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<p>Ted Cruz has one friend in politics and he isn’t a politician. Cruz has managed to alienate the entire Republican party with his tantrums on the Senate floor, and with declarations that he and he alone is qualified to hear the word of God and govern by it. Cruz is a Tea Party extremist whose radical views include shutting down the government when he doesn’t get his way.</p>
<p>Cruz’s one friend, therefore, has been Donald Trump. Where every other candidate has tried attacking Trump and failed, losing points in the polls to the idiots the Republican party has attracted as its new base, Cruz has done the opposite. He focuses on what the two have in common: Hate. He will build that wall if he’s elected, and he’ll look to Donald Trump to get it done.</p>
<p>Cruz isn’t so forthcoming with his support for The Donald in private, however. At a recent fundraiser behind closed doors, Cruz questioned whether Trump has the “judgement” to be president. He stacked Trump and Ben Carson together and said that while he likes them both, he doesn’t believe they have what it takes:</p>
<p>“You look at Paris, you look at San Bernardino, it’s given a seriousness to this race, that people are looking for: Who is prepared to be a commander in chief? Who understands the threats we face?</p>
<p>“Who am I comfortable having their finger on the button? Now that’s a question of strength, but it’s also a question of judgment. And I think that is a question that is a challenging question for both of them.”</p>
<p>It may seem like a subtle enough statement from a presidential candidate, but where Donald Trump is concerned, any negative comment would mean all-out war. That is obviously why Cruz hasn’t made statements like that anywhere but behind closed doors. Unfortunately, he learned nothing from Mitt Romney’s 47 percent guffaw. Somebody recorded the remarks and leaked them:</p>
<p />
<p>Trump wasn’t pleased when he found out his buddy Ted questions his “judgement.” He took to Twitter (of course) to bash Cruz publicly:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Cruz responded swiftly…and cowardly:</p>
<p />
<p>Trump retweeted his little victory and went about his business, leaving Cruz looking like yet another Trump lackey. It’s OK, Cruz supporters. Trump says there’s definitely a job for Ted in the Trump administration.</p>
<p>Featured images via&#160; <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/" type="external">Gage Skidmore</a></p> | LEAKED: Audio Of Ted Cruz Bashing Trump Sends The Donald Into Another Twitter Rage (AUDIO/TWEETS) | true | http://addictinginfo.org/2015/12/12/leaked-audio-of-ted-cruz-bashing-trump-sends-the-donald-into-another-twitter-rage-audiotweets/ | 2015-12-12 | 4 |
<p>When Donald Trump spoke at the rally in Pennsylvania for some GOP candidate whose name he barely mentioned, Trump naturally launched into a medley of his campaign’s greatest hits. One of those most clamored for by his audience of fanatics was that old familiar refrain “Build the Wall.” And Trump didn’t disappoint his fans as he once again promised that the wall would be built “100 percent.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NewsCorpse/posts/2071203169561134" type="external" /></p>
<p>The following day Fox News jumped on this critical breaking story with a report on Fox and Friends First. Host Heather Childers interviewed the Trump sycophant head of the so-called National Border Patrol Council, Brandon Judd. In Childers introduction of Judd she summarized what would be the theme of the whole segment:</p>
<p>“A brand new report says the wall could pay for itself by eliminating the need for welfare and other taxpayer funded benefits given to illegal immigrants.”</p>
<p>Wow, really? Actually, no. The report cited by Childers was published by the ultra-conservative assembly of xenophobes known as the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). It concluded that undocumented immigrants in the United States were consuming sixty-four billion dollars in federal benefits from welfare, public education and refundable tax credits. Outside of education, Childers and CIS were simply making most of that up. The immigrants in question are not eligible for welfare of any type, including ObamaCare. And how can they receive refundable tax credits if they aren’t filing tax returns? The truth is that <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-01/study-undocumented-immigrants-pay-billions-in-taxes" type="external">immigrants provide far more financial benefits</a> to the the country than anything they consume.</p>
<p>Through a flurry of leading questions, Judd repeated the findings from the same CIS study. And he went on to say that the wall “will cut down on what the taxpayer burden will be, which will then go straight into funding the wall.” That’s an impressively delusional statement. Let’s try to follow his logic. What Judd is saying that taxpayers would be relieved from having to pay welfare benefits for illegal immigrants (we’ll set aside for the moment that there are no such benefits). But that tax revenues would instead be shifted to paying for Trump’s wall. So contrary to Judd’s comment, there is no reduction in the burden of the taxpayers at all.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Judd is conceding that it’s the taxpayers who are paying for the wall. So the lede in this story where Childers claimed that the wall would pay for itself was a lie. It would be paid for by the aforementioned taxpayers. And in that case, it would not be paid for by Mexico, as promised by the President. Judd called this “a brilliant way to go about it. And that’s the business strategy that President Trump brings to the American people.”</p>
<p>It’s rather ludicrous to characterize this idiocy as “brilliant.” But it’s pretty accurate to say that it’s characteristic of Trump’s business strategy. As a failed businessman who has declared bankruptcy at least six times, Trump can hardly qualify as a business expert. He is a practitioner if <a href="http://amzn.to/2FCsVDM" type="external">“Disaster Capitalism”</a> (hat tip: Naomi Klein), who exploits his failures for his own gain at the expense of everyone he does business with. And as president, that means the American people are the chumps in his greedy game. And Fox News is his PR division that airs garbage like this interview in order to help Trump fleece the nation.</p>
<p>How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QSSMOES/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00QSSMOES&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=newscorpsecom-20&amp;linkId=TLI6JC2OYE22MUTS" type="external">Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.</a> Available now at Amazon.</p>
<p>Watch the latest video at &lt;a href="//video.foxnews.com"&gt;video.foxnews.com&lt;/a&gt;</p> | Fox News Lies: Trump’s Border Wall Can Be Paid for By Cutting Welfare – Still Not By Mexico | true | http://newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p%3D35531 | 4 |
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<p><a href="" type="internal" />Thursday 7:00 PM Central</p>
<p>Call and listen at 646-652-2345</p>
<p>Listen Live &amp; Podcast <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/egbertowillies/2013/05/31/move-to-amend-reports-wlaura-bonham-egberto-willies" type="external">Here</a>.</p>
<p>Hosted by National Leadership Team members Laura Bonham and Egberto Willies, will air every Thursday at 8:00 PM ET, 5:00 PM PT.</p>
<p>The show will feature guests who specialize in movement building, amending the Constitution, grassroots organizing, and issues relating to corporate rule and participatory democracy.</p>
<p>Each show provides opportunity for call-in questions and comments from the listening audience by dialing 646-652-2345 (long distance charges may apply).</p>
<p>Today’s Show: ★May 30th:</p>
<p>Jan Edwards lives in the town of Point Arena, California on the Mendocino Coast, where in 2000 she led the effort to pass the first resolution in the nation calling for an End to Corporate Personhood. In the following years she traveled the US with a talk titled Abolish Corporate Personhood sponsored by Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the Alliance for Democracy. She developed the Timeline of Personhood Rights and Powers, designed a Corporate Person Costume, wrote skits and songs and produced a popular tee shirt that read: "Slavery is the Legal Fiction that a Person is Property. Corporate Personhood is the Legal Fiction that Property is a Person." Jan is an initial signatory to Move to Amend.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> LIKE My <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/EgbertoWilliescom/181893712536" type="external">Facebook Page</a> – Visit My Blog: <a href="http://www.EgbertoWillies.com" type="external">EgbertoWillies.com</a></p> | Radio: Move to Amend Reports w/Laura Bonham & Egberto Willies – Thurs 7:00 PM | true | http://egbertowillies.com/2013/05/29/radio-move-to-amend-reports-wlaura-bonham-egberto-willies-thurs-700-pm-16/?fb_source%3Dpubv1 | 2013-05-29 | 4 |
<p>Many of those intrepid members of the cast of Hamilton who braved the terrifying prospect of a Donald Trump presidency to deliver a lecture to Vice President-elect Mike Pence about how he should govern have eschewed voting for years.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://radaronline.com/celebrity-news/mike-pence-hamilton-scandal-cast-voting-records/" type="external">Radar Online</a>, here’s a brief list of some of the self-important busybodies who felt free to teach Mike Pence how to govern but haven’t even bothered to vote in previous years.</p>
<p>Javier Munoz, who was playing Alexander Hamilton, registered to vote in 2006 and voted in the mid-term elections, but records since 2006 have no record of him voting;</p>
<p>Seth Stewart, playing Thomas Jefferson, voted in 2008, but did not vote in 2012;</p>
<p>Okieriete “Oak” Onaodowan, who plays James Madison and Hercules Mulligan, registered to vote in 2005 but there is no record of him voting since.</p>
<p>Anthony Ramos Martinez, playing Hamilton’s eldest son Philip, registered to vote in 2012, but hasn’t voted since then.</p>
<p>The brouhaha started when Brandon Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr, read the message to Pence after the Friday performance. The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/us/mike-pence-hamilton.html" type="external">reported</a> that the message was written by show creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, director Thomas Kail and lead producer, Jeffrey Seller. It read:</p>
<p>We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights. We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.</p>
<p>Seller rationalized the cast’s actions after the message was delivered, moaning that they could barely perform after the election results were announced:</p>
<p>We had to ask ourselves, how do we cope with this? Our cast could barely go on stage the day after the election. The election was painful and crushing to all of us here. We all struggled with what was the appropriate and respectful and proper response. We are honored that Mr. Pence attended the show, and we had to use this opportunity to express our feelings.</p>
<p>The crowd both cheered and booed Pence when he entered. Donald Trump responded to the cast’s actions by tweeting:</p>
<p>Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing.This should not happen!</p>
<p>Dixon tweeted back:</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump" type="external">@realDonaldTrump</a> conversation is not harassment sir. And I appreciate <a href="https://twitter.com/mike_pence" type="external">@mike_pence</a> for stopping to listen.</p>
<p>Trump demanded an apology from the cast on Twitter; Dixon <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hamilton-actor-apologize-mike-pence-2016-11" type="external">told</a>CBS This Morning on Monday, "There's nothing to apologize for."</p> | Those Obnoxious Hamilton Stars? Some Haven't Voted For Years. | true | https://dailywire.com/news/10997/those-obnoxious-hamilton-stars-some-havent-voted-hank-berrien | 2016-11-22 | 0 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Bernalillo County Fire Chief Chris Celaya will resign at the end of September after a little more than two years.</p>
<p>Celaya has held the position since May 4, 2015.</p>
<p>Celaya plans on returning to El Paso, Texas, to be closer to family, according to a county news release.</p>
<p>He previously worked as a deputy fire chief there.</p>
<p>“The county has a highly regarded fire department and Chief Celaya has contributed to the success of the department,” County Manager Julie Morgas Baca said. “We thank him for his dedicated service.”</p>
<p>The county counted improved communications, completion of a strategic plan, improvement of the county’s Insurance Service Office rating and a continued partnership with the American Red Cross among Celaya’s achievements during his time as chief.</p>
<p>Deputy County Manager for Health and Public Safety Greg Perez will serve as interim chief while the county searches for a permanent replacement.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Bernalillo County fire chief to resign | false | https://abqjournal.com/1050530/bernalillo-county-fire-chief-to-resign.html | 2 |
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<p>It is not just the United States that wants the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, but the world, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Monday.</p>
<p>“Our issue is not with the people of North Korea,” Nauert told <a href="http://video.foxnews.com/v/5564562747001/?playlist_id=930909787001#sp=show-clips" type="external">Fox News’ “Fox &amp; Friends,”</a> while visiting the program she had hosted in the past as a Fox News correspondent.</p>
<p>“Our issue is with Kim Jong Un. It is not just the United States frankly. It is virtually every country around the world, a chorus of condemnation.”</p>
<p>“Allies everywhere” are condemning the actions of North Korea, she said, including this weekend’s news the nation had tested a hydrogen bomb, but the push will continue for diplomacy.</p>
<p>“We continue to push forward with this plan for diplomacy because you can’t give that up,” Nauert said. “That is always the preferred approach, to try to get them to come to the table. We pushed forward with that approach and pushed to try to remove the money that goes into North Korea that helps fund its illegal nuclear and ballistic weapons programs.”</p>
<p>Nauert said she has sat in on many meetings between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his counterparts around the world, and he has told them he wants them to cut back on North Korean workers in their countries.</p>
<p>“Cut back on mission size, embassy size in your nation,” Nauert said Tillerson has said. “Doing those things all across the world helps remove money, hold on from the Kim Jong Un regime. He uses money to fund these very expensive programs. We will continue to push forward with that.”</p> | Heather Nauert: World Wants NKorea, Peninsula Under Control | false | https://newsline.com/heather-nauert-world-wants-nkorea-peninsula-under-control/ | 2017-09-04 | 1 |
<p>RonBailey/iStock</p>
<p>The semi-perennial attempt by House Republicans&#160;to allow anyone permitted to carry a concealed gun in one state to be able to do so in any other state—even if that state has much stricter standards for issuing concealed carry permits—took a frightening step forward Wednesday afternoon. HR 38, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/38/all-actions?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22concealed+carry+reciprocity+act%22%5D%7D" type="external">Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017</a>, which the National Rifle Association (NRA) has called the group’s “ <a href="https://www.nraila.org/articles/20171127/concealed-carry-reciprocity-is-on-the-move-your-lawmakers-need-to-hear-from-you-now" type="external">highest legislative priority</a>” in 2017, passed&#160;the House—taking&#160;the provision as close as its ever been to becoming reality.</p>
<p>Introduced by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) on <a href="" type="internal">the first day</a> of the year’s legislative session, HR 38 lingered relatively untouched for most of the year until last week when there was a flurry of unexpected activity: GOP leaders, after conducting a whip count and sensing the measure would have enough support to pass a floor vote, passed it out of the House Judiciary Committee, while simultaneously rejecting amendments brought by Democrats, including banning violent offenders.&#160;Debate on the House floor lasted just an hour on the bill,&#160;and six Democrats joined a united Republican caucus in voting to pass it.&#160;The legislation can now be taken up for a vote in the Senate.</p>
<p>Strategically, and despite the efforts of some&#160;on the left, Republicans had <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/house-poised-to-pass-concealed-carry-gun-bill/article/2642672" type="external">folded reciprocity&#160;into a broader guns package</a>&#160;that also&#160;includes a bi-partisan measure called the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4477" type="external">Fix NICS Act</a>—a provision aimed at improving the accuracy of background check data in order to prevent criminals and individuals with mental illness from being able to purchase guns. This notion gained particular urgency after the recent&#160;mass shooting in Texas,&#160;in which the gunman had been convicted of assaulting his wife and his infant stepson while in the Air Force, but the military <a href="" type="internal">never sent his criminal records</a> to the background checks databases. The move put Democrats in a difficult position: In order to pass the Fix NICS Act—which has support from groups as varied as Everytown for Gun Safety and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence to the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the NRA—they had no real choice but to pass the national reciprocity bill,&#160;which in various forms has been opposed by the party for years.</p>
<p>Gun advocates typically claim that the need for reciprocity is a matter of convenience to travelers who must contend with a “ <a href="https://www.nraila.org/articles/20170104/nra-backs-concealed-carry-reciprocity-bill-in-us-house" type="external">patchwork</a>” of gun laws while on interstate road trips, often decrying, as Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) did <a href="https://twitter.com/RepTrentFranks/status/938525933161590785" type="external">on Twitter</a> after the House voted on Wednesday, “The Second Amendment doesn’t disappear when law-abiding citizens cross state lines. H.R. 38 guarantees that.”</p>
<p>Opponents, meanwhile, argue that reciprocity effectively guts existing state laws. Some states have stringent safeguards in place for issuing&#160;conceal carry permits, like mandating training and thorough evaluations; other states do almost nothing to vet the people who would be carrying guns in public. In Utah, for instance,&#160;all&#160;someone has to do to <a href="" type="internal">get a concealed carry permit</a> is take a gun safety class certified by the Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification. In Virginia, people get <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/09/03/online-classes-make-it-easy-for-non-virginia-gun-owners-to-get-permits.html" type="external">four attempts</a> to answer 15 of 20 questions correctly after taking an online course to get a permit. Currently, 19 states don’t require any gun safety training in order to carry a concealed gun in public, and 12 states don’t require a permit or background check, according to <a href="https://everytown.org/ccr/" type="external">Everytown for Gun Safety.</a> HR 38&#160;effectively neutralizes the playing field. What’s&#160;more, there is a loophole that would allow individuals who don’t qualify for a permit in their state of residence to be able to get one in a state with little to no restrictions.</p>
<p>“Under Hudson’s bill, a California resident who cannot get a concealed-carry permit in California can easily get one from Utah, and then carry guns in California without ever setting foot in Utah, and not for some short duration like a tourist stay, but for the rest of his life and every day,” Adam Winkler, a <a href="https://law.ucla.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/adam-winkler/" type="external">law professor</a> at the University of California-Los Angeles, <a href="" type="internal">explained to me</a> when the bill was introduced in January. “The real impact of the Hudson bill is not to protect interstate travelers; it’s to require states with restrictive concealed-carry policies to allow their own residents to carry guns.”</p>
<p>A handful of <a href="" type="internal">previous efforts</a> to pass national reciprocity have failed. And while HR 38 has now passed the House, a version of it will still have to contend with the Senate, which will need eight Democrats to support the measure for it to pass. While those prospects seem slim, if it were to pass the Senate, two things are certain: First, it’s all but guaranteed that President Trump will sign it into law. “Trump has been a strong supporter from the very beginning of the whole concept of concealed carry, even before he ran for president,” says Todd Rathner, a prominent gun rights lobbyists based in Arizona. “I don’t think he’d have any hesitations signing this.” The second is that lawsuits will be waiting. In a statement, Eric Tirschwell, director of litigation and national enforcement policy for Everytown for Gun Safety, said, “We fully expect that the Senate will hear the voices of law enforcement and the public, and stop this dangerous legislation from becoming law. But if it were to make it to the president’s desk, we’d be waiting on the other side fully prepared to challenge it in court.”</p> | The House Just Took One Step Toward Allowing Americans to Carry Concealed Guns in All 50 States | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/the-house-just-took-one-step-toward-allowing-americans-to-carry-concealed-guns-everywhere/ | 2017-12-06 | 4 |
<p>(BPT) - Self-employment offers the perks and benefits of not working for someone else, but often means taking on risks and becoming responsible for providing a valuable product or service, generating income and having a steady customer base. With all of this considered, along with the newly enacted tax law, filing your taxes should be the last of your worries, so consider these five tax tips to breeze through the tax process.</p>
<p>1. Reporting income</p>
<p>It’s important to keep in mind that when you are self-employed, there is no employer automatically withholding tax from each paycheck. Since self-employed income is not reported on a W-2, you must report your income and expenses on a Schedule C (Form 1040) as part of your individual tax return. Your expenses should directly offset your income. You can show a loss, but generally must show a profit for three out of five years in order for the IRS to recognize your activity as a business, not a hobby.</p>
<p>2. Understanding the Self-Employment Tax</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employed-individuals-tax-center" type="external">IRS</a> explains the self-employment tax as the equivalent to a Social Security and Medicare tax. Self-employment tax equals 15.3 percent on the first $128,400 of net income and then 2.9 percent on the net income that is in excess of $128,400. The Social Security tax component of the self-employment tax is 12.4 percent, but note that one half of your self-employment tax is deductible as an adjustment to income. If your profits are more than $200,000 ($250,000 on joint returns), the excess is subject to the 0.9 percent additional Medicare tax.</p>
<p>3. Paying taxes</p>
<p>Because you’re earning income without tax withholdings, you are 100 percent on your own. In order to fulfill your tax payment requirements, you should make quarterly estimated tax payments throughout the year as they are required by the IRS. If they aren’t made, you may be at fault and subject to pay an estimated tax penalty, even if you pay your entire tax liability by April 17. These payments can be made electronically with Form 1040-ES.</p>
<p>4. Claiming a home office deduction</p>
<p>Nowadays, more people are given the opportunity to work and grow their business from their homes. Claiming a home office deduction is a more simplified process than it has been in the past and will allow you to deduct expenses for the business purposes of your home. If you are self-employed and qualify for the home office deduction, you can deduct a percentage of your qualified home expenses as a business deduction, including rent or mortgage, insurance, utilities, maintenance costs and depreciation.</p>
<p>Inside the home</p>
<p>To qualify for a deduction, the office must be in a separate room or area of your house. It can also be part of a room, but the area would still have to be used exclusively and regularly for business, so your dining room table where you also eat would not count. However, a desk or table in your bedroom used solely for business is acceptable.</p>
<p>This deduction is based on the square footage of the office in comparison to the size of your entire home or apartment. If you meet the regular and exclusive tests to claim a home office deduction, you may be eligible for a “safe harbor” deduction — a simplified way to figure your deduction. The safe harbor method will allow you to eliminate complicated record keeping and forms for the deduction.</p>
<p>Outside the home</p>
<p>Even if you have an office outside of your home, you may qualify for deductions if you use part of your home for storing inventory or product samples. To qualify, you must meet the following requirements:</p>
<p>You sell the stored products at wholesale or retail prices as your business.You use the storage space on a regular basis.The storage space is separately identifiable from the other parts of your house.</p>
<p>5. Filing taxes</p>
<p>The tax filing process may seem intimidating, especially when requirements and guidelines are different for the self-employed. For example, as a self-employed individual, you are required to file a tax return if your net earnings from self-employment are $400 or more, even if the $400 is your only income. But, when self-employed taxpayers have confidence in their tax preparation method, they can focus more on their business and worry less about their taxes.</p>
<p>If you find yourself filing incorrectly or have questions, H&amp;R Block’s online products are designed to guide you through preparing and filing an accurate tax return. H&amp;R Block has added a new <a href="https://www.hrblock.com/online-tax-filing/self-employed-online-tax-filing/" type="external">Self-Employed product</a>, which makes personalized recommendations and asks questions about different types of income, startup costs and expenses. This is specifically designed for self-employed workers and small business owners who file Schedule C. Also, all DIY online clients can use Tax Pro ReviewSM to get their completed DIY return reviewed by a tax professional — without going to a tax office.</p>
<p>To learn more, visit <a href="https://www.hrblock.com/online-tax-filing/" type="external">https://www.hrblock.com/online-tax-filing/,</a> or you can make an appointment with a tax professional.</p>
<p>(BPT) - Self-employment offers the perks and benefits of not working for someone else, but often means taking on risks and becoming responsible for providing a valuable product or service, generating income and having a steady customer base. With all of this considered, along with the newly enacted tax law, filing your taxes should be the last of your worries, so consider these five tax tips to breeze through the tax process.</p>
<p>1. Reporting income</p>
<p>It’s important to keep in mind that when you are self-employed, there is no employer automatically withholding tax from each paycheck. Since self-employed income is not reported on a W-2, you must report your income and expenses on a Schedule C (Form 1040) as part of your individual tax return. Your expenses should directly offset your income. You can show a loss, but generally must show a profit for three out of five years in order for the IRS to recognize your activity as a business, not a hobby.</p>
<p>2. Understanding the Self-Employment Tax</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employed-individuals-tax-center" type="external">IRS</a> explains the self-employment tax as the equivalent to a Social Security and Medicare tax. Self-employment tax equals 15.3 percent on the first $128,400 of net income and then 2.9 percent on the net income that is in excess of $128,400. The Social Security tax component of the self-employment tax is 12.4 percent, but note that one half of your self-employment tax is deductible as an adjustment to income. If your profits are more than $200,000 ($250,000 on joint returns), the excess is subject to the 0.9 percent additional Medicare tax.</p>
<p>3. Paying taxes</p>
<p>Because you’re earning income without tax withholdings, you are 100 percent on your own. In order to fulfill your tax payment requirements, you should make quarterly estimated tax payments throughout the year as they are required by the IRS. If they aren’t made, you may be at fault and subject to pay an estimated tax penalty, even if you pay your entire tax liability by April 17. These payments can be made electronically with Form 1040-ES.</p>
<p>4. Claiming a home office deduction</p>
<p>Nowadays, more people are given the opportunity to work and grow their business from their homes. Claiming a home office deduction is a more simplified process than it has been in the past and will allow you to deduct expenses for the business purposes of your home. If you are self-employed and qualify for the home office deduction, you can deduct a percentage of your qualified home expenses as a business deduction, including rent or mortgage, insurance, utilities, maintenance costs and depreciation.</p>
<p>Inside the home</p>
<p>To qualify for a deduction, the office must be in a separate room or area of your house. It can also be part of a room, but the area would still have to be used exclusively and regularly for business, so your dining room table where you also eat would not count. However, a desk or table in your bedroom used solely for business is acceptable.</p>
<p>This deduction is based on the square footage of the office in comparison to the size of your entire home or apartment. If you meet the regular and exclusive tests to claim a home office deduction, you may be eligible for a “safe harbor” deduction — a simplified way to figure your deduction. The safe harbor method will allow you to eliminate complicated record keeping and forms for the deduction.</p>
<p>Outside the home</p>
<p>Even if you have an office outside of your home, you may qualify for deductions if you use part of your home for storing inventory or product samples. To qualify, you must meet the following requirements:</p>
<p>You sell the stored products at wholesale or retail prices as your business.You use the storage space on a regular basis.The storage space is separately identifiable from the other parts of your house.</p>
<p>5. Filing taxes</p>
<p>The tax filing process may seem intimidating, especially when requirements and guidelines are different for the self-employed. For example, as a self-employed individual, you are required to file a tax return if your net earnings from self-employment are $400 or more, even if the $400 is your only income. But, when self-employed taxpayers have confidence in their tax preparation method, they can focus more on their business and worry less about their taxes.</p>
<p>If you find yourself filing incorrectly or have questions, H&amp;R Block’s online products are designed to guide you through preparing and filing an accurate tax return. H&amp;R Block has added a new <a href="https://www.hrblock.com/online-tax-filing/self-employed-online-tax-filing/" type="external">Self-Employed product</a>, which makes personalized recommendations and asks questions about different types of income, startup costs and expenses. This is specifically designed for self-employed workers and small business owners who file Schedule C. Also, all DIY online clients can use Tax Pro ReviewSM to get their completed DIY return reviewed by a tax professional — without going to a tax office.</p>
<p>To learn more, visit <a href="https://www.hrblock.com/online-tax-filing/" type="external">https://www.hrblock.com/online-tax-filing/,</a> or you can make an appointment with a tax professional.</p> | 5 tax tips for the self-employed | false | https://apnews.com/amp/ccc6acc6950b418387e50cb25e8bf2f2 | 2018-01-12 | 2 |
<p>your email</p>
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<p>An aerial view of the Hollister Underground Mine Project in the Tosawihi Quarries in Elko County, Nevada. Recently acquired by Waterton Global Mining Company/Carlin Resources, the site has long been regarded as sacred by Native people. &#160; (Bureau of Land Management, Elko District Office, Tuscarora Field Office, Nevada)</p>
<p>This isn’t the “new” world for the Western Shoshone. And their West was never “wild.” It is a place of deep cultural connections to a homeland that at one time extended across portions of Idaho, Nevada, Utah and California. For more than 10,000 years, they have met in what is today called the Tosawihi Quarries, a stretch of Elko County, Nevada, to gather a type of white flint and to practice their sacred rituals.</p>
<p>“That stone is very sacred to us,” says Joe Holley, chairman of the Battle Mountain Band of the Te-Moak Western Shoshone, one of several federally recognized, related tribes. “We use it every day and have done so for millennia, for tools, ceremonies and healing. The stone, the water, the entire place is sacred.” The word Tosawihi means White Knives, an ancestral Shoshone tribal name that ties the land and its features to their culture and identity. The Tosawihi Quarries has been deemed eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and part of it was declared an Archaeological District in 2010.</p>
<p>However, gold lies under the flint, also called chert, and a multinational mining group wants it.</p>
<p>In 2013, Nevada-based <a href="http://www.watertonglobal.com" type="external">Waterton Global Mining Company</a>, owned by a firm registered in the Cayman Islands, bought a bankrupt gold-mining operation that had been exploring for and extracting gold in the Tosawihi Quarries. In March 2014, an official at a related Canadian private-equity firm, Waterton Global Resource Management, told <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/09/mining-pdac-privateequity-idUSL1N0M41EE20140309" type="external">Reuters</a> it had been snapping up struggling U.S. mining concerns hurt by the several-year downturn in gold prices. Reuters quoted the firm’s chief investment officer as saying, “This year I think [acquisitions] will pick up dramatically.”</p>
<p>By 2014, mining operations had resumed on the Shoshone's ancestral lands, and Waterton Global Mining Company had changed its name to <a href="http://thediggings.com/owners/2348055" type="external">Carlin Resources</a>. The new work began in previously disturbed ground and moved out from there. “A drilling pad was built in a once-pristine area,” says Holley, “and several rock shelters were demolished when they pushed through a road.” On a recent trip to the area, he saw that several ancient stone hunting blinds, from which concealed hunters observed their prey, were gone. Tribal members report that workers have videotaped them when they visit.</p>
<p>The band has also expressed concern to federal authorities that the mining company does not have the required groundwater monitoring well in place. “This is critical,” says Holley. “At the center of all our ceremonies is water. It is the lifeblood of the universe.”</p>
<p>Mining was already engulfing the sacred landscape, says the Battle Mountain Band’s attorney Rollie Wilson, who works in the Washington, D.C. office of the Omaha law firm <a href="http://www.ndnlaw.com" type="external">Fredericks Peebles &amp; Morgan</a>. “Now matters are getting worse. With important sites damaged or destroyed, tribal members are being pushed into an ever-smaller area.” Wilson has filed an emergency appeal with the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA), an Interior Department administrative court. It asks the court to suspend mining until a plan can be devised that safeguards the site.</p>
<p>In 1992 (on the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ first visit), protection of Native American cultural resources was added to the <a href="http://www.achp.gov/nhpa.html" type="external">National Historic Preservation Act</a>. Since then, federal agencies have been required to consult with tribes when mining, constructing dams, road building and other projects on federal land that could affect their traditional cultural properties (TCPs). These may include locations where culturally important practices occur, or occurred in the past, as well as structures.</p>
<p>This process is a part of the federal government’s trust relationship with the tribes, which requires the United States to protect Native treaty rights, land and other assets. In practice, tribes and their representatives regularly report that they aren’t notified early enough in the process to make a difference and when they do speak up federal officials don’t pay attention.</p>
<p>Holley says working with the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) can be like “talking to a wall.” As the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office puts it: The BLM can operate “unilaterally.”</p>
<p>Some officials may have a hard time understanding a complex Native cultural landscape like the Tosawihi Quarries, which has been subtly shaped for many centuries by a range of activities including ceremonies, tool making, medicine-plant gathering and hunting. “The concept of ‘cultural landscape’ emerged in the late 1980s, which really isn’t that long ago,” says Paul Loether, Chief of the National Register of Historic Places, a National Park Service program. As a result, Loether says, most evaluators are better at assessing an historic house than a tract of land, no matter what culture, Native or non-Native, shaped it.</p>
<p>Carlin Resources has less patience for the process than the Battle Mountain Band would wish. In Carlin’s legal response to the band’s attempt to temporarily halt drilling, the mining company said their IBLA appeal was based on “erroneous and sensationalistic assertions” that “the entire Tosawihi Quarries constitutes a TCP.” Carlin, in its brief, told the court that it had complied with all obligations and that the band’s ongoing objections had already caused it to run up substantial additional costs.</p>
<p>Because the Tosawihi Quarries are on federal land administered by the BLM, that agency handled the area’s TCP evaluation. Earlier mining had already taken a big chunk out of the Shoshone landscape, but Holley’s band hoped it could work with the BLM to prevent further destruction. “We were hoping to keep the mining out of what’s left of our most important areas,” Holley says.</p>
<p>To study and protect a landscape, archaeology is often the discipline of choice. At Tosawihi Quarries, the BLM focused on items of archaeological interest that might be saved—including what it termed “loci,” with a certain number of artifacts, such as stone tools, per square meter. The agency marked the items on maps, drew lines around them and told the mining company to stay at least 250 feet away.</p>
<p>“Archaeology is a great field,” says Loether. “But unfortunately, used that way, the result is like seeing the Mona Lisa’s smile, but not the rest of the painting. You can’t understand its beauty and meaning without considering the entire thing.”</p>
<p>“Mainstream science looks at sites differently from Indian people, who see the spiritual significance,” says Ted Howard, cultural resources director and member of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes.</p>
<p>With about 500 enrolled members and a 683-acre reservation that has “little economic activity,” according to its <a href="http://www.temoaktribe.com/battlemtn.shtml" type="external">website</a>, the tiny Battle Mountain Band has set itself a gargantuan task. “I grew up in this fight,” says Holley. “My grandfather, father and uncle all fought mining in the Tosawihi Quarries. I’ve lived my whole life hearing them talk about this.”</p>
<p>“Chairman Holley and the Battle Mountain Band have taken the lead in this struggle,” says Howard. “However, many of the Shoshone people came from or used that area. Now we are separated on different reservations, but that is not how we lived before the reservation era. Our shared oral history goes way back. And the Tosawihi Quarries are the center of our spiritual being.”</p>
<p />
<p>The sun rises over the Tosawihi Quarries. &#160;(Photo courtesy of Joe Holley, Chairman of the Battle Mountian Band of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone)</p>
<p>Sometimes, lack of understanding isn’t the only problem at a federal agency. Other interests can weigh heavily. In spring 2014, the BLM’s analysis of the mine project was still under review. It had yet to issue its final approval, or Record of Decision (ROD).</p>
<p>But then the mining company needed the gold—and fast.</p>
<p>According to public documents obtained by Rural America In These Times, Waterton contacted the BLM on Friday, March 28, 2014. It wanted the agency to issue the Record of Decision by the following Monday, March 31. A BLM official,&#160;Steph Connolly, the acting-senior special assistant to the director, notified colleagues of this request with an email headed “URGENT.”</p>
<p>Thomas Schmidt, a&#160;BLM&#160;geologist in a Nevada field office, replied, “I do not believe we have completely satisfied Tribe concerns.”</p>
<p>Another BLM geologist, Janice Stadelman, chimed in, warning against delay. “I received a call from Waterton’s legal counsel,” she emailed. “They are requesting that the ROD and approval be signed or dated no later than March 31 [2014]. March 31 is the end (last day) of the first quarter. ... Waterton’s concern is with the first quarter auditing and financial reporting to there [sic] investors and the ramifications that they will encounter.”</p>
<p>By March 31, the ROD was signed, sealed and delivered. Thanks to the BLM rushing it through, the mining group had its gold and the window-dressing for its quarterly report. In May, Waterton issued a press release announcing a “ <a href="http://www.watertonglobal.com/waterton-global-mining-company-announces-significant-permitting-milestone-for-the-hollister-mine/" type="external">significant permitting milestone</a>” for the mine.</p>
<p>In response to a query from Rural America In These Times, BLM spokesperson Jeff Krauss described the permitting process as “robust” and “not hurried,” with full consideration under the law for the Battle&#160;Mountain Band's concerns. He added the agency would continue to work with the band going forward. Further, according to Krauss, the BLM would require the mine's operator to “implement sufficient monitoring and mitigation strategies in order to prevent unnecessary or undue degradation&#160;of the lands” and its sacred sites.</p>
<p>Educating officials, legislators and the public about responsible protection of our nation’s shared legacy is an “uphill battle,” says Rebecca Knuffke, public lands project manager for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit chartered by Congress to safeguard our shared heritage places. Building awareness for a given site can help protect it, she says, pointing to the Trust’s <a href="http://www.savingplaces.org" type="external">National Treasures</a> program, which describes campaigns to save places that are important to varied and sometimes multiple cultures.</p>
<p>In the case of a Native landscape, public awareness is handled very carefully, adds Denise Ryan, public lands policy director at the Trust. Such places may include vision sites, sacred springs, medicine-gathering areas and other geographic features that tribes consider private or secret. Like the Tosawihi hunting blinds and rock shelters, these fragile features can also be destroyed by vandals or inadvertently trampled by hikers. “In a protection plan, tribes don’t have to give us details. They just tell us what’s significant and what they require,” says Ryan.</p>
<p>Holley wants a complete review of the Tosawihi Quarries that accounts for subtleties that aren’t apparent to outsiders. “We Shoshone are the only ones who can say where these important things are,” Holley says. “Tosawihi is not a ‘prehistoric’ place, used only by long-ago people. We Shoshone have used all of it continuously for cultural and spiritual purposes since time immemorial.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, gold mining operations continue.</p>
<p>Holley laments, “All those years of struggle, and we’re still losing ground.”</p>
<p>Editor's note: &#160;</p>
<p>Since publication of&#160;Eve of Destruction,&#160;the Battle Mountain Band of the Te-Moak Western Shoshone has continued to try and protect its sacred site from destruction by gold mining. In September 2015, an Interior Department administrative court turned down the Band’s request to suspend mining until a way could be found to safeguard traditional cultural properties more effectively.</p>
<p>The Band then turned to the influential Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), which is named as the final arbiter of disputes under the so-called <a href="http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/more/CRM/blm_preservation_board/prog_agreement.html" type="external">Programmatic Agreement</a> issued by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to govern mining activities. In December, ACHP issued a cautious decision that encouraged BLM to “clarify” the agreement.</p>
<p>“The&#160;Programmatic Agreement doesn’t need to be clarified, it needs to be implemented,” said Band attorney Rollie Wilson, of Fredericks Peebles &amp; Morgan.&#160;“The document, signed by ACHP, requires ongoing evaluation of specific areas as mining exploration is considered. BLM is not doing that. It is relying on old and generalized surveys of the entire area, which makes no sense. The document and the law require current evaluations for project-specific proposals.”</p>
<p>BLM spokesperson Jeff Krauss has disagreed, saying that consultation with the Band is ongoing.</p>
<p>Like what you’ve read? <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/itt-subscription-offer?refcode=WS_RAITT_Article_Footer&amp;noskip=true" type="external">Subscribe to In These Times magazine</a>, or <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/support-in-these-times?refcode=WS_RAITT_Article_Footer&amp;noskip=true" type="external">make a tax-deductible donation to fund this reporting</a>.</p> | Eve of Destruction: Bureau of Land Management Sacrifices Native Site to Mining Group | true | http://inthesetimes.com/rural-america/entry/18461/eve-of-destruction-bureau-of-land-management-sacrifices-native-site-to-mini | 2015-09-30 | 4 |
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<p>The announcement was in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily banning entry into the United States by refugees and by migrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. But like pretty much any viral topic on the Internet in 2017, the story was almost unrecognizable, bubble to bubble.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Here is how left-wing ThinkProgress handled the announcement: with coffee wordplay and a headline containing the word “epic”:</p>
<p>“The king of coffee makes a BOLD move: Starbucks epic response to Trump’s executive order”</p>
<p>In right-wing filters, however, there was a lot of fury at Starbucks. Specifically, the meme went, Starbucks should not be hiring refugees when Americans needed jobs, too.</p>
<p>On Sunday, The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel reported on the way conservative media discussed the president’s recent executive orders on refugees and immigration. As mainstream outlets reported on the confusion at airports across the world, and on the backlash online and at protests, Weigel wrote, conservative sites like Breitbart were supplying readers with reasons to doubt the sincerity of the backlash and to meet the orders with nothing but praise.</p>
<p>“The weekend that unfolded across conservative media looked almost nothing like the one unfolding across newspaper front pages or most of cable news,” he wrote.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>At this point, the phenomenon of the social media “filter bubble” has been thoroughly scoured for insight. It’s a persistent problem that contributes a great deal to the content you do and don’t see from the rest of the world online. Facebook is, slowly, trying to address its role in helping to create the “filter bubble” – its latest attempt involves tweaks to its “trending” bar, including the removal of personalization. Facebook will no longer populate that bar with what it thinks you might want to see, in other words, and instead show the same thing for everybody in the U.S.</p>
<p>Facebook might be the most powerful platform for the “filter bubble,” and its existence there goes beyond its trending topics. Over the weekend, progressives may have seen a viral, live video from the Working Families Party, showing the protests at JFK Airport. At one point, more than 80,000 people were watching the stream; it currently has more than 200,000 shares and 15 million views.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in another bubble, a National Review article by David French that promised it would separate “fact from hysteria” was going viral. As of Monday, it had been shared 962,000 times on Facebook, according to the platform’s API. While the article was mildly critical of the executive order, it was shared as an ultimate defense of Trump’s intentions in issuing it, and as a stronger criticism of anyone who was protesting it. Like many political viral phenomena, these spread largely separate from each other.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal has an excellent, ongoing project that tracks these two bubbles in real time: “blue feed, red feed.” It draws from several left- and right-leaning Facebook pages to create two feeds, side-by-side, that show the very different conversations about the news you’ll see depending on who you follow – and the sources your like-minded friends might share.</p> | Last weekend’s news, in two filter bubbles | false | https://abqjournal.com/939284/last-weekends-news-in-two-filter-bubbles.html | 2 |
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<p>By <a href="https://syndication.washingtonpost.com/nss/stories/74432ace-44d6-11e7-98cd-af64b4fe2dfc" type="external">The Washington Post Editorial Board</a></p>
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<p><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/billy_wilson/" type="external">Billy Wilson</a> / <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/" type="external">CC BY-NC 2.0</a></p>
<p>States and cities cannot prevent the Trump administration from doing damage on climate change policy, but they can mitigate the harm through global warming policies of their own.</p>
<p />
<p>Thankfully, many are doing so, showing by example that fighting climate change does not have to come at an intolerable cost. Recently announced climate initiatives in Virginia and the District of Columbia offer a sense of how that is done.</p>
<p>Some of the most common greenhouse-gas emissions policies are really second- or third-best approaches. States and cities that directly subsidize renewables or require certain amounts of their electricity to come from particular sources unnecessarily close off other options that could be cheaper and just as effective. The best policies keep any and all emissions-cutting pathways open, enabling the least costly ones.</p>
<p>Economists have known how to do this for decades: Put a steadily rising price on carbon emissions. Consumers and businesses would respond over time by wasting less energy and favoring low-carbon products and services. Private economic activity would naturally sort out how much to rely on renewables, energy efficiency and other emissions-cutting measures, maximizing freedom, minimizing costs and cutting greenhouse gases.</p>
<p>Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe embraced this approach, announcing this month that his administration will seek to price the state’s emissions by placing a cap on them and demanding that utilities turn in permits in order to emit greenhouse gases under that cap. The permits would be buyable and sellable, creating an effective price on carbon pollution. Better yet, the governor would seek to link Virginia’s program with carbon-trading markets in other states, creating a larger and more efficient market for permits.</p>
<p>In the District, meanwhile, local environmental activists have united around a plan to tax carbon emissions, starting at $20 per ton in 2019 and rising to $150 per ton in 2032, by which point the activists estimate the policy would have cut the city’s carbon emissions by 23 percent.</p>
<p>The primary objection to such plans is that they are regressive, hitting the poor harder than the rich, to whom the carbon price would feel relatively modest. Both plans have provisions offsetting this effect, with the District’s being particularly well thought out. Most of the money it would raise would be rebated directly back to residents. All but the wealthiest households would be made whole or better.</p>
<p>Neither plan is perfect. By necessity, McAuliffe is seeking to impose his cap-and-trade program over the head of the legislature, when it could be more cleanly designed if the General Assembly would buy in. The District’s plan would divert some of the money it raised to a green infrastructure fund that could well be spent on pet projects rather than effective climate initiatives.</p>
<p>But pricing carbon is the right approach. Other states should embrace the concept. The more that do, the more effective the policy will be.</p> | Virginia and District of Columbia Are Taking Climate Policy Into Their Own Hands | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/virginia-and-district-of-columbia-are-taking-climate-policy-into-their-own-hands/ | 2017-05-30 | 4 |
<p>A North Miami behavior therapist trying to help a patient with autism says he was shot in the leg by cops responding to the scene — even after he laid down on the pavement and put his hands in the air.</p>
<p>Part of Monday's incident was caught on a witness' cellphone camera, and shows caregiver Charles Kinsey trying to explain to police that weapons were not necessary as they aimed their rifles in his direction.</p>
<p>Kinsey, 47, spoke Wednesday from his hospital bed with a <a href="http://wsvn.com/news/local/video-shows-moments-before-north-miami-police-shot-unarmed-man/" type="external">local FOX affiliate</a> and recounted trying to show police he was not a physical threat.</p>
<p>North Miami police said they were called to the scene after a report of a man walking around with a gun and threatening suicide.</p>
<p>"I’m telling them again, 'Sir, there is no need for firearms. I’m unarmed, he’s an autistic guy. He got a toy truck in his hand,'" Kinsey said, restating what could be heard on the video.</p>
<p>The shooting itself is not seen in the footage, although at least one of the three officers at the scene did fire, striking Kinsey in the leg.</p>
<p>"It was like a mosquito bite, and when it hit me, I’m like, I still got my hands in the air, and I said, ‘No I just got shot!' And I’m saying, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?'" Kinsey recalled, "and his words to me, he said, ‘I don’t know.'"</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">In Death of Black Men and Police, A Light On Hard Truths</a></p>
<p>Kinsey's attorney, Hilton Napoleon, said his client heard another officer ask why he opened fire.</p>
<p>"The shooting officer said he didn't know why he shot him," Napoleon said, <a href="http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/New-Video-Shows-Moments-Before-and-After-Man-Was-Shot-by-North-Miami-Police-Officer-387716761.html" type="external">according to NBC Miami</a>.</p>
<p>The officer who fired his weapon was not identified, but was placed on administrative leave amid an investigation.</p>
<p>At a news conference Thursday, North Miami Police Chief Gary Eugenedid not detail who was involved or how many shots were fired. He confirmed that no gun was found.</p>
<p>"At my request, as of yesterday, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is taking over this investigation," he said. "The State Attorney's Office is also looking at the case."</p>
<p>Attorney General Loretta Lynch also said Thursday that the Justice Department was familiar with the incident and was working with local officials to gather more information.</p>
<p>The shooting, while not fatal, is being scrutinized as another example of excessive use of force by police against unarmed black men.</p>
<p>"There is no justification, heightened alert or not, to shoot an unarmed man laying on the ground with his hands in the air who is telling you that no one has a gun and the person here is autistic," Napoleon added.</p>
<p>He is also outraged that Kinsey was handcuffed and was left on the road until paramedics arrived about 20 minutes later, he said. (A Miami Dade Fire Rescue log says it took about 31 minutes from when the EMS call was received to when paramedics arrived with Kinsey at the hospital.)</p>
