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<p>SANTA FE – There’s at least one roadblock that could bar high-profile bills backed by New Mexico Democratic lawmakers – including raising the minimum wage and legalizing recreational marijuana use – from hitting the state’s books next year.</p>
<p>That’s Gov. Susana Martinez, who still has two more years in office and could block some of the measures with her veto pen.</p>
<p>That Roundhouse dynamic – after Democrats reclaimed the state House in last month’s general election and expanded their majority in the Senate – could lead to efforts to push some of the initiatives through the Legislature via changes to the state Constitution. That’s because, unlike regular bills, the governor does not have to sign off on constitutional amendments for them to take effect.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>They do have to be approved by New Mexico voters, however.</p>
<p>A Governor’s Office spokesman earlier this week urged majority Democrats not to pursue the amendment strategy for issues that could be addressed in state law.</p>
<p>“(Gov. Martinez) trusts that the Legislature will continue to respect the legislative process and leave constitutional amendments for those issues that truly require a constitutional change,” said her spokesman, Michael Lonergan. “It is shortsighted and irresponsible to amend the Constitution simply as an end-around to the legislative process.”</p>
<p>While legislators are free to propose any type of legislation as a constitutional amendment, several Democrats who will hold top-ranking positions when the Legislature convenes next year also say changing the constitution shouldn’t be treated as simply an expedient alternative to changing state law.</p>
<p>“I think we should be hesitant about legislating through constitutional amendment,” said Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, who was recently elected floor leader by fellow Senate Democrats. “Having said that, there are times they make sense.”</p>
<p>Amendments</p>
<p>Several lawmakers have said they are considering the constitutional amendment route, and a top-ranking lawmaker says he expects to see proposed amendments on minimum wage and other hot-button issues.</p>
<p>For instance, Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, said he plans to once again introduce a constitutional amendment to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana use – as eight states have already done – during the coming session.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Although a similar proposal fell at least three votes short on the Senate floor during this year’s legislative session, Ortiz y Pino said he thinks the proposal has a better chance of passing in 2017 after Democrats picked up a net of two additional seats in the Nov. 8 election. They are now on track to enter the 60-day session with a 26-16 advantage over Republicans in the Senate.</p>
<p>Ortiz y Pino acknowledged some fellow senators expressed misgivings about the attempt to enshrine marijuana legalization in the Constitution, but he said going that route would show the federal government that New Mexico voters support the concept.</p>
<p>Also, he said, the governor would likely veto the bill if it’s drafted in bill form.</p>
<p>“It it gets to her desk, she’ll probably veto it,” Ortiz y Pino told the Journal .</p>
<p>Martinez, a former prosecutor, has steadfastly opposed marijuana legalization and decriminalization efforts, and has expressed concern about the impact of drug use on young people.</p>
<p>Statewide vote</p>
<p>Changing the state Constitution is a multistep process. It first requires a majority vote of elected members in both the House and Senate – at least 36 votes in the 70-member House and 22 in the 42-member Senate – and then must be approved by voters statewide to take effect.</p>
<p>Because New Mexico just held an election, it’s likely that any constitutional amendments approved by legislators in the coming session would not go before voters until the next scheduled general election in November 2018.</p>
<p>There was only one constitutional amendment on this year’s ballot, a proposal to revamp New Mexico’s bail system for individuals charged with a crime. It passed by an overwhelming margin.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, some issues could be addressed only through constitutional amendment.</p>
<p>For instance, any change to distribution rates from the state’s Land Grant Permanent Fund for expanded early childhood programs or other initiatives would have to be done by constitutional amendment. That’s because those rates are already set in the Constitution.</p>
<p>While recent attempts to increase annual distributions from the permanent fund for early childhood education have stalled at the state Capitol, a new attempt is expected to be launched in the coming session.</p>
<p>Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton, D-Albuquerque, who will be the next House majority leader after Democrats won back control of the chamber from Republicans, also expressed wariness of using constitutional amendments to address most policy fixes.</p>
<p>“The major policy bills you can’t put on constitutional amendments, and we all know that,” Stapleton told the Journal .</p>
<p>The 60-day legislative session begins on Jan. 17 and lawmakers can begin filing legislation later this month.</p>
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<p /> | Threat of vetoes may lead legislators to seek constitutional changes | false | https://abqjournal.com/901411/threat-of-vetoes-may-spur-bids-for-constitutional-changes.html | 2016-12-02 | 2 |
<p>&#160;TUCSON (AZ)KOLD</p>
<p>by Julie Prince, News 13 Reporter</p>
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<p>The Voice of the Faithful group started in Boston, after Cardinal Bernard Law's resignation amid a sexual abuse scandal.</p>
<p>Although supporting victims of church-related sexual abuse is still a focus, the group wants a bigger, overall change in Catholic churches.</p>
<p>A handful of Tucson area Catholics met Saturday, for the second time.</p>
<p>There are about 50-members in the local chapter's database.</p>
<p>Some of the attendees include frustrated and disappointed catholics, as well as a married Priest.</p> | Voice Of Faithful In Tucson | false | https://poynter.org/news/voice-faithful-tucson | 2003-06-09 | 2 |
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<p>Richard Harmon is stepping out for the weekend as a guest at the Albuquerque Comic Expo.</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Richard Harmon has always pushed himself. He’s been that way since he was a little kid.</p>
<p>“I love American football but I was way too skinny to play as a kid,” the Canadian actor says. “Today, I push myself with playing flag football and basketball with friends.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">I caught up with the 22-year-old star of CW’s “The 100” and TNT’s “Bates Motel”</a> about his first-ever appearance at a comic convention this weekend at the Albuquerque Comic Expo and the mysterious characters that he plays on the shows.</p>
<p>“I’m a little nervous because I don’t know what to expect,” he says. “I’m sure it will be a nice weekend for all of us.”</p>
<p>Aside from the two shows, Harmon also has been seen in “Continuum,” “The Secret Circle” and “Fringe,” just to name a few of his shows.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">He will be one of dozens of guests at the expo</a>.</p>
<p>Christian Lee Hutson is enjoying his time alone. The former member of The Driftwood Singers is touring in support of his newest solo effort. He will perform at Tortuga Gallery on Wednesday, July 2. <a href="" type="internal">Read more about this Nashville, Tenn.-based singer</a>.</p>
<p>It’s like the ’90s again when <a href="" type="internal">Dishwalla</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Collective Soul</a> come to the Duke City to perform at Isleta Resort and Casino. The two bands are working on new material to be released within a year.</p>
<p>There’s plenty more inside this week’s edition of Venue. Check out <a href="" type="internal">Rozanna M. Martinez’s brewery stories</a> and <a href="" type="internal">casino column</a>. There also are plenty more music stories – <a href="" type="internal">The Donkeys</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Paul Oakenfold</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Gypsyhawk</a> – as well as <a href="" type="internal">film</a> and <a href="" type="internal">dining reviews</a>.</p>
<p /> | Richard Harmon carves a niche for himself with TV characters | false | https://abqjournal.com/421305/this-week-adrian-gomez-48.html | 2 |
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<p>Flickr/ecstaticist (Creative Commons).</p>
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<p>After a BP refinery in Texas exploded in 2005, killing 15 workers and injuring scores more, the oil giant paid $ <a href="http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=e54e3ba4ce6e267d" type="external">1.6 billion in settlements</a> to employees and their families. But the families of the workers killed on BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico probably won’t receive a similar windfall. That’s because the Deepwater rig is legally considered an ocean-going vessel, and was more three nautical miles offshore at the time of the accident. As a result, the families of the dead workers can only sue BP and its contractors under a 90-year-old maritime law, the Death on the High Seas Act, which severely limits liability. In some cases, BP could get away with shelling out sums as paltry as $1,000.</p>
<p>Gordon Jones, a mud engineer killed on the Deepwater rig, left behind a pregnant wife who had quit her job to stay home with their two-year-old son. But thanks to DOHSA, the most BP could owe them is the equivalent of Gordon’s salary over his working life, minus what he would have paid out in taxes and personal expenses. So if Gordon made $60,000 a year for the next 30 years, BP could owe the family less than a million dollars.</p>
<p>The math works out even worse for workers without dependents. Jones’ brother Chris testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that one of the other Deepwater workers who was killed was single and childless. That means his family would only be entitled to recover funeral expenses under DOHSA. But because his body was never recovered after the explosion, the funeral costs will be lower. BP could end up paying his family as little as $1,000 for their loss.&#160;</p>
<p>Chris and his father Keith have pleaded with Congress to fix the law so that any employer can be held accountable for negligence—regardless of whether an employee dies on land or at sea. Last week, Senate Judiciary chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced legislation that would do just that.</p>
<p>But Leahy’s bill faces an ugly political fight. And giant oil corporations—the most obvious potential opponents of such legislation—may not even have to flex their lobbying muscle. There’s another powerful industry with an interest in doing BP’s dirty work to preserve the status quo. That would be cruise line operators—and when it comes to Beltway battles, the cruise lobby is no Love Boat.</p>
<p>Just ask Son Michael Pham, the vice president of the International Cruise Victims Association. In 2005, his parents went on a Caribbean cruise and never came back. Carnival Cruise Line, one of the world’s largest cruise operators, never offered any explanation for what had happened, and has refused to discuss the incident with Pham and his family since then. That was how Pham discovered the horrible divide in the way the law treats people killed through negligence at sea. “We couldn’t take legal action to get justice,” he says. Long before the BP explosion, his group was lobbying Congress for DOHSA to be overhauled.&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>DOHSA was created in 1920 to ensure that the widows and children of seamen could get a share of their husbands’ or fathers’ salaries if they were killed at sea. The law was rather progressive for its time: Previously, the corporations didn’t have to pay the widows anything at all. But DOHSA didn’t change with the times.&#160; And because it’s a federal law, it trumps state tort laws that allow injured people to recover all sorts of damages in personal injury cases, including punitive damages for truly egregious corporate behavior, compensation for grief or the loss of companionship, and even the pre-death pain and suffering of the victim.</p>
<p>DOHSA has been updated once, in 2000, when TWA Flight 800 crashed off the coast of New York, killing a host of children. Their families had had no legal rights to force the airline to pay out because the kids didn’t have income. That year, Congress amended DOHSA, but only to allow commercial airline victims to sue for <a href="http://perryneblett.com/dosha.asp%20" type="external">non-economic damages</a>. The families of other folks killed at sea were still out in the cold.</p>
<p>Finally, in 2009, the cruise ship victims succeeded in getting legislation introduced with help from Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) that would have updated DOHSA in just the way Leahy has proposed. That change would have allowed families of cruise ship victims to sue for non-economic damages—a huge deal for cruise-goers, because so many are retired and have no salaries that would provide the basis of a legal award under the current law.&#160; It also would have saved the Jones family a trip to Washington to plead their case on behalf of Gordon’s widow and children.</p>
<p>But the cruise industry spent $2.2 million fighting these changes. The Carnival cruise line company alone has donated more than $400,000 since 2007 to members of Congress from both parties, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The offending provision was eventually removed from the cruise-ship safety bill.</p>
<p>The Cruise Lines International Association did not return requests for comment. But Pham says he has no doubt that the DOHSA revision will not slip by without the lobbyists’ notice. “Cruise lines absolutely didn’t want DOHSA to be part of that [2009 bill] at all,” he says, noting that the industry would suddenly become liable for all sorts of incidents that it’s currently able to dodge legal responsibility for—everything from on-board murders to rapes to mysterious disappearances like that of Pham’s parents. “It’s an industry that self-polices. When there’s an incident on board, there’s nobody but themselves investigating themselves. You’re not going to turn yourself in.”</p>
<p>Pham suggests that perhaps his group should join forces with the families of the deceased Deepwater workers. “Hopefully the current issue with BP will keep this issue in front and create more public awareness,” he says. But, as he points, it’s unfortunate that it “takes a tragic incident like [the Gulf spill] for people to realize they’ve been taking this for granted.”</p>
<p /> | Will the Cruise Ship Industry Do BP’s Dirty Work? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/06/cruise-ship-industry-bp-liability/ | 2010-06-14 | 4 |
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<p>Royal Martin Jr.</p>
<p>of Crownpoint, caught and released a 32-pound channel catfish at Bluewater Lake on Sunday.</p>
<p>Allen Sturtevant of Albuquerque caught and released a 5.95-pound largemouth bass at Elephant Butte on Saturday. He was using a topwater lure.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Brenda Payne of Deming caught a 26-inch rainbow trout at Quemado Lake on Friday. She was using night crawlers and fishing on the northeast shore of the lake.</p>
<p>Andrew Orlicky of Albuquerque caught a 20.5-inch and a 19-inch brown trout on Saturday on the San Juan River. He was using worms and fishing below Abe’s. … On Sunday, Linda Jimerson of Farmington caught and released a 24-inch rainbow trout. She was fishing the quality water section of the river and using a size 26 midge emerger on 6x tippet.</p>
<p>AROUND THE STATE</p>
<p>SHADY LAKES: In anticipation of the Labor Day holiday, Shady Lakes restocked 1,500 pounds of rainbow on Sunday. As of Tuesday, catch rates on trout have remained steady, allowing most anglers to land as many fish as they wish. The Easy Catch Pond is averaging about 11 inches, while the Big Trout Pond is running about 16 inches. The best bait had been nightcrawlers yet salmon eggs, lures and power bait are also successful. Bass activity has picked up some with the advent of rain and cooler temperatures. Best bets remain plastic anything – frogs, crawdads or worms. Bluegill activity has increased as well, with nightcrawlers offering the best success. A group of truly impressive-sized bluegill have been hanging out at the fish-cleaning station. Karen Daniels</p>
<p>ISLETA LAKES: Fishing at both SUNRISE and TURTLE lakes has been very good. Both lakes were recently stocked with more channel catfish. Bag limits of five fish each are also being reported by anglers. Baits being used are plain and garlic chicken liver, stink bait, night crawlers and shrimp. Fishing hours are 6 a.m.-7:30 p.m., seven days a week. Curtis Thompson, Isleta Lakes &amp; RV Park</p>
<p>SANDIA LAKES: Sandia Lakes will be receiving a full capacity stocking of channel catfish on Friday. These fish will range from 2 to 8 pounds with larger fish 10 pounds-plus mixed in. We will be open Labor. Angler success rates have been extremely high, and most success has been reported on packaged dough baits. Jason Wiebenga, Wildcat Environmental Services</p>
<p>HERON LAKE: Fishing remains very slow. Water continues to be released at 300 cfs. The “primitive” ramp at Ridge Rock is still good to launch from. Don Wolfley, Heron Lake Guide Service</p>
<p>NOTES from GAME &amp; FISH: Fishing at BLUEWATER LAKE was fair using crank baits, spinners and spoons for tiger muskie. Most of the muskie caught were less than 40 inches in length. There were a few catfish caught by anglers using shrimp and night crawlers. Anglers should be aware that it is illegal to use bait fish at this lake.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Water flow on the SAN JUAN below Navajo on Monday was 673 cfs. Trout fishing through the quality waters was fair to good using bunny leeches, rubber legged hare’s ears, red midge larva, Griffith’s gnats, small ants, brown, grey and black foam wing emergers, small bead-head pheasant tails and rainbow warriors. Fishing through the bait waters was good using hare’s ears, copper John Barrs, jerk baits, Chernobyl ants, salmon eggs, PowerBait and night crawlers.</p>
<p>Trout fishing on the upper PECOS RIVER and the MORA was excellent. Anglers reported great success using worms and a variety of flies.</p>
<p>At EAGLE NEST LAKE, fishing for kokanee was rated anywhere from sporadic to very slow. A few were picked up by anglers trolling Arnies tipped with corn. Fishing from the bank picked up quite a bit. Best baits for the trout were salmon peach and garlic scented PowerBait. Perch were hitting on worms and pike were caught by anglers using spoons and crank baits.</p>
<p>Water flow on the CIMARRON RIVER below Eagle Nest Lake on Monday was 27 cfs. Trout fishing slowed a bit with the higher flows but was still rated as good by anglers using zebra midges, San Juan worms, beetles, stimulators, brassies, worms and salmon eggs.</p>
<p>Fishing at COCHITI LAKE was fair using night crawlers, chicken liver and shrimp for catfish. Fishing was slow to fair using topwater lures, crank baits and jerk baits for smallmouth bass and white bass.</p>
<p>Fishing on the CEBOLLA was very good for anglers using hoppers, beetles, copper John Barrs and worms for rainbow trout.</p>
<p>Trout fishing at LAKE MALOYA was good using Power Bait and an assortment of dry flies and nymphs.</p>
<p>At UTE LAKE, fishing was fair using night crawlers, shrimp, liver and homemade dough baits for catfish.</p>
<p>Kokanee fishing at NAVAJO LAKE was fair trolling Arnies and Z Rays tipped with corn about three feet behind flashers for kokanee. Anglers reported taking fish at depths of 50 to 55 feet.</p>
<p>Trout fishing at MONASTERY LAKE was good using bead-head nymphs, salmon eggs, worms and PowerBait.</p>
<p>The shallow and steep boat ramps on the north side of CONCHAS LAKE are open along with the Cove campground ramp. Fishing was good using chicken liver, homemade dough bait and night crawlers for catfish.</p> | Fishing Line | false | https://abqjournal.com/254887/fishing-line-106.html | 2013-08-29 | 2 |
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<p>Every August thousands of visitors head to western New Mexico for the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial. (Journal)</p>
<p>Every August, the Native American cultures that are part of the fabric of Gallup, N.M., become the focal point of the community as tribes gather from around the country for parades, dancing, rodeo and more.</p>
<p>The Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial is expected to draw upward of 50,000 spectators, says Teri Frazier, the Ceremonial’s executive director. Most events will be at Red Rock State Park.</p>
<p>“This is Gallup’s way of honoring Native Americans, and it’s something which is identified with Gallup. People who come here know we guarantee it’s the real deal, from the authentic dances and regalia, to the art, the crafts and the food.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>About 14 dance troupes will perform in the main arena, but more than 40 tribes will be represented. Among them will be Cheyenne and Chickasaw from Oklahoma; Apache, Pima, Navajo and Hopi from Arizona; Aztec and Miwuk from California; Voladores from Mexico; and a large New Mexico contingent including Navajo, San Juan, Taos, Zuni, Jemez and Laguna.</p>
<p>Spectators, both Native Americans and non-Native Americans, come from all over the United States and foreign countries, including Canada, France, Germany and Japan, according to event organizers.</p>
<p>What’s happening</p>
<p>Regular rodeo events, dancing, art exhibits and special events will be held each day.</p>
<p>All events, except parades through Downtown Gallup, will be at Red Rock State Park.</p>
<p>The city of Gallup is also excited about the annual Ceremonial, says Bill Lee, chief executive officer and president of the Gallup/ McKinley County Chamber of Commerce.</p>
<p>“It’s one of the state’s oldest events, and it’s been a lifeblood-sustaining event for our community in terms of the economy. It is something that our community overall takes great pride in as well as ownership. When it comes to defending it and keeping it here in our community, we’re all united.”</p>
<p>Planning ahead</p>
<p>Lee conservatively estimates the Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial generates $2 million in the community, “and each of those dollars is turned over at least three times,” he says.</p>
<p>Gallup has close to 2,000 hotel rooms for rent and hundreds of camping and RV sites. Nearly all get sold out during the Ceremonial so he recommends planning ahead and booking a room early. The good news for people living in the Albuquerque area is, even if rooms in Gallup are unavailable, the drive is less than 2½ hours via I-40, so it makes for an easy day trip.</p>
<p>“Like so many other things around our state, we have an incredible abundance of tourist assets, and the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial is one of the crown jewels on the yearly tourist calendar,” Lee says. “Visitors here will see absolutely the best artists covering all genres and from traditional to contemporary and the dancing is truly unique and beautiful.” In addition, the rodeo is “great fun” and attracts world-class Native American rodeo professionals. Further, Lee says, visitors will get to experience the splendor of Red Rock State Park, with its majestic red cliffs framing the park on three sides and its natural amphitheater and seating.</p>
<p>For admission fees and schedule of events go to <a href="" type="internal">theceremonial.com</a>.</p> | Tribes gather from around the country at Gallup Ceremonial | false | https://abqjournal.com/247078/tribes-gather-from-around-the-country-at-gallup-ceremonial.html | 2013-10-01 | 2 |
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<p>Perhaps the American People are finally tired of the big government candidates that the establishment GOP has been pushing on them for decades. If this is true, it's remarkable due to the massive push that was behind Bush to dethrone Trump. In the process of doing that, though, it seems that he may have hit the end of the road?.</p>
<p>From <a href="http://theresurgent.com/bush-campaign-sources-campaign-out-of-money-pay-ends-saturday/" type="external">TheResurgent</a>:</p>
<p>This is pretty remarkable. Sources close to the Bush campaign are beginning to leak about a call last night. I'm told the Bush team is out of money. Pay for campaign staff will end on Saturday. The campaign is all but over.</p>
<p>Additionally, after having hundreds of millions of dollars on hand, the Bush Super PAC has less than $15 million from what I am being told.</p>
<p>What a waste.</p>
<p>Ironically, if Bush really wants to have an impact on the race, given that his campaign is broke, he should publicly get out of the race today. This would be like Rich Perry in 2012, who got out, cast his support to Gingrich at the last minute, and saw Gingrich storm into first place in South Carolina.</p>
<p>Bush could be the king maker if he gets out today.</p>
<p>Apparently Bush's campaign contacted Erick Erickson - the author of the quoted piece - and denied there was a call and that the money was gone.</p>
<p>0 comments</p> | BREAKING: Inside sources claim Jeb Bush's campaign may be over. | true | http://freedomsfinalstand.com/breaking-inside-sources-claim-jeb-bushs-campaign-may-be-over/ | 0 |
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<p>A former Washington Post reporter is excusing the secret sex life and lies of David Petraeus, the retired general who resigned in disgrace as Obama’s CIA director. Petraeus and his mistress Paul Broadwell are currently under investigation for unauthorized disclosure and possession of classified information.</p>
<p>Thomas E. Ricks, a veteran correspondent who covered the U.S. military for The Washington Post from 2000 through 2008, was invited on CNN on Sunday to blast the media for its coverage of the scandal. This reporter, who is now also a blogger, thinks the cover-up of the affair that was engineered by Petraeus and Broadwell was perfectly proper and that it was nobody else’s business what they were doing together.</p>
<p>But Stephen M. Walt, who is a colleague of Ricks at the journal Foreign Policy, has countered by <a href="http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/10/an_answer_for_tom_ricks" type="external">noting</a> the obvious: “In the world of intelligence, extramarital dalliances are dangerous because they create the obvious potential for blackmail. If some foreign intel service found out that a mid-level intelligence analyst or operative was cheating, they might be able to extract sensitive information by threatening to disclose the indiscretion.”</p>
<p>This is why the media must get to the bottom of the scandal in terms of whether Petraeus was blackmailed or pressured by someone in the Obama Administration or a foreign intelligence service.</p>
<p>The Ricks appearance on CNN was notable for his failure to explain why <a href="" type="internal">Petraeus changed his testimony</a> regarding terrorist involvement in the attack on 9/11 that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya. Before his affair became public, when he was under pressure from Attorney General Eric Holder and the FBI, he had insisted that al-Qaeda was not involved. This was consistent with the Obama Administration line. After the scandal emerged and he was apparently free to speak the truth, he insisted that he knew it was al-Qaeda all along.</p>
<p>Ignoring all of this, Ricks was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=PbUz3pIPmTY" type="external">invited on Fox News</a> on Monday, where he used the opportunity not to urge more reporting on the matter but to attack the channel as a “wing of the Republican Party” for trying to get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi. Ricks called the murders of the four Americans, including the American Ambassador, a “small firefight” and complained that the killings of American security contractors in Iraq had not received adequate attention from the media.</p>
<p>Host Jon Scott was so taken aback that he abruptly ended the interview. He should have asked why on earth Ricks thinks an attack from an international terrorist organization amounts to a “small firefight.”</p>
<p>Ricks has made it plain that he believes the Obama Administration’s Benghazi cover-up is not a scandal, but that the media have gone too far in their coverage of the Petraeus scandal and should back off.</p>
<p>In fact, Ricks told <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1211/25/rs.01.html" type="external">CNN’s “Reliable Sources” program</a> that Petraeus should have remained on the job rather than quit under pressure. “These were consenting adults engaged in private acts,” he said. “The lack of decency, I think, is kind of appalling to me. I mean, also the consequences of what’s happened to these people.”</p>
<p>Ricks was saying that the lack of decency was not on the part of Petraeus or his lover Paula Broadwell, both of whom are married and have children, but in the FBI uncovering this relationship and then the media covering it as a news story with national security implications.</p>
<p>He explained that Petraeus “was in a relationship with a consenting adult who was not in his chain of command. He’s hardly, I think, probably the first CIA director to have had an affair.”</p>
<p>Despite his sensational suggestion, Ricks didn’t name any other CIA director with a scandalous personal life who had an affair.</p>
<p>Fortunately, members of the public are not buying the effort to whitewash Petraeus.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324894104578115563280198682.html" type="external">letter to the editor</a> of the Wall Street Journal, John M. Dowd noted that Petraeus “violated his fidelity to his wife, breached his oath of office to his country, and was unfaithful to the West Point motto of ‘duty, honor, country.’ The general should have exited years ago when he lost control of himself and hubris took hold of him.”</p>
<p>Another letter writer, Ed Karkut, noted, “Why did the chief spy of the U.S., with all his schooling, training and exposure to the craft of spying, choose to use emails as a form of communication with his lover? Everyone knows that emails can be compromised. Yet Mr. Petraeus exposed his frailty as a human being, and this unfortunately led to his downfall.”</p>
<p>These letter writers displayed far more intelligence than Ricks, who told CNN’s “Reliable Sources” program host Howard Kurtz, “It’s a matter that should have remained private, first of all. It’s not a criminal act. There’s no allegation that he’s committed a crime here, as far as I know. You know, it could always change, more information could come out.”</p>
<p>As we noted in a recent <a href="" type="internal">column</a>, the Post, which is Ricks’s and Kurtz’s old paper, has already documented that classified information was found in Broadwell’s possession and there is evidence that Petraeus ordered that she be given access to it. Ricks seemed unfamiliar with the facts of the case and Kurtz did not bother to point this out.</p>
<p>Kurtz, now with The Daily Beast, asked Ricks if he is an admirer of Petraeus. “Yes, and I remain so,” he said.</p>
<p>Ricks went on, “…I’m glad I’m no longer in ‘The Washington Post’ because I would have been pressured to cover this. I would have had to cover this.”</p>
<p>But he has covered it in his new job, as a blogger for Foreign Policy magazine, where he has complained about the coverage. <a href="http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/20/what_lessons_will_the_army_take_away_from_petraeus_my_fear_is_the_wrong_ones" type="external">He also says</a> that he fears that the military brass will come to a number of questionable conclusions from the scandal, including that “You can be mediocre as long as you keep your pants on.”</p>
<p>He never explains why a good general like Petraeus could not keep his pants on.</p>
<p>Perhaps Ricks is embarrassed that he gave such a glowing review of Broadwell’s book. He wrote, “It is written with an insider’s lively understanding of the workings of today’s Army.” Indeed, Broadwell was a true insider.</p>
<p>Ricks added that the book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/All-Education-General-David-Petraeus/dp/1594203180" type="external">All In</a>, about how Petraeus functioned as a military commander, “feels at times like we are sitting at his side in Afghanistan, reading his e-mails over his shoulder.”</p>
<p>Those emails in fact are what led to the Petraeus’ resignation.</p> | Thomas Ricks: Apologist for the Sins of David Petraeus | true | http://aim.org/aim-column/thomas-ricks-apologist-for-the-sins-of-david-petraeus/ | 2012-11-27 | 0 |
<p>Saying they were doing something no other government has done, Obama administration officials rolled out a plan Tuesday they say will enable automakers to get self-driving cars onto the road without compromising safety.</p>
<p>In drawing up 112 pages of guidelines, the government tried to be vague enough to allow innovation while at the same time making sure that car makers, tech companies and ride-hailing firms put safety first as the cars are developed.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Only time will tell whether the mission was accomplished, but the document generally was praised by businesses and analysts as good guidance in a field that's evolving faster than anyone imagined just a few years ago.</p>
