on the taxpayer.”</p>
<p>Although your gain won’t be tax free on second homes and investment properties, if you have a gain when you sell these, the basis is calculated similarly, advises Howe.</p>
<p>Sales proceeds. Your adjusted sales price is your sales price less everything listed on the settlement sheet, like the real estate commission, document fees, lawyer fees, appraisal fees and transfer tax.</p>
<p>Fixing-Up Expenses. “These are costs you have to fix your property to get it ready for selling,” says Howe. You may make minor repairs and paint with the goal of maximizing your sales proceeds, but these repairs must be made within 90 days of your home’s sale.“You may have $500 worth of expenses — those also are costs that you can deduct from the proceeds to lower the gain,” says Howe.</p>
<p>Can I deduct moving expenses?</p>
<p>“[Moving expenses] are the best deduction that you can get because they’re dollar for dollar off your income before your tax is calculated,” says Foster.</p>
<p>To be able to deduct moving expenses requires meeting the time test, distance test and employment test — you can only deduct moving expenses if you move for a new job. “If you move and it isn’t in connection of your employment, those expenses aren’t deductible,” says Howe. Your new home must also be more than 50 miles farther than your current workplace and current commute. The time test requires you work full-time at your new job for 39-weeks out of the first 12 months in your new location.</p>
<p>Any reimbursement from your employer reduces the amount of your deductible expenses. “Moving can be expensive and if you don’t have an employer that’s willing to pay for it, that’s a big chunk,” says Howe.</p> | Tax Benefit from Home Sale | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2015/03/03/tax-benefit-from-home-sale.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
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<p />
<p>Luis Quintana's resignation went into effect at 5 p.m. Monday.</p>
<p>A Jan. 11 Supreme Court order suspended Quintana immediately and without pay. A petition filed by the Judicial Standards Commission seeking the suspension explained that Quintana had been accused of, among other things, misappropriating a client's workers' compensation settlement funds and failing to make full restitution.</p>
<p>"The commission was conducting a formal investigation into the allegations and reached an agreement with the judge whereby he would resign in lieu of further proceedings before the commission or the Supreme Court," Judicial Standards Commission Executive Director Randall Roybal said. "The agreement now brings permanent resolution to this matter."</p>
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<p>Quintana was disbarred in July, more than a year and a half after the client had filed a complaint claiming that her $4,500 settlement check was never turned over to her.</p>
<p>Municipal judges are not required to be licensed attorneys and Quintana said in September that he did not plan to step down from his post.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court order bans Quintana from seeking future judgeships in the state.</p>
<p>"Respondent shall never again hold or exercise any judicial authority in the State of New Mexico, to include officiating at weddings," the court order states.</p>
<p>The order came weeks after the Judicial Standards Commission filed a motion Feb. 2 requesting that the court issue an order approving the stipulation to Quintana's permanent resignation from judicial office in lieu of further disciplinary proceedings.</p>
<p>Quintana had only weeks left in his four-year term as municipal judge, which is up for election March 1. He did not file for re-election.</p>
<p>During Quintana's suspension, the village's alternate judges filled in to ensure that the caseload wasn't backlogged.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Corrales municipal judge suspended from bench agrees to resign permanently | false | https://abqjournal.com/724419/corrales-municipal-judge-suspended-from-bench-agrees-to-resign-permanently.html | 2 |
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<p>An interview clip reveals the renowned linguist’s take on the popular Catholic Church leader regarding “liberation theology” in his native Argentina. Although the recently posted video is from a 2013 interview, as the pope continues to weigh in on world issues such as <a href="http://time.com/3752462/pope-francis-gay-transgender-prison/" type="external">LGBT rights</a> and the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/20/pope-francis-death-penalty-catholic-church-opposition" type="external">death penalty</a>, Chomsky’s comments provide a context for why many in Pope Francis’ home country are reluctant to open their arms to the pontiff.</p>
<p>—Posted by <a href="" type="internal">Natasha Hakimi Zapata</a></p> | Noam Chomsky on Pope Francis | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/noam-chomsky-on-pope-francis/ | 2015-03-21 | 4 |
<p>NEW YORK/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – United Airlines on Sunday resumed flights from Newark, New Jersey to New Delhi, India, according to the airline’s website, after suspending the service temporarily over concerns about poor air quality in the Indian capital.</p>
<p>UA Flight 82 had been canceled on Friday and Saturday, data from flight tracking website FlightRadar24 showed, while the airline’s website said it had waiver policies in place for passengers traveling to, from or through Delhi until Monday.</p>
<p>A United spokesman had earlier said that flights had been suspended temporarily over poor air quality concerns. He said the third-largest U.S carrier was monitoring advisories as the New Delhi region remains under a public health emergency, and was coordinating with respective government agencies.</p>
<p>Last week, New Delhi declared a pollution emergency as toxic smog hung over the city for days, with tourism operators reporting cancellation of bookings for the Christmas holidays.</p>
<p>United could not be reached later to confirm UA82 had resumed operations but the United website showed it had departed at 21:07 EST (02:07 GMT), as did the Newark airport’s website.</p>
<p>U.S. rivals Delta Air Lines Inc (NYSE:) and American Airlines Group Inc said they do not operate flights to New Delhi, while several Asian airlines contacted by Reuters said they had not canceled flights.</p>
<p>Verisk Maplecroft, a risk consultancy, says India has the worst air quality out of a list of 198 countries it measures, and that New Delhi ranks among the world’s top 10 most polluted cities with many urban areas around the capital also among those with the worst air quality.</p>