<p>Kinsey, who works at the MacTown Panther Group Homes, said the man with autism ran away, and he was attempting to calm him when the police encounter unfolded.</p>
<p>"I was really more worried about him than myself," Kinsey told the local affiliate. "I was thinking as long as I have my hands up … they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking, they’re not going to shoot me. Wow, was I wrong."</p>
<p>After the police news conference, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson said the video shows Kinsey being "rational," begging the question why he was still shot.</p>
<p>Kinsey's wife, Joyce, told the local affiliate that her husband is lucky he will be OK.</p>
<p>"Right now, I am just grateful that he is alive," she said, "and he is able to tell his story."</p> | Cops Shoot Unarmed Caregiver With His Hands Up While He Helps Man | false | http://nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cops-shoot-unarmed-caregiver-charles-kinsey-his-hands-while-he-n614106 | 2016-07-21 | 3 |
<p>The international media company MP &amp; Silva will distribute NFL TV rights across mainland Europe for the next five seasons in an agreement worth about $50 million.</p>
<p>The deal announced Monday covers 42 territories — not Britain or Germany — for pre-season and regular season games, all playoff games, the Pro Bowl, and the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>Based in London and Singapore, MP &amp; Silva holds at least some rights for most of Europe’s soccer leagues, as well as assorted tennis and NBA deals.</p>
<p>“We are excited to partner with MP &amp; Silva in European markets where they have demonstrated a strong understanding of market dynamics and partnerships,” said Michael Markovich, the NFL’s director of international media and business development.</p>
<p>“We are looking forward to working together to grow our media footprint and continue to improve our connection to our fans in the region,” Markovich added.</p>
<p>The deal, which runs through the 2019 season, covers rights for Austria, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain and Switzerland.</p>
<p>The NFL’s previous deal for this area was with IMG.</p>
<p>MP &amp; Silva plans to resell the NFL rights in package deals to individual broadcasters in each country.</p>
<p>“We are glad that the NFL recognizes our leadership in the market and we are looking forward to using our network of broadcasters to increase coverage and drive new audiences to America’s top sport,” said Roberto Dalmiglio, Silva’s chief commercial officer.</p>
<p>In efforts to expand globally, the NFL has been playing regular-season games in London since 2007. Three games were held at Wembley Stadium, the home of England’s national soccer team, last season and three more are scheduled for next season.</p>
<p>NFL officials have said they envisage having a franchise in London one day, though no time frame has been announced and several logistical issues would need to be resolved.</p>
<p>James Pallotta, the American president of the Roma soccer club, told The AP last week that he hopes to host NFL games eventually in a new stadium planned for the Italian capital.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Andrew Dampf can be followed at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/asdampf" type="external">www.twitter.com/asdampf</a></p>
<p>The international media company MP &amp; Silva will distribute NFL TV rights across mainland Europe for the next five seasons in an agreement worth about $50 million.</p>
<p>The deal announced Monday covers 42 territories — not Britain or Germany — for pre-season and regular season games, all playoff games, the Pro Bowl, and the Super Bowl.</p>
<p>Based in London and Singapore, MP &amp; Silva holds at least some rights for most of Europe’s soccer leagues, as well as assorted tennis and NBA deals.</p>
<p>“We are excited to partner with MP &amp; Silva in European markets where they have demonstrated a strong understanding of market dynamics and partnerships,” said Michael Markovich, the NFL’s director of international media and business development.</p>
<p>“We are looking forward to working together to grow our media footprint and continue to improve our connection to our fans in the region,” Markovich added.</p>
<p>The deal, which runs through the 2019 season, covers rights for Austria, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain and Switzerland.</p>
<p>The NFL’s previous deal for this area was with IMG.</p>
<p>MP &amp; Silva plans to resell the NFL rights in package deals to individual broadcasters in each country.</p>
<p>“We are glad that the NFL recognizes our leadership in the market and we are looking forward to using our network of broadcasters to increase coverage and drive new audiences to America’s top sport,” said Roberto Dalmiglio, Silva’s chief commercial officer.</p>
<p>In efforts to expand globally, the NFL has been playing regular-season games in London since 2007. Three games were held at Wembley Stadium, the home of England’s national soccer team, last season and three more are scheduled for next season.</p>
<p>NFL officials have said they envisage having a franchise in London one day, though no time frame has been announced and several logistical issues would need to be resolved.</p>
<p>James Pallotta, the American president of the Roma soccer club, told The AP last week that he hopes to host NFL games eventually in a new stadium planned for the Italian capital.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Andrew Dampf can be followed at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/asdampf" type="external">www.twitter.com/asdampf</a></p> | MP & Silva to distribute NFL rights in Europe next 5 seasons | false | https://apnews.com/e564897871e346b193f48830e332ccfe | 2015-03-09 | 2 |
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<p>Gino David Garza, 28</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A robbery spree spanning two months, targeting 20 gas stations and netting more than $1,000 and countless packs of Marlboro red cigarettes ended with the arrest of Gino David Garza on Wednesday, said the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office.</p>
<p>On Nov. 10, deputies said the 28-year-old Garza stole two cartons of Marlboro red cigarettes, a box of lighters and $50 from a Shell gas station at 2021 Menaul NE by claiming he had a gun, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court.</p>
<p>He repeated the procedure, sometimes as often as four times in a day, at 20 gas stations throughout Northeast Albuquerque, the complaint states. No store clerks actually saw a gun while they were being robbed.</p>
<p>Garza also is accused of stealing electronic cigarettes, phone chargers, throwback varsity footballs, DVDs, motor oil and a bag of Skittles during the spree.</p>
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<p>For many of the robberies, Garza used a car he stole from a woman outside a 7-Eleven convenience store, the complaint states.</p>
<p>Garza has been booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center on $17,500 bail. He is facing charges of 21 counts of robbery, 21 counts of aggravated assault and tampering with evidence.</p>
<p>He is also awaiting trial on two other counts of robbery, three counts of aggravated assault and two counts of receiving or transferring a stolen motor vehicle in a different case.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Officers: man robbed 20 gas stations in two months | false | https://abqjournal.com/533629/police-man-robbed-20-gas-stations-in-two-months.html | 2 |
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<p>As President Barack Obama prepares to deliver his farewell address Tuesday night, he will attempt one final time to assign meaning to his presidency in front of a nation that overwhelmingly voted to usher in an era of change.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Obama told supporters he will offer his thoughts on where the country is headed, perhaps unwilling to look back as his legacy unravels behind him.</p>
<p>During his eight-year term in the White House, President Obama signed more than 260 executive orders. An executive order is a legally binding directive given by the president, often issued with the intent of bypassing Congress.</p>
<p>President-elect Trump has criticized Obama’s propensity to resort to executive orders instead of passing laws with Congressional approval, and has pledged to "cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama," the minute he begins his presidential term.</p>
<p>As the full range of powers associated with the executive branch is transferred into Trump’s hands, he will have the capability to effortlessly undo President Obama’s executive orders by issuing overriding executive orders of his own.</p>
<p>Here are some of the main areas and mandates that could be impacted as soon as Trump grabs hold of the reins of command.</p>
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<p>Healthcare</p>
<p>As the newly minted Republican-controlled Congress gets down to business, one of its first orders has been to work on a process for repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. Much to the dismay of President Obama and prominent Democrats, Vice President-elect Mike Pence recently reiterated the administration’s intention of beginning the repeal process via a slew of executive orders on Day 1 of Trump’s presidency.</p>
<p>"We’re working now on a series of executive orders that will enable that orderly transition to take place even as Congress appropriately debates alternatives to and replacements for ObamaCare,” Pence told reporters on January 4.</p>
<p>While any order propping up the Affordable Care Act is likely to be immediately eliminated, Obamacare may not be the only piece of healthcare legislation on the chopping block. President Obama has issued several mandates throughout his tenure that Trump and his team can undo, including an order that removes barriers to scientific research using human stem cells and another to reduce prescription drug shortages.</p>
<p>Immigration</p>
<p>The President-elect and his team have taken a hardline stance on immigration, vowing to remove all criminal illegal immigrants, end sanctuary cities and build an impenetrable wall on the Southern border.</p>
<p>Trump has promised to “immediately terminate” two executive amnesties issued by President Obama, the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policies.</p>
<p>DACA granted amnesty from deportation for illegal immigrants who came to the United States before the age of 16 but who are not yet 30, and meet certain other criteria. DAPA expands this program by removing the age control delineated under DACA, granting deferred action to illegal immigrants who have lived in the U.S. continually since 2010, and also to those who have a child who is an American citizen.</p>
<p>Out of the 11.3 million illegal immigrants in the United States, DAPA would allow 4.3 million a path to lawful presence, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.</p>
<p>Climate Change</p>
<p>More than 30 of the executive orders issued by the Obama administration deal with climate change, the environment or energy policy. Throughout the campaign and transition period, Trump has made it clear that reviving America’s coal and oil industries is a top priority for the incoming administration, with a higher objective of attaining U.S. energy independence.</p>
<p>Some easy targets for Trump and his team to overturn without delay include regulations on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, guidelines on international development projects and an order demanding committees deciding domestic and economic policy factor in the environmental impacts of their decisions.</p>
<p>Trump has the power to make a big dent in President Obama’s legacy by nullifying the Clean Power Plan; a rule that enforces a national limit on the amount of carbon dioxide produced by power plants and sets goals for states to slash greenhouse gas emissions. While the rule, which Obama called a “moral obligation,” is currently under legal challenge due to a perceived overreach of authority by the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump’s EPA will likely end the dispute with a fresh interpretation of the agency’s objectives.</p>
<p>Gun control</p>
<p>While many Republicans in Congress oppose the idea of tougher gun control legislation, President Obama has issued more than 20 executive orders restricting gun owners. They range from expanding background checks, to dedicating new resources to mental healthcare, to issuing a Presidential Memorandum requiring federal law enforcement officials trace recovered guns in criminal investigations.</p>
<p>Trump has called for the protection of the rights of “law-abiding gun owners,” as well as the right to carry in all 50 states, while agreeing with Obama about the need to reform the country’s mental health system.</p> | Obama Says Farewell As His Legacy Unravels | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/01/09/obama-says-farewell-as-his-legacy-unravels.html | 2017-01-10 | 0 |
<p>It’s a pity that The Speechwriter will be judged, both for good and ill, in the light of the media sensation created six years ago by Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Famous for not hiking the Appalachian Trail, Sanford is Barton Swaim’s former employer and the principal character—under the less-than-cryptic pseudonym of “the governor”—in this immensely sad yet very funny book.</p>
<p>Even if Swaim had figured out some way to push the governor to the periphery, though, some stories and characters are just too good not to insert themselves into and take over every lesser matter with which they may find themselves adventitiously associated. Even the Appalachian Trail will never be quite the same.</p>
<p>Yet there is much more to this slim volume than a retelling of the now-familiar decoy hike, of Sanford instead spending his days in secret, crying in Argentina, of his return and tearful public apology in the klieg lights of the mocking media, of shame, divorce, engagement to the Mysterious Maria—and, perhaps most remarkable of all, of political comeback.</p>
<p>The last is entirely left out of this book. It is important for the author’s purposes that the governor should appear as a quasi-tragic figure in the Aristotelian sense: a good man (though much hated by his staff) and a politician with unusual integrity who is undone and brought to ruin by a tragic flaw.</p>
<p>Although I find this portrait of the governor, whom I know slightly, a persuasive one, I also recognize its usefulness to the rest of the story, as suggested by the subtitle, “A Brief Education in Politics.” This is the more original and interesting story that Barton Swaim has to tell of the decline and fall of American political culture and language. “The speechwriter”—Swaim’s own job description when he worked for the governor—is the emblematic figure in this decline: increasingly only a glorified ad man whose job is limited to finding new and better ways of saying nothing while projecting the sort of feelings that voters are supposed to be—and, increasingly, are—attracted to.</p>
<p>Well, what else do they have to vote for? It’s also a pity that too many readers will, as a result of Swaim’s talent for comedy and telling detail, associate this style of politics only with poor Sanford and not with the larger political culture of which he is only a symptom. Close readers, however, will see that it is precisely because the governor was (or at least tried to be) something better than an empty suit and was not, in any case, a run-of-the-mill politician that this book takes on the poignancy it does.</p>
<p>Told from the point of view of a speechwriter in the employ of a boss who made it a point never to be satisfied with the efforts of his staff, the story naturally takes its shape from the long-running antagonism between the two men. In this struggle over words, we will find it natural to take the speechwriter’s side, because he stands for good writing—otherwise, why would we be reading his book?—in contrast to the governor’s rhetorical awkwardnesses, which he has the regrettable habit of insisting upon.</p>
<p>From the beginning, Swaim tells us, the governor made it the speechwriter’s job to capture his, the governor’s, unique “voice.” Swaim learned that his “job wasn’t to write well; it was to write like the governor.” And, remarkably enough, he does, partly through making a list of the governor’s favorite words and phrases, his little verbal tics and conversational fillers, and then inserting them liberally and at random into whatever he happened to be writing.</p>
<p>“I could anticipate certain ungainly phrases before he said them,” Swaim writes. “It was like listening to twelve-tone music: you had to force yourself to do it, but after a while you could discern some charmless patterns, and even like them in a perverse kind of way.”</p>
<p>Eventually, he has the disconcerting experience of reading the emails between the governor and his Argentine lover: “I couldn’t help feeling I’d written them myself. They were laden with words and phrases from my list, which I hardly bothered to consult anymore, so thoroughly had I internalized it.”</p>
<p>Swaim doesn’t quite persuade me with his final excursus on why politicians are never to be trusted, which seems to depend on the assumption that a thirst for glory is, in and of itself, discreditable and untrustworthy. “If it be a sin to covet honor,” said Shakespeare’s model of the good king, Henry&#160;V, “I am the most offending soul alive.” But then, it is almost scandalous now to say that Henry is Shakespeare’s model of the “good king.” He, like us, must be supposed to recognize the existence of no such thing.</p>
<p>To its credit, The Speechwriter does catch occasional glimpses in Sanford of what could have been a good governor, if there were such a thing; but these cannot help but be overwhelmed by the ridiculousness of his denouement.</p>
<p>Still, and despite the fact that most of the media attention was premised on his fall and not his rise, there was something about it that Sanford couldn’t help enjoying. The crowds of reporters, the incessant headlines, the necessity of responding every day to some new self-inflicted absurdity—there was something about it all that made him thrive.</p>
<p>Of course there was. The tragic hero had made the natural transition, in this day and age, to celebrity, which swiftly renders tragedy, like everything else, banal. But it is a banality that the celebrity himself must be blind to in order to become such.</p>
<p>In his last interview with the boss, Swaim experiences perhaps the only moment of candor between them, as the governor, his career seemingly in ruins, says: “I’m always looking for language that’s—I don’t know. .  .  . I don’t mean just language, just words. It’s more than words. It’s conceptual. It’s real. I always find myself trying to communicate something—larger.”</p>
<p>“Larger,” comments Swaim, “was one of the words on my list.”</p>
<p>James Bowman, author of Honor: A History and Media Madness, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.</p> | A Ghost’s Lament | false | https://eppc.org/publications/a-ghosts-lament/ | 1 |
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<p>“Mission accomplished,” announced President Donald Trump after the United States, France and England unleashed more than 100 missiles on Syria in reaction to the regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons against its own people.</p>
<p>What the mission accomplished, however, should alarm us all. It will do nothing to end the suffering of the Syrian people, as the fighting continues in a brutal civil war now in its seventh year. It will do nothing to weaken the grip of Bashar al-Assad who, backed by Russia and Iran, has consolidated his hold on much of Syria.</p>
<p>The major casualties of the raid are international law and the Constitution of the United States, for this act openly violated both.</p>
<p>The UN Charter — the charter that the United States played a major role in drafting after World War II — prohibits the unprovoked attack of one country on another, except in self-defense, or with the sanction of the United Nations itself. Punitive attacks are outlawed for the very reason that they are an excuse that the strong use to wage war on the weak. Syria poses no threat to the U.S. or its allies.</p>
<p>The U.S. and its allies attacked even as an independent group — the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons — was on its way to Syria to investigate the site and possibly provide independent assessment as to whether a chemical attack occurred and, if so, by whom. The attack took place without even that assessment.</p>
<p>Over the last 25 years, after the U.S. became the sole global power with the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been efforts to develop the right to protect, essentially giving authority for attacking a regime to stop genocidal attacks on its people. But the right to protect can be enforced only with UN sanction. Otherwise it simply becomes an excuse for the strong to use when deciding to attack the weak.</p>
<p>The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the right to declare war. Congress has provided no authority to wage war on Syria.</p>
<p>The result is that the president now openly asserts the right to attack any country on his own hook, without the authority of the United Nations or the sanction of Congress. A president above the law is a violation of the founding principles of this Republic.</p>
<p>Some justify the act because the missile strikes are aimed to enforce the treaty that bans the use of chemical weapons, which Syria has signed. The use of chemical weapons is an outrage that should trigger international action. Russia and China have stopped the UN from acting. So, it is argued, the U.S. and its allies must act to punish the alleged violation of the global ban. This attack, it is argued, “draws a line.”</p>
<p>The problem with acting alone, however, is clear. The powerful will act only to punish opponents who are weak. The U.S. will not attack allies like Saudi Arabia for waging what increasingly appears to be a genocidal war in Yemen. It will not attack adversaries like China or Russia who are nuclear powers.</p>
<p>It attacks Syria only because Syria is an adversary and is weak and cannot defend itself.</p>
<p>This is hardly the way to enforce justice or legal order.</p>
<p>If the world will not join in enforcing the ban on chemical weapons, the ban will be undermined. We would be better off rousing global outrage at the Syrians for using chemical weapons and at the Russians and Chinese for blocking international action, than taking the law into our own hands.</p>
<p>Violation of international law and the Constitution can be dismissed as legalistic concerns. Syria has committed an outrage. The United States and its allies have punished them. But legal authority is what separates legitimate use of force from criminality. Respect for the law is what separates the civilized from the jungle.</p>
<p>This strike will make the president look “tough.” It will likely boost his approval ratings. But it is one more step toward a lawless and unaccountable executive that threatens the very basis of our democracy.</p> | Syrian Strikes is One More step Toward a Lawless Presidency | true | https://counterpunch.org/2018/04/19/syrian-strikes-is-one-more-step-toward-a-lawless-presidency/ | 2018-04-19 | 4 |
<p>Washington Post A WP chatter asks Howard Kurtz: "Why are the family members of victims of all sorts of tragedy interviewed? Why do we need to know how they 'feel'?" HIS REPLY: "I've been in that situation a number of times in my career. I've always treaded very carefully, and I believe most (but hardly all) journalists do as well. What I've found is that some people definitely don't want to talk, and after a polite inquiry I apologize for bothering them at a difficult time. But many people do want to talk -- either to vent their grief or to ensure, in some small way, that their loved one is remembered."</p> | Why can't reporters leave people alone in their time of grief? | false | https://poynter.org/news/why-cant-reporters-leave-people-alone-their-time-grief | 2006-01-09 | 2 |
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<p>But when it comes to the Al Salazar St. Michael’s Wrestling Invitational, second-year head coach Joaquin Garcia made sure each of his wrestlers knew how important protecting their home mat really was.</p>
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<p>“I told our kids that we don’t let people come in here and win our tournament,” he said. “We’ve won this tournament for as long as I’ve been here – around seven years in a row – so I made sure they knew how much this means.”</p>
<p>And by the time the final wrestlers hit the mat, that message appeared to have been received loud and clear.</p>
<p>The Horsemen dominated the field, finishing with 201 points to claim first place out of 16 teams. Deming was second (164) and Capital (140) third.</p>
<p>St. Mike’s qualified seven wrestlers into the championship round, claiming three first-place prizes, including that of heavyweight Andres Blea.</p>
<p>But the defending Class 1A-3A state champ – who has pinned all 10 of his opponents this season – said he received a very important wake-up call in his quarterfinal matchup against Joel Barrett of Carlsbad.</p>
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<p>“I wasn’t really concerned coming in, but being in that position in my first match really woke me up,” he said. “I just messed up on a move and he took advantage.”</p>
<p>Blea, who had taken Barrett down and released him earlier in the bout, was going for another takedown when he whiffed when reaching for his opponent’s leg.</p>
<p>“After I missed, he took me down and flipped me to my back,” Blea said. “I had to just try and roll through it.”</p>
<p>He did. And Blea subsequently pinned Barrett, Breysen Billings of Tucumcari and Juan Rodriguez from Deming in the title match. But it was that initial encounter that the 285-pounder won’t soon forget.</p>
<p>“That was the most danger I’ve been all season,” Blea said. “It made me realize that I can’t overlook anyone.”</p>
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<p>Also pinning their way through the tournament were Blea’s teammates Mario Olivas (9-4) at 120 pounds and 170-pounder Luke Sanchez (13-0).</p>
<p>“I think we’re finally all caught up with cardio and shaking the rust off after football,” said Sanchez, who played on this past season’s championship team. “Coach really drilled it in us that we needed to set the pace today, so that kind of added to the stakes. I think things went really well.”</p>
<p>Koery Windham (12-0) was St. Mike’s other top finisher, winning all three of his bouts, including a decision victory against Augustin Sandoval of Tucumcari in the finals.</p>
<p>“We definitely had an extra drive to win this tournament,” said the 160-pounder, who is also a three-time state champ. “We’ve won for so long, we just want to keep the momentum going.”</p>
<p>Clayton Montoya (106 pounds), Geno Palermo (113) and Jose Ocampo (138) were the Horsemen’s second-place finishers. Ocampo withdrew from the title bout after sustaining a blow to the mouth, which resulted in the loss of teeth.</p>
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<p>His opponent, Isaiah Anaya (12-0), was one of three wrestlers from Capital to claim first place. The other were 126-pounder Gilbert Mancha and 145-pounder Ernesto Salvidrez (14-0). Salvidrez, who won a Class 4A state title as an eighth-grader, said after last season’s second-place finish at the state tournament, he’s approaching each match with a sense of urgency, which was on full display Saturday.</p>
<p>“Nobody is stopping me this year – I’m not going to lose,” said the Capital sophomore. “I’m going to try and pin everyone, and everything I do is working toward getting that state title again.”</p>
<p>Other top finishers for Capital were 120-pounder Jonathan Anaya, who placed second; 113-pounder Daniel Ryan, third; 170-pounder Ryan Sirico, third; and 182-pounder Jacob Esquibel, fourth.</p>
<p>For other results from area teams, visit the Northern Exposure sports blog at <a href="" type="internal">www.abqjournal.com</a>/main/category/northern-exposure.</p> | St. Michael’s Rolls To Title at Home Invite | false | https://abqjournal.com/159894/st-michaels-rolls-to-title-at-home-invite.html | 2013-01-13 | 2 |
<p>The European think tank <a href="http://www.clubofamsterdam.com" type="external">Club of Amsterdam</a> is hosting a most interesting event on November 27, "The Future of the Media and Entertainment Industry." The organization's website features interviews with some of the speakers and analysts. According to media consultant Jonathan Marks, Danish public broadcasting has reinvented itself with fully integrated web, radio, and TV production. New audience participation formats are required to target younger audiences, such as an SMS version of the old "clapometer" (a device measuring the applause of a studio audience). New consumer electronics environments from Philips revolve around "ambient intelligence." And the law firm of business advocate Wanda van Kerkvoorden is assisting the founders of KaZaA in their ongoing struggle with the music and entertainment industry. Wish I could be in Amsterdam for this!</p> | Amsterdam Think Tank Event on Media Futures | false | https://poynter.org/news/amsterdam-think-tank-event-media-futures | 2003-11-12 | 2 |
<p>Socialism presented a serious conceptual challenge to capitalism, but never managed to threaten it in the marketplace. "Late" industrialization in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan has evolved squarely within the capitalist fold. But because it has, in fact, succeeded in undermining the competitiveness of advanced capitalist countries, its challenge is unprecedented. Never before has the West sustained a serious blow to its economic hegemony.</p>
<p>Even conceptually, late industrialization has bamboozled Western economists. Whether on the left or right, they have had a hard time explaining why, of all poor countries, South Korea and Taiwan have managed to industrialize or why, of all high-income countries, Japan continues to chip away at American competitiveness.</p>
<p /> | Asia's Industrial Revolution | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/asias-industrial-revolution | 2018-10-06 | 4 |
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<p>KOAT-TV reports ( <a href="http://bit.ly/1PPT9pn" type="external">http://bit.ly/1PPT9pn</a> ) that the peacock lashed out Wednesday after being surrounded by children.</p>
<p>The boy's father, Eloy Padilla, says he thinks the bird got the toddler with one claw. He took the boy to Urgent Care.</p>
<p>Zoo officials say the peacock felt cornered.</p>
<p>BioPark manager Lynn Tupa says park visitors sometimes get too close to the birds as they try to photograph their brilliant plumage.</p>
<p>She says park officials are reassessing the practice of allowing peacocks to roam freely.</p>
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<p>Tupa says the birds are very territorial, making it challenging to keep them in an exhibit.</p>
<p>In 2013, a free-roaming peacock at BioPark attacked a 2-year-old. She needed stitches.</p>
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<p>Information from: KOAT-TV, <a href="http://www.thenewmexicochannel.com/index.html" type="external">http://www.thenewmexicochannel.com/index.html</a></p> | Toddler attacked by peacock at ABQ zoo | false | https://abqjournal.com/591070/toddler-attacked-by-peacock-at-abq-zoo.html | 2 |
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<p>The board at a special meeting on Friday unanimously approved a grant to ensure that candidates for statewide judicial office and the Public Regulation Commission get 100 percent of what they're eligible for under the law.</p>
<p>The secretary of state had said previously that the candidates would be getting only 68 percent because of a shortfall in the Public Election Fund.</p>
<p>Winter's office calculated that the seven candidates - for Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals and the PRC - are eligible for $997,259 for the primary and general elections.</p>
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<p>But the fund had a balance of only $682,520, so the board came up with the remaining $314,739.</p>
<p>"I'm grateful for their approval of this grant, because it allows us to carry out our duties," Winter said in a statement.</p>
<p>The fund is fed by sources including proceeds from unclaimed property - the biggest contributor, at $1.2 million - along with leftover public financing money from previous election cycles, various fees on utilities and qualifying contributions, the $5 donations candidates have to collect to be eligible for public financing.</p>
<p>Since 2010, the Legislature has used millions of dollars from the Public Election Fund to pay for other election-related costs.</p>
<p>In the current budget year, for example, the fund started out with nearly $500,000 and took in more than $1.4 million. But the Legislature appropriated $1.25 million of that to the secretary of state's operating budget, leaving just $682,520 in the fund.</p>
<p>There's a formula in law for determining how much candidates are eligible for, based on the number of voters who can cast ballots in their races.</p>
<p>For the primary election, it's geared to the number of voters in the candidate's party in a district or statewide. For the general election, it's based on the total number of voters in the district or state. Candidates in uncontested primaries or general elections get half of what they otherwise would and judges running for retention - rather than in partisan elections - don't qualify.</p>
<p>The system is voluntary. This year, the candidates using public financing are Supreme Court Justice Judith Nakamura, a Republican, and her challenger, Democrat Michael Vigil of the state Court of Appeals; Court of Appeals Judge Stephen French, a Republican, and his challenger, Democrat Julie Vargas; PRC Commissioner Karen Montoya and Cynthia Hall, both Democrats running for a District 1 seat; and PRC Commissioner Valerie Espinoza, who is unopposed.</p>
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<p /> | $300K grant to fund seven candidates' campaigns | false | https://abqjournal.com/746344/board-of-finance-gives-secretary-of-state-money-for-publicly-financed-candidates.html | 2016-03-25 | 2 |
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<p>Navajo Nation police officer Houston James Largo was shot and killed a week ago while responding to a domestic violence call near the small town of Prewitt. (Source: Navajo Nation Office of the President and Vice President)</p>
<p>GALLUP – The man accused of gunning down a tribal police officer this year in a remote corner of the nation’s largest American Indian reservation will not go to trial until June 2019 because of the case’s complexity and the possibility that the suspect could face a death sentence if convicted, officials have said.</p>
<p>The Gallup Independent reported Thursday that Kirby Cleveland’s federal court trial has been delayed because lawyers have requested more time given the amount of evidence and witnesses involved, citing Elizabeth Martinez, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Mexico.</p>
<p>Lawyers also are working to line up experts who specialize in DNA, forensics, firearms and ammunition, the newspaper said.</p>
<p>Cleveland faces murder and weapons charges in the killing of Navajo Nation officer Houston James Largo, who was shot March 11 on a dark road in western New Mexico while responding to a domestic violence call.</p>
<p>Initially scheduled to be tried in June, Cleveland has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody pending trial.</p>
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<p>A woman from the rural community where the killing happened saw flashing police lights the night of the shooting and found Largo lying on the road, face down and bleeding. She used the radio in Largo’s patrol vehicle to call for help.</p>
<p>The 27-year-old decorated officer died the next day at an Albuquerque hospital. Cleveland was found hiding in the hills more than a mile away.</p>
<p>Before the shooting, Cleveland’s wife had called authorities saying he had been drinking and became angry.</p>
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<p /> | No trial for suspect in Navajo Nation cop killing until June 2019 | false | https://abqjournal.com/1110126/complexity-prompts-delay-of-trial-in-navajo-officers-death.html | 2017-12-22 | 2 |
<p>Published time: 21 Sep, 2017 01:07Edited time: 21 Sep, 2017 01:10</p>
<p>All parties to Iran’s nuclear agreement remain in full compliance with the deal, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said after the Wednesday P5+1 powers’ meeting. She emphasized that the deal had potentially averted a military incursion into Iran.</p>
<p>“This is an agreement that prevented a nuclear program and potentially prevented a military intervention,” Mogherini said, following a meeting of ministers representing the six world powers and Iran on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/403955-haley-trump-iran-nuclear/" type="external" /></p>
<p>Calling the negotiations a “frank” discussion, Mogherini said that it boiled down to all sides agreeing that no country has breached the terms of the deal.</p>
<p>“We all agreed on the fact that there is no violation, that the nuclear program-related aspects, which is all the agreement, are being fulfilled,” she said.</p>
<p>In an apparent reference to the recent criticism of the deal by US President Donald Trump, who has labeled the landmark agreement “worst deal ever negotiated” while vowing to scrap it, Mogherini argued that “there is no need to renegotiate parts of the agreement.”</p>
<p>Among the issues raised at the meeting was Washington’s commitment to the deal, Mogherini confirmed.</p>
<p>Speaking on whether she considers the deal to be effective, Mogherini said the answer to this question should lie exclusively within the scope of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is tasked with watching over Iran’s compliance with the scaling down of its uranium enrichment.</p>
<p>DETAILS TO FOLLOW</p> | No renegotiating Iran nuclear deal, all parties fully compliant – EU foreign policy chief | false | https://newsline.com/no-renegotiating-iran-nuclear-deal-all-parties-fully-compliant-eu-foreign-policy-chief/ | 2017-09-20 | 1 |
<p>By Joaquin Sapien, ProPublica</p>
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<p><a href="http://goo.gl/zcP2Ku" type="external">Shutterstock</a></p>
<p>Last week, the Justice Department convened hearings under the Prison Rape Elimination Act to examine the prevalence of rape and sexual abuse in the nation’s prisons and juvenile detention centers. As we’ve reported, the department has found alarming rates of <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/boys-in-custody-and-the-women-who-abuse-them" type="external">abuse by staff on youngsters in custody</a>. In a <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/709100-svjfry12-emb-052813" type="external">2013 survey</a> of more than 8,700 juveniles housed in 326 facilities across the country, 8 percent said they experienced sex abuse at the hands of the staff supervising them. Twenty percent of those who said they were victimized by staff said it happened on <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/709100-svjfry12-emb-052813#document/p24" type="external">more than 10 occasions</a>. But perhaps the most surprising finding: <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/709100-svjfry12-emb-052813#document/p23" type="external">Nine out of 10 victims were males abused by female staffers</a>.</p>
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<p>The prison rape elimination legislation first passed in 2003, but it then took the Justice Department nearly 10 years to study the issue and release rules for prisons and juvenile detention centers to implement. Beginning late last year, auditors contracted by the federal government <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/in-effort-to-end-prison-rape-questions-about-a-monitors-independence" type="external">started inspecting</a> these facilities to make sure that staff members are being trained on how to prevent sexual abuse and that there are effective means to monitor it.</p>
<p>American University law professor Brenda Smith has devoted much of her research to studying the problem, and she and her work helped shape the legislation that addresses it. We talked to her about the difficulty of getting the bill passed, the resistance from the corrections industry, and the psychological damage suffered by young boys who are abused by the women overseeing them. This is an edited transcript of our conversation.</p>
<p>People who have worked in this field know that sexual abuse in prisons has been a problem for decades. Why did it take so long to get Congress and the Justice Department to act?</p>
<p>I think gender has a lot to do with it. When legislation was first proposed by Rep. John Conyers in 1998, it was part of the Violence Against Women Act, and it had to get stripped out so the rest of the bill could pass.</p>
<p>But then, in 2001, Human Rights Watch released a report that really focused on inmate on inmate, male-on-male rape. And I think that because men could identify with sort of the vulnerability of being sexually victimized in custody, you got a lot of traction all of a sudden.</p>
<p>And I also think that there were some other groups that came together that were concerned about it. You had the human rights organizations; you had an organization called Stop Prisoner Rape, now <a href="http://www.justdetention.org/" type="external">Just Detention International</a>, which was comprised of mainly male survivors. Then you had some conservative groups, like the Catholic Church, the Hudson Institute, basically what they were concerned about was the spread of homosexuality.</p>
<p>I also think that there was concern about 2014 well, frankly, there’s just no other way to say it because it’s actually in the statute 2014 the racial dynamics of sexual victimization in custody: That white men were going to be sexually victimized by black men. So the underpinnings of the legislation were not really that wholesome.</p>
<p>But it was this group of very powerful co-sponsors, Ted Kennedy and Jeff Sessions in the Senate and Frank Wolf and Bobby Scott in the House. And so for some reason it just kind of took off like a bullet. And people like me and others who had been doing this work for a long time thought this legislation was going nowhere. Then the next thing we knew it had passed unanimously with unprecedented funding.</p>
<p>There’s a rising female population among the staffs in juvenile settings. What accounts for that? What challenges does that present?</p>
<p>It’s not that men aren’t qualified; it’s that they often can’t meet the requirements, which require a certain degree of education, no past criminal record, and passing a drug test. Women are more likely to be able to do that.</p>
<p>In New York, Rikers Island is majority female staff, 75 percent of them are African American. And that’s very common in cities.</p>
<p>One of the things that people are still trying to understand is what the harm can be to a boy who has experience of abuse with an older woman in these facilities. What’s the current body of scholarship on female-on-male abuse?</p>
<p>The short of it is that anytime a wrong has happened, you need somebody to acknowledge that something wrong has happened. Just the fact that people can’t wrap their head around the fact that this was something that happened to you that should not have happened to you, that it’s not okay.</p>
<p>One of the biggest harms is that these guys are victims, but they don’t even get a chance to name their victimhood because there is such a huge culture of masculinity, it would be like, why are you complaining about that?</p>
<p>If nobody even recognizes that that’s a problem then there’s not going to be any services, or any education, or any intervention to address it. And because people don’t understand that, then what happens is it deepens the harm.</p>
<p>And as far as the long-term consequences?</p>
<p>Anger, violent behavior, depression, the same thing that happens to all victims, post-traumatic stress, hostility and aggression toward women, all of that is in the literature. Many of them were reared by women, who maybe didn’t protect them, so it solidifies this perception that women are not there for them.</p>
<p>And talk about the consequences for women who actually have been caught violating young boys. How often are you seeing prosecutions? How often are you seeing penalties levied against female abusers of boys?</p>
<p>Well, we’ve been studying this, and this whole problem of sanctions has been there from the beginning. We’ve found about 300 cases total of female-on-male abuse 2013 cases that were reported in the media between 1990 and 2013. About 30 of the cases were related to juveniles. And if I remember correctly, of those 30, there were only seven or nine actual convictions.</p>
<p>But what we’re looking at is how the media characterized what happened, were they characterized as relationships? And did that characterization have an impact on the prosecution or the sanction? I think that’s a huge problem, because the likelihood of there being a sanction is really related to the importance that society places on harm to that victim.</p>
<p>For the most part these women pleaded guilty to things that wouldn’t lead you to believe that this person had any kind of sexual relationship with a youth, so they didn’t even have to register as a sex offender. And more often than not there is nothing about their behavior that would’ve led somebody else in a custodial setting not to hire them again.</p>
<p>And these are just the rare cases where there was some visibility in the media. When you talk about what happens at the facility level, and there’s no coverage, the consequences consist of a termination or a resignation. And what happens is people resign and when they resign, you don’t have to say anything. That means they can easily be hired somewhere else.</p>
<p>Do you see any commonalities among facilities where this seems to be particularly problematic, where there is a particularly high incidence rate?</p>
<p>Overcrowding. And this is true with both juvenile and adult facilities. Overcrowding means there’s an inability to supervise and a scarcity of resources, so you’re going to cut corners somewhere.</p>
<p>Culture is also a huge issue. What is the culture of your facility? First of all, there is the culture of corrections, and then there is the culture of the different shifts that people are on. And it really is an 2018okay, you cover me, I’ll cover you kind of situation.’ And the things that can go on that people feel are acceptable are really, really, really astonishing.</p> | Why Has It Taken the Justice Department 10 Years to Act on Rape in Juvenile Hall? | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/why-has-it-taken-the-justice-department-10-years-to-act-on-rape-in-juvenile-hall/ | 2014-01-14 | 4 |
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<p>At an informal refugee camp on the outskirts of Tripoli, Syrian refugees await the impending winter in overcrowded conditions. By official estimates, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/activists-syrian-jihadis-mistakenly-behead-ally-20909689" type="external">some 1.4 million refugees</a> have sought shelter in Lebanon since the start of the country's brutal civil war, with thousands more <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/world/middleeast/new-syrian-refugees-descend-on-lebanon.html?_r=0" type="external">pouring across the border</a> in recent days as the fighting between rebels and the military has intensified in the Qalamoun region. Here, a minibus selling household wares travels around the camp.</p>
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<p>The Tenuk camp, on the outskirts of Tripoli, was first started by the Palestinian refugees. It now houses refugees from both Palestine and Syria. As with most refugee camps in Lebanon, it is built on privately owned land, and residents get no help from the U.N. or the Lebanese government.</p>
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<p>The name Tenuk refers to the thin scrap sheet metal most houses are made of. Refugees rent the land and build shelters from any material they can find.</p>
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<p>&#160;A small refugee camp in Akkar, Lebanon. Northern Lebanon houses hundreds of small refugee encampments. They are usually built in the woods, away from the public view due to <a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/17538" type="external">growing anti-Syrian sentiments</a> in Lebanon. These camps get no official help from the Lebanese government or the U.N. Residents usually have to pay rent to the landowners, and scrounge for food and heating in a country where it is nearly impossible for them to find work.</p>
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<p>Akkar, Lebanon: A baby is seen sleeping in a small camp. Due to the lack of services such as sanitation and running water, the camps are infested with flies, especially during warmer months. The only medical help the camp gets is when the U.N. comes to vaccinate the babies.</p>
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<p>The gas stove in the kitchen area of a tent, in one of the many small camps in the Akkar region.</p>
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<p>Children play with burning garbage in a Lebanese camp that is located in farmland near Akkar.</p>
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<p>A small camp in Akkar is made of 22 tents, all similar to this one. Some residents have been living here for two and a half years, while others are new arrivals. There is no education for the children, and residents rarely leave the camp as they feel unwelcome, and say they sometimes get attacked outside the camp.</p>
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<p>A child burns wood for the stove that his family uses to cook and boil water.</p>
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<p>This family of 10 moved to this camp after renting an apartment for four months. They had trouble paying the $100 rent for the apartment, as their only income is the monthly $100 they get from the U.N., which they say is barely enough for housing and bread.</p>
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<p>A resident in one of the small camps in Northern Lebanon's countryside. The resident, who wishes not to be named, says he feels very sick, but can not see a doctor as he has no access to health services.</p>
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<p>Fatima (Not her real name) is a community organizer in the Tenuk camp near Tripoli. She has been living here for 13 moths with her three children. She paid $600 to secure a spot, and then built her house herself. Although she is illiterate, she helps other residents with forms to get help from U.N.</p>
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<p>An improvised camp built on farmland in Akkar, Lebanon. The small structures in the background are makeshift toilets.</p>
<p /> | Exiled From Syria, Refugees Brace For Winter | true | https://thedailybeast.com/exiled-from-syria-refugees-brace-for-winter | 2018-10-02 | 4 |
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<p>We knew TASER International had been serious about winning the body camera market, but its decision to <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/04/05/taser-international-goes-all-in-on-body-cameras-in.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">change the company name Opens a New Window.</a> to Axon Enterprise (NASDAQ: AAXN) was meant to underscore that commitment.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>However, by burying its well-known, immediately identifiable brand with something that could mean anything, Axon risks devaluing the extensive goodwill that's been built up over the years, and there's nothing to suggest it will be a successful strategy either.</p>
<p>Image source: Axon Enterprise.</p>
<p>Smith &amp; Wesson also recently changed its corporate name to the bland American Outdoor Brands (NASDAQ: AOBC), though it is keeping its storied firearmsname, much as Axon isn't changing the name of its stun guns. Similarly, a fewyears ago Research in Motion changed its name to BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY) to emphasize its focus on its self-named smartphone and operating system.</p>
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<p>Where the onewas really an attempt to <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/12/20/why-smith-wesson-changed-to-american-outdoor-brand.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">bury its association Opens a New Window.</a>with firearms by identifying with a new, bigger market opportunity, the otherhas done nothing to stop the smartphone company's slide into irrelevance. People have turned off their BlackBerrys en masse as they turned to the Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy. BlackBerry has even stopped making its own phones, now preferring instead to farm out the responsibility to a third party.</p>
<p>The gunmaker said the Smith &amp; Wesson branddidn't do justice to the full range of products it now offers, but it also doesn't change that firearms still represent 87% of total net sales.Still, by separating itself from the volatility inherent in gun sales by erecting a barrier in the form of an innocuous sounding new corporate identity, it hopes it can smooth out the wild swings of its stock.</p>
<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>While Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) didn't rebrand the whole company when it renamed its DVD-by-mail rental service to Qwikster, it quickly came to realize what a <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/04/27/netflix-should-kill-dvds.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">dumb move Opens a New Window.</a>that was. Even though the future of the company is in streaming and content creation, it didn't mean it needed to entirely recast its legacy business. Fortunately it hadn't changed the corporate identity so undoing the rebranding scheme was simple enough to allow it to go on as if nothing happened.</p>
<p>Yet that episode also shows a company doesn't need a completely new name even if it is going in a wholly new direction. Netflix could have come up with exciting new branding for itself as it entered streaming and began making cool, engaging shows, but it realized it had a lot invested in the Netflix brand, despite it originally representinga way to rent movies over the internet. Changing the corporate identity would have cost it a lot more than simply ordering new letterhead and business cards.</p>
<p>In that respect Axon can only hope to achieve the success Altria has, perhaps one of the more successful name changes in corporate history. While it doesn't stop anyone from knowing it makes cigarettes -- arguably, it makes you think about it more -- its stock has enjoyed massive gains since it made the switch nearly 15 years ago, particularly if you include the spinoff of Philip Morris International in 2008.</p>
<p>Axon's name change is certainly one that focuses on its new direction, not least because it adopts the name of its body cam business. Yet at first blush it would appear to be a situation similar to Smith &amp; Wesson because TASER stun guns still represent more than 70% of total 2016 revenues. But that's down from 83% the year before and TASER sales rose just 24% compared to the 153% gain in the Axon division.</p>
<p>Image source: Axon Enterprise.</p>
<p>And Axon sales represent the bigger opportunity. According to TASER's own figures, almost 98% of the 18,250 or so police departments in the country have purchased its stun guns, meaning there's limited opportunity for future growth. While body cams have big potential -- it just announced Austin, Texas just became the 37th major city to buy its cameras -- the real future revenue stream will come from Evidence.com, its evidence management system.</p>
<p>Like a razor-and-blades business model, Axon can afford to give away its body cameras as it's offered to in exchange for hooking people into the evidence management system, which will become an extraordinarily sticky service once it is embedded in a department. It won't be easy for a police department to extract itself from Evidence.com because of the time, expense, and pervasiveness of the new system in transferring all that data.</p>
<p>American Outdoor Brands tries to make the same pitch for its new rugged outdoor market opportunity by saying it's a substantially larger market than firearms, but it is also a crowded field it will never dominate compared to the relative handful of major body camera and evidence management companies, which is already one of the leading names in the industry.</p>