<p>"How do you regulate a complex software system?" asked Timothy Carone, a Notre Dame University professor who has written about the future of automation. "They want to allow innovation, but they want to be very proscriptive in managing the risk side of this. In my mind, they're trying to manage the unknown."</p>
<p>The guidelines from the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration don't tell companies specifically how to get to an autonomous car that can safely carry people down the road, leaving a lot to interpretation.</p>
<p>But they tell companies to explain how they'll comply with a 15-point safety assessment before they roll out the cars. And the guidelines also make clear that NHTSA will force recalls if software doesn't perform as it should. The agency, for the first time in its history, may even seek authority from Congress to approve technology before it goes on the road.</p>
<p>"We want to be as nimble and flexible as we can be, recognizing that we will never, ever compromise on what we think is safe," Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said at a Washington news conference.</p>
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<p>Among other things, the safety assessment asks automakers to document how the car detects and avoids objects and pedestrians, how the car is protected against cyberattacks and what sort of backup system is in place in case the computers fail.</p>
<p>Companies that already have even semi-autonomous vehicles on the road will have to submit assessments four months after the government's 60-day comment period ends. Companies that are developing autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles will be asked to submit assessments before those cars go on the road.</p>
<p>For now, the assessments are voluntary, but the government intends to make them mandatory after a lengthy rule-making process.</p>
<p>The guidelines come as the government has struggled with how to capitalize on the technology's promised safety benefits — the cars can react faster than people, but don't drink or get distracted — while making sure they are ready for widespread use. Officials hope the guidelines will bring order to what has been a chaotic rollout so far.</p>
<p>The Transportation Department also said it, rather than the states, would be responsible for regulating cars controlled by software. States have historically set the rules for licensing drivers, but Foxx said states should stick to registering the cars and dealing with questions of liability when they crash when the driver is a computer.</p>
<p>The guidelines allow automakers to seek exemptions from NHTSA from federal safety standards that might be outdated, such as a rule requiring a steering wheel in brake pedals in a vehicle without a human driver. California currently requires a steering wheel and brake pedals, but NHTSA has the authority to approve vehicles without them if the agency decides they're safe.</p>
<p>The government also wants cars, whether partially or fully self-driving, to collect and share data from crashes and near-misses so companies and the government can learn from the experience. Data isn't currently collected industrywide.</p>
<p>NHTSA made clear that it can use its current recall authority to regulate the new cars. It warned automakers that self-driving cars that still rely on a human driver to intervene in some circumstances must have a means for keeping the driver's attention. If they don't, that "may be defined as an unreasonable risk to safety and subject to recall," the department said.</p>
<p>NHTSA says the warning isn't aimed at electric car maker Tesla Motors. But it would address events like a fatal crash in Florida that occurred while a Tesla Model S was operating on the company's semi-autonomous Autopilot system. The system can brake when it spots obstacles and keep cars in their lanes. But it failed to spot a crossing tractor-trailer and neither the system nor the driver braked. Autopilot allows drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel for short periods.</p>
<p>Tesla has since announced modifications so Autopilot relies more on radar and less on cameras, which it said were blinded by sunlight in the Florida crash. The company has maintained that Autopilot is a driver assist system and said it warns drivers they must be ready to take over at any time.</p>
<p>Some consumer advocates have objected to voluntary guidelines instead of safety rules that are legally enforceable.</p>
<p>"Consumers need more than just guidelines. This new policy comes with a lot of bark, but not enough bite," Marta Tellado, President and CEO of Consumer Reports, said in a statement.</p>
<p>Industry reaction, however, was largely favorable. Former NHTSA Administrator David Strickland, who now represents a coalition involving Ford, Google, Lyft, Uber, and Volvo Cars, said the guidelines are a foundation of how to test and deploy autonomous cars. Yet if a manufacturer doesn't follow the guidelines "it will be open and apparent," he said.</p>
<p>____</p>
<p>Associated Press writer Justin Pritchard contributed from Los Angeles. Krisher and Durbin reported from Detroit.</p> | Innovation, safety sought in self-driving car guidelines | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/09/20/innovation-safety-sought-in-self-driving-car-guidelines.html | 2016-09-20 | 0 |
<p>In the northern Colombian department of Choco, gold buyer Alfredo Hurtado walks across a bulldozed stretch of jungle the size of a football field.</p>
<p>It’s a former gold mining site, and it’s littered with slag heaps and pits of contaminated water.</p>
<p>The miners who worked here just wanted the gold, Hurtado says.</p>
<p>“They don’t care if the land is turned upside down,” he lamented.</p>
<p>Hurtado says this kind of wasteland is a common sight in Colombia. With gold demand booming around the world, production is booming in Latin American. Colombia ranks among the world’s top 15 producers. About half of its production is extracted by small-scale miners and illegal prospectors — who often leave behind a ravaged and badly polluted landscape.</p>
<p>One of the biggest problems is mercury. Many miners use the toxic metal to separate the gold from the ore in which it’s found.</p>
<p>But exposure to mercury can cause serious and permanent health problems, including brain damage and birth defects. And Colombians are exposed to huge amounts of it. A recent United Nations report found that Colombian mining is the world’s largest mercury polluter, per capita.</p>
<p>But these days, the country is also ground zero for a new movement to clean up small-scale mining. It’s called Oro Verde, or Green Gold.</p>
<p>One project is on display right here in Choco.</p>
<p>Alongside a small mountain river, Miner Luis Palomino picks a few leaves from a balsa tree and stirs them in a wooden bowl filled with water and sediment from the river. The leaves create a soapy film that attaches to the lighter minerals and can be washed away, leaving behind heavier flecks of gold.</p>
<p>They do basically the same thing as mercury, but without the health risk.</p>
<p>The technique was passed down by Palomino’s ancestors, former African slaves. Palomino says it’s slower and extracts less gold, but he has no interest in using mercury.</p>
<p>“We’ve mined gold like this all our lives,” he said.</p>
<p>And because the technique is chemical-free, Palomino earns a 15 percent premium over the world price for gold through a UK-based outfit called Fairtrade and Fairmined.</p>
<p>Green Gold project director Felipe Arango says Fairtrade and Fairmined gold costs more, but he believes there’s a market for it.</p>
<p>“Our bet is that if we can attach a value to it and if we can get consumers to recognize it, it should be enough,” Arango said. “The forests and the ecosystems that are around these mines should be more valuable than the gold itself.”</p>
<p>The idea behind these and other efforts is to do for gold mining what the organic and fair trade movements are doing for food production.</p>
<p>“This is a sector that can transform itself,” says Lina Villa, who heads the Alliance for Responsible Mining in Medellín.</p>
<p>Her organization promotes techniques that cut back on mercury use, but don’t eliminate it altogether. Things like better storage and handling techniques can reduce accidents and toxic emissions, and miners who adopt them are eligible for a 10 percent bonus from Fairtrade and Fairmined.</p>
<p>“Miners are willing to change and to do things in a different way,” Villa said. “Once you have that evidence that change is possible, not embracing change doesn’t make sense.”</p>
<p>Fairtrade and Fairmined hopes to sign up legions of miners across Latin America, Africa and Asia. Small-scale prospectors like these make up 90 percent of the world’s gold mining labor force.</p>
<p>But so-called responsible mining has been slow to catch on. Mining with less mercury takes longer and is less profitable, even with the premiums.</p>
<p>That may be why just 1,400 miners in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia have so far joined the Fairtrade and Fairmined movement.</p>
<p>Supporters aren’t discouraged, though. Arango points out that campaigns for fair-trade coffee and chocolate also started slowly and are now booming.</p>
<p>“This is the beginning,” Arango says. “Right now the volumes are small, but we are starting to see consumers and the mining industry paying attention to a different way of doing things.”</p>
<p>And for the miners in Choco, those different ways of doing things bring more than health advantages.</p>
<p>As she takes a break from shoveling, Green Gold miner Mariveth Mosquera points to patches of land that have been restored after excavation, and which now sprout crops like yucca and plantains. The premiums she and her family receive for their eco-friendlier approach have also helped them build fish ponds with mercury-free water to cultivate tilapia.</p>
<p>“Yes, mining like this is harder,” Mosquera says. “But mercury would kill the fish. It would affect everything. Working without mercury is better.”</p> | Colombian miners looking to more environmentally friendly gold mining process | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-12-31/colombian-miners-looking-more-environmentally-friendly-gold-mining-process | 2012-12-31 | 3 |
<p>Published time: 24 Nov, 2017 14:58Edited time: 24 Nov, 2017 15:11</p>
<p>Some of the world’s leading football figures, including Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Jose Mourinho, feature in the latest episode of ‘The Stan Collymore Show’, where among other things they talk about the upcoming FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia.</p>
<p>In the fourth episode of his RT series, Collymore focuses on the nations which have qualified for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, in the process talking to some of the most famous names in the game, including Argentina star Lionel Messi, Uruguay’s Luis Suarez, and South Korea’s Son Heung-min.</p>
<p>[embedded content]</p>
<p>The episode also looks at the tragic fire at London’s Grenfell Tower which shocked the world last summer, causing 71 deaths and sparking intense debate about the issue of inequality in UK society.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/sport/409523-owen-collymore-england-goal-argentina/" type="external">READ MORE:&#160;‘A life-changing moment’ – former England star Michael Owen recalls World Cup wonder goal</a></p>
<p>The local football team Queens Park Rangers brought the community together to help those affected, and Stan took part in a charity game organized by the club, speaking to a myriad of big names who also played for a Grenfell charity team, including Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho and musician Jarvis Cocker.</p>
<p>‘The Stan Collymore Show’ airs weekly on RT. For more information, check out the show’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/The-Stan-Collymore-Show-1883744455274900" type="external">Facebook page</a>.</p> | Messi, Suarez, Mourinho discuss World Cup & more with RT’s Stan Collymore | false | https://newsline.com/messi-suarez-mourinho-discuss-world-cup-more-with-rts-stan-collymore/ | 2017-11-24 | 1 |
<p>By <a href="" type="internal">Juan Cole</a> / <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2016/09/inspired-allegedly-torches.html" type="external">Informed Comment</a></p>
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<p><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/7507311@N06/" type="external">kl801</a> <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2016/09/inspired-allegedly-torches.html" type="external">(CC BY 2.0)</a></p>
<p><a href="http://heavy.com/news/2016/09/joseph-schreiber-mosque-omar-mateen-fire-fort-pierce-arson-suspect-eid-al-adha-record-islamic-center-florida-st-lucie-sheriff-facebook/%20" type="external">Joseph Michael Schreiber</a> stands accused of having carried out an arson attack against a mosque in Fort Pierce, Florida, about an hour’s drive north from West Palm Beach.</p>
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<p>The mosque was burned down on the first night of Eid al-Adha or the Festival of Sacrifice, a major Muslim holy day that in part commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son at God’s command. The fire was set after midnight and it wasn’t until 5 am until the local firefighters could put the blaze out.</p>
<p>The small congregation of 100 <a href="http://www.chroniclet.com/Nation-World/2016/09/13/Orlando-Islamic-community-vows-to-rebuild-mosque-after-fire-set.html%20" type="external">vows to rebuild</a> the edifice.</p>
<p>Those who want to contribute to the rebuilding <a href="https://www.launchgood.com/project/rebuilding_the_islamic_center_of_fort_pierce%20" type="external">can do so at this page</a> by clicking on “support.”</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.icfp-fl.com/%20" type="external">Fort Pierce Islamic Center</a> had a web page that wished visitors “peace be upon you” and described itself this way:</p>
<p>“In the name of God, the Most Merciful and Most Compassionate,</p>
<p>The Islamic Center of Fort Pierce is the oldest mosque in the Treasure Coast area, located on West Midway Road in White City. The purpose of this mosque is to cater to the needs of the greater Muslim community by providing a wide range of services, activities, programs, and classes. Over the years, the mosque has been a central point for the Muslim community and the center has been used for events, lectures, meetings, classes, and much more. We strongly condemn all acts of terror and violence.”</p>
<p>It serviced a diverse community from <a href="https://www.salatomatic.com/spc/Fort-Pierce/Islamic-Center-of-Fort-Pierce/a41MJMlO6s%20" type="external">22 countries.</a> Muslim-Americans in the Fort Pierce have been <a href="http://www.racematters.org/ftpiercemuslimsfeelingfear.htm%20" type="external">living in fear and suffering from severe harassment</a> for several years.</p>
<p>Schreiber, 32, is single and is likely to remain so. He has a history of petty theft and faces 30 years in prison if he is convicted of the arson as a hate crime.</p>
<p>He at one point posted to his Facebook page a GOP National Committee picture showing Trump/Spence and the words “The team that will make America great again!”</p>
<p />
<p>It seems to me that Donald Trump bears some of the responsibility for the burning of the mosque and that the congregants should look into suing him.</p>
<p>Trump has said that “Islam hates us,” has advocated banning Muslims from coming to the United States and has baited President Obama for not using the phrase “radical Islamic extremism.” He might as well have handed the Fort Pierce arsonist a can of gasoline and some matches.</p>
<p>Schreiber at one point wrote “ALL ISLAM IS RADICAL , and should be considered TERRORIST AND CRIMANALS and all hoo participate in such activity should be found guilty of WAR CRIM until law and order is restored in this beautiful free country , all who agree with this statement ,like it and make a comment.”</p>
<p>He also attacked President Obama and Sec. Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>Actually, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/us/muslims-in-america-shattering-misperception/%20" type="external">Muslim-Americans</a> have served in the US military protecting the United States from terrorist and other threats. The community is thought to be at least 3 million strong in this country and so comprises 1 percent of the US population. They are disproportionately well educated. They agree that women should have their own careers if they want them, and the women in the Muslim-American community have even more higher degrees that the men. Muslim-Americans have a deep history on this continent. Many Latinos in the southwest were of Arab Muslim heritage from Andalucia, who had been forced to convert to Catholicism but sometimes kept some Muslim customs. Muslims were brought from Africa as slaves from the beginning of American history in the time of the British colonies, and at least 20% of the slaves were Muslim. Since Muslim slaves probably helped build the White House, it is only right that the African-American son of an African Muslim now inhabits it.</p>
<p>Schreiber does not appear anywhere to have mentioned Omar Mateen, who frequented a gay nightclub in Orlando seeking dates and later committed a mass shooting there. It is alleged that Mateen may have stopped in at the Fort Pierce mosque two or three times a year and that he attended there as a small child.</p>
<p>It is extremely irresponsible for the press to put Mateen in the headlines and the lede about the arson, since there is no known connection, and the members of the Fort Pierce congregation aren’t responsible for him. Many are high-powered physicians curing local Floridians of their ailments.</p>
<p>Indeed, foregrounding Mateen, who was not living in Fort Pierce and did not commit his crime there, is a form of blaming the victim and would never be done with regard to other religions.</p>
<p>If there were an arson at the Christian church would journalists dig up all the felons who had gone there and mention them in the headline?</p>
<p>The story here is not that the Fort Pierce Muslim community deserved what happened to them. It is that they were attacked by a racist bigot who appears to have been inspired by the anti-Muslim hate speech of Donald J. Trump and his acolytes. And mark my words, this is only the beginning.</p> | Trump-Supporting Felon Allegedly Torches Florida Mosque, Says 'All Islam Is Radical' | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/trump-supporting-felon-allegedly-torches-florida-mosque-says-all-islam-is-radical/ | 2016-09-15 | 4 |
<p>A post-debate poll shows real estate mogul Donald Trump holding onto his massive lead, with Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) tied for second place.</p>
<p>Here are the results from the leftist <a href="http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/02/trump-clinton-still-have-big-sc-leads.html." type="external">Public Policy Polling survey:</a></p>
<p>PPP has come under severe criticism for its methods; as Nate Cohn <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/114769/ppp-methodology-results-arent-defense" type="external">wrote</a> in 2013, "Everything about PPP’s polling screams 'unrepresentative sample.'” The same year, Nate Silver <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nate-silver-calls-out-ppp-for-liberal-bias-on-gun-control-poll/article/2535603" type="external">slammed</a>PPP for refusing to publish a poll showing defeat for pro-gun control lawmakers facing recall in Colorado. Silver tweeted, "VERY bad and unscientific practice for @ppppolls to suppress a polling result they didn't believe/didn't like."</p>
<p>PPP's write-up of their survey remarks on how "consistent" Trump's support is among every demographic:</p>
<p>Most surprising of all is that Trump leads among those who have a favorable view of former President George W. Bush at 26 percent, followed by Cruz at 22 percent and Rubio at 20 percent. It seems as if Trump channeling Code Pink and Michael Moore at Saturday's debate has not harmed him so far.</p>
<p>If the race in South Carolina were to be between only Trump, Rubio and Cruz, the results would be 40 percent, 28 percent and 22 percent, respectively. In head-to-head matchups, Trump holds a slim lead over Rubio 46 percent to 45 percent, while he leads Cruz by a margin of 48 percent to 38 percent.</p>
<p>Predictably, since PPP leans so heavily toward the left, Cruz has the worst favorability ratings of any Republican candidate in the poll, as 42 percent have a favorable view of him while 48 percent don't. The candidate with the best favorables in the state is Carson, as 68 percent view him positively, followed by Rubio at 58 percent.</p>
<p>Despite Trump's massive lead, PPP describes the race as "fluid," since 29 percent voters say that their minds could change between now and election day. The polling the rest of the week will reveal a better indication as to just how fluid the race in South Carolina really is. As Breitbart's Mike Flynn <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/15/trump-enters-home-stretch-with-big-south-carolina-lead/" type="external">writes,</a> "The best way to evaluate this PPP poll is as one data point. Over the next two days there will be many more public polls released. The key is to identify trends."</p> | Surprise: Leftist Poll Trashes Cruz, Finds Trump Still Up Big In South Carolina | true | https://dailywire.com/news/3413/polls-trump-still-big-south-carolina-aaron-bandler | 2016-02-16 | 0 |
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<p>Avon Products Inc reported a bigger-than-expected drop in quarterly sales as demand for its cosmetics declined further in Latin America, its biggest market.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The company's sales in Latin America fell 26 percent to $779.2 million in the fourth quarter, hurt by a slump in demand from Brazil.</p>
<p>Latin America accounts for nearly half of Avon's total revenue.</p>
<p>The company, whose sales have been falling for four years, is selling most of its struggling North America business to top investor Cerberus Capital Management as it focuses on better performing markets such as Latin America.</p>
<p>Avon also outlined plans in January to turn its business around, including cost cuts of $350 million in the next three years, investment in technology and better use of social media.</p>
<p>The net loss attributable to Avon widened to $333.4 million, or 76 cents per share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31 from $330.7 million, or 75 cents per share, a year earlier.</p>
<p>Total revenue fell 20.2 percent to $1.61 billion.</p>
<p>Analysts on average had expected sales to fall 9.4 percent to $1.82 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p>
<p>Avon reported a loss of $14.8 million, or 4 cents per share, from continuing operations. (Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Avon Sales Fall for 16th Straight Quarter as Latam Demand Slumps | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/02/11/avon-sales-fall-for-16th-straight-quarter-as-latam-demand-slumps.html | 2016-02-11 | 0 |
<p>Without question, the ongoing human rights atrocities being carried out by the Castro-influenced Maduro regime in Venezuela, is a soft spot for Senator Marco Rubio, who has been leading the protest efforts against that government since the days of Hugo Chavez.</p>
<p>It is fair and accurate to say that the Castro regime in Cuba’s influence and promotion of Communism throughout the Western Hemisphere, has lead to civil wars that have lead to the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians.</p>
<p>Rubio recently addressed the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute about the current situation in Venezuela, and the desire of Venezuelans.</p>
<p>Here is the abbreviated transcript from Rubio’s address to the group.</p>
<p>RUBIO: [T]his cause … is not about interfering in the internal affairs of Venezuela. It’s about supporting the people of Venezuela. In essence, this is a cause they’ve taken up. If millions of people had shown up this Sunday in support of moving in the Cuba direction, we would be very disappointed.</p>
<p>But that’s not what happened. Millions of people showed up to reject this unconstitutional direction that the country is headed. In essence, millions of Venezuelans have said, “we don’t want to be Cuba.” For good reason. “We don’t want to be a Cuban-style government.”</p>
<p>And it’s appropriate, one, in a country that has one of the oldest traditions of democracy in the region. And how tragic would it be if on July 30th of this month, that constitutional order was overthrown?</p>
<p>And what would take its place is no less than a Cuban-style government. It is not an exaggeration to say that.</p> | Rubio: Venezuelans Say They “Don’t Want To Be Cuba” | true | http://shark-tank.com/2017/07/20/rubio-venezuelans-say-they-dont-want-to-be-cuba/ | 0 |
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<p>Is there anything a candidate can do that is so bad it’s worth losing a Senate seat or the White House over?</p>
<p>That’s the going question in modern politics. It’s particularly relevant now that the Washington Post has alleged that Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore sexually molested a 14-year-old girl in 1979. Many Republicans are calling for Moore to step aside if the charges are true. But there are others in the Republican party who say that this position is backwards — that it grants the Left a seat they wouldn’t otherwise win. Moore is up 11 points in the polls right now, and current Alabama law prohibits replacement of Moore on the ballot with sitting Senator Luther Strange.</p>
<p>So, what’s the limit on behavior?</p>
<p>We’ve learned over the past 20 years that there probably is none. Bill Clinton allegedly sexually harassed interns, allegedly sexually assaulted women, probably committed perjury? He’s the president, and so long as he supports abortions on demand, Nina Burleigh was “happy to give him a blowjob just to thank him.” Donald Trump was caught on tape stating that he could grab women by the genitals and get away with it due to his fame — and multiple women then accused him of sexual assault and harassment? He’s running against Hillary, and the choice is binary. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) may be convicted of corruption for allegedly obtaining visas for a major supporter’s foreign sex liaisons? He’s a Democrat, and Democrats need that seat. Senator Teddy Kennedy (D-MA) left a woman to drown in a river? Hey, he’s a Kennedy, and we need him to push health care.</p>
<p>In fact, the only senators who have resigned under scandalous pressure since 1942 were Senators Harrison Williams in 1982, over Abscam allegations; Senator Bob Packwood (R-OR) amid sexual misconduct charges in 1995; and Senator John Ensign (R-NV), amid financial charges springing from an affair. No presidential candidate has stepped aside amid scandal.</p>
<p>Governors have a better record of stepping aside amidst impropriety, including Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, among others. That’s in part because lieutenant governors of the same party typically fill the role after a resignation. But that just shows that people resign when the political risks to their agenda are alleviated — not when those risks are increased.</p>
<p>And so the question stands: what would someone of your party need to do in order for you to put your political priorities aside in favor of standing against the immoral behavior of that candidate?</p>
<p>The biggest problem here is that we have a prisoner’s dilemma: if only one side is willing to abide by a standard, the other side wins. Imagine Teddy Kennedy running against Roy Moore, and they’re both hit with scandals. Now imagine the Republicans pull Moore but the Democrats leave Kennedy. A garbage person still occupies the seat, but the Republicans have forfeited. And it’s easy enough to use the lesser-of-two evils logic to justify pretty much anything.</p>
<p>Until people on all sides of the political aisle are willing to throw out candidates who act evilly, we’re likely to see the moral quality of candidates continue to decline. Opportunists on both sides will bash their opponents for sticking with nasty human beings, then go back to doing the same with their own allies. And the country gets worse and worse. Unless, that is, one party holds to a standard, and the American people reward that party for upholding that standard. Then everyone in every party would have an incentive to stand up for decent behavior. In the end, it’s not about what the parties are willing to tolerate. It’s about what the American people won’t. And right now, Americans seem willing to tolerate just about anything.</p> | Should Republicans Dump Moore Over Sexual Abuse Allegations? | true | https://dailywire.com/news/23385/should-republicans-dump-moore-over-sexual-abuse-ben-shapiro | 2017-11-09 | 0 |
<p>Jan 22 (Reuters) - L’occitane International Sa:</p>
<p>* GROUP’S 9-MNTH NET SALES GREW BY 3.0 PCT AT CONSTANT RATES AND -0.6 PCT AT REPORTED RATES</p>
<p>* 9-MONTH LIKE-FOR-LIKE BASIS SALES GREW BY 3.9 PCT AT CONSTANT RATES AND 0.3 PCT AT REPORTED RATES​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: ([email protected])</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) - Snap Inc ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SNAP.N" type="external">SNAP.N</a>) on Friday said it cut 7 percent of its global workforce in March, as disclosed by it in a regulatory filing <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000156459018007282/0001564590-18-007282-index.htm" type="external">here</a>.</p> A woman stands in front of the logo of Snap Inc. on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) while waiting for Snap Inc. to post their IPO, in New York City, NY, U.S. March 2, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
<p>The social media company said it would incur about $10 million of cash expenditure due to severance costs to be reflected in the current quarter ending March 31.</p>
<p>As a result of the layoffs, primarily in its engineering and sales teams, the company said it sees savings of about $25 million in 2018.</p>
<p>The company had said it had 3,069 employees as of Dec. 31, 2017, according to its annual filing <a href="https://bit.ly/2pScNbz" type="external">bit.ly/2pScNbz</a>.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=SNAP.N" type="external">Snap Inc</a> 15.87 SNAP.N New York Stock Exchange -0.08 (-0.50%) SNAP.N
<p>The Snapchat parent has been under pressure from investors to reduce costs after revenue fell short of analyst expectations during Snap’s first year as a publicly traded company.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, a company memo had shown that the company would cut just over 120 engineers and reorganize its engineering team, Reuters reported.</p>
<p>The Southern California-based company said the workforce reduction “is to align resources around our top strategic priorities and to reflect structural changes in our business.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Oil Corp plans to invest 1.43 trillion rupees ($22 billion) in next five years as the country’s top refiner seeks to raise its annual capacity to about 3.2 million barrels per day by 2030, its head of refineries said on Saturday.</p> FILE PHOTO: A logo of Indian Oil is seen on the shirt of an employee at a fuel station in New Delhi, India August 29, 2016. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File Photo
<p>Refiners in India, the world’s third-biggest oil consumer and importer, have sketched out plans to raise their capacity by 77 percent to about 8.8 million bpd by 2030 to meet the country’s rising fuel demand.</p>
<p>India is emerging as one of the global drivers for refined fuels consumption as its economic expansion and rising industrial activity yields infrastructure improvements and increased energy access for commercial and retail consumers.</p>
<p>“There is a need for us to enhance our capacity to meet the future demand and enhance our capacity ... We have already made our plans for investment of 1.06 trillion rupees,” B. V. Rama Gopal told a news conference.</p>
<p>He said board approval was yet to be obtained for 365 billion investment aimed at raising capacity of its Guwahati and Bongaigaon refineries in the northeast and Paradip plant in eastern Odisha state.</p>
<p>“We are going to enhance capacity in terms of crude processing and fuel specification,” Rama Gopal said, as India plans a nationwide roll out of Euro-VI compliant fuels in the country from April 2020.</p>
<p>IOC’s current capacity stands at about 1.62 million bpd including 230,00 bpd controlled by its subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corp.</p>
<p>IOC processed a record 1.38 million bpd crude at its directly owned plants in 2017/18 mainly due to higher runs at its refineries in Paradip, which was commissioned in 2015, and at Bongaigaon, Guwahati and Digboi in the northeast.</p>
<p>Plants in land-locked northeastern India, with a combined capacity of about 80,000 bpd, for the first time operated at full capacity as the company began supplying low sulfur crude imported at Paradip through pipelines and by road.</p>
<p>Traditionally the northeastern refineries were using local crude, supplies of which have declined.</p>
<p>IOC is gradually building its portfolio of alternative fuels such as solar and production of ethanol, as well as boosting its petrochemical production.</p>
<p>“We don’t want to remain a refining company alone ... in addition to refining we will be venturing out in different areas like petrochemicals and alternate fuels,” he said.</p>