<p>“At the national level, India tops the index rankings (i.e. the country with the worst air quality), followed by Bangladesh and Thailand,” said Richard Hewston, Verisk Maplecroft’s global head of environment and climate change.</p>
<p>The company’s Air Quality Index assesses the atmospheric concentrations of fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers, known as PM 2.5.</p>
<p>A U.S. embassy measure of PM 2.5 showed a reading of 481 in New Delhi on Monday morning, local time. The outer limit of “good” air is 50.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | United resumes Newark-Delhi flights after halt due to poor air quality | false | https://newsline.com/united-resumes-newark-delhi-flights-after-halt-due-to-poor-air-quality/ | 2017-11-12 | 1 |
<p>For the first time in 16 years, Boston has a new mayor, former South Boston State Representative and City Councilor Ray Flynn, and he has become a cynosure of hope for many. Flynn's record, however, is not such as to warrant great expectations. During the busing crisis a decade ago, for example, then State Representative Flynn introduced a bill to abolish compulsory public education, hoping thus to relieve South Boston of the necessity of complying with a federal court order to integrate its high school. He also opposed a bill to create a black Senate district in Roxbury, was coauthor of a bill that would deny abortions to women on Medicaid, voted to repeal the state's racial imbalance law and voted against a program to bus inner-city black children to suburban high schools. And yet, this is the same man the liberal Boston Globe says "will prove a compelling and convincing advocate for racial tolerance in the white community."</p>
<p /> | Boston Elects an 'Urban Populist' Mayor | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/boston-elects-an-urban-populist-mayor | 2018-10-07 | 4 |
<p>Sarah Palin is facing several challenges these days, what with her pile of legal bills, self-reinvention campaign, the whole not-being-governor thing and her daughter Bristol’s pesky ex-boyfriend, Levi Johnston, who seems to want to bask in the limelight as long as possible. Most recently, Johnston, 19, made an appearance at Sunday’s Teen Choice Awards … as the date of comedian Kathy Griffin, 48.</p>
<p>MTV:</p>
<p>“She gave me a call and offered me a date, so I took it,” Johnston, 19, told MTV News, adding that the event was “funner” than ones he’s been to in the past. “I don’t need to meet anybody else — I’ve got her.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1617953/20090810/story.jhtml" type="external">Read more</a></p>
<p /> | Levi Johnston's Media Blitz Continues | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/levi-johnstons-media-blitz-continues/ | 2009-08-11 | 4 |
<p>A federal judge has struck down a suburban Atlanta school district's policy of placing disclaimers about evolution in science textbooks, saying the policy violates the Constitution's ban on government establishment of religion.</p>
<p>United States District Judge Clarence Cooper issued a ruling Jan. 13 ordering the immediate removal of textbook stickers that caution evolution is “a theory, not a fact.” The disclaimer is placed in public school science texts in Cobb County, Ga.</p>
<p>The Atlanta-based judge said the school board's policy ordering the stickers be placed in middle school and high school textbooks sends “a message that the school board agrees with the beliefs of Christian fundamentalists and creationists.”</p>
<p>The ruling came in response to a group of Cobb County parents who filed a lawsuit against the school board asking for a halt to the policy.</p>
<p>Cooper, applying a test prescribed by a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision to determine if a government action violates the First Amendment's establishment clause, said a reasonable observer would conclude that the stickers represented the school board's endorsement of the religious view that God created the world a few thousand years ago in six literal days.</p>
<p>Such a reasonable observer, Cooper said, “would interpret the sticker to convey a message of endorsement of religion. That is, the sticker sends a message to those who oppose evolution for religious reasons that they are favored members of the political community, while the sticker sends a message to those who believe in evolution that they are political outsiders.”</p>
<p>In a preface to the opinion, Cooper took pains to note that his findings concern only a narrow legal issue and was not a pronouncement on other issues surrounding the controversy over the origin of species.</p>
<p>“First, the court is not resolving in this case whether science and religion are mutually exclusive, and the court takes no position on the origin of the human species,” Cooper wrote.</p>
<p>“Second, the issue before the court is not whether it is constitutionally permissible for public school teachers to teach intelligent design, the theory that only an intelligent or supernatural cause could be responsible for life, living things, and the complexity of the universe,” he continued. “Third, this case does not resolve the ongoing debate regarding whether evolution is a fact or theory or whether evolution should be taught as fact or theory.”</p>
<p>The policy stems from a petition drive organized by Cobb County parent Marjorie Rogers in 2002. Rogers, who according to the opinion describes herself as a “six-day biblical creationist,” had complained about the lack of a disclaimer in the textbooks.</p>
<p>But, Cooper noted, the board didn't order disclaimers regarding other theories that have some religious implications. “However, there are other scientific topics taught that have religious implications, such as the theories of gravity, relativity, and Galilean heliocentrism,” he wrote.</p>
<p>Associated Baptist Press</p> | Evolution disclaimer found unconstitutional | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/evolutiondisclaimerfoundunconstitutional/ | 3 |
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<p>Global retail landlord Gazit-Globe Ltd. is planning to open a private U.S. subsidiary to invest in real estate in New York and other major metropolitan areas, the company said.</p>
<p>Gazit-Globe, which is based in Israel and has focused on supermarket-anchored shopping centers in urban markets, already has a presence in the U.S. and New York City area through its subsidiary, Equity One Inc., a shopping-center real-estate investment trust.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Earlier this year, Equity One merged with and into Regency Centers Corp., forming a company with 429 properties.</p>