<p>Seeing the TASER name taken down off the marquee is tough for those who respect the brand, but despite changing its corporate identity to Axon Enterprises, the new name is infinitely better than Tribune Publishing's decision to change its name totronc, Inc. And whether you still call it TASER or by its new Axon Enterprise name, this is a company that still has the potential to register stunning growth in the future.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than AxonWhen 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=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=1d0f0429-8b08-439a-a6e6-8d57f81fe7d1&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 Axon 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=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=1d0f0429-8b08-439a-a6e6-8d57f81fe7d1&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/TMFCop/info.aspx" type="external">Rich Duprey Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Axon and Netflix. 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> | TASER Just Changed Its Name to Axon: Does It Matter? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/18/taser-just-changed-its-name-to-axon-does-it-matter.html | 2017-04-18 | 0 |
<p>After decades of selling issues with the promise of another salacious centerfold, Playboy has declared that they've "won" the battle for sexual revolution and are going to leave porn to the internet.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/business/media/nudes-are-old-news-at-playboy.html?_r=1" type="external">The New York Times</a> reports that 89-year-old editor-in-chief Hugh Hefner has agreed to pull full nudity from the magazine's pages. The idea was "nervously" presented by editor Cory Jones to Hefner last month and will be part of the magazine's redesign in March.</p>
<p>Though the Times reassures readers that the magazine "will still feature women in provocative poses," they will no longer be fully nude. Playboy's chief executive officer Scott Flanders underscored that the move is a sign of cultural victory rather than commercial struggles.</p>
<p>"That battle has been fought and won,” declared Flanders. "You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture."</p>
<p>Porn is now a <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/porn-industry-feeling-upbeat-about-2014-n9076" type="external">$100 billion industry</a> worldwide, with roughly ten percent of that generated in the United States. While the porn DVD industry has struggle mightily and outbreaks of HIV have temporarily shut down companies several times, online porn continues to proliferate at stunning rates. And, as Flanders notes, it's all just a "click away"—for adults and children, alike. Apparently, that's Playboy's version of a "win."</p> | Playboy Drops Porn: 'That Battle Has Been Fought and Won' | true | https://dailywire.com/news/383/playboy-drops-porn-battle-has-been-fought-and-won-james-barrett | 2015-10-13 | 0 |
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<p>Ader, nominated by Orban’s governing Fidesz party, defeated Laszlo Majtenyi, a former ombudsman for data protection nominated by the left-wing opposition. Ader won by 131 votes to 39, with 29 abstentions.</p>
<p>A second round was needed because Ader fell two votes short of the 133 votes needed for a two-thirds majority in the first round. Only a simple majority was needed to win in round two.</p>
<p>The 57-year-old Ader is a former parliamentary speaker and member of the European Parliament. He became president in May 2012, after the departure of former Olympic fencing champion Pal Schmitt, who resigned after 20 months in office because of a plagiarism scandal.</p>
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<p>Ader has often spoken out on issues related to environmental protection and ensuring the global water supply.</p>
<p>In March last year he clashed with the government over legislation which would have shielded from scrutiny hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds used by foundations set up the National Bank of Hungary. Critics accused the central bank, headed Gyorgy Matolcsy, of using the foundations to distribute money to friends and supporters and of splurging on real estate deals and other non-banknig activities. Ader sent the legislation for review to the Constitutional Court, which later struck down the legislation..</p>
<p>“He could have made his voice heard more often and noted his criticism in symbolic terms, but he could hardly block legislation,” said Csaba Toth, strategic director of the Republikon Institute think tank. “After Schmitt, he played a dignified role.”</p>
<p>The 66-year-old Majtenyi, who heads the Eotvos Karoly Institute, a liberal think tank, was branded by Fidesz as “serving foreign interests” because his institute receives funding from Open Society Foundations founded by Hungarian-born U.S. billionaire George Soros.</p>
<p>The government has accused Soros and numerous non-governmental organizations he supports — including corruption watchdog Transparency International and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights advocate — of trying to unduly influence Hungarian politics. Legislation targeting those and similar groups is expected to be debated in parliament within weeks.</p>
<p>Majtenyi criticized a wide range of Orban’s policies, including the educational, press and cultural freedoms “stolen” by Orban’s seven-year government, as well as the nationalization of the funds once belonging to private pension schemes.</p>
<p>“Corruption has crushed the state,” Majtenyi told lawmakers. “We would like a free and solidary Hungary. My ideal is the smallest possible state and the most possible solidarity.”</p>
<p>Majtenyi jokingly said he could ask parties whose leaders received support from Soros to vote for him, since Orban briefly studied at Oxford University in 1989 thanks to a Soros-backed scholarship.</p>
<p>Hungary’s Basic Law, or Constitution, alllows the president to serve for a maximum of two terms.</p>
<p>Orban will seek to win his fourth four-year term as prime minister in April 2018.</p> | Hungary’s president re-elected for 5-year term | false | https://abqjournal.com/967869/hungarys-president-re-elected-for-5-year-term.html | 2017-03-13 | 2 |
<p>BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) - In a story Jan. 2 about a woman charged with defrauding Florida Atlantic University, The Associated Press reported erroneously that the woman worked for the school and received about $24,000 in refunds. She was only a former student and received nearly $30,000 before school officials realized the error.</p>
<p>A corrected version of the story is below:</p>
<p>Former student accused of defrauding Florida university</p>
<p>A former Florida Atlantic University student is accused of enrolling in classes using fraudulent checks and receiving nearly $30,000 worth of refunds after dropping the classes</p>
<p>BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) - A former Florida Atlantic University student is accused of enrolling in classes using fraudulent checks and receiving nearly $30,000 worth of refunds after dropping the classes.</p>
<p>An FAU police report says 27-year-old Denise Elizabeth Keaton registered to take classes five times in June 2014 as Elizabeth Denise Keaton and paid with about $54,000 in fraudulent online checks. The arrest report says Keaton then canceled the classes and received funds from the university in three of the five cases. Before university officials figured out her checks were bouncing, $29,883.44 had been deposited into her bank account.</p>
<p>Police said Keaton forged academic transcripts from Colorado State University Pueblo.</p>
<p>She's charged with aggravated white collar crime, organized fraud and grand theft. An attorney isn't listed on jail records.</p>
<p>BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) - In a story Jan. 2 about a woman charged with defrauding Florida Atlantic University, The Associated Press reported erroneously that the woman worked for the school and received about $24,000 in refunds. She was only a former student and received nearly $30,000 before school officials realized the error.</p>
<p>A corrected version of the story is below:</p>
<p>Former student accused of defrauding Florida university</p>
<p>A former Florida Atlantic University student is accused of enrolling in classes using fraudulent checks and receiving nearly $30,000 worth of refunds after dropping the classes</p>
<p>BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) - A former Florida Atlantic University student is accused of enrolling in classes using fraudulent checks and receiving nearly $30,000 worth of refunds after dropping the classes.</p>
<p>An FAU police report says 27-year-old Denise Elizabeth Keaton registered to take classes five times in June 2014 as Elizabeth Denise Keaton and paid with about $54,000 in fraudulent online checks. The arrest report says Keaton then canceled the classes and received funds from the university in three of the five cases. Before university officials figured out her checks were bouncing, $29,883.44 had been deposited into her bank account.</p>
<p>Police said Keaton forged academic transcripts from Colorado State University Pueblo.</p>
<p>She's charged with aggravated white collar crime, organized fraud and grand theft. An attorney isn't listed on jail records.</p> | Correction: University Fraud-Arrest story | false | https://apnews.com/ca52c08d9bab4ef6b851811fd3e5346a | 2018-01-03 | 2 |
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<p>The company's solar-powered drone, designed and manufactured in New Mexico, will be used in flight testing later this year to help NASA gather information needed so new traffic management software can be used for low-altitude flights, said Silent Falcon CEO John Brown.</p>
<p>"We're part of a large team of companies working with NASA on a cloud-based software system to integrate unmanned aircraft into the national airspace," Brown said. "It will be similar to the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control system, but for low-flying (unmanned aircraft systems.) We'll do flight trials later this year."</p>
<p>NASA is developing individual software to manage different types of drones for flying in rural and urban zones. That includes flight procedures and rules for aircraft flying beyond visual line of sight, tracking capabilities for safety in populated areas and potential mitigation measures for flights in high-density urban zones.</p>
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<p>Silent Falcon flights will specifically test how pre-flight logs are integrated with NASA's traffic management system, Brown said.</p>
<p>"Those tests will help define what kind of information is needed from operators before flights and how all that interfaces with the NASA system," Brown said.</p>
<p>Effective traffic management is critical to open the skies to commercial drones.</p>
<p>The FAA is not expected to release comprehensive rules for unmanned commercial aircraft until later this year. But it has already authorized more than 5,000 private companies to operate drones for specific uses in the U.S., said Philip Finnegan, director of corporate analysis at the Teal Group, a Virginia-based aerospace and defense analysis firm.</p>
<p>"We assume each company is operating one or two drones, so there may already be up to 10,000 aircraft now authorized to fly," Finnegan said. "We need safe air traffic management systems in place to fully develop the commercial market, and that's what NASA is trying to do."</p>
<p>Once FAA rules are in place and traffic management systems are operating, the unmanned aircraft systems market is expected to rapidly expand, Finnegan said.</p>
<p>This year, the global market for drones - including commercial aircraft, military operations and research and development activities - will reach about $7 billion, according to the Teal Group. It's expected to grow to about $12.5 billion by 2025.</p>
<p>Silent Falcon, which launched in 2010, builds its aircraft at a 5,000-square-foot facility in Albuquerque's Southeast Heights. Armed with solar panels on the wings and lithium polymer batteries for energy storage, the vehicle can stay aloft longer than most drones on the market today, Brown said. It can be mounted with a range of sensors for various defense and commercial operations.</p>
<p>The company reached about $1 million in sales in foreign markets last year and expects to grow to more than $5 million this year. It's now seeking to lease space part of Google Inc.?s 60,000-square-foot building at the Moriarty Municipal Airport, where Google previously operated its own drone subsidiary, Titan Aerospace.</p> | Silent Falcon helps NASA test drone traffic management | false | https://abqjournal.com/764576/silent-falcon-helps-nasa-test-drone-traffic-management.html | 2 |
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<p>Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Gmail service suffered a brief outage on Friday afternoon, with Twitter (NASDAQ:TWTR) users reporting failed log-in attempts.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>On the company’s website, Google reported a possible disruption for Gmail and several other services at around 2 p.m. ET. The Gmail outage lasted until approximately 3:23 p.m. A spokesperson confirmed that most of the issues were resolved.</p>
<p>TechCrunch published a report detailing a glitch that mistakenly directed users to a page that automatically filled in an individual’s Hotmail address. Hotmail is the former brand name for Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) email service, which is now Outlook.com.</p>
<p>A Google spokesperson confirmed the issue, noting that it was unrelated to Friday's outage.</p>
<p>“Due to a technical glitch, some email addresses on public webpages appeared too prominently in search results," the spokesperson said. "We’ve fixed the issue and are sorry for any inconvenience caused.”</p>
<p>Gmail is the world’s most popular email service and had 366 million unique visitors in December, according to comScore.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>After falling 3.2% on Friday, Google shares slid another 42 cents to $1,122.79 in after-hours trading.</p> | Google’s Gmail Suffers Outage | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/01/24/googles-gmail-suffers-outage.html | 2016-08-15 | 0 |
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<p>Riverbend, the girl blogger on the Tigris, has a bitter (how would you not be bitter in Baghdad?) <a href="http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/" type="external">take on Zarqawi</a>:</p>
<p>“To hell with Zarqawi (or Zayrkawi as Bush calls him). He was an American creation — he came along with them — they don’t need him anymore, apparently. His influence was greatly exaggerated but he was the justification for every single family they killed through military strikes and troops. It was WMD at first, then it was Saddam, then it was Zarqawi. Who will it be now?”</p>
<p>Indeed, whom, or what, will we blame now? Killing Zarqawi was probably the only thing the administration could have done in Iraq that was guaranteed to generate positive spin–and the spin won’t last. Someone, somewhere, must be thinking about how to follow this act between now and November.</p>
<p /> | Next villain, please | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2006/06/next-villain-please/ | 2006-06-13 | 4 |
<p>The family of a Canadian man who vanished along with his American friend in Mexico earlier this month, believe the two men have been kidnapped.</p>
<p>Diego Hernandez, 22, and Craig Silva, 31, were last seen on May 8 in the <a href="http://www.theprovince.com/news/Family+fear+with+ties+missing+Mexico+have+been+kidnapped/8406585/story.html" type="external">Pacific resort city of Puerto Vallarta where both men worked</a> – Hernandez as a martial arts instructor and Silva as a customer service representative at a resort.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/20/british-columbia-man-22-believed-kidnapped-in-mexico/" type="external">The National Post</a> spoke to Hernandez’s aunt, Amanda Morales, who said her nephew had held a mixed martial arts event in the city on May 5.&#160;</p>
<p>Before the event, two men had approached him wanting “a piece of the action.” Hernandez turned them down, but the encounter left him shaken.</p>
<p>“It did scare them, but it’s just so common down there,” Morales said.</p>
<p>Three days after the event, Hernandez and Silva disappeared.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Canadian+American+missing+nearly+weeks+Mexico+report/8409397/story.html" type="external">The Canadian Press said</a> the men were last seen in Silva’s black 2003 Chevy Trailblazer, which has since been recovered by police.</p>
<p>According to Morales, Hernandez’s ex-girlfriend in Puerto Vallarta received a ransom phone call a day after the pair disappeared, but neither she nor the families had been contacted since.</p>
<p>The families have set up a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/helpfindandbringhomecraiganddiego" type="external">Facebook page</a> dedicated to finding the two men.&#160;</p>
<p>"The police in Mexico and the Embassy are taking this seriously and working on getting records but at this time it appears to be a random kidnapping," the moderator of the page wrote on May 12.</p>
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<p>#next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }</p> | Missing in Mexico: A Canadian man and his American friend kidnapped in Puerto Vallarta | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-05-20/missing-mexico-canadian-man-and-his-american-friend-kidnapped-puerto-vallarta | 2013-05-20 | 3 |
<p>Insane left-wing director Oliver Stone <a href="https://pagesix.com/2017/06/13/oliver-stones-late-show-interview-went-completely-off-the-rails/" type="external">reportedly</a> launched into a "cringe-worthy" rant condemning Israel during a live taping of Stephen Colbert's The Late Show, which was conveniently cut from airing.</p>
<p>On Monday, Stone appeared on the CBS show to promote his new Showtime miniseries featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, called The Putin Interviews. When host Stephen Colbert confronted the Oscar winner about his alleged sympathies for Putin despite the county's <a href="" type="internal">reported</a> meddling in the United States election, Stone redirected the conversation to Israel, a source told Page Six:</p>
<p>The source said they “watched from behind [their] hands” as Stone said words to the effect of: “Israel had far more involvement in the US election than Russia.”</p>
<p>The “Platoon” director further challenged Colbert by saying, “Why don’t you ask me about that?” — but we’re told that the host shot back, “I’ll ask you about that when you make a documentary about Israel!”</p>
<p>The source categorized Stone's Israel rant "a classic anti-Semitic canard.”</p>
<p>Stone went on to express sympathy for Putin: "He’s been through a lot. He’s been insulted and abused," said the director, "abused in the press, in the media."</p>
<p>"Anything about him negative that you found? Anything? Anything?" Colbert quipped back. "What do you say to the people who will say this is a fawning interview of a brutal dictator?"</p>
<p>While the source said Colbert was adamant about pushing-back on Stone's claims, it remains unclear why such made-for-TV interactions were cut from airing. Perhaps exposing left-wing Stone's apparent anti-Semitism simply doesn't fit The Late Show's agenda.</p>
<p>"Colbert was great. He wouldn’t let Stone get away with anything," said the source, adding that Stone looked "stone-faced" in response.</p> | Insane Leftist Director Oliver Stone Ranted About Israel On Colbert Show… So They Cut It. | true | https://dailywire.com/news/17531/insane-leftist-director-oliver-stone-ranted-about-amanda-prestigiacomo | 2017-06-14 | 0 |
<p>Rite Aid Corporation (RAD) will report its next earnings on Dec 21 BMO. The company reported the earnings of $-0.01/Share in the last quarter where the estimated EPS by analysts was $-0.01/share.</p>
<p>Many analysts are providing their Estimated Earnings analysis for Rite Aid Corporation and for the current quarter 4 analysts have projected that the stock could give an Average Earnings estimate of $-0.02/share. These analysts have also projected a Low Estimate of $-0.02/share and a High Estimate of $-0.01/share.</p>
<p>In case of Revenue Estimates, 5 analysts have provided their consensus Average Revenue Estimates for Rite Aid Corporation as 7.45 Billion. According to these analysts, the Low Revenue Estimate for Rite Aid Corporation is 6.98 Billion and the High Revenue Estimate is 7.84 Billion. The company had Year Ago Sales of 8.09 Billion.</p>
<p>Some buy side analysts are also providing their Analysis on Rite Aid Corporation, where 0 analysts have rated the stock as Strong buy, 0 analysts have given a Buy signal, 2 said it’s a HOLD, and 0 analysts rated the stock as Sell. (These Recommendations are for the Current Month Only reported by Yahoo Finance.)</p>
<p>When it comes to the Analysis of a Stock, Price Target plays a vital role. Analysts reported that the Price Target for Rite Aid Corporation might touch $2.25 high while the Average Price Target and Low price Target is $2.11 and $2 respectively.</p>
<p>The Relative Volume of the company is 0.84 and Average Volume (3 months) is 29.86 million. The company’s P/E (price to earnings) ratio is 22.56 and Forward P/E ratio of 37.</p>
<p>The company shows its Return on Assets (ROA) value of 0.8%. The Return on Equity (ROE) value stands at 14%. While it’s Return on Investment (ROI) value is 5.4%.</p>
<p>While looking at the Stock’s Performance, Rite Aid Corporation currently shows a Weekly Performance of -2.63%, where Monthly Performance is 25%, Quarterly performance is -32.23%, 6 Months performance is -44.94% and yearly performance percentage is -77.92%. Year to Date performance value (YTD perf) value is -77.55%. The Stock currently has a Weekly Volatility of 4.32% and Monthly Volatility of 6.69%.</p> | What Are Analysts Suggestions On Rite Aid Corporation (RAD) | false | https://newsline.com/what-are-analysts-suggestions-on-rite-aid-corporation-rad/ | 2017-12-18 | 1 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Police have identified a body found partly buried in a vacant lot in northwest Albuquerque last week as that of 49-year-old Patricia Platero of To'hajiilee.</p>
<p>Platero's body was found under a pile of bricks, cinder blocks and debris near Bluewater and Airport NW, said officer Tanner Tixier, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department.</p>
<p>On Thursday, a passer-by found her hand and a sock sticking out of the pile and called the police.</p>
<p>Staff from the Office of the Medical Investigator and police excavated her body Friday morning.</p>
<p>Her death is being investigated as suspicious, but the Office of the Medical Investigator has not determined how she died because her body is so decomposed, Tixier said.</p>
<p>"It's being treated as suspicious because of the way she was found," Tixier said. "It could be that she died and someone buried her. There might be a tampering-with-evidence charge then instead of murder."</p>
<p>Platero was last seen by her family in To'jajiilee on April 16, and they reported her missing on May 20, Tixier said.</p>
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<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Police ID woman found buried in vacant lot | false | https://abqjournal.com/608663/police-id-woman-dead-in-vacant-lot.html | 2015-07-06 | 2 |
<p>Police in Westminster, Colorado, have made an arrest in the killing of 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway.</p>
<p>The girl was last seen by her mother as she left for school October 5. Her dismembered body was found last week at a park in Arvada, a Denver suburb five miles from Westminster, <a href="http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/24/arrest-made-in-jessica-ridgeway-murder/" type="external">CNN reported</a>.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/121012/dismembered-body-colorado-jessica-ridgeway-video" type="external">Dismembered body in Colorado is Jessica Ridgeway, police say (VIDEO)</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21844711/arrest-made-jessica-ridgeway-case" type="external">The Denver Post reported</a> the suspect is a 17-year-old boy named Austin Reed Sigg.</p>
<p>The&#160;Arapahoe Community College student was arrested late Tuesday after police received a tip that led them to a home about 1.4 miles from Jessica's home in Westminster, according to the newspaper.</p>
<p>Sigg will be charged with two counts of first-degree murder as well as kidnapping in the next few days, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/24/jessica-ridgeway-arrest-colorado/1654699/?sf6792586=1" type="external">USA Today reported</a>.</p>
<p>Charges will also be filed against Sigg in the May 28 attempted abduction of an adult jogger, which authorities have said is related to the Ridgeway case.</p> | Jessica Ridgeway arrest: Murder suspect in custody | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-10-24/jessica-ridgeway-arrest-murder-suspect-custody | 2012-10-24 | 3 |
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<p>Workers process marijuana in the trimming room at the Medicine Man dispensary and grow operation in Denver on Dec. 5. Colorado prepares to be the first state in the nation to allow recreational pot sales, starting Wednesday.(The Associated Press)</p>
<p>DENVER – A gleaming white Apple store of weed is how Andy Williams sees his new Denver marijuana dispensary.</p>
<p>Two floors of pot-growing rooms will have windows showing the shopping public how the mind-altering plant is grown. Shoppers will be able to peruse drying marijuana buds and see pot trimmers at work separating the valuable flowers from the less-prized stems and leaves.</p>
<p>“It’s going to be all white and beautiful,” the 45-year-old ex-industrial engineer explains, excitedly gesturing around what just a few weeks ago was an empty warehouse space that will eventually house 40,000 square feet of cannabis strains.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>As Colorado prepares to be the first in the nation to allow recreational pot sales, opening Wednesday, hopeful retailers like Williams are investing their fortunes into the legal recreational pot world – all for a chance to build even bigger ones in a fledgling industry that faces an uncertain future.</p>
<p>Officials in Colorado and Washington, the other state where recreational pot goes on sale in mid-2014, as well as activists, policymakers and governments from around the U.S. and across the world will not be the only ones watching the experiment unfold.</p>
<p>So, too, will the U.S. Department of Justice, which for now is not fighting to shut down the industries.</p>
<p>“We are building an impressive showcase for the world, to show them this is an industry,” Williams said.</p>
<p>Will it be a showcase for a safe, regulated pot industry that generates hundreds of millions of dollars each year and saves money on locking up drug criminals, or one that will prove, once and for all, that the federal government has been right to ban pot since 1937?</p>
<p>Voters in Colorado approved recreational pot in 2012, sold in part on spending less to lock up drug criminals and the potential for new tax dollars to fund state programs.</p>
<p>The votes raised new questions about whether the federal government would sue to block laws flouting federal drug law. That didn’t happen. In August, the DOJ said it wouldn’t sue so long as the states met an eight-point standard that includes keeping pot out of other states and away from children, criminal cartels and federal property.</p>
<p>Colorado law allows adults 21 and older to buy pot at state-sanctioned pot retail stories, and state regulations forbid businesses from advertising in places where children are likely see their pitches.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Only existing medical dispensaries were allowed to apply for licenses. Only a few dozen shops statewide are expected to be open for recreational sales on New Year’s Day.</p>
<p>Legal pot’s potential has spawned businesses beyond retail shops. Marijuana-testing companies have popped up, checking regulated weed for potency and screening for harmful molds. Gardening courses charge hundreds to show people how to grow weed at home.</p>
<p>Tourism companies take curious tourists to glass-blowing shops where elaborate smoking pipes are made.</p>
<p>A Colorado State University study estimates the state will ring up $606 million in sales next year, and the market will grow from 105,000 medical pot users to 643,000 adult users overnight – and that’s not counting tourists.</p>
<p>One of the biggest questions is whether they have built an industry that will not only draw in tens of millions of dollars in revenue but also make a significant dent in the illegal market.</p>
<p>As state officials watch for signs of trouble, they will also have to make sure they don’t run afoul of the DOJ’s conditions.</p>
<p>To stop the drug from being smuggled out of state, regulators in both states are using a radio-frequency surveillance system developed to track pot from the greenhouses to the stores and have set low purchasing limits for non-residents.</p>
<p>Officials concede that there’s little they can do to prevent marijuana from ending up in suitcases on the next flight out.</p>
<p>To prevent the criminal element from getting a foothold, regulators have enacted residency requirements for business owners, banned out-of-state investment and run background checks on every applicant for a license to sell or grow the plant.</p>
<p>Whether the systems are enough is anyone’s guess.</p>
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<p /> | Legal marijuana sales begin amid uncertainty in Colorado | false | https://abqjournal.com/328332/legal-marijuana-sales-begin-amid-uncertainty-in-colorado.html | 2 |
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<p>SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The latest on Pope Francis’ visit to Latin America (all times local):</p>
<p>9:20 p.m.</p>
<p>Thousands of people have lined avenues in Chile’s capital to get a glimpse of Pope Francis as he passes by in his popemobile.</p>
<p>But compared to papal visits to other Latin American countries, the crowds are very thin, in many areas a single line of people.</p>
<p>Francis’ first visit to Chile as the head of the Roman Catholic Church comes at a time when many Chileans are skeptical of the church and even angry over one of the pope’s decisions. In 2015, Francis appointed a bishop who had been close to the Rev. Fernando Karadima, who abused dozens of minors over decades.</p>
<p>Some people cheered “Long live the pope!” when he passed by.</p>
<p>Others carried signs criticizing the pope or extolling him to act. “Stop the abuse, Francis!” read one sign. “You can so you must!”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>7:15 p.m.</p>
<p>Pope Francis has landed in Chile, where protests are expected over his decision to appoint a bishop who was close to the Andean nation’s most notorious pedophile priest.</p>
<p>Francis’ arrival Monday night marks his first visit to Chile since becoming pope in 2013.</p>
<p>After deplaning, he’ll meet with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.</p>
<p>Over the next three days, Francis is scheduled to celebrate Mass in Santiago, the southern city of Temuco and the northern city of Iquique. On Thursday, the pope will go to Peru.</p>
<p>Francis’ trip is aimed at highlighting the plight of immigrants and underscoring the need to preserve the Amazon rain forest. However, sexual abuse by priests has taken front and center.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>7 p.m.</p>
<p>Pope Francis is sending greetings to his homeland of Argentina as his plane flies over the country en route to neighboring Chile.</p>
<p>Francis says he sends “my heartfelt best wishes to all the people in my homeland.”</p>
<p>The papal flyby was yet another reminder that Francis has assiduously avoided returning to Argentina in his five years as pope and on his six trips to Latin America.</p>
<p>Most Vatican watchers attribute his reluctance to return home to his abhorrence of being used by Argentina’s political factions, since any visit would involve a series of protocol visits, photo-ops and propaganda opportunities for whichever government is in power.</p>
<p>Francis is so attuned to the possibility that his image could be exploited for political ends that he refused while archbishop of Buenos Aires to offer communion at Mass to the rank and file, since it could be seen as an endorsement of the recipient.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>6:45 p.m.</p>
<p>Government officials in Chile say no topic will be off limits when Pope Francis meets with President Michelle Bachelet late Monday.</p>
<p>Government spokeswoman Paula Narvaez says Bachelet views the visit like any head of state.</p>
<p>Many Chileans have expressed concern in recent weeks that Francis may openly support Bolivia’s push for a piece of land from Chile to connect that landlocked country to the Pacific Ocean. The topic is a sensitive for Chileans, who feel that giving Bolivia a slice of land would compromise their national borders.</p>
<p>There has also been talk about whether the pope would bring up proposals to legalize abortion in the Andean nation. Currently abortion is only legal if the life of a woman is at risk, if pregnancy results from or if a fetus is not viable.</p>
<p>Politically, the Roman Catholic Church has had a strong influence in Chile, managing to keep some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws in effect.</p>
<p>The pope will be in Chile until Thursday, when he travels to Peru.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>4:30 p.m.</p>
<p>Hours before Pope Francis is set to arrive in Chile, activists on issues related to sex abuse by priests are calling for sanctions against both abusers and anyone who helped cover up their actions.</p>
<p>About 200 people attended the first of several planned meetings and protests aimed at making priest abuse a central topic of Francis’ first visit to the Andean nation since becoming pope.</p>
<p>Priestly abuse in Chile is an open wound. That’s in part because of Francis’ decision to appoint a bishop with close ties to the country’s most notorious abuser, the Rev. Fernando Karadima.</p>
<p>Juan Carlos Cruz, who was abused as a child by Karadima, says it’s time for the pope to ask for forgiveness and take action.</p>
<p>SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The latest on Pope Francis’ visit to Latin America (all times local):</p>
<p>9:20 p.m.</p>
<p>Thousands of people have lined avenues in Chile’s capital to get a glimpse of Pope Francis as he passes by in his popemobile.</p>
<p>But compared to papal visits to other Latin American countries, the crowds are very thin, in many areas a single line of people.</p>
<p>Francis’ first visit to Chile as the head of the Roman Catholic Church comes at a time when many Chileans are skeptical of the church and even angry over one of the pope’s decisions. In 2015, Francis appointed a bishop who had been close to the Rev. Fernando Karadima, who abused dozens of minors over decades.</p>
<p>Some people cheered “Long live the pope!” when he passed by.</p>
<p>Others carried signs criticizing the pope or extolling him to act. “Stop the abuse, Francis!” read one sign. “You can so you must!”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>7:15 p.m.</p>
<p>Pope Francis has landed in Chile, where protests are expected over his decision to appoint a bishop who was close to the Andean nation’s most notorious pedophile priest.</p>
<p>Francis’ arrival Monday night marks his first visit to Chile since becoming pope in 2013.</p>
<p>After deplaning, he’ll meet with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.</p>
<p>Over the next three days, Francis is scheduled to celebrate Mass in Santiago, the southern city of Temuco and the northern city of Iquique. On Thursday, the pope will go to Peru.</p>
<p>Francis’ trip is aimed at highlighting the plight of immigrants and underscoring the need to preserve the Amazon rain forest. However, sexual abuse by priests has taken front and center.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>7 p.m.</p>
<p>Pope Francis is sending greetings to his homeland of Argentina as his plane flies over the country en route to neighboring Chile.</p>
<p>Francis says he sends “my heartfelt best wishes to all the people in my homeland.”</p>
<p>The papal flyby was yet another reminder that Francis has assiduously avoided returning to Argentina in his five years as pope and on his six trips to Latin America.</p>
<p>Most Vatican watchers attribute his reluctance to return home to his abhorrence of being used by Argentina’s political factions, since any visit would involve a series of protocol visits, photo-ops and propaganda opportunities for whichever government is in power.</p>
<p>Francis is so attuned to the possibility that his image could be exploited for political ends that he refused while archbishop of Buenos Aires to offer communion at Mass to the rank and file, since it could be seen as an endorsement of the recipient.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>6:45 p.m.</p>
<p>Government officials in Chile say no topic will be off limits when Pope Francis meets with President Michelle Bachelet late Monday.</p>
<p>Government spokeswoman Paula Narvaez says Bachelet views the visit like any head of state.</p>
<p>Many Chileans have expressed concern in recent weeks that Francis may openly support Bolivia’s push for a piece of land from Chile to connect that landlocked country to the Pacific Ocean. The topic is a sensitive for Chileans, who feel that giving Bolivia a slice of land would compromise their national borders.</p>
<p>There has also been talk about whether the pope would bring up proposals to legalize abortion in the Andean nation. Currently abortion is only legal if the life of a woman is at risk, if pregnancy results from or if a fetus is not viable.</p>
<p>Politically, the Roman Catholic Church has had a strong influence in Chile, managing to keep some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws in effect.</p>
<p>The pope will be in Chile until Thursday, when he travels to Peru.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>4:30 p.m.</p>
<p>Hours before Pope Francis is set to arrive in Chile, activists on issues related to sex abuse by priests are calling for sanctions against both abusers and anyone who helped cover up their actions.</p>
<p>About 200 people attended the first of several planned meetings and protests aimed at making priest abuse a central topic of Francis’ first visit to the Andean nation since becoming pope.</p>
<p>Priestly abuse in Chile is an open wound. That’s in part because of Francis’ decision to appoint a bishop with close ties to the country’s most notorious abuser, the Rev. Fernando Karadima.</p>
<p>Juan Carlos Cruz, who was abused as a child by Karadima, says it’s time for the pope to ask for forgiveness and take action.</p> | The Latest: Small crowds greet pope on first visit to Chile | false | https://apnews.com/0c0e66cfec454210b513e09031e2d7fa | 2018-01-16 | 2 |
<p>According to a new <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/366178892/CBS-News-Alabama-Election" type="external">CBS News poll</a>, a whopping 71% of likely Republican voters in Alabama don’t believe the allegations of sexual harassment and assault that have been made against GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore.</p>
<p>Specifically, 35% of likely Republican voters believe the allegations are "probably false," and 36% believe they are "definitely false."</p>
<p>Among Republicans who don’t believe Moore’s accusers, 88% say the media is "behind [the] allegations," 47% blame other Republicans, 92% blame Democrats, and 94% blame people "seeking attention or money."</p>
<p>There are several other notable finds in the YouGov-conducted poll, which queried 1,067 registered voters in the state of Alabama, 767 of whom are likely voters.</p>
<p>When asked: "Whether they are true or false, are the things Roy Moore is accused of serious, or not serious?" 28% of likely Republican voters replied "not serious," while 72% replied "serious."</p>
<p>When asked if the biblical defense for Moore’s alleged actions was appropriate (comparing the allegations against Moore to the relationship between Mary and Joseph in the New Testament), 24% of Republicans said it was "appropriate," while 76% said it was "inappropriate."</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2017/senate/al/alabama_senate_special_election_moore_vs_jones-6271.html​" type="external">RealClearPolitics</a> average has Moore 3.2 points ahead of Jones as of Monday. The election will be held on December 12.</p> | Poll: 71% Of Alabama Republicans Think Moore Allegations Are ‘Probably False’ Or ‘Definitely False’ | true | https://dailywire.com/news/24251/poll-71-alabama-republicans-think-moore-frank-camp | 2017-12-04 | 0 |
<p>PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man accused of ambushing and shooting a Philadelphia police officer disrupted his jury selection, telling potential jurors his court appointed lawyers don’t represent him.</p>
<p>Before 60 prospective jurors were led into court in Philadelphia, 32-year-old Edward Archer told the judge his attorneys don’t represent him and repeated the statement while potential jurors were present Monday. The Philadelphia Inquirer <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/crime/gunman-who-shot-cop-takes-aim-at-his-lawyers-in-court-20180122.html" type="external">reports</a> defense attorney Trevan Borum argued Archer’s statement Monday shows he is not competent to stand trial.</p>
<p>The judge previously agreed with the prosecution in ruling that Archer is aware of the charges and is choosing not to cooperate.</p>
<p>Archer’s charges include attempted murder and aggravated assault in the unprovoked January 2016 attack on Officer Jesse Hartnett in his patrol car. Hartnett spent two weeks in the hospital.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Philadelphia Inquirer, <a href="http://www.inquirer.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.inquirer.com" type="external">http://www.inquirer.com</a></p>
<p>PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man accused of ambushing and shooting a Philadelphia police officer disrupted his jury selection, telling potential jurors his court appointed lawyers don’t represent him.</p>
<p>Before 60 prospective jurors were led into court in Philadelphia, 32-year-old Edward Archer told the judge his attorneys don’t represent him and repeated the statement while potential jurors were present Monday. The Philadelphia Inquirer <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/crime/gunman-who-shot-cop-takes-aim-at-his-lawyers-in-court-20180122.html" type="external">reports</a> defense attorney Trevan Borum argued Archer’s statement Monday shows he is not competent to stand trial.</p>
<p>The judge previously agreed with the prosecution in ruling that Archer is aware of the charges and is choosing not to cooperate.</p>
<p>Archer’s charges include attempted murder and aggravated assault in the unprovoked January 2016 attack on Officer Jesse Hartnett in his patrol car. Hartnett spent two weeks in the hospital.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Philadelphia Inquirer, <a href="http://www.inquirer.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.inquirer.com" type="external">http://www.inquirer.com</a></p> | Man accused of ambushing officer disrupts jury selection | false | https://apnews.com/069f30fef3734508b31f440c64397c1d | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
<p>For the past few weeks a sometimes comic debate has simmering in the American press, focused on the question of whether there is an Israeli lobby, and if so, just how powerful is it?</p>
<p>I would have thought that to ask whether there’s an Israeli lobby here is a bit like asking whether there’s a Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor and a White House located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC. For the past sixty years the Lobby has been as fixed a part of the American scene as either of the other two monuments, and not infrequently exercising as much if not more influence on the onward march of history.</p>
<p>The late Steve Smith, brother in law of Teddy Kennedy, and a powerful figure in the Democratic Party for several decades, liked to tell the story of how a group of four Jewish businessmen got together two million dollars in cash and gave it to Harry Truman when he was in desperate need of money amidst his presidential campaign in 1948. Truman went on to become president and to express his gratitude to his Zionist backers.</p>
<p>Since those days the Democratic Party has long been hospitable to, and supported by rich Zionists. In 2002, for example, Haim Saban, the Israel-American who funds the Saban Center at the Brooking Institute and is a big contributor to AIPAC, gave $12.3 million to the Democratic Party. In 2001, the magazine Mother Jones listed on its web site the 400 leading contributors to the 2000 national elections. Seven of the first 10 were Jewish, as were 12 of the top 20 and 125 of the top 250. Given this, all prudent candidates have gone to amazing lengths to satisfy their demands. There have been famous disputes, as between President Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin, and famous vendettas, as when the Lobby destroyed the political careers of Representative Paul Findley and of Senator Charles Percy because they were deemed to be anti-Israel.</p>
<p>None of this history is particularly controversial, and there have been plenty of well-documented accounts of the activities of the Israel Lobby down the years, from Alfred Lilienthal’s 1978 study, The Zionist Connection, to former US Rep Paul Findley’s 1985 book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/155652482X/counterpunchmaga" type="external">They Dare To Speak Out</a> to <a href="" type="internal">Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the US-Israeli Covert Relationship</a>, written by my brother and sister-in-law, Andrew and Leslie Cockburn and published in 1991.</p>
<p>Three years ago the present writer and Jeffrey St Clair published a collection of 18 essays called <a href="http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CP_Books.html" type="external">The Politics of Anti-Semitism</a>, no less than four of which were incisive discussions of the Israel lobby. Jeffrey St Clair described how the Lobby had successfully stifled any public uproar after Israeli planes attacked a US Navy ship in the Mediterranean in 1967 and killed many US sailors. Kathy and Bill Christison, former CIA analysts, reviewed the matter of dual loyalty, with particular reference to the so-called Neo-Cons, alternately advising an Israeli prime minister and an American president. Jeffrey Blankfort offered a detailed historical chronology of the occasions on which the Lobby had thwarted the plans of US presidents including Carter, Reagan, Ford, and Bush Sr.</p>
<p>Most vividly of all in our book, a congressional aide, writing pseudonymously under the name George Sutherland, contributed a savagely funny essay called “Our Vichy Congress”. Some extracts:</p>
<p>“For expressions of sheer groveling subservience to a foreign power, the pronouncements of Laval and Petain pale in comparison to the rhetorical devotion with which certain Congressmen have bathed the Israel of Ariel Sharon. Command performances before AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a leading organization in the overall Israel lobby ] have become standard features in the life of a Washington elected official The stylized panegyrics delivered at the annual AIPAC meeting have all the probative value of the Dniepropetrovsk Soviet’s birthday greeting to Stalin, because the actual content is unimportant; what is crucial is that the politician in question be seen to be genuflecting before the AIPAC board. In fact, to make things easier, the speeches are sometimes written by an AIPAC employee, with cosmetic changes inserted by a member of the Senator’s or Congressman’s own staff.</p>
<p>“Of course, there are innumerable lobbies in Washington, from environmental to telecommunications to chiropractic; why is AIPAC different? For one thing, it is a political action committee that lobbies expressly on behalf of a foreign power; the fact that it is exempt from the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act is yet another mysterious ‘Israel exception’. For another, it is not just the amount of money it gives, it is the political punishment it can exact Since the mid-1980s, no Member of Congress has even tried to take on the lobby directly. As a Senate staffer told this writer, it is the “cold fear” of AIPAC’s disfavor that keeps the politicians in line.</p>
<p>“As year chases year, the lobby’s power to influence Congress on any issue of importance to Israel grows inexorably stronger.Israel’s strategy of using its influence on the American political system to turn the U.S. national security apparatus into its own personal attack dog–or Golem–has alienated the United States from much of the Third World, has worsened U.S. ties to Europe amid rancorous insinuations of anti-Semitism, and makes the United States a hated bully. And by cutting off all diplomatic lines of retreat–as Sharon did when he publicly made President Bush, the leader of the Free World, look like an impotent fool–Israel paradoxically forces the United States to draw closer to Israel because there is no thinkable alternative for American politicians than continuing to invest political capital in Israel.”</p>
<p>So it can scarcely be said that there had been silence here about the Israel Lobby until two respectable professors, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt (the former from the University of Chicago and the latter from Harvard) offered their analysis in March of this year, their paper ,”The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”, being published in longer form by the Kennedy School at Harvard (which has since disowned it) and, after it had been rejected by the Atlantic Monthly (which originally commissioned it) in shorter form by the London Review of Books.</p>
<p>In fact the significance of this essay rests mostly on timing (three years’ worth of public tumult about the Neocons and Israel’s role in the attack on Iraq) and on the provenance of the authors, from two of the premier academic institutions of the United States. Neither of them has any tincture of radicalism.</p>
<p>After the paper was published in shortened form on the London Review of Books there was a brief lull, broken by the howls of America’s most manic Zionist, Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard, who did Mearshseimer and Walt the great favor of thrusting their paper into the headlines. Dershowitz managed this by his usual eruptions of hysterical invective, investing the paper with the fearsome allure of that famous anti-Semitic tract, a forgery of the Czarist police, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Mearsheimer-Walt essay was Nazi-like, Dershowitz howled, a classic case of conspiracy-mongering, in which a small band of Zionists were accused of steering the Ship of Empire onto the rocks.</p>
<p>In fact the paper by Mearsheimer and Walt is extremely dull. The long version runs to 81 pages, no less than 40 pages of which are footnotes. I settled down to read it with eager anticipation but soon found myself looking hopefully for the end. There’s nothing in the paper that any moderately well read student of the topic wouldn’t have known long ago, but the paper has the merit of stating rather blandly some home truths which are somehow still regarded as too dangerous to state publicly in respectable circles in the United States.</p>
<p>For example, on the topic of what is often called here ” America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East” Mearsheimer and Walt have this to say:</p>
<p>That Israel is a fellow democracy surrounded by hostile dictatorships cannot account for the current level of aid: there are many democracies around the world, but none receives the same lavish support. The US has overthrown democratic governments in the past and supported dictators when this was thought to advance its interests ­ it has good relations with a number of dictatorships today. Some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens, or that a recent Israeli government commission found that Israel behaves in a ‘neglectful and discriminatory’ manner towards them. Its democratic status is also undermined by its refusal to grant the Palestinians a viable state of their own or full political rights.</p>
<p>After Dershowitz came other vulgar outbursts, such as from Eliot Cohen in the Washington Post. These attacks basically reiterated Dershowitz’s essential theme: there is no such thing as the Israel lobby and those asserting its existence are by definition anti-Semitic.</p>
<p>This method of assault at least has the advantage of being funny, (a) because there obviously is a Lobby ­ as noted above and (b) because Mearsheimer and Walt aren’t anti-Semites any more than 99.9 per cent of others identifying the Lobby and criticizing its role.</p>
<p>Partly as a reaction to Dershowitz and Cohen, the Washington Post and New York Times have now run a few pieces politely pointing out that the Israel Lobby has indeed exercised a chilling effect on the rational discussion of US foreign policy. The tide is turning slightly.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, mostly on the left, there has been an altogether different debate, over the actual weight of the Lobby. Here the best known of the debaters is Noam Chomsky, who has reiterated a position he has held for many years, to the general effect that US foreign policy has always hewed to the national self interest, and that the Lobby’s power is greatly overestimated.</p>
<p>The debate was rather amusingly summed up by the Israeli writer Uri Avnery, a former Knesset member:</p>
<p>“I think that both sides are right (and hope to be right, myself, too). The findings of the two professors are right to the last detail. Every Senator and Congressman knows that criticizing the Israeli government is political suicide. If the Israeli government wanted a law tomorrow annulling the Ten Commandments, 95 U.S. Senators (at least) would sign the bill forthwith.</p>
<p>“The question, therefore, is not whether the two professors are right in their findings. The question is what conclusions can be drawn from them. Let’s take the Iraq affair. Who is the dog? Who the tail? The lesson of the Iraq affair is that the American-Israeli connection is strongest when it seems that American interests and Israeli interests are one (irrespective of whether that is really the case in the long run). The US uses Israel to dominate the Middle East, Israel uses the US to dominate Palestine.</p>
<p>“But if something exceptional happens, such as the Jonathan Pollard espionage affair or the sale of an Israeli spy plane to China, and a gap opens between the interests of the two sides, America is quite capable of slapping Israel in the face.”</p>
<p>Will the debate roused by the Mearsheimer-Walt paper continue? I think so, if only because in the era of George Bush, the influence of the Israel lobby and of the Christian Zionists has become so crudely overt.</p>
<p>And as Avnery concludes, far more colorfully than the two professors:</p>
<p>“American-Israeli relations are indeed unique. It seems that they have no precedent in history. It is as if King Herod had given orders to Augustus Caesar and appointed the members of the Roman senate.”</p>
<p>I have to say I’m not 100 per cent on board with NC on this one. The Lobby really does have very hefty clout. Ask Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr. In her excellent book The One-State Solution Virginia Tilley makes a persuasive case that the US strategy and tactics in Iraq have more to do with what Israel wants than any self-interested “realist” US plan.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>J. K. Galbraith and the Forks in the Road</p>
<p>Galbraith died on April 29, at the great aqe of 97. I once drove up to Vermont to interview him in his Vermont farm house. It was dark and I drove uncertainly along a dirt road and up a driveway and knocked on the door, shouting, “Is this the home of Professor Galbraith?” “No, ” came a testy cry from within. “It’s the home of Professor Hook.” Sidney Hook, the prototypical neo-con, lived on the opposite side of the hill from the Keynesian progressive, Galbraith. By no means for the last time, I reflected how easy it is in America to take, often without noticing, and end up 180 degrees from where you thought you were headed.</p>
<p>My Vermont trip took place in the mid 70s and it was still possible, though barely so, to imagine that there still might be feasible radical options available around the next corner.</p>
<p>From Saigon, on April 29, 1975, just before midnight, CIA station chief Tom Polgar had just sent his last secure communiqué to headquarters Langley, saying</p>
<p>“It will take us about twenty minutes to destroy equipment It has been a long fight and we have lost. This experience unique in the history of the United States does not signal necessarily the demise of the united states as a world power. The severity of the defeat and the circumstances of it, however, would seem to call for a reassessment of the policies of niggardly half measures which have characterized much of our participation here despite the commitment of manpower and resources which were certainly generous. Those who fail to learn from history are forced to repeat it. Let us hope that we will not have another Vietnam experience and that we have learned our lesson.</p>