<p>Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Alison Williams</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>(Reuters) -</p> Shopping carts are seen outside a new Wal-Mart Express store in Chicago July 26, 2011. REUTERS/John Gress/Files
<p>U.S. retailer Walmart Inc is in early-stage talks with health insurer Humana Inc about developing closer ties, with the acquisition of Humana being discussed as one possibility, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.</p>
<p>Should the talks lead to a tieup, it would be the latest deal to bring together a retail chain and a health insurer in the last few months, following CVS Health Corp’s $69 billion deal to acquire Aetna Inc and Cigna Corp’s $54 billion deal to buy Express Scripts Holding Co.</p>
<p>Walmart approached Humana earlier this month and the deliberations are preliminary, two of the sources said. While the conversations have focused on new partnerships, an acquisition of Humana by Walmart is also something being discussed, the sources added.</p>
<p>The sources asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential. Humana and Walmart declined to comment.</p>
<p>Walmart and Humana have market capitalizations of $264 billion and $37 billion, respectively.</p>
<p>An acquisition of Humana would represent a significant strategic shift for Walmart, which is the world’s largest retailer and has been focused on fending off Amazon.com Inc in online shopping.</p>
<p>Amazon has also been looking at entering the healthcare sector. Earlier this year, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway Inc and JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co, said they would form a company aimed at cutting healthcare costs for their U.S. employees.</p>
<p>“The risks (for Walmart) of becoming entangled in the complex U.S. healthcare industry are considerable, especially at a time when Walmart is grappling with the competitive challenges of a rapidly shifting retail market,” Neil Saunders, managing director of retail consultancy GlobalData Retail, wrote in a note.</p>
<p>“The hammering out of any agreement, which would be Walmart’s largest ever corporate deal, would, of itself, be an enormous distraction,” Saunders added.</p>
<p>Walmart currently has a co-branded Medicare drug plan with Humana that steers patients to Walmart stores. The partnership offers a prescription drug plan that can save up to 20 percent in drug costs for customers.</p>
<p>Closer ties between the two companies could allow Walmart to tap into Humana’s patient population, expanding low-level medical services in its pharmacies to avoid ER visits. They could allow it to better manage prescription drug use though access to medical records.</p>
<p>Humana’s biggest business is managing Medicare Advantage health plans for older and disabled people, a heavily regulated business that Walmart would have to take on in an acquisition.</p>
<p>Memberships in retail Medicare Advantage plans - where individuals sign up directly with Humana - rose about 1 percent to 2.86 million, as of Dec. 31. Employer or other group-based Medicare Advantage membership climbed 24 percent to 441,400.</p>
<p>Last month, Walmart reported a sharp drop in profit and online sales growth during the critical holiday period and forecast annual profit at the lower end of expectations.</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany’s finance ministry expects interest rates to rise in coming years, causing new Minster Olaf Scholz to take steps to cushion additional costs to meet budget goals, Der Spiegel weekly reported on Saturday.</p> Germany's Finance Minister Olaf Scholz leaves a news conference during the 2018 G20 Conference entitled "The G20 Agenda Under the Argentine Presidency", in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 18, 2018. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian
<p>“The financial planning up to 2022 (envisages) a necessary normalization of the capital market environment,” Spiegel cited an internal document as saying.</p>
<p>Experts usually see interest rates of between 3 percent and 4 percent as “normal”, compared to below zero percent now, reported Der Spiegel.</p>
<p>The European Central Bank’s deposit facility is at -0.40 percent while its benchmark refinancing rate is at a record low of 0.0 percent.</p>
<p>German 10-year bond yields, which indicate the country’s likely cost of borrowing, fell in March but remain at around 0.5 percent DE10YT=RR.</p>
<p>Der Spiegel reported that a one percent increase in average interest rates in Europe’s biggest economy would mean an additional 10 billion euros in costs which could complicate the new government’s efforts to maintain a balanced budget.</p>
<p>A spokesman for the finance ministry declined to comment on the report.</p>
<p>Money markets are pricing in the ECB’s first interest rate rise since 2011 next year and the euro zone central bank is also considering how and when to end its 2.55 trillion euro bond purchase scheme aimed at stimulating inflation and growth.</p>
<p>A possible trade war with the United States is a possible dampener on the outlook but German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told Spiegel he was confident the EU and Washington would “find a sensible compromise by the summer” in trade talks.</p>
<p>Last week U.S. President Donald Trump temporarily excluded the EU, the United States’ biggest trading partner, and six other non-European countries from higher U.S. import duties on steel and aluminum.</p>
<p>The higher tariffs are aimed at curbing imports from China. Altmaier said Germany agreed with the United States in wanting to tackle overcapacity in the global steel market, partly caused by China.</p>
<p>“We are looking for a common line in the fight against price dumping and intellectual property theft. We want to find solutions that are compatible with international trade rules,” he told Der Spiegel.</p>
<p>Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Catherine Evans</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | BRIEF-L'occitane International SA Says Group's 9-Mnth Net Sales Grew By 3.0 Pct At Constant Rates Snapchat parent cuts 7 percent of its global workforce in March India's top refiner plans $22 billion expansion over five years Walmart talking with Humana on closer ties; acquisition possible: sources German finance ministry sees hefty interest rate rises: Spiegel | false | https://reuters.com/article/brief-loccitane-international-sa-says-gr/brief-loccitane-international-sa-says-groups-9-mnth-net-sales-grew-by-30-pct-at-constant-rates-idUSFWN1PH053 | 2018-01-22 | 2 |
<p>Obituaries reporting the recent death of educational psychologist Kenneth B. Clark have quite properly highlighted the influential role that his research played in the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Clark studied how black children described black and white dolls and concluded from their more favorable reaction to white dolls that black children regarded themselves as inferior. The Court in Brown cited his findings — and other “modern authority” on “psychological knowledge” — in determining that segregated public schools “generate[] a feeling of inferiority as to [black children’s] status in the community.” For that reason, the Court ruled, segregated public schools are “inherently unequal” and violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws.</p>
<p>The compelling moral case for the result in Brown has muffled contemporary discussion of the serious defects in its methodology. The Left’s current interest in Brown is in asserting that originalism — the traditional method of construing the provisions of the Constitution according to their original meaning — could not have produced Brown‘s mandate to end segregated schools and must therefore be regarded as illegitimate. As I discuss <a href="" type="internal">here</a>, that assertion is wrong. But there has been much less scrutiny of the actual reasoning of Brown. This is unfortunate, for although Brown‘s bottom-line result is both morally sound and legally right, the methodology of Brown illustrates — and has spawned — two characteristic operational defects in non-originalist decision-making.</p>
<p>The first of these defects is that the Supreme Court’s reasoning often is indeterminate and unworthy of being taken seriously as law. In Brown itself, are we to believe that the justices’ thinking actually rested on modern psychological research like Clark’s? Isn’t it telling that the Court does not even attempt to explain the less-than-obvious connection between how a black child describes black and white dolls and the relative effect of integrated vs. segregated schools on that child’s “feeling of inferiority”? What if research a few years later showed that integrated schools increased black children’s “feeling of inferiority”? Are we to suppose that the Supreme Court might have overturned the decision in Brown? If so, should we respect a methodology that yields results that are so flimsy? And, if (as seems surely the case) differing social-science data would never result in the overturning of Brown, doesn’t that show that the purported reasoning is entirely makeshift?</p>
<p>This defect in the Court’s reasoning is perhaps most clearly manifested in the absurd postmodernist proclamation set forth in the 1992 Casey abortion case (and reiterated without embarrassment in the 2003 Lawrence decision inventing a constitutional right to homosexual sodomy) that “[a]t the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” What this infamous “mystery” passage really means, of course, is that five justices will consult their own whims and preferences to define for all Americans which legislated crimes will be magically transformed into constitutional rights.</p>
<p>The second, more subtle defect in Brown is the Supreme Court’s disinclination to reexamine its own dubious precedents on the meaning of the Constitution. Contrary to the conventional understanding, the Court in Brown did not purport to overrule its infamous 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the “separate but equal” doctrine and allowed segregated streetcars. Rather, the question that the Court defined for itself was merely “whether Plessy v. Ferguson should be held inapplicable to public education.” The Court’s cursory and muddled discussion of its “inconclusive” “investigation” into the original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment strongly suggests that that investigation was not undertaken with any rigor or vigor. And its resulting refusal to revisit Plessy left its decision resting on contestable and unconvincing social-science data rather than on firm constitutional principle.</p>
<p>Again, this excessive adherence to erroneous precedent is prominent in Casey, where the Court set forth at length its bizarre view that the very fact that a decision has aroused intense criticism is somehow a strong reason that the decision, even though wrong, should not be overruled: “to overrule under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason to reexamine a watershed decision would subvert the Court’s legitimacy beyond any serious question.” In short, the Court was more concerned with managing imagined perceptions of its own legitimacy than with construing the Constitution correctly. As Justice Scalia, in dissent, aptly put it: “The Imperial Judiciary lives.”</p>
<p>The Supreme Court earned tremendous moral capital from the just and right result it reached in Brown — a result that this country’s political leaders did not have the courage to achieve. Unfortunately, over the last several decades the Court has squandered that moral capital by repeating the methodological defects of Brown in furtherance of results that are plainly inconsistent with the text and structure of the Constitution (as well as — in cases like Roe v. Wade — contrary to elemental justice). The Court has gone from relying on research about playing with dolls to playing its own elaborate game of make-believe jurisprudence. And, although the Court’s respect for its own precedent has been unprincipled and inconsistent, it has too often elevated adherence to its own wrong or dubious precedents above its obligation to faithfully construe the Constitution.</p>
<p>Contrary to the Left’s misuse of Brown, the real lesson to be drawn from its unhappy methodological legacy is the urgent need for the Court to commit itself to principled and reasoned originalist decision-making.</p>
<p>— <a href="" type="internal">Edward Whelan</a>&#160;is president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and directs EPPC’s program on the Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture.</p> | Playing Make-Believe | false | https://eppc.org/publications/playing-make-believe/ | 1 |
|
<p>Saudi authorities are investigating a series of videos, initially posted to the Snapchat account of "Model Khulood," that show a young woman in a high-waisted miniskirt walking through a fort in Ushaiqer, outside the capital Riyadh.</p>
<p>In the videos, the woman is shown playing with sand in the dunes and turning toward the camera for a close-up, her long hair uncovered.</p>
<p>The videos have since been uploaded to Twitter and tweeted by different users.</p>
<p>The local government of Riyadh has issued a memo saying authorities were taking the "necessary measures" to find the woman, who it accused of "walking around ... in indecent clothing."</p>
<p>The Commission of the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — Saudi Arabia's "morality police" — on Sunday also confirmed it was investigating the case in coordination with "relevant authorities" via Twitter.</p>
<p>The snaps have <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-40633687" type="external">sparked heated debate</a>, with social media users in the region and beyond weighing in on questions of gender and rights in the kingdom, where women are required to wear long black abaya robes and cover their hair in public.</p>
<p>Many have come to the defense of the girl, pointing out the privileges afforded to Western women by Saudi authorities. US First Lady Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump, daughter of the president, did not cover their hair when they visited Saudi Arabia in May.</p>
<p>"If it were Trump's daughter, we would have braced ourselves for the flood of compliments and love poems," read one tweet.</p>
<p>"Problem solved," tweeted Shahd bint Fahd alongside a picture of the model with Ivanka Trump's face superimposed over the original.</p>
<p>Others expressed outrage and derided those speaking out in support of the model.</p>
<p>"These are the demands of the liberal ignorant community: a naked woman, a co-ed movie theatre, and music and dance. That's progress to them! Not health care and not education," read another tweet.</p> | Saudi authorities are investigating a video of a woman wearing a miniskirt in public | false | https://pri.org/stories/2017-07-18/saudi-authorities-are-investigating-video-woman-wearing-miniskirt-public | 2017-07-18 | 3 |
<p>BRISBANE, Australia — Julian Assange said Thursday that he had founded a political party, named WikiLeaks after his anti-secrecy organization, and would contest a seat in the Australian Senate in upcoming national elections, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-25/assange-announces-wikileaks-party-election-candidates/4843582?section=wa" type="external">Australia's ABC reported</a>.</p>
<p>Assange nominated his party's seven other candidates&#160; <a href="http://www.wikileaksparty.org.au/candidates/" type="external">via the WikiLeaks website</a> from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been evading extradition for more than a year. They include academics, journalists and human rights activists.</p>
<p>The Australian election is yet to be called by <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/130627/kevin-rudd-julia-gillard-australian-politics-australian-peter-garrett" type="external">Australia's reinstated prime minister</a>, Kevin Rudd, but must be held sometime this year.</p>
<p>The WikiLeaks Party's policies include a demand that the ruling Labor Government be transparent about its asylum policy, and that people held in immigration detention are held there for no longer than 45 days, the ABC reported.&#160;They are also concerned with press freedom and climate change.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/lack-of-transparency-undermines-our-democracy/story-e6frgd0x-1226684591521" type="external">an editorial</a> published by the Murdoch press, Assange wrote:</p>
<p>"WikiLeaks Party's core values of transparency, accountability and justice are the template against which we will examine any important issues for Australians: tax reform, asylum-seekers, climate change policy and more. We will not accept legislation or government policy that is based on inaccurate, poorly disclosed or inadequate information. In this way our positions will always reflect fairness, good government policy and practice, and protecting the interests of all Australians."</p>
<p>Assange said one of the party's first actions would be to insist on full disclosure of Australia's new arrangement with neighboring Papua New Guinea to house asylum seekers who attempt to travel to Australia by boat in detention centers there.</p>
<p>Assange <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/world/asia/wikileaks-founder-assange-to-run-for-australian-senate.html?_r=0" type="external">told The New York Times</a>in a telephone interview that he could competently run a campaign for an election in Australia from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.</p>
<p>"It’s not unlike running the WikiLeaks organization. We have people on every continent. We have to deal with over a dozen legal cases at once. However, it’s nice to be politically engaged in my home country."</p>
<p>A spokeswoman for the party, Samantha Cross, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/julian-assange-launches-wikileaks-party-via-videolink-from-london-20130725-2qlx7.html" type="external">told the Fairfax media</a> that Assange wanted his WikiLeaks Party to "keep the bastards honest."</p>
<p>She also revealed the logistics behind being an international fugitive from justice and an elected official in the home country.</p>
<p>''He talked about wanting to be back in Australia to take up his seat. He was hopeful that that would occur. If it doesn't, the party will nominate a running mate.''</p>
<p>Australian law allows a vacant Senate seat to be filled by a member of the same party, unlike the House of Representatives — which would require another round of voting.</p>
<p>Assange has resisted being taken to face questioning over an alleged sexual assault in Sweden, from where he fears he could be extradited to the United States to face serious charges in relation to WikiLeaks' 2010 release of US State Department diplomatic cables.</p>
<p>Vice President Joseph Biden has added his voice to US criticism of Assange, labeling him a "high-tech terrorist" whose whistleblowing website has harmed American interests and put lives in danger.</p>
<p>Assange has been outspoken in his support for Edward Snowden, the fugitive former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who blew the lid on vast US phone and internet surveillance programs.</p> | Julian Assange to run for Australian senate as head of WikiLeaks Party | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-07-25/julian-assange-run-australian-senate-head-wikileaks-party | 2013-07-25 | 3 |
<p>QAYYARAH, Iraq — While Iraqi and Kurdish forces advanced on Mosul, the United Nations warned Monday that more than a million residents might try to get out before the fighting starts — and that ISIS could use them as "human shields."</p>
<p>"Already, the operation is so large [that] we're struggling to reach people who need help," said Lise Grande, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator for Iraq. "There isn't an organization in the world that can handle population movement of more than 150,000 people at one time."</p>
<p>Related: <a href="" type="internal">1 Million Could Be Driven From Homes by Battle for Mosul</a></p>
<p>Stephen O'Brien, the U.N. under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said he was "extremely concerned" that families were at risk of "being caught in crossfire or targeted by snipers."</p>
<p>"Tens of thousands of Iraqi girls, boys, women and men may be under siege or held as human shields," he said in a statement earlier. "Thousands may be forcibly expelled or trapped between the fighting lines."</p>
<p>But while the United Nations painted a dire picture, there was cheering as Iraqi government tanks rolled across the desert to begin the long-awaited offensive to end the city's brutal two-year occupation by ISIS.</p>
<p>Despite a sky blackened by burning oil wells deliberately set ablaze by retreating ISIS fighters, morale was high and soldiers flashed victory signs as huge columns of military vehicles moved on Mosul. Some troops even danced.</p>
<p>"The hour has struck," Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said as he announced the move. "The campaign to liberate Mosul has begun."</p>
<p>The operation was assisted by U.S.-led airstrikes, including four strike near Mosul — destroying six tunnel entrances, five supply caches and two artillery systems — and a fifth strike near Qayyarah, in which two ISIS-controlled buildings were hit.</p>
<p>The massive and complex military operation will be the largest in Iraq since U.S&gt; troops left in 2011 and, if successful, the biggest blow yet to ISIS.</p>
<p>While many militants have already fled, forces advancing from all sides of the city face danger from booby traps and improvised explosive devices. An Iraqi news crew witnessed a suicide attack targeting Kurdish Peshmerga forces.</p>
<p>Brig. Helgord Hekmat, a spokesman for the Kurdish forces, said 4,000 Peshmerga launched from about 60 miles east of the city and had retaken nine villages.</p>
<p>"They are advancing to Bartella and liberating all areas on the way to that location," he told NBC News.</p>
<p>Iraqi forces were also advancing toward the city and had freed 10 villages to the south and southeast of Mosul, Brig. Yahya Rasool, a joint operation spokesman, told NBC News. Rasool said people in two villages, Alhod and Lazaga, killed four militants before army and federal police personnel arrived — evidence, he said, that “people are ready to cooperate with Iraqi forces.”</p>
<p>A source inside Mosul told NBC News that ISIS militants and their families had "disappeared from most parts" in the east of the city and that unknown groups were trying to kill any remaining jihadis. Iraq's second-largest city has been under ISIS rule for more than two years since government forces retreated.</p>
<p>It is still home to up to 1.5 million civilians, according to U.N. estimates.</p>
<p>Abadi said that ISIS would be "punished" for its crimes and that the province's cities and villages would be rebuilt.</p>
<p>"We will bring life back to Mosul and all other areas around Mosul," he added.</p>
<p>In a statement, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called the offensive a "decisive moment in the campaign to deliver [ISIS] a lasting defeat."</p>
<p>Brett McGurk, the State Department official coordinating the effort against the group, said it would liberate Iraqis from "two years of darkness."</p>
<p>Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, said in a statement that the operation could take "weeks, possibly longer."</p>
<p>Iraqi Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil told The Associated Press that more than 25,000 troops, including paramilitary forces made up of Sunni tribal fighters and Shiite militias, were taking part.</p>
<p>The role of the Shiite militias has been particularly sensitive, as Nineveh, where Mosul is located, is a majority-Sunni province and Shiite militia forces have been accused of carrying out abuses against civilians in other operations in majority-Sunni parts of Iraq.</p>
<p>Fadhil voiced concern about potential action from Turkish troops based in the region of Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul.</p>
<p>Turkey sent troops to the area late last year to train anti-ISIS fighters there. But Baghdad has seen the Turkish presence as a "blatant violation" of Iraqi sovereignty and has demanded that the Turks withdraw, a call Ankara has thus far ignored.</p>
<p /> | UN: More Than 1 Million Could Flee Mosul Ahead of Siege | false | http://nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/mosul-offensive-iraqi-forces-peshmerga-aim-retake-city-isis-n667446 | 2016-10-17 | 3 |
<p>ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening’s drawing of the New York Lottery’s “Take 5” game were:</p>
<p>03-06-11-16-18</p>
<p>(three, six, eleven, sixteen, eighteen)</p>
<p>ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday evening’s drawing of the New York Lottery’s “Take 5” game were:</p>
<p>03-06-11-16-18</p>
<p>(three, six, eleven, sixteen, eighteen)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in ‘Take 5’ game | false | https://apnews.com/495e5af5f25b495b8fe19a26f7f3f7cd | 2018-01-11 | 2 |
<p>Former Reagan economic adviser urges Republicans not to be ashamed of being themselves and to embrace tax and sending cuts.</p>
<p>A trove of leaked documents relating to offshore investments raised questions early this week about Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) use of an Irish tax haven, a tactic that allowed the tech giant to avoid paying income taxes, saving billions of dollars in profit.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>For years, Apple stashed its money on the tiny island of Jersey located in the English Channel in between France and the United Kingdom. While controversial, and derided by Republicans who tend to view Silicon Valley as an antithesis to their party, Apple’s use of a tax haven is not unique, and it is not illegal.</p>
<p>“They’re doing exactly what the shareholders want them to do,” Art Laffer, a former economic advisor for President Ronald Reagan told FOX Business’ Liz MacDonald. “I mean if you owned shares in Apple, would you want them to pay extra taxes and hurt your stock? No.”</p>
<p>The papers, which included nearly 13.4 million financial documents, contained the names of 120,000 people and companies and showed the ties between the elite and offshore tax havens. Nearly 80% of the world’s wealth stored in offshore accounts belongs to the top 0.1% richest households, according to the documents.</p>
<p>Apple is reportedly holding more than $252 billion in cash overseas, but so long as the company is avoiding taxes but not evading them, the use of a tax haven not illegal, Laffer said during an interview on “Risk &amp; Reward” on Tuesday.</p>
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<p>Donald Trump made bringing corporations back to the U.S. a pinnacle of his 2016 presidential campaign. Now, the Republican-controlled Congress is trying to deliver on that: The House’s tax reform plan, unfurled in its entirety last week, reduces the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% and would impose a 10% tax on some of the profits that Americans businesses earn offshore.</p>
<p>Another rate proposed would allow multinationals to bring home more than $2.6 trillion stashed offshore back to the U.S. at a dramatically reduced tax rate. Whether or not these efforts, if passed, would incentivize companies to return to the U.S. remains to be seen.</p>
<p>“I don’t think they’ll bring it back,” Laffer said, “unless they can get it back very, very cheaply and use it to create jobs."</p> | Apple’s controversial use of offshore tax haven isn’t illegal | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/11/07/apple-s-controversial-use-offshore-tax-haven-isn-t-illegal.html | 2017-11-08 | 0 |
<p>This week, readers sent us comments about our criticisms of a Democratic robocall and claims that the GOP budget plan would "end" Medicare.</p>
<p>In the FactCheck Mailbag, we feature some of the e-mail we receive. Readers can send comments to <a href="" type="internal">[email protected]</a>. Letters may be edited for length.</p>
<p />
<p>Wrong Number?</p>
<p>I am unsure as to the validity of your analysis that the robocall was incorrect [" <a href="" type="internal">DCCC Dials Wrong Number," June 13</a>]. How is the statement that the GOP plan "actually increases the debt by almost $2 trillion" inaccurate? Is 1.9 trillon closer to one trillion or just shy of two trillion? Your analysis on this point lacks accuracy and sincerity.</p>
<p>Laura L. Eggink Tempe, Ariz.</p>
<p>The length you are going at to defend the GOP from factually accurate criticism is extremely bothering.</p>
<p>Your first claim about the statement that the GOP plan "actually increases the debt by almost $2 trillion" is absurd. Your own factcheck confirms that the statement is impeccable. So why is it "misleading"?</p>
<p>Toni Menninger Fayetteville, Ark.</p>
<p>FactCheck.org responds: We judged the $1.9 trillion figure to be "misleading" (not "incorrect"), because the DCCC's robocall claims the GOP budget plan "increases the debt," when in fact the debt level would decrease relative to the even larger debt projected under the president's budget.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>More on Medicare</p>
<p>We know that the Ryan plan will greatly reduce the benefits of those under 55. So what happens when those now 54 get the Ryan plan and it provides not enough for basic care? Those only a year older are then getting the old benefits, which are much better. In fact, everyone older than those afflicted with the Ryan-plan are getting much better benefits. WHAT HAPPENS THEN?</p>
<p>Does anyone seriously think that we will continue with a two-tier system in which most of the seniors under the old Medicare plan are doing OK and the ones younger are not getting enough for basic care?</p>
<p>It will never happen, meaning that everyone older than 55 and assured that the Ryan plan ''would have no effect on Medicare'' are just screwed to the wall.</p>
<p>Jim Davis Fort Worth, Texas</p>
<p>You are just plain wrong about the end of Medicare proposed by the Ryan [plan]. It's a voucher plan [and] is not Medicare anymore than a cow is a bull. Call it what it is: a voucher plan in a proposed regulated market for health insurance for those over 65 as opposed to a government provision of health insurance.</p>
<p>Let me make the distinction for you: government health insurance versus subsidized private insurance.</p>
<p>How much can something change before it's no longer the same thing? You would seem to hold that Medicare is infinitely malleable and remains Medicare regardless. You would seem to argue that nothing short of abolishing assistance for senior health care entails "getting rid of Medicare."&#160;</p>
<p>Mark Johnson Dearing, Ga.</p>
<p>I'm sure it's pointless to add another argument to the "end Medicare [as we know it]" discussion, but I figured the only way to judge the truth is to answer the question, "What is Medicare?"</p>
<p>So, I went to www.medicare.gov and found my way to "Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Publication No. 11306," entitled " <a href="http://www.medicare.gov/Publications/Pubs/pdf/11306.pdf" type="external">What is Medicare?</a>"</p>
<p>It says right off, "Medicare is health insurance for people age 65 or older, under age 65 with certain disabilities, and any age with permanent kidney failure (called 'End-Stage Renal Disease')."</p>
<p>Medicare is health insurance. That is the bottom line. While it may be accurate to say Medicare is an entitlement program, it is disingenuous to suggest that if a replacement for Medicare is an entitlement program aimed at helping people purchase private insurance, it would still be Medicare. It would not.</p>
<p>Joe Pallas Santa Clara, Calif.</p>
<p>FactCheck.org responds: The document the reader refers to also describes Medicare Advantage plans: "These plans are offered by private insurance companies approved by Medicare. Costs and benefits vary by plan." These private plans, subsidized by government, currently cover about 1 out of every 4 Medicare beneficiary. &#160;</p>
<p>In the discussion of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's remarks, [" <a href="" type="internal">DNC Chair Throws Truth to ‘Wolves,’ " May 31</a>], you first quote Ryan, "Health plans that choose to participate in the Medicare exchange must agree to offer insurance to all Medicare beneficiaries, to avoid cherry-picking and ensure that Medicare’s sickest and highest-cost beneficiaries receive coverage." Then you quote somebody from Cato, '"all seniors under the chairman's proposal, as I understand it, will be able to obtain health insurance coverage." And those with preexisting conditions "will get larger vouchers" because payments will be "risk-adjusted so that people with severe illnesses will get larger vouchers."</p>
<p>As for Ryan's remarks, note that insurance companies may refuse to "choose to participate". … Furthermore neither Ryan or the guy from Cato say anything about the cost of the policies. As far as I know there would be no requirement that the companies offer policies anywhere near the value of a person's voucher. Thus it is all too likely that many, many seniors would not be able to afford coverage even with the vouchers. To offer a person with a pre-existing condition a policy so expensive he cannot afford is tantamount to denying him coverage.</p>
<p>But even worse than that is the absurd claim that payments will be "risk-adjusted so that people with severe illnesses will get larger vouchers." One of the reasons that private insurance has such huge overhead is the cost of underwriting, i.e. the determination of whether a person will be offered the policy. While this cost may vanish under RyanCare, it would be replaced with a vastly larger new expense of determining how much each and every person's voucher should be. The cost of this would more than wipe out any savings from Ryan's plan. It is obviously cheaper to give everyone Medicare than to try and determine how much each person's voucher should be.</p>