<p>Urbanization has been an important theme for the company and its subsidiaries, which have properties in many European countries, Canada, the U.S., Israel and Brazil. Six years ago, Gazit-Globe decided to focus exclusively on shopping centers in densely populated urban hubs within economically stable countries, shedding properties that didn't fit the bill.</p>
<p>One example of that strategy was Equity One's 2011 acquisition of a Chelsea condominium that now houses upscale department store Barneys New York.</p>
<p>Gazit-Globe's new U.S. division is looking for potential investments in a range of property types, especially commercial and mixed-use properties, a company spokesman said. Despite the growth of e-commerce and store closures, retail real estate remains attractive, said Chairman Chaim Katzman.</p>
<p>"Brick-and-mortar [retail], where 80% to 90% of the sales take place, is still a powerful environment for brand building, cultivating loyalty and experiential retail," he said.</p>
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<p>Write to Keiko Morris at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>April 23, 2017 12:02 ET (16:02 GMT)</p> | Retail Landlord Gazit-Globe Sets Sights on New York | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/04/23/retail-landlord-gazit-globe-sets-sights-on-new-york0.html | 2017-04-23 | 0 |
<p>TOP STORIES</p>
<p>Value Meals Drive McDonald's Sales - 2nd Update</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>McDonald's Corp. gained sales again by luring core customers to its cheapest meals and drinks.</p>
<p>The burger giant attributed U.S. sales growth in the fourth quarter to a "McPick 2" meal deal and low-price beverages, as well as to higher-priced Buttermilk Crispy Tenders. The chain introduced a new nationwide value menu this month with items priced at $1, $2 and $3, hoping consumers drawn in for cheap sodas and burgers will also order more expensive items.</p>
<p>STORIES OF INTEREST</p>
<p>Food Union Hails USDA Move on Chicken Plants -- Market Talk</p>
<p>12:06 ET -- United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents meat plant employees, claims victory after the U.S. Department of Agriculture rejected a U.S. chicken industry petition to eliminate poultry processing line speed caps in meat plants. The organization and other consumer groups opposed the request, saying it could make food less safe and pose risks to meat plant workers, who already deal with higher rates of injury than other industries. The union says it remains "concerned" that the USDA plans to let some chicken plants apply to run processing lines at speeds up to 175 birds a minute, with most currently capped at 140. ([email protected]; @jacobbunge)</p>
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<p>USDA Pumps Brakes on Faster Chicken Processing -- Market Talk</p>
<p>12:01 ET -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture denies a request by the National Chicken Council to lift all limits on how fast poultry plants can process birds--but the agency says it does plan to let some plants speed up. USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service says the chicken industry group's Sept. 1 petition to eliminate speed limits in chicken plants didn't demonstrate that inspectors could effectively check each carcass for safety at speeds beyond 175 birds a minute--nearly three chickens a second. But FSIS said that the agency plans to lay out criteria for poultry plants, most of which are limited to processing 140 chickens each minute, to run at speeds up to 175, as long as they demonstrate how they will assess food safety and meet other criteria. ([email protected]; @jacobbunge)</p>
<p>Wheat Futures Pop on Plains Drought</p>
<p>A drought in the Great Plains sparked a rally in wheat prices on Tuesday.</p>
<p>The U.S. Department of Agriculture said that the condition of the hard red winter wheat crop, primarily grown in southern Plains states like Kansas, dropped sharply as farmers in the region struggle through dry conditions.</p>
<p>FUTURES MARKETS</p>
<p>Live Cattle Futures Ease</p>
<p>Cattle futures were mixed on Tuesday, easing off multimonth highs.</p>
<p>The futures market started the week by hitting a two-month high, after cash prices for physical cattle rose more than expected. But analysts say futures bumped up against selling pressure after falling from those highs, with chart signals suggesting to traders that prices were headed lower.</p>
<p>CASH MARKETS</p>
<p>Zumbrota, Minn Hog Steady At $44.00 - Jan 30</p>
<p>Barrow and gilt prices at the Zumbrota, Minn., livestock market today are steady at $44.00 a hundredweight. Sow prices are steady. Sows weighing 400-450 pounds are at $43.00, 450-500 pounds are $43.00 and those over 500 pounds are $45.00-$47.00.</p>
<p>The day's total run is estimated at 180 head.</p>
<p>Prices are provided by the Central Livestock Association.</p>
<p>Estimated U.S. Pork Packer Margin Index - Jan 30</p>
<p>This report reflects U.S. pork packer processing margins. The margin indices</p>
<p>are calculated using current cash hog or carcass values and wholesale pork</p>
<p>cutout values and may not reflect actual margins at the plants. These</p>
<p>estimates reflect the general health of the industry and are not meant to</p>
<p>be indicative of any particular company or plant.</p>
<p>Source: USDA, based on Wall Street Journal calculations</p>
<p>All figures are on a per-head basis.</p>
<p>Date Standard Margin Estimated margin</p>
<p>Operating Index at vertically -</p>
<p>integrated operations</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Jan 30 +$20.58 +$ 45.01</p>
<p>Jan 29 +$20.88 +$ 45.57</p>
<p>Jan 26 +$22.51 +$ 45.96</p>
<p>* Based on Iowa State University's latest estimated cost of production.</p>
<p>A positive number indicates a processing margin above the cost of</p>
<p>production of the animals.</p>
<p>Beef-O-Meter</p>
<p>This report compares the USDA's latest beef carcass composite</p>
<p>values as a percentage of their respective year-ago prices.</p>
<p>Beef</p>
<p>For Today Choice 108.5</p>
<p>(Percent of Year-Ago) Select 108.2</p>
<p>USDA Boxed Beef, Pork Reports</p>
<p>Wholesale choice-grade beef prices Tuesday rose 58 cents per hundred pounds, to $209.69, according to the USDA. Select-grade prices rose 24 cents per hundred pounds, to $204.37. The total load count was 109. Wholesale pork prices fell 26 cents, to $81.34 a hundred pounds, based on Omaha, Neb., price quotes.</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>January 30, 2018 17:31 ET (22:31 GMT)</p> | Livestock Highlights: Top Stories of the Day | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/04/25/livestock-highlights-top-stories-day.html | 2018-01-30 | 0 |