<p>There was talk of a “peace dividend”. Optimistic souls wrote about a shift in budgetary priorities from the military industrial to the social industrial complex, with money pouring into low income housing and mass transit. At this point, in the wake of the Watergate disclosures of slush funds run by Fortune 500 companies, the corporate sector stood as low in public esteem as the CIA. The energy sector and even the Federal Reserve seemed ripe for serious bids for public control.</p>
<p>The usefulness of talking to Galbraith was that his own career lent a cautionary perspective to such hopes. No decent agricultural economist (such as Galbraith had been) in the Depression could have anything other than radical expectations as regards the shackling of the predatory corporate impulse. It was men like Henry Wallace, from the farm belt, who urged whatever left contour the New Deal actually had.</p>
<p>But by 1938 the New Deal had run out of steam, the recovery turned sour and what actually bailed out America was the loom and then the reality of the Second World War. Galbraith, still in his thirties, became deputy administrator in charge of price controls for the office of Price Administration.</p>
<p>As far back as the German script for 1914, war planning has mostly been the pragmatic backbone of socialist blueprints and it was easy to imagine that minute supervision of the economy post Pearl Harbor could flower into large-scale economic planning in war’s aftermath. Meanwhile the reality was that the cost-plus ten percenters were cleaning up on war contracts and around the corner lay the corporate counter-attack of the postwar years that gutted the Wagner Act with Taft Hartley.</p>
<p>Ahead lay comfortable Fifties academic visions of “plural elites”, or the “countervailing power” stand-off between business and labor advanced by Galbraith, already contradicted by the AFL-CIO’s postwar acceptance of its role as business’s junior partner at the feeding trough of a postwar boom underpinned by the permanent war economy ushered in by Harry Truman. This was the “war scare” of 1948, father of all those later budget-inflating scares, such as JFK’s “missile gap”, or the first neocon stampede initiated by Paul Nitze in the late 70s, which finished off the post-Vietnam vision of a peace dividend.</p>
<p>By the time I got to Oxford in 1960 people had Galbraith’s 1958 tract, <a href="" type="internal">The Affluent Society</a>, on their desks, jacket to jacket with the works of such other moral critics of capitalist consumerism as Leavis, Hoggart and Williams. How we sneered at the tailfin, first drawn in the Chrysler studio by Cliff Voss in 1954 as emblem of the company’s “forward look” launched in 1956.</p>
<p>The consumers had it right. Labor never was going to get any purchase on the commanding heights of the economy or any putative supervision by Congress of the allocation of credit, and of social investment, so they bought fun baroque cars on the installment plan instead, as thoughtfully arranged by GM’s Alfred Sloan decades earlier.</p>
<p>Although, as with his hero Veblen, his drollery could get tedious, Galbraith had the virtue of irreverence, albeit within the stifling constraints of urbanity. He liked to irk respectable economic opinion by applauding, for example, the stimulative effects of endemic inflation in Brazil. Within the Keynesian tradition ­- I remember him snarling with graceless venom about Marx — he was good–as in one of his best books, <a href="" type="internal">The Great Crash: 1929</a>— at pointing out that the free enterprise system, so-called, never has worked very well, same way as he established with the postwar bombing survey, that saturating Germany with high explosive never put much of a dent in the German war effort.</p>
<p>But the American free enterprise system, undeterred by urbane critique, pressed on deeper into error, always taking the wrong fork in the road. Confronted with a rational empirical critique of the efficacy of bombing, America offered in reply Curt Lemay’s Strategic Air Command and LeMay’s triumphant boast to JFK at the time of the Cuban missile crisis that SAC could “reduce the Soviet Union to a smouldering, irradiated ruin in three hours.”</p>
<p>In the early sixties came official identification by a task force assembled by Bobby Kennedy, of “pockets of poverty” blighting the American landscape. By May, 1964, Galbraith was writing LBJ’s launch speech for the Great Society. The price tag was ruthless escalation of the war in Vietnam. From 1961-63 Galbraith served as US ambassador to New Delhi. He got on well with Nehru and advised the Indian government on economic policy. But in India a fateful fork in the road had already passed. The CIA had secretly given the Congress Party funds to thwart the Communists’ revolution in Kerala, started in 1957 and embodying many of Galbraith’s social and economic ideals.</p>
<p>The person disclosing that secret funding in his memoir A Dangerous Place was a later US ambassador to India, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In the late 50s Galbraith offered his critique of capitalism’s public squalor and in the late 60s came Moynihan’s response: the blacks have only got themselves to blame. Onward into “benign neglect”. That was a big fork in the road, and one from which America has never turned back.</p>
<p>At least Galbraith, in his 90s, could look back to a time when a reformer could not only body forth a social vision, but tentatively identify the agencies whereby that vision could be put into practice. As I read through the Nation’s recent special issue on reforming the world’s economic arrangements, with fine contributions by Stiglitz, d’Arista, Galbraith’s son James and others, not once, in all the essays, was the question of agency ever raised, or the Democratic Party even alluded to. If there’s going to be a fork in the road ahead, the question of agency had better be on the agenda. Galbraith certainly understood that, though he politely underestimated just how roughly capitalism could play to win.</p>
<p>Note: A shorter version of the Galbraith item ran in the edition of The Nation that went to press last Wednesday.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Row Over the Israel Lobby | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/05/08/the-row-over-the-israel-lobby/ | 2006-05-08 | 4 |
<p>Lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) know exactly who's to blame for the terrorist attack carried out by a man who <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/" type="external">pledged his allegiance</a> to the Islamic State during the massacre: “The Christian Right.”</p>
<p>Around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old male born in New York to <a href="http://heavy.com/news/2016/06/omar-mateen-who-is-family-father-wife-parents-bio-orlando-mass-shooting/" type="external">Afghan parents</a>, murdered at least 49 people and injured 53 others at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Mateen called 911 during the attack and pledged his allegiance to ISIS, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/" type="external">according</a> to CNN. Soon after, ISIS <a href="" type="internal">claimed credit</a> for the attack via a news agency affiliated with the terror group.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, some ACLU lawyers leveled the blame at conservative Christians rather than radical Islam.</p>
<p>Chase Strangio, a staff ACLU attorney explicitly blamed “The Christian Right” and so-called “anti-LGBT” legislation for motivating Mateen’s actions. Islam, according to Strangio, was in no way to blame.</p>
<p>“The Christian Right has introduced 200 anti-LGBT bills in the last six months and people blaming Islam for this. No,” wrote the lawyer.</p>
<p>The Christian Right has introduced 200 anti-LGBT bills in the last six months and people blaming Islam for this. No. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PulseNightclub?src=hash" type="external">#PulseNightclub</a></p>
<p>As <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/12/aclu-lawyers-blames-christians-for-orlando-terror-attack/" type="external">reported</a> by The Daily Caller, Eunice Hyon Min Rho, another lawyer for the ACLU, passed the blame onto conservatives and slandered Republican lawmakers who expressed sympathy for the innocent victims of the attack:</p>
<p>Eunice Hyon Min Rho, who specializes in election and religious liberty law, impugned the motives of Republican lawmakers who expressed sympathy for the victims, by pointing out many were sponsors of the First Amendment Defense Act, legislation the ACLU considers anti-LGBT.</p>
<p>She further characterized expressions of solidarity as “useless,” as many of the victims could be people of color, who she contends are regularly stigmatized by Republican legislators. Little demographic data is currently available about the victims, as many have not yet been identified.</p>
<p>The lawyer reportedly retweeted “a user who claimed many public officials would use the auspices of an LGBT tragedy to pursue an ‘anti-Muslim agenda.’”</p>
<p>Eunice Hyon Min Rho has since <a href="https://twitter.com/EuniceACLU" type="external">deleted</a> her account.</p>
<p>The radical interpretation of Islam which has motivated so many to viciously kill innocents earned a pass from our Commander-in-Chief, as well. Following the attack, President Obama <a href="" type="internal">blamed</a> “hate” and the lack of gun control legislation; as per usual, the words “radical Islam” <a href="" type="internal">did not leave his mouth</a>.</p> | ACLU Lawyers: 'The Christian Right' To Blame For Orlando Terror Attack | true | https://dailywire.com/news/6529/aclu-lawyers-christian-right-blame-orlando-terror-amanda-prestigiacomo | 2016-06-13 | 0 |
<p>‘Black on Both Sides: a Racial History of Trans Identity’ is slated for a December release. It explores the lives of black trans women throughout U.S. history. (Photo courtesy University of Minnesota Press)</p>
<p>The 22nd annual Baltimore Book Festival returns to the Inner Harbor Promenade&#160;Sept. 22-24. The festival, which is free and open to the public from&#160;11 a.m.-7 p.m.&#160;each day, will feature about 500 presenting authors and 3,000 books for purchase at the Ivy Book Shop. Some of the literary stars who will be presenting include Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, children’s book writer Adam Gidwitz, and queer poet, writer, and performer Eileen Myles. For more details, including the full schedule of events, visit&#160; <a href="http://baltimorebookfestival.org/" type="external">baltimorebookfestival.org</a>.</p>
<p>Hot off the release of his highly anticipated memoir,&#160;“Logical Family”&#160;(Harper,&#160;Oct. 3), Armistead Maupin will speak at the National Museum of the American Indian (4th St and Independence Ave., N.W.) at&#160;6:45 p.m.&#160;on&#160;Wednesday, Oct. 4. “Armistead Maupin: Tales of a Lifetime,” will include a reading, discussion and book signing. “Logical Family” traces Maupin’s journey from his childhood in conservative North Carolina to Vietnam and eventually 1970s gay San Francisco, recounting the relationships he cherished along the way and how they have shaped him into one of America’s most celebrated writers. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit&#160; <a href="http://smithsonianassociates.org/" type="external">smithsonianassociates.org</a>.</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton’s seventh book (her third memoir) “What Happened” (Simon &amp; Schuster, Sept. 12) recounts her failed quest for the White House last year. Clinton has been more candid of late, a change of tone some — political ideology aside — are finding refreshing. Be prepared to shell out big bucks if you want to catch her on her book tour. Her&#160;Sept. 18&#160;appearance at Warner Theatre in Washington is nearly sold out (and may be by the time this is published). As of Monday, tickets were still available ranging from $195-345. Visit&#160; <a href="http://livenation.com/" type="external">livenation.com</a>&#160;for details.</p>
<p>If you’re a poetry fan,&#160;“Madness”&#160;by Sam Sax&#160;(Penguin Books, Sept. 12) is a stunning debut collection that interrogates our understanding of heterosexuality, sanity, masculinity and addiction. Sax, a queer Jewish writer and educator, draws on his personal and family mental health history to confront these difficult themes with fearlessness and candor.</p>
<p>In his latest conceptual series,&#160;“Beautiful Berlin Boys”&#160;(Kehrer Verlag, Sept. 12), Iranian American photographer, Ashkan Sahihi, pays homage to the gay creative community ravaged by the AIDS epidemic in 1980s New York City through nude photographs of gay artists in modern-day Berlin. In compiling the spare, intimate portraits, Sahihi discovered a haunting familiarity in his subjects, who recall the gay avant garde of his past while representing the newest generation of gay men in what he considers today’s creative capital.</p>
<p>“True Sex: the Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century”&#160;by Emily Skidmore&#160;(NYU Press,&#160;Sept. 19) tells the overlooked stories of 18 trans men who assimilated into small town communities during the late 1800s. Skidmore pieces together reports from local newspapers, medical journals and other sources to offer queer narratives that were not cosmopolitan or subversive, but rather quite ordinary, challenging our preconceived notions of community, rural identity and who we think of as trans or queer.</p>
<p>Amidst political uncertainty surrounding LGBT rights,&#160;“Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump’s America”&#160;by Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Kate Harding&#160;(Picador,&#160;Oct. 3) is an inspiring collection of essays from leading feminist writers who describe how we got here and how we can resist. Featured essays include Samantha Irby on living as a queer black woman in rural America, Randa Jarrar on cross country travel as a queer Muslim woman and Meredith Taulson on feminism and the transgender community, among many others.</p>
<p>“The Book of Love and Hate,” a new novel from Lambda Literary Award winner Lauren Sanders (Akashic Books,&#160;Oct. 3) tells of of protagonist Jennifer Baron encounters with queer Palestinians in Israel while searching for her missing father.</p>
<p>Also out that day is “TELL: Love, Defiance and the Military Trial at the Tipping Point for Gay Rights” by Maj. Margaret Witt with Tim Connor (ForeEdge,&#160;Oct. 3), a personal account of Witt’s decorated military career and the path to the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for LGBT servicemembers.</p>
<p>Any true Sasha Velour fan already has&#160;“Drags”&#160;(Kmw Studio,&#160;Oct. 16) set to preorder. Shot by photographer Gregory Kramer, the collection features hyper-glam black and white, full-length studio portraits of New York City’s drag kings and queens. “Drags” also includes essays by some of the photo subjects themselves: Charles Busch, Linda Simpson, Goldie Simpson, and of course, the ever-scholarly Sasha.</p>
<p>With recipes written as deliciously as they taste,&#160;“The Juhu Beach Club Cookbook: Indian Spice, Oakland Soul”&#160;by Preeti Mistry and Sarah Henry&#160;(Running Press,&#160;Oct. 31) has already sent the foodie world into a frenzy well beyond the Bay Area. Mistry, a gay Indian American chef beloved for her big personality, provides a contemporary spin on the traditional Indian cooking she grew up with in this eclectic collection of street food, comfort classics and haute cuisine.</p>
<p>Andrea Lawlor’s debut novel,&#160;“Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl”&#160;(Rescue Press,&#160;Nov. 1), offers a witty and raucous portrait of LGBT radicalism during the early ‘90s. The story follows Paul Polydoris, who studies queer theory and writes provocative zines when not tending bar at the local gay club. Lawlor portrays an exhilarating picaresque hero whose identity seesaws from Riot Grrl to leather cub as he parties through era staples, such as the Michigan Womyn’s Festival.</p>
<p>As a blend of memoir, true crime and ghost story,&#160;“Mean”&#160;by Myriam Gurba&#160;(Coffee House Press,&#160;Nov. 14) is difficult to categorize, but hilarious and poignant at every twist and turn. Gurba, a spoken-word performer and visual artist, tells her own coming of age story as a queer, mixed-race Chicana in California. “Mean” tackles themes of sexual violence, racism and homophobia with brassiness and heart as multilayered as Gurba’s approach to genre.</p>
<p>“Every Night is&#160;Saturday&#160;Night: A Country Girl’s Journey to the Rock &amp; Roll Hall of Fame”&#160;(BMG,&#160;Nov. 14), written alongside Scott B. Bomar, is the long-awaited autobiography of Wanda Jackson, the legendary “Queen of Rockabilly,” “First Lady of Rock &amp; Roll” and treasured gay icon. Jackson shares personal stories on her relationship with Elvis Presley, her faith and the challenges she faced in bringing sex appeal to country music and femininity to Rock &amp; Roll. The book also features a foreword by Elvis Costello.</p>
<p>In need of some playlist inspiration?&#160;“David Bowie Made Me Gay”&#160;by Darryl W. Bullock&#160;(The Overlook Press,&#160;Nov. 21) is a highly comprehensive history of LGBT music, spanning a century from early jazz and blues to today’s most recognizable pop stars out of the closet. Bullock meticulously chronicles the LGBT community’s vast influence on music through a historical lens, revealing how society’s oscillation between acceptance and persecution has shaped what we listen to today.</p>
<p>In&#160;“Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity”&#160;(University of Minnesota Press,&#160;Dec. 5), C. Riley Snorton uncovers the obscured or erased narratives of black trans women in the United States, beginning with the mid-19th century and continuing through present-day oppression and resistance. Snorton, a professor of Africana studies and feminist, gender and sexuality studies at Cornell University, builds on early sexological writings, fugitive slave stories, Afro-modernist literature and other materials to craft this essential account of black trans history.</p>
<p>Other releases of note include:</p>
<p>•&#160;“Murder Under the Fig Tree: A Palestine Mystery,”&#160;by Kate Jessica Raphael (She Writes Press), is a murder mystery novel that draws Rania Bakara, a Palestinian policewoman, deep into the underground Palestinian gay scene as she investigates the death of young man in a village adjacent to her own. The book is $16.95 and releases&#160;Sept. 19.</p>
<p>•&#160;“The Ultimate Guide to Gay Dads: Everything You Need to Know About LGBT Parenting But Are (Mostly) Afraid to Ask,”&#160;by Eric Rosswood (Mango), is a generous resource for gay and bisexual men who are thinking about starting a family together. The guide is $13.85 and releases&#160;Oct. 24.</p>
<p>•&#160;“Mostly Straight: Sexual Fluidity among Men”&#160;by Ritch C. Savin-Williams (Harvard University Press) is a biological, empirical and psychological research-based exploration of the personal stories of 40 young men who identify as sexually fluid or “mostly straight.” The book is $27.95 and releases&#160;Nov. 3.</p>
<p>•&#160;“Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic,”&#160;by Richard A. McKay (University of Chicago Press), investigates the introduction of the term “patient zero” into the popular lexicon during the 1980s AIDS epidemic. The book thoughtfully traces the life of Gaëtan Dugas, who was incorrectly identified (and vilified) as the first AIDS case in North America. It is $24.91 and releases&#160;Nov. 15.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Adam Gidwitz</a> <a href="" type="internal">AIDS</a> <a href="" type="internal">and Revolution in Trump’s America</a> <a href="" type="internal">Andrea Lawlor</a> <a href="" type="internal">Armistead Maupin</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ashkan Sahihi</a> <a href="" type="internal">Baltimore Book Festival</a> <a href="" type="internal">Beautiful Berlin Boys</a> <a href="" type="internal">Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie</a> <a href="" type="internal">Darryl W. Bullock</a> <a href="" type="internal">David Bowie Made Me Gay</a> <a href="" type="internal">Eileen Myles</a> <a href="" type="internal">Emily Skidmore</a> <a href="" type="internal">Eric Rosswood</a> <a href="" type="internal">Gaetan Dugas</a> <a href="" type="internal">gay</a> <a href="" type="internal">Hillary Clinton</a> <a href="" type="internal">Inner Harbor Promenade</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ivy Book Shop</a> <a href="" type="internal">Kate Harding</a> <a href="" type="internal">Kate Jessica Raphael</a> <a href="" type="internal">Madness</a> <a href="" type="internal">Mean</a> <a href="" type="internal">Mostly Straight: Sexual Fluidity among Men</a> <a href="" type="internal">Murder Under the Fig Tree: A Palestine Mystery</a> <a href="" type="internal">Myriam Gurba</a> <a href="" type="internal">Nasty Women: Feminism</a> <a href="" type="internal">Oakland SoulPreeti Mistry</a> <a href="" type="internal">Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic</a> <a href="" type="internal">Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl</a> <a href="" type="internal">Resistance</a> <a href="" type="internal">Richard A. McKay</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ritch C. Savin-Williams</a> <a href="" type="internal">Sam Sax</a> <a href="" type="internal">Samhita Mukhopadhyay</a> <a href="" type="internal">Sarah Henry</a> <a href="" type="internal">Scott B. Bomar</a> <a href="" type="internal">The Juhu Beach Club Cookbook: Indian Spice</a> <a href="" type="internal">The Ultimate Guide to Gay Dads: Everything You Need to Know About LGBT Parenting But Are (Mostly) Afraid to Ask</a> <a href="" type="internal">True Sex: the Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century</a> <a href="" type="internal">Wanda Jackson</a> <a href="" type="internal">Warner Theatre</a> <a href="" type="internal">What Happened</a></p> | FALL ARTS PREVIEW 2017: Books | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2017/09/15/fall-arts-preview-2017-books/ | 3 |
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<p>Michael McDermott’s new facility will officially open Feb. 1, but there’ll be action inside this coming Saturday. (Rio Rancho Observer—GARY HERRON photo)</p>
<p>Michael McDermott remembers thinking not long ago, that in light of all the baseball prosperity in Rio Rancho – three state diamond championships won by Rio Rancho High School and first-round draft money for Blake Swihart — why isn’t there something here?</p>
<p>Given that, he began thinking, “Why not me?”</p>
<p>So the McDermott Baseball Instruction opens its doors officially on Saturday, Feb. 1.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“There’s no reason something like this can’t thrive here,” McDermott says.</p>
<p>Last week, the indoor facility — located on Veranda Road, just west of Unser Blvd., south of Southern Blvd. and a short popup behind Storehouse West — was barren, with the new sign freshly attached and McDermott, a 2006 graduate of Rio Rancho High School, anxiously awaiting turf, netting and the other pieces necessary to assemble a couple of hitting tunnels.</p>
<p>Being a coach/instructor/teacher is natural for McDermott, whose father, Terry, played professionally (including stints with the Albuquerque Dodgers and Albuquerque Dukes, plus nine games with the L.A. Dodgers in 1972). Older brother Terry played baseball at St. Pius X High School, and his sister, Katie, played softball for the Sartans and the Rams, and then at Eastern New Mexico University.</p>
<p>More evidence of that foreshadowing? Here’s what appeared in an Observer during McDermott’s days with the Rams: “Take the Rams’ game with Roswell on March 11 (2005), with McDermott playing first base. He had more to say than a play-by-play announcer, if there’d been one: passing along advice to pitcher Marcus Riggs, reminding everyone on their field when there were two outs, keeping the infielders ready for a double play, telling catcher Justin Esquibel either to ‘Be a wall back there’ or ‘You’re a wall back there.’ And much more.</p>
<p>“One day earlier, again at first base, McDermott could be seen with an arm around sophomore starter Kyle Hammond, telling him what a great job he was doing in his varsity debut on the mound. (Great job? Try four innings of no-hit ball.)</p>
<p>“You didn’t really have to push Michael; he just took off and fell in love with (baseball) from day one,” his father added. “He’s a fan of the game, he’s a student of the game, he’s a player and he understands the psychological piece of it, too. You don’t get down on a kid if he’s kicking a ground ball or something like that, you go out and pick him up.”</p>
<p>Improve skills with tips from pro</p>
<p>Brian Cavazos-Galvez will be holding an indoor hitting camp Saturday from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at McDermott Baseball Instruction in Rio Rancho.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Cavazos-Galvez is from Albuquerque and is a former Albuquerque Isotope and UNM Lobo who’s currently playing in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization.</p>
<p>Players ages 10 and older will have an opportunity to learn about the mental and physical approaches to hitting from a true professional, who will break down key tools for hitting and how to apply them.</p>
<p>The cost is $60 for the three hours of instruction and includes a T-shirt, plus an autograph from Cavazos-Galvez.</p>
<p>Visit <a href="http://mcdermottbaseball.com" type="external">mcdermottbaseball.com</a> for more information.</p>
<p>So, it seems things haven’t changed much.</p>
<p>Michael McDermott once dreamed of playing professionally, but had that dream shot down by injuries, although he pitched for New Mexico Highlands University while battling an injured rotator cuff. Oddly, McDermott says of his four surgeries — one knee, three shoulder — only one was baseball-related, but they’ve been enough to short-circuit his pro dreams.</p>
<p>So this is a good way for him to stay in the game and share that knowledge with youngsters who might also have that big-league dream.</p>
<p>“I have a lot of ties with Rio Rancho High School,” he said, “but this is for the entire community — Rio Rancho High School, Cleveland High School (he planned to meet with CHS baseball coach Shane Shallenberger to get insight into his hitting philosophy this weekend), Sunset Little League and Cibola Little League … the community as a whole.”</p>
<p>McDermott has the support of his parents, some former teammates (Justin Esquibel and Joey Garcia, to name two), RRHS baseball coach Ron Murphy and a cousin, here from the East Coast, who “brings different ideas to the table; he’s already been a help and been here a week.”</p>
<p>McDermott knows, because his name’s above the front door, he’ll be held accountable for the facility’s success. It’s going to be a part-time venture, as he nears completion of attaining a state teaching degree, and he’ll take on students by appointment. Soon, he said, there’ll be times for baseball teams to arrange for some batting practice and instruction there.</p>
<p>Probably more important than helping players become better hitters — he can still teach pitching, of course, which was his forte for several seasons at RRHS — is making the instructions enjoyable.</p>
<p>“It’s baseball, so it still has to be fun,” he said, remembering the advice he got from his dad. “And you have a chance to stay in baseball.”</p>
<p>Speaking of that advice from his dad, McDermott recalled with a chuckle, “I didn’t go to a lot of baseball camps because of my dad. Later, everything I heard from coaches, I’d heard from my dad — but I didn’t listen (to him).”</p>
<p>Planning to have his degree in elementary education in the spring of 2015, and get a local teaching position after that, McDermott said, “I’ll be helping kids in one way or another and it’s fulfilling.” McDermott said he’ll make sure his baseball students have a notebook to scribble notes as they go along, deciding what works best for them and what didn’t work.</p>
<p>“We’re not here just to teach them how to swing, but to understand the game,” he said. “Everything will have a purpose, like when and why to apply it to a game.</p>
<p>“I guarantee kids will have a better understanding of hitting,” McDermott vowed. “And kids will have a good time. This is sort of an ACT prep course for your swing.”</p>
<p>McDermott said students with straight-A report cards will receive 50 percent discounts on hitting sessions. Normally, per the website, instruction costs $40 an hour and $25 for a half hour.</p>
<p>For more information on McDermott’s new facility, visit <a href="http://mcdermottbaseball.com" type="external">mcdermottbaseball.com</a>.</p> | Former Ram decides it’s time for baseball facility in Rio Rancho Improve skills with tips from pro | false | https://abqjournal.com/338814/former-ram-decides-it39s-time-for-baseball-facility-in-rio-rancho-improve-skills-with-tips-from-pro.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>Disengaged employees can negatively impact numerous company <a href="https://www.recruiter.com/employee-performance.html" type="external">performance Opens a New Window.</a> metrics, from customer satisfaction and growth rates&#160;to customer perceptions of the company.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>For many organizations, customer care and service centers pose the biggest engagement challenges. Front-line workers don't get the feedback they need to stay engaged, which can lead to&#160;low job satisfaction and high turnover rates. In order to keep&#160;any employee&#160; –call center or otherwise – engaged and successful, managers must find ways to move them through the <a href="https://www.trainingindustry.com/wiki/the-four-stages-of-competence/" type="external">four stages of competence Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Multiple studies have correlated the relationship between employee engagement and both company revenue and longer-term worker success.&#160; <a href="http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/163130/employee-engagement-drives-growth.aspx" type="external">Gallup research Opens a New Window.</a>&#160;found that the odds of success were nearly double among workers in the top half of engagement levels vs. those in the bottom half.&#160;Employees in the 99th percentile of engagement had four times the success rate of those in the first percentile.</p>
<p>These top performers very likely&#160;operate in the optimal&#160;competence stage, which is known as "unconscious competence." Workers in this stage perform actions as second nature. They can work quickly and efficiently, rarely needing outside assistance. The "unconscious" part of the stage comes through training&#160;that hones the&#160;employee's talents and gives them the confidence to act as a problem-solver.</p>
<p>Preceding the unconscious competence stage are three others:</p>
<p>Unconscious incompetence:&#160;Workers are not aware of the skills they lack.</p>
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<p>Conscious incompetence:&#160;Workers understand their shortcomings.</p>
<p>Conscious competence:&#160;Workers can perform tasks well, but this performance requires a high degree of effort.</p>
<p>Moving employees to the fourth stage of unconscious competence should be a primary goal for supervisors and managers, and doing so requires a mix of tech and coaching.</p>
<p>Let's&#160;look at how supervisors might move their employees to unconscious competence, using call center and customer service staff members as examples:</p>
<p>Using Performance Analytics</p>
<p>Moving any employee through the stages is a journey of finding and fixing their shortcomings. In the case of a call center employee, perhaps the agent does not stick to regulatory language on the phone, or they're too eager to end a call that could be turned into a sale. Regardless of the particular area that requires improvement,&#160;employees can only improve if they have access to information about their daily performance.</p>
<p>In a traditional call center, performance reviews are based on random samplings of a few calls. A supervisor will listen in and make assumptions about an employee's performance based on that very narrow set of data. Other data could be mixed in, such as average hold times and similar metrics, but listening to conversations is the only way to gain a glimpse into an agent's overall tone and style. This glimpse, however, is often inaccurate, as it only takes into account a tiny percentage of the agent's calls.</p>
<p>Technology tools that automate the monitoring and scoring of all agent-to-customer interactions can help address this problem. Tech tools that transcribe all phone calls, chat, and email&#160;conversations into searchable text can give managers a more complete view of an employee's true performance. Employees can also&#160;use these transcriptions to reflect on their performance and identify shortcomings. Technologies that similarly capture comprehensive and relevant performance data can play&#160;the same&#160;role when managing the performance of employees outside of call centers and customer service roles.</p>
<p>How does this relate to guiding employees to unconscious competence? Performance data allows employees to identify and fix negative behaviors before they become ingrained habits. The data also alerts employees to positive actions they should repeat. The analytics become a feedback loop, and employees&#160;feel invested because the entire process is designed to make them more productive and successful.</p>
<p>Supervisors can also use analytics to guide&#160;new hires through the performance stages, spot employees&#160;who are a good fit for the team, cut ones who don't have the requisite skills, and pick out future supervisors. Armed with data,&#160;managers can cut down on attrition rates and shorten time-consuming training periods.</p>
<p>Leveraging Context-Based Coaching</p>
<p>Typical coaching within most service centers is a source of frustration for both the managers and the agents. A core part of the problem is the inaccurate data that informs the coaching, which often results from the limited call monitoring mentioned above. However, when coaching is backed by a comprehensive data source – like transcriptions of all calls, emails, and chats – then it can&#160;offer more accurate and actionable insights.</p>
<p>Supervisors and managers can use data to perform context-based coaching tailored to the individual employee's strengths and weaknesses. If&#160;employees&#160;understand the coaching is based on their own actual actions and words, then it's much less likely they will disagree with their performance assessments.</p>
<p>Comprehensive data removes ambiguity from coaching so employees can clearly see where they need to improve and where they already excel.&#160;The removal of ambiguity creates a clearer path to&#160;unconscious competence. Tying relevant&#160;metrics tracked by the data – such as "use of empathy" or "within compliance language" in the case of call center agents – to raises and other incentives will spur employees onto the fourth stage of competence more quickly.</p>
<p>Coaching is made simpler and more productive through access to analytics, and supervisors can spend more time discussing&#160;strategic concerns instead&#160;of arguing with employees&#160;about performance. The end results of combining analytics and coaching are better employee retention, fewer headaches for HR, and a stronger bottom line.</p>
<p>Scott Kendrick is vice president of marketing at <a href="https://callminer.com/" type="external">CallMiner Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Guiding Staff to the Optimal 'Unconscious Competence' Performance Stage | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/10/18/guiding-staff-to-optimal-unconscious-competence-performance-stage.html | 2017-10-25 | 0 |
<p>Shutterstock</p>
<p>This post originally ran on <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2015/06/biblical-marriage-between.html" type="external">Juan Cole’s website</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/26/the-gop-gay-marriage-freakout.html%20" type="external">freak-out by the Republican presidential candidates</a> over the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage provokes me to revise and reprise the points below. Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee have formally pledged: “We will not honor any decision by the Supreme Court which will force us to violate a clear biblical understanding of marriage as solely the union of one man and one woman.” Sen. Ted Cruz also called on Americans to ignore the SCOTUS ruling.</p>
<p>Does that mean the rest of us can repudiate the decision making W. president in 2000, and can refuse to recognize corporations as persons?</p>
<p />
<p>In any case, the Bible doesn’t actually say anything at all about homosexuality, since it is a form of identity that only came into being in modernity. (Same-sex intimacy has been there all along, but in most premodern societies it was not a subculture, though medieval male brotherhoods were common and in South Asia there were hijras).</p>
<p>But wackiest of all is the idea that the Bible sees marriage as between one man and one woman. I don’t personally get how you could, like, actually read the Bible and come to that conclusion (see below). Even if you wanted to argue that the New Testament abrogates all the laws in the Hebrew Bible, there isn’t anything in the NT that clearly forbids polygamy, either, and it was <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/basilides.html%20" type="external">sometimes practiced in the early church</a>, including by priests. Josephus makes it clear that polygamy was still practiced among the Jews of Jesus’ time. Any attempt to shoe-horn stray statements in the New Testament about a man and a woman being married into a commandment of monogamy is anachronistic. Likely it was the Roman Empire that established Christian monogamy as a norm over the centuries. The Church was not even allowed to marry people until well after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, since it was an imperial prerogative.</p>
<p>Ancient scripture can be a source of higher values and spiritual strength, but any time you in a literal-minded way impose specific legal behavior because of it, you’re committing anachronism. Since this is the case, fundamentalists are always highly selective, trying to impose parts of the scripture on us but conveniently ignoring the parts even they can’t stomach as modern persons.</p>
<p>1. In Exodus 21:10 it is clearly written of the husband: “If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish the food, clothing, or marital rights of the first wife.” This is the same rule as the Qur’an in Islam, that another wife can only be taken if the two are treated equally.</p>
<p>2. Let’s take Solomon, who maintained 300 concubines or sex slaves. 1 Kings 11:3: “He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.” Led him astray! That’s all the Bible minded about this situation? Abducting 300 people and keeping them immured for sex? And the objection is only that they had a lot of diverse religions and interested Solomon in them? (By the way, this is proof that he wasn’t Jewish but just a legendary Canaanite polytheist). I think a settled gay marriage is rather healthier than imprisoning 300 people in your house to have sex with at your whim.</p>
<p>3. Not only does the Bible authorize slavery and human trafficking, but it urges slaves to “submit themselves” to their masters. It should be remembered that masters had sexual rights over their property assuming the slave-woman was not betrothed to another, and so this advice is intended for concubines as well as other slaves. And, the Bible even suggests that slaves quietly accept sadism and cruelty from their masters: 1 Peter 2:18: “Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel.” So a nice gay marriage between two legal equals with no acts of cruelty would be much better than this biblical nightmare.</p>
<p>4. Then there is Abraham, who made a sex slave of his wife’s slave, the Egyptian girl Hagar, and then abandoned her to cruel treatment.</p>
<p>Genesis 16:1-6:</p>
<p>“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.” 6 “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.</p>
<p>So let’s get this straight. Abraham isn’t said to have married Hagar. Apparently he and Sarah had separate property, because Hagar remains her slave. So he slept with someone else’s slave and got her pregnant. And then when that caused trouble between his wife and her slave, he washed his hands of his property-lover and let his wife mistreat her. As we know from 1 Peter, Hagar was supposed graciously to put up with this, but she was made of fiercer stuff than that, and you really have to root for her in this rather sick family situation.</p>
<p>5. According Mark 12:19, guys, if your brother kicks the bucket, you have to marry your sister-in-law and knock her up. Since the Bible approved of multiple wives, you have to do this even if you’re already married. If you think in-laws are hard to get along with now, try being married to them.</p>
<p>6. So I don’t think this happens very much, but guys, in biblical marriage you might have to cut your wife’s hand off if she defends you too vigorously. That’s right. Say you’re at a bar and this big bald badass with tats starts smashing your face in. And say your wife likes you and wants to stop the guy from giving you a concussion. Say she reaches down and gets him by the balls. So the Bible would reward her for loyalty and bravery and fast thinking, right?</p>
<p>Nope. Now you have to cut off her hand. I mean have to. You’re not allowed to have a moment of weakness and think about how pretty her fingers are. Off with it, to the wrist</p>
<p>GOP, you think I’m making this up, right?</p>
<p>Deuteronomy 25:11-12: “11 If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, 12 you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.”</p>
<p>I’m not sure exactly what kind of weird marriage Deuteronomy is recommending, where certain actions taken by they wife to keep herself from being turned into a widow are punished by her husband by chopping off her hand.</p>
<p>7. The Bible doesn’t even approve of marriage at all! 1 Corinthians 7:8 “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do.” So contrary to the GOP’s notion that the Bible authorizes only a single kind of marriage, of which it approves, actually it much prefers believers to die out in a single generation. Only the weak and unbiblical get married.</p>
<p>So this is the real problem. People like Huckabee and Cruz shouldn’t be married in the first place, much less holding up some imaginary ideal of biblical marriage for everybody. And if all the biblical literalists would just obey 1 Corinthians, the whole problem would be over with in just a generation. Then the rest of us could get some peace and make rational policy on social issues.</p>
<p>And as for getting married biblically, you can do that in all kinds of imaginative ways– take two wives and someone else’s sex slave as Abraham did, or 300 sex slaves as Solomon did (not to mention the 700 wives), or your brother’s widow in addition to your own wife. And remember, if your sex slave runs away because you’re cruel to the person, the Bible (Philemon) says that other people have the duty to return the slave to you, i.e. basically imposes the duty of trafficking slaves back to sadistic sex maniacs who exploit them. But if the owner is nice and a good Christian, he might consider letting the sex slave go. But he doesn’t have to.</p>
<p>—–</p>
<p>Related video:</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/jiIx1vNjhU0%20" type="external">The Young Turks: “Huckabee: Supreme Being Overrules The Supreme Court”</a></p>
<p /> | No, GOP, Biblical Marriage Was Not Between One Man and One Woman | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/no-gop-biblical-marriage-was-not-between-one-man-and-one-woman/ | 2015-06-29 | 4 |
<p>An incredible story just hit the wires involving Mormons and their 'baptism for the dead' rituals <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0215-mormon-baptism-20120215,0,6601885.story" type="external">via the LA Times</a></p>
<p>The Mormon Church apologized Tuesday for a "serious breach of protocol" after it was discovered that the parents of the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal were posthumously baptized as Mormons. The church also acknowledged that one of its members tried to baptize posthumously three relatives of Holocaust survivor <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/arts-culture/elie-wiesel-PEHST002109.topic" type="external">Elie Wiesel</a>.</p>
<p>The efforts, at least in Wiesenthal's case, violated the terms of an agreement that the church signed in 1995, in which it agreed to stop baptizing Jewish victims of <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/unrest-conflicts-war/massacres/genocide/the-holocaust-%281934-1945%29-EVHST000013.topic" type="external">the Holocaust</a>. Wiesenthal and Wiesel gained fame for careers spent grappling with the legacy of the Holocaust, Wiesenthal by hunting down war criminals, Wiesel by writing books that became part of the canon of 20th century literature.</p>
<p>Coming at a time when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in the public eye as perhaps never before, the revelations could prove embarrassing - and, conceivably, influence perceptions of presidential candidate <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/mitt-romney-PEPLT007376.topic" type="external">Mitt Romney</a>'s faith.</p>
<p>Posthumous baptism is common in the Mormon Church. The purpose is to ensure that ancestors can join church members in the afterlife. Individual Mormons submit to the church the names of persons they wish to have baptized, then undergo baptism "by proxy."</p>
<p>However, the practice has sometimes offended those of other faiths whose ancestors are baptized by proxy by enthusiastic Mormons. That is especially true of the families of Jewish victims of the Holocaust, whose outcries prompted the 1995 agreement.</p>
<p>You may remember that the LDS Church <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/05/presidents-late/" type="external">posthumously baptized the late mother of President Obama into the Mormon faith.</a></p>
<p>The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints confirmed Tuesday afternoon that someone improperly, posthumously baptized the late mother of President Obama into the Mormon faith.Last June 4 - the day after then-Sen. Obama secured enough delegates to win the Democratic presidential nominee - someone had the president's mother Stanley Ann Dunham, who died in 1995 of cancer, baptized. On June 11, she received the endowment. The baptism and endowment which appear on FamilySearch.org, the LDS Church's genealogical site, were first reported by <a href="http://www.americablog.com/2009/05/did-mormons-baptize-obamas-mother-after.html" type="external">John Aravosis at the liberal Americablog</a>.</p>
<p>Mormon Church spokeswoman Kim Farah said that "the offering of baptism to our deceased ancestors is a sacred practice to us and it is counter to Church policy for a Church member to submit names for baptism for persons to whom they are not related. The Church is looking into the circumstances of how this happened and does not yet have all the facts. However, this is a serious matter and we are treating it as such."For almost two centuries, Mormons have performed baptisms on behalf of deceased relatives, but church members are counseled to request temple baptism only on behalf of their relatives. To do so for those who are not relatives is contrary to Church policy, officials of the Mormon church said.</p>
<p>When Joseph Smith started Mormonism, he proclaimed that there are only two religions: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/why-do-mormons-baptize-the-dead/2012/02/15/gIQAnYfOGR_story.html" type="external">his and the devil's, so he restored this ancient practice</a>, initially described in <a href="http://biblia.com/books/nasb95/1Co15.29" type="external">1 Corinthians</a>.</p>
<p>Mormons believe that Joseph Smith, their faith's founding prophet, restored the apostolic practice after centuries of neglect by mainstream Christians. -- Mormons believe that vicarious baptisms give the deceased, who exist in the afterlife as conscious spirits, a final chance to join the Mormon fold, and thus gain access to the Celestial Kingdom. To Mormons, only members of the LDS priesthood possess the power to baptize. -- Flake said Mormons are encouraged to baptize at least four generations of forebears to seal the family together in the afterlife. So the LDS church has built the world's most extensive genealogical library in Salt Lake City with 700 employees and more than 2 billion names.Baptisms need bodies, so young Mormon men and women dressed in white robes stand in for the departed souls in temple ceremonies worldwide. Mormons youths consider it an honor to be immersed in baptismal founts while the names of the deceased are recited.</p>
<p>The Mormon Church already <a href="http://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/ldsagree.html" type="external">broke the 1995 agreement to abstain from baptizing Jews</a>, so why are they apologizing now? Because Mitt Romney is running for president and his church is trying to remove as much negativity as possible that could hurt him in a general election. Jews have been very upset at this practice for decades because it invalidates their own religious belief system and talking to Jewish readers, baptizing <a href="http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/03/03/did-mormons-posthumously-baptize-hitler-dracula-ted-bundy/" type="external">Nazi hunters alongside Nazis</a>is simply intolerable.</p>
<p>The church acknowledged that individual Mormons had been baptized on behalf of Wiesenthal's parents and that other members were apparently preparing to do so for Wiesel's three relatives. -- "If Simon were alive today, it's hard to really describe what his reaction would be," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Cooper described the Mormon practice of posthumous baptism as a "beautiful gesture," when done within Mormon families, but said it was inappropriate and offensive to baptize the Jewish dead, especially those who died in the Holocaust.</p>
<p>"Their physical lives were taken, their communities were destroyed and now somebody is coming along, however well-intentioned, and is suggesting that they're going to rebrand their souls," he said. "It just doesn't compute."</p>
<p>During the Values Voter Summit in October, sponsored in part by the influential Family Research Council and the American Family Association, it caused quite a stir when Pastor <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/us/politics/prominent-pastor-calls-romneys-church-a-cult.html" type="external">Robert Jeffress, after introducing Rick Perry as a genuine Christian, called Mormonism a cult.</a></p>
<p>A Texas pastor introduced Rick Perry at a major conference of Christian conservatives here on Friday as "a genuine follower of Jesus Christ" and then walked outside and attacked Mitt Romney's religion, calling the Mormon Church a cult and stating that Mr. Romney "is not a Christian." The comments by the pastor, Robert Jeffress of Dallas, injected a potentially explosive issue into the presidential campaign: the belief held by many evangelicals that Mormons are not Christians.</p>
<p>That happened at a high level conference of the religious right in America. The Mormon practice of posthumous baptisms doesn't help the LDS church within the religious right community and could be a factor in Romney's tough primary battle.</p> | Mormon Church Apologizes For Performing 'Baptism For The Dead' Ritual On Jews | true | http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/mormon-church-apologizes-performing-bap | 2012-02-16 | 4 |
<p>WASHINGTON—The U.S. is bolstering its military presence in Afghanistan, more than 16 years after the war started. Is anyone paying attention?</p>
<p>Consider this: At a Senate hearing this past week on top U.S. security threats, the word “Afghanistan” was spoken exactly four times, each during introductory remarks. In the ensuing two hours of questions for intelligence agency witnesses, no senator asked about Afghanistan, suggesting little interest in a war with nearly 15,000 U.S. troops supporting combat against the Taliban.</p>
<p>It’s not as if the war’s end is in sight.</p>
<p>Just last month the bulk of an Army training brigade of about 800 soldiers arrived to improve the advising of Afghan forces. Since January, attack planes and other aircraft have been added to U.S. forces in Afghanistan.</p>
<p />
<p>But it’s not clear that the war, which began in October 2001, is going as well as the U.S. had hoped seven months after President Donald Trump announced a new, more aggressive strategy. The picture may be clearer once the traditionally most intensive fighting season begins in April or May. Over the winter, American and Afghan warplanes have focused on attacking illicit drug facilities that are a source of Taliban revenue.</p>
<p>One of Washington’s closest watchers of the Afghanistan conflict, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote last month that the administration has made major improvements in military tactics and plans for developing Afghan forces but has “done nothing to deal with civil and political stability.” That challenge is expected to come into clearer focus with the approach of parliamentary elections planned for July.</p>
<p>The administration “not only faces a deteriorating security situation, it has no clear political, governance, or economic strategy to produce Afghan stability,” Cordesman said. In his view, the U.S. military has been assigned a “mission impossible” in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>The weak central government in Kabul and the resilient Taliban insurgency are not the U.S. military’s only problems there. It also faces what Gen. Joseph Votel, the top U.S. general overseeing the war, calls interference by Russia. He told a congressional panel last month that Moscow is seeking to undermine U.S. and NATO influence in Afghanistan by exaggerating the presence of Islamic State fighters there and portraying this as a U.S. failure.</p>
<p>When Trump announced in August that he was ordering a new approach to the war, he said he realized “the American people are weary of war without victory.” He said his instinct was to pull out, but that after consulting with aides, he decided to seek “an honorable and enduring outcome.” He said that meant committing more resources to the war, giving commanders in the field more authority and staying in Afghanistan for as long as it takes.</p>
<p>Stephen Biddle, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, said Americans’ relative lack of interest in the war gives Trump political maneuver room to conduct the war as he wishes, but that dynamic is not necessarily a good one.</p>
<p>“The idea that a democracy is spending billions of dollars a year, killing people and sacrificing American lives waging war, and the elected representatives of the people aren’t paying attention I think is inappropriate,” Biddle said. “But to say it is inappropriate isn’t to say it’s surprising, because this is the way Congress has been behaving toward this war for a long, long time.”</p>
<p>Last November, the U.S. commander in Kabul, Gen. John Nicholson, said the Afghan army, with U.S. support, had “turned the corner” and captured momentum against the Taliban. Since then, the Taliban have conducted a series of high-profile attacks in Kabul and elsewhere that have killed scores of civilians. U.S. officials have portrayed this as desperation tactics by the Taliban, arguing that they are unable to make new territorial gains.</p>
<p>Dan Coats, the director of U.S. national intelligence, offered a less optimistic forecast when he testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.</p>
<p>“We assess the overall security picture will … modestly deteriorate in the coming year and Kabul will continue to bear the brunt of the Taliban-led insurgency,” Coats said. Afghan forces, while “unsteady,” probably will maintain control of most major population centers in 2018, he added.</p>
<p>Testifying at the same hearing, Army Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, offered a mixed outlook. He forecast that Afghan forces this year will continue to develop offensive combat power. But he also predicted the Taliban will “threaten Afghan stability, undermine public confidence by conducting intermittent high-profile attacks in urban areas,” increase its influence in rural areas and threaten district centers.</p>
<p>The Defense Department’s special inspector general for Afghanistan said in January that Afghan government control or influence has declined and Taliban control or influence has increase since the U.S. watchdog began reporting this type of data in January 2016.</p>
<p>It said in a follow-up report last month that as of October 2017, about 20.9 million Afghans, or 64 percent of the total population of 32.5 million, lived in areas where the government has control or influence. The rest of the population was in areas under Taliban control or influence, or deemed “contested” by both sides.</p> | With Little Scrutiny, U.S. Military Ramps Up in Afghanistan | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/little-scrutiny-u-s-military-ramps-afghanistan/ | 2018-03-10 | 4 |
<p>If you live outside Western Europe, you probably only hear about medium-sized European countries like Portugal, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, and the Netherlands if they’re doing well in the World Cup. In the case of the Netherlands, non-Europeans might also have read the occasional references to abortion, euthanasia, sex work, and gay marriage (all legal) and soft drugs (semi-legal). To all this the Netherlands owes its aura of degeneracy or progressiveness, depending on one’s perspective.</p>