<p>Len Charlap Princeton, N.J.</p> | FactCheck Mailbag, Week of June 14-20 | false | https://factcheck.org/2011/06/factcheck-mailbag-week-of-june-14-20/ | 2011-06-21 | 2 |
<p>(Photo via Instagram)</p>
<p>“RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” cast took the MTV VMAs on a trip down memory lane by paying tribute to stars such as Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and Lil Kim.</p>
<p>Roxxxy Andrews, Phi Phi O’Hara, Ginger Minj, Katya, Detox, Tatiana, Alaska, Coco Montrese and Alyssa Edwards&#160;all arrived at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in some of the award show’s most iconic looks from over the years.</p>
<p>Montrese&#160;paid homage to Lil Kim’s pasty 1999 purple mermaid jumpsuit. O’Hara was decked out in Lady Gaga’s 2010 meat dress. Alaska chose to honor Spears’ iconic “I’m A Slave 4 U” &#160;snake costume from 2001.</p>
<p>Check out the queens working it VMA style below.</p>
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<p><a href="" type="internal">2016 MTV VMAs</a> <a href="" type="internal">Alaska</a> <a href="" type="internal">Alyssa Edwards</a> <a href="" type="internal">Britney Spears</a> <a href="" type="internal">Coco Montrese</a> <a href="" type="internal">Detox</a> <a href="" type="internal">Ginger Minj</a> <a href="" type="internal">Katya</a> <a href="" type="internal">Lady Gaga</a> <a href="" type="internal">Lil Kim</a> <a href="" type="internal">Phi Phi O'Hara</a> <a href="" type="internal">Roxxxy Andrews</a> <a href="" type="internal">RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 2</a> <a href="" type="internal">Tatiana</a></p> | ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars’ queens recreate classic VMAs looks | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/08/29/rupauls-drag-race-stars-queens-recreate-classic-vmas-looks/ | 3 |
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<p>Their tour of the National Air and Space Museum with a group of middle school students came as the Trump administration proposed further cuts to education and science, drawing harsh criticism from teachers’ unions and others.</p>
<p>Ivanka Trump, a successful entrepreneur who considers herself as a women’s rights activist, lamented that women make up 48 percent of America’s work force but only 24 percent of STEM professionals.</p>
<p>“This statistic is showing that we are sadly moving in the wrong direction. Women are increasingly underrepresented in important fields of science, technology, engineering and math,” Trump said. “But I dare you to beat these statistics and advance the role of women in STEM fields.”</p>
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<p>She said she and her 5-year-old daughter Arabella plan to take a coding class together this summer because “coding truly is the language of the future.”</p>
<p>Astronaut Kay Hire and female researchers at NASA also spoke to the students and DeVos urged the children to follow in their footsteps by studying, working hard and mentoring younger peers.</p>
<p>“You can do your part to improve the lives of women in the future,” DeVos said.</p>
<p>As she praised the role of women in the American space program, Ivanka Trump also said her father’s administration has expanded NASA’s space exploration to add Mars as a top objective. But as she spoke, the Trump administration sent Congress a series of “options” for budget cuts, including slashing $3 billion from Education Department, as well as cuts to NASA and the National Institutes of Health.</p>
<p>The American Federation of Teachers accused the administration of hypocrisy.</p>
<p>“Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Ivanka Trump are feigning an interest in STEM careers with a photo op at the National Air and Space Museum while eliminating all funding for NASA’s education programs. This takes chutzpah to a new level,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “The next generation of astronauts, scientists, engineers and mathematicians need support, not budget cuts eliminating the very programs being promoted.”</p>
<p>But Gerard Robinson, a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said that STEM was not limited to the Education Department and that other agencies, like the Defense Department, where Trump has proposed to increase spending, also have STEM programs.</p>
<p>Robinson added that President Donald Trump has signed two laws aimed at encouraging women to pursue STEM majors. The bills, which Trump signed into law in February, call on NASA to encourage young women to study STEM and empower the National Institutes of Health to support women in turning their scientific work into business ventures.</p>
<p>“Both of these are signs to me that both Trump and Betsy DeVos are committed to advancing women in stem fields,” Robinson said.</p> | Ivanka Trump, Education Secretary DeVos promote STEM careers | false | https://abqjournal.com/977817/ivanka-trump-education-secretary-devos-promote-stem-careers.html | 2017-03-28 | 2 |
<p>Some say physicists and mathematicians caused the financial crisis by unleashing derivatives, credit-default swaps, collateralized-debt obligations, computerized trading programs and complex financial models nobody could possibly understand.</p>
<p>Like Frankenstein's monster, these ubiquitous financial creatures started behaving in unpredictable ways. Soon the economy was destroyed and the villagers were storming Wall Street with torches and pitchforks. In some circles, it even became dangerous to say the word "quant."</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Physicist and mathematician James Owen Weatherall says this is all a big misunderstanding. Sophisticated financial modeling and complex financial products don't ruin economies. People do. &#160; The goal of physics and mathematics is to create models, discover the flaws in those models, build better models, and then repeat the process in the never ending pursuit of enlightenment. The goal of Wall Street, however, has sometimes been to build complicated models and sell them.</p>
<p>At 29 years of age, Mr. Weatherall holds advanced degrees in physics, philosophy, mathematics and creative writing. He teaches at the University of California, Irvine, and researches topics such as "Quantum control of electromagnetically induced transparency dispersion via atomic tunneling in a double-well Bose-Einstein condensate." (If you have to ask, don't ask me.)</p>
<p>He has also written a far more accessible book, "The Physics of Wall Street," due out next month. In it, he explores how ideas from physics and mathematics have made their way into financial markets for better and sometimes worse. Even ancient Sumerians sold options contracts, which are essentially derivatives, he observes. And the idea of calculating probabilities to make financial bets has been around for centuries.</p>
<p>He argues, convincingly, that complex financial tools can be used wisely or foolishly. A hammer will drive a nail if you hand it to a carpenter, or smash a car window if you hand it to a thief. That doesn't mean we shouldn't make hammers.</p>
<p>So here we are, four years after the great financial collapse, and nobody seems to have a clue how to prevent it from happening again.</p>
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<p>So-called financial reforms have been incremental and mostly aimed at solving yesterday's problems.</p>
<p>Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wants to keep bailing out the banking system and inflating the stock market by buying bonds and holding interest rates near zero.</p>
<p>Congress apparently wants to keep entertaining the masses with fights over the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling.</p>
<p>"I don't think we've done anything since 2008 to make ourselves safer," Mr. Weatherall said in a telephone interview. "If anything, we've done plenty of things to make markets still more volatile...We just don't how to fix the economy in any kind of permanent way."</p>
<p>He said it is time for a new sort of Manhattan Project--this one aimed at fixing the world instead of blowing it up.</p>
<p>We should take America's best and brightest minds and put them to work on the biggest challenge of our time. Just as we beat Hitler to the atomic bomb, and Russia to the moon, we can swiftly tackle a seemingly intractable problem like our crisis-prone economy, Mr. Weatherall said.</p>
<p>Why do we have a Department of Homeland Security, but not a Department of Economic Security?</p>
<p>"It will be expensive," Mr. Weatherall conceded. "But it matters. It's about whether or not people are going to be able to feed their kids."</p>
<p>Currently, many of America's genius-level thinkers go to Wall Street where they work on the problem of making themselves as rich as possible--even if it is at the expense of the economy. But Mr. Weatherall said a new generation is coming of age in the aftermath of the crisis that may not be in it for the big money. He counts himself among them. He said he doesn't plan to follow in the footsteps of so many great mathematical minds and go to work for a hedge fund.</p>
<p>Naysayers step aside. In the 19th century, pessimists argued science would never be able to prove the existence of atoms. Today we power our homes with them. So seemingly impossible problems do have solutions when we are willing to work on them.</p>
<p>"What would a solution look like? I don't think anybody knows the answer," Mr. Weatherall said. "But what we do know is that the answer doesn't look like the things we keep trying."</p>
<p>(Al's Emporium, written by Dow Jones Newswires columnist Al Lewis, offers commentary and analysis on a wide range of business subjects through an unconventional perspective. Contact Al at <a href="http://mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected] Opens a New Window.</a> or <a href="http://tellittoal.com" type="external">tellittoal.com Opens a New Window.</a>)</p> | The Physics of Wall Street | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/12/14/physics-wall-street.html | 2016-03-03 | 0 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p><a href="http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-rising-of-britain-s-new-politics" type="external">John Pilger</a></p>
<p>Delegates to the recent Labour Party conference in the English seaside town of Brighton seemed not to notice a video playing in the main entrance. &#160;The world’s third biggest arms manufacturer, BAE Systems, supplier to Saudi Arabia, was promoting its guns, bombs, missiles, naval ships and fighter aircraft.</p>
<p>It seemed a perfidious symbol of a party in which millions of Britons now invest their political hopes. Once the preserve of Tony Blair, it is now led by Jeremy Corbyn, whose career has been very different and is rare in British establishment politics.</p>
<p>Addressing the Labour conference, the campaigner Naomi Klein described the rise of Corbyn as “part of a global phenomenon. We saw it in Bernie Sanders’ historic campaign in the US primaries, powered by millennials who know that safe centrist politics offers them no kind of safe future.”</p>
<p>In fact, at the end of the US primary elections last year, Sanders led his followers into the arms of Hillary Clinton, a liberal warmonger from a long tradition in the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>As President Obama’s Secretary of State, Clinton presided over the invasion of Libya in 2011, which led to a stampede of refugees to Europe. She gloated at the gruesome murder of Libya’s president. Two years earlier, Clinton signed off on a coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras. That she has been invited to Wales on 14 October to be given an honorary doctorate by the University of Swansea because she is “synonymous with human rights” is unfathomable.</p>
<p>Like Clinton, Sanders is a cold-warrior and “anti-communist” obsessive with a proprietorial view of the world beyond the United States. He supported Bill Clinton’s and Tony Blair’s illegal assault on Yugoslavia in 1998 and the invasions of Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, as well as Barack Obama’s campaign of terrorism by drone. He backs the provocation of Russia and agrees that the whistleblower Edward Snowden should stand trial. He has called the late Hugo Chavez – a social democrat who won multiple elections – “a dead communist dictator”.</p>
<p>While Sanders is a familiar liberal politician, Corbyn may be a phenomenon, with his indefatigable support for the victims of American and British imperial adventures and for popular resistance movements.</p>
<p>For example, in the 1960s and 70s, the Chagos islanders were expelled from their homeland, a British colony in the Indian Ocean, by a Labour government. An entire population was kidnapped. The aim was to make way for a US military base on the main island of Diego Garcia: a secret deal for which the British were “compensated” with a discount of $14 million off the price of a Polaris nuclear submarine.</p>
<p>I have had much to do with the Chagos islanders and have filmed them in exile in Mauritius and the Seychelles, where they suffered and some of them “died from sadness”, as I was told. They found a political champion in a Labour Member of Parliament, Jeremy Corbyn.</p>
<p>So did the Palestinians. So did Iraqis terrorised by a Labour prime minister’s invasion of their country in 2003. So did others struggling to break free from the designs of western power. Corbyn supported the likes of Hugo Chavez, who brought more than hope to societies subverted by the US behemoth.</p>
<p>And yet, now Corbyn is closer to power than he might have ever imagined, his foreign policy remains a secret.</p>
<p>By secret, I mean there has been rhetoric and little else. “We must put our values at the heart of our foreign policy,” said Corbyn at the Labour conference. But what are these “values”?</p>
<p>Since 1945, like the Tories, British Labour has been an imperial party, obsequious to Washington: a record exemplified by the crime in the Chagos islands.</p>
<p>What has changed? Is Corbyn saying Labour will uncouple itself from the US war machine, and the US spying apparatus and US economic blockades that scar humanity?</p>
<p>His shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry, says a Corbyn government “will put human rights back at the heart of Britain’s foreign policy”. But human rights have never been at the heart of British foreign policy – only “interests”, as Lord Palmerston declared in the 19th century: the interests of those at the apex of British society.</p>
<p>Thornberry quoted the late Robin Cook who, as Tony Blair’s first Foreign Secretary in 1997, pledged an “ethical foreign policy” that would “make Britain once again a force for good in the world”.</p>
<p>History is not kind to imperial nostalgia. The recently commemorated division of India by a Labour government in 1947 – with a border hurriedly drawn up by a London barrister, Gordon Radcliffe, who had never been to India and never returned – led to blood-letting on a genocidal scale.</p>
<p>Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day</p>
<p>Patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away,</p>
<p>He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate</p>
<p>Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date</p>
<p>And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,</p>
<p>But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect</p>
<p>Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,</p>
<p>And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,</p>
<p>But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,</p>
<p>A continent for better or worse divided.</p>
<p>W.H. Auden, ‘Partition’</p>
<p>It was the same Labour government (1945–51), led by Prime Minister Clement Attlee – “radical” by today’s standards – that dispatched General Douglas Gracey’s British imperial army to Saigon with orders to re-arm the defeated Japanese in order to prevent Vietnamese nationalists from liberating their own country. Thus, the longest war of the century was ignited.</p>
<p>It was a Labour Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, whose policy of “mutuality” and “partnership” with some of the world’s most vicious despots, especially in the Middle East, forged relationships that endure today, often sidelining and crushing the human rights of whole communities and societies. The cause was British “interests” – oil, power, wealth.</p>
<p>In the “radical” 1960s, Labour’s Defence Secretary, Denis Healey, set up the Defence Sales Organisation (DSO) specifically to boost the arms trade and make money from selling lethal weapons to the world. Healey told Parliament, “While we attach the highest importance to making progress in the field of arms control and disarmament, we must also take what practical steps we can to ensure that this country does not fail to secure its rightful share of this valuable market.”</p>
<p>The doublethink was quintessentially Labour. When I later asked Healey about this “valuable market”, he claimed his decision made no difference to the volume of military exports. In fact, it led to an almost doubling of Britain’s share of the arms market. Today, Britain is the second biggest arms dealer on earth, selling arms and fighter planes, machine guns and “riot control” vehicles, to 22 of the 30 countries on the British Government’s own list of human rights violators.</p>
<p>Will this cease under a Corbyn government? The preferred model – Robin Cook’s “ethical foreign policy” – is revealing. Like Jeremy Corbyn, Cook made his name as a backbencher and critic of the arms trade. “Wherever weapons are sold,” wrote Cook, “there is a tacit conspiracy to conceal the reality of war” and “it is a truism that every war for the past two decades has been fought by poor countries with weapons supplied by rich countries”.</p>
<p>Cook singled out the sale of British Hawk fighters to Indonesia as “particularly disturbing”. Indonesia “is not only repressive but actually at war on two fronts: in East Timor, where perhaps a sixth of the population has been slaughtered… and in West Papua, where it confronts an indigenous liberation movement”.</p>
<p>As Foreign Secretary, Cook promised “a thorough review of arms sales”. The then Nobel Peace Laureate, Bishop Carlos Belo of East Timor, appealed directly to Cook: “Please, I beg you, do not sustain any longer a conflict which without these arms sales could never have been pursued in the first place and not for so very long.” He was referring to Indonesia’s bombing of East Timor with British Hawks and the slaughter of his people with British machine guns. He received no reply.</p>
<p>The following week Cook called journalists to the Foreign Office to announce his “mission statement” for “human rights in a new century”. This PR event included the usual private briefings for selected journalists, including the BBC, in which Foreign Office officials lied that there was “no evidence” that British Hawk aircraft were deployed in East Timor.</p>
<p>A few days later, the Foreign Office issued the results of Cook’s “thorough review” of arms sales policy. “It was not realistic or practical,” wrote Cook, “to revoke licences which were valid and in force at the time of Labour’s election victory”. Suharto’s Minister for Defence, Edi Sudradjat, said that talks were already under way with Britain for the purchase of 18 more Hawk fighters. “The political change in Britain will not affect our negotiations,” he said. He was right.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /> <a href="https://www.caat.org.uk/" type="external">CAAT</a>(Campaign Against Arms Trade) placard.&#160;</p>
<p>Today, replace Indonesia with Saudi Arabia and East Timor with Yemen. British military aircraft – sold with the approval of both Tory and Labour governments and built by the firm whose promotional video had pride of place at the Labour Party conference – are bombing the life out of Yemen, one of the most impoverished countries in the world, where half the children are malnourished and there is the greatest cholera epidemic in modern times.</p>
<p>Hospitals and schools, weddings and funerals have been attacked. In Riyadh, British military personnel are reported to be training the Saudis in selecting targets.</p>
<p>In Labour’s 2017 manifesto, Jeremy Corbyn and his party colleagues promised that “Labour will demand a comprehensive, independent, UN-led investigation into alleged violations… in Yemen, including air strikes on civilians by the Saudi-led coalition. We will immediately suspend any further arms sales for use in the conflict until that investigation is concluded.”</p>
<p>But the evidence of Saudi Arabia’s crimes in Yemen is already documented by Amnesty and others, notably by the courageous reporting of the British journalist Iona Craig. The dossier is voluminous.</p>
<p>Labour does not promise to stop arms exports to Saudi Arabia. It does not say Britain will withdraw its support for governments responsible for the export of Islamist jihadism. There is no commitment to dismantle the arms trade.</p>
<p>The manifesto describes a “special relationship [with the US] based on shared values… When the current Trump administration chooses to ignore them… we will not be afraid to disagree”.</p>
<p>As Jeremy Corbyn knows, dealing with the US is not about merely “disagreeing”. The US is a rapacious, rogue power that ought not to be regarded as a natural ally of any state championing human rights, irrespective of whether Trump or anyone else is President.</p>
<p>When Emily Thornberry linked Venezuela with the Philippines as “increasingly autocratic regimes” – slogans bereft of facts and ignoring the subversive US role in Venezuela – she was consciously playing to the enemy: a tactic with which Jeremy Corbyn will be familiar.</p>
<p>A Corbyn government will allow the Chagos islanders the right of return. But Labour says nothing about renegotiating the 50-year renewal agreement that Britain has just signed with the US allowing it to use the base on Diego Garcia from which it has bombed Afghanistan and Iraq.</p>
<p>A Corbyn government will “immediately recognise the state of Palestine”. But it is silent on whether Britain will continue to arm Israel, continue to acquiesce in the illegal trade in Israel’s illegal “settlements” and treat Israel merely as a warring party, rather than as an historic oppressor given immunity by Washington and London.</p>
<p>On Britain’s support for Nato’s current war preparations, Labour boasts that the “last Labour government spent above the benchmark of 2 per cent of GDP” on Nato. It says, “Conservative spending cuts have put Britain’s security at risk” and promises to boost Britain’s military “obligations”.</p>
<p>In fact, most of the £40 billion Britain currently spends on the military is not for territorial defence of the UK but for offensive purposes to enhance British “interests” as defined by those who have tried to smear Jeremy Corbyn as unpatriotic.</p>
<p>If the polls are reliable, most Britons are well ahead of their politicians, Tory and Labour. They would accept higher taxes to pay for public services; they want the National Health Service restored to full health. They want decent jobs and wages and housing and schools; they do not hate foreigners but resent exploitative labour. They have no fond memory of an empire on which the sun never set.</p>
<p>They oppose the invasion of other countries and regard Blair as a liar. &#160;The rise of Donald Trump has reminded them what a menace the United States can be, especially with their own country in tow.</p>
<p>The Labour Party is the beneficiary of this mood, but many of its pledges – certainly in foreign policy – are qualified and compromised, suggesting, for many Britons, more of the same.</p>
<p>Jeremy Corbyn is widely and properly recognised for his integrity; he opposes the renewal of Trident nuclear weapons; the Labour Party supports it. But he has given shadow cabinet positions to pro-war MPs who support Blairism, tried to get rid of him and abused him as “unelectable”.</p>
<p>“We are the political mainstream now,” says Corbyn. Yes, but at what price?</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>READ MORE UK NEWS AT:&#160;&#160; <a href="" type="internal">21st Century Wire UK Files</a></p>
<p>SUPPORT OUR&#160;WORK BY SUBSCRIBING &amp; BECOMING A MEMBER&#160; <a href="https://21wire.tv/membership/plans/" type="external">@21WIRE.TV</a></p> | New “New Labour” and their ‘Secret’ Foreign Policy Agenda ~ John Pilger | true | http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/10/07/new-new-labour-secret-foreign-policy-agenda-john-pilger/ | 2017-10-07 | 4 |
<p>The athletes aren't the only competitors at the Sochi Olympics: High-tech companies are also vying for supremacy, with innovations ranging from stronger carbon composites to aerodynamically optimized speed suits. Eventually, some of those innovations could show up on the street, at your neighborhood gym or schussing down your favorite ski slope.</p>
<p>"The Olympics are a great stage to introduce new technologies," Joshua Schuler, executive director of the <a href="http://web.mit.edu/invent/" type="external">Lemelson-MIT Program</a>, told NBC News in an email. "The <a href="http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/science-winter-sports-building-faster-safer-bobsleds?ctx=team-usa" type="external">bobsled that BMW designed for Team USA</a> might not find its way into your garage, but consumers can and do benefit from the inventions developed and showcased at the Olympics."</p>
<p>In honor of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventors'_Day#United_States" type="external">National Inventors' Day</a> — which is celebrated every Feb. 11 on Thomas Edison's birthday — let's take a slalom run through some of the innovations that made an Olympic splash:</p>
<p>1912: Swedish inventor Ragnar Carlstedt developed the first electronic timer to provide more accurate results for the Stockholm Games. He also introduced the finish-line camera, which was used to decide who won the silver medal in the men's 1,500-meter finals. (It went to U.S. runner <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel_Kiviat" type="external">Abel Kiviat</a>.)</p>
<p>1936: Moving television images date back to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_television" type="external">mid-1920s</a>, but the Olympics became the <a href="http://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/tv-and-culture/first-televised-sporting-event.htm" type="external">first live televised sporting event</a> during the <a href="http://www.olympic.org/berlin-1936-summer-olympics" type="external">Berlin Games in 1936</a>. The broadcast of Adolf Hitler's opening speech figures as one of the plot points in "Contact," the novel by Carl Sagan, as well as the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRD-tO7jV9U" type="external">1997 movie based on the book</a>.</p>
<p>1960: Speaking of TV, the <a href="http://www.olympic.org/squaw-valley-1960-winter-olympics" type="external">1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley, Calif.</a>, saw the debut of instant replay as a technique for verifying how a performance unfolded. This innovation wasn't exactly planned in advance: When officials were unsure whether a skier had missed a gate in the men's slalom, they asked CBS if they could review the network's videotape of the race. The rest is sports history.</p>
<p>1960: Aeronautical engineer Howard Head developed lightweight laminate skis in the late 1940s, and the technology was developed further during the 1950s. But it wasn't until the Squaw Valley Games that a medal went to a skier using metal skis rather than wooden skis. Frenchman Jean Vuarnet's gold medal helped turned the tide for the ski industry.</p>
<p>1984: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/phillips.html" type="external">Van Phillips</a>, a biomedical engineer and amputee from Illinois, invented the Flex-Foot Cheetah artificlal leg — which was put to the test by Paralympic athletes. One of the Cheetah's biggest fans was South Africa's Oscar Pistorius, who became the <a href="" type="internal">first amputee to compete in track at the Olympics</a> during the 2012 London Games.</p>
<p>2013: Athletes are not only the beneficiaries of high-tech inventions; some of them are inventors as well. Take U.S. Olympic speedskater Brian Hansen: The 23-year-old Olympic medalist and his brother, an engineering student, invented a <a href="http://www.jrn.com/tmj4/news/special-assignments/Sochi-Olympic-hopeful-turns-inventor-to-help-his-craft-237318931.html" type="external">combination water bottle and foam roller</a> that can slake a thirst and loosen up tight muscles. The product is now being marketed via <a href="http://www.bottlebark.com/" type="external">Bottlebark.com</a>.</p>
<p>2014: High-tech skating suits have been the focus of a technological arms race for <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/F_NASA_Goes_to_the_Olympics_prt.htm" type="external">more than a decade</a>, but Under Armour and Lockheed Martin kicked it up a notch this time around by equipping U.S. speedskaters with motion-capture markings. Then they studied high-speed videos to find out which new twists helped them zoom more quickly across the track. The result? <a href="http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/gear-shed/US-Ski-Team-Reveals-Downhill-Suits.html" type="external">A suit with friction-reducing patches and drag-reducing dimples</a> that its designers hope will provide the margin of victory for Team USA.</p>
<p>Speedskating isn't the only sport in Sochi to benefit from the high-tech treatment:</p>
<p>That just goes to show that it takes a while for some Olympic technologies to make their way into the mainstream. "That is stuff that the average consumer, civilians like us, can't even get," Clint Carter, senior associate editor at Men's Health magazine, <a href="http://www.today.com/video/today/54344116#54344116" type="external">said on TODAY</a>. "This is just for the athletes."</p>
<p>But other technologies can make the leap to consumer applications almost as quickly as <a href="http://www.nbcolympics.com/athlete/lindsey-van" type="external">U.S. skier Lindsey Van</a> can jump down Sochi's slopes.</p>
<p>"Think about the parabolic skis that Elan debuted in the 1990s to provide tighter turning for slalom, and how soon thereafter nearly all recreational skis on the market were shaped," Schuler said. "Or the sharkskin swimsuits — a great example of biomimicry — that swimmers began wearing at the 2008 Olympics in Sydney. The results may be questionable, but you can buy them on Amazon."</p> | Faster, Higher, Smarter: Olympic Inventions Win Gold Medals | false | http://nbcnews.com/storyline/sochi-olympics/faster-higher-smarter-olympic-inventions-win-gold-medals-n26991 | 2014-02-11 | 3 |
<p>ANKARA (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan dismissed as lies accusations by Turkey’s main opposition party that his family has moved millions of dollars into foreign bank accounts to avoid taxes.</p>
<p>The Republican People’s Party (CHP) filed a parliamentary motion requesting an investigation into its allegations, which CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu says he can back with documents detailing some $14 million in money transfers by members of Erdogan’s family to the Isle of Man.</p>
<p>Erdogan, who has led Turkey since 2003, denied the accusations against his family and said he would take the CHP leader to court.</p>
<p>“These people haven’t sent a dime abroad,” Erdogan said in a speech, adding that Kilicdaroglu was “telling lies”.</p>
<p>Erdogan’s lawyer says the documents are fake and has called on Kilicdaroglu to hand them over to prosecutors.</p>
<p>CHP Spokesman Bulent Tezcan was quoted by Hurriyet newspaper as saying the prosecutor had no role to play in the matter.</p>
<p>“We know you are trying to drown this out and silence everyone, but we will not be silenced,” he said. “It is not ethical. Our chairman did not say whether this was a crime or not. He has made no evaluation in criminal terms.”</p>
<p>To form any investigative commission, a majority vote would be needed in a parliament which is dominated by the AK Party that Erdogan founded.</p>
<p>Erdogan has dominated Turkish politics in almost 15 years as Prime Minister and then President and remains by far the country’s most popular leader; but opponents accuse him of increasingly authoritarian conduct.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Turkish President calls accusations of family bank transfers abroad lies | false | https://newsline.com/turkish-president-calls-accusations-of-family-bank-transfers-abroad-lies/ | 2017-11-29 | 1 |
<p />
<p>US Administrations have been blighted since 9/11 by a deadly cocktail of arrogance and ignorance, with a twist of the strong desire for revenge.</p>
<p>But before you take aim and fire, you have to know your enemy, and the scattergun policies of the Bush and now the Obama regimes have served only to create hatred and mistrust against the US in areas where it was never present.</p>
<p>In fact, far from driving the likes of al Qaida into oblivion, this strategy turned the USA into al Qaida’s finest recruiting officer.</p>
<p>Like their intelligence agencies, these US Administrations have chosen only to listen to those who give them information they want to hear even if that information is a long distance from reality.</p>
<p>As a result, a deluded Iraqi man called “Curveball” conned US intelligence and in turn President George W Bush over the existence of WMD. It was all Bush and his neo-cons needed and wanted to hear to justify their illegal invasion of Iraq, assuring the world they would find Weapons of Mass Destruction. It was a blatant lie.</p>