<p>The U.S. and South Korea have agreed to delay their regular joint military exercises during the upcoming Olympic games in the latter country, according to <a href="http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2018/01/04/0200000000AEN20180104013352315.html" type="external">Yonhap News</a>.</p>
<p>Yonhap News on Thursday reported that the tentative arrangement was reached following a telephone call between President Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.</p>
<p>Moon suggested the idea to Trump during the call, which comes before the 2018 Winter Olympics start in Pyeongchang, South Korea next month.</p>
<p>“I believe it would greatly help ensure the success of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games if you could express an intention to delay joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises during the Olympics in case the North does not make any more provocations,” Moon was quoted as telling Trump, according to Cheong Wa Dae, the South Korean president’s office.</p>
<p>“[Moon and Trump] agreed to de-conflict the Olympics and our military exercises so that the United States and the Republic of Korea forces can focus on ensuring the security of the Games,” the White House said in a separate statement Thursday.</p>
<p>America’s joint military exercises with South Korea are a recurring source of irritation for North Korea.</p>
<p>Trump and Moon spoke one day after the two Koreas reopened their dialogue channel at the joint security area of Panmunjom.</p>
<p>The channel’s reopening is a prelude to resurrecting government-level talks between North Korea and South Korea for the first time since December 2015.</p>
<p>North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday suggested his nation is willing to send athletes to the Olympics across its border in February.</p>
<p>Kim and Trump have repeatedly traded verbal barbs since last year over North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>North Korea has long viewed joint military exercises between South Korea and the U.S. as practice sessions for an invasion of its territory.</p>
<p>Pyongyang has often responded to the drills by conducting missile tests, a practice which stokes fear in many of North Korea’s neighbors.</p> | The US and South Korea agreed to delay joint military exercises during the Olympics | false | https://circa.com/story/2018/01/04/action-sports/winter-olympics-us-south-korea-agree-to-delay-joint-military-exercises-for-2018-games | 2018-01-04 | 1 |
<p>MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Like any good mayor, Rosalinda Macario Rivera always knows what’s happening in her town.</p>
<p>“I have to watch everyone at the same time,” she says, darting around her City Hall office and her town attending to issues both logistical and financial.</p>
<p>And if you work for her, don’t think for a minute the smile that covers half her face means you’re off the hook for not doing your job.</p>
<p>“I know not all of you are on break,” she said with a scolding finger in the direction of a few lollygagging employees.</p>
<p>Being in charge is a lot of responsibility, 11-year-old Rosalinda, a sixth-grader at Our Lady of Sorrows Elementary School, acknowledges.</p>
<p>But so is nearly every job in non-profit Junior Achievement’s simulated city, JA BizTown.</p>
<p>The five-hour simulation is the culmination of weeks of classroom work for students, who then take a field trip to Junior Achievement’s Downtown Memphis facility.</p>
<p>Life-size, fully equipped storefronts from 15 local businesses like FedEx, First Tennessee, and the Memphis Grizzlies line the sides of the main town center. City Hall occupies the back corner, complete with a voting booth and desk for the mayor.</p>
<p>Before they come, students draft a resume and apply for jobs, including the owner, and chief financial officer of each business, or run for an elected position. When they arrive, the execute their roles and business plans, selling their goods and services to classmates in the hopes of repaying the bank loan that allowed them to open up shop.</p>
<p>“It’s all about economic education, work readiness and financial literacy,” Junior Achievement President and CEO Larry Colbert said.</p>
<p>Program manager Alison Welch called it “being an adult for a day.”</p>
<p>“They experience careers they might not know of,” she said.</p>
<p>The program costs schools $30 per student. Scholarships and sponsorships offset some costs for schools with high populations of low-income students, but Colbert said it’s not enough.</p>
<p>“It’s the kids who need this program the most who are not able to participate,” he said.</p>
<p>About 40 schools visit the facility each year.</p>
<p>Volunteers, usually parents at the school, help students in each shop run their business. If a school doesn’t have enough parents able to help, Junior Achievement calls on one of its corporate partners.</p>
<p>Amy Grow, International Paper’s manager of community engagement and global citizenship, said her company always has volunteers at the ready, whether it’s helping at their own employer’s storefront or Chick-fil-A’s.</p>
<p>Within the International Paper store, students see the full life cycle of making and selling paper.</p>
<p>“It’s a dynamic space and we continually update it to be representative of International Paper today,” Grow said.</p>
<p>And in a city like Memphis, where workforce growth is always a goal, Grow said the BizTown experience always highlights the talent and energy already here.</p>
<p>“It’s never too early to harness that,” she said.</p>
<p>Our Lady of Sorrows parent Shannon Dennis was busy inside the Orgill Hardware booth helping her son, CEO Landon Brown, and CFO Dixie Crisel.</p>
<p>Dennis walked fourth-grader Dixie through her product list, deciding how much each item should cost and calculating the profits Orgill would make as a result.</p>
<p>“We’re actually trying to teach them adult fundamentals,” Dennis said.</p>
<p>An hour into the exercise, her son had gone to Baptist Healthcare’s booth to pick up insurance cards and gym memberships for his employees, and Dennis felt good about her job performance so far.</p>
<p>“I’m not fired yet,” she said.</p>
<p>Patrolling the town was sixth-grader Jonathan Vazquez, clutching a clipboard and dressed in a police uniform jacket that draped to his knees.</p>
<p>Jonathan had the important duty of making sure no one walked on the grass in the middle of the town — a specific violation of town code, and worthy of a ticket. And a ticket means a trip to court, pleading your case in front of a judge and paying a fine.</p>
<p>But Jonathan is a patient officer, and an understanding one. He took the initiative of instituting a policy of progressive reprimands.</p>
<p>“They might have forgot that you’re not supposed to step on the grass,” he said, justifying the warnings he gives before issuing a ticket.</p>