<p>What you don’t often read about is the position of the Netherlands in the international financial system. It is — together with Ireland and Luxembourg — a vital European tax heaven. Much more so than even Germany, the Netherlands was the forerunner in a beggar-thy-neighbor race to the bottom&#160;and remains the closest American NATO ally in mainland Western Europe.</p>
<p>It’s no surprise, then, that the&#160;domestic policies of states like the Netherlands are important to those organizing in other countries — and we should all be hoping for a left-wing breakthrough there. Here are three reasons why.</p> | Small Miracles | true | https://jacobinmag.com/2015/10/netherlands-tax-dodging-bono-eurogroup-nato-dijsselbloem-emu/ | 2018-10-04 | 4 |
<p>The Greek party that won Sunday's elections reached a deal to form a coalition government, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18515185" type="external">according to the BBC</a>.</p>
<p>The conservative New Democracy party and the Socialists, Pasok, struck a deal to also include the moderate Democratic Left in a coalition government, said the BBC.</p>
<p>Antonis Samaras of the New Democracy party will be sworn in as prime minister on Wednesday, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/greek-parties-agree-form-coalition-government-16608697#.T-HdxCtYtuk" type="external">according to the Associated Press</a>, and earlier met with President Karolos Papoulias to receive the formal mandate to govern.</p>
<p>"Greece has a government," said Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos, according to the AP.</p>
<p>More on GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/120619/greece-coalition-government-g20" type="external">Greece scrambles to form coalition as G20 leaders mull Europe's crisis</a></p>
<p>Syriza, the party which came in second place, will likely be a strong voice of opposition against the bailout, said the BBC.</p>
<p>Venizelos, a former finance minister involved in negotiating Greece's second debt deal, said the outgoing finance minister, George Zannias, would represent Greece at the summit meeting of European finance ministers on Thursday, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/europe/greece-poised-to-form-new-coalition.html?pagewanted=all" type="external">according to The New York Times</a>.</p>
<p>More on GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business/120618/morgan-stanley-greece-elections-damage-euro" type="external">Business Insider: Greek elections may damage euro</a></p>
<p>The Times reported that Vassilis Rapanos, the president of the National Bank of Greece, is expected to take on the finance portfolio in the cabinet.</p>
<p>Party leaders have said they want to renegotiate the terms of the 130 billion euro ($165 billion) bailout to encourage growth and soften austerity measures, but their European partners have said they will adjust but not re-write the document, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/20/us-greece-idUSBRE85H0HO20120620" type="external">according to Reuters</a>.</p>
<p>The coalition government will face a country in the fifth year of recession, with one in five workers unemployed and violent protests against the austerity measures, Reuters noted.</p>
<p>More on GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/120524/africa-banking-poor-poverty" type="external">Banking on Africa's poor</a></p> | Greece: Coalition government to be formed | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-06-20/greece-coalition-government-be-formed | 2012-06-20 | 3 |
<p>‘Gloom, Boom &amp; Doom Report’ Editor Marc Faber on the Brexit vote impact on the global economy.</p>
<p>Fear about a possible global recession continues to swirl following the United Kingdom’s decision to exit the European Union.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Marc Faber, Swiss investor and editor of the ‘Gloom, Boom &amp; Doom Report’, thinks there has been an overreaction to the news.</p>
<p>“The markets are going down because the economic news globally is unfavorable,” Faber told the FOX Business Network’s Connell McShane. “We’re moving into a recession that has nothing to do with Brexit.”</p>
<p>Faber added: “I do not think that it’s as dramatic as the market reaction has been. “It’s just been that the market participants believe that to stay in the EU would be favorable, and to leave would be unfavorable."</p>
<p>The Swiss investor compared the current situation between the U.K. and the EU to Switzerland’s historic fight for its own freedom.</p>
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<p>“In the 13th century we fought the Habsburg Empire to be free and not to have foreign justice and foreign laws and not to pay taxes to foreign overlords,” he explained. “This is precisely what the EU does with all the countries. They want to impose courts of justice, taxes, regulations, new laws and most of which inhibit economic growth. This is a victory for freedom and for people, the Brits.”</p>
<p>Faber also said the Brexit will be the “perfect excuse” for global central banks to “coordinate the monetary policies to print even more money.”</p> | Faber: Brexit has Nothing to Do with Economies Around the World | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/06/24/faber-brexit-has-nothing-to-do-with-economies-around-world.html | 2016-06-24 | 0 |
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 280 points, or 1.5%, to 18,612 on Wednesday, to trade within a hair's breadth of its all-time record of 18,636.05 set in August. The rally was led by sharp gains in Pfizer Inc., Merck &amp; Co, Inc and Caterpillar Inc, and banking stocks like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase &amp; Co. as investors bet that Donald Trump's presidency would usher in massive fiscal spending over the next few years. Higher inflation would be beneficial to banks. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies surged as the defeat of Hillary Clinton was seen as removing obstacles to aggressive price-hikes in the drug sector.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Dow Trades Near All-time Closing High | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/09/dow-trades-near-all-time-closing-high.html | 2016-11-09 | 0 |
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<p>Irwin Lipkin, one of Bernard Madoff's longest-serving employees, was sentenced to six months in prison on Wednesday for falsifying records that helped the imprisoned fraudster carry out his multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The sentencing before U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in Manhattan marked the end of the criminal case stemming from the fraud, more than six years after Madoff's arrest sent shockwaves through Wall Street.</p>
<p>Lipkin, 77, was the Madoff firm's controller, and worked there from 1964 to 1998. He was the last of 15 defendants to be sentenced. Madoff, also 77, is serving a 150-year prison term after pleading guilty in 2009 to masterminding the scheme, estimated to have cost investors $17 billion in principal.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)</p> | Final Madoff Defendant Sentenced to Six Months in Prison | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/08/05/final-madoff-defendant-sentenced-to-six-months-in-prison-1277939818.html | 2016-03-06 | 0 |
<p>D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser was in Paris when the Federation of Gay Games made its announcement about the 2022 Gay Games. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)</p>
<p>The Federation of Gay Games on Monday announced it has selected Hong Kong over D.C. and Guadalajara, Mexico, to host the 2022 Gay Games, the quadrennial international LGBT sports event that’s expected to attract as many as 15,000 athletes and thousands more spectators to the host city.</p>
<p>The announcement came at a news conference in Paris during the annual General Assembly of the Federation of Gay Games, the U.S.-based group that organizes the Gay Games and selects the host city.</p>
<p>It took place two days after the FGG’s Site Selection Committee heard final presentations from representatives of the bid committees from D.C., Hong Kong and Guadalajara.</p>
<p>D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C.’s Gay Games Bid Committee Chair Brent Minor were among six members of the D.C. bid committee that delivered the presentation on Saturday. They were part of a 32-member D.C. contingent that traveled to Paris to support D.C.’s bid for the Games.</p>
<p>The news conference announcing the selection of the host city for the 2022 Gay Games was held immediately prior to a gala dinner hosted by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, whose city will be hosting the 2018 Gay Games.</p>
<p>The FGG’s decision on Monday came eight years after it passed over bids by D.C. and Boston in 2009 to host the 2014 Gay Games and instead chose Cleveland. At the time the FGG said Cleveland, D.C. and Boston were equally qualified to host the Gay Games from the standpoint of infrastructure, financing and support from the governments of their respective cities.</p>
<p>Cleveland was ultimately chosen, FGG officials said, because it and its surrounding jurisdictions in Ohio were less advanced in LGBT rights than Boston and D.C. They said holding the Gay Games in Cleveland would have a greater impact on one of the games’ objectives — to advance LGBT rights in places where advancement was needed.</p>
<p>The FGG in February of this year named D.C., Hong Kong and Guadalajara as finalists among more than a dozen cities that initially submitted bids to host the 2022 Gay Games. In June, the FGG’s Site Selection Committee visited the three cities to inspect playing fields and other venues where more than two dozen sporting events would be held as part of the Gay Games.</p>
<p>Each of the three finalist cities earlier this year submitted written bid proposals several hundred pages long citing what they asserted were the advantages of their respective cities.</p>
<p>Each pointed out that their respective cities have a long record of hosting large events like conventions and sporting competitions. The bids submitted by the three cities each asserted that they have the infrastructure and community support to host dozens of individual sporting events ranging from soccer and swimming to tennis and rowing.</p>
<p>Observers speculated that if the FGG decision makers viewed the three cities as being equally qualified from a technical and infrastructure standpoint they might look toward other factors that could favor Hong Kong and Guadalajara over D.C. If selected, for example, Hong Kong would represent the first time the Gay Games were held in Asia. Similarly, Guadalajara would be the first city ever in Latin America to host the games.</p>
<p>Another factor considered a possible disadvantage for D.C. was the election last year of Donald Trump as U.S. president. Large numbers of athletes and spectators expected to attend the Gay Games come from Europe, where Trump has emerged as a highly disliked figure.</p>
<p>The local D.C. government, which played a lead role in preparing the city’s bid for the Gay Games, is run independently from the federal government and the White House by locally elected officials who have been highly critical of Trump. But some sources familiar with the Gay Games speculated that the FGG might have worried that the dislike for Trump would result in fewer people attending the Gay Games in Washington if Trump were still president in 2022.</p>
<p>Gay Games officials declined to comment prior to Monday’s decision on what, if any, political considerations would be a factor in selecting a host city.</p>
<p>“Over the last several days, Gay Games D.C. showed the very best D.C. has to offer,” said Bowser in a statement she released shortly after the FGG announced Hong Kong had been awarded the games. “Our bid proved that Washington, D.C. is strong not simply because we are diverse, but because we celebrate our diversity and inclusion.”</p>
<p>“As the world questions how the United States will position itself on the global stage, it is incumbent upon all of us to continue showing the world who we really are,” she added. “This bid represented our D.C. values, which represent the very best American ideals: All are created equal. We congratulate Hong Kong, and it is our hope that the 2022 Gay Games spark reforms to bring about equality for our LGBTQ friends there too.”</p>
<p>Minor in his own statement echoed Bowser.</p>
<p>“While we are very disappointed that D.C. was not chosen as the host city for the 2022 Gay Games, we extend our congratulations to Hong Kong” he said. “We are confident that they will be able to present a great Gay Games and we offer any assistance we can provide to make that happen.”</p>
<p>The FGG’s 2017 General Assembly was scheduled to take place in Paris from Oct. 26-Nov. 1. In addition to deliberating over the selection of its 2022 host city, the General Assembly was working with officials in Paris on final arrangements for the 2018 Gay Games, which will be held in Paris.</p>
<p>Hidalgo participated in the news conference at the Paris City Hall during which the announcement that Hong Kong was selected to host the 2022 Gay Games was made.</p>
<p>She hosted the gala dinner immediately after the announcement in honor of the organizers of the 2018 Gay Games. FGG officials said the dinner was also serving as a fundraiser for the FGG’s scholarship program.</p>
<p>Among those joining D.C. Mayor Bowser and Minor in the D.C. contingent in Paris were D.C. Council members Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and Brandon Todd (D-Ward 4).</p>
<p>Also among the D.C. contingent were Marvin Bowser, brother of Mayor Bowser, who has assisted in preparing D.C.’s bid; Sheila Alexander-Reid, director of the Mayor’s LGBTQ Affairs Office; Ryan Bos, executive director of Capital Pride, the group that organizes D.C.’s annual LGBT Pride festivities; Christopher Dyer, former director of the Office of LGBTQ Affairs; gay rights advocate Clark Ray, who serves as D.C.’s Statewide Director of Athletics; and several representatives of the city’s convention and visitors bureau.</p>
<p>Minor said the D.C. Gay Games Bid Committee raised money from private sources, including corporate sponsors, to pay the travel expenses for the D.C. contingent’s trip to Paris. He said some of the funds for the trip were raised by the city’s LGBT sports leagues.</p>
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<p><a href="" type="internal">bisexual</a> <a href="" type="internal">D.C.</a> <a href="" type="internal">Federation of Gay Games</a> <a href="" type="internal">gay</a> <a href="" type="internal">Guadalajara</a> <a href="" type="internal">hong kong</a> <a href="" type="internal">lesbian</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender</a></p> | D.C. loses bid to host 2022 Gay Games | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2017/10/30/d-c-loses-bid-host-2022-gay-games/ | 3 |
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<p>A naked, malnourished four-year-old boy found in an apartment with the body of his mother, who had been dead for days, had survived by eating from a bag of sugar.</p>
<p>Police told media that the boy weighed only 26 pounds when found, leading to speculation that he may have been "improperly cared for" even before his ordeal inside the locked apartment.</p>
<p>According to the Associated Press, the boy's mother — identified as Kiana Workman, 38, of Brooklyn — was discovered dead Tuesday.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57576604/n.j-boy-4-found-with-dead-mom-was-living-on-sugar/" type="external">CBS News reported</a>that police showed up at the Union, N.J., apartment on after a neighbor reported a strange smell coming from the building.</p>
<p>No one had talked to Workman for about a week.</p>
<p>The chain lock was on when police arrived, meaning the toddler couldn't get out.</p>
<p>Police Director Daniel Zieser <a href="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/03/26/police-little-boy-living-with-dead-mother-for-days-found-emaciated/" type="external">told New York’s WCBS</a> radio station:</p>
<p>"He made a statement to the officer that `There's plenty of food in the refrigerator, but I couldn't open the door.' So that's kind of sad that nobody checked on him, no family members. It's sad, very sad."</p>
<p>Officer Joseph Sauer told The Associated Press:</p>
<p>"The only way to describe the little boy was it was like a scene from World War II, from a concentration camp, he was that skinny. I mean, you could see all his bones."</p>
<p>The average weight for a 4-year-old is at least 40 pounds.</p>
<p>The boy's first request was for a grilled cheese sandwich and a juice.</p>
<p>The boy's grandmother is in a nursing facility and police are looking for other relatives, although adoption offers had since poured in from around the world for the boy.</p>
<p>Upon being discharged from the hospital, he was placed in state custody.</p> | Boy, 4, trapped in NJ apartment with mother dead four days ate sugar to survive | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-03-29/boy-4-trapped-nj-apartment-mother-dead-four-days-ate-sugar-survive | 2013-03-29 | 3 |
<p>Neil Diamond, the popular singer responsible for massive hits such as "Sweet Caroline," married his manager on Saturday, <a href="http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/neil-diamond-71-marries-his-manager-42-2012224" type="external">US Weekly reported</a>. Diamond is 71, but his new wife Katie McNeil is much younger at age 42.&#160;</p>
<p>The couple tied the knot in Los Angeles in front of close friends and family, <a href="http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20589163,00.html" type="external">People Magazine reported</a>.&#160;</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/120312/burma-economy-myanmar-sanctions" type="external">Promises, pitfalls await investors in Burma's frontier</a></p>
<p>Diamond announced his engagement last September in a Twitter-rap:&#160;"Good news coming from sunny LA/ and you're the first I want to tell/ Katie &amp; I just got engaged/ and I hope you wish us well," he said, according to People.</p>
<p>McNeil and Diamond met when she produced the 2009 documentary "Neil Diamond: Hot August Night NYC," <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-57418784-10391698/neil-diamond-and-katie-mcneil-tie-the-knot/" type="external">CBS News reported</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.billboard.com/news/neil-diamond-marries-his-manager-it-was-1006843352.story#/news/neil-diamond-marries-his-manager-it-was-1006843352.story" type="external">Billboard.com said</a>that McNeil has&#160;also produced films about Motley Crue and Public Enemy.</p>
<p>This is Diamond's third marriage. He was married to Jayne Posner from 1963 to 1969 and to Marcia Murphy from 1969 to 1995, Billboard reported.&#160;</p>
<p>"Katie and I got married last night, we wish you all could've been there," Diamond <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/NeilDiamond/status/194247037104041985" type="external">posted on his Twitter account</a>. "It was magical! Love, Neil."</p> | Neil Diamond marries his manager | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-04-23/neil-diamond-marries-his-manager | 2012-04-23 | 3 |
<p>When they write their retrospectives about the era that ended with the 2008 election, economic historians will undoubtedly credit George W. Bush with almost single-handedly moving the country to embrace extremist conservatism. It’s a simple storyline: Cowboy president drives bewildered American herd over laissez-faire cliff. What such reductionism will ignore, though, is what we must remember now: Namely, that Congress also played a decisive role in the stampede.</p>
<p>As former House Republican leader Tom DeLay said, he and his colleagues deliberately started “every policy initiative from as far to the political right” as possible, so as to shift “the center farther to the right.” The formula emulated Franklin Roosevelt’s fabled admonishment to allies: “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”</p>
<p>With Bush, congressional Republicans knew they had an ideological comrade in the White House. But they also knew he was confined by the (minimally) moderating desire for re-election and the (even more minimally) moderating limits of his national office. So, to reach their goals, conservatives had to compel their presidential friend to do what they wanted — and compel him they did. When Bush’s tax cuts and deregulatory schemes hit the Capitol, Republicans inevitably expanded them to fully achieve the right’s objectives.</p>
<p>Of course, that triumph was the country’s loss, as Republican policies thrust the political center off a conservative precipice and America into an economic free fall. And as we plummet, we are desperately groping for a lifeline.</p>
<p />
<p>If we are lucky and we end up snagging one that saves us — a huge if — it will be one that is strong enough to snap the center back from the conservative brink. This super-durable bungee cord must have the force of law, meaning it will be woven by Democratic legislators now exerting as much pressure on President Obama’s left as congressional Republicans focused on President Bush’s right.</p>
<p>When, for instance, Obama hedged on his promise to revoke $226 billion worth of Bush’s upper-income tax cuts, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) pushed him to fulfill the pledge and put the money into programs that better guarantee job creation.</p>
<p>When Obama initially offered up a stimulus bill filled with discredited business tax breaks, Democratic senators forced him to back off. Reps. David Obey, D-Wis., and Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., then argued that the president’s proposed infrastructure investments were too small to boost the economy. That led House Democrats to increase Obama’s spending targets.</p>
<p>As stimulus negotiations continued, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., tried to add provisions letting courts renegotiate banks’ primary-residence mortgages so as to prevent more foreclosures. It’s a commonsense proposal: Judges already have the power to renegotiate vacation-home mortgages, and the New York Federal Reserve Bank says existing bankruptcy laws are exacerbating the foreclosure crisis. While Obama opposed the initiative out of fear that banking industry opposition might slow the underlying stimulus bill, Conyers’ effort ultimately made the president commit to supporting the reforms in future legislation.</p>
<p>Then there was the progressive reaction to Obama’s demand for more financial bailout money. Turning a routine committee hearing into a modern-day incarnation of the Great Depression’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecora_Commission" type="external">Pecora Commission</a>, Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., upbraided a Federal Reserve official for refusing to disclose which banks are receiving taxpayer dollars. The spectacle was one of many that whipped the House into passing a bill that attached strings to the funds. Obama responded by committing to enact some of the restrictions by fiat.</p>
<p>At once complementary and adversarial, this intragovernmental squabbling probably makes the conflict-averse Obama uncomfortable. But the “make him do it” dynamic could finally bring the center of Washington’s political debate closer to the progressive center of American public opinion. Even more important, it is precisely what will help the new president avert an economic disaster.</p>
<p>David Sirota is the best-selling author of the books “Hostile Takeover” (2006) and “The Uprising” (2008). He is a fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future. Find his blog at <a href="http://www.openleft.com/" type="external">OpenLeft.com</a> or e-mail him at [email protected].</p>
<p>© 2009 Creators Syndicate Inc.</p> | Making Him Do It | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/making-him-do-it/ | 2009-01-30 | 4 |
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<p>Since the tragedy in Tucson, gun reform advocates have declared war against the sort of high-capacity clip legally obtained and used by alleged shooter Jared Lee Loughner. Less discussed, though, has been the thriving underground gun trade that continues to provide criminals with easy access to the high-powered firearms.</p>
<p>Now, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has dug up some shocking statistics that show just how prevalent and accessible these off-the-books guns actually are. Drawing on research from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence estimates that licensed gun dealers “lost” an average of at least 56 firearms a day over the last three years. From 2008 to 2010, at least 62,134 firearms vanished from the inventories of of gun dealers. And those are just the guns the ATF knows went missing. According to <a href="http://www.bradycampaign.org/media/press/view/1345/" type="external">Brady</a>:</p>
<p>The 62,134 “missing” guns are likely a vast undercount of the total number of guns that disappeared from gun shops in the last three years. The missing guns are noted at ATF compliance inspections of licensed gun dealers, but ATF has conducted compliance inspections each year at only about one-fifth of the nation’s gun shops. Gun dealers inspected by ATF could not account for 22,770 guns in 2008, 18,323 guns in 2009, and 21,041 in 2010.</p>
<p>Because these unaccounted-for guns have no record of sale, they’re highly sought after by criminals, who buy them on the black market from gun traffickers. And corrupt gun dealers often disguise off-the-book sales by claiming that firearms were lost or stolen.</p>
<p>“It’s the height of irresponsibility for gun dealers to allow tens of thousands of firearms to leave their shops without background checks or a record of sale. Congress is also to blame for its refusal to fully fund and staff the ATF and to strengthen our nation’s weak guns,” said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “Every gun that leaves a gun shop without a background check is one that fuels the illegal gun market and endangers our communities.”</p>
<p>Actual law enforcement is what’s missing here. But Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) has introduced <a href="http://www.queenstribune.com/news/News_012011_ShootingLeadsToCallForGunBill.html" type="external">legislation</a> that could help address at least some of the illegal circulation of firearms. Often times, gun dealers who’ve had their licenses revoked are allowed to transfer their inventory into their “personal collections,” then selling those guns without performing any sort of background checks on their customers, or keeping any records on their potential customers. That creates a considerable loophole, Ackerman says, that has led to thousands of guns being purchased by individuals who never had a background check, with some of those same weapons being used in deadly shootings.</p>
<p>Ackerman’s bill aims to close this “fire-sale loophole.” Its fate—along with that of Carolyn McCarthy’s bill seeking to ban high-capacity magazines, like the 30-round clip used by alleged Tucson shooter Jared Loughner—remains up in the air.</p>
<p /> | Where’d Those Missing Guns Go? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/whered-those-missing-guns-go/ | 2011-01-25 | 4 |
<p>The Israeli army’s wanton slaughter of unarmed Palestinians trapped behind the security barriers in Gaza evokes little outrage and condemnation within the United States because we have been indoctrinated into dehumanizing Muslims. Islam is condemned as barbaric and equated with terrorism. The resistance struggle against foreign occupation, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or Gaza, sees Muslims demonized as the enemy. Muslims are branded as irrational and inclined to violence and terrorism by their religious beliefs. We attack them not for what they do but because we see them as being different from us. We must eradicate them to save ourselves. And thus we perpetuate the very hatred and counterviolence, or terrorism, that we fear.</p>
<p>Muslims in this age of racialized authoritarianism have been stripped of due process in our courts and are subject—as <a href="http://time.com/4126015/abid-naseer-sentenced-bomb-plot-manchester-england/" type="external">Abid Naseer</a> and <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/612623/British-terrorist-Haroon-Aswat-jailed-al-Qaeda-training-camp-US" type="external">Haroon Aswat</a> were in Britain before being extradited to the United States—to pretrial incarceration for years. They endure police brutality and secret trials, are convicted on secret evidence they cannot see and suffer long-term detention in solitary confinement, often in clandestine prisons known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_site" type="external">black sites</a>. They are kidnapped anywhere in the world and taken, hooded, drugged and shackled, to the secret sites. They are tortured through savage methods such as beatings, “ <a href="" type="external">walling</a>,” sexual humiliation, <a href="" type="external">close confinement</a>, prolonged isolation, water dousing, electric shocks, waterboarding and so-called <a href="" type="external">rectal rehydration</a>. Their citizenships are revoked. Their communities and mosques are harassed, infiltrated and monitored by law enforcement. Muslim children are viewed as future terrorists. Muslim women as breeders of terrorists. Muslim men as dangerous. We are the maniacal Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” keeping the heads of “savages” on stakes outside our fortress and crying out “ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurtz_(Heart_of_Darkness)" type="external">Exterminate all the brutes!”</a></p>
<p>We have declared a worldwide war on Muslims. Muslims, who read us better than we read ourselves, are rising up to resist. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the Middle East have been butchered since our invasion of Afghanistan. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya have been destroyed as viable states. Millions of Muslims have been displaced or are refugees. And when desperate Muslim families attempt to flee to Europe or the United States from the hell we created in the Middle East, they are thrown into displacement camps or turned back and branded as disease carriers, thieves, rapists, barbarians and terrorists. Islamic culture and religion in our Manichean narrative have been shorn of all nuance, humanity, complexity and depth. Islam has been replaced by a xenophobic cartoon version, an image that, to use the words of <a href="" type="external">Frantz Fanon</a>, is the “quintessence of evil.” We respond to the crisis we created out of ignorance, self-exaltation and racism.</p>
<p />
<p>As the imprisoned <a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Celebration-and-Struggle-Talha-Ahsan-20140827-0008.html" type="external">poet Syed Talha Ahsan</a> writes:</p>
<p>to kill is to erase an image off a mirror: side-step no body just a gaping hole upon an indifferent world</p>
<p>Israel’s slow-motion genocide of the Palestinian people, justified by the racism and Islamophobia that are central to Israeli identity, has entered a new, deadlier phase. No longer constrained by any pretense of respecting human rights or a peace process, Israeli soldiers, although they are not threatened, fire indiscriminately into crowds of unarmed Palestinians, killing or wounding men, women, children, the elderly and journalists. The sheer number of the dead and wounded— <a href="" type="external">nine or more Palestinians killed by Israeli fire</a> and hundreds injured on Friday alone—testifies to raking the crowd with gunfire. In a civilized world, Israel would be immediately slapped with sanctions, boycotts and divestment—the only mechanism left to protect the Palestinian people from extermination—but we do not live in a civilized world. We live in a world where murder and racism are state policy, where the oppressed are dehumanized and unworthy of life and where our mutant demagogues and despots revel in the rivers of blood they create.</p>
<p>This racialized authoritarianism, one that defines Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has ominous consequences for the oppressed. It is fed by a willful refusal to accept our responsibility for the social and political disintegration as well as the violence in the Middle East and, increasingly, at home. Most academics, trapped in the meaningless silo of Islamic writings on apocalyptic terrorism, contribute nothing to the debate. The press, which has turned journalism into nonstop entertainment and the celebration of nonexistent American virtues, is complicit in this perpetuation of anti-knowledge, which Tennessee Williams once called our voluntary matriculation into a school for the blind. It dehistoricizes these movements. It certifies radical jihadists, and by extension Islam, as incomprehensible. Since terrorism is incomprehensible, and since it is an intrinsic part of Islam, Muslims are worthy not of investigation but annihilation. But facts don’t speak for themselves, as <a href="" type="external">Edward Said</a> noted. They require context to be understood, and all context is absent.</p>
<p>“You could hardly begin (in the public sphere provided by international discourse) to analyze political conflicts involving Sunnis and Shi’is, Kurds and Iraqis, or Tamils and Sinhalese, or Sikhs and Hindus—the list is long—without eventually having to resort to the categories and images of ‘terrorism’ and ‘fundamentalism,’ which derived entirely from the concerns and intellectual factories in metropolitan centers like Washington or London,” Said wrote in “ <a href="" type="external">Culture and Imperialism</a>.” “They are fearful images that lack discriminant contents, or definition, but they signify moral power and approval for whoever uses them, moral defensiveness and criminalization for whomever.”</p>
<p>The pattern of persistent decontextualization traps us in an endless cycle of violence for violence. Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou in his book “ <a href="" type="external">A Theory of ISIS</a>: Political Violence and the Transformation of the Global Order” writes of the now-standard response following a terrorist attack:</p>
<p>For every time a new radical Islamism-related attack takes place in New York, Washington, London, Paris, Brussels or Berlin, a ritual of denial of the deeper political issues plays out in an increasingly familiar fashion. The sequence is performed thus: shock gives way to fear followed by anger; security experts step up hurriedly in television studios and on social media to denounce the lack of preparation by the authorities; specialists in radical Islamism (or simply Islam) follow, declaring that IS (previously Al Qaeda) has been weakened, is on its way to be defeated and is merely lashing out with desperate attacks; Muslim communities in Western countries are called out and racist and violent attacks against them sometimes take place (hours after the March 2016 attacks in Brussels a #stopislam movement started trending, revealing the depth of bias that had come to overtake sectors of the Western world, readily associating Islam and terrorism); sympathy movements for the victims of city where the attack took place are set up (Je suis Charlie, I am Brussels, etc.); calls for tougher legislation (surveillance mechanisms, detention conditions, nationality measures, immigration procedures, travel regulations, dress codes, access to pools, prayer sites, etc.) are spoken urgently; arrests are made in neighborhoods where Muslim migrants are known to reside and bombing is redoubled in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen or Libya.</p>
<p>The Obama administration under counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, now a national security and intelligence analyst for NBC and MSNBC, set up a database, Disposition Matrix, of terrorism suspects across the globe. It is known informally as the kill list. Those on the list are targeted by clandestine CIA extradition units, special forces, militarized drones and airstrikes. These techniques for racialized control of Muslims are drawn from the blueprint of colonialism, although the state now uses the coded language of ideology to mask its racist assault. As in colonialism, those who defy the “liberal democratic” state have forfeited all rights and deserve to be treated as beasts because they are beasts. This stance of collective criminalization of a group or race will have ominous consequences as the corporate state, beset by the growing unrest from deindustrialization and global warming, begins to view larger and larger segments of the population as hostile.</p>
<p>“In some sense, the figure of the terror suspect forms the testing ground upon which Western versions of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ are deliberated,” writes <a href="" type="external">Nisha Kapoor</a> in “Deport, Deprive, Extradite: 21st Century State Extremism.” “It is via the representation of these individuals that cases are made in support of summary killings, bigger bombs, drone strikes, ever more grotesque forms of torture, and clandestine and indefinite detention. It is also through the policing of such individuals that mechanisms have been put in place in Britain [and the United States] for the growing use of secret justice, the retraction of the provisions of citizenship and the move away from human rights protections.”</p>
<p>Policies have consequences. The decision to hunt down Muslims around the globe, giving to the so-called war on terror a transnational dimension, means also that those who oppose us are not restricted by national boundaries. The terrorists who carry out these attacks are mirror images of ourselves, consumed by the same narcissism and cult of the self that define celebrity culture. They post self-indulgent videos of rants against the West and of their beheadings of captives clad in <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/liaquat-ali-khan/bright-orange-jumpsuit--an-emblem-of-cruelty_b_6620348.html" type="external">&#160;orange jumpsuits</a>. They replicate the cultural effort to film “Life the Movie.” The images we use to communicate with the world, as well as each other, infect all of their messages to us. They are not from a medieval era. They are creations of modernity. They feed to us their own versions of the pornographic violence that fascinates and deforms our culture. They know this is how you communicate with the West. And we communicate back in the same manner.</p>
<p>The Israeli massacre of Palestinians is a prelude to a dystopian, neocolonial world where global elites, hoarding wealth and controlling the mechanisms of power, increasingly resort to widespread bloodshed to keep the oppressed at bay. What Israel is doing to Palestinians—impoverished and trapped without adequate food, water and medicine in the open-air prison that is Gaza, a strip of land subject to repeated murderous assaults by the Israeli war machine—will be done to desperate climate refugees and citizens who rise up to protest the pillage by global oligarchs. Those who resist will be as dehumanized as Muslims. They too will be branded as terrorists. The global elites have a plan for the future. It is visible in the killing fields of Gaza.</p> | The Campaign to Exterminate Muslims | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/the-campaign-to-exterminate-muslims/ | 2018-04-08 | 4 |
<p>INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana State Police are teaming up with their counterparts in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio to boost awareness about human trafficking.</p>
<p>Next week’s effort will enlist state police in the four states and the group Truckers Against Trafficking. The multi-state push will aim to educate motorists about the signs of human trafficking and will be paired with a crackdown on alleged human traffickers.</p>
<p>Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery that occurs in every state.</p>
<p>Indiana State Police motor carrier inspectors and commercial vehicle enforcement officers will take part in the weeklong effort.</p>
<p>Maj. Jon Smothers is commander of the Indiana State Police’s commercial vehicle enforcement division. He says truckers, truck stop employees and others “can act as the eyes and ears on Indiana’s highways” to help combat human trafficking.</p>
<p>INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana State Police are teaming up with their counterparts in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio to boost awareness about human trafficking.</p>
<p>Next week’s effort will enlist state police in the four states and the group Truckers Against Trafficking. The multi-state push will aim to educate motorists about the signs of human trafficking and will be paired with a crackdown on alleged human traffickers.</p>
<p>Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery that occurs in every state.</p>
<p>Indiana State Police motor carrier inspectors and commercial vehicle enforcement officers will take part in the weeklong effort.</p>
<p>Maj. Jon Smothers is commander of the Indiana State Police’s commercial vehicle enforcement division. He says truckers, truck stop employees and others “can act as the eyes and ears on Indiana’s highways” to help combat human trafficking.</p> | Indiana State Police join 4-state human trafficking campaign | false | https://apnews.com/c115548ea83d42e595242e9cb807c5d8 | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
<p>Late in 2016 the Rwandan Government indicted several senior French Army Generals for crimes against humanity including genocide for their role in the 1994 Rwandan holocaust.</p>
<p>The Rwandan case against the French Generals is based on the French having instigated and trained the Interhamwe para-military Hutu militia that was responsible for most of the killings of the minority Tutsi tribe and its supporters. This most inconvenient of facts is admitted to by the French media who are still trying to shrug off blame for the French crimes in Rwanda and deny any “smoking gun” exists.</p>
<p>This latest in a long series of Rwandan government exposés of the French Military and Foreign Ministry’s role in the 1994 mass murder(some 800,000 by most accounts) provides that very “smoking gun”, for the well documented French Military role in the very existence of the Interhamwe death squads in undeniable.</p>
<p>Who is going to believe that after creating, training and paying the salaries of the leadership, the French had no idea the Interhamwe ethnic death squads were going to carry out what they were broadcasting so rabidly? It goes further, for the evidence shows the French were actually behind the mass murder in just another storm of massacre and mayhem that typifies neo colonial French Africa.</p>
<p>All one has to do is view the excellent three-part series on Aljazeera “The French African Connection” to hear first-hand senior French Intelligence agents matter of factly describe coup d’etas and mass murder they directed in the years before the Rwandan genocide throughout neo-colonial French Africa. After watching the series tell me you still don’t believe the French were capable of the crimes committed in Rwanda in 1994?</p>
<p>Earlier in 2016 news broke about the French role in suppressing the anti-neo-colonial rebellion that broke out in Cameroon in the 1970s where over 10,000 Cameroonian’s were murdered by the Cameroon Army directed by French officers. All to maintain French control of their former “colonies” and continue the super exploitation of African&#160;resources that is critical to maintaining the high standards of living the French people have come to expect.</p>
<p>The French military is still very active in enforcing neo-colonialism in French Africa, with contingents and or training operations in Mali, Central African Republic, Congo, Djibouti and Cote d’Ivoire. France has been at the forefront in demanding military intervention in Burundi by the UN, offering military forces for a potential occupation. French neo colonialism remains a potent force of reaction in Africa today and recognizing the French role in the Rwandan genocide in 1994 can play a vital role in helping the world understand this thorn in the side of the African peoples fight for independence, social equality and justice. Rwanda indicting French Generals for genocide is a good start.</p> | Rwanda Indicts French Generals for 1994 Genocide | true | https://counterpunch.org/2017/03/29/rwanda-indicts-french-generals-for-1994-genocide/ | 2017-03-29 | 4 |
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<p>Most metrics used to measure the performance of commercial real estate, which is defined as revenue-producing property, are trending upward but falter most every time there’s a blip in the national economy.</p>
<p>Mortgage delinquencies, vacancy rates, rents and the pace of lending all seem to be getting better.</p>
<p>While commercial real estate in the Albuquerque metro area has painfully lagged the slow national recovery, the findings of the Washington, D.C.-based MBA’s Commercial Real Estate/Multifamily Finance DataBook for the first quarter still have relevance.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“This is a forecast of what is coming for Albuquerque,” said Peter Gineris, senior vice president of debt and structured finance at commercial real estate services firm CBRE’s Albuquerque office.</p>
<p>Albuquerque’s commercial real estate market is recovering with an occasional relapse, according to a new report. (Journal File)</p>
<p>Continued job losses in the metro, perversely persistent for the better part of seven years, have been harsh on the commercial property types of office and industrial, but less so on retail and multifamily or apartments.</p>
<p>Albuquerque’s commercial real estate market isn’t really conspicuously bad although sometimes it can seem that way, Gineris said.</p>
<p>Part of the image problem is that metros in neighboring Arizona, Colorado and Texas have among the strongest markets in the country, giving us something of an inferiority complex. Look beyond our neighbors and there are large sections of the country where commercial real estate is also languishing, he said.</p>
<p>Take as an example rental and vacancy rates for the office market, which is the most troubled commercial property type in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>Since early 2011, the MBA report say the average asking lease rate increased nationwide by 6 percent to $29.28 a square foot in the first quarter, while the average vacancy rate dropped from 17.6 percent in early 2011 to 16.8 percent in the first quarter.</p>
<p>“Overall asking rents for office space in the Albuquerque area have essentially remained flat since 2011,” said Ken Schaefer, director of brokerage services at Colliers International’s Albuquerque office.</p>
<p>“A stubborn vacancy rate holding above 18 percent since 2011 has increased landlord competition for tenants, keeping rates in a very tight range,” he said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The first quarter’s average asking lease rate in Albuquerque was $16.19 a square foot, a discount of 42 percent from the national average of $29.28, he said, adding, “Even our Class A asking rates are 28 percent below the overall national rate.”</p>
<p>Strange to think that Albuquerque’s Class A office buildings – Albuquerque Plaza in Downtown, for example, or the Park Square buildings in Uptown – command well below average rents from a national perspective.</p>
<p>The MBA’s Finance DataBook, released last week, covers one of those blip periods in the national economy.</p>
<p>The subdued performance in the first quarter, when the real gross domestic product or GDP shrank by 1 percent, largely resulted from sustained bitterly cold temperatures in the Northeast. The MBA report forecasts the national economy will show decent improvement during the rest of the year.</p>
<p>Weakness in single-family housing has been a drag on the national economy, reflecting the trend of younger households continuing to rent rather than purchase. Consumer spending fell off a little in the first quarter, but remained close to its highest level since 2010.</p>
<p>Falling delinquency rates on commercial real estate loans result both from a generally improving economy and from lenders cleaning up their portfolios of long-standing delinquent properties, Gineris said.</p>
<p>The biggest holder of outstanding commercial real estate mortgage debt at 36 percent of the total, banks saw their 90-day delinquency rate drop to 1.6 percent in the first quarter from 2.4 percent a year earlier, 3.4 percent in early 2012 and 4.2 percent in early 2011.</p>
<p>A 90-day delinquency rate of less than 1 percent would be more typical.</p>
<p>For a residential comparison, the MBA had earlier reported the 90-day delinquency rate for loans to homeowners was 2.4 percent in the first quarter.</p>
<p>The second biggest type of outstanding debt at 22 percent, commercial mortgage-backed securities and similar “conduit” financing saw their 30-day delinquency and repo rate drop to 6.2 percent in the first quarter from 8.5 percent a year earlier, 8.8 percent in early 2012 and 8.8 percent in early 2011.</p>
<p>CMBS, which are mortgages bundled together and sold to investors, have only been tracked by the Mortgage Bankers Association since 1997. The drop in delinquency rate from 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter to 6.2 percent in the first was the largest percentage point decline for CMBS on record.</p>
<p>The 90-day delinquency rate for bank-held mortgages and the 30-day delinquency rate for CMBS illustrate the different thresholds used to track past-due commercial real estate loans. As a result, delinquency rates are not comparable from one financing source to another.</p>
<p>For life insurance companies, the third largest holder of outstanding commercial real estate debt, the delinquency threshold is 60 days. The first-quarter rate was a tiny 0.05 percent for life insurance companies, indicative of their generally conservative underwriting practices and low loan-to-value ratios.</p>
<p>The pace of commercial real estate deals during the first quarter was down slightly from the first quarter of 2013.</p>
<p>“Commercial and multifamily borrowing typically starts the year slowly, with less than one-fifth of the annual volume usually done in the first quarter,” said Jamie Woodwell, the MBA’s vice president of commercial real estate research, in a prepared statement. “This year is looking to continue the trend.”</p>
<p>The report’s loan originations index registered 122 in the first quarter, the lowest it’s been in two years. Lending volumes nationwide are down for retail and apartment properties, while the biggest increases were for hotel and industrial properties.</p>
<p /> | Most metrics show steady improvement | false | https://abqjournal.com/425948/most-metrics-show-steady-improvement.html | 2014-07-07 | 2 |
<p>Once alight with bulbs that spelled out Armstrong, the large steel archway where North Rampart and St. Ann streets meet in New Orleans was dark, its white paint overtaken by rust. Beneath it, a thick, carelessly wound chain bound two iron gates, from which dangled a steel padlock. The whole assembly looked as if meant to secure some oversized bicycle rather than the entrance to a 32-acre city park named for trumpeter Louis Armstrong and modeled after Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens. Armstrong Park was closed, had been since the flood following Hurricane Katrina. You could see the bronze statue of Louis, trumpet in his left hand, handkerchief in his right, but only from a distance through iron bars.</p>
<p>Armstrong in prison. That’s what it looked like, in early 2006. Or maybe Louis was on the outside. Maybe it wasn’t he but the city—its residents and those of us who are drawn to New Orleans for music or love or just escape—locked away. I remember something author Ned Sublette said around that time, in an interview: “We’re not watching history disappear, history is watching us disappear.”</p>
<p>A cobblestone plaza behind the park’s closed gate marked Congo Square, where two centuries ago enslaved Africans and free people of color drummed and danced to the <a href="http://www.streetswing.com/histmain/z3bmbla1.htm%20" type="external">bamboula</a> rhythm each Sunday, exerting their right to free expression as their masters prayed at church, seeding the beat of the earliest jazz and just about all New Orleans music to follow. Nowhere else in the North American colonies had slaves been allowed to play their drums, let alone freely assemble. For anyone with even a passing knowledge of New Orleans culture, Congo Square was sacred ground long before drummer Luther Gray lobbied successfully for a listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987, including even the period from the late 19th century through 1971 when the spot was officially named Beauregard Square in honor of a Confederate general.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Before-Flood-Story-Orleans/dp/1556528248%3FSubscriptionId%3D1XWTFJ60BR6QZ1PW9FR2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1556528248" type="external" /></p>
<p />
<p>By Ned Sublette</p>
<p>Lawrence Hill Books, 496 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Before-Flood-Story-Orleans/dp/1556528248%3FSubscriptionId%3D1XWTFJ60BR6QZ1PW9FR2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1556528248" type="external" /></p>
<p>Not everyone in New Orleans knows the word bamboula. But beat out the rhythm and folks nod in recognition, clap correctly (on beats two and four) and get their shoulders and hips moving in knowing dance. That sort of cultural response spans generations and contexts: Listen to Louis Armstrong’s jazz or Fats Domino’s rock ’n’ roll, the Neville Brothers’ funk or Lil Wayne’s chart-topping rap and a straight line emerges, through most of the city’s history, via music, undisturbed by two prior levee failures in the 20th century alone and a fire that destroyed most of the city’s structures in 1788.</p>
<p>What about after 80 percent of the city was submerged for two weeks, when the clearest mark of connection was the scum line left by floodwaters? What about now, more than four years later? The gates to Armstrong Park are freshly painted and lit each night, Congo Square open daily. Yet also, according to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, some 6,500 homeless are living in abandoned buildings and rents have risen 40 percent since Katrina; some 4,500 public housing units, razed despite much protest in 2008, are yet to be replaced.</p>
<p>“Let’s not lose sight of these as what they are: homes,” Marshall Truehill, pastor of the First United Baptist Church and former chairman of the city’s planning commission, told me then, nine months before his passing. “When you destroy neighborhoods, you tear apart a culture too.”</p>
<p>Which brings us back to the flood, and its prehistory. “The destruction of buildings in 2005 was fearful, but so was the loss of something intangible,” Sublette wrote in his 2007 book, “The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square.” “African America took a blow when the collective knowledge of black New Orleans was scattered to the four winds. Dispersing that population was like tearing up an encyclopedia in front of an electric fan.” If that volume attempted to restore some of that information, Sublette’s new “The Year Before the Flood: A New Orleans Story” explains how he got his hands on the encyclopedia in the first place, just before the cruel winds blew, and what it means to him.</p>
<p>To see long excerpts from “The Year Before The Flood: A Story of New Orleans,” <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=_bLlopNtI-IC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=the+year+before+the+flood&amp;cd=1#v=onepage&amp;q=&amp;f=false" type="external">click here</a>.</p>
<p>Sublette tends to begin at the beginning. For his first book, the sprawling and essential “Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo,” he took as a starting point Cadiz, circa 1104, and spent 600 pages just to get to 1952, when mambo was still a craze and Fidel Castro a rabble-rousing lawyer. He tempered such ambition with the last volume: “My story begins in 1492,” he wrote, “in Roman Catholic Europe.” His goal? To explain “how New Orleans got to 1819,” drawing that date from a traveler’s description: “On Sabbath evening, the African slaves meet on the green, by the swamp, and rock the city with their Congo dances.” Along the way, he detailed how those Africans got to that green, what their dances probably looked like, why they were identified as “Congo,” and how we came to say that they “rocked” in the first place. Sublette, a musician, music producer and, above all, a crafty and diligent scholar, constructed a social history staked to the course of the slave trade in the Western Hemisphere with a backdrop of musical development. In “The Year Before the Flood,” music jumps to the front seat, but the legacy of slavery rumbles along throughout the ride.</p>