<p>It mattered not that the real experts, like former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter and former U.N. Assistant Secretary General Hans Von Sponek, said WMD simply no longer existed.&#160;It mattered not, it seems, that up to a million paid the blood price for this arrogance and ignorance. It matters not that today Iraq is still in turmoil.</p>
<p>With the same reckless abandon, the USA has been sucked in to a war in Afghanistan from which is cannot retreat or make progress, never mind peace. Bush told us the invasion of Afghanistan was all about getting Osama bin Laden and liberating Afghan women — neither of which has been achieved.</p>
<p>And now, the Middle East is on fire with a Peoples’ Revolution that is busy eliminating all the dictators supported and installed by the USA.</p>
<p>All of this could have been avoided if only the White House had listened … listened to their own people in the growing anti-war movement; listened to ordinary peace activists who mobilized in their tens of millions around the world marching against wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; listened to the tens of millions across the Muslim world about the injustices against the Palestinian people.</p>
<p>Instead, the US Administrations of Bush and Obama chose to listen to a few extremists and fanatics who think they can achieve whatever they want by pointing the barrel of a gun made in America. Might is not right, nor does it guarantee a victory.</p>
<p>And once the chains of fear and oppression break, ordinary people will seize their freedom from those who stole it with their bare hands.</p>
<p>Tahrir Square in Egypt has been turned into the democratic capital of the Arab world, and not one of the leaders of the revolution is armed with anything more than hopes and desires for a better future free from tyranny.</p>
<p>For God’s sake Mr. President, listen to the people before it is too late.</p>
<p>And here’s another friendly piece of advice — there is a cauldron boiling so fiercely in the region, and if you don’t do something about it, the seismic and heroic events unfolding today in Tahrir Square will begin to look more like a convention of Tupperware agents by comparison.</p>
<p>Pakistan is on the brink and so is Afghanistan. Uzbekistan is not far behind, either. Where there is injustice, there can never be peace, and as long as Americans are seen to blindly trample on cultures, customs, and laws in that region with blind arrogance, it will come back to bite them in a big way.</p>
<p>When a young Tunisian man called&#160;Tarek al-Tayyib Muhammad ibn Bouazizi&#160;turned himself in to a human torch in December, he also ignited a flame which has now become the Arab Peoples’ Revolution.</p>
<p>History has shown that it is always seemingly small, insignificant events which trigger revolutions.</p>
<p>So I am asking the White House to pay special attention to the incident involving Raymond Davis, allegedly a US diplomat, who is now residing in Pakistan custody suspected of killing three Pakistanis in Lahore last week.</p>
<p>Already US lawmakers are banging on about the Vienna Conventions only because they now appear to need it so badly.</p>
<p>These are the same Vienna Conventions ignored by America when His Excellency Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeeff, the Ambassador to Pakistan from Afghanistan, was stripped naked, beaten and handed over to US soldiers in January 2002 before being carted off to Guantanamo Bay. These are the same Vienna Conventions which were trampled on when Dr Aafia Siddiqui was shot by US soldiers at point blank range in a police cell in Afghanistan then kidnapped and renditioned to America in July 2008.</p>
<p>It was nearly a full four weeks before she was given any consular access — yet US Ambassador Anne Patterson stood in Islamabad and lied and lied about the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui claiming her rights were not violated.</p>
<p>The sad thing is Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton have probably never heard of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. Why would they bother with minor detail when they’ve got full-scale wars to wage? Their advisers, at the very least, need to read her story — the real one. Her story is vital because she epitomizes all the injustices of the War on Terror and she is now becoming a rallying point for all Pakistani people. Don’t believe the propaganda that she’s the poster girl of the Islamists — please stop falling for these stupid lines.</p>
<p>Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is another&#160;Tarek al-Tayyib Muhammad ibn Bouazizi. I am telling you this in good faith because it is something your best friends, paid informers, stooges and ill-informed intelligence agencies won’t tell you.</p>
<p>Sometimes correcting the smaller issues — though they are by no means small to families and friends involved — will help you with much larger events.</p>
<p>The time has come for America to show humility — return Dr. Siddiqui to her home in Karachi where she can be reunited with her children. And then — and only then — start concerning yourself with Raymond Davis and his activities.</p>
<p>If he is guilty of anything, put faith in Pakistan’s judiciary and let him stand trial in the country where his alleged crime was committed. The US has to start respecting other country’s laws instead of making up their own as they go along to cover up and protect American-made blunders and mistakes.</p>
<p>The US is neither the peoples’ friends nor their master, but the influence it has brought to bear in the Muslim world in recent years has been extremely negative.</p>
<p>This influence has wrecked US foreign policy in the Middle East and will destroy its goals — and we still do not know what they really are — especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Time for humility. Time to listen to the people — and while you’ve been meddling in everyone else’s backyard start looking at your own: there’s a great deal of unrest in the USA with rising unemployment, rising home repossessions, lack of health care and more than 50 million relying on food stamps to survive.</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s time to call a halt to your foreign adventures and attend to more pressing issues at home where the American Dream is turning in to a nightmare for millions.</p> | Made by America – the Peoples’ Revolution | false | http://foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/02/06/made-by-america-the-peoples-revolution/ | 2011-02-06 | 1 |
<p>“The very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband; under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs everything.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/blackstone/bla-115.htm" type="external">-Sir William Blackstone, 1765</a></p>
<p>On Monday, the Supreme Court brought the legal battle over marriage equality just inches from a conclusion. By <a href="" type="internal">refusing to review</a> several court decisions holding that the Constitution requires gay couples to be treated the same way as straight ones, the justices effectively <a href="" type="internal">increased the number of states where same sex marriage is legal to 30</a>. This is the way marriage discrimination ends, not with a bang, <a href="http://allpoetry.com/The-Hollow-Men" type="external">but a whimper</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, while total victory for the forces of marriage equality now seems inevitable, supporters of discrimination are <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2014/10/06/supreme-court-decision-will-lead-gay-marriage-five-states-thats-wrong/" type="external">unlikely</a> <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/389633/kennedys-stealth-victory-ed-whelan" type="external">to give up</a> without one final fight. Nor should there be any doubt how opponents of equality plan to defend what remains of marriage discrimination. “[T]he ‘marriage’ that has long been recognized by the Supreme Court as a fundamental right <a href="http://freemarry.3cdn.net/88affd240cd7000ac2_gsm6ivd3y.pdf" type="external">is distinct from the newly proposed relationship of a ‘same-sex marriage,’</a>” according to an opinion by Judge Paul Niemeyer, one of just three federal judges who concluded that marriage discrimination is permissible under the Constitution. When gay people marry, Niemeyer’s argument presumes, they form a fundamentally different bond than the one that exists in a straight couple, and thus it is permissible for the law to treat same-sex couples differently because their marriages are entirely unlike opposite-sex couples’ marriages.</p>
<p>Extending full marriage rights to same-sex couples would not fulfill the Constitution’s promise of equality, it would “redefine marriage,” in the eyes of those judges still willing to defend discrimination. And this redefinition is not something that falls within the purview of the judiciary. As Justice Samuel Alito argued in 2013, supporters of equality “implicitly ask us to endorse” a more expansive definition of marriage and “to reject the traditional view.”</p>
<p>Not so long ago&#160;.&#160;.&#160;. marriage was defined as a fundamentally sexist institution where the wife was both financially and sexually subservient to her&#160;husband.</p>
<p>Yet even if the Supreme Court concedes this point, that providing the full blessings of liberty to gay men and lesbians would somehow change the way we define the word “marriage,” this objection makes little sense. The reality is that the way we define the concept of “marriage” bears little resemblance to the way it was defined just a few decades ago, and that the courts have played an active role in redefining the institution for much of American history. Not so long ago, for example, marriage was defined as a fundamentally sexist institution where the wife was both financially and sexually subservient to her husband. Now, however, most Americans recognize these gender roles as outdated and immoral. The definition of marriage changed, and America is a stronger nation because of it.</p>
<p>The Blackstone quote that precedes this article captures the way marriage was defined by the English colonists who formed the United States — or, at least, it captures the way marriage was defined if you were a woman. It also captures how their descendants defined marriage for much of American history.</p>
<p>Early American law was shaped in large part by the English <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law" type="external">common law</a>, a set of rules and precedents derived by English judges over many centuries. Sir William Blackstone played a central role in summarizing and explaining the common law when his <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/blackstone.asp" type="external">Commentaries on the Laws of England</a> was published in the 1770s. These Commentaries remain influential, and are frequently cited by American courts — including the Supreme Court — to this day. Both Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in the recent <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5322529599500468186&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr#r%5B24%5D" type="external">Hobby Lobby decision</a> and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent cites Blackstone.</p>
<p>As Blackstone’s description of the role of a woman in marriage suggests, the common law treated a wife as financially subservient to her husband. Although single women enjoyed the same property rights as men, a married woman <a href="http://www.academia.edu/5348601/The_Three_Waves_of_Married_Womens_Property_Acts_in_the_Nineteenth_Century_with_a_Focus_on_Mississippi_New_York_and_Oregon_THE_THREE_WAVES_OF_MARRIED_WOMENS_PROPERTY_ACTS_IN_THE_NINETEENTH_CENTURY_WITH_A_FOCUS_ON_MISSISSIPPI_NEW_YORK_AND_OREGON" type="external">lost her ability to make financial decisions the moment she said “I do.”</a> Real estate owned by a woman was managed and controlled by her husband, and a husband actually assumed legal ownership of his wife’s remaining property.</p>
<p>For more than half a century after an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_Convention_%28United_States%29#Delegates" type="external">all male delegation</a> met in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution in 1787, women remained little more than an appendage to their husband’s financial identity. In 1839, Mississippi enacted the nation’s first Married Women’s Property Act, which gave married women the right to own property. Yet, as Angela Boswell, a history professor at Henderson State University in Arkansas, explains, Mississippi’s law was <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=3mK6xQMF2wQC&amp;pg=PA92&amp;#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false" type="external">hardly a feminist act</a>. The primary reason for this law was “the unstable nineteenth century economy, particularly the panic and depression of 1837.” The Mississippi law “provided ways to shelter family fortunes by allowing some property to be held in the wives’ names, free from the claims of creditors.”</p>
<p>Significantly, the Mississippi law permitted the wife to own property, but it did not permit her to control it. Though “a married woman legally owned the property and could refuse its sale,” Professor Boswell explains, “her husband controlled the property in all other aspects.”</p>
<p>Nine years after Mississippi enacted its law, <a href="http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awlaw3/property_law.html" type="external">New York passed its own Married Women’s Property Act</a>, which became a model for similar laws in several other states. Under New York’s law, “[t]he real and personal property of any female who may hereafter marry, and which she shall own at the time of marriage, and the rents issues and profits thereof shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband, nor be liable for his debts, and shall continue her sole and separate property, as if she were a single female.”</p>
<p>[E]arly Americans defined marriage as an institution that robbed women of their entire economic&#160;identity</p>
<p>In 1855, according to Queens College Professor Joyce Warren, Massachusetts enacted a law giving married women “ <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=JiCqDcS9aykC&amp;pg=PA51&amp;#v=onepage&amp;q=1887&amp;f=false" type="external">the right to own real or personal property; sell, contract or sue and be sued; make a will; and have full control over her earnings</a>.” New York enacted a similar law five years later. Other states, however, did not follow New York and Massachusetts’ lead until the 1870s or later. In 1887, fully one third of states still did not permit women to control their own earnings.</p>
<p>Even as states moved in the direction of more equal treatment for men and women, the husband frequently remained the dominant partner in a marriage. An 1879 Texas law, for example, provided that “[a]ll property acquired by either husband or wife during the marriage except that which is acquired by gift, devise or descent shall be deemed the common property of the husband and wife,” yet it added that such property “ <a href="http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awlaw3/property_law.html" type="external">may be disposed of by the husband only</a>” for the duration of the marriage.</p>
<p>So early Americans defined marriage as an institution that robbed women of their entire economic identity, and many states continued to do so more than a century after the Constitution was ratified. Indeed, the vestiges of the common law definition of marriage remained well into the twentieth century.</p>
<p>Eliminating these vestiges, and the gender stereotypes that come with them, was the <a href="" type="internal">central fight of future Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s career as a litigator</a>. And, just like the gay rights attorneys who are fighting the final stages of the battle for marriage equality, Ginsburg recognized that the key to tearing down antiquated gender roles was the Constitution’s promise that <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv" type="external">no person shall be denied “the equal protection of the laws.”</a></p>
<p>Before her elevation to the federal bench, Ginsburg served as director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, where she litigated a series of cases that eventually convinced the Supreme Court to hold that all laws that discriminate on the basis of gender should be viewed with skepticism. As Ginsburg recently explained to the New Republic’s Jeffrey Rosen, “[e]very one of these cases <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119578/ruth-bader-ginsburg-interview-retirement-feminists-jazzercise" type="external">involved a law based on the premise that men earned the family’s bread and women tend to the home and children</a>.”</p>
<p>The 1971 case Reed v. Reed, for example, involved a conflict between a husband and wife who separated prior to the death of their son. Both parents wanted to administer their son’s estate, but the law in Idaho, where they both lived, provided that when such a conflict arises between two people with equal claims to administer an estate, “ <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9505211932515131375&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr" type="external">males must be preferred to females</a>.” Ginsburg, along with her co-counsel, successfully challenged this law, leading to the very first Supreme Court decision holding that gender discrimination violates the Constitution. Contrary to the assumptions of the common law, the Court held that a person’s sex <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9505211932515131375&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr" type="external">bears no “rational relationship” to their ability to wind down the affairs of someone who has died</a>.</p>
<p>Though Reed involved a law that discriminated against women, Ginsburg understood that gender roles can confine men just as surely as they punish women. As she explained to Rosen,</p>
<p>Wiesenfeld is probably the best illustration. The plaintiff, Stephen Wiesenfeld, was a man whose wife died in childbirth. He wanted to care personally for his infant, so he sought the child-in-care Social Security benefits that would enable him to do so. But those benefits were available only for widows, not widowers. Wiesenfeld’s wage-earning wife paid the same Social Security taxes that a man paid. But they netted less protection for her family. It made no sense from the point of view of the baby. The male spouse was disadvantaged as a parent. We were trying to get rid of all laws modeled on that stereotypical view of the world, that men earn the bread and women take care of the home and children.</p>
<p>The culmination of this vision was Justice Ginsburg’s own opinion in United States v. Virginia, where the Court held that “[p]arties who seek to defend gender-based government action must demonstrate an ‘ <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1428365285620704265&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr" type="external">exceedingly persuasive justification</a>’ for that action.” Under that standard, little, if any, of the common law’s vision of dominant men and subservient women can survive. The definition of marriage Ginsburg helped build bears little resemblance to the definition of marriage at the time of the framing.</p>
<p>For most of American history, the law did not simply treat woman as financially subservient to their husbands, it treated them as sexually subservient as well. A husband “cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife,” according to 1736 treatise on the common law by Sir Matthew Hale. “[B]y their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given herself up in this kind unto her husband,” Hale wrote, and this consent was something “she cannot retract.”</p>
<p>The first successful prosecution in the United States of a man who raped his wife did not occur until the late&#160;1970s.</p>
<p>The notion that a woman has “given herself up” to her husband’s sexual demands influenced America’s definition of marriage long after many states started treating wives as their husband’s financial equal. Under the original 1962 draft of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_Penal_Code" type="external">Model Penal Code</a>, a proposed set of laws drafted by legal scholars seeking to encourage the states to adopt consistent codes of criminal law, the crime of rape could only occur when <a href="http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/13023/13335893/downloadables/model_penal_code_sel_sec2.pdf" type="external">a “male&#160;.&#160;.&#160;. has sexual intercourse with a female not his wife.”</a> The first successful prosecution in the United States of a man who raped his wife <a href="https://www.rainn.org/public-policy/sexual-assault-issues/marital-rape" type="external">did not occur until the late 1970s</a>.</p>
<p>According to the Rape, Abuse &amp; Incest National Network (RAINN), many states adopted bans on spousal rape in the 1970s and 1970s, and marital rape was illegal in all 50 states by 1993. In many states, however, the courts played a central role in recognizing the wife’s right to refuse sex with her husband. In an influential 1984 opinion, for example, New York’s highest court held that there is “ <a href="http://faculty.law.miami.edu/zfenton/documents/Peoplev.Liberta.pdf" type="external">no rational basis for distinguishing between marital rape and nonmarital rape</a>.”</p>
<p>“Rape,” Judge Sol Wachtler explained, “is not simply a sexual act to which one party does not consent. Rather, it is a degrading, violent act which violates the bodily integrity of the victim and frequently causes severe, long-lasting physical and psychic harm.” The notion that the law could “imply consent to such an act is irrational and absurd,” Wachtler added, and thus “a marriage license should not be viewed as a license for a husband to forcibly rape his wife with impunity. A married woman has the same right to control her own body as does an unmarried woman.”</p>
<p>Once again, in other words, the courts helped reshape the definition of marriage. We no longer define marriage as a relationship where the wife “hath given herself up in this kind unto her husband.” Judge Wachtler’s vision of marriage has triumphed over Sir Matthew Hale’s.</p>
<p>There is one other important way that America’s definition of marriage has evolved. Though they largely go unenforced — and it would be <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZS.html/" type="external">unconstitutional for a state to attempt to enforce them</a> — many states still have “fornication” laws on their books banning sex of all kinds between unmarried couples. Minnesota’s fornication law, for example, provides that “[w]hen any man and single woman have sexual intercourse with each other, <a href="https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=609.34" type="external">each is guilty of fornication</a>, which is a misdemeanor.” Utah’s law provides that “[a]ny unmarried person <a href="http://www.le.utah.gov/code/TITLE76/htm/76_07_010400.htm" type="external">who shall voluntarily engage in sexual intercourse with another</a> is guilty of fornication.” Virginia law provides that “[a]ny person, not being married, <a href="https://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-344" type="external">who voluntarily shall have sexual intercourse with any other person, shall be guilty of fornication</a>, punishable as a Class 4 misdemeanor.” And Massachusetts’ law simply states that “ <a href="https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Chapter272/Section18" type="external">[w]hoever commits fornication shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than three months</a> or by a fine of not more than thirty dollars.”</p>
<p>Fornication laws, in other words, transformed consensual, heterosexual sex into a highly regulated activity that two adults could only engage in if they obtained a license from the state permitting them to do so. Marriage, of course, was the legal process those two adults had to complete in order to get the state’s permission to allow them to engage in sexual intercourse.</p>
<p>Needless to say, the idea that marriage should be defined as a licensure process that the state uses to dole out permission to people who want to have sex with one another would strike most Americans as absurd. Yet this is how marriage law functioned during a previous age when fornication laws were actually enforced.</p>
<p>Marriage&#160;.&#160;.&#160;. was the legal process those two adults had to complete in order to get the state’s permission to allow them to engage in sexual intercourse.</p>
<p>Fortunately for the <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-12-19-premarital-sex_x.htm" type="external">overwhelming majority of Americans who engage in premarital sex</a>, the courts also largely agree that using marriage as a mechanism to regulate who is having sex with each other is absurd. As the Virginia Supreme Court explained in <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17488130752261924182&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr" type="external">Martin v. Ziherl</a>, “the Virginia statute criminalizing intercourse between unmarried persons” abridges “a personal relationship that is within the liberty interest of persons to choose.”</p>
<p>Dissenting in <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6241888197107641609&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr" type="external">United States v. Windsor</a>, Justice Alito claims that the battle for marriage equality is really a battle between two incompatible views of marriage. The first is a “traditional” view which sees marriage as an “exclusively opposite-sex institution and as one inextricably linked to procreation and biological kinship.” The second is a “consent-based” view “that primarily defines marriage as the solemnization of mutual commitment — marked by strong emotional attachment and sexual attraction — between two persons.” (Most people describe this “mutual commitment — marked by strong emotional attachment and sexual attraction” in much simpler terms. We call it “love.”)</p>
<p>Alito’s suggestion that marriages based on love and marriages based on building a stable home for children are somehow entirely distinct concepts is itself a very unusual viewpoint. Yet he is correct that the story of American marriage law has often been the story of one vision of marriage coming to eclipse another.</p>
<p>Implicit in the common law definition of marriage, with its vision of the husband as both financially and sexually superior to the wife, is a notion that each gender has a proper role, and that a marriage requires a dominant partner and a subservient partner. Implicit in the notion of a fornication law is the idea that sex between consenting adults is the proper subject of state regulation, and that states have a legitimate interest in making sure that sex only takes place under carefully regulated circumstances.</p>
<p>If you accept the idea that marriage requires a dominant man and a submissive woman, then the case against marriage equality is obvious. How can both gender roles be filled when you do not even have both genders? Likewise, if you accept that the government gets to decide how people use their genitals, then the state may legitimately decide not to solemnize a sexual relationship between two men or two women.</p>
<p>But American law rejects both of these propositions, and thanks to the work of people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court now recognizes that our Constitution rejects both of these propositions as well. The law knows no gender roles. And, as the Court held in Lawrence v. Texas, “ <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZO.html" type="external">there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter</a>” — and that realm includes the bedroom.</p>
<p>Justice Alito, in other words, is not losing the battle to stop marriage equality, he’s already lost it. The vision of marriage that permits discrimination was scrapped with the common law.</p> | When ‘Redefining Marriage’ Meant That Women Had To Be Treated Like Human Beings | true | http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/10/07/3573438/three-ways-america-redefined-marriage-long-before-the-supreme-court-got-involved/ | 2014-10-07 | 4 |
<p>Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, India and several other countries are planning on banning BlackBerry mobile devices. These countries are demanding that RIM open up its smartphones to more government scrutiny. RIM’s co-CEO has fired off on the issue, saying that a ban on BlackBerrys could be detrimental to international commerce. Former Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton joined Varney &amp; Co. today to weigh in on the issue.</p>
<p>The countries involved in this ban are claiming that this is a law enforcement issue and that they are worried that BlackBerry’s encryption methods may impede their ability to pursue criminals. Bolton thinks this claim is shaky at best. “There are a number of technical ways that the FBI in this country can defeat encryption… not just on BlackBerry but on a range of other telecommunication products,” Bolton explained. “But… the FBI doesn’t get to listen in just because it’s feeling frisky some day; they have to get a court order. In some of these other countries, that’s not the way things work, and that’s why RIM is concerned.”</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Bolton thinks that its time American business makes a stand against this kind of interference. “I think that as long as American business… simply accepts what these other governments do without a fight, they’re going to get more and more interference. I think especially on information technology given its obvious and growing importance.”</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.</a></p> | Possible BlackBerry Ban Could Hurt International Commerce | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2010/08/05/possible-blackberry-ban-could-hurt-international-commerce.html | 2016-03-18 | 0 |
<p>Secretary Rumsfeld has apologized. Or rather, he read a statement full of apology, now dutifully quoted in the media. Nothing in the rest of his testimony or his bearing, however, indicated the slightest remorse. Instead, with his usual nasal petulance, he lashed out against any suggestion that he had neglected to take proper action, waving impatiently at the time-line of military investigations. He snapped insultingly that a three-line press release in January had “informed the whole world,” so what more do you want? (His face went blank when one Senator returned quietly, “You didn’t inform us.”) He protested his incapacity to follow every little crisis, waving papers about “eight-thousand court-martials”–the only reliable statistic he bothered to bring. When did he inform the president? Well, come on. He had so many important things to discuss in those talks with the president, he could hardly be expected to remember when he had discussed the little matter of rampant torture in the US occupation’s main prison. The real culprit, then, in his view? Digital cameras. For without them, the process would have ground on normally, through the months, and resolved itself somehow, while Iraqis lay naked and ridiculed on concrete floors.</p>
<p>So who’s to blame? The generals at his side were clearly implicated, but they did what guidelines told them to do. Rumsfeld might have been partly right about that; as the old saying goes, military justice is to justice what military music is to music. It was Rumsfeld himself who clearly failed to do his job: here, to watch over the politics of detention policy–one of the most crucial and sensitive dimensions of any occupation–by jumpstarting investigations when the first ICRC reports came in, or at least warning the president and the Congress about the pending scandal. He knew about it, but paid no attention. It was not important to him. He didn’t read the Taguba report. He didn’t ask about the photos.</p>
<p>And it is precisely that casual neglect of suffering Iraqi citizens, through months of their systematic torture and detention without trial in US occupation prisons, which truly drives this crisis. Because it reflects something which has come to the fore more forcefully in Europe and the Middle East than it has here, and is the real burden the US must now overcome.</p>
<p>The larger politics infusing the prison scandal can perhaps be glimpsed by considering a very different event, an extraordinary exhibit now touring the US: photographs of lynchings, mostly of black people in the early-twentieth century. The collection is soul-wracking in two ways. Dangling black bodies, battered and bleeding, terribly evoke past hours of terror and torture. But it is the white people standing around the tree, smiling into the camera–sometimes including women with parasols and fine frocks–who fascinate observers. For as curator said, it is “the comfort, the ease of the crowd” which conveys the dire context: that a whole white society shared a mindset in which this cluster of fine citizens could pose openly beside their murdered trophy and smile for a photograph. As the visitor peers into these tiny documents of racial terror, that very act of looking brings a final, gut-wrenching realization: for these photos were converted into postcards, mailed as mementos to family or friends. Such was the heart-stopping dehumanization of black people in the era.</p>