<p>“I’m pretty good with people,” Jonathan said. “I talk to people. I’m a pretty nice person.”</p>
<p>Back in her office after an excursion surveying her land, mayor Rosalinda was proud of her town.</p>
<p>“It’s full of happy workers,” she said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Commercial Appeal, <a href="http://www.commercialappeal.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.commercialappeal.com" type="external">http://www.commercialappeal.com</a></p>
<p>MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Like any good mayor, Rosalinda Macario Rivera always knows what’s happening in her town.</p>
<p>“I have to watch everyone at the same time,” she says, darting around her City Hall office and her town attending to issues both logistical and financial.</p>
<p>And if you work for her, don’t think for a minute the smile that covers half her face means you’re off the hook for not doing your job.</p>
<p>“I know not all of you are on break,” she said with a scolding finger in the direction of a few lollygagging employees.</p>
<p>Being in charge is a lot of responsibility, 11-year-old Rosalinda, a sixth-grader at Our Lady of Sorrows Elementary School, acknowledges.</p>
<p>But so is nearly every job in non-profit Junior Achievement’s simulated city, JA BizTown.</p>
<p>The five-hour simulation is the culmination of weeks of classroom work for students, who then take a field trip to Junior Achievement’s Downtown Memphis facility.</p>
<p>Life-size, fully equipped storefronts from 15 local businesses like FedEx, First Tennessee, and the Memphis Grizzlies line the sides of the main town center. City Hall occupies the back corner, complete with a voting booth and desk for the mayor.</p>
<p>Before they come, students draft a resume and apply for jobs, including the owner, and chief financial officer of each business, or run for an elected position. When they arrive, the execute their roles and business plans, selling their goods and services to classmates in the hopes of repaying the bank loan that allowed them to open up shop.</p>
<p>“It’s all about economic education, work readiness and financial literacy,” Junior Achievement President and CEO Larry Colbert said.</p>
<p>Program manager Alison Welch called it “being an adult for a day.”</p>
<p>“They experience careers they might not know of,” she said.</p>
<p>The program costs schools $30 per student. Scholarships and sponsorships offset some costs for schools with high populations of low-income students, but Colbert said it’s not enough.</p>
<p>“It’s the kids who need this program the most who are not able to participate,” he said.</p>
<p>About 40 schools visit the facility each year.</p>
<p>Volunteers, usually parents at the school, help students in each shop run their business. If a school doesn’t have enough parents able to help, Junior Achievement calls on one of its corporate partners.</p>
<p>Amy Grow, International Paper’s manager of community engagement and global citizenship, said her company always has volunteers at the ready, whether it’s helping at their own employer’s storefront or Chick-fil-A’s.</p>
<p>Within the International Paper store, students see the full life cycle of making and selling paper.</p>
<p>“It’s a dynamic space and we continually update it to be representative of International Paper today,” Grow said.</p>
<p>And in a city like Memphis, where workforce growth is always a goal, Grow said the BizTown experience always highlights the talent and energy already here.</p>
<p>“It’s never too early to harness that,” she said.</p>
<p>Our Lady of Sorrows parent Shannon Dennis was busy inside the Orgill Hardware booth helping her son, CEO Landon Brown, and CFO Dixie Crisel.</p>
<p>Dennis walked fourth-grader Dixie through her product list, deciding how much each item should cost and calculating the profits Orgill would make as a result.</p>
<p>“We’re actually trying to teach them adult fundamentals,” Dennis said.</p>
<p>An hour into the exercise, her son had gone to Baptist Healthcare’s booth to pick up insurance cards and gym memberships for his employees, and Dennis felt good about her job performance so far.</p>
<p>“I’m not fired yet,” she said.</p>
<p>Patrolling the town was sixth-grader Jonathan Vazquez, clutching a clipboard and dressed in a police uniform jacket that draped to his knees.</p>
<p>Jonathan had the important duty of making sure no one walked on the grass in the middle of the town — a specific violation of town code, and worthy of a ticket. And a ticket means a trip to court, pleading your case in front of a judge and paying a fine.</p>
<p>But Jonathan is a patient officer, and an understanding one. He took the initiative of instituting a policy of progressive reprimands.</p>
<p>“They might have forgot that you’re not supposed to step on the grass,” he said, justifying the warnings he gives before issuing a ticket.</p>
<p>“I’m pretty good with people,” Jonathan said. “I talk to people. I’m a pretty nice person.”</p>
<p>Back in her office after an excursion surveying her land, mayor Rosalinda was proud of her town.</p>
<p>“It’s full of happy workers,” she said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Commercial Appeal, <a href="http://www.commercialappeal.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.commercialappeal.com" type="external">http://www.commercialappeal.com</a></p> | Non-profit’s simulated town hands kids the keys to a city | false | https://apnews.com/abe497370e584496a550e9355005823e | 2017-12-30 | 2 |
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<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Shares of Innoviva (NASDAQ: INVA), a biotechnology royalty company that develops respiratory therapeutics and is perhaps best known as GlaxoSmithKline's (NYSE: GSK) development partner for its multiple next-generation COPD and asthma products, fell as much as 11% on Thursday. The reason behind Innoviva's bad day can be traced to a proxy battle with activist hedge fund Sarissa Capital Management over seats on its board.</p>
<p>According to a press release from Sarissa Capital on Wednesday evening (since Innoviva has thus far declined to comment), Innoviva had agreed to settle its proxy fight by allowing Sarissa two board seats. However, according to reports, Innoviva continued to lobby for votes from shareholders without disclosing the fact that a deal had been reached with Sarissa Capital. Sarissa sent over the signed paperwork to Innoviva on Wednesday afternoon agreeing to the settlement but was told by Innoviva that it would renege on its offer to place two of Sarissa's choices on its board. When the smoke cleared, Innoviva had narrowly garnered enough votes to keep its own members on the board.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