<p>“New Orleans presents a peculiar challenge for a writer,” Sublette writes. “Because it moves not only in linear time but also cyclical time. … [E]ach year is the same as the last—as in ancient Egypt, where the years weren’t numbered. Cyclical time relies on an elaborate schedule of festivals associated with the calendar to reinforce its timelessness, creating a rhythm that propels the year. Cyclical time is pagan, and local; it is the time myth takes place in.” Thus, “The Year Before the Flood” rides the cycles of life in New Orleans—parades, murders, hurricanes and festivals. (Sublette identifies the city as the northernmost point of what he calls the Catholic “Saints and Festivals Belt.”) Defying its title, the book spills out into the year of the flood and beyond through a brief but pointed coda. It starts four decades earlier. Sublette, who was born in Louisiana and has lived in New York for 30 years, began writing this memoir during the 2004-2005 academic year, on a fellowship at Tulane University. He was thrust back to his own beginnings, too. He opens in Natchitoches (pronounced Nackatish), La., with his first-grade teacher explaining to students why coins must not be put in mouths. (“It might have been in the hands of a colored person.”) By the seventh grade, Sublette and classmates are asked to dramatize a slave auction. “Some people lived between the piety of knowing that slavery was bad,” he thinks to himself, “and the desire of living it once again.”</p>
<p>Cut to Tulane’s Howard Tilton Library, with Sublette “still trying to break through the lies I’d been told in grade school and at the movies.” He’s excited by the idea of living on Constance Street (his wife is writer Constance Ash), in a rented 1880s home in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Channel,_New_Orleans%20" type="external">Irish Channel</a> district; the two are charmed by its old floors and 14-foot ceilings and lulled to sleep by the sound of passing trains. What emerges is a jelly roll of a story—loving musical analysis and anecdote wrapped in historical analysis, filled also with clear-eyed accounts of the violence and racism endemic to New Orleans life and dotted at one end with caustic criticism of the Bush administration’s exploitation of disaster. Every bit of it grows personal: Sublette discovers that, two years earlier in the house he’s rented, a white Tulane student was stabbed to death in his kitchen by three black men with criminal records who’d knocked on the door and asked for money, then pushed their way in. When Hurricane Ivan bears down on New Orleans in September 2004, Sublette is in New York for a week: He books a last-minute plane ticket out of New Orleans for Constance, as others are trapped on packed highways and Mayor C. Ray Nagin announces that the Superdome is available as shelter. “We could evacuate because I was on top of the situation, and we had the means ,” he writes. “Suddenly, I was on the survival side of the rich/poor divide.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Before-Flood-Story-Orleans/dp/1556528248%3FSubscriptionId%3D1XWTFJ60BR6QZ1PW9FR2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1556528248" type="external" /></p>
<p>By Ned Sublette</p>
<p>Lawrence Hill Books, 496 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Before-Flood-Story-Orleans/dp/1556528248%3FSubscriptionId%3D1XWTFJ60BR6QZ1PW9FR2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1556528248" type="external" /></p>
<p>“This book is about things New Orleanians maybe took for granted,” Sublette explains early on, “and non-New Orleanians mostly didn’t know about.” Which made me time-travel back to 2006, when, reporting in the wake of Katrina, I sat in the Xavier University office of clarinetist and professor Michael White. “I don’t think America ever truly understood New Orleans culture, because the mind-set is so different here,” he said, peering into the red notebook in which he’d jotted down the names and whereabouts of colleagues. “So that whole tradition was hidden from most of America.”</p>
<p>Certainly misperceived. Yes, the glorious and exotic culture of New Orleans provided potent metaphor in the wake of tragedy, still does. Largely missed was the fact that those musicians—that culture—was, and remains, the story to great extent; always has been when it comes to New Orleans. Sublette well grasps that in 2006, <a href="http://www.mardigrasdigest.com/Sec_2ndline/2ndline_history.htm%20" type="external">second-line parades</a> marked the first and best assertions by black and poor New Orleanians of a right to return. But were they welcomed back? In his previous book, Sublette quoted Christian Shultz, a traveler who in 1808 noted Congo Square slave dances: “These amusements continue until sunset, when one or two of the city patrol show themselves with their cutlasses, and the crowds immediately disperse.” He relates an eerie 2004 parallel by describing the strained relationship, even before Katrina, between those who parade through and those who patrol the streets:</p>
<p>“I had just snapped a picture of Bayou Stepper Michael ‘Aldo’ Andrews, as his nephew James ‘Twelve’ Andrews and the New Birth Brass band tore into what was obviously their finale from the front doorstep of the Mother-In-Law. It was overtime, and the cops were not inclined to let the band finish their last few bars. The law must be obeyed to the letter in New Orleans, at least if you’re black. The cops turned a number, maybe seven, of their car sirens on full blast, right in the assembled crowd’s face, drowning out the band completely. … Cherry tops were spinning like it was a drug bust or a terrorist swat. You must disperse!”</p>
<p>“I was seeing a kind of civil rights demonstration,” Sublette writes of the Tamborine and Fan Club’s 2005 Super Sunday parade. He’s right—literally. In 2007, the Social Aid &amp; Pleasure Clubs that sponsor weekly parades took to federal court to challenge the city’s hiking of police security fees, and won. The suit invoked the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression, claiming that permit schemes “effectively tax” such expression. “It’s a solid, core ACLU issue,” ACLU staff attorney Katie Schwartzmann told me. “We handle freedom-of-speech cases all the time. But this one is different in that the speech at issue signifies this city and an entire cultural tradition.”</p>
<p>“There’s a feeling among many that some of our older cultural institutions, like parades and jazz funerals, are in the way of the progress and don’t fit in the new vision of New Orleans,” Michael White had told me. “That they should only be used in a limited way to boost the image of New Orleans, as opposed to being real, viable aspects of our lives.”</p>
<p>There’s plenty of evidence to support that thought. Musicians were arrested last October during a funeral procession in Tremé, one of the oldest black neighborhoods in America and long an incubator for jazz tradition. At recent <a href="http://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/mardigrasindians.html%20" type="external">Mardi Gras Indian</a> gatherings, the spectacle of black men looking fierce in eight-foot-tall suits of feathers and beads has lately been overtaken by the sirens and flashing lights of NOPD cruisers, enacting their own display of power and domain. “Parading in New Orleans is about taking control of the street,” Sublette wisely surmises.</p>
<p>Mardi Gras Indians emerge as perhaps the most transcendent heroes in Sublette’s story, and he follows the development of this tradition from 1885, when Becate Batiste, an African-American building tradesman in the Seventh Ward of partly Indian descent, took to the streets with his group, the Creole Wild West, a downtown posse of African-Americans dressed like Indians.</p>
<p>“Mardi Gras Indians are, in effect, a black mystic society,” Sublette explains. “It’s easy to imagine what Mardi Gras Indian performances might mean, but it means what its practitioners need it to mean, and it is as much mystery as it is clear meaning.” Yet he leaves no doubt that this expression is, as much as jazz, and as much as the white Mardi Gras, a direct response to a near-century of Jim Crow. “Reconstruction era carnival was the fine-arts wing of the campaign for white supremacy and removal of black people from the political process,” Sublette writes in a chapter on Mardi Gras. Lest we ignore the present-day vestiges of this legacy, he unpacks enough history to clear up any doubt about the meaning of an 18-foot-tall statue of King Kong that rolled along in the Comus <a href="http://www.novareinna.com/festive/krewes.html%20" type="external">krewe</a> parade in 2004, glowering fiercely, arms upraised as onlookers pelted it with beads. “Was I really seeing what I thought I was seeing?” he asks. He suspends disbelief by harking back to the krewe’s 1873 spectacle “The Missing Links to Darwin’s Origin of the Species,” identifying the gorilla as a clearly recognizable caricature of recent ex-Gov. P.B.S. Pinchback, the first African-American governor in the United States.</p>
<p>The great body of New Orleans culture defies not just calendars but categories. Therefore Sublette offers a convincing argument that “key elements of rock’n’roll came out of New Orleans, in an open circuit with Memphis, just up the river,” and devotes two chapters to the hip-hop that these days, as much as brass-band music, is the sound of New Orleans’ streets. “The usual way of dealing with hip hop when people write about New Orleans is to ignore it,” he writes, “or alternatively to focus only on hip hop as if none of the rest of it existed. Either one is a mistake.” After rapper Soulja Slim is murdered, his mother, a member of the Lady Buck Jumpers Social Aid and Pleasure Club, dances her grief away at the group’s second line that weekend as the Rebirth Brass Band plays, supporting Sublette’s correct notion that “on the porous, sinking ground of New Orleans, styles and tunes coexisted in the same house, the same family, and even in the same body.”</p>
<p>One thing that is clear: The changing population of the city has affected the body politic. A 2008 Times-Picayune piece by Michelle Krupa cited a study by University of New Orleans political scientist Ed Chervenak, based on voter turnout in the 2003 and 2007 gubernatorial elections. The results, Krupa wrote, “confirm what election-watchers have suspected since Hurricane Katrina: The number of voters in the New Orleans area has fallen sharply, with African-Americans and registered Democrats losing the most ground.” As Sublette says in his coda, although the city is still majority-black, the City Council is majority-white for the first time in decades. (That balance may adjust yet again after this week’s election.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Before-Flood-Story-Orleans/dp/1556528248%3FSubscriptionId%3D1XWTFJ60BR6QZ1PW9FR2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1556528248" type="external" /></p>
<p>By Ned Sublette</p>
<p>Lawrence Hill Books, 496 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Before-Flood-Story-Orleans/dp/1556528248%3FSubscriptionId%3D1XWTFJ60BR6QZ1PW9FR2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1556528248" type="external" /></p>
<p>Jason Berry put it succinctly in a new epilogue to a reprinted <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Up-Cradle-Jazz-Orleans-Music/dp/1887366873/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1265238288&amp;sr=1-1" type="external">“Up From the Cradle of Jazz”:</a> “The history of New Orleans in the wrenching aftermath of Hurricane Katrina can be telegraphed in one sentence: Politics failed, culture prevailed.” The culture that Sublette celebrates remains a primary means of social justice activism. Last Aug. 31, a second-line parade more than 1,200 strong traced the 25-block chunk of the historic Lower Mid-City neighborhood now threatened by the latest hot-button issue: the fight over Charity Hospital, the city’s largest health care provider for the uninsured, which has stood vacant since Katrina. (Louisiana State University, which governs the hospital, has proposed a controversial $1.2 billion plan for a new medical complex that would raze a chunk of Mid-City, leave the old building as one more blighted architectural treasure, and further delay the resumption of critical medical services. A recent federal arbitration ruling awarding $475 million in FEMA reimbursements makes this prospect all the more probable, though hardly definite or desirable.) Parading in New Orleans is about taking control of the street.</p>
<p>Yet the city of New Orleans has always held an odd, dysfunctional relationship with the culture it prizes and promotes. Sublette’s book can help prime one for an appreciation of the current situation. Making music in New Orleans has, for the most part, always meant a marginal living. In the three years since Katrina, it’s become a losing proposition. Right around the second Katrina anniversary, a “Musicians Solidarity Second Line” featured dozens of musicians carrying but not playing their instruments. Not a note played, not a step danced. A slow, steady rain lent dramatic drips to homemade signs that read: “Living Wages = Living Music” and “Imagine a Silent NOLA.” “Historically, musicians have been taken for granted here because it’s so common and pervasive,” said Scott Aiges, a director at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation. “When we hear a brass band it’s just another day. But these musicians are the working poor, making an average of $21,000 a year.”</p>
<p>In late August, Jordan Hirsch, executive director of the nonprofit Sweet Home New Orleans, pored over results of his latest “State of New Orleans Culture” report: More than 80 percent of those identified as “culture bearers” had returned to New Orleans; musicians reporting a 62 percent decrease in their income from music compared with their pre-Katrina earnings. Meanwhile, costs of living have risen 11 percent. Hirsch scratched his head. “What type of value is placed on this in a real sense?”</p>
<p>City ordinances and policies are a central part of the problem, leading to unpleasant ironies. In September 2005, Angeli on Decatur, a modest restaurant and bar on a French Quarter corner, began inviting in some of the musicians who’d begun again to play on the street outside. “Live music at Angeli at that moment was like medicine,” civil rights attorney Mary Howell recalls. “You felt like you could breathe again.” The live music at Angeli lasted for nearly a year—until the city of New Orleans put a stop to it. The place wasn’t zoned for live music. Another post-Katrina bright spot was Vaughan’s, where trumpeter Kermit Ruffins still holds court on Thursday nights: They were burning wood outside the place to kill the awful smell still lingering in the air, Ruffins recalls, but the music was back. A piece in the Nov. 23, 2009, edition of New Orleans City Business newspaper explains that although the club’s owner, Cindy Wood, would now like to expand those offerings, she’s barred from presenting music on any other night.</p>
<p>“This ridiculous city zoning ordinance that prohibits live entertainment in the city of New Orleans is breathtaking in its vagueness and overbreadth,” Howell says, “and is so badly written it prohibits live entertainment everywhere except where it’s specifically permitted.” As she points out, it’s the capricious enforcement of such policies, especially noise ordinances, that makes matters worse and threatens the spontaneous culture Sublette celebrates in his book. The kids in Tremé that Sublette describes picking up instruments (or just cardboard boxes and cans) to follow in the footsteps, real and metaphorical, of older musicians saw trombonist Glen David Andrews and snare drummer Derrick Tabb hauled off like criminals when police broke up a 2007 memorial procession there. (The charges—“parading without a permit” and “disturbing the peace by tumultuous manner”—were dropped some months later.) But I recall Andrews, earlier that year, after a flurry of murders had shaken the city, following a march to City Hall. He stepped up to a lectern and led a chant: “Music in the schools!” Tabb was recently in the running for a CNN “Heroes” award, for his “Roots of Music” program, which brings instruments and instruction to more than 100 public school students.</p>
<p>Late last year, a revised citywide noise ordinance was raised within the City Council, then quickly tabled. A newer version has surfaced, scheduled for a council vote later this month. The proposal originates from French Quarter residents and business owners who take issue and offense with the sonic barbarity of Bourbon Street. (In his book, Sublette refers to Bourbon Street as “an alcoholism theme park,” with “live cover bands playing high-volume crap-rock at 3:30 on Monday afternoon.”) Yet there are deep suspicions among musicians and their supporters that the proposed noise ordinance changes will further inhibit live-music presentation in general and greatly embolden police and even civilian regulators to clamp down more tightly on street culture. Both sides agree on one point: The present ordinance is essentially unenforceable.</p>
<p>“We want infrastructure not alms, not even funding necessarily, to nurture and promote our sophisticated, treasured, living culture,” clarinetist Evan Christopher wrote me in an e-mail recently. Christopher, who moved to New Orleans more than a decade ago, has mastered the technical aspects of his instrument’s Creole legacy; he’s studied just as rigorously the social purpose and context embedded in that music’s development. “Infrastructure means protecting the participants and practitioners, and helping them benefit economically from their efforts by removing obstacles that hinder the vitality of our culture and the transmission of indigenous forms of expression to the children of our community.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Before-Flood-Story-Orleans/dp/1556528248%3FSubscriptionId%3D1XWTFJ60BR6QZ1PW9FR2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1556528248" type="external" /></p>
<p>By Ned Sublette</p>
<p>Lawrence Hill Books, 496 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Before-Flood-Story-Orleans/dp/1556528248%3FSubscriptionId%3D1XWTFJ60BR6QZ1PW9FR2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1556528248" type="external" /></p>
<p>As New Orleans gears up to elect a new mayor—a primary election is scheduled for Feb. 6—expectations for meaningful change regarding cultural policy have been raised. Where Luther Gray worked two decades ago to amplify the voices of ancestors in Congo Square, he’s now focused on Artists in Residence NOLA (AirNOLA), a consortium of his fellow contemporary culture-bearers, consolidated though monthly roundtables, in the hopes of achieving a place at the policy table. Jan Ramsey, publisher of the monthly music magazine Offbeat, is one organizer of a campaign, “Music Swings Votes.” Both groups are among the more than 80 that contributed to a 21-point election platform focused on indigenous New Orleans culture. Most significantly, “21 for the 21st Century” calls for: the creation of a city department or office of cultural affairs and economy (a notable lack in “jazz’s birthplace”); and a dedicated funding source for the city’s cultural economy (New Orleans grants roughly $350,000 annually to arts organizations; San Antonio, Texas, by contrast, provides some $6 million). In the largest sense, what’s called for is clear: the sort of recognition Sublette’s latest book offers that both the brightest promise and darkest ailments of New Orleans must be dealt with via local culture. From a purely practical standpoint, if a city built on culture is to be rebuilt on culture, the moment has arrived to confront the ill will and illogic embedded within noise and live-music zoning ordinances, and to more effectively market its jazz tradition without selling it out. Some positive focus on these ideas from mayoral candidate James Perry and an ongoing dialogue along these lines fostered by Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu (the mayoral campaign’s front-runner) offer real promise. Among Landrieu’s related efforts, his World Cultural Economic Forum initiative has attempted to restore Louisiana’s international prominence when it comes to the arts. [Editor’s note: Shortly after the publication of this review, Landrieu won the Feb. 6 mayoral election. He will be New Orleans’ first white mayor since his father held the city’s top post a generation ago.]</p>
<p>Not long after Ned Sublette settled into his Irish Channel apartment but well into his immersion into the local culture, he began making music again. “I was inspired,” he writes. “When I got back to our house, I pulled out my guitar and started to sing. I was singing a little more relaxed. I had found something new in my old, ragged voice.”</p>
<p>That reminded me of a moment at one of Landrieu’s cultural economy forums: Denis G. Antoine, ambassador to the U.S. from Grenada, said, “If we’re taking about rebuilding New Orleans, we have to ask: Which New Orleans are we talking about? We have to talk about social values and an ancestral past. There is an anthropological aspect to the nurturing of a new New Orleans and this will help direct what is appropriate and what is not. New Orleans is a perception. It’s about how safe do you feel to be you?”</p>
<p>Larry Blumenfeld is working on a book about cultural recovery in New Orleans based on his research as a Katrina Media Fellow with the Open Society Institute. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and The Village Voice, among other publications, and his essay “Band on the Run in New Orleans” appeared in “Best Music Writing 2008” (Da Capo). He is editor at large of Jazziz magazine.</p> | Larry Blumenfeld on Ned Sublette’s 'The Year Before the Flood' | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/larry-blumenfeld-on-ned-sublettes-the-year-before-the-flood/ | 2010-02-05 | 4 |
<p>Flickr/Republican Party of Shelby County</p>
<p />
<p>Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a top GOP negotiator in the Senate, today blasted the Senate’s decision to fast-track a financial reform bill out of the banking committee with no negotiations over amendments and with no Republican votes. In remarks at the US Chamber of Commerce today, Corker called the tactic to pass a “very, very partisan bill” by a party-line vote in banking committee a “dysfunctional” move, and said the committee “missed a tremendous opportunity on financial reform.” “We had an opportunity this Monday to pass a bill out of our committee in a bipartisan way,” Corker said, “and then stand on the Senate floor and hold hands” and begin negotiating together to craft a bipartisan bill.</p>
<p>By choosing to bypass committee negotiations, Senate Democrats have set the stage for a bitter partisan battle on the Senate floor, Corker said, a showdown that’s far less likely to produce a bill on which both parties can agree. “It is going to be far more difficult since we missed an opportunity coming into committee to have bipartisan bill,” the Tennessee senator said.&#160;“It’s going to be far more difficult to have a regulatory bill that seeks the middle ground and stands the test of time.” Corker lamented that now that the Senate’s talks on financial reform were beyond the committee, the talks would likely take place “in a back room someplace.”&#160;“I think a very strategic mistake has been made,” he said. “</p>
<p>He also criticized the Obama administration, calling it “out of balance” for advocating for an independent consumer protection agency. In previous negotiations, Corker has supported enhanced consumer protection but housing it within, say, the Federal Reserve and weaving consumer protection into more traditional bank regulation powers. Overall, Corker said the bill had become a much more liberal bill, and that it will be an uphill struggle to change that. “Now, we’ve moved way to the left,” he said, “and it’s going to be difficult to hold people together to get it back in the middle of the road.”</p>
<p /> | GOPer: Senate Wall St. Reform “Dysfunctional,” Wants to Hold Hands | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/corker-chamber-senate-wall-st-financial-reform-dysfunctional-hold-hands-criticize/ | 2010-03-24 | 4 |
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "All or Nothing Night" game were:</p>
<p>02-03-05-07-09-12-14-15-17-19-21-24</p>
<p>(two, three, five, seven, nine, twelve, fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-four)</p>
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "All or Nothing Night" game were:</p>
<p>02-03-05-07-09-12-14-15-17-19-21-24</p>
<p>(two, three, five, seven, nine, twelve, fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-four)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'All or Nothing Night' game | false | https://apnews.com/03c5dc59e36e4661ab198138e6aa8cc1 | 2018-01-04 | 2 |
<p />
<p>Desktop computers still rate surprisingly well. Image source: Apple.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Personal computers have stopped a three-year slide in customer satisfaction by climbing 1.3% to a 78 on the latest <a href="http://www.theacsi.org/" type="external">American Customer Satisfaction Index Opens a New Window.</a>(ACSI) Household Appliance and Electronics Report.</p>
<p>Desktop computers continue to rank the highest on the ACSI survey, which uses a 100-point scale, remaining unchanged from last year at 81, while tablets and laptops have improved for the first time in four years. Tablets climbed 4% to a score of 78, inching ahead of laptops, which gained 3% to 77.</p>
<p>"In an increasingly mobile world, smartphones are the biggest threat to PC sales, and tablets have not been the long-term panacea the PC industry was hoping for," said ACSI Chairman Claes Fornell in a press release.</p>
<p>And while it seems odd that consumers prefer the somewhat outdated desktop form factor, ACSI Managing Director David VanAmburg explained why in an email to The Motley Fool.</p>
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<p>"Consumers like the convenience and mobility of laptops and tablets, but the user experience can't hold up to desktops on many levels," he wrote. "Larger monitors, better speakers, and more powerful processors are a factor. Also, desktops are typically connected to the Internet via a landline as opposed to Wi-Fi, which may contribute to a better quality online experience than laptops and tablets can offer."</p>
<p>Image source: ACSI.</p>
<p>When it comes to PC manufacturers -- which includes desktop, laptop, and tablet makers -- consumers remain enthralled with Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), which equaled its score from last year at 84. Samsung (NASDAQOTH: SSNLF) climbed by 6.4% to snag second place at 83, while Amazon.com(NASDAQ: AMZN), which only makes tablets, jumped 2.6% to 80 for the No. 3 slot. Acer, ASUS, and Dell all tied for fourth at 78 and HP, despite finishing down the list, gained 5.5% to 77. Lenovo and Toshiba also gained while the combined score for all other, smaller PC manufacturers dropped 3.9% to last place.</p>
<p>"Interestingly, the two companies that lead in smartphone satisfaction also lead the PC industry, although they have very different strategies regarding the future of tablets," saidFornell. "Apple is targeting business customers on the go with laptop-like features for its iPad, while Samsung tablets occupy their own space as devices for entertainment and browsing -- not laptop replacements."</p>
<p>Image source: ACSI.</p>
<p>Overall, consumers continue to rate design (size, visual appeal) as the strongest aspect for PCs, although that number dropped from 84 last year to 83. On the positive side, ease of operation climbed from 80 to 81 while ability to keep crashes to a minimum inched up from 79 to 80.</p>
<p>Satisfaction with availability of software, apps, or accessories and with processor speed all dropped from last year.</p>
<p>While it's unlikely that desktop PCs will ever stage a major sales comeback, it's clear that laptops and tablets may have a hard time completely replacing them. IDC reported in July that PC shipments -- including desktops, portables, ultraslim notebooks, Chromebooks, and workstations -- in the second quarter totaled 62.4 million units, a year-over-year decline of 4.5%, which was better than the forecast of a 7.4% decline.</p>
<p>Even as the other devices become more useful, with better technology, and the line between the two continues to blur, it's obvious that consumers still want the power and monitor size possible with a desktop.</p>
<p>Those advantages may dim going forward, but for now, even though sales have fallen, desktops still make the most sense for some of us.</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=2668&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><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/Dankline/info.aspx" type="external">Daniel Kline Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Apple. He prefers a laptop to a desktop and anything to a tablet. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon.com and Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple.</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> | Survey Shows Consumers Are Happier With Their Personal Computers | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/27/survey-shows-consumers-are-happier-with-their-personal-computers.html | 2016-09-27 | 0 |
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<p>DETROIT — Vehicles are more dependable than ever, says J.D. Power and Associates.</p>
<p>The consulting company’s latest study, which measures problems experienced in the last year by owners of three-year-old vehicles, found that reported problems fell 5 percent to the lowest level since J.D. Power began collecting this data in 1989.</p>
<p>Lexus, Porsche, Lincoln and Toyota owners reported the fewest problems, while Jeep, Mitsubishi, Dodge and Land Rover owners had the most. Owners reported an average of 126 problems per 100 vehicles from the 2010 model year, down from 132 in last year’s survey. Problems can be anything from engine failure to dashboard electronic glitches to excessive wind noise.</p>
<p>For the first time, cars and trucks that were new or redesigned for 2010 performed better than those that were unchanged from the 2009 model year. Owners of new models experienced 116 problems per 100 vehicles compared with 133 for models that weren’t new in 2010. That result challenges the conventional wisdom that it takes carmakers a year or two to work out glitches in new cars.</p>
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<p>Among the models that were new or redesigned in 2010 were the Ford Mustang, Buick LaCrosse, Lexus ES350 and Toyota Camry.</p>
<p>Chrysler’s Ram brand saw one of the biggest leaps, rising to the ninth spot in 2013 from 29th last year. Suzuki and Mazda also jumped. Toyota’s Scion brand dropped 13 spots, and Cadillac, Audi, Volvo and Mitsubishi all dropped 11 spots.</p>
<p>For the third straight year, excessive wind noise was the top problem. Noisy brakes came in second, and problems with paint were No. 3. — This article appeared on page B1 of the Albuquerque Journal</p> | Vehicle dependability continues to improve | false | https://abqjournal.com/168628/vehicle-dependability-continues-to-improve.html | 2 |
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<p>“Ever since the Enlightenment,” write <a href="http://www.leighbureau.com/speaker.asp?id=376%20" type="external">John Micklethwait</a> and <a href="http://www.leighbureau.com/speaker.asp?id=377%20" type="external">Adrian Wooldridge</a> in “God Is Back,” “there has been a schism in Western thought over the relationship between religion and modernity. Europeans, on the whole, have assumed that modernity would marginalize religion; Americans, in the main, have assumed that the two things can thrive together.”</p>
<p>“God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World” is, in large part, an extended argument that the Americans were right: right to think that religion and modernity were compatible and could flourish together, and right to think that the way to encourage this double flourishing was by instituting a church-state separation in order to encourage religious pluralism and diversity. The American accomplishment, as they see it, is the achievement of a robust spiritual marketplace in which free individuals can choose and pursue whatever vision of God suits them best—or, if they so prefer, choose none at all. (The book’s heavy use of the consumerist language of markets and the free choice is, incidentally, no accident; Micklethwait is editor in chief of The Economist, and Wooldridge is its Washington bureau chief.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Back-Global-Revival-Changing/dp/1594202133%3FSubscriptionId%3D0P6YZRHNJFV404XJNNG2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1594202133" type="external" /></p>
<p>By John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge</p>
<p />
<p>Penguin Press, 416 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Back-Global-Revival-Changing/dp/1594202133%3FSubscriptionId%3D0P6YZRHNJFV404XJNNG2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1594202133" type="external" /></p>
<p>One might well sympathize with many aspects of this. (I certainly have nothing bad to say about the separation of church and state, although I wish the authors had acknowledged that many religious Americans are not nearly as appreciative of it as they are.) The problem with “God Is Back,” though, is that the convincing arguments run in only one direction. The authors make a fairly persuasive case that modern technology and expanded individual freedoms have encouraged the spread and vibrancy of religious belief, not only in America but also in many other parts of the world—China, Latin America, South Korea and so forth. But if modernity has indeed been good for religion, it is far less obvious that religion has been good for modernity.</p>
<p>In the U.S., progressive movements in favor of civil rights and social justice once had deep and pervasive religious roots, but these days the dominant religions in America are nearly always associated with counter-progressive forces that frequently take their inspiration from (and frequently try to return society to) some set of pre-modern traditions or values. The same is true today in various other parts of the world; most saliently, perhaps, in the Middle East. Religion, in all too many cases, seems to encourage parochialism and hatred of the other, as well as superstition and scientific ignorance—all human flaws that the spread of modernism and universal reason was supposed to help us overcome.</p>
<p>In the American context, the issue of religious resistance to science is especially troublesome. Micklethwait and Wooldridge, though, spend little of “God Is Back” on the conflict between science and religion. Perhaps they felt that the topic has been talked nearly to death—a feeling for which I have some sympathy. Or perhaps the explanation lies in their rather simplistic understanding of what would constitute “compatibility” between religion and science. In their view, to show that two beliefs, or belief systems, are compatible, it is enough to show that there are significant numbers of people who adhere to both. The mere existence of religious believers in the modern world, then—the fact that modernity did not simply wipe religion off the map—is enough for Micklethwait and Wooldridge to conclude that religion and modernity (including science) are in their sense compatible.</p>
<p>But this establishes nothing of any real interest; after all, people often think inconsistent and incoherent things. The interesting question is whether it makes sense, in the modern world, for a person to be religious. The correct explanation of religion’s persistence in the modern world, then, might be not that religion and modernity are actually compatible, but rather that humans are irrational enough, and capable of sufficient degrees of cognitive dissonance, to simultaneously hold incompatible beliefs. (As the <a href="http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/an-interview-with-jerry-coyne%20" type="external">biologist Jerry Coyne</a>, writing in The New Republic, recently put it, saying that religion and modern science are compatible because some people fail to grasp their mutual exclusivity “is like saying that marriage and adultery are compatible because some married people are adulterers.”)</p>
<p>The question of whether religion has survived modernism is therefore distinct from the question of whether, rationally speaking, it ought to have done so. But this second question is one in which Micklethwait and Wooldridge very rarely display any interest. One consequence of this is that the authors’ standards for what constitutes a vindication of the legitimacy of religious belief are often startlingly low. Scientists, they write, “are demonstrating that religious experiences are ‘real’—in the sense that they are associated with changes in brain patterns.” But whoever claimed that religious experiences were not real in this sense? Every experience is associated with some sort of change in the subject’s brain patterns. (When people cast horoscopes or go to séances and play with Ouija boards, things happen in their brains too.) Yet the argument strikes the authors as impressive enough that they return to it at the end of the chapter: “It seems that religious experiences can be ‘real’ to the people who enjoy or endure them: they are connected with changes in the activities of the brain.” What a revelation!</p>
<p>Equally unconvincing is the authors’ claim that evidence showing an apparent link between religiosity and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine%20" type="external">dopamine</a> levels “makes it harder to dismiss religion as a mere ‘illusion,’ as Freud once put it.” I suppose what they must mean is that, if such evidence pans out, religion is no mere illusion; it is, rather, an extraordinarily useful illusion. What puzzles, though, is that their inability to provide any evidence that religious belief is actually true, and not some sort of illusion, doesn’t seem to bother them at all.On the other hand, at various points in the book the authors do seem to suggest that religious claims about God’s existence and nature are true, and that religion’s ability to provide such truths gives it an edge over science. “Faith,” they write, “provides certainty in a world where secular certainties are constantly being undermined.” Elsewhere they summarize, with apparent approval, William F. Buckley’s view of higher education in “God and Man at Yale.” Buckley, they write, “rejected the idea that the university was a mere education marketplace (especially a bazaar where all the stalls were run by socialists, atheists, and other bearded misfits). He believed that the purpose of education was not to keep students up to date, but to introduce them to eternal truths and provide them with the means for defending them.”</p>
<p>To defend religion on account of its ability to provide eternal truths (or, for that matter, truths of any sort) is a far cry indeed from defending the “reality” of religious experiences by pointing out that they are “real” to the people who experience them. Yet there are multiple passages in which Micklethwait and Wooldridge are most naturally read as asserting that religious beliefs are not just useful, but true—indeed more certainly true than scientific or other secular claims—and that faith is a valid path to religious knowledge. In discussing contemporary American Christianity, they write: “What matters in religion is after all the Truth, not attendance figures. […] The simplest defense of [megachurches] is indeed growth: modern management is bringing more people to God and providing more cash for the churches to spread his word.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Back-Global-Revival-Changing/dp/1594202133%3FSubscriptionId%3D0P6YZRHNJFV404XJNNG2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1594202133" type="external" /></p>
<p>By John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge</p>
<p>Penguin Press, 416 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Back-Global-Revival-Changing/dp/1594202133%3FSubscriptionId%3D0P6YZRHNJFV404XJNNG2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1594202133" type="external" /></p>
<p>In these passages and others, “God Is Back” does seem to presuppose, or at least to want to presuppose, the existence of God and the validity of faith as a path to knowledge of ultimate reality. But why, then, include the “brain patterns” argument, and other attempts to legitimize religious beliefs in ways irrelevant to their truth or justification? If faith itself justifies religious belief, why bother with other types of argument, particularly when those supplemental arguments are so obviously lame? (There is, if not an answer, an explanation: As the authors say upfront, the book “is written by a Roman Catholic and an atheist.” Apparently, the two didn’t manage to get their stories entirely straight.)</p>
<p>For someone who wants to defend religion’s continued validity in the modern world, the appeal to faith can certainly seem attractive. After all, if faith is a legitimate path to knowledge, and indeed to certainty, then religion need fear nothing from modernity; no finding of modern empirical science can hope to shake from its foundations a belief that in fact has no foundations, but is simply held as a result of an unshakeable conviction on the part of a believer who has no interest in what she might actually have reason to believe.</p>
<p>The deep problem with this position, though, is that it undermines the authors’ compatibility claim. Faith, if accepted as legitimate, may shield religious beliefs from science, but how then to defend science against religion? If the two sorts of beliefs are established in entirely different ways then there can be no neutral way of reconciling them when they conflict, and so it is hard to see how they could be considered genuinely compatible. Of course, if science and religion never made conflicting claims, this might not trouble us. But that religion and science do make conflicting claims is a wearisomely familiar fact in light of, to take what is only the most obvious example, recent and ongoing debates about teaching evolution, creationism, “intelligent design” and so forth in American public schools.</p>
<p>At any rate, the appeal to faith is intellectually untenable, and the authors’ insistence that religion has an edge over science in the areas of truth and certainty is deeply wrongheaded and indeed ironic. The passage on Buckley cited above suggests that those who value eternal truths side with religion, while those who care only about being “up to date” will side with science. But no scientist would accept this characterization, because no scientist will cede to religion the advantage in the pursuit of truth (whether “eternal” or otherwise). The idea that it is a disadvantage for secular approaches that “secular certainties are constantly being undermined” is exactly the opposite of the truth: It is in fact because scientists are constantly trying to falsify their own claims that we can have a reasonable degree of confidence in the ones that we have not yet managed to falsify. (Ask any responsible scientist what it would take to make her give up her beliefs about any part of the world, and she will be able to tell you. Ask a typical religious believer what it would take to convince him that, say, Jesus was not the son of God, and you will succeed at most in irritating him—you will almost certainly get no answer at all.)</p>
<p>Faith, then, has a highly unfortunate double consequence: It increases one’s confidence in one’s beliefs, while simultaneously decreasing one’s grounds for confidence. Pace Micklethwait and Wooldridge, what faith provides is not in fact certainty, but rather the feeling of certainty. Sadly, there are many who cannot tell the difference. It would be nice if the existence, somewhere out there, of eccentrics holding irrational, even crazy beliefs for no good reason at all was something we could simply laugh off or otherwise ignore. (I put aside the legitimizing effect of the acceptance of faith-based epistemological standards on the larger culture of intellectual relativism—the “I watch Fox News because it won’t trouble me with evidence contradicting my views” phenomenon—not because this has not been horrifically harmful, but because I do not have the space to treat it adequately.) If building huge and horrifically ugly churches, buying and selling utterly tacky religious paraphernalia and encouraging people to make Christian rock and Kirk Cameron movies were the worst things these eccentrics did, my fellow skeptics and I would be willing to grit our teeth and look the other way.</p>
<p>The problem, of course, is that some of these eccentrics go further, insisting on trying to prevent American students from becoming educated, or passing laws to prevent homosexuals from getting married, or hijacking planes and flying them into buildings. And if the view of the typical moderate religious believer about faith is correct—I mean the sort of moderate believer who may oppose some or even all of these oppressive and violent acts—it is hard to see exactly what is wrong with these people’s actions. For they, too, have faith that what they are doing is correct and approved by God, and faith, on this view, justifies itself. Flying a plane into a building isn’t easy; you have to have quite a bit of faith in order to bring yourself to do it.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Back-Global-Revival-Changing/dp/1594202133%3FSubscriptionId%3D0P6YZRHNJFV404XJNNG2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1594202133" type="external" /></p>
<p>By John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge</p>
<p>Penguin Press, 416 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Back-Global-Revival-Changing/dp/1594202133%3FSubscriptionId%3D0P6YZRHNJFV404XJNNG2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1594202133" type="external" /></p>
<p>Micklethwait and Wooldridge are of course well aware of this, and it is not surprising that they devote considerable portions of their book to trying to convince their readers that religion is not as conservative, intolerant or dangerous as many skeptics have taken it to be. Yet their own evidence often speaks against the reassuring conclusions they want to draw. “The proportion of Americans who believe that Islam promotes violence against non-Muslims has more than doubled over the past six years,” they write—and go on to decry this trend, as if this change in attitudes were inexplicable. Perhaps they have forgotten what they themselves wrote a mere 20 pages earlier:</p>
<p>“Still, it is interesting how many Muslims, especially young Muslims, want to reorder European society to accommodate their preferences. A 1997 survey of twelve hundred young Turkish Germans discovered that about a third of them said they believed that Islam should come to power in every country in the world, Europe included, and that using violence against nonbelievers was perfectly justified if it served the greater Islamic good.”</p>
<p>Surveys of Muslim university students <a href="http://www.pipelinenews.org/images/UKmuslim.pdf%20" type="external">in Britain</a> produced nearly identical numbers. And this is in Western Europe, where one might expect, in general, less extreme attitudes. It is not only Americans, then, who believe that Islam promotes violence; it appears that belief is also held by a very substantial portion of Islam’s adherents.</p>
<p>The authors are no more convincing when they turn their sights to the U.S. in order to argue that George W. Bush’s presidency has been unfairly maligned as theocratic and irresponsibly religious by skeptics on the left. For such people, they write, “the gap between ‘rational’ European politics and ‘faith-driven’ American politics loomed larger” under Bush “than it ever had under Bush, Sr.” But this gap, they go on to argue, is “overplayed in the short term.” Why think this? Because “the degree to which Bush actually adopted policies for purely religious reasons is exaggerated.” The Iraq war, for instance, was not undertaken primarily for religious reasons: “American foreign policy […] has been a jumble of traditions and contradictions.”</p>
<p>So much is true, but how does this excuse the faith-based constituency that put Bush into office? Bush was clearly a poor choice to occupy the highest office in the land, and he owed his ascension to the support of <a href="http://people-press.org/commentary/?analysisid=103%20" type="external">American evangelicals</a>, who, as “perhaps the most anti-intellectual religious group in America,” weren’t nearly as concerned as they ought to have been about his lack of knowledge, or of speaking or thinking ability, or his tendency to make decisions based on gut feeling, or his belief that he was literally carrying out God’s will. Whether or not Bush himself believed it, the official reason for invading Iraq—the notoriously nonexistent WMDs—was accepted by a credulous public mostly on the basis of trust in the president, whom many Americans regarded as “one of us.” (As Micklethwait and Wooldridge admit, “Evangelicals clung to Bush’s original justifications for the war in Iraq […] long after most other people had abandoned them.”) Whether or not it was initiated for explicitly religious reasons, then, is essentially irrelevant: The Iraq war happened, and was for a very long time supported by the American public, precisely because those in a large segment of that public were encouraged by their religions to allow their faith commitments and counter-intellectual sentiments to determine their voting behavior and political judgments. In America, as we should all know by now, there is no clean distinction between people’s religious feelings and their patriotic political ones.There is also good reason to resist Micklethwait and Wooldridge’s attack on the idea that Bush’s religiosity, and that of the electorate, had bad effects on his domestic policy. Their reassurance that “Bush and his fellow theocrats ended up doing almost nothing to undermine American secularism” is surely premature: The truth of this claim remains to be seen. (It will depend in part, among other things, on the future behavior of his Supreme Court appointees.) Meanwhile there can be little doubt that Bush’s religious proclivities, and his desire to please his evangelical supporters, had negative consequences on the health of the American republic. Consider the ban on stem cell research, the drastic underfunding of scientific research in general, or the pressure on scientists to skew their research results in order to accommodate the administration’s views on global warming and other such matters. (It is worth noting that the latter two go entirely unmentioned in “God Is Back.”)</p>
<p>Or consider <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11442710/%20" type="external">Bush’s backing</a> of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. As Micklethwait and Wooldridge correctly observe, the measure failed to pass, but they neglect to mention that it lent momentum to other, parallel efforts—including the successful effort to pass California’s <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gaymarriage5-2008nov05,0,1545381.story" type="external">Proposition 8</a>. The success of Proposition 8—another religiously inflicted social injury that barely rates a mention in “God Is Back”—casts considerable doubt not only on Micklethwait and Wooldridge’s benign view of religion, but also on their anti-judicial bias, and their populist contention that legislatures expressing the alleged will of the people are generally more capable than the courts of reaching acceptable positions on civil rights issues.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Back-Global-Revival-Changing/dp/1594202133%3FSubscriptionId%3D0P6YZRHNJFV404XJNNG2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1594202133" type="external" /></p>
<p>By John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge</p>
<p>Penguin Press, 416 pages</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Back-Global-Revival-Changing/dp/1594202133%3FSubscriptionId%3D0P6YZRHNJFV404XJNNG2%26tag%3Dtruthdig20-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1594202133" type="external" /></p>
<p>The view of religion as both benign and necessary has deep and insidious roots. In a revealing moment near the end of “God Is Back,” Micklethwait and Wooldridge write, “Secularists hoped that science would marginalize religion. In fact, the advance of science—particularly biotechnology—is raising all sorts of religious questions.” This, to my mind, is fascinatingly confused. The passage is designed to suggest that biotechnology has somehow found evidence for religious claims: If science “in fact” raises religious questions, then clearly religion is validated by science! But of course, what biotechnology raises is not religious questions, but moral ones. The thought that morality must be fundamentally religious in nature—that we cannot talk about values without talking about God—is a preconception, a prejudice, and one that many secularists are growing understandably tired of hearing repeated. (For my part, I must confess that I find morality much easier to understand without the mysteries and confusions injected by belief in God.)</p>
<p>One must already have faith in faith to conclude that the world must be seen through the lens of faith. And one must have such faith, too, to view religion in a predominantly positive light, given all that has been done in its name. Micklethwait and Wooldridge are surely correct to claim that religion—not God, but religion—is back. I remain, as yet, unconvinced that this is either an inevitable development or a happy one.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.csuchico.edu/~tjollimore/%20" type="external">Troy Jollimore</a> is associate professor of philosophy at California State University, Chico. His book “Tom Thomson in Purgatory” won the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry in 2006.</p> | Troy Jollimore on the God Debate | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/troy-jollimore-on-the-god-debate/ | 2009-04-03 | 4 |
<p>President Obama has repeated his call for a public option in health care, in order to create some competition for the insurance companies and keep them honest. We the people need to call for a public option in banking, in order to create some competition for the private banks and keep them honest.</p>
<p>In Wall Street’s latest affront to the public trust, the nine mega-banks graced with $125 billion in taxpayer bailout money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) were reported last week to be paying out billions of dollars in bonuses to their executives. At least 4,793 bankers and traders received more than $1 million each in bonus payments, although it was one of Wall Street’s worst years on record. After months of investigating banker compensation, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said on July 30, “The repeated explanation from bank executives that bonuses are tied to performance in a manner designed to promote (national economic) growth does not appear to be accurate.”</p>
<p>To say that it was an understatement would be an understatement. The bonuses paid to executives not only were not tied to national economic growth but were not even tied to some reasonable percentage of company profits. In fact they were generally greater than the net income of the banks. Morgan Stanley, for example, had $1.7 billion in earnings and paid $4.475 billion in bonuses. Goldman Sachs had $2.3 billion in earnings and paid $4.8 billion in bonuses. JP Morgan Chase had $5.6 billion in earnings and paid $8.69 billion in bonuses. JP Morgan’s largesse involved showering 1,626 of its favorite execs and traders with bonuses of $1 million or more.</p>
<p>For most people, a “bonus” is a few hundred dollars at Christmastime. A million dollars is what you work a lifetime to try to save, and few people reach that goal. Even Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, which have been called zombie banks, paid $5.33 billion and $3.6 billion in bonuses, respectively — although they lost more than $27 billion each in earnings. The bar for merit is apparently so low that you’re entitled to a bonus if your zombie bank simply keeps breathing!</p>
<p>These blatantly inflated bonuses are just the last in a litany of abuses by those same profligate banks that nearly destroyed our economic system. If the derivatives on their books were “marked to market” (valued at what they would fetch on the market), the banks would be bankrupt, and their employees would be out of a job. Instead, they have been allowed to inflate the value of their “toxic” assets – and sell them to the U.S. government at the inflated value. Then they have taken the money they got from the government at these inflated prices and paid back the TARP money they received – allowing them to post inflated earnings and reward themselves with inflated bonuses! Many people feel that these bankers are thieves stealing from the public till who should be looking at jail time. But who is there to stop their parade of outrages? No one in Congress, the White House, or the news media is calling them on the carpet for it. As Senator Dick Durbin said recently, Wall Street owns Congress; and that is also true of the major media.</p>
<p>We may not be able to stop them, but we can join them. We the people need to play the bankers’ game ourselves. Even corporate giants such as General Motors and WalMart have now gotten into the banking game and are easing their credit problems by forming their own banks. The U.S. public sector is late to the party. States, counties, public universities could take the lucrative system the private banking industry has created for itself and turn it to productive use in the public interest.</p>
<p>Keeping the Banks Honest with Some Public Competition</p>