<p>Those postcards should better illuminate our understanding of the politics now surrounding these photos from the Iraqi jails. It is not simply that people were stripped, or piled naked into a pyramid, or left shackled together on the corridor floor. The real shock has always been the guards grinning and clowning for the cameras–or even the casual guards just standing about, discussing other things, while prisoners lay naked in their midst–because it signaled that the prisoners’ torment was entertaining, or otherwise of no moral consequence, because they were vaguely dehumanized. And unfortunately for US foreign policy, the crucial condition framing this debasement is that those prisoners were Iraqis–Arabs–being tormented by white Americans or Europeans. Appalled US critics speak of “sadistic abuse” and “brutality” and “humiliation,” and these terms are correct. But even footage of Saddam’s torturers beating Iraqi citizens does not convey the impression of essential degradation conveyed here, especially by Lynndie England’s infamous leash. Yes, many Arab governments routinely torture, and get away with it. But they do not routinely reconceive their own people as subhuman, and something particularly awful surrounds that. Europeans recall “master race” doctrines; Arab societies recall colonial racial debasements. Either way, Americans are now anathema.</p>
<p>Many in the US would hotly deny a pattern of racism against Iraqi Arabs, and they would be right to an extent. But racism does not always look like the same. Sometimes it comes out as paternalism: like dumping unmanageable authority for a wrecked country on the shattered Iraqi people under condescending slogans like “it’s time for them to take some responsibility.” For US policy in Iraq, it first showed as a reckless willingness to invade and occupy the country on false pretenses, risking an entire society on a geostrategic myth. But in the event, it has shown especially as criminal negligence. Real respect for Iraqi society would have required elaborate planning for the occupation, and indeed the US State Department and its genuine Middle East specialists worked for a year on such plans. Rumsfeld and his Pentagon Office of Special Plans threw out those plans like old trash and instead employed a “minimal force” doctrine which had no planning at all–and the Iraqi people’s national infrastructure was looted down to the wiring. Casual disregard further showed in the occupation’s neglect of Iraqis’ most urgent basic need, health, by failing to give all priority to fully restoring Iraq’s once-fine and now-wrecked hospitals. It still shows in the grossly inadequate troop complement, which has left Iraqi society struggling with rampant crime and the trauma of multiple insurgencies.</p>
<p>Outright racism has especially reeked from Rumsfeld’s disdainful dismissal of any hint that the US should keep count of Iraqi civilian casualties, as is required by the Geneva Conventions. In similar vein, impatient disdain has infused Rumsfeld’s accusation that, because “insurgents” in Fallujah were “using women and children as shields,” US forces were somehow legitimized in blowing those women and children away by the hundreds–numbers he and his cronies actually denounced the Arab media for trying to confirm.</p>
<p>So who’s to blame for the prison atrocities? Little Lynndie England, clutching her leash? Sadly, yes. But who gave her the leash? And who told her what to do with it?</p>
<p>Racism is not the whole story, of course. Many Americans soldiers in this fatally flawed occupation genuinely see Iraqis as people like themselves and are trying their best to be helpful. Across the cultural barrier, human beings recognize each other, and some are losing their lives doing it. But not all soldiers can keep their moral compass in situations like this, as we learned to our lasting national grief in Vietnam. It is therefore not just some suspicious civilian contractors who inserted a grotesque dehumanization into Abu Ghraib–although a likely influence in that regard is peeking much speculation, for who else in the region sees Arabs as animals and has all these much-mentioned translation skills? But the whole hard-hearted Rumsfeld backdrop of the occupation is reflected in the casual body language of Abu Ghraib guards, as they stand chatting or smiling around naked Iraqis lying twisted on the concrete. For a message has filtered down from the top, the old paternalistic colonial message that so easily switches from generosity to brutal iron-fist repression: Iraqi Arabs aren’t quite like us, are they? They are just a bit less. They need to be saved by us. But if they act up, bring them down fast. Because they don’t really feel things the way we do, and it’s so easy to humiliate an Arab.</p>
<p>In any case, even if many Americans reject that message with anguish, it has now been broadcast all over the world in front-page photos from Abu Ghraib, thanks to Rumsfeld’s casual neglect of these prisons and the welfare of the Iraqi people. It will require long hard work and a humility that our government is just discovering–starting with dismissal of the man ultimately responsible for perpetuating the torture–for our country to overcome it.</p>
<p>VIRGINIA TILLEY is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. She can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p> | So, Who’s to Blame? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2004/05/12/so-who-s-to-blame/ | 2004-05-12 | 4 |
<p>Bradley Manning is accused of humiliating the political establishment by revealing the complicity of top U.S. officials in carrying out and covering up war crimes. In return for his act of conscience, the U.S. government is holding him in abusive solitary confinement, humiliating him and trying to keep him behind bars for life.</p>
<p>The lesson is clear, and soldiers take note: You’re better off committing a war crime than exposing one.</p>
<p>An Army intelligence officer stationed in Kuwait, the 23-year-old Manning – outraged at what he saw – allegedly leaked tens of thousands of State Department cables to the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks. These cables show U.S. officials covering up everything from U.S. tax dollars funding child rape in Afghanistan to illegal, unauthorized bombings in Yemen. Manning is also accused of leaking video evidence of U.S. pilots gunning down more than a dozen Iraqis in Baghdad, including two journalists for Reuters, and then killing a father of two who stopped to help them. The father’s two young children were also severely wounded.</p>
<p>“Well, it’s their fault for bringing kids into a battle,” a not-terribly-remorseful U.S. pilot can be heard remarking in the July 2007 “ <a href="http://collateralmurder.com/" type="external">Collateral Murder</a>” video.</p>
<p>None of the soldiers who carried out that war crime have been punished, nor have any of the high-ranking officials who authorized it. Indeed, committing war crimes is more likely to get a solider a medal than a prison term. And authorizing them? Well, that’ll get you a book deal and a six-digit speaking fee. Just ask George W. Bush. Or Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld or Condoleezza Rice. Or the inexplicably “respectable” Colin Powell.</p>
<p>In fact, the record indicates Manning would be far better off today – possibly on the lecture circuit rather than in solitary confinement – if he’d killed those men in Baghdad himself.</p>
<p>Hyperbole? Consider what happened to the U.S. soldiers who, over a period of hours – not minutes – went house to house in the Iraqi town of Haditha and executed 24 men, women and children in retaliation for a roadside bombing.</p>
<p>“I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head,” said one of the two <a href="" type="internal">surviving eyewitnesses</a> to the massacre, nine-year-old Eman Waleed. “Then they killed my granny.” Almost five years later, not one of the men involved in the incident is behind bars. And despite an <a href="" type="internal">Army investigation</a> revealing that statements made by the chain of command “suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives,” with the murder of brown-skinned innocents considered “just the cost of doing business,” none of their superiors are behind bars either.</p>
<p>Now consider the treatment of Bradley Manning. On March 1, the military charged Manning with <a href="" type="internal">22 additional offenses</a> – on top of the original charges of improperly leaking classified information, disobeying an order and general misconduct. One of the new charges, “aiding the enemy,” is punishable by death. That means Manning faces the prospect of being executed or spending his life in prison for exposing the ugly truth about the U.S. empire.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Obama administration has decided to make Manning’s pre-trial existence as torturous as possible, holding him in solitary confinement 23 hours a day since his arrest 10 months ago – treatment that the group Psychologists for Social Responsibility notes is, “at the very least, a form of cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment in violation of U.S. law.”</p>
<p>In addition to the horror of long-term solitary confinement, Manning is barred from exercising in his cell and is denied bed sheets and a pillow. And every five minutes, he must respond in the affirmative when asked by a guard if he’s “okay.”</p>
<p>Presumably he lies.</p>
<p>And it gets worse. On his blog, Manning’s military lawyer, Lt. Col. David Coombs, reveals that his client is now <a href="" type="internal">being stripped</a> of his clothing at night, left naked under careful surveillance for seven hours. When the 5:00 am wake-up call comes, he’s then “forced to stand naked at the front of the cell.”</p>
<p>If you point out that the emperor has no clothes, it seems the empire will make sure you have none either.</p>
<p>Officials at the Quantico Marine Base where Manning is being held claim the move is “not punitive” but rather a “precautionary measure” intended to prevent him from harming himself. Do they really think Manning is going to strangle himself with his underwear – and that he could do so while under 24-hour surveillance?</p>
<p>“Is this Quantico or Abu Ghraib?” asked Rep. Dennis Kucinich in a <a href="http://www.bradleymanning.org/16282/congressman-dennis-kucinich-renews-demand-to-visit-with-pfc-manning/#ixzz1Ff8uTG3P" type="external">press release</a>. Good question, congressman. Like the men imprisoned in former President Bush’s Iraqi torture chamber, Manning is being abused and humiliated despite having not so much as been tried in a military tribunal, much less convicted of an actual crime.</p>
<p>So much for the constitutional lawyer who ran as the candidate of hope and change.</p>
<p>Remember back when Obama campaigned against such Bush-league torture tactics? Recall when candidate Obama said “government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal”? It appears his opposition to torture and support for whistleblowers was only so much rhetoric. And then he took office.</p>
<p>Indeed, despite the grand promises and soaring rhetoric, Obama’s treatment of Manning is starkly reminiscent of none other than</p>
<p>Richard Nixon. Like Obama – who has prosecuted more whistleblowers than any president in history – Nixon had no sympathy for “snitches,” and no interest in the American public learning the truth about their government. And he likewise argued that Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, had given “aid and comfort to the enemy” for revealing the facts about the war in Vietnam.</p>
<p>But there’s a difference: Richard Nixon never had the heroic whistleblower of his day thrown in solitary confinement and tortured. If only the same could be said for Barack Obama.</p>
<p><a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">Medea Benjamin</a> is cofounder of <a href="http://www.globalexchange.org/" type="external">Global Exchange</a> and CODEPINK: Women for Peace.</p>
<p>Charles Davis is an independent journalist. On March 20 CODEPINK and others will be traveling to the Quantico Marine Base to <a href="http://bit.ly/fsWnda" type="external">rally in support of Bradley Manning</a>. You <a href="http://bit.ly/dogcy5" type="external">can sign the CODEPINK petitio</a>n here asking President Obama to pardon Bradley Manning.</p>
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<p /> | The Torture of Bradley Manning | true | https://counterpunch.org/2011/03/07/the-torture-of-bradley-manning/ | 2011-03-07 | 4 |
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<p>“In the past two years the Pecos League has been there, there has not been one incident dealing with alcohol,” Councilor Ron Trujillo declared to the Public Safety Committee on Tuesday afternoon.</p>
<p>“What was presumed was that we would have this rowdy crowd coming to games, getting drunk. That has never occurred,” he said.</p>
<p>When the Pecos League’s Fuego sought to play at Fort Marcy two years ago, the City Council approved a plan to allow people to drink beer in a special beer garden – an area of the ballpark above the third-base line and near left field surrounded by a 6-foot fence. It’s accessible only to adults ages 21 and older who have valid identification.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Trujillo, chair of the Public Safety Committee, is sponsoring an ordinance amendment that would allow beer consumption in the entire seating and concession area of the ballpark.</p>
<p>Trujillo said fans have approached him about changing the beer garden rule. They say they’re adults who’d like to enjoy a beer like they can at, say, an Albuquerque Isotopes baseball game, Trujillo said. Many people forgo having a beer at the Fuego game because it would mean being separated from their children, he said.</p>
<p>Councilor Chris Rivera said, at the few Fuego games he’s attended, “it’s difficult to see parents sitting behind the fenced area while their kids are on the other side.”</p>
<p>A selling point for bringing the team to Santa Fe was that the entire family could attend games together, he said.</p>
<p>For legal reasons, fencing would enclose the entire grandstand area if the amended ordinance is approved by the City Council.</p>
<p>The Public Safety Committee voted to add stipulations to the ordinance that people can purchase no more than three drinks – monitored with wristbands – and that alcohol sales must cease at the end of the sixth inning.</p>
<p>The rules are already in place but are part of the resolution that created the beer garden – a measure that would essentially be rendered null with the new ordinance. The committee also voted to require that a review of the expansion be conducted at the end of the season.</p>
<p>Committee members also said they want city legal staff to review state regulations on whether security is required at the baseball games. Trujillo said there were security guards present during the Fuego’s first season, but not this year.</p>
<p>Pecos League Commissioner Andrew Dunn has said that Santa Fe is the only city the league plays in that requires that beer drinking be restricted to a separate area during games. Trujillo noted that Pecos League officials did not request the beer expansion.</p>
<p>The Fuego could wrap up their season as soon as next week, so it’s unlikely the change, if approved by the entire City Council, will take place before next season.</p>
<p>The proposal next goes before the Public Works Committee on July 29.</p> | Panel recommends selling beer in stands at ballgames | false | https://abqjournal.com/222235/panel-recommends-selling-beer-in-stands-at-ballgames.html | 2 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Albuquerque police are investigating the death of a person who was struck by a vehicle after trying to cross westbound Interstate 40 overnight.</p>
<p>Police said they don’t know why the pedestrian was on foot on the Interstate or any other contributing factors to the death.</p>
<p>They have not released the pedestrian’s name pending next-of-kin notification. Police alerted the public about the crash around 5 a.m. this morning, but it’s not clear when the crash itself happened.</p>
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<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Police investigate pedestrian Interstate death | false | https://abqjournal.com/425497/police-investigate-pedestrian-interstate-death.html | 2 |
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<p>Jay Mallin/Zuma Press</p>
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<p>In a 6-3 ruling, the US Supreme Court <a href="" type="internal">ruled Thursday that Americans buying insurance on the federal health care exchange can receive subsidies</a> through the Affordable Care Act, essentially upholding one of the most critical aspects of the law. The ruling is a major blow to Republicans who have spent years trying to tear down the law, and a political win for Democrats and President Obama. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton seemed pleased:</p>
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<p>The GOP candidates, meanwhile, took to Twitter to blast Obamacare and the Supreme Court’s ruling:</p>
<p>Jeb Bush:</p>
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<p>Ted Cruz:</p>
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<p>Marco Rubio:</p>
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<p>Rick Perry:</p>
<p>Mike Huckabee:</p>
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<p>Carly Fiorina:</p>
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<p>Scott Walker:</p>
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<p>And then there’s Donald Trump, talking about Miss Universe:</p>
<p /> | The GOP Candidates React to the Supreme Court’s Obamacare Ruling | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/gop-candidates-react-supreme-court-obamacare-ruling/ | 2015-06-25 | 4 |
<p>This data company has been hire for five years and the managing director admits there are some challenges. He says the education here is better relatively than the rest of the continent but their computing skills are lacking. They have to train potential employees and promise them better salaries if they stick with it. the business has struggled a bit and their workforce has dropped. Initial efforts to make it a call center was unsuccessful so now they primarily do data entry and transcription. Right now the company has four U.S. clients and it's hoping to add a British client. The director says he can't sell his business on costs because they're more expensive than their competitors so instead he has to make a pitch on quality and a company's consciousness. He says there was a need for someone to come into Africa and create jobs. He also says his company offers stability. His other, more personal reason�the job creation in Africa. If his company does well, he sees other companies coming in to create more jobs. The company's website describes Ghana as a diamond in the rough for outsourcing.</p> | Ghana on the line | false | https://pri.org/stories/2008-12-10/ghana-line | 2008-12-10 | 3 |
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<p>A group of 16 transgender and gay migrants from Mexico and Central America march through Nogales, Mexico, on Aug. 10, 2017. The migrants later asked for asylum in the U.S. (Photo by Kendal Blust)</p>
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<p>The migrants — who are from Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico — called themselves the first Trans Gay Migrant Caravan of 2017. They left Mexico City and walked and used buses and other forms of transportation to travel to Nogales, Mexico, which is on the Arizona-Mexico border.</p>
<p>The Nogales International, a <a href="http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/lgbtq-migrants-ask-for-asylum-at-deconcini-port/article_62fdc58e-7e2f-11e7-820e-8f1c72d2f02a.html" type="external">newspaper</a> that is based in Nogales, Ariz., reported the migrants arrived in Nogales, Mexico, on July 25.</p>
<p>A Facebook Live video the Transgender Law Center recorded shows the migrants carrying signs and chanting, “What do we want? Freedom” and other slogans as they marched along the border wall that separates the two cities.</p>
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<p>A second Facebook Live video shows the migrants holding paperwork lined up outside the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry before entering the U.S.</p>
<p>A number of the migrants appeared to wipe tears from their eyes before they entered the border crossing.</p>
<p />
<p>“What is happening in Central America is what happening globally: The lack of protections, the lack of understanding of who we are as trans people, as queer people,” Isa Noyola of the Transgender Law Center told the Washington Blade on Friday during a telephone interview. “That translates into violence and discrimination and stigmas that are harmful. We are left in these really vulnerable situations.”</p>
<p>The Phoenix-based Puente Human Rights Movement, the National Immigrant Justice Center and Somos Un Pueblo Unido in Santa Fe, N.M., also provided support to the migrants.</p>
<p>Violence associated with gangs and drug trafficking in Central America have <a href="" type="internal">prompted LGBT migrants to flee</a> the region. A lack of access to education, employment and health care have made trans women particularly susceptible to discrimination and exploitation.</p>
<p>“We have <a href="" type="internal">a forced migration,”</a> a trans activist in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula told the Blade in February during an interview at their office. “They don’t do it because they want to. They are doing it because the situation in which we are living in our country is very difficult.”</p>
<p />
<p>San Pedro Sula (Honduras) City Hall (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)</p>
<p />
<p>She said U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is currently processing the migrants. Noyola told the Blade she hopes they will soon have their “credible fear interview” and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will allow them to remain in the U.S. as their cases proceed.</p>
<p>“Now they are entering into another phase of their journey,” she said.</p>
<p>The migrants applied for asylum nine days after President Trump endorsed a bill that would, among other things, reduce the number of people who the U.S. will allow to legally immigrate to the U.S. each year.</p>
<p>Trump in January signed two executive orders spurring construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and paving the way for cuts in federal funding to so-called “sanctuary cities” that protect undocumented immigrants. Immigrant rights advocates and their supporters have <a href="" type="internal">sharply criticized both mandates.</a></p>
<p>Murals on a wall that marks the U.S.-Mexico border in Mexicali, Mexico. (Photo courtesy of Victor Aguirre)</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Arizona</a> <a href="" type="internal">El Salvador</a> <a href="" type="internal">gay</a> <a href="" type="internal">Guatemala</a> <a href="" type="internal">Honduras</a> <a href="" type="internal">Isa Noyola</a> <a href="" type="internal">Mexico</a> <a href="" type="internal">National Immigrant Justice Center</a> <a href="" type="internal">Nicaragua</a> <a href="" type="internal">Puente Human Rights Movement</a> <a href="" type="internal">Somos Un Pueblo Unido</a> <a href="" type="internal">Trans Gay Migrant Caravan of 2017</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender</a> <a href="" type="internal">Transgender Law Center</a> <a href="" type="internal">U.S.</a> <a href="" type="internal">U.S. Customs and Border Protection</a> <a href="" type="internal">U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement</a></p> | 16 trans, gay Central America migrants seek asylum in U.S. | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2017/08/12/16-trans-gay-central-america-migrants-seek-asylum-u-s/ | 3 |
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<p>In response to a devastating <a href="http://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/cmp/investigative-footage/" type="external">series of videos</a> exposing the grimy underbelly of its "fetal tissue transfer" program, Planned Parenthood has attempted to portray itself as a victim of pro-life "extremists." While America learned the shocking details of a program that included the sale of intact limbs, organs, and even heads of aborted babies, Planned Parenthood leadership first apologized for the callous "tone" of some of its officials, then circled the wagons and tried to paint the undercover videos as work of "extremist" pro-lifers.</p>
<p>In light of the fetal body part videos, the latest attempt by Planned Parenthood to condemn "extremists" could not have been phrased more poorly.</p>
<p>"Our EVP @dawnlaguens says extremists have gone so far out on a limb on abortion, they won't be able to crawl back," <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/12/30/you-didnt-really-think-this-tweet-through-very-well-did-you-planned-parenthood-goes-out-on-a-limb/" type="external">tweeted</a> the abortion provider that made a killing on "reimbursements" for ... limbs, among other things.</p>
<p>Our EVP <a href="https://twitter.com/dawnlaguens" type="external">@dawnlaguens</a> says extremists have gone so far out on a limb on abortion, they won't be able to crawl back. <a href="https://t.co/wtQZnPasDB" type="external">https://t.co/wtQZnPasDB</a></p>
<p>The horrifically phrased tweet was roundly thumped online. Here's The Federalist's <a href="https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/681994545450491907?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">Molly Hemingway</a>:</p>
<p>. <a href="https://twitter.com/PPact" type="external">@ppact</a> You didn’t really think this tweet through very well, did you. <a href="https://t.co/fYQ7saMlna" type="external">pic.twitter.com/fYQ7saMlna</a></p>
<p>Others noted that none of the victims of Planned Parenthood would ever be able to "crawl back" from anything, while others referenced some of the bone-chillingly callous statements made by the organization's officials in the videos:</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/MZHemingway" type="external">@MZHemingway</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/PPact" type="external">@PPact</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/dawnlaguens" type="external">@dawnlaguens</a> Great imagery all around, 'won't be able to crawl.'</p>
<p>Can we donate that limb, and will there be compensation that helps us do a "little better than" break even? <a href="https://t.co/jIFiWzbgkF" type="external">https://t.co/jIFiWzbgkF</a></p>
<p>Can these limbs be sold for profit? Like, let's say I want to buy a Lamborghini... <a href="https://twitter.com/PPact" type="external">@PPact</a> <a href="https://t.co/wAbfTdSMIf" type="external">https://t.co/wAbfTdSMIf</a></p>
<p>As The Daily Wire has reported, Planned Parenthood's attempt to portray itself as a an organization that truly "cares" for women has taken a massive hit this year. Not only has the seedy reality of the profit-driven "tissue transfer" program been exposed by the Center for Medical Progress's <a href="http://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/cmp/investigative-footage/" type="external">undercover video series</a>, but more <a href="" type="internal">personal accounts</a> from those that have undergone abortions in their centers have surfaced, presenting a far different picture of the organization than its supporters work so hard to promote.</p>
<p>As part of its crisis management response to the video series, Planned Parenthood announced in fall that it would no longer receive "reimbursements" for "donating" its body parts for research. Meanwhile, the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services recently <a href="" type="internal">opened an investigation</a> into the organization's practice.</p>
<p>H/t <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/12/30/you-didnt-really-think-this-tweet-through-very-well-did-you-planned-parenthood-goes-out-on-a-limb/" type="external">The Blaze</a>.</p> | Planned Parenthood Slammed for Horrifically Phrased Tweet | true | https://dailywire.com/news/2249/planned-parenthood-issues-horrifically-phrased-james-barrett | 2015-12-31 | 0 |
<p>RICHMOND, Va. — As Democrats and Republicans continued partisan sniping Friday over a House seat that could determine the balance of power in the Virginia House of Delegates, state elections officials moved to break the deadlock by scheduling a random drawing to pick the winner.</p>
<p>The Virginia Board of Elections said it will pick the winner’s name in the Newport News-based 94th District next Thursday, unless a recount court decides to intervene.</p>
<p>The race between Democrat Shelly Simonds and Republican Del. David Yancey has seesawed since the Nov. 7 election. Initially, it appeared that Yancey had won by 10 votes, but a recount put Simonds ahead by a single vote.</p>
<p>A three-judge recount court later declared the race a tie after agreeing with the Yancey campaign that a disputed ballot was a vote for him. On Wednesday, Simonds asked the court to reconsider, but the panel has not yet responded.</p>
<p />
<p>The fight over the seat has been intense as Republicans try to hold on to a majority in the House after a bruising election in which Democrats erased the 66-34 advantage held by Republicans, as voters vented anger toward Republican President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>During a conference call with reporters Friday, GOP House Leader Kirk Cox — who hopes to become the next speaker of the House — criticized Democrats for causing “politically motivated delays” in deciding the 94th District race.</p>
<p>“Democrats have sought to delay and obstruct at every turn,” Cox said.</p>
<p>“They’ve sought to litigate their way to victory.”</p>
<p>Cox called Simonds’ legal action a “deliberate strategy to make it more difficult for the House to organize smoothly” when the legislature reconvenes on Jan. 10.</p>
<p>He said that even if the winner’s name is pulled Jan. 4, the House will not be able to seat the winner by the opening day of the legislative session if the loser asks for a recount. That would leave Republicans with a 50-49 majority as the session opens.</p>
<p>Simonds said Yancey is to blame for the delay.</p>
<p>“We won the recount … it should have been over, and the next day, the Yancey team pulled a stunt. So this delay is squarely on him,” she said Friday.</p>
<p>If Simonds ultimately wins, the House would be evenly split, 50-50, between Democrats and Republicans. If Yancey wins, the Republicans would have a 51-49 edge.</p>
<p>The state Board of Elections had been scheduled to pick the winner’s name out of a glass bowl on Wednesday, but postponed the drawing after Simonds filed her legal challenge.</p>
<p>The result is one of two House races still in limbo.</p>
<p>A lawsuit is pending over ballots in a hotly contested race in the 28th District in the Fredericksburg area.</p> | Random Drawing Scheduled to Break Tie in Disputed Virginia Race | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/random-drawing-scheduled-break-tie-disputed-house-race/ | 2017-12-29 | 4 |
<p>Apple&#160;(NASDAQ: AAPL)&#160;versus Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). These archrivals have battled against each other for decades, all the while rewarding their shareholders with the spoils of war.</p>
<p>But which is the better buy today? Let's find out.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Apple's <a href="https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/economic-moat.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=2f990e6e-b837-11e7-a110-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">economic moat</a> is built around the strength of its ecosystem. The iPhone is its Trojan horse into consumer's lives. The high satisfaction rates among iPhone buyers tend to lead to additional Apple purchases, such as iPads and Macs. This "halo effect" is further strengthened by Apple's growing collection of services, with iCloud, iTunes, App Store, Apple Pay, and Apple Music all helping to add additional layers of "stickiness" to Apple's ecosystem. So once a person becomes an Apple customer, he or she tends to remain one.</p>
<p>Microsoft, on the other hand, has recently seen a major portion of its competitive moat crumble. Windows was a major driver of Microsoft's rise to dominance in the '90s, and for many years the PC operating system comprised the core of Microsoft's competitive strategy versus its rivals. Yet, analogous to how the Germans bypassed France's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line" type="external">Maginot Line</a> in World War II, Apple circumvented Microsoft's well-defended PC operating-system business with a mobile offensive.</p>
<p>Apple knew that it could not overtake Microsoft's dominant desktop-computer market share with a direct assault, so it instead attacked its opponent's relatively unprotected mobile OS flank. By the time Microsoft attempted to launch a counterstrike with its Windows Phones, it was <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/07/11/microsoft-is-finally-killing-windows-phone.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=2f990e6e-b837-11e7-a110-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">too little, too late</a>. Moreover, Apple's victories in mobile have allowed it to expand its beachhead in desktop computers, with Macs steadily taking share from Windows-powered PCs in recent years.</p>
<p>Though these two tech titans compete in several other areas, Apple's success in the mobile wars gives it the edge in terms of competitive moat.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Advantage: Apple.</p>