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<p>Sarissa Capital Management, which owns 2.72% of Innoviva's outstanding shares, has been critical of the company's executive compensation. As GlaxoSmithKline's partner for Breo Ellipta, Anoro Ellipta, Incruse, and Arnuity, Innoviva has the sole task of managing the royalties it receives from Glaxo. Sarissa alleges that high executive-compensation levels are reducing its profitability and hampering returns for shareholders. Thus, Sarissa's failure to get any board seats is being construed as bad news for shareholders that any meaningful cost-cutting will happen in the near future.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, GlaxoSmithKline, which has a 29.3% stake in Innoviva, opposed Sarissa's attempts to get their members on Innoviva's board.</p>
<p>While today's made-for-TV drama caused Innoviva's stock to tumble 10%, and shareholders are clearly not pleased with having an activist investor lose out on board seats, this probably isn't a long-term issue for the company. Innoviva has pledged to take a closer look at its executive compensation, and with the matter now in the public light, it's unlikely that it'll be swept under the rug.</p>
<p>What's far more important for Innoviva shareholders at this point is the continued growth of it and Glaxo's respiratory products. Though these next-generation products offer new, long-lasting solutions to patients, infiltrating the market is taking more time than expected. Physicians and consumers have been using mature and effective therapies for years, and educating them that new choices are available is a tedious process. It also has taken time for GlaxoSmithKline to gain adequate insurer coverage on its new therapies.</p>
<p>Patient investors will probably be well rewarded, with Wall Street projecting $2.33 in full-year EPS by 2019, but we'll also need to see Innoviva making a serious effort to cut costs and pay down its existing debt.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Innoviva Common StockWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of April 3, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFUltraLong/info.aspx" type="external">Sean Williams Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Here's Why Innoviva Inc. Lost 10% Today | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/20/here-why-innoviva-inc-lost-10-today.html | 2017-04-20 | 0 |
<p>TThis year, 2011, marks the beginning of baby boomers receiving Social Security checks and they should be alerted of past perennial Republican attempts to partially privatize the program.</p>
<p>Heaven forbid that plans prevail to invest a certain amount of those checks in the stock market, as many pension plans have taken a bath in the current meltdown. While there have been past GOP plans to partially privatize the program, fortunately they have all failed. So far the Social Security trust fund remains tempting for the gamblers and other risk takers on the market.</p>
<p>As a Detroiter, I remember the Great Depression and the stock market crash of 1929 when some of the plutocrats on Wall Street jumped out of windows as a result of their great losses. Those were bleak days when some of the jobless workers also lost hope in the bitterly cold winter as they stood in long lines at the Ford Motor Company, many without overcoats, hoping for a job on the auto assembly lines.</p>
<p>The movements for socialism and communism were given some credence as a way out of their misery.</p>
<p>The difference between the Great Depression and the current Great Recession is “spirit” – during the 1930s Americans cared about each other. They flocked to Washington – teachers, social workers, doctors and nurses – selflessly offering their services.</p>
<p>Next door to us, a family with six children lived on a $13 (equivalent to $163 today) per week welfare check. Somehow they survived and kept their faith. Along came FDR who told the stricken people, “You have nothing to fear but fear itself.” The power of hope restored confidence in the country and in its leadership.</p>
<p>We were happy to emerge from the depression, but many Americans at the time believed we rebounded economically because of the looming clouds of World War II. The world by this time was swept up by the “isms.” The U.S. was divided between the interventionists in World War II (on the side of the allies) and the non-interventionists – they were the isolationists – who disappeared at the start of the war on Dec. 7, 1941.</p>
<p>President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law in 1935 to cover the elderly, and eventually through amendments, widows, orphans and the disabled. Payments are split 50-50 by the employer and the worker. What has been missing in our current society is compassion and creativeness. Think of the bargains the President had to strike to renew the biggest (Bush) tax cut to the richest Americans, this in exchange for an extension of unemployment compensation for the millions who lost their jobs – some deal! That’s the compassion part.</p>
<p>As for creativeness, where are the ideas to put people back to work? For Roosevelt, the caring advisors produced a bundle of alphabet agencies. Not the least was the Works Progress Administration which put people to work on rebuilding the broken infrastructure. The program put men on the streets – and even artists painting the walls of great buildings in the Nation’s Capital. Ideas and ideals along with great imagination brought our country back. Where are the caring creators now?</p>
<p>Many believe it was World War II and the military needs that brought us back – but recovery was well underway by 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.</p>
<p>According to the 2010 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds presented to Congress, 53 million Americans received benefits during 2009, including 36 million retired workers and dependents of retired workers, 6 million survivors of deceased workers, and 10 million disabled workers. During that same year, an estimated 156 million people paid social security taxes through payroll. Total expenditures in 2009 were $686 billion, while revenue totaled $807 billion – including $689 in tax revenue and $118 billion in interest earnings.</p>
<p>Many Republicans believe the Social Security Trust should be at least partly privatized – Bush failed to achieve this in 2005. There is fear as President Obama has claimed that the new Republican leadership will push again to partially privatize social security funds. With the ups and downs of the stock market – and considering the pension plans that were privatized went down the drain – who would lead us down that path again?</p>