<p>In President Obama’s July 17 weekly address, he repeated his call for a public option in health care, in order to “increase competition and keep insurance companies honest” and to “put an end to the worst practices of the insurance industry.” The same call needs to be made for a public option in banking. In some countries, publicly-owned banks have operated alongside privately-owned banks for decades; and in those countries, the current crisis has served to show that public banks generally do a better job of serving the people and protecting their interests than their private counterparts.</p>
<p>In Canada, the trendsetter in public banking is the province of Alberta. Alberta’s publicly-owned banking system, called Alberta Treasury Branches or ATB, was initiated during the Great Depression to give the private banks a run for the public’s money. According to a government publication titled “These Are the Facts: An Authentic Record of Alberta’s Progress, 1935-1948”:</p>
<p>“The Treasury Branch system enables the people to pool their financial resources and to use these resources for their mutual benefit thereby enabling them to progressively free themselves from the stranglehold of the existing financial monopoly. These Treasury Branches provide effective competition for chartered banks thereby ensuring banking services at reasonable rates.”</p>
<p>From 1929 to 1933, the average annual income in Alberta had fallen from $548 to $212, a staggering 61 percent drop. Interest payments continued to bleed the farmers of cash, and taxes had increased. In 1935, Albertans decided they wanted a change and swept the Alberta Social Credit Party into power. In 1938, the system of Alberta Treasury Branches was set up literally as a branch of the provincial government. The stated goal of the ATB was to “provide the people with alternative facilities for gaining access to their credit resources.” Bankers initially scoffed at Alberta’s attempts to establish a competing economic system, but Albertans had high hopes and rushed to deposit their meager savings in the Treasury Branches. The government invested in the ATB only once, contributing $200,000 in 1938. That was all that was necessary, as the system was self-funding after that. By 1946, the ATB was turning an annual profit of $65,000. According to a booklet titled “Albertans Investing in Alberta 1938-1998,” by 1998 the ATB had remitted $68 million to the provincial government.</p>
<p>In India, public sector banks also operate alongside private sector banks. Privatization has made significant inroads into India’s banking system, but fully 80 percent of the country’s banks are still government-owned. Before the current crisis, neoliberals criticized India’s public banks for being oriented more toward serving the customer than turning a profit; but studies showed that the public sector banks were out-performing the private sector banks in terms of customer satisfaction. Today, when the credit crisis has hit the aggressive private international banks particularly hard, customers are fleeing into the safety of India’s public sector banks, which have emerged largely unscathed from the credit debacle. The public banks have been credited with keeping the country’s financial industry robust at a time when the private international banks are suffering their worst crisis since the 1930s.</p>
<p>In China, private-sector banking has also made some inroads; but state-owned banks still predominate. In a June 2009 article titled “The Chinese Puzzle: Why Is China Growing When Other Export Powerhouses Aren’t?”, Brad Setser noted that nearly all countries relying heavily on exports for growth have experienced major downturns and remain in the doldrums — except for China. When China’s external markets fell off, the government turned its credit machine inward to domestic development. Its state-owned banks engaged in a huge increase in lending, with local governments and state enterprises borrowing on a large scale. The result was to create a real fiscal stimulus that put workers to work and got money circulating again in the economy.</p>
<p>In the United States, the trendsetter in public banking is the state of North Dakota, which has owned its own bank for nearly a century. North Dakota is one of only two states (along with Montana) that are currently not facing budget shortfalls. Ever since 1919, North Dakota’s revenues have been deposited in the state-owned Bank of North Dakota (BND). Under the “fractional reserve” lending scheme open to all banks, these deposits are then available for leveraging many times over as loans. Other banks in the state do not see the BND as a threat because it partners with them and backstops them, serving as a sort of central bank for the state. BND’s loans are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) but are guaranteed by the state. North Dakota has plenty of money for student loans, makes 1% loans to startup farms, has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, and is generally not feeling the pinch of the credit crisis at all.</p>
<p>Theory and Practice: The Proof is in the Pudding</p>
<p>A bank charter brings with it the privilege of creating “credit” simply as an accounting entry on the bank’s books. The flaw in the private banking scheme is that banks create the principal portion of their loans but not the interest, which is continually drawn off the top as profit. New borrowers must continually be found to take out new loans to create this extra profit, making private banking effectively a pyramid scheme; and like any pyramid scheme, it has mathematical limits. Today, those limits appear to have been reached. Personal and national debts have gotten so large relative to incomes that it is no longer possible to maintain the fiction of solvency. We soon won’t have the money even to pay the interest on our existing debts, let alone to incur new ones. Public banking does not suffer from that flaw, because interest is not drawn out of the system but is returned to the public coffers. Public banking is thus mathematically sound and sustainable.</p>
<p>That is the theory, but there is nothing so persuasive as putting it to the test. Like with the public option in health care, we need to pit the public banking option against the private banking option and see which works best. My money is on the public option.</p>
<p>Ellen Hodgson Brown is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Web of Debt: the Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free</a>. She can be reached through her <a href="http://www.webofdebt.com/" type="external">website</a>.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | The Public Option in Banking | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/08/06/the-public-option-in-banking/ | 2009-08-06 | 4 |
<p>A detail of a page in the declassified report. ( <a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Hacking/42e7c01d808b496fbe1c141f9c4fab83/1/0" type="external">Jon Elswick / AP</a>)</p>
<p>Some thoughts on “Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election,” the newly released <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/335885879/DNI-Declassified-Report-on-Russian-Hacking#from_embed" type="external">declassified report</a> from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.</p>
<p>1. The primary purpose of the declassified report, which offers no evidence to support its assertions that Russia hacked the U.S. presidential election campaign, is to discredit Donald Trump. I am not saying there was no Russian hack of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podesta_emails%20" type="external">John Podesta’s emails</a>. I am saying we have yet to see any tangible proof to back up the accusation. This charge—Sen. John McCain has likened the alleged effort by Russia to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/30/politics/mccain-cyber-hearing/" type="external">an act of war</a>—is the first salvo in what will be a relentless campaign by the Republican and Democratic establishment, along with its corporatist allies and the mass media, to destroy the credibility of the president-elect and prepare the way for impeachment.</p>
<p>The allegations in the report, amplified in breathtaking pronouncements by a compliant corporate media that operates in a non-fact-based universe every bit as pernicious as that inhabited by Trump, are designed to make Trump look like Vladimir Putin’s useful idiot. An orchestrated and sustained campaign of innuendo and character assassination will be directed against Trump. When impeachment is finally proposed, Trump will have little public support and few allies and will have become a figure of open ridicule in the corporate media.</p>
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<p>2. The second task of the report is to bolster the McCarthyist smear campaign against independent media, including Truthdig, as witting or unwitting agents of the Russian government. The demise of the English programming of Al-Jazeera and TeleSur, along with the collapse of the nation’s public broadcasting, designed to give a voice to those not beholden to corporate or party interests, leaves RT America and Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! as the only two electronic outlets with a national reach that are willing to give a platform to critics of corporate power and imperialism such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Ralph Nader, Medea Benjamin, Cornel West, Kshama Sawant, myself and others.</p>
<p>Seven pages of the report were dedicated to RT America, on which I have a show called “On Contact.” The report vastly inflated the cable network’s reach and influence. It also included a few glaring errors, including the statement that “RT introduced two new shows—‘Breaking the Set’ on 4 September and ‘Truthseeker’ on 2 November—both overwhelmingly focused on criticism of the US and Western governments as well as the promotion of radical discontent.” “Breaking the Set,” with Abby Martin, was taken off the air two years ago. It could hardly be tarred with costing Hillary Clinton the election.</p>
<p>The barely contained rage of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper at the recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on foreign cyber threats was visible when he spat out that RT was “promoting a particular point of view, disparaging our system, our alleged hypocrisy about human rights, et cetera.” His anger was a glimpse into how the establishment seethes with hatred for dissidents. Clapper has lied in the past. He perjured himself in March 2013 when, three months before the revelations of wholesale state surveillance leaked by Snowden, he assured Congress that the National Security Agency was not collecting “any type of data” on the American public. After the corporate state shuts down RT, it will go after Democracy Now! and the handful of progressive sites, including this one, that give these dissidents space. The goal is censorship.</p>
<p>3. The third task of the report is to justify the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization beyond Germany, a violation of the promise Ronald Reagan made to the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Expanding NATO in Eastern Europe opened up an arms market for the war industry. It made those businesses billions of dollars. New NATO members must buy Western arms that can be integrated into the NATO arsenal. These sales, which are bleeding the strained budgets of countries such as Poland, are predicated on potential hostilities with Russia. If Russia is not a threat, the arms sales plummet. War is a racket.</p>
<p>4. The final task of the report is to give the Democratic Party plausible cover for the catastrophic election defeat it suffered. Clinton initially <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/politics/hillary-clinton-james-comey.html" type="external">blamed FBI Director James Comey</a> for her loss before switching to the more easily demonized Putin. The charge of Russian interference essentially boils down to the absurd premise that perhaps hundreds of thousands of Clinton supporters suddenly decided to switch their votes to Trump when they read the leaked emails of Podesta. Either that or they tuned in to RT America and decided to vote for the Green Party.</p>
<p>The Democratic Party leadership cannot face, and certainly cannot publicly admit, that its callous betrayal of the working and middle class triggered a nationwide revolt that resulted in the election of Trump. It has been pounded since President Barack Obama took office, losing 68 seats in the House, 12 seats in the Senate and 10 governorships. It lost more than 1,000 elected positions between 2008 and 2012 nationwide. Since 2010, Republicans have replaced 900 Democratic state legislators. If this was a real party, the entire leadership would be sacked. But it is not a real party. It is the shell of a party propped up by corporate money and hyperventilating media.</p>
<p>The Democratic Party must maintain the fiction of liberalism just as the Republican Party must maintain the fiction of conservatism. These two parties, however, belong to one party—the corporate party. They will work in concert, as seen by the alliance between Republican leaders such as McCain and Democratic leaders such as Sen. Chuck Schumer, to get rid of Trump, silence all dissent, enrich the war industry and promote the farce they call democracy.</p>
<p>Welcome to our annus horribilis.</p> | The Real Purpose of the U.S. Government’s Report on Alleged Hacking by Russia | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/the-real-purpose-of-the-u-s-governments-report-on-alleged-hacking-by-russia/ | 2017-01-09 | 4 |
<p>COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) _ These South Carolina lotteries were drawn Saturday:</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $343 million</p>
<p>Palmetto Cash 5</p>
<p>10-12-15-20-22, Power-Up: 3</p>
<p>(ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty, twenty-two; Power, Up: three)</p>
<p>Pick 3 Evening</p>
<p>6-3-4</p>
<p>(six, three, four)</p>
<p>Pick 3 Midday</p>
<p>7-6-6</p>
<p>(seven, six, six)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Evening</p>
<p>8-5-2-2</p>
<p>(eight, five, two, two)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Midday</p>
<p>4-2-4-8</p>
<p>(four, two, four, eight)</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>28-36-41-51-58, Powerball: 24, Power Play: 2</p>
<p>(twenty-eight, thirty-six, forty-one, fifty-one, fifty-eight; Powerball: twenty-four; Power Play: two)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $384 million</p>
<p>COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) _ These South Carolina lotteries were drawn Saturday:</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $343 million</p>
<p>Palmetto Cash 5</p>
<p>10-12-15-20-22, Power-Up: 3</p>
<p>(ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty, twenty-two; Power, Up: three)</p>
<p>Pick 3 Evening</p>
<p>6-3-4</p>
<p>(six, three, four)</p>
<p>Pick 3 Midday</p>
<p>7-6-6</p>
<p>(seven, six, six)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Evening</p>
<p>8-5-2-2</p>
<p>(eight, five, two, two)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Midday</p>
<p>4-2-4-8</p>
<p>(four, two, four, eight)</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>28-36-41-51-58, Powerball: 24, Power Play: 2</p>
<p>(twenty-eight, thirty-six, forty-one, fifty-one, fifty-eight; Powerball: twenty-four; Power Play: two)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $384 million</p> | SC Lottery | false | https://apnews.com/amp/c87cdb10a4fd41ad8fd6ccca2269ebd2 | 2017-12-31 | 2 |
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<p>The pledge by the European Central Bank to spend 1.1 trillion euros on bonds knocked down government borrowing rates across Europe and drove the euro to its lowest level against the dollar in 11 years. For investors, the long wait for action in Europe was over.</p>
<p>“It’s all about the ECB today,” said Jeff Kravetz, regional investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. “This is a very positive development. They have a reputation of overpromising and under-delivering, and today they delivered.”</p>
<p>The Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 index jumped 31.03 points, or 1.5 percent, to close at 2,063.15. That nudged it into positive territory for the year, up 0.2 percent.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 259.70 points, or 1.5 percent, to 17,813.98 while the Nasdaq climbed 82.98 points, or 1.8 percent, to 4,750.40.</p>
<p>In it much-anticipated move, the ECB announced that it would start buying 60 billion euros worth of government and private bonds every month, slightly more than what many in the markets anticipated. The central bank said the program will run 18 months, from this March until September of next year, but left open the option of extending the program if necessary.</p>
<p>That wiggle room is crucial, said Joseph Quinlan, chief market strategist at U.S. Trust. Turning around an economy often takes longer than people think. The Federal Reserve launched its first bond-buying effort at the end of 2008 and kept expanding it over the following years.</p>
<p>“The biggest positive is that it appears to be open-ended,” Quinlan said. “As we learned in the U.S., it takes time for this to work.”</p>
<p>Major markets in Europe ended the day with solid gains. Germany’s DAX rose 1.3 percent and France’s CAC-40 gained 1.5 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 picked up 1 percent.</p>
<p>Prices for government bonds across Europe jumped, pushing yields to record lows. The yield on the 10-year German bond hit 0.39 percent. Borrowing costs for governments in France, Italy and other countries also reached new lows.</p>
<p>“It’s hard not to see this as a positive, but there will be lingering doubts,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at the Bank of Tokyo, in a note to clients. “Is there even enough debt for them to buy?”</p>
<p>The euro fell further against the U.S. dollar on Thursday, reaching $1.13. The euro hasn’t been that cheap since September 2003, according to FactSet data. A weakened euro makes European goods cheaper, which could help boost exports from the region and lift inflation from dangerously low levels.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of major currencies, climbed 1.6 percent, putting it up 4.6 percent for the month.</p>
<p>A strong dollar has its drawbacks, especially for big U.S. corporations that depend on overseas sales. It raises prices for U.S. products in foreign countries, and means the revenue that U.S. companies collect in other currencies translates into fewer dollars when they bring the money home. A strong dollar, in other words, can pinch profits. For companies in the S&amp;P 500 index, roughly half of total revenue comes from outside the United States.</p>
<p>The strong dollar, for example, hurt Johnson &amp; Johnson in the fourth quarter, and triggered a sell-off in its shares on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Big-name companies turning in results on Thursday were spared damage from currency fluctuations, however. Southwest Airlines reported higher quarterly profit and revenue than Wall Street expected. The carrier said lower prices for jet fuel helped reduce costs, and estimated that it should save around half a billion dollars on fuel during the first three months of 2015. Southwest jumped $3.52, or 8 percent, to $45.35, making it the biggest gainer in the S&amp;P 500.</p>
<p>Union Pacific’s stock chugged ahead, rising $5.43, or 5 percent, to $119.83. Its fourth-quarter profit surged 22 percent as the railroad operator hauled more freight.</p>
<p>In the commodity markets, most precious and industrial metals settled higher. Gold rose an even $7 to $1,300.70 an ounce, while silver picked up 17 cents to $18.36 an ounce. Copper slipped 3 cents to $2.58 a pound.</p>
<p>U.S. government bond prices dipped, shoving the yield on the 10-year Treasury to 1.88 percent from 1.87 percent late Wednesday.</p>
<p>The price of oil fell following news of a large increase in U.S. crude stocks. The Energy Department said oil and petroleum fuel supplies have reached their highest level since 1990. Benchmark U.S. crude fell $1.47 to close at $46.31 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 51 cents to $48.52 in London.</p>
<p>In other futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange:</p>
<p>— Wholesale gasoline rose 0.5 cents to close at $1.331 a gallon.</p>
<p>— Heating oil rose 0.8 cents to close at $1.638 a gallon.</p>
<p>— Natural gas fell 13.9 cents to close at $2.835 per 1,000 cubic feet.</p> | Stocks rally, euro falls after Europe unveils stimulus plan | false | https://abqjournal.com/530083/stocks-rise-euro-falls-after-europe-unveils-stimulus-plan-2.html | 2015-01-22 | 2 |
<p>BURLINGAME, Calif. (AP) — The Republican Party in California has been riven for decades between those who want to tack to the ideological center to expand its diminishing appeal and those who want it to enforce conservative purity. But the prospect of Donald Trump clinching the nomination in the Golden State has scrambled the party’s political fault lines in advance of its pivotal June primary, forging unexpected alliances that blur those longstanding divisions.</p>
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<p>Tea party favorite Ted Cruz was endorsed Saturday by former Gov. Pete Wilson, a centrist governor who raised taxes and feuded regularly with conservatives. Trump, meanwhile, has snapped up support from stalwarts on California’s right, like conservative activist Ted Costa and former state Sen. Tony Strickland, and its middle, like former U.S. Rep. Doug Ose. Cruz might also be effectively helped by big-tent Republicans trying to stop Trump.</p>
<p>“There’s always been that conservative versus moderate, can you speak to the middle or only to the base? And this transcends that,” said Tim Clark, Trump’s state director and a seasoned GOP strategist here.</p>
<p>California caps the epic Republican contest with its June 7 primary. It will be the first time in memory that the state’s unusual system could decide a presidential nomination. The state will parcel out most of its delegates to the winners of each of its 53 congressional districts, with only 13 going to the statewide winner.</p>
<p>The state’s Republican presidential primaries are usually low-profile affairs, occurring after the nomination has been clinched. All sides agree that makes it very hard to predict how this race, expected to draw millions to the polls, will go.</p>
<p>There’s no question it will be tumultuous. That was made clear at the state party convention in Burlingame, a suburb just outside San Francisco airport. On Friday, Trump had to enter the convention hotel from a rear entrance to avoid hundreds of demonstrators who had pushed through police barricades to the front door of the hotel. The previous night, after the front-runner’s rally in Orange County, protesters damaged police cars and struggled with police.</p>
<p>California, the home turf of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, was once a reliable Republican state in presidential elections. But the party’s fortunes started to erode in the late 1990s after a series of measures targeting immigrants, which alienated growing segments of the state’s population. In 2007, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger warned party members that the GOP was “dying at the box office.”</p>
<p>The party has continued to shrivel — Republican registration accounts for just 28 percent of the state total. Democrats control every statewide office and both chambers of the Legislature. Republicans consider it a victory just to win one-third of state legislative races so it can have a say in state budgeting.</p>
<p>A polarizing figure like Trump might actually make the party’s relationship with California’s growing Hispanic and Asian voters worse, analysts warn. “He does nothing to ease that,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a veteran California political analyst at the University of Southern California.</p>
<p>The upcoming primary has triggered a surge in new voter registrations and they are overwhelmingly young, Democratic and Latino, according to Paul Mitchell, who runs a political data firm in Sacramento. Some of those voters may be drawn by the promise of voting for Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, but some may be registering to vote against Trump in November.</p>
<p>“Do the Republicans actually think they can win an election scaring every Hispanic in this country to death?” the other remaining GOP presidential candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, asked during a news conference Friday in Burlingame.</p>
<p>Still, California Republicans are angry, too, and that could help Trump. “If you’re a Republican in California, you have a Democratic president you don’t like, Hillary Clinton is likely to be the Democratic nominee, you have a Democratic governor,” said Matt Rexroad, a GOP consultant. “If you’re one of these Republicans and you think everything is going wrong, what’s the best way to throw a wrench in everything? Donald Trump.”</p>
<p>Ose, a former congressman viewed as a moderate, said that’s why people of all ideological stripes are coalescing around Trump. “It’s not about philosophy for most of these people,” Ose said. “People are just fed up with business as usual.”</p>
<p>Cruz’s state political director, Michael Schroeder, agreed. “The traditional moderate-conservative divide has been redefined by an establishment-anti-establishment divide,” he said. Since both Trump and Cruz are outsiders, “people are saying, ‘I have to choose,'” Schroeder added. “Then the alliances don’t become unlikely. They become likely.”</p>
<p>Trump’s campaign hopes his dominance of the airwaves will let him run the table in a state where ground-level campaigning is often eclipsed by television ads and the media. The Cruz campaign hopes its long time organizing in the state will let it capture enough delegates in individual districts to block Trump. Kasich would be a fit with more technocratic California Republicans but his little-funded campaign may not be enough to capture the coastal areas where he’d play best.</p>
<p>Even those skeptical of Trump see why his appeal is broad in a party that is powerless in California. Chuck Page is mayor of the Silicon Valley suburb of Saratoga and talks of his friendship with Democratic politicians. He said it’s hard to be a Republican in the state.</p>
<p>“Everybody pounds it into you that you can’t win without a dramatic change,” Page said after hearing Trump give a 30-minute speak filled with his trademark braggadocio and jokes. “Listening today — I don’t buy into it — but that could be a dramatic change.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Nicholas Riccardi on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/NickRiccardi" type="external">https://twitter.com/NickRiccardi</a> and Michael Blood at <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelRBloodAP" type="external">https://twitter.com/MichaelRBloodAP</a> .</p>
<p>Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</p> | GOP Race Shifts California’s Political Fault Lines | true | http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/republican-party-shift-california | 4 |
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<p>Jayel Aheram/&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/aheram/"&gt;Flickr&lt;/a&gt;</p>
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<p>US troops have long been able to purchase products at a discount. But what happens when those discounts are even deeper than the Defense Department allows?&#160;And they’re for harmful products?&#160;Tobacco is a case in point. A new Public Radio <a href="http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/06/01/pm-military-underprices-tobacco-more-than-law-allows/" type="external">investigation</a> finds that soldiers on some bases can buy cigarettes and chewing tobacco for up to 30% less than they’d pay in local stores:&#160;that’s far more than the 5% price-drop allowed by the Department of Defense (DoD).</p>
<p>The reason for the disparity in prices is often faulty research. Sometimes the DoD representative who’s comparing on-base and off-base prices will reference a store at a Reservation or at a Coast Guard base where tobacco products are already discounted. So in effect, the military is giving a discount on top of a discount.</p>
<p>Not that soldiers are complaining.&#160;Military personnel are much more likely to use tobacco products than non-military: <a href="http://www.lungusa.org/stop-smoking/about-smoking/facts-figures/military-and-tobacco-use.html" type="external">32%</a> of active-duty personnel uses tobacco, versus about 20% of the general population. Many troops only started using tobacco when they enlisted, and say smoking and chewing helps alleviate the stress (and boredom) that come with the job.</p>
<p>But the American Lung Association <a href="http://www.lungusa.org/stop-smoking/about-smoking/facts-figures/military-and-tobacco-use.html" type="external">finds</a> that soldiers who smoke are less fit, more likely to sustain injuries, and more likely to be stressed out than their non-smoking counterparts. Even the Defense Department is wising up to the costs of tobacco products: it spends around $1.6 billion a year on related health costs and the Veteran’s Administration spends much more battling long-term effects. The Defense Department gave a <a href="http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=62251" type="external">plea last year</a> for their “active duty and retired servicemembers and their families to make a resolution to quit tobacco” and pointed interested parties to the DoD’s Train2Quit tobacco cessation program, <a href="http://www.ucanquit2.org" type="external">www.ucanquit2.org</a>. If the DoD is really serious about reducing tobacco use, they might want to consider doing what civilians have already done:&#160;make tobacco more expensive. Or at the very least, reduce the discount.</p>
<p /> | The Military’s Sweet, Flawed Tobacco Deal | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/militarys-sweet-tobacco-deal-violates-law/ | 2011-06-02 | 4 |
<p>President Barack Obama speaks on his birth control policy Friday afternoon.WhiteHouse.gov</p>
<p />
<p>So did Barack Obama fold?</p>
<p>On Friday, after taking heavy criticism from Catholic groups and the political right over a regulation that would have required religiously-affiliated hospitals and universities (not churches)&#160;to offer their employees health insurance that covers birth control (with no copays), President Barack Obama went on live television to announce a shift. Now, insurance companies will have to offer employees of religious organizations the birth control coverage directly, without charging extra for it. (The details of the <a href="" type="internal">new birth control coverage plan are here</a>.)</p>
<p>Some media outlets will no doubt call this a surrender by the president. But it’s not. Here’s why:</p>
<p /> | Obama Didn’t Cave on Birth Control | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/obama-birth-control-rule-change-why-its-not-cave/ | 2012-02-10 | 4 |
<p>Nov. 17 (UPI) — A Wrinkle in Time released a new poster Friday featuring the movie’s star-studded cast.</p>
<p>The promo features Storm Reid as protagonist Margaret “Meg” Murry, Levi Miller as Meg’s friend Calvin O’Keefe and <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Chris_Pine/" type="external">Chris Pine</a> as Meg’s father, Dr. Alexander “Alex” Murry.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Reese_Witherspoon/" type="external">Reese Witherspoon</a>, <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Oprah_Winfrey/" type="external">Oprah Winfrey</a> and <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Mindy_Kaling/" type="external">Mindy Kaling</a> also debut as the Celestials, astral beings who help Meg and Calvin on their journey. Witherspoon plays Mrs. Whatsit, with Winfrey and Kaling as Mrs. Which and Mrs. Who, respectively.</p>
<p>“Love this @wrinkleintime poster!! Tune in to the @amas this Sunday to see the new trailer! #WrinkleinTime,” Witherspoon captioned the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BbmVe-hj8vR/" type="external">promo</a> on Instagram.</p>
<p>A Wrinkle in Time is based on the Madeleine L’Engle novel of the same name, which <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Disney/" type="external">Disney</a> previously adapted as a 2003 television movie. The new film is directed by Ava DuVernay, and opens in theaters March 9.</p> | 'A Wrinkle in Time' cast assembles on new poster | false | https://newsline.com/a-wrinkle-in-time-cast-assembles-on-new-poster/ | 2017-11-17 | 1 |
<p>ST. LOUIS (AP) - Police in the St. Louis area are battling a rising number of carjackings.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/carjackings-on-the-rise-st-louis-st-louis-county-saw/article_663a108d-8ce3-556a-8979-69a79b8fc662.html" type="external">The St. Louis Post-Dispatch</a> reports that St. Louis police recorded 190 carjacking calls from January through November of 2017, more than double the number for all of 2014. St. Louis County had 57 carjackings last year, compared to 50 in 2016 and 39 in 2015.</p>
<p>St. Louis police Major Kenneth Kegel says carjackers typically go out in groups of three, and often commit several carjackings in one night. Many are between the ages of 15 and 24.</p>
<p>Kegel says carjackers sometimes follow a vehicle with a single occupant, waiting for that person to park.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, <a href="http://www.stltoday.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.stltoday.com" type="external">http://www.stltoday.com</a></p>
<p>ST. LOUIS (AP) - Police in the St. Louis area are battling a rising number of carjackings.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/carjackings-on-the-rise-st-louis-st-louis-county-saw/article_663a108d-8ce3-556a-8979-69a79b8fc662.html" type="external">The St. Louis Post-Dispatch</a> reports that St. Louis police recorded 190 carjacking calls from January through November of 2017, more than double the number for all of 2014. St. Louis County had 57 carjackings last year, compared to 50 in 2016 and 39 in 2015.</p>
<p>St. Louis police Major Kenneth Kegel says carjackers typically go out in groups of three, and often commit several carjackings in one night. Many are between the ages of 15 and 24.</p>
<p>Kegel says carjackers sometimes follow a vehicle with a single occupant, waiting for that person to park.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, <a href="http://www.stltoday.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.stltoday.com" type="external">http://www.stltoday.com</a></p> | Carjackings up sharply throughout the St. Louis region | false | https://apnews.com/e152d4a1ad0a4ed3a3319618d4059f62 | 2018-01-05 | 2 |
<p>Jan. 24 (UPI) -- South Korean girl group Red Velvet will release new songs on a forthcoming repackaged album.</p>
<p>The K-pop stars announced in a tweet Tuesday that they will include the title track "Bad Boy" on the repackaged album The Perfect Red Velvet, which debuts Jan. 29.</p>
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<p>"#RedVelvet 'THE PERFECT RED VELVET' 'BAD BOY' 2018.01.29," the group <a href="https://twitter.com/RVsmtown/status/955818450185695233" type="external">wrote</a> alongside a teaser image for the album.</p>
<p>The Perfect Red Velvet is a repackaged version of Red Velvet's album Perfect Velvet, which debuted in November. <a href="http://kpopherald.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=201801241509189507658_2" type="external">The Korea Herald reported</a> the album will feature three new songs, including "Bad Boy."</p>
<p>Red Velvet's agency, SM Entertainment described "Bad Boy" as "a hip-hop based R&amp;B dance track." The group released a teaser for the song's music video Wednesday featuring Irene, Seulgi, Wendy, Joy and Yeri.</p>
<p>"#RedVelvet '#BadBoy' Opening Title #RedVelvet #ThePerfectRedVelvet," the singers captioned the <a href="https://twitter.com/RVsmtown/status/956182132845457408" type="external">clip</a>.</p> | Red Velvet to release new songs on repackaged album | false | https://upi.com/Entertainment_News/Music/2018/01/24/Red-Velvet-to-release-new-songs-on-repackaged-album/9351516819964/ | 2 |
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<p>The Lobos (23-20, 7-7 Mountain West) and CSU (22-21, 3-8) meet for the rubber match of the three-game series today at noon.</p>
<p>"We took advantage of some miscues and then came up with the clutch hits when we (needed) them," said UNM coach Erica Beach of her team's Saturday rally. "That is what we have needed the past five games. - I am very proud of their fight and grit."</p>
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<p>Mia Hignojos got the walk-off hit, scoring Jasmine Casados with the winning run. The Rams helped out with two errors and a walk to support three hits in the frame.</p>
<p>Karissa Haleman led UNM's 11-hit attack by going 3-for-3. She also drove in a run with a walk in the climactic seventh inning.</p>
<p>Lobo starter Lauren Soles went the distance, improving to 8-5. She allowed three runs off two hits, while walking three and striking out four. CSU's Trinity Harrington suffered the loss for the Rams. She allowed four runs off 10 hits, while walking one and striking out one.</p>
<p>TENNIS: In Silver City, Western New Mexico swept Colorado State-Pueblo, the men (11-9 overall) by 9-0 and the women (10-11) 7-2, to finish RMAC play at 5-0 and clinch the top seeds in the league tourney beginning April 24 in Pueblo.</p>
<p>SAND VOLLEYBALL: Lise Rugland and Ashley Newman swept both their courts Saturday, but the 1-11 New Mexico Lobos lost a pair of 4-1 decisions to Arizona State and No. 10 Arizona to close out the ASU Sand Volleyball Challenge in Tempe, Ariz.</p>
<p>BASEBALL: In Bellevue, Wash., New Mexico State (4-26-1, 1-9-1 WAC) fell 7-6 in 10 innings to league-leading Seattle University (18-15, 10-1). NMSU led 6-5 going into the bottom of the eighth, but Seattle tied it in that frame and the winner in the 10th against Billy Conard, who worked the last three innings for the Aggies. Pinch hitter Jake Hasbrouch's three-run homer keyed a four-run eighth that gave NMSU a 6-5 lead.</p>
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<p /> | Spring sports roundup: Lobo softball rallies in seventh, snaps skid | false | https://abqjournal.com/568251/lobo-softball-rallies-in-seventh-snaps-fivegame-losing-skid.html | 2 |
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<p>&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/brainchildvn/2659859601/sizes/m/in/photostream/"&gt;brainchildvn&lt;/a&gt;/Flickr</p>
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<p>Tuesday was an historic first for gay marriage—three&#160;times over.</p>
<p>Voters in Maryland, Maine, and Washington all approved ballot measures—by significant margins—allowing gay marriage in their states. Never before have voters gone to the polls in any state and directly approved gay marriage.</p>
<p>Maryland’s <a href="http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/07/14978747-same-sex-marriage-gets-ok-from-voters-in-maryland?lite" type="external">vote affirms</a> the state legislature’s <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2012-02-23/us/us_maryland-same-sex-marriage_1_marriage-bill-marriage-law-civil-unions?_s=PM:US" type="external">passage of same-sex marriage in February.</a> Maine’s reverses a 2009 referendum that blocked gay marriage. Washington state’s decision to approve marriage equality builds on its 2009 vote that <a href="http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/New-gay-rights-law-being-approved-by-voters-891382.php" type="external">expanded domestic partnerships</a> to something called, at the time, “everything but marriage.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, marriage rights advocates await a final tally in Minnesota, where a ballot measure asked voters whether to amend the state constitution to explicitly ban gay marriage. Since the state <a href="http://www.leg.state.mn.us/lrl/issues/issues.aspx?issue=gay" type="external">already has a law</a> banning same-sex marriages, a defeat of the measure wouldn’t make gay marriage legal.&#160; But it would prevent the state from erecting yet another obstacle to approving them in the future.</p>
<p>UPDATE, 12:40 PDT: Minnesotans have defeated the attempt to amend the state’s constituition to ban gay marriage, giving four victories to same-sex marriage supporters.</p>
<p /> | Gay Marriage Finally Wins at the Polls | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/gay-marriage-post/ | 2012-11-07 | 4 |
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<p>SANTA FE, N.M. - Deputies arrested a Santa Fe man on Sunday night after he first reported his car stolen but later admitted crashing it after drinking, a police report said. According a Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office report: a deputy was sent to the area of Summer Road and NM 503 where he found an older, black pickup truck parked next to where a red sedan had gone off the road, crashed into a tree and was high-centered in an irrigation ditch. Rudy Hernandez, 52, who was standing nearby, told the deputy the car was his but changed his story several times before admitting he had crashed the sedan. Hernandez smelled of alcohol and admitted he had drank two alcoholic beverages, the report said. He was booked on aggravated DWI, leaving the scene of an accident, careless driving and no evidence of insurance charges, the report said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Man reports stolen car, then says he crashed it | false | https://abqjournal.com/347214/man-reports-stolen-car-then-says-he-crashed-it.html | 2014-02-03 | 2 |
<p>CBS (NYSE:CBS) shares were trading lower Monday after a report from The Wall Street Journal said the media giant is nearing a deal to buy about half of TV Guide Network.</p>
<p>According to the report, CBS is expected to pay about $100 million for a 49% stake currently held by One Equity Partners, the private-equity army of J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE:JPM). The deal, which could be announced as early as next week, would include an option to buy an additional 1%.</p>
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<p>Shares of CBS were down 29 cents at $45.69 Monday morning.</p>
<p>A stake in TV Guide Network, which is known as a source of television listings, would give CBS its first interest in an entertainment channel on regular cable services. While those listings have become less relevant given that cable and satellite providers offer their own interactive programming guides, TV Guide Network has made an effort to provide more entertainment content, which airs alongside the listings.</p>
<p>The newspaper report noted that part of TV Guide Network’s appeal for CBS is its extensive reach. The network is available in more than 80 million U.S. households, and the only cable channels currently owned by CBS are Showtime and CBS Sports.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp. (NASDAQ:NWS), which is also the parent company of FOX Business.</p>
<p>In 2009, OEP purchased its stake for $123 million from Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE:LGF), which still owns the remaining half.</p>
<p>Lions Gate Entertainment shares were up 34 cents, or 1.53%, to $22.66 Monday morning.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | CBS Shares Down on Talk of Buying Stake in TV Guide Network | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/03/25/cbs-shares-down-on-talks-buying-stake-in-tv-guide-network.html | 2016-03-02 | 0 |
<p><a href="http://trineday.com/paypal_store/product_pages/9781634240772-Esoteric_Hollywood/index.html" type="external" />Jay Dyer <a href="http://wp.me/p3bwni-hFw" type="external">21st Century Wire</a></p>
<p>It seems more and more as if we are living in a bad B movie, replete with cheesy set pieces and a Casio keyboard score – and the reason for that is because we are. &#160;We have focused on Hollywood and propaganda often at JaysAnalysis, but we have not looked at the music industry, aside from brief mentions and a few shows. &#160;When it comes to the score for that B movie we all live in, the best analysis I’ve read in a good while is none other than recently deceased Dave McGowan’s excellent work, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Weird-Scenes-Inside-Canyon-Laurel/dp/1909394122/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1462126849&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=weird+scenes" type="external">Weird Scenes</a> Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops &amp; the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream. &#160;</p>
<p>I also have the honor of Amazon classing my book, Esoteric Hollywood, with McGowan’s, in the “readers also purchased” section. &#160;I get emails on &#160;daily basis requesting book recommendations (which is much harder to choose than you’d expect), so I think for the spirit of my site, no better book could be suggested for a reading list than Weird Scenes (aside from my own book, of course).</p>
<p>McGowan’s thesis is simple: The 1960s counter-culture movement was not what it appeared to be. &#160;In a purple haze of pot smoke, free love, booze and LSD tabs, the fog of the 60s is believed by most baby-boomers to be a genuine (monstrous for faux conservatives) reaction against the system. &#160;From student protests to politically active musicians, the anti-war, anti-establishment ethos of the 60s was, so the story goes, a natural, organic reaction to a hawkish, greedy corporate demon, embodied in “the man,” opposed by all those revolutionaries who love freedom, expressing themselves in the “arts.” &#160;After reading McGowan’s analysis (a self-confessed fan of this era), it would appear the mainstream view is only slightly correct – some artists were political and genuinely anti-establishment, but the big names, and the movements as a whole, were promoted and directed by design, for large-scale social engineering.</p>
<p>McGowan begins his argumentation by pointing to Jim Morrison’s father, Navy Admiral George Stephen Morrison, who played a central role in the Gulf of Tonkin’s false flag event. &#160;Morrison, curiously, avoided this association, stating his parents were dead, adding fuel to his mythical narrative of having no musical training and supposedly becoming a musical shaman following ghostly encounters and hallucinogenic trips. &#160;While some of that may have been the case (such as the trips and witchcraft initiation, for example, as shown in Oliver Stone’s The Doors), the real story is likely much closer to McGowan’s analysis – Morrison was promoted and made into an icon by the system because of these high level connections. &#160;However, being well-connected was not the only explanation – the establishment had a specific motive of derailing any legitimate anti-war activism or artwork, as well as moving the culture into a more degenerate state for social engineering.</p>
<p><a href="https://jaysanalysis.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/d33a0dc28fbc3bb3869fc56eb9db204d.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>60’s “Revolution”</p>
<p>Indeed, were the artists and activists of the 60s who became icons of anti-corporatism and fighting the man legitimate, would they have been given major record deals, airtime, major gigs, and expensive advertisements in mainstream magazines? &#160;The mainstream narrative of the hippie movement breaks down, once one considers this angle, and McGowan ups the ante even further by noting the hippie movement did not begin at the popularly conceived Haight Ashbury District, but earlier in Laurel Canyon. &#160;It’s the dark underground of Laurel Canyon where the nexus of Hollywood, the occult, the mob and the music industry collide in an orgiastic psychedelia, producing big acts like The Birds, the Mammas and the Pappas, Zappa, the Doors, and many more.</p>
<p>Further, Jim Morrison was not the only character with high level military intelligence family, Frank Zappa’s father worked for the military in biological warfare, and as I’ve discussed in relation to John Marks’ The CIA and Mind Control, LSD was directly associated with Fort Detrick and biological warfare programs. &#160;“Managers” and “agents” like Herb Cohen were not merely industry fat cats, but mobsters (connected to Mickey Cohen), while players like John Phillips appear to have been part of CIA covert operations in Cuba. &#160;The instances of these infamous details mount up in McGowan’s work, and eventually call into question the entire Laurel Canyon scene, replete with underground facilities and a massive, secret film production studio.</p>
<p>After noting Harry Houdini’s connection to Laurel Canyon and his role as a spy for Scotland Yard, McGowan reveals one of the best insights missed in most research – Laurel Canyon was home to one of the largest film production studios of its day – run by the Air Force. If that is hard to swallow, the pill becomes much bigger. &#160;What would become known as Lookout Mountain Laboratory was originally envisioned as an air defense center.</p>
<p>Built in 1941 and nestled in two-and-a-half secluded acres off what is now Wonderland Park Avenue, the installation was hidden from view and surrounded by an electrified fence. By 1947, the facility featured a fully operational movie studio. In fact, it is claimed that it was perhaps the world’s only completely self-contained movie studio. With 100,000 square feet of floor space, the covert studio included sound stages, screening rooms, film processing labs, editing facilities, an animation department, and seventeen climate-controlled film vaults. It also had underground parking, a helicopter pad and a bomb shelter:</p>
<p>“Over its lifetime, the studio produced some 19,000 classified motion pictures – more than all the Hollywood studios combined (which I guess makes Laurel Canyon the real ‘motion picture capital of the world’). Officially, the facility was run by the U.S. Air Force and did nothing more nefarious than process AEC footage of atomic and nuclear bomb tests. The studio, however, was clearly equipped to do far more than just process film. There are indications that Lookout Mountain Laboratory had an advanced research and development department that was on the cutting edge of new film technologies. Such technological advances as 3-D effects were apparently first developed at the Laurel Canyon site. And Hollywood luminaries like John Ford, Jimmy Stewart, Howard Hawks, Ronald Reagan, Bing Crosby, Walt Disney and Marilyn Monroe were given clearance to work at the facility on undisclosed projects. There is no indication that any of them ever spoke of their work at the clandestine studio.</p>
<p><a href="https://jaysanalysis.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/lookoutmountainlaboratory-1024x768.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>Lookout Mountain Laboratory/Studios</p>
<p>The facility retained as many as 250 producers, directors, technicians, editors, animators, etc., both civilian and military, all with top security clearances – and all reporting to work in a secluded corner of Laurel Canyon. Accounts vary as to when the facility ceased operations. Some claim it was in 1969, while others say the installation remained in operation longer. In any event, by all accounts the secret bunker had been up and running for more than twenty years before Laurel Canyon’s rebellious teen years, and it remained operational for the most turbulent of those years.</p>
<p>The existence of the facility remained unknown to the general public until the early 1990s, though it had long been rumored that the CIA operated a secret movie studio somewhere in or near Hollywood. Filmmaker Peter Kuran was the first to learn of its existence, through classified documents he obtained while researching his 1995 documentary, “Trinity and Beyond.” And yet even today, some 15 years after its public disclosure, one would have trouble finding even a single mention of this secret military/intelligence facility anywhere in the ‘conspiracy’ literature.”1</p>
<p>Was this where the atomic bomb footage was filmed, and the so-called “moon landings”? &#160;McGowan seems to think so, and when combined with his unpublished book Wagging the Moondoggie, he makes a convincing case. &#160;The big names and players involved in this studio and its productions are astounding and cannot be overlooked, but what it demonstrates is a massive piece of the puzzle I’ve tried to highlight in my essays and articles – we do live in a giant B movie and books like McGowan’s and my own Esoteric Hollywood show the mechanics of how this hoodoo goes down. &#160;This is just a taste – McGowan unpacks much, much more: Be sure to pick up a copy of McGowan’s book, as well as my own, available now for <a href="http://trineday.com/paypal_store/product_pages/9781634240772-Esoteric_Hollywood/index.html" type="external">pre-order at Trine Day Publishers</a>.</p>
<p>________________________________________________________</p>
<p>1 McGowan, Dave. &#160;Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon. California: Headpress, 2014, pgs. 55-7.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>To hear Jay’s full podcasts, see more information and learn how you can become a <a href="https://jaysanalysis.com/" type="external">subscriber to JaysAnalysis</a>.</p>
<p>Jay Dyer is the author of the forthcoming title, <a href="http://trineday.com/paypal_store/product_pages/9781634240772-Esoteric_Hollywood/index.html" type="external">Esoteric Hollywood: Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film</a> from Trine Day.&#160; Focusing on film, philosophy, geopolitics and all things esoteric, JaysAnalysis and&#160;his podcast, <a href="http://www.alternatecurrentradio.com/news-radio/jays-analysis/" type="external">“Esoteric Hollywood,”</a>&#160;investigates the deeper&#160;meanings between the headlines, exploring the hidden aspects of our sinister&#160;synthetic mass media&#160;matrix.</p>
<p>READ MORE HOLLYWOOD NEWS AT:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire Hollywood Files</a></p> | WEIRD SCENES Inside the Canyon: Jay’s Review | true | http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/05/01/weird-scenes-inside-the-canyon-jays-review/ | 2016-05-01 | 4 |
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<p>Michael Paul Vallejos, 39</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When Albuquerque police officers visited a room at the Holiday Inn Express on Menaul in response to complaints about loud music and frequent traffic last February they noticed several checks, bank information, laptop computers and a printer. The discovery set off months of investigation into check fraud.</p>
<p>On Friday, police arrested 39-year-old Michael Paul Vallejos for forgery and two counts of identity theft and booked him into the Metropolitan Detention Center. They are still looking for another man allegedly involved in the case.</p>
<p>According to a criminal complaint filed by the Albuquerque Police Department, a woman told the officers Vallejos – also known as “Happy” – and Elisha “Green Eyes” Muller made fraudulent checks and asked her to cash them.</p>
<p>Officers said when they searched the room they found two laptop computers, a printer, three firearms, ammunition, documents containing personal information, several credit cards, bank stamps, two cameras,&#160; and a cell phone. The computers contained images of checks from several businesses, including Presbyterian Healthcare Services, New Mexico Mutual and the Sandoval Detention Center, as well as a software used to make checks, according to the complaint.</p>
<p>White collar crime detectives said they linked multiple fake checks from Presbyterian and Sandoval Detention Center and several mail box burglaries to the men.</p>
<p>Vallejos is being held without bail. An arrest warrant is still out for Muller.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | One man arrested, another sought, for making fake checks | false | https://abqjournal.com/520616/one-man-arrested-another-sought-for-making-fake-checks.html | 2 |
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<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
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<p>Companies that pay well above average <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dividendyield.asp" type="external">dividend yields Opens a New Window.</a> tend to have problems such as slowing growth or weaker balance sheets. However, that high yield is the reward investors can earn by taking on a bit more risk. That said, sometimes the risks are not as bad as the market thinks, which makes the reward well worth it.Here are three stocks that we think fit that profile.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFmd19/info.aspx" type="external">Matt DiLallo Opens a New Window.</a>: Anytime a dividend yield creeps up toward 10% it is usually a sign that the market believes the payout is no longer sustainable. That's certainly a concern at midstream master limited partnershipWilliams Partners (NYSE: WPZ), with its yield spiking this year due to sustainability concerns:</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/WPZ/dividend_yield" type="external">WPZ Dividend Yield (TTM)</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