<p>Apple and Microsoft are both powerhouse businesses, but let's look at some key metrics to see how they stack up in regard to financial strength.</p>
<p>Apple's and Microsoft's financials are staggering. With more than $50 billion and $30 billion in annual free cash flow, respectively, and $400 billion in cash and investments between them, these tech giants are colossal cash-generating machines. Yet as impressive as Microsoft is in these areas, Apple's profitability and balance-sheet strength are simply unparalleled.</p>
<p>Advantage: Apple.</p>
<p>Over the past half-decade, Apple's revenue growth outpaced that of Microsoft by about 10%, while Microsoft's earnings per share rose faster than its longtime rival's EPS by a comparable margin.</p>
<p>Over the next five years, Wall Street expects Apple and Microsoft to grow their EPS at similar rates: 12.37%&#160;for Apple and 11.45%&#160;for Microsoft. That's too close to give either company much of an edge in terms of growth.</p>
<p>Advantage: None.</p>
<p>No better-buy discussion should take place without a look at valuation. Let's check out some key value metrics for Apple and Microsoft, including price-to-sales, price-to-earnings, and price-to-free-cash-flow ratios.</p>
<p>On all four metrics, Apple's shares are far less expensive than Microsoft's, making it the better bargain.</p>
<p>Advantage: Apple.</p>
<p>Apple's powerful ecosystem, superior financial strength, and more attractively priced stock combine to make it the better buy today.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than AppleWhen 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-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=83f37c7a-a9d8-4e49-9ae6-8356763825b7&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=2f990e6e-b837-11e7-a110-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks</a> for investors to buy right now... and Apple 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-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=83f37c7a-a9d8-4e49-9ae6-8356763825b7&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=2f990e6e-b837-11e7-a110-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of October 9, 2017</p>
<p>Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. <a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFGuardian/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=2f990e6e-b837-11e7-a110-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Joe Tenebruso</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple and short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple. 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;uuid=2f990e6e-b837-11e7-a110-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy</a>.</p> | Better Buy: Apple Inc. vs. Microsoft | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/25/better-buy-apple-inc-vs-microsoft.html | 2017-10-23 | 0 |
<p>In what may be an encounter unprecedented in the Catholic Church's history, the new pope met for a private lunch Saturday with the former pope, Pope Benedict.</p>
<p>The two men, both dressed in white, smiled and embraced warmly on the helipad in the gardens of Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome where Benedict has been living since he resigned last month, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/popes-meet-lunch-1st-time-600-years-18796239#.UU3GPXBOT0c" type="external">AP reported.</a></p>
<p>They then went to the chapel inside the palazzo where Pope Francis lived up to its reputation as a humble man by refusing to go to the front to the papal kneeler to pray alone.&#160;</p>
<p>"No, we are brothers," Francis told Benedict, according to the Vatican spokesman the Rev Federico Lombardi.</p>
<p>So the two prayed side-by-side on a different kneeler in the pews.</p>
<p>Francis also brought a gift to Benedict, an icon of the Madonna, the "Madonna of Humility", and told you:&#160;"You gave us so many signs of humility and gentleness in your pontificate."&#160;</p>
<p>Lombardi said Benedict offered his pledge of obedience to the new pope, while Francis thanked Benedict for his ministry, <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/pope-meets-pope-francis-joins-1780866" type="external">the London Mirror reported</a>.</p>
<p>The pair then enjoyed a private lunch.</p>
<p>Vatican commentators said yesterday's lunch was a rare occasion, possibly unprecedented, because a new pope usually takes the reins only following the death of his predecessor, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/23/world/europe/vatican-pope-lunch/index.html?hpt=hp_t2" type="external">reports CNN.</a></p>
<p>Pope Francis flew by helicopter Saturday morning to the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo in the Alban Hills where Pope Benedict XVI has been living since he resigned February 28, becoming the first pope to step down in 600 years, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/28/benedict-begins-final-day-as-pope-before-retiring/" type="external">Fox News reported.</a></p>
<p>While Pope Francis wanted the lunch to be low-key, it did not stop crowds gathering in the central square of the hill town, south of Rome to see history unfolding, <a href="http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/23/17427498-historic-lunch-pope-meets-ex-pope?lite" type="external">AP reported.&#160;</a></p>
<p>The Vatican would not allow any live coverage of the private meeting, issuing a few still photos from the official Vatican photographer and details from vatican spokesman.&#160;</p>
<p>Vatican observers told CNN they believe one item on the conversation agenda will be the contents of a 300-page report presented by three cardinals to Benedict, claiming corruption within the Vatican hierarchy.</p> | Pope Francis tells Benedict "We're brothers" during historic lunch together | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-03-23/pope-francis-tells-benedict-were-brothers-during-historic-lunch-together | 2013-03-23 | 3 |
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<p>International Women’s Day has been celebrated on March 8 for more than a century, but this year’s global day of action was marked with an added sense of urgency. A man who was caught on tape bragging about committing sexual assault is now the president of the United States.</p>
<p>The day after Trump’s inauguration, more than 4 million people protested from coast to coast, perhaps the largest political protest in U.S. history. The Women’s March on Washington alone was three times the size of his inauguration crowd the day before, a fact that clearly enraged the president.</p>
<p>Two days later, Trump would sign an executive order imposing a “global gag rule,” which bans U.S. foreign aid to any nongovernmental organization that provides abortion or even talks about it as an option. Trump also is pressuring lawmakers to pass the Republican bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The law would strip funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides a broad array of health-care services to more than 2.5 million Americans annually. Only 3 percent of its services are abortion-related, and no federal funding goes to provide abortions.</p>
<p>With events in over 50 countries, this year’s women’s strike is the largest in recent history. “March 8th will be the beginning of a new international feminist movement that organizes resistance not just against Trump and his misogynist policies,” the organizers’ website states, “but also against the conditions that produced Trump, namely the decades-long economic inequality, racial and sexual violence, and imperial wars abroad.”</p>
<p>Just this week, a leaked document revealed that the Department of Homeland Security is considering a proposal to separate refugee mothers from their children if they are apprehended crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In a video promoting the global action, people declare their reasons for participating:</p>
<p>“I’m striking on March 8th because I believe women should be free to make the decisions regarding their own bodies … I’m striking on March 8th for equal pay and equal opportunity, because women’s work makes all other work possible and because it’s about time we start valuing women’s labor … I’m striking on March 8th because when I go out, I want to feel free, not brave … because women matter.”</p>
<p>As dawn broke over Washington, D.C., on International Women’s Day, Donald Trump tweeted: “I have tremendous respect for women and the many roles they serve that are vital to the fabric of our society and our economy.” This from the man who has been accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment by at least 15 women, half of them just during his recent campaign.</p>
<p>The women of the world and their male allies are judging Trump not on his words but on his deeds. They are engaged, they are enraged, and they are organizing across issues. Trump is doing damage, daily, to pillars of progressive achievement for which people have fought, gone to prison, even died for, for over a century. But the resistance is growing, offering hope in a time of darkness.</p>
<p /> | Strike shows ‘women matter’ | false | https://abqjournal.com/966874/strike-shows-women-matter.html | 2 |
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<p />
<p>While Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist running for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, was speaking at a rally in Portland, Oregon, a little bird landed on the podium, prompting cheers of adulation from the crowd.</p>
<p>Sanders called it symbolic and said the bird “is really a dove asking us for world peace. No more wars!”</p>
<p>Here’s video of the incident:</p>
<p>Naturally, the Sanders campaign used it as a tool to get out the vote:</p>
<p />
<p>And he’s been called a Disney princess…&#160; Seriously.</p>
<p />
<p>Could this be next?</p>
<p />
<p>Related:</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>If you haven’t checked out and liked our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook</a> page, please go <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeFiringLine?fref=ts" type="external">here</a> and do so.</p> | Watch Sanders cultists go bananas over bird landing on podium during speech | true | http://conservativefiringline.com/watch-sanders-cultists-go-bananas-over-bird-landing-on-podium-during-speech/ | 2016-03-26 | 0 |
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<p>APS Superintendent Winston Brooks said the loop is essential for student safety. He also said more than 400 Jefferson parents have signed a petition to support it.</p>
<p>“We had to weigh the seven to 10 neighbors that are anti- and the 400-plus parents that are supportive and encouraging us to do this,” Brooks said.</p>
<p>The loop will be built on APS property, which means the city has no authority over most aspects of the project. The city’s only real authority is on whether to grant APS permits to cut into the curbs on Girard and Lomas.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>“We’re rocking and rolling,” Brooks said. “We’re going to build a road, and we’ll worry about the curb cutout later.”</p>
<p>The district also sent a letter to Jefferson parents about the decision to start construction.</p>
<p>“We thought it important to explain why Albuquerque Public Schools is moving forward. It’s really very simple – student safety. For years now we have had concerns about student safety given the congested traffic on and near campus,” according to the letter, which is signed by Brooks, School Board President Martin Esquivel and Jefferson Principal Pam Meyers.</p>
<p>Jake Buehler, whose home is adjacent to the campus and will back up to the loop road, said APS’ move shows “arrogance.”</p>
<p>“I don’t understand why APS is so adamant at digging their heels in against just sitting down with the city planners and the neighbors to come up with a solution that works for everybody,” Buehler said.</p>
<p>A group of neighbors has been protesting the project since May, speaking at City Council meetings, contacting APS officials, and even spray-painting protest messages on their own fences, facing the campus. Those neighbors say they are concerned about pollution from idling cars and about the safety of students crossing the loop road. They also say APS has not involved them in the planning process.</p>
<p>Isaac Benton, the city councilor who represents the Jefferson area, got involved in the issue at Monday’s council meeting. He proposed a resolution, which passed 7-1, to keep APS from getting curb cut permits until the district meets with neighbors and city planners.</p>
<p>Benton and APS officials have been sniping at each other since Monday, with Esquivel saying he believes the City Council has overstepped its authority by interfering with a curb cut permit, which is normally a routine administrative matter. Esquivel has also accused Benton, who is running for re-election, of having political motives.</p>
<p>Benton has called this accusation “patently ridiculous.” He also contends that the council has the ultimate authority to make land use decisions in Albuquerque. He said Thursday that he is “disappointed and saddened” by APS’ decision to press ahead with the project.</p>
<p>“They’re not an island fortress,” he said. “They’re part of our community, and they should really act as if they’re part of the community.”</p>
<p />
<p /> | APS breaks ground on controversial loop road | false | https://abqjournal.com/266199/aps-breaks-ground-on-controversial-loop-road.html | 2013-09-20 | 2 |
<p />
<p>Small business optimism remained largely unchanged in the month prior to Election Day, while uncertainty about future business conditions hit a record high.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The National Federation of Independent Business’ Small Business Optimism Index rose 0.3 in October to 93.1, with 100 being the pre-recession average for the survey. The NFIB, which surveyed 2,029 small businesses in its membership, indicated that the slight uptick did not seem to reflect a dramatic shift in owner sentiment before the presidential election.</p>
<p>“I’m an optimist by nature, but I’m not optimistic about my business,” said Bill Keith, president of Indiana-based SunRise Solar, which makes solar-powered attic fans. “I’m optimistic about my chances to succeed, but I’m not so sure about the business I worked so hard to grow. In the current political climate, I’m definitely uncertain.”</p>
<p>Uncertainty about the direction of business conditions in six months reached 23% of respondents, easily surpassing a pre-recession record of 15% that was reported during the Jimmy Carter administration.</p>
<p>“While four of ten survey components rose, the Index still remains in solidly pessimistic—and recessionary territory,” NFIB chief economist William Dunkelberg said in a statement. “In the 40 months since the alleged ‘recovery’ started in July 2009, the Index has never exceeded a reading of 95; the pre-recession average for the Index is 100. The election is over and&#160;Washingtonlooks much like it did on November 5th. The fear of stalemate among the small-business community is palpable, as the looming fiscal cliff and the threat of higher costs and more taxes are very real possibilities come January. Until then, not knowing the direction of the economy will always have a dampening impact on spending and hiring.”</p>
<p>Weak sales remained the primary business concern for 22% of surveyed owners. The net percent, seasonally adjusted, of all small business owners reporting higher nominal sales over the past three months is negative 15%, two points worse than September. The NFIB noted that this is consistent with the weak growth in non-durable consumer spending in the third quarter.</p>
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<p>“This is our first holiday season. Until we do a full year, it’s hard to know how to compare, but I guess sales are not as strong as they could be,” said Jocelyn Fine, co-owner of helmet accessory maker Fohawx.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the average change in employment per firm was 0.02 workers, as owners stopped releasing workers in October. Despite an end to a four-month run of employment reductions, national employment is still four million workers down from levels seen in the first quarter of 2008. Seasonally adjusted, 11% reported adding an average of 2.7 workers over the last three months, and 10% reduced employment an average of 2.9 workers. Nearly half (48%) of surveyed business owners hired or tried to hire in the last three months, with another 38% reporting few or no qualified applicants for open positions.</p>
<p>“I don’t know about big businesses, but optimism is high among the hundreds of small business operators that we serve,” said Scott Yates, CEO of blog writing service BlogMutt. “There’s a sense that it’s up to us to fix the economy, but small business people are the busiest, most productive people on the planet and we are up to the challenge. So my optimism is high."</p>
<p>The frequency of reported capital outlays also edged higher to 54%, an increase of three points, and 22% of small business owners are planning capital outlays in the next three months. However, only 7% characterized the current period as a good time to expand facilities.</p>
<p>Keith, the owner of SunRise Solar, said he stopped making investments in his own company and instead decided to make loans to other projects, expecting returns on the loans to be greater than any benefit from putting cash back into his business.</p>
<p>“I see the loans as a better investment than myself, which is sad,” Keith said, adding that his level of optimism dropped after the election. “I planned on investing capital if Mitt Romney was going to win, but I stopped short of doing that because that’s no way to run a business. But that’s where my confidence level was.”</p> | Uncertainty Hits Record High in Latest Optimism Index | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/11/14/uncertainty-hits-record-high-in-latest-optimism-index.html | 2016-03-23 | 0 |
<p>Despite a recent <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/26/climate-fail-gallup-poll-shows-global-warming-concerns-dead-last/" type="external">Gallup poll</a> showing climate changing ranking last&#160;among a number of environmental priorities, including polluted drinking water, air pollution and the loss of tropical rain forests, billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Henry Cisneros argued last week that climate change should be a top public policy concern.</p>
<p />
<p>Tom Steyer</p>
<p />
<p>The Los Angeles World Affairs Council event, April 2, hosted just over 100 people to hear&#160; Steyer and Cisneros discuss climate change and refute the recent poll at the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City,</p>
<p>Steyer emphasized that “three quarters of the public and 97 percent of the scientists believe with us” that global warming is “one of the top three issues” facing the world.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article17239049.html" type="external">Steyer’s</a> new emphasis is on gaining the support of business leaders and Latinos for global warming.&#160;Steyer distributed a glossy, spiral bound brochure titled <a href="http://riskybusiness.org/reports/national-report/executive-summary" type="external">“Risky Business”</a> about climate impacts on California.&#160;The brochure was supported by the <a href="https://steyertaylor.stanford.edu/event/risky-business-%E2%80%93-what-do-leaders-need-know-about-economic-risks-climate-change" type="external">Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford</a>.</p>
<p>The event’s moderator Terry McCarthy asked the speakers if global warming had any connection with the California drought? Steyer answered in the affirmative and&#160;elaborated that the drought just isn’t about less rainfall and snow but also about rising temperature.</p>
<p>Cisneros added that the water content of California snowpack had decreased from 28 inches to 1.4 inches this year, a 95 percent drop and an all time <a href="http://www.water.ca.gov/news/newsreleases/2015/040115snowsurvey.pdf" type="external">historical low</a>. But California drought planning is on a 5-year cycle and the 5-year average water content in snow is about <a href="http://www.weather.com/climate-weather/drought/news/california-sierra-snowpack-record-low-april-2015" type="external">65 percent of normal</a>. Moreover, no mention was made that the Los Angeles Times recently reported California has&#160; <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-0320-drought-explainer-20150320-story.html" type="external">decades of groundwater</a> supplies available.</p>
<p>Cisneros&#160;claimed&#160;that the drought was having a negative impact on new housing construction. A fact check, however, indicates that construction is up 13.5 percent as of Feb. 2015 in Fresno, up 17.9 percent in Bakersfield, and up 44.7 percent in Sacramento, all areas <a href="http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx" type="external">hard hit</a> by drought ( <a href="http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ca_sacramento_msa.htm" type="external">U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics</a> 2015).</p>
<p>McCarthy asked about the projected sea level rise and its effects on California described in the Risky Business brochure.&#160;Cisneros said that the Oakland and San Francisco Airports would be the most affected by a projected sea level rise of 1.5 to 3.5 feet over the next few decades. Cisneros quipped that billionaire <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-biggest-republican-donors-in-the-tech-industry-2012-9?op=1" type="external">Larry Ellison</a>, who is an airplane pilot (and Republican Party contributor), might not be able to land one of his private jets any longer at those airports. The San Francisco Airport is <a href="http://www.airportexplorer.com/SFO" type="external">13-feet above sea level</a>; Oakland Airport <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_International_Airport" type="external">9 feet, 3 inches</a>.</p>
<p>Both speakers spent the night sniping at Republicans about climate change but also solicited businesspersons to get on board with their climate change agenda. Billionaire <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Broad" type="external">Eli Broad</a>, who built two Fortune 500 companies, KB Homes and SunAmerica, was in the audience.</p>
<p>McCarthy asked Steyer if combating global warming was “irrelevant” given that China is generating increased worldwide pollution. Steyer said he was in China last week and the U.S. and China signed a global warming pact last year.</p>
<p>The question and answer period was fraught with questions from the audience critical of Republicans about their stances on environmental policies and lauding the two speakers for their efforts on global warming.</p>
<p>One member of&#160;the audience commented about “the comical displays” and “clownishness about the future” by Republicans toward global warming. Steyer humorously answered that “he was no expert on the Republican Party,”&#160;and&#160;offered an “analogy” from Warren Buffett: in the short run history is a popularity contest but in the long run it is an adding machine.</p>
<p>Cisneros said Republicans “are on the wrong side of history” because Republican cities like New Orleans and Houston would be hardest hit by rising sea levels brought about by global warming.</p>
<p>When asked, Steyer denied he was going to pursue supporting an oil severance tax in California in 2016.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Climate change should be top issue despite public apathy, Steyer and Cisneros say | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2015/04/07/climate-change-should-be-top-issue-despite-public-apathy-steyer-and-cisneros-say/ | 2018-04-20 | 3 |
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<p>This morning, Mother Jones published <a href="" type="internal">a major investigative article</a> by Shane Bauer, a journalist who is one of the three American hikers detained in Iran after <a href="" type="internal">accidentally crossing the border while hiking in Kurdistan</a>. The story, in the magazine’s September/October issue, was reported earlier this year and went to press before Bauer was detained on July 31. But with the issue arriving in subscribers’ homes this week, we decided, in consultation with Bauer’s family and the families of the other hikers, to release it simultaneously online. We felt it was important to avoid speculation and mischaracterization about the story, and to showcase the kind of top-notch journalism Bauer has been producing.</p>
<p>Based on numerous interviews and government documents, Bauer’s article, “ <a href="" type="internal">The Sheikh Down</a>,” finds that millions in reconstruction funding have been used to award inflated contracts to Sunni sheikhs to keep them and their followers from taking up arms against US troops. “The program was a major part of the Awakening, which the Pentagon has touted as a turning point in reducing violence and creating the conditions for an American withdrawal,” Bauer reports. “It was also a reinstitution of a strategy started by Saddam Hussein, who picked out tribal leaders he could manipulate through patronage schemes. The US military didn’t give the sheikhs straight-up bribes, which would have raised eyebrows in Washington. Instead, it handed out reconstruction contracts. Sometimes issued at three or four times market value, the contracts have been the grease in the wheels of the Awakening in Anbar—the almost entirely Sunni province in western Iraq where Fallujah is located.”</p>
<p>The program has had little oversight from Washington—battalion commanders are allowed to hand out contracts up to $500,000 without approval from their superiors. In one case Bauer examines, a clinic described by his military sources as a “patronage project,” a Sunni sheikh was paid $488,000. “Yet Hastings estimates that it will cost around $100,000 to build,” Bauer writes. “’That’s, you know, a pretty good profit margin,’ Hastings says—close to 80 percent. In comparison, KBR, the largest military contractor in the country, cleared 3 percent in profits in 2008. Halliburton scored around 14 percent.” &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160; While some officials defend the “make-a-sheikh” program as business as usual in a country rife with corruption, many experts warn that it could destabilize Iraq in the long term. Peter Harling, senior Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group, tells Bauer, “The pillaging of state resources is not a particularly good strategy. It creates a culture of predators and a lot of resentment from those who don’t take part in those contracts. You might lavish one tribal leader with contracts but alienate 10 others.” Sam Parker, an Iraq programs officer at the United States Institute of Peace, is also concerned that the strategy could backfire. “Contracts are inflated because they are only secondarily about the goods and services received,” he tells Bauer. “It’s very problematic. You are rewarding the guys with the guns.”</p>
<p>You can read Shane’s whole story <a href="" type="internal">here</a>. Our thoughts are with him, Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal, and all of their families. We won’t be discussing their case publicly at this time.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Clara Jeffery</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Monika Bauerlein</a> are Co-Editors of Mother Jones. You can read more of their articles <a href="" type="internal">here</a> and <a href="" type="internal">here</a> and follow them on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/ClaraJeffery" type="external">here</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/MonikaBauerlein" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p /> | Detained Writer’s Mother Jones Piece Now Online | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/08/detained-writers-mother-jones-piece-now-online/ | 2009-08-11 | 4 |
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<p>Here’s my latest contribution to NGTV’s “Today” show. Nothing is more fun than discussing the news of the day with Johnny Phillips and Stephen Kruiser</p>
<p>Click here for video: <a href="http://www.nextgeneration.tv/?cmd=mpg&amp;load=9265&amp;mpid=517" type="external">Dennis Rodman’s Wild Televised Rant from North Korea! Plus, the Importance of Penmanship!</a></p>
<p>Former NBA star Dennis Rodman is back in North Korea to promote basketball. He also went on a wild rant during an interview on CNN. Find out what set him off! Plus, a comedian refuses to apologize for a joke she made during a New Year’s Eve live broadcast. Did she cross the line? And Mexican drug cartels have unearthed a new way to smuggle drugs into the U.S. Tammy Bruce and Stephen Kruiser join John Phillips to discuss these stories and more in this episode of Next Generation Today.</p> | true | http://tammybruce.com/2014/01/pjtv-video-tammy-johnny-phillips-kruiser-react-to-rodmans-wild-tv-intv.html | 0 |
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<p>SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — The number of missing after a California mudslide has fluctuated wildly, due to shifting definitions, the inherent uncertainty that follows a natural disaster, and just plain human error.</p>
<p>On Thursday, the number provided by authorities went from 48, down to eight, then back up to 43. Officials say a clerical mistake led to the figure of eight being released.</p>
<p>At a news conference Thursday where he said 43 were missing, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said the updated figure was an “inclusive” number that encompassed several definitions of “missing.”</p>
<p>“I know it sounds like it’s a constantly moving number,” Brown said. “There hasn’t been a sound definition of what constitutes a missing person.”</p>
<p>It could include everything from urgent, active missing-persons cases being worked by detectives to calls received from acquaintances saying they hadn’t been able to reach someone they believe was in Montecito on Tuesday morning when mudslides swept through town and killed 17 people.</p>
<p>Authorities would not specify how many people were in each category.</p>
<p>Brown said some of those on the missing list may simply have left the area before or after the mudslides or may just be out of touch with the family and friends looking for them.</p>
<p>Hundreds of rescue workers slogged through knee-deep ooze and used long poles to probe for bodies Thursday as the search dragged on for victims of the mudslides that slammed this wealthy coastal town. (Jan. 11)</p>
<p>Similar issues emerged in last year’s wine country wildfires in Northern California, where at times thousands were reported missing, the overwhelming majority simply people whose communication with friends and family had been cut off by the fires.</p>
<p>Brown did say that of the 17 people he announced were missing Wednesday, some were identified as among the dead and were crossed off the list.</p>
<p>He did not believe, he said Thursday, that there are 43 more dead to be discovered, or even a figure close to that.</p>
<p>SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — The number of missing after a California mudslide has fluctuated wildly, due to shifting definitions, the inherent uncertainty that follows a natural disaster, and just plain human error.</p>
<p>On Thursday, the number provided by authorities went from 48, down to eight, then back up to 43. Officials say a clerical mistake led to the figure of eight being released.</p>
<p>At a news conference Thursday where he said 43 were missing, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said the updated figure was an “inclusive” number that encompassed several definitions of “missing.”</p>
<p>“I know it sounds like it’s a constantly moving number,” Brown said. “There hasn’t been a sound definition of what constitutes a missing person.”</p>
<p>It could include everything from urgent, active missing-persons cases being worked by detectives to calls received from acquaintances saying they hadn’t been able to reach someone they believe was in Montecito on Tuesday morning when mudslides swept through town and killed 17 people.</p>
<p>Authorities would not specify how many people were in each category.</p>
<p>Brown said some of those on the missing list may simply have left the area before or after the mudslides or may just be out of touch with the family and friends looking for them.</p>
<p>Hundreds of rescue workers slogged through knee-deep ooze and used long poles to probe for bodies Thursday as the search dragged on for victims of the mudslides that slammed this wealthy coastal town. (Jan. 11)</p>
<p>Similar issues emerged in last year’s wine country wildfires in Northern California, where at times thousands were reported missing, the overwhelming majority simply people whose communication with friends and family had been cut off by the fires.</p>
<p>Brown did say that of the 17 people he announced were missing Wednesday, some were identified as among the dead and were crossed off the list.</p>
<p>He did not believe, he said Thursday, that there are 43 more dead to be discovered, or even a figure close to that.</p> | Shifting numbers and definitions of ‘missing’ after mudslide | false | https://apnews.com/de25b1f656a041b6b95c0e6181df15f7 | 2018-01-12 | 2 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p>TRENTON, N.J. — A panel of Food and Drug Administration advisers voted against approving a new opioid painkiller with a unique feature for deterring abuse: It releases a deep-blue dye if someone tries to get high by crushing, chewing or snorting pills.</p>