<p>Let’s not give the newly empowered Republicans – and their blindsided tea party allies – the ability to wipe out or even mitigate the only economic security deprived Americans can count on. Where is their heart?</p>
<p>This column was originally published by the <a href="http://www.fcnp.com/" type="external">Falls Church News Press</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | Heartless | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/01/07/heartless/ | 2011-01-07 | 4 |
<p>RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Richmond has a weekend full of pomp and circumstance ahead as Gov. Terry McAuliffe hands over the reins to fellow Democrat Ralph Northam.</p>
<p>Northam will be sworn as the 73rd governor of the Commonwealth during an outdoor ceremony at Capitol Square on Saturday. Other celebratory events are planned Friday through Sunday.</p>
<p>What to expect:</p>
<p>THE SWEARING-IN</p>
<p>Northam, a pediatric neurologist and former Army doctor who’s served as Virginia’s lieutenant governor for the past four years, will take the oath of office during a ceremony that starts at noon Saturday.</p>
<p>Retired Judge Glen Tyler, a Northam family friend, will administer the oath, as he did at Northam’s swearing-in as lieutenant governor in 2014.</p>
<p>Over 4,000 people are expected in the grandstands outside the Capitol for the ceremony.</p>
<p>The event is free and open to the public, but the ticketing process has closed. WCVE will be airing it on TV and livestreaming it online.</p>
<p>Attorney General Mark Herring and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax also will take their oaths on Saturday. They and Northam took part in a walkthrough on Friday with General Assembly staff.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>OTHER FANFARE</p>
<p>On Friday evening, there’s a ticketed reception taking place at three downtown restaurants.</p>
<p>Saturday will kick off with a prayer breakfast at historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.</p>
<p>Immediately after the swearing-in ceremony, a parade led by Virginia National Guard soldiers and airmen will circle around Capitol Square.</p>
<p>A total of 26 groups are taking part, including a southwest Virginia fiddlers group, James Madison University’s marching band, the Virginia Military Institute Corps of Cadets, and even Deborah Pratt, who has represented the United States four times in the Oyster Shucking World Championships, according to a news release.</p>
<p>An open house will then take place at the Executive Mansion from 2 to 4 p.m., followed by a ticketed black-tie inaugural ball later in the evening at Main Street Station, the train depot that’s one of Richmond’s most visible landmarks.</p>
<p>On Sunday, first lady Pam Northam will host a brunch at The Jefferson Hotel, where she will “offer a glimpse of her work over the next four years,” according to Northam’s inaugural committee.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>WHO’S PAYING FOR THIS?</p>
<p>Northam called for sweeping campaign finance reforms during his campaign — including a ban on donations from corporations and businesses, something he reiterated his support for at a news conference this week.</p>
<p>But when it comes to fundraising for the inaugural festivities, he has accepted tens of thousands of dollars from corporations and special interest groups with business before the state.</p>
<p>His inaugural committee has reported raising over $1.9 million as of Friday, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan money-in-politics tracker.</p>
<p>That includes a $50,000 donation from Dominion Energy. Other donors include EQT Corp., a partner in the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline, which chipped in $25,000. Atlanta-based Southern Company Gas, one of Dominion’s partners in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, also gave $25,000.</p>
<p>The inaugural committee is a 501c4, meaning that the funds raised cannot be used for political purposes, spokeswoman Christina Freundlich said.</p>
<p>“The generosity of Virginian people and businesses allows the Governor-elect to focus on his top priority - preparing to begin his administration on January 13,” she said in an emailed statement.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>WHAT’S NEXT?</p>
<p>Northam has promised to both champion progressive causes and find bipartisan agreement with the General Assembly, where Republicans control both chambers by thin margins.</p>
<p>In a joint press conference with McAuliffe earlier this week, he outlined his priorities for this legislation session, including Medicaid expansion, the implementation of universal background checks for gun buyers, expanding absentee voting and banning the use of campaign funds for personal use.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Alan Suderman and photographer Steve Helber contributed to this report.</p>
<p>RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Richmond has a weekend full of pomp and circumstance ahead as Gov. Terry McAuliffe hands over the reins to fellow Democrat Ralph Northam.</p>
<p>Northam will be sworn as the 73rd governor of the Commonwealth during an outdoor ceremony at Capitol Square on Saturday. Other celebratory events are planned Friday through Sunday.</p>
<p>What to expect:</p>
<p>THE SWEARING-IN</p>
<p>Northam, a pediatric neurologist and former Army doctor who’s served as Virginia’s lieutenant governor for the past four years, will take the oath of office during a ceremony that starts at noon Saturday.</p>
<p>Retired Judge Glen Tyler, a Northam family friend, will administer the oath, as he did at Northam’s swearing-in as lieutenant governor in 2014.</p>
<p>Over 4,000 people are expected in the grandstands outside the Capitol for the ceremony.</p>
<p>The event is free and open to the public, but the ticketing process has closed. WCVE will be airing it on TV and livestreaming it online.</p>
<p>Attorney General Mark Herring and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax also will take their oaths on Saturday. They and Northam took part in a walkthrough on Friday with General Assembly staff.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>OTHER FANFARE</p>
<p>On Friday evening, there’s a ticketed reception taking place at three downtown restaurants.</p>
<p>Saturday will kick off with a prayer breakfast at historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.</p>
<p>Immediately after the swearing-in ceremony, a parade led by Virginia National Guard soldiers and airmen will circle around Capitol Square.</p>
<p>A total of 26 groups are taking part, including a southwest Virginia fiddlers group, James Madison University’s marching band, the Virginia Military Institute Corps of Cadets, and even Deborah Pratt, who has represented the United States four times in the Oyster Shucking World Championships, according to a news release.</p>