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<p>As that chart shows, the concerns have died down considerably from earlier in the year due in part to several smart moves made by parent company Williams Companies (NYSE: WMB). First, Williams Companies <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/04/williams-companies-incs-dividend-reduction-is-surp.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">reduced its dividend Opens a New Window.</a>to reinvest that cash back into Williams Partners tosupportits growth plan. Second, both companies are <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/07/williams-companies-inc-takes-another-step-away-fro.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">selling assets Opens a New Window.</a> that have direct exposure to commodity prices, which should not only reduce Williams Partners' cash flow volatility going forward but provide the partnership with cash to fund its growth-project backlog. Finally, Williams Partners continues to move forward on several fee-based projects that are expected to drive significant cash flow growth through 2018.</p>
<p>Because of all these maneuvers, Williams Companies believes that its MLP can maintain its lucrative distribution through the end of next year and then restart growth in 2018. The growing visibility that the distribution is on solid ground is what makes Williams Partners such a <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/29/williams-companies-is-buying-this-high-yield-stock.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">compelling high-yield stock Opens a New Window.</a> to consider buying right now.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx/" type="external">Tim Green Opens a New Window.</a>: Apparel retailer Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) has issues. Comparable-store sales are slumping, with the company's namesake stores and Banana Republic stores suffering from a prolonged period of poor performance. Earnings are in decline, with the company expecting to produce adjusted EPS of $1.87 to $1.92 this year. That's the worst performance since 2011.</p>
<p>The stock has unsurprisingly tumbled due to Gap's lackluster results. The stock has declined by more than 50% since hitting its peak in late 2014, and it's lost nearly 27% of its value so far this year.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/GPS" type="external">GPS</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts</a>.</p>
<p>This falling share price has pushed up the dividend yield. At the moment, shares of Gap yield 4.25%. The company is still profitable, and adjusted earnings this year will easily cover the dividend. Gap needs to figure out how to turn things around, but the dividend doesn't look like it's in danger in the near term.</p>
<p>The main risk with Gap is the chance that the company never fully recovers. The apparel business is extremely competitive, and there's no guarantee that Gap will be able to right the ship. But for those who think the company will eventually find its way, an enticing dividend offers investors a good reason to buy and hold the stock through this difficult period.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFEBCapital/info.aspx" type="external">Todd Campbell Opens a New Window.</a>: Seagate Technology's (NASDAQ: STX) sales and profit have nose-dived in the past year and that's raised concerns that the company's handsome 7% dividend yield is unsustainable. Slowing sales and profitability undeniably pose a risk, but I think that tailwinds could emerge that reduce the likelihood of a dividend cut. If I'm right, this stock could reward investors with both stock price upside and a top-tier yield.</p>
<p>Last month, the company's chief competitor, Western Digital, bumped up its sales and profit forecast for its fiscal first quarter, citing better-than-expected product mix. While Seagate Technology hasn't followed suit, its management was asked about Western Digital's guidance on a recent investor conference call, and its comments suggest Seagate Technology's mix is improving, too. If that's true, then rising demand for high-margin data center products, fueled by explosive growth in cloud software solutions, should offset headwinds tied to slowing PC sales, providing support for shares and the company's dividend.</p>
<p>After all, the company generated $269 million in operating cash flow last quarter, and that more than covered its cash dividend payments of $188 million. Therefore, it wouldn't take much of an improvement in the company's business to put its dividend on firmer footing and reignite investor optimism, especially since any improvement in sales mix can be leveraged against recent cost-cutting for faster earnings growth.</p>
<p>Overall, Seagate Technology isn't out of the woods, but I don't think its business is as bad off as some investors think. For that reason, I think risk-tolerant income investors may benefit from buying some of this company's shares.</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=2668&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><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFmd19/info.aspx" type="external">Matt DiLallo</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFBargainBin/info.aspx" type="external">Timothy Green Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/EBCapitalMarkets/info.aspx" type="external">Todd Campbell Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Western Digital. 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> | 3 High-Yield Dividend Stocks to Buy in October | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/10/06/3-high-yield-dividend-stocks-to-buy-in-october.html | 2016-10-06 | 0 |
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<p>LinkedIn, which calls itself the social network for professionals, is adding a service that provides members with pay information for a variety of jobs, including a break-down by such factors as location, industry, education and experience. It’s based on anonymized data submitted by LinkedIn members, including details about base pay and other compensation, such as bonuses and stock grants.</p>
<p>The new service comes two weeks after Glassdoor, a competing online job site, introduced a feature that promises to help workers determine their “personal market value” by comparing their current job title, salary and related information with data from other workers and current hiring trends.</p>
<p>Glassdoor’s site already showed information about median salaries and perks, along with employees’ reviews of what it’s like to work at various companies. It says the new feature can be useful for job-seekers as well as workers who might want to negotiate a raise from their current employer.</p>
<p>Both new services are free and promise to go beyond more generic salary tools — offered by job sites like Indeed, PayScale.com and Salary.com — by combining sophisticated computer analysis with the most up-to-date information gleaned from workers, labor reports and other sources.</p>
<p>While LinkedIn officially announced its service Wednesday, spokesman Dan Shapero said the company has been quietly inviting some members to contribute their compensation data in recent months. The “LinkedIn Salary” feature is launching with data from 1 million professionals in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. LinkedIn may not have data for every job, Shapero acknowledged, but he predicted the service will improve as more people participate.</p>
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<p>LinkedIn Inc., based in Mountain View, California, may add more kinds of information in the future, he added, such as suggestions about particular skills that can boost salaries in a particular occupation. LinkedIn recently began offering training suggestions for workers, based on their current jobs or career track, which tie into the online courses offered by its Lynda.com subsidiary.</p>
<p>Both LinkedIn and Mill Valley, California-based Glassdoor, Inc. promise to keep individual users’ pay data confidential. But spokesmen wouldn’t rule out the possibility of the companies making money in the future by aggregating the information — in a way that keeps individuals anonymous — and selling it to employers who might find it useful to calculate pay scales or salary offers.</p>
<p>While both companies promote their website as a useful service for workers, they make money by selling job listings and hiring tools to employers and recruiters. So each company wants to offer helpful features that keep workers coming back to their sites.</p>
<p>LinkedIn recently agreed to be acquired for $26 billion by Microsoft, which wants to augment its own commercial software — including email and calendars used by workers, as well as management and corporate sales programs used by employers — by incorporating LinkedIn’s extensive database of professionals and their resumes.</p> | LinkedIn, Glassdoor add tools to reveal your pay potential | false | https://abqjournal.com/880456/linkedin-glassdoor-add-tools-to-reveal-your-pay-potential.html | 2016-11-02 | 2 |
<p>Legislation laying out rules for big failing banks that enter bankruptcy proceedings has advanced in Congress as lawmakers still grapple with the aftermath of the financial crisis.</p>
<p>The House passed the bipartisan legislation on a voice vote Monday. The rewrite of bankruptcy law, which is supported by Wall Street banks, applies to the biggest U.S. banks and other big financial firms like insurance companies. Critics say it favors big banks at the expense of their trading partners and does nothing to prevent another taxpayer bailout of banks in a future crisis.</p>
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<p>Prospects for the legislation in the Senate aren't clear. The House vote came in the lame duck session following last month's midterm elections. Control of the Senate will flip from the Democrats to the Republicans in January.</p> | House passes bill laying out rules for big banks, financial firms in bankruptcy | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/12/01/house-passes-bill-laying-out-rules-for-big-banks-financial-firms-in-bankruptcy.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
<p>During the Second World War, over two dozen anthropologists worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the institutional predecessor to the CIA, performing a variety of tasks ranging from covert-ops to desk-bound propaganda analysis. For the first time, I can now describe one 1943 OSS document, the “Preliminary Report on Japanese Anthropology,” which which reveals that World War II-era anthropologists were recommending culture- and race-specific means of killing Japanese soldiers and civilians. This report sought to determine if there were “physical characteristics in which the Japanese differ from others in such a way as to make these differences significant from the point of view of carrying on the war”. The person who write this report remains remains classified, but a list of scholars consulted by OSS includes anthropologists such as Clyde Kluckhohn, Fred Hulse, Duncan Strong, Ernest Hooton, C. M. Davenport, Wesley Dupertuis, and Morris Steggerda.</p>
<p>The report considered a series of Japanese physical and cultural characteristics to determine if weapons could be designed to exploit any identifiable unique “racial” features. The study examined Japanese anatomical and structural features, Japanese physiological traits, Japanese susceptibility to diseases, and possible weaknesses in Japanese constitution or “nutritional weaknesses.” The OSS instructed the anthropologists and other advisors to try to conceive ways that any detectable differences could be used in the development of weapons, but they were cautioned to consider this issue “in a-moral and non-ethical terms,” with an understanding that, “if any of the suggestions contained herein are considered for action, all moral and ethical implications will be carefully studied.” Prefiguring the findings of Stanley Milgram’s later “shocking” obedience experiments, most consulted anthropologists abandoned their moral authority and complied with the OSS’ request.</p>
<p>Two anthropologists, Ralph Linton and Harry Shapiro, objected to even considering the OSS’ request ­ but they were the exceptions. One Harvard anthropologist, Ernest A. Hooton, recommended that the OSS undertake a “constitutional study of Japanese prisoners or of native-born males of military age in the relocation centers, [to] yield useful information regarding the weak spots of Japanese physique.” Another Harvard anthropologist, Carl Seltzer, recommended that physiologists, hygienists, anthropologists, psychologists or sociologists examine Japanese “specimens” to find desired weaknesses.</p>
<p>Hooton and Seltzer’s views aligned with Harvard’s racial anthropology of this period. Months before this report, anthropologist Melville Jacobs wrote to Margaret Mead complaining, apropos his difficulties in joining the war effort (likely because of his Communist past) that “the thought that members of the Hooton-Harvard bunch, with their racist slantings, should get in on any army or governmental services that may be already or might in the future be set up to do a job with a racial bearing gives me the itch.”.</p>
<p>Medical data on the fundamental physical differences in the Japanese “race” were reviewed, and differences in inner ears morphologies, taste bud densities, laryngeal musculatures, intestinal lengths, and arterial systems were evaluated. But no “useful” morphological differences were isolated, and the recommendations proffered were of the run of the mill indiscriminate-extermination variety, advocating the use of “anthrax bacilli which attacks the respiratory tract, a known weak spot in the Japanese body, [as] the most effective agent.” One Harvard Medical School professor was by OSS to:</p>
<p>‘think aloud’ on the possibility of introducing some disease among enemy troops that might catch them by surprise, but against which our own troops were well protected. Most ailments caused by flukes or protozoans he dismissed as impractical; plague virus he thought could be introduced by dropping infected mice or rats, possibly by parachute; typhus might be spread by the device of having louse-covered but immune volunteers submit to capture; and ticks infected with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever might be released among our opponents, but this would scarcely be effective since the disease is not transmitted from man to man by contagion. The professor then launched into a spontaneous discussion of anthrax, whose introduction he regarded as entirely practical and highly effective, despite the fact that anthrax, too, is not contagious… Furthermore, it is possible to raise highly virulent strains of Bacillus anthracis and to spread them widely throughout any enemy concentration, as the spores of the bacillus are virtually indestructible and could even be distributed in bombs. In addition, the effects of anthrax are very rapid and dangerous since the bacilli enter into cuts, or abrasions, prevent wounds from healing, and induce pneumonia.</p>
<p>The report conceded that one downside of unleashing anthrax on Japanese populations was that it could easily spread to livestock populations, and thus entire regions would (deleted comma) “remain dangerous for many years.” The threat of such an uncontrolled spread of anthrax led the OSS to caution against using anthrax weapons. (I should add that such concerns did not stop Japan’s Manchukup Unit 731 from having already developed and used anthrax and other bio-weapons against the Chinese and Russians on the Mongolian-Manchurian border and in Central China.)</p>
<p>In examining the potential of a general collapse of dietary and hygienic stability on the Japanese home front, the OSS report “the bulk of the Japanese population lives on the ragged edge of dietary deficiency.” It was, therefore, recommended that “the susceptibility of Japanese men of military age, especially under the strain of active warfare, to [beriberi] should be exploited to the full.” Even more deaths by malnutrition could be inflicted by making “a continuing and concerted effort to sink every enemy fishing boat that is sighted.”</p>
<p>Finally, the OSS report contemplated destroying the Japanese rice supply, observing that next to eliminating access to fish,</p>
<p>equally important would be a planned attack on our opponent’s rice supplies. Since stored rice tends to lose much of its Vitamin B the Japanese cannot readily build up large reserves, so that our energies should be directed towards the object of destroying growing crops that are about to mature. Furthermore, it would be more rewarding if rice fields in Japan proper were attacked whenever possible as this would force the enemy to rely more and more on imported rice, thus adding materially to his increasing shipping problems.</p>
<p>Several procedures for interfering with rice production may be suggested. Concentrations of rice fields might be subjected to bombing, particularly with missiles that spread laterally and tear up a good deal of ground; irrigating devices should be consistently destroyed; the acid concentration best suited to growing rice plants should be chemically upset whenever possible; and the introduction of rice-destroying diseases should be seriously considered.</p>
<p>The report recommended consideration of a species of fungi, Sclerotium oryzae, which had attacked Japanese rice varieties in the early years of the Twentieth Century, because “the advisability of systematically destroying the enemy’s rice plants, as well as his fish supplies, can scarcely be questioned.”</p>
<p>The report’s conclusions identified “no significant structural, physiological, or constitutional variations on the part of the Japanese as compared with other races. Attempts to exploit such minor differences as do exist are almost certain to prove futile.”</p>
<p>Posterity is left to wonder what recommendations would have been made if significant characteristics had been isolated. If the OSS had access to the Human Genome Project’s dataset, it would certainly have been analyzed to see if any genetic anomalies could be exploited in Japanese populations.</p>
<p>Americans were not the only anthropologists drawn into such decisions during the war. Important new scholarship by Gretchen Schafft documents how German anthropologists informed Hitler’s views of race and carried out Nazi atrocities, and Nakao Katsumi and other Japanese scholars are now documenting how Japanese anthropology assisted in the brutal military campaigns of the Pacific War. To some, OSS anthropologists’ contemplation without implementation of “race”-specific weapons is insignificant in comparison to Joseph Mengele’s applications of his anthropological training while others may find it incongruous to fuss about contemplated-but-not-used bio-weapons against a civilian enemy that was firebombed and atomized. All the same, these anthropologists’ willing compliance with the dark desires of the OSS left American anthropology positioned but one fianchetto removed from complicity in genocide.</p>
<p>DAVID PRICE teaches anthropology at St. Martin’s University in Olympia, Washington. He is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists</a> (Duke, 2004). His next book is entitled: Weaponizing Anthropology: American Anthropology and the Second World War. He can be reached at: <a href="mailito:/[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>As his last paragraph attests, he loves the word fianchetto. It means “small step.”</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | How US Anthropoligists Planned "Race-Specific" Weapons Against the Japanese | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/11/25/how-us-anthropoligists-planned-quot-race-specific-quot-weapons-against-the-japanese/ | 2005-11-25 | 4 |
<p>A U.S. service member was killed in eastern Afghanistan during an operation with Afghan forces against Islamic State, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.</p>
<p>In a statement, the military said the service member died as a result of wounds. It also said that other U.S. and Afghan forces were injured and medically evacuated.</p>
<p>No further details were immediately available.</p> | US Service Member Killed in Afghanistan | false | https://newsline.com/us-service-member-killed-in-afghanistan/ | 2017-08-16 | 1 |
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<p>The city’s council’s statement comes before a July 10 deadline to send input to the federal government, which, at the direction of President Donald Trump, is seeking input on a series of national monument designations in 11 states.</p>
<p>Councilors heard from many proponents, including several business owners, and opponents, including some ranchers who rehashed concerns about the monument’s size.</p>
<p>The city council’s statement expresses support for the nearly 500,000-acre national monument, designated by former President Barack Obama in 2014 via the Antiquities Act of 1906. It also opposes a curtailment or elimination of the monument.</p>
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<p>Local home builder Wayne Suggs told city councilors he believes the monument is having a direct impact for the better on his business by attracting clients to live in Las Cruces who are looking for access to outdoor recreation opportunities. He’s included the monument in his promotional materials.</p>
<p>“Right now, if you came to me and you wanted to have a home built, you’d have to wait two years,” he said of the demand.</p>
<p>Tom Phillips, a retired recreation manager for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, told city councilors he believes Obama used the Antiquities Act too broadly in designating the OMDP national monument.</p>
<p>“I hope you will table or amend your resolution,” he said before the vote.</p>
<p>David Crider, owner of Southwest Expeditions, a tour guide business, said the monument creates a quality-of-life attraction.</p>
<p>“There’s nothing to compare with what we have here; it’s its own beauty,” he said. “We have a unique gem.”</p>
<p>City councilors debated whether or not to include a provision to also oppose changes to the Antiquities Act of 1906, the federal law allowing U.S. presidents to act unilaterally to declare national monuments. City Councilor Ceil Levatino said she’d heard from a number of businesses in her district that were supportive of the resolution to oppose reductions to the OMDP national monument. However, Levatino said she didn’t feel she could support a statement opposing changes to the Antiquties Act. Levatino proposed a measure, which passed 7-0, to remove that aspect from the proposal.</p>
<p>Mayor Ken Miyagishima said a different measure can be brought forward in the future pertaining to the Antiquities Act.</p>
<p>Diana Alba Soular may be reached at 575-541-5443, [email protected] or @AlbaSoular on Twitter.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>©2017 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)</p>
<p>Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at <a href="http://www.lcsun-news.com" type="external">www.lcsun-news.com</a></p>
<p>Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.</p> | Las Cruces City Council opposes changes to OMDP monument | false | https://abqjournal.com/1020547/las-cruces-city-council-opposes-changes-to-omdp-monument.html | 2 |
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<p>Image source: NVIDIA.</p>
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<p>Graphics specialist NVIDIA is in the middle of transitioning from its older Kepler and Maxwell architectures to its new Pascal architecture. So far, the company has released two Pascal-based products. The first was the Tesla P100 based on the GP100 chip, aimed at what the company calls "Mixed Workload [High Performance Computing]" and "Strong-Scale [High Performance Computing]."</p>
<p>In this case, "mixed workload" refers to the chip's ability to perform both single-precision floating point calculations as well as double-precision floating point calculations at very high speeds thanks to specialized circuitry on the chip.</p>
<p>The second is GP104, a part aimed squarely at gaming. This means that it has excellent single precision performance (nearly on par with the vastly more expensive Tesla P100), but much lower double precision performance.</p>
<p>It is well known that NVIDIA is working on another GPU, known as GP102. This part is expected to serve as both as higher-end gaming cards than the recently launched GTX 1080 (i.e., GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, and a next-generation GeForce GTX Titan), as well as a future Tesla accelerator.</p>
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<p>The GP100 is going to be NVIDIA's best Pascal-based part for the so-called "mixed workloads" -- workloads where both single-precision and double-precision floating point calculations will need to be carried out.</p>
<p>However, for workloads in which double-precision calculations aren't done very often (or at all), the Tesla P100 is better than the Tesla M40 (a single-precision focused part marketed at hyper-scale workloads), but it's not significantly so. The P100 is capable of 10.6 teraflops of single-precision performance (9.3 teraflops for the PCI Express add-in-card variant), while the M40 is capable of around 7 teraflops of single-precision performance.</p>
<p>For those hyper-scale customers, NVIDIA will need to put out a GPU that delivers a large leap in single-precision floating point performance. That's where GP102 will come in handy.</p>
<p>Indeed, if GP102 is to GP104 what GM200 was to GM204, then we should expect that GP102 will offer around 33% greater single-precision floating point performance than GP104. This would peg it at around 12 teraflops, or a 71% increase from the current GM200-based Tesla M40 accelerator.</p>
<p>On NVIDIA's last earnings call, management said that its data center related revenue (i.e., revenue from sales of Tesla accelerators) was up 63% year over year. This, the company claims, was reflective of "enormous growth in deep learning."</p>
<p>"In just a few years, deep learning has moved from academia and is now being adopted across the hyper-scale landscape," CFO Colette Kress said.</p>
<p>The also added that hyper-scale companies "are the fastest adopters of deep learning, accelerating their growth in [NVIDIA's] Tesla business." She also went on to say that revenue from sales of Tesla GPUs to hyper-scale customers is "now similar to that from high-performance computing."</p>
<p>At this pace, revenue from hyper-scale customers could very well eclipse that from traditional high-performance computing customers in a relatively short time.</p>
<p>If it is financially justifiable to build a high-performance computing-specific part such as the Tesla P100, there is at least as much justification to do a hyper-scale specific part such as the upcoming GP102. In fact, since GP102 is likely to be sold to both hyper-scale data center customers and to performance-hungry gamers, the justification for the development of such a part is likely even more compelling.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/23/heres-why-nvidia-is-building-gp102.aspx" type="external">Here's Why NVIDIA Is Building GP102 Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/aeassa/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Ashraf Eassa Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Nvidia. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" 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://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" 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?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Here's Why NVIDIA Is Building GP102 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/06/23/here-why-nvidia-is-building-gp102.html | 2016-06-23 | 0 |
<p>A bill has been drafted in Egypt to ban the burka. Sounds good, right? Actually, it's because the burka is apparently a 'Jewish' tradition.</p>
<p>The bill, drafted by the Egyptian Parliament would ban women from wearing the burka and niqab in public places and government institutions. According to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/egypt-drafts-bill-to-ban-niqab-veil-in-public-places-a6920701.html" type="external">The Independent</a>, MP Amna Nosseir, professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University, has backed the claim. She has argued it has non-Islamic origins and is in fact a Jewish tradition which appeared in the Arabian Peninsula prior to Islam. Cairo University has already banned face veils for nurses in medical schools and in teaching hospitals. In addition, academic staff were banned from wearing it because students could not communicate properly with someone whose mouth is hidden behind a veil.</p> | Egypt drafts bill to ban the niqab, because it's a “Jewish tradition” | true | http://therebel.media/egypt_drafts_bill_to_ban_the_niqab_because_it_s_a_jewish_tradition | 2016-03-14 | 0 |
<p>The British government on Tuesday signaled its strong disapproval of the alleged chemical attack by Syrian forces last week, with United Kingdom Prime Minister <a href="https://twitter.com/David_Cameron/status/372321743064793088" type="external">David Cameron saying he would recall Parliament</a> on Thursday to act on a "a clear government motion" and response to the incident.</p>
<p>The British move comes the day after <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/world/middleeast/syria-assad.html?hp" type="external">U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry blasted Syria</a>, saying there was "undeniable" evidence of Syrian government involvement in a chemical weapons attack outside Damascus last Tuesday. Outside experts say it appears the two western governments are clearing the ground for military intervention.</p>
<p>In a further indication of just how much pressure the west is applying, U.S. Defense Secretary <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23847839" type="external">Chuck Hagel told the BBC</a> that assets have been moved into position and are ready to launch strikes immediately upon President Barack Obama's order. Hagel added that options had been presented to Obama already.</p>
<p>"He has seen them, we are prepared," Hagel told the BBC. "We are ready to go."</p>
<p>But Syrian officials remained defiant, insisting they had not used chemical weapons while promising unspecified consequences against anyone who attacks them. In a lengthy press conference Tuesday morning, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23850274" type="external">Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said</a> he "utterly and completely" denied that forces loyal to his government had carried out a chemical attack.</p>
<p>"There is no country in the world that uses a weapon of ultimate destruction against its own people," he said, according to media reports.</p>
<p>For the moment at least, Russia and China seemed to be lined up behind their Syrian clients, calling for caution and deliberation and lobbying against any military action.</p>
<p>It remains to be seen, however, if they can stop the momentum building in the west toward taking action.</p> | U.S., U.K. take steps toward action on Syria | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-08-27/us-uk-take-steps-toward-action-syria | 2013-08-27 | 3 |
<p>Christmas has provided a day of distraction from war, the usual condition for most of the world, and the steady-state of the modern American nation, so to speak.</p>
<p>At the end of 1941, following Pearl Harbor, the United States had a War Department, as had been the case since 1789. This became the Defense Department in 1949, which might be called the year when plain speaking ended in the United States government.</p>
<p>1949 was the same year in which the NATO alliance was created by a government whose first president, George Washington, had said in his farewell address that “it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world” — unrealistic advice, no doubt, but advice which the United States managed to follow for the century that followed.</p>
<p>President Woodrow Wilson set for the United States the perpetual task on which it has persevered ever since, which is war to end wars, an undertaking that will be completed only when all real or contemplated challengers have been crushed — the reason the U.S. now has larger military forces than all the rest of the world combined, with elements in its Congress avid for more.</p>
<p />
<p>One of the assets of former Republican senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska, now a professor at Georgetown, is to be a plain speaker. This is the reason he seems generally thought in Washington today to be unfit for the post of secretary of defense, to which President Barack Obama has been suspected of nominating him. The former senator served in the Vietnam War as an infantry leader and was wounded and decorated. He criticized the genesis and conduct of that war, and as a member of the Senate, opposed the American invasion of Iraq and the war with Iraq.</p>
<p>He has also declined to support the bipartisan American policy of subordinating American national interests to those of Israel, for which the furies of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and allied supporters of Zionism and holders of Washington public office who benefit from their support, have been loosed upon him.</p>
<p>In the case of former ambassador Charles Freeman (Assistant Secretary for Defense for International Security Affairs in 1993-’94), who in President Obama’s first term was bruited to become chairman of the National Intelligence Council (which prepares National Intelligence Estimates), and who was then massively attacked as lacking the appropriate obeisance to Israeli policies, the president chose (to use a Zionist polemical expression) “to throw him under the bus.”</p>
<p>The same fate may await Hagel, since outside election campaigns President Obama has not shown himself to be much of a fighter. Such would be a great pity because the U.S. Defense Department is probably the Washington entity most in need of a new leader who speaks plainly and expresses straightforward opinions.</p>
<p>Aside from the current wars and foreshadowed wars, or prospective wars advocated by interest groups in the U.S, preparations of singularly dubious justification have been authorized by the first Obama administration. The execution of these needs energetic and dispassionate scrutiny.</p>
<p>Why, for example, is the United States assuming a provocative military stance towards China? The U.S. has defensive commitments to Japan, Taiwan and to South Korea. It has a right to insist that China’s territorial and maritime disputes with these countries, and others that dispute its claims in the South China Sea and various islands and coastal territories, be adjudicated in international law or find negotiated settlements.</p>
<p>Why has Washington made a heavily publicized military “pivot” from Europe and Central and West Asia to East Asia? Does it wish to signal an expectation of war with China, instead of peaceful negotiation of difficulties? Why the preposterous stationing of marines in Australia (With New Zealand seemingly to come)? Why new drone bases in Australia’s Cocos Islands, the Philippines and the Mariana islands?</p>
<p>Why has the head of the U.S Pacific Command declared the Pacific Ocean a “commons,” which will be protected by the United States? One would think an ocean to be a commons in whose security all its littoral states share an interest.</p>
<p>Why should Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia be considered potential “military allies” of the U.S. (according to President Obama, on his recent visit there)? Should China’s defense authorities seek military alliances with Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico and Colombia? Why not?</p>
<p>Why is the U.S. Army’s African Command building small but permanently manned and expandable “lily-pad bases” throughout Africa? With whom in Africa is the U.S. planning war?</p>
<p>Why, for that matter, are the two most advanced American fighter aircraft, the F-22 “Raptor,” and the F-35 “Lightning” (or joint strike fighter), not yet operational, with both going billions of dollars over programmed costs? The F-35 is stuck in an early test phase, and the F-22, meant to fight a Soviet airplane never built, has been grounded because of a thus-far insoluble problem of man-machine interface in oxygen supply (the pilot faints).</p>
<p>These are things about which there has been next to no straight talk from the Pentagon. You are needed, Mr. Hagel!</p>
<p>Visit William Pfaff’s website for more on his latest book, “The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America’s Foreign Policy” (Walker &amp; Co., $25), at <a href="http://www.williampfaff.com" type="external">www.williampfaff.com</a>.</p>
<p>© 2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.</p> | Need for Straight Talk From U.S. Defense Department | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/need-for-straight-talk-from-u-s-defense-department/ | 2012-12-29 | 4 |
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<p>As the NYPD and the FBI continue to hunt for the masked Occupy demonstrators who last week staged a “fare strike” in New York City by chaining open subway entrances, activists in at least 18 cities yesterday held actions to protest rising public transportation fares.</p>
<p>Though strike and shutdown actions by Occupy have at times <a href="" type="internal">strained relationships</a> with unions, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) announced earlier this month that it would&#160;endorse the National Day of Action for Public Transportation. The New York City fare strike allegedly took place with the cooperation from some rank-and-file members of the Transit Workers’ Union—whose members have been working since January 15 without a contract—though this was <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/subway-gates-chained-open-allowing-riders-free-6-stations-article-1.1051974#ixzz1qS0MqjrH" type="external">denied</a> by a TWU spokesperson.</p>
<p>“We need to be clear that the mass transit crisis was caused in no small part by the diversion of billions of tax dollars to war and the corporations that benefit from war,” said ATU International President Larry Hanley in a <a href="http://www.atu.org/media/releases/transit-union-endorses-occupys-national-day-of-action-for-public-transportation" type="external">press statement</a>. And this has lead [sic] to service cuts, transit worker layoffs, and higher passenger fares which are really just another kind of tax, levied on those who can least afford it.”</p>
<p>Demonstrators also sought to highlight how the central message of Occupy Wall Street could be applied to public transportation: because of risky gambles made by investment banks, transit agencies are deep in debt and poised to write it off on the backs of the poor and working class people who rely on public transportation.&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>In the past decade, a number of transit authorities entered into <a href="http://www.politickernj.com/55367/port-authority-hook-150-million-payment-risky-swaps" type="external">interest rate swaps</a>—essentially,&#160;bets that rates would stay at or near their present levels—with investment banks. When interest rates dropped dramatically following the financial crisis, transit authorities remained locked into high-interest payments and began losing millions of dollars in payments on their debt. According to the advocacy group MassUnited, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) is <a href="http://www.occupyboston.org/2012/03/09/occupy-somerville-forum-wall-street-hurting-riders/" type="external">losing</a> $9 million a year to UBS, $8.9 million a year to JPMorgan Chase and $8.3 million a year to&#160;Deutsche Bank. All of these banks received taxpayer bailouts of more than $60 million.</p>
<p>Actions taken during the National Day of Action for Public Transportation included rallies, vigils and leafleting, often undertaken as a joint effort between riders’ and transit workers’ unions.</p>
<p>In Boston, where the local Occupy movement initiated the call for a national day of action on public transit, demonstrators held a rally in front of the State House to protest proposed fare increases and termination of weekend service on two commuter rail lines. The MBTA Board of Directors <a href="http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x140151285/MBTA-board-approves-fare-increases-over-customer-protests" type="external">passed the changes</a> over the objections of about 100 demonstrators.</p>
<p>In Chicago, members of the ATU, National Nurses United, the Chicago Teachers Union, Citizens Taking Action and Occupy Chicago <a href="http://www.examiner.com/event-photography-in-chicago/chicago-s-amalgamated-transit-union" type="external">gathered</a> outside the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) to protest Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s <a href="http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Occupy-Chicago-Emanuel-CTA-Cuts-133603453.html" type="external">proposal</a> to balance the CTA’s budget by reducing CTA employee benefits and compensation.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://blogs.bellinghamherald.com/politics/politics/transit-workers-riders-union-occupiers-to-band-together-for-occupy-transit-in-seattle/" type="external">Seattle</a>, the Transit Rider’s Union, which describes itself as “a democratic organization of working and poor people who are dedicated to preserve, expand, and improve the public transportation in Seattle and beyond” teamed up with the ATU Local 587 for informational picketing and flyering to demand adequate funding for public transit.</p>
<p>In Detroit, a candlelight vigil at the the Rosa Parks Transit Center&#160; also marked the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.—who died on April 4, 1968—and linked the issue to his legacy. “Public transportation is a human right,” Occupy Detroit organizer Stephen Boyle told the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/05/detroit-public-transportation-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-candlelit-vigil_n_1404388.html" type="external">Huffington Post.</a> “Martin Luther King ... fought for rights for all people."</p> | ‘Public Transportation Is a Human Right’: Demonstrators in 18 Cities Occupy Transit | true | http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/12996/public_transportation_is_a_human_right_demonstrators_in_18_cities_occupy_tr/ | 2012-04-05 | 4 |
<p>Family Research Council President Tony Perkins Endorsed Cruz For President. During a January 26 appearance on Fox News, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins called Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) "a constitutional conservative who will fight for faith, family and freedom" and said, "I trust Ted to fight to pull America out of the political and cultural tailspin that President Obama's policies have put us in." [Politico, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/tony-perkins-endorses-ted-cruz-218267" type="external">1/26/16</a>]</p>
<p>Family Research Council Is Designated A "Hate Group" By SPLC Due To The Group's Extreme Anti-Gay Rhetoric. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Family Research Council's (FRC) "real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians" with false and offensive claims that "make the case that the LGBT community is a threat to American society." In 2010, SPLC designated FRC as an anti-gay "hate group" due to its propagation of known falsehoods about LGBT people. [Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/family-research-council" type="external">3/1/16</a>, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2016/active-hate-groups-united-states-2015" type="external">2/17/16</a>]</p>
<p>Perkins Paid David Duke, Spoke Before Group That Called Blacks A "Retrograde Species Of Humanity." While working on a U.S. Senate campaign in 1996, Perkins paid well-known white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,500 to use his mailing list. In 2001, Perkins spoke at a meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a well-known white supremacist group:</p>
<p />
<p>In 1996, while managing the U.S. Senate campaign of Woody Jenkins against Mary Landrieu, Perkins paid $82,500 to use the mailing list of former Ku Klux Klan leader and state Rep. David Duke. The campaign was fined $3,000 for filing false disclosure forms in a bid to hide the payment to Duke. Perkins has stated he did not know about the mailing list's connection to Duke.</p>
<p>Perkins served as a state representative for eight years, starting in 1998. On May 17, 2001, he gave a speech to the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a white supremacist group that has described black people as a "retrograde species of humanity." Perkins who addressed the group while standing in front of a Confederate flag, claimed not to know the group's ideology at the time, even though it had been widely publicized in Louisiana and the nation. [Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/tony-perkins" type="external">3/1/16</a>]</p>
<p>GOA Endorsed Cruz For President. In a September 8 statement, Gun Owners of America (GOA) endorsed Cruz, citing the conspiracy theory that the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty will lead to required gun registration in the United States and praising the Texas senator's hard-line immigration stance by writing, "He has opposed efforts to reward millions of illegal aliens with citizenship and voting rights, given that the majority of them are anti-gunners who have ignored and flouted our laws." [Gun Owners of America, <a href="http://www.gunowners.org/alert982015.htm" type="external">9/8/15</a>]</p>
<p>GOA Founder And Leader Larry Pratt Directed GOA To Donate Money To A White Supremacist Group. A 2014 Rolling Stone profile of Pratt said he directed GOA to donate "tens of thousands of dollars" to a white supremacist group:</p>
<p>But the NRA stopped short of supporting the Christian Identity lawyer Kirk Lyons, who was representing multiple victims of Waco. [Founder Larry] Pratt and the GOA had no such compunction and donated tens of thousands of dollars to Lyons's white supremacist organization CAUSE (short for the Aryan bastions of Canada, Australia, the United States, South Africa and Europe), "Not $50,000 -- but a lot of money for us," Pratt told Rolling Stone in 1995. [Rolling Stone, <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-zealot-larry-pratt-is-the-gun-lobbys-secret-weapon-20140714" type="external">7/14/14</a>]</p>
<p>Pratt Was Forced To Leave Pat Buchanan's Presidential Campaign After Pratt's Past Ties To White Supremacists Were Revealed. Pratt, who was a co-chairman of Buchanan's 1996 presidential run, was forced out of the campaign after it was revealed that he had spoken at white supremacist gatherings:</p>
<p>Last week, Larry Pratt, a co-chairman of the Buchanan campaign, took a leave of absence after the disclosure that he had spoken at rallies held by leaders of the white supremacist and militia movements.</p>
<p>Mr. Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said in an interview that he did not know the other speakers. He also said he did not harbor anti-Semitic or racist views, although his articles on gun ownership often appear in The Jubilee, a tabloid published in California by leaders of the Christian Identity movement, a white supremacist organization. [The New York Times, <a href="/blog/2013/04/04/ny-times-hides-extremism-of-fringe-gun-lobby-gr/193468" type="external">2/18/96</a>, via Media Matters]</p>
<p>Boston Globe: Participants At Rallies Included Individuals With Ties To The Ku Klux Klan And Aryan Nation. In a follow-up to The Times report, The Boston Globe discovered that Pratt had spoken before high-profile figures in the white supremacist movement:</p>
<p>Prominent participants at that meeting included Pete Peters, head of a group called Christian Identity, former Ku Klux Klan leader and Aryan Nation official Louis Bream and Aryan Nation founder Richard Butler. The Center for Public Integrity report also said Pratt attended a meeting in 1995 with militia leader Bo Gritz, at which racist and anti-Semitic material was available. [The Boston Globe, <a href="/blog/2013/04/04/ny-times-hides-extremism-of-fringe-gun-lobby-gr/193468" type="external">2/17/96</a>, via Media Matters]</p>
<p>Pratt "Seemed To Justify" The Oklahoma City Bombing In Speech Before Adherents To The Racist Christian Identity Movement. According to a 2014 Rolling Stone profile of Pratt, three days after Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people, Pratt suggested that the bombing may have been a justified response to the 1993 standoff between authorities and Branch Davidians in Waco, TX:</p>
<p>On the afternoon of the Oklahoma City bombing, Pratt was in Washington, D.C., demonstrating in front of FBI headquarters for its role in the Waco tragedy. Three days later, Pratt spoke before a gathering of 600 Christian Identity adherents and assorted radicals convened by Pete Peters at the Lodge of the Ozarks in Branson, Missouri. Pratt addressed the "Biblical Mandate to Arm" and seemed to justify McVeigh's act of terror, at the time the bloodiest in American history. According to an account by Michael Reynolds in Playboy, Pratt told the gathered, "The government behaves as a beast. It did in Waco, and we have somebody, whoever it might have been, whatever group it might have been, assuming they can't rely on the Lord to take vengeance." [Rolling Stone, <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-zealot-larry-pratt-is-the-gun-lobbys-secret-weapon-20140714" type="external">7/14/14</a>]</p>
<p>Pratt Was A "Contributing Editor" To An Anti-Semitic Publication. Rolling Stone reported that Pratt was a "contributing editor" for a publication of United Sovereigns of America:</p>
<p>Those who do not share Pratt's politics appreciate his work, and appear willing to overlook his ties to extremists. Pratt's former role as a contributing editor at a publication of the anti-Semitic United Sovereigns of America hasn't even seemed to complicate his relationship with Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. "None of that strained GOA's relationship with JPFO," says L. Neil Smith, a Libertarian member and writer for JPFO. "I myself would also talk to white nationalists and neo-Nazi groups. I talk to liberal groups, but people don't accuse me of being liberal. I wash all that off at home. It's important to talk to anyone who will listen." [Rolling Stone, <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-zealot-larry-pratt-is-the-gun-lobbys-secret-weapon-20140714" type="external">7/14/14</a>]</p>
<p>Racially Inflammatory Radio Host Michael Berry Is A Longtime Cruz Supporter. Cruz's candidacy is frequently touted by Berry, a Texas conservative radio show host whose show is listed 16th on Talkers Magazine's "Heavy Hundred" list of influential broadcasts. Cruz thanked Berry from the stage after winning the Texas Republican Senate primary in 2012, and Berry currently "stumps" for Cruz's candidacy. [ABC 13 Eyewitness News, <a href="http://abc13.com/politics/inside-look-at-the-hometown-gop-candidate-ted-cruz/1190094/" type="external">2/6/16</a>; Media Matters, <a href="/research/2016/02/16/cruz-surrogate-michael-berry-continues-to-mock/208607" type="external">2/16/16</a>].</p>
<p>Berry: Black Teens Confronted By Police At McKinney, TX Pool Party Were "Jungle Animals." During a June 2015 controversy where many observers criticized police in McKinney, TX, for using excessive force when responding to a complaint at a pool party, Berry called the black teens "jungle animals":</p>
<p>Conservative radio host Michael Berry said Monday that the black teens who were confronted by police last week at a pool party in McKinney, Texas acted like "jungle animals."</p>
<p>Berry, host of the "The Michael Berry Show" on KTRH in Houston, made his comments while discussing the Friday pool party where a white police officer drew his gun on several black teens and slammed a 14-year-old girl in a bikini to the ground.</p>
<p>Berry, who is white, said the alleged confrontation made for great news and stirred "the black pastor" and members of the community.</p>
<p>"You've got a ready-made crowd of people who don't have day jobs that are ready to storm the streets and threaten the cops," Berry said. "Let me suggest that for the people who end up getting in fights with the cops: Shut your mouth!"</p>
<p>Berry commended police who rush into dangerous situations with "screaming" teens.</p>
<p>"Let me ask you, how many among you would put on a badge and a police uniform today?" Berry said. "How many of you would put on a badge, police uniform and be the first to respond -- by yourself -- to a crowd of teenagers, amped up -- watch 'em! Man, they're screaming! 'Get outta here! Who are you?! You don't know what you! You go! You get! Who are you?! You can't do that! No man, we gon' get you! You bet -- !' I mean you're talking about like jungle animals. I mean this is wild, crazy, out of control." [Talking Points Memo, <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/michael-berry-mckinney-jungle-animals" type="external">6/9/15</a>]</p>
<p>Berry Defended KKK-Sponsored Billboard: "As Long As 1 Group Can Promote Their Race, EVERY Group Can. ... The NAACP Is The Black KKK" On January 2, 2015, Berry defended a billboard paid for by "a group formerly known as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan." On Twitter, Berry wrote of the billboard promoting a racist radio program, "As long as 1 group can promote their race, EVERY group can. Nothing wrong with it. The NAACP is the black KKK":</p>
<p>[Twitter.com, accessed <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelBerrySho/status/551219165009166336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">3/1/16</a>; Houston Chronicle, <a href="http://www.chron.com/news/us-world/article/Arkansas-billboard-promotes-white-pride-radio-5990276.php" type="external">1/2/15</a>]</p>
<p>Berry: Black UCLA Law Students Are "Pack Animals" Who Need To "Get The F Over Themselves." On his February 27, 2014, show, Berry mentioned that black students at UCLA's law school had called on the school to improve diversity on campus, and then proceeded to call them "pack animals" and say black people should "get the F over themselves." [The Michael Berry Show, <a href="/embed/clips/2015/04/01/39375/ktrh-michaelberryshow-20140227-packanimals" type="external">2/27/14</a>]</p>
<p>Berry: "What If The Election Of Barack Obama Prompted The Poorest, Most Violent Segment Of Blacks In America" To Violently Challenge Police? On the June 1, 2015 broadcast of his show, Berry discussed the protests in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody and hypothesized that the election of Barack Obama might have "prompted the poorest, most violent segment" of black Americans to challenge police authority. [The Michael Berry Show, <a href="/embed/clips/2015/06/10/40352/iheartradio_michaelberryshow_20150601_obama_gray" type="external">6/01/15</a>]</p>
<p>Berry Has A Weekly Radio Segment Where He Mocks The Predominantly Black Victims Of Gun Violence In Chicago. Berry has a weekly segment on his show called the "butcher bill" where he makes fun of deceased or wounded victims of gun violence in Chicago. Commenting on Tyjuan Poindexter, a 14-year-old bystander who was shot in the head and killed, Berry said during a September 2015 broadcast, "Tyjuan Poindexter. Ha ha. Tyjuan Poindexter was standing outside with some friends when some people drove by and opened fire. Young Mister Poindexter was shot in the head and died at the scene. He won't have to live with that name anymore." [Media Matters, <a href="/research/2015/09/30/syndicated-radio-host-michael-berry-has-a-weekl/205877" type="external">9/30/15</a>, Media Matters, <a href="/blog/2015/10/13/michael-berry-on-chicago-gun-violence-victims-b/206114" type="external">10/13/15</a>, Media Matters, <a href="/research/2016/02/16/cruz-surrogate-michael-berry-continues-to-mock/208607" type="external">2/16/16</a>]</p> | Trump Isn't The Only GOP Candidate Backed By Bigots | true | http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/03/01/trump-isnt-the-only-gop-candidate-backed-by-big/208924 | 2016-03-01 | 4 |
<p>COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — An investigation has determined that the shooting by officers from Fountain and El Paso County deputies of a driver who led them on a high-speed chase and repeatedly rammed their vehicles was justified.</p>
<p>The 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, which serves the county, released its findings on Friday.</p>
<p>The driver, Robert William Zupko Jr., was shot after repeatedly ramming his car into police vehicles in a cul-de-sac on Sept. 19.</p>
<p>Zupko has recovered from his injuries and faces charges that include attempted first-degree murder with extreme indifference. A court hearing is set for Jan. 23.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Gazette, <a href="http://www.gazette.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.gazette.com" type="external">http://www.gazette.com</a></p>
<p>COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — An investigation has determined that the shooting by officers from Fountain and El Paso County deputies of a driver who led them on a high-speed chase and repeatedly rammed their vehicles was justified.</p>
<p>The 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, which serves the county, released its findings on Friday.</p>
<p>The driver, Robert William Zupko Jr., was shot after repeatedly ramming his car into police vehicles in a cul-de-sac on Sept. 19.</p>
<p>Zupko has recovered from his injuries and faces charges that include attempted first-degree murder with extreme indifference. A court hearing is set for Jan. 23.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Gazette, <a href="http://www.gazette.com" type="external" /> <a href="http://www.gazette.com" type="external">http://www.gazette.com</a></p> | Report: Officers justified in September Fountain shooting | false | https://apnews.com/f2bf4a3b7f554af5b11532755dfa6a4c | 2017-12-29 | 2 |
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