<p>Panelists voted overwhelmingly against approving Intellipharmaceutics International’s generic version of extended-release Oxycontin, a key drug in the U.S. opioid addiction epidemic. The FDA usually follows its advisers’ advice.</p>
<p>Doctors and scientists raised many concerns about the dye’s safety for intended patients, and its effectiveness in deterring opioid abusers. Most said the company hadn’t done enough studies of the drug.</p>
<p>Some suggested blue stains around the mouth or nose from trying to abuse the drug could become popular among addicts. Others said the dye’s “Scarlet Letter” shaming approach was insensitive.</p>
<p>Executives with Toronto-based Intellipharmaceutics had earlier said they believed the blue stains, which would take at least 30 minutes to scrub off the skin, would serve as an early-warning system to family and friends that an opioid addict was abusing drugs.</p>
<p>But the FDA advisers, a combined group of drug safety and pain management experts, voted 22-1 against recommending the FDA approve sales of the pills, which Intellipharmaceutics has tentatively named “Rexista.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The panel also voted that the company hadn’t provided enough data to show that addicts couldn’t find a way to convert the pills’ active ingredient, oxycodone, into a liquid that could be injected.</p>
<p>Advisers noted that the company hadn’t studied issues such as whether the nasal irritant in the pill would prevent abusers from trying to snort it after crushing and whether the blue dye would discourage abuse attempts.</p>
<p>“I can see Smurf parties and blue lollipops suddenly becoming popular,” said Dr. Melinda Campopiano, a senior medical adviser at the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Linda A. Johnson at https://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma .</p> | FDA panel: Not enough data to OK ‘abuse-deterrent’ opioid | false | https://abqjournal.com/1038731/fda-panel-not-enough-data-to-ok-abuse-deterrent-opioid.html | 2017-07-26 | 2 |
<p>Jenny McCarthy on autism photo used under the Creative Commons license by flickr user Kenya Allmond</p>
<p />
<p>Well, it’s back again. The <a href="http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141451/what_really_causes_autism_thousands_of_parents_blame_vaccines%2C_and_are_taking_on_the_medical_establishment/" type="external">zombie meme that just won’t stay dead</a>.</p>
<p>We love a <a href="" type="internal">good conspiracy</a> as much as the next investigative magazine—especially one that involves Big Pharma, the FDA, and the CDC. But as we’ve <a href="" type="internal">extensively reported here, the vaccines = autism meme</a> might just be the most damaging medical myth of the decade. Not only is it based on false “science” that’s tearing apart the families of sick children, it’s unintentionally sickening thousands of others.</p>
<p>If you don’t watch <a href="http://gawker.com/5239636/oprah-joins-list-of-celebs-enabling-jenny-mccarthys-conspiracy-crusade" type="external">Oprah</a> or read <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-carrey/the-judgment-on-vaccines_b_189777.html" type="external">HuffPo</a>, the theory goes like this. An <a href="" type="internal">ethylmercury-based preservative thimerosal</a> (which was removed from all vaccines in the early 2000s) is retained by young children who then <a href="" type="internal">exhibit symptoms of mercury toxicity,</a> the true cause of autism. Alternately, the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines, when given in tandem as MMR (the only form of the vaccine currently available) overwhelms the systems of sensitive children, causing intestinal distress, which causes autism. Sound odd?</p>
<p>Putting aside for just a moment the enormous weight of scientific evidence against these theories and the <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2009/07/autism_research_resigns_from_p_1.html" type="external">sound discrediting of virtually every doctor</a> or scientist who has ever supported them, the MMR-causes-autism theory is downright dangerous.</p>
<p>Anti-MMR crusaders like <a href="http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1888718,00.html" type="external">Jenny McCarthy</a> and longtime partner <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-carrey/the-judgment-on-vaccines_b_189777.html" type="external">Jim Carrey</a> insist they’re not anti-vaccine. But their position is dangerously close, for two reasons.</p>
<p>One, the overall hysteria about vaccine safety has led many parents to refuse shots outright, especially in Europe, where the burden of measles <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5806a3.htm" type="external">infection has transferred</a> from poor countries like <a href="http://www.euro.who.int/features/2007/featureiw07/20070410_3" type="external">Romania</a>, Ukraine, and Georgia to rich ones like the UK, France, Germany, and Austria.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Secondly, the ‘single-antigen’ vaccines McCarthy and others claim to support only exist in theory. Merck, the top vaccine producer, <a href="http://www.eadshome.com/mm/Attenuvax%20and%20mumpsvax.pdf" type="external">stopped making individual doses of measles</a>, mumps, and rubella vaccines in December, due to low demand and high production costs.</p>
<p>Even with our country’s stringent vaccination laws (New York has some of the toughest, Oregon and California some of the loosest), domestic measles <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5733a1.htm" type="external">infections tripled between 2007 and 2008</a>. That year, New York saw the biggest outbreak in more than a decade, followed by another one this summer, and <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm57e222a1.htm" type="external">San Diego</a>hit the headlines after a massive outbreak and an aggressive quarantine in a community where <a href="http://cbs13.com/local/california.children.vaccinations.2.970458.html" type="external">greater than 10 percent of children aren’t vaccinated at all.</a></p>
<p>That, says CDC virologists, is an out and out disaster. When herd immunity (a community’s overall resistance to a disease) drops below critical mass, the risk of a major outbreak increases exponentially.</p>
<p>Don’t blame the McCarthy-Carrey family for holding a wacky position—parents of sick children (even celebrity parents of sick children) can and have done worse. Save it for the MSM and others who give them a platform, particularly the ones who quote quack journalist <a href="http://www.evidenceofharm.com/" type="external">David Kirby</a>in a misguided pursuit of “balance.” And next time you see a headline with a CYA question mark like “No Link Between Vaccines and Autism?,” don’t click.</p>
<p /> | Breaking: Vaccines Still Don’t Cause Autism | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/breaking-vaccines-still-dont-cause-autism-measles-still-causes-measles/ | 2009-07-22 | 4 |
<p>Gold futures settled with a modest gain on Friday, but finished the week with a loss of about 1.5%--the worst in six weeks. Prices were volatile, with the metal tracking moves in the U.S. dollar as traders assessed comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen and Vice Chair Stanley Fischer, which hinted at the potential for an interest-rate increase as early as next month. December gold rose $1.30, or 0.1%, to settle at $1,325.90 an ounce.</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Gold Futures Gain, But Finish Lower For The Week | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/26/gold-futures-gain-but-finish-lower-for-week.html | 2016-08-26 | 0 |
<p>Contrary to the official “diplomatic solution” line, Seymour Hersh reports that Washington is stepping up plans for a possible airstrike on Iran. According to <a href="http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&amp;storyID=2006-04-09T010652Z_01_N" type="external">Reuters</a>, Hersh’s story in the April 17 issue of The New Yorker reports that a former senior defense official said the planning was, in Hersh’s words, “based on the belief that a bombing campaign against Iran would humiliate the leadership and lead the Iranian public to overthrow it.” The ex-official reportedly added that he was shocked to hear the strategy.</p>
<p>Reuters: The U.S. administration is stepping up plans for a possible air strike on Iran, despite publicly pushing for a diplomatic solution to a dispute over its nuclear ambitions, according to a report by influential investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.</p>
<p>Hersh’s story in the April 17 issue of the New Yorker magazine, mostly citing unidentified current and former officials, says President George W. Bush views Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a “potential Adolf Hitler,” and sees “regime change” in Tehran as the ultimate goal.</p>
<p><a href="http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&amp;storyID=2006-04-09T010652Z_01_N08251666_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAN-HERSH.xml" type="external">link</a></p>
<p /> | Revving Up for Airstrikes on Iran? | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/revving-up-for-airstrikes-on-iran/ | 2006-04-09 | 4 |
<p>A shocking allegation: A woman who claims to have been on the same Turkish people-smuggling boat as that dead Kurdish boy, <a href="" type="internal">Aylan Kurdi</a>, now claims that Kurdi’s own father, Abdullah, was the smuggler.</p>
<p />
<p>She says he was the one who was driving the boat, who capsized it, who didn’t have enough life jackets, who let people drown, including his own family.</p>
<p>An incredible allegation that if true could explain some of the bizarre inconsistencies of the story so far.</p>
<p>The Kurdis were not in Syria or any other <a href="" type="internal">war</a> zone; they'd been living in Turkey for three years. Turkey is a democracy and Kurds are a large minority there. If you’re in Turkey, you’re not a <a href="" type="internal">refugee</a> fleeing danger.</p>
<p>Kurdi's sister Tima said they were all getting into a boat to go to Europe. Not to get away from <a href="" type="internal">war</a> but because Abdullah Kurdi needed dental work.</p>
<p>Kurdi’s first comments last week? The Wall Street Journal says he told reporters he swam ashore by himself but he told other reporters that the coast guard saved him. That’s not a minor detail but a pretty central fact.</p>
<p>I’m not a conspiracy theorist and don’t think this is part of a major propaganda scheme but more likely a minor propaganda scheme: A human smuggler trying to hide his own tracks.</p>
<p>But he’s been used as a major propaganda talking point by countless opportunists who saw the first version of his story as a battering ram to attack the borders and <a href="" type="internal">national security</a> of the West and thereby let in millions of young Muslim men.</p>
<p>Here in Canada, far-left-wing NDP MP, Fin <a href="" type="internal">Donnelly</a>, went on TV and flat-out lied, claiming that Canada had rejected a <a href="" type="internal">refugee</a> application from Abdullah Kurdi and his family. That was a <a href="" type="internal">lie</a> — Canada never received a <a href="" type="internal">refugee</a> application from them and they were not refugees. But the lie was too <a href="" type="internal">delicious</a>, and the CBC and the rest of the world ran with it.</p>
<p>Remember 25 years ago, when tearful testimony by a pretty, articulate Kuwaiti girl named Nayirah -- about babies being thrown from incubators -- helped steer America into going to war with Iraq?</p>
<p>I’m not saying that Abdullah Kurdi or Aylan Kurdi are this year’s Nayirah. It’s much more likely that he’s just a disgraceful human <a href="" type="internal">trafficker</a>, who profited off the misery of his own people, and then one day his own family died because of his incompetence or bad luck. I wish the Media Party would take five minutes off of their campaign for <a href="" type="internal">open</a> borders and <a href="" type="internal">unlimited</a> Muslim <a href="" type="internal">immigration</a>, to do some journalism here.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">JOIN TheRebel.media</a> for more fearless news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">VISIT TheTruthAboutRefugees.com to SIGN THE PETITION</a> to Prime Minister Harper, calling for a responsible refugee policy.</p>
<p><a href="http://therebel.nationbuilder.com/the_truth_about_refugees_opinion_poll_fund" type="external">HELP US FUND</a> a national, statistically valid opinion poll on the matter, to find out what ordinary Canadians think!</p> | "A liar and a blamer": Kurdi's father accused of being a human trafficker -- but will Media Party investigate? | true | http://therebel.media/_a_liar_and_a_blamer_kurdi_s_father_accused | 2015-09-12 | 0 |
<p>Abingdon 75, Richlands 36</p>
<p>Arcadia 50, Nandua 25</p>
<p>Blessed Sacrament-Huguenot 47, Isle of Wight Academy 36</p>
<p>Central Wise 60, Letcher County Central, Ky. 54</p>
<p>Deep Creek 57, Western Branch 40</p>
<p>Deep Run 63, Lee-Davis 34</p>
<p>East Rockingham 60, Stuarts Draft 43</p>
<p>Eastern Montgomery 57, Bath County 45</p>
<p>Franklin County 40, Bassett 24</p>
<p>Glenvar 40, James River-Buchanan 27</p>
<p>Grassfield 65, Indian River 58</p>
<p>Harlan Co., Ky. 73, Lee High 47</p>
<p>Highland-Warrenton 71, Fredericksburg Academy 27</p>
<p>J.I. Burton 52, Mountain Mission 39</p>
<p>Landstown 51, Salem-Va. Beach 33</p>
<p>Liberty-Bedford 49, E.C. Glass 16</p>
<p>Lord Botetourt 69, Alleghany 28</p>
<p>Lord Botetourt 69, Franklin County 28</p>
<p>Narrows 63, Craig County 60</p>
<p>New Kent 37, York 25</p>
<p>Norfolk Academy 56, Northampton 30</p>
<p>Ocean Lakes 53, Tallwood 37</p>
<p>Patrick Henry-Roanoke 58, Staunton River 25</p>
<p>Prince George 57, J.R. Tucker 49</p>
<p>Radford 44, Giles 41</p>
<p>Roanoke Catholic 54, North Cross 21</p>
<p>St. Annes-Belfield 72, Covenant School 24</p>
<p>Surry County 83, Windsor 20</p>
<p>Tabb 38, Smithfield 28</p>
<p>Trinity Episcopal 78, Collegiate-Richmond 53</p>
<p>Varina 37, Mills Godwin 32</p>
<p>William Byrd 46, Pulaski County 38</p>
<p>Abingdon 75, Richlands 36</p>
<p>Arcadia 50, Nandua 25</p>
<p>Blessed Sacrament-Huguenot 47, Isle of Wight Academy 36</p>
<p>Central Wise 60, Letcher County Central, Ky. 54</p>
<p>Deep Creek 57, Western Branch 40</p>
<p>Deep Run 63, Lee-Davis 34</p>
<p>East Rockingham 60, Stuarts Draft 43</p>
<p>Eastern Montgomery 57, Bath County 45</p>
<p>Franklin County 40, Bassett 24</p>
<p>Glenvar 40, James River-Buchanan 27</p>
<p>Grassfield 65, Indian River 58</p>
<p>Harlan Co., Ky. 73, Lee High 47</p>
<p>Highland-Warrenton 71, Fredericksburg Academy 27</p>
<p>J.I. Burton 52, Mountain Mission 39</p>
<p>Landstown 51, Salem-Va. Beach 33</p>
<p>Liberty-Bedford 49, E.C. Glass 16</p>
<p>Lord Botetourt 69, Alleghany 28</p>
<p>Lord Botetourt 69, Franklin County 28</p>
<p>Narrows 63, Craig County 60</p>
<p>New Kent 37, York 25</p>
<p>Norfolk Academy 56, Northampton 30</p>
<p>Ocean Lakes 53, Tallwood 37</p>
<p>Patrick Henry-Roanoke 58, Staunton River 25</p>
<p>Prince George 57, J.R. Tucker 49</p>
<p>Radford 44, Giles 41</p>
<p>Roanoke Catholic 54, North Cross 21</p>
<p>St. Annes-Belfield 72, Covenant School 24</p>
<p>Surry County 83, Windsor 20</p>
<p>Tabb 38, Smithfield 28</p>
<p>Trinity Episcopal 78, Collegiate-Richmond 53</p>
<p>Varina 37, Mills Godwin 32</p>
<p>William Byrd 46, Pulaski County 38</p> | Wednesday's Scores | false | https://apnews.com/9fba3817f9034ef7bf8c102b54120de8 | 2018-01-25 | 2 |
<p>One couple is spending an extra $200 a week on gas. A school teacher has already quit her job. Mom-and-pop businesses are worried there might not be a tourist season this year.</p>
<p>Nearly two weeks after a deadly mudslide in Washington state, the economically fragile town of Darrington is facing an uncertain future.</p>
<p>It didn't suffer any damage — the hillside collapsed onto neighboring Oso — but the wreckage spilled across a mile-long stretch of State Route 530, a crucial road that connected Darrington with much of the rest of the state.</p>
<p>While state authorities figure out how and when they will reopen the highway, Darrington residents and workers are coping with <a href="http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/SR530/Landslide/detourmap.htm" type="external">unwieldy detours and hellish commutes</a>.</p>
<p>"We have ways to get out, but we're really cut off," said Roselie Rasmussen, 32, who is on the board of the Darrington Area Business Association and runs a massage business.</p>
<p>Many of the 1,400 people who live in Darrington are reluctant to complain, given the devastation just 15 miles away, where at least 27 people were crushed to death by a rolling wave of mud on March 22.</p>
<p>But as the days pass, the realities of life without SR 530 aren't getting any easier for Darrington residents who work in Arlington, Everett or even Seattle because local jobs are so scarce with just one sawmill left in town.</p>
<p>Karen Egtvedt, 53, said her 45-minute trip to her job at a nursing home in Stanwood has jumped to two hours. Her husband, a sprinkler fitter in Seattle, faces a three-hour journey each way.</p>
<p>"Last night I got home at 4 a.m.," she said.</p>
<p>She estimated the two of them are spending an extra $40 a day on gas — or $800 a month.</p>
<p>"I've been trying to talk my husband into getting some place to stay around the other side, but he's afraid someone will break into the house and rob us while we're gone," Egtvedt said.</p>
<p>With the highway bifurcated, Darrington residents generally have to take the road north to State Route 20, which connects with the all-important Interstate 5.</p>
<p>A one-way dirt and gravel road known as Mountain Loop was opened for local and emergency access only.</p>
<p>"If it doesn't reopen, it would become unlivable out here."</p>
<p>It's unclear how long Darrington will have to endure the detours.</p>
<p>"We have been developing several options for the long-term future of SR 530, but it’s still too soon to know exactly what that may be or give a definite time-frame," said Bart Treece, spokesman for Washington State Department of Transportation.</p>
<p>"There is still an active search operation being conducted by Snohomish County and we cannot properly assess the roadway. We’re sensitive to the needs of the community and understand the importance of SR 530 of keeping traffic and freight moving to and from Darrington."</p>
<p>At a Tuesday briefing, Steve Harris, the supervisor of the east side of the recovery zone, put the situation in stark terms.</p>
<p>"There’s areas where the highway is just gone," he said. "From what I’ve seen, it’s going to take a long time."</p>
<p>Kevin Ashe, who owns Darrington's only grocery story, the I.G.A., and sits on the City Council, is concerned about the cascade effect of the road closure.</p>
<p>If residents can't get to their jobs easily, they may eventually decide to move closer to their workplaces. That would leave local businesses like his with a dwindling customer base.</p>
<p>The town gets a tourism bump in the summer, but those people come through 530, so businesses that cater to the vacation crowd might take a big hit.</p>
<p>Then there are those who come to Darrington to work.</p>
<p>"Right now we have four or five teachers who live in Arlington. One of them has already quit and there's a chance we could lose the others before the year's up," Ashe said.</p>
<p>Ashe said he is confident that state officials will work as quickly as possible to either reopen 530 or create an alternative route that is more convenient than the current one.</p>
<p>"Not opening it is not an option," said Rasmussen. "If it doesn't reopen it would become unlivable out here."</p> | ‘Really Cut Off’: Mudslide Neighbors Struggle With Highway Closure | false | http://nbcnews.com/storyline/deadly-mudslide/really-cut-mudslide-neighbors-struggle-highway-closure-n69086 | 2014-04-02 | 3 |
<p>AUSTIN, Texas - As I occasionally survey the pack of sycophantic Shih Tzus* in the Washington press corps, wriggling on their bellies to kiss the feet of those in power, I feel plumb discouraged about the future of journalism.</p>
<p>It's like a cross between Versailles under Louis XIV and high school: obsequious courtiers flattering their way to favor, plus the silly cliques of the "in crowd" and "out crowd." On the other hand, I am greatly cheered by the young journalists in the blogosphere who have now whelped a perfect litter of books worth paying attention to.</p>
<p>For my marbles and chalk, the pick is David Sirota's "Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government - and How We Take It Back." Sirota is a new-generation populist who instinctively understands that the only real questions are "Who's getting screwed?" and "Who's doing the screwing?"</p>
<p>The extent to which corporate power has taken over the country and is running the table cannot be exaggerated and must not be ignored. Sirota has not only collected much new and useful information, he has put it into a package that provides handy weapons to fight back. Si, se puede.</p>
<p />
<p>Eric Boehlert, who writes for the online magazine Salon, has taken on the MSM (mainstream media) and dipped it for ticks in his book, - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743289315/sr=1-1/qid=1147311674/ref=sr_1_1/002-7832892-8541644?%5Fencoding=UTF8" type="external">Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush</a>.?</p>
<p>He recounts some breathtaking journalistic malfeasance - ignoring the Downing Street memos, the Valerie Plame case and many others. As usual, sins of omission dominate. The Washington press corps (which I think should be separated from "normal" parts of the press) is breathtakingly craven. In the face of intimidation and the lure of official approval, it has shown neither courage nor enterprise.</p>
<p>I don't know how to account for this pitiable performance. One hears terrifying tales of when the press corps "turns," when it rips and attacks like sharks in a feeding frenzy. Darn, not a shark in sight. The president's approval ratings are at 31%, and not a single Shih Tzu will yap at him.</p>
<p>Sometimes misunderstandings between bloggers and the MSM are the result of simple ignorance. For example, there was the recent volley of disapproval from bloggers about the MSM's failure to pay attention to comedian Stephen Colbert's brilliant riff at the White House Correspondents Dinner. They weren't ignoring Colbert - as I understand it, Colbert was the final speaker, and no paper can get much in after 10 p.m. on Saturday night. Stories have to be written, edited and printed, the presses roll and then the trucks roll. It's old media, kids - we do not just punch a button at our shops.</p>
<p>It seems to me both MSM and the blogosphere could benefit from reading the new biography of Izzy Stone by Myra MacPherson, out in August. Because Izzy was pretty much the perfect journalist, we can all learn from - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684807130/sr=1-1/qid=1147311817/ref=sr_1_1/002-7832892-8541644?%5Fencoding=UTF8" type="external">All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone</a>.? What a pleasure! What a joy to read about the old dog on the hunt. Surprising, too. While Stone famously broke story after story by actually reading government documents instead of taking what the press was spoon-fed, MacPherson reminds us he was also a shoe-leather reporter, who went out to interviews, press conferences and the daily bash, where he occasionally harassed spokesmen.</p>
<p>Today, the bloggers seem to me to be breaking more toward opinion than journalism, which I think is a shame.</p>
<p>A noble exception is Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo, which is completely on top of its chosen topics. Of course, Stone practiced opinion journalism, as do I, but with him the hard reporting always came first.</p>
<p>I have no objections to anyone breaking into the guild of journalism without the credentials of journalism school or experience on a print daily (though I highly recommend especially the latter). I do object to those who jump from political hackery to flackery and expect respect. Truly, if you can't cover a five-car pileup on Route 128, you should not be covering a presidential campaign.</p>
<p>The danger of the blogosphere is reading only those you agree with. While there are right-wing blogs that are entertaining freak shows, it's hard to find substantial journalism there. I hate to list bloggers I like because I'm bound to leave out so many, but here goes: Daily Kos, Eschaton, Altercation, Political Animal and Media Matters.</p>
<p>* With apologies to those Shih Tzus with the hearts of lions.</p>
<p>To find out more about Molly Ivins and see works by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate's Web page at <a href="http://www.creators.com" type="external">www.creators.com</a>.</p> | A Capital Full of Shih Tzu Reporters | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/a-capital-full-of-shih-tzu-reporters/ | 2006-05-11 | 4 |
<p><a href="" type="external" /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/19/illegal-immigrant-attends-georgetown-university-financial-aid-pays-11-50-semester/" type="external" /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/19/illegal-immigrant-attends-georgetown-university-financial-aid-pays-11-50-semester/" type="external">Illegal Immigrant Attends Georgetown University on Financial Aid, Pays Only $11.50 this Semester - Breitbart</a></p>
<p>Illegal Immigrant Attends Georgetown University on Financial Aid, Pays Only $11.50 this Semester <a href="https://www.facebook.com/330201017032791/posts/1256155654437318" type="external">Source</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">After 18 employees at a Tennessee-based painting company skipped work this week ...</a>February 19, 2017In "News"</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Again the NYT hasn't disappointed us with their version of the news, which as us...</a>February 26, 2017In "News"</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">A local veterans' advocacy group is blasting Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth W...</a>February 26, 2017In "News"</p> | Illegal Immigrant Attends Georgetown University on Financial Aid, Pays Only $11.50 this Semester - Breitbart | true | http://libertyfederation.org/illegal-immigrant-attends-georgetown-university-on-financial-aid-pays-only-11-50-this-semester-breitbart/ | 2016-09-23 | 0 |
<p>By Ingrid Melander and Arthur Connan</p>
<p>PARIS (Reuters) – French far-left opposition leader Jean-Luc Melenchon‏ is rallying his supporters in Paris on Saturday against Emmanuel Macron’s labour reforms, in a test for both men that could be key to the implementation of the centrist president’s policies.</p>
<p>“We won’t let them empty the poor’s pockets to feed the rich!” Melenchon’s ‘France Unbowed’ party said in leaflets distributed before the 2 p.m. (1200 GMT) march against what the admirer of late Fidel Castro calls a “social coup d’etat.”</p>
<p>Rallies organized by unions against the same labour reforms giving companies more power to set working conditions seem to be losing steam, but France Unbowed are hoping for a show of force to reinforce opinion polls showing Melenchon as Macron’s strongest opponent.</p>
<p>“Emmanuel Macron has started an arms-wrestling contest with the French people … but I think we can stop those (labour reform) decrees,” France Unbowed lawmaker Adrien Quatennens told Reuters, saying their aim was to convince people who are not used to taking to the streets to join the protests.</p>
<p>Party officials said about 150 buses will bring protesters from all over France to take part in the Paris rally.</p>
<p>The new labour rules, discussed at length in advance with unions, will cap payouts on dismissals that are judged unfair, while also giving companies greater freedom to hire and fire employees and to agree working conditions.</p>
<p>A string of opinion polls showing Melenchon is seen as the strongest opponent to Macron highlight the weakness of mainstream opposition, with the Socialists, who ruled France over the past 5 years, in tatters, the conservative The Republicans divided over whether to back Macron, and the far-right National Front split by internal fighting.</p>
<p>Ironically, Melenchon’s strength could be a good thing for Macron, because polls also show he is not seen as a credible alternative but rather a strong voice on the protest front.</p>
<p>An Odoxa survey carried out this week showed 66 percent of voters considered Melenchon would be a bad president.</p>
<p>That rating, however, improved by six percentage points over the past year and Melenchon is more popular among the youth.</p>
<p>Macron and his government have repeatedly said they would not bow down to pressure from the street, but they are likely to monitor closely how many people take to the streets on Saturday.</p>
<p>The centrist president formally signed the labour decrees on Friday. They are due to enter into force by the start of next year.</p>
<p>The measures are only the first step of a series of reforms that will also amend the unemployment benefits and pension systems, changes that could well provoke more protests than changes to the labour code.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | France's far-left to take to the streets against Macron | false | https://newsline.com/france039s-far-left-to-take-to-the-streets-against-macron/ | 2017-09-23 | 1 |
<p>The internet is abuzz this week with news that <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/thomson-reuters/140319/online-ivory-japan-threatens-african-elephants-activists" type="external">Rakuten</a>, Japan's Amazon.com, is the world's leading online retailer of elephant ivory and whale products.</p>
<p>This news came in the form of a new report, <a href="http://www.eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/Blood-e-Commerce-FINAL.pdf" type="external">"Blood e-commerce: Rakuten's profits from the slaughter of elephants and whales,"</a>&#160;from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an NGO.</p>
<p>Rakuten, as nearly every news report has echoed, carries 28,000 ads for elephant ivory and 1,200 for whale meat, according to the report.</p>
<p>Disturbing, to say the least. Particularly since about <a href="http://www.soselephants.org/about_elephants.html" type="external">30,000 elephants</a> are poached in Africa each year for their ivory, and every year Japanese whalers <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/oceans/whaling/ending-japanese-whaling/" type="external">kill hundreds of whales</a>.</p>
<p>But&#160;while this may be morally repugnant, it is not, at least ostensibly, technically illegal.</p>
<p>Right. How is that again?</p>
<p>A little thing we call the loophole.</p>
<p>"Japan claims exceptions to international bans on the commercial trade of elephant ivory and whale meat," <a href="http://qz.com/189374/the-amazon-com-of-japan-is-the-worlds-biggest-online-retailer-of-elephant-ivory-and-whale-meat/#/" type="external">Quartz</a> reports. Indeed, since 1999, Japan has been able to buy stockpiled ivory from African nations.</p>
<p>This "legal" ivory is fair play on the domestic market. Trouble is, it's really hard to tell "legal" from "illegal" ivory, especially when the government doesn't enforce regulations.</p>
<p>According to EIA's report, at least some of the ivory products Rakuten sells is from newly poached endangered African elephants — they say they can tell due to the size of the ivory pieces like this one:</p>
<p><a href="http://imgur.com/skqDe7D" type="external" /></p>
<p>As far as whaling, Japan is exempt from treaties banning that as well, for "scientific research," but still, the report states that many of the whale products Rakuten is selling come from species protected by the International Whaling Commission.</p>
<p>Rakuten is really making a name for itself. Fast delivery. Wide selection. Morally reprehensible.</p> | Japan's version of amazon.com gets reamed for selling illegal ivory and whale products | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-03-19/japans-version-amazoncom-gets-reamed-selling-illegal-ivory-and-whale-products | 2014-03-19 | 3 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Inside the Capitol, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who a month ago was so disgusted with Trump that he said he would no longer defend him, had what he called a “fantastic, productive” meeting with the president-elect. The lobbyists and insiders Trump reviled are angling for influence and jobs. Some have become key members of his transition team.</p>
<p>Outside official circles there’s a very different mood. The half of America that rejected Trump and said it feared for the nation’s future under his presidency launched protests and threats in ways not seen in modern times.</p>
<p>Four of every 10 people in America told a Gallup Poll on Wednesday they’re “afraid” of a Trump presidency. After President Barack Obama was elected eight years ago, 27 percent said they felt that way.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>But Obama didn’t insult blocs of people. He didn’t suggest Mexican immigrants were rapists, insult the appearances of well-known women or suggest a ban on Muslims entering the country.</p>
<p>The Council on American-Islamic Relations cited incidents of attacks on Muslim students since the election.</p>
<p>“Unless Mr. Trump speaks out forcefully against hate attacks by his supporters, they will take his silence as tacit endorsement of their actions,” said Ibrahim Hooper, the council’s spokesman.</p>
<p>Twitter is full of death threats against Trump. Protests have exploded all over the country. An estimated 5,000 people protested outside Trump Tower in New York City. In Chicago, demonstrators marched down the city’s Lake Shore Drive. Police arrested protesters who tried to block a Los Angeles freeway. Hundreds in Baltimore marched to the site of the Baltimore