<p>An open house will then take place at the Executive Mansion from 2 to 4 p.m., followed by a ticketed black-tie inaugural ball later in the evening at Main Street Station, the train depot that’s one of Richmond’s most visible landmarks.</p>
<p>On Sunday, first lady Pam Northam will host a brunch at The Jefferson Hotel, where she will “offer a glimpse of her work over the next four years,” according to Northam’s inaugural committee.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>WHO’S PAYING FOR THIS?</p>
<p>Northam called for sweeping campaign finance reforms during his campaign — including a ban on donations from corporations and businesses, something he reiterated his support for at a news conference this week.</p>
<p>But when it comes to fundraising for the inaugural festivities, he has accepted tens of thousands of dollars from corporations and special interest groups with business before the state.</p>
<p>His inaugural committee has reported raising over $1.9 million as of Friday, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan money-in-politics tracker.</p>
<p>That includes a $50,000 donation from Dominion Energy. Other donors include EQT Corp., a partner in the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline, which chipped in $25,000. Atlanta-based Southern Company Gas, one of Dominion’s partners in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, also gave $25,000.</p>
<p>The inaugural committee is a 501c4, meaning that the funds raised cannot be used for political purposes, spokeswoman Christina Freundlich said.</p>
<p>“The generosity of Virginian people and businesses allows the Governor-elect to focus on his top priority - preparing to begin his administration on January 13,” she said in an emailed statement.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>WHAT’S NEXT?</p>
<p>Northam has promised to both champion progressive causes and find bipartisan agreement with the General Assembly, where Republicans control both chambers by thin margins.</p>
<p>In a joint press conference with McAuliffe earlier this week, he outlined his priorities for this legislation session, including Medicaid expansion, the implementation of universal background checks for gun buyers, expanding absentee voting and banning the use of campaign funds for personal use.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Alan Suderman and photographer Steve Helber contributed to this report.</p> | What to expect at governor’s inauguration this weekend | false | https://apnews.com/7b2149fd8aef4fffa1fbf133ab2abf15 | 2018-01-12 | 2 |
<p>Dramatic dash cam video shows deputies stopping a 13-year-old armed carjacking suspect during a brief chase in North Florida. The incident happened Tuesday afternoon in Lake City.</p>
<p>The Columbia County Sheriff's Office took a 911 call from a woman who said a boy just stole her car. She told investigators the boy came over to her house and asked for a ride. She said no and the boy left. He came back minutes later with a gun and demanded the keys to her car. She gave up the keys and he hopped into the driver's seat. He couldn't start the car. The woman said she got into the car to take the keys away when the boy managed to get the engine going. She said he threatened to kill her if she got out of the car. She managed to call 911 from the front seat of the car.</p>
<p>Deputies spotted the car and tried to pull it over but the boy kept going. The video shows a deputy giving a strong nudge to the suspect's car. It's known as a PIT maneuver. The car spun out across the median and crashed on the other side of the street. Deputies rushed over with their guns drawn to arrest the young suspect, identified as 13-year-old Devon Hunter Welch.</p>
<p>The 67-year-old carjacking victim appeared shaken as a deputy took her out of the car. She told deputies she didn't know the boy.</p>
<p>Welch is being charged with armed burglary, carjacking, abduction and driving without a license.</p>
<p>Our affiliate <a href="http://cbs12.com/news/local/video-13-year-old-carjacking-suspect-arrested-after-chase" type="external">CBS12</a> in West Palm Beach, Florida contributed to this story.</p> | Dash cam shows deputies stopping a 13-year-old carjacker who held an older woman hostage in the car | false | https://circa.com/story/2017/11/03/nation/dash-cam-shows-deputies-stopping-a-13-year-old-carjacker-who-held-an-older-woman-hostage-in-the-car | 2017-11-03 | 1 |
<p>“People who engage in acts of terrorism … have nothing to do with Islam,” said Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif during a Sunday-aired interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on GPS.</p>
<p>Zarif would not describe the Islamic State (ISIS) as connected to Islam or Muslims:</p>
<p>"We know where the terrorists are coming from. We know those who attacked the World Trade Center were citizens of which countries in the region — I can tell you that none of them came from Iran. None of the people who engaged in acts of terrorism since 2001 came from Iran; most of them came from U.S. allies.</p>
<p>I believe the ideology that is being spread by, unfortunately by our neighbors in Saudi Arabia — througout the world is responsible for hatred, for extremism, and for fanaticism that is bring such a dark page of people who having nothing to do with Islam into our region, and even beyond our region. Look at ISIS, look at al-Nusra, look at al-Qaeda, look at other terrorist organizations — none of them have anything to do with Iran. All of them receive not only their ideology but their financial assistance, their weapons, their arms from others who call themselves U.S. allies."</p>
<p>Watch Zarif's comments below.</p>
<p>Zakaria did not challenge Zarif's claims. He neglected to note the Iranian government's material and political support for Islamic terrorism across the Middle East, North Africa and beyond; no mention was made of Hezbollah (who Zakaria was previously extolled), Hamas, or governments in failed Muslim-majority states such as Syria.</p>
<p>CNN's chyrons were sterile, a departure from the network's approach to President Donald Trump and his administration:</p>
<p />
<p>Zakaria presents himself as a politically objective and non-partisan news media figure. CNN likewise markets itself as politically objective and non-partisan in its conduct, billing itself as “The Most Trusted Name In News.”</p>
<p>Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p> | Iran's FM: ISIS 'Has Nothing To Do With Islam' | true | https://dailywire.com/news/18635/irans-fm-isis-has-nothing-do-islam-robert-kraychik | 2017-07-16 | 0 |
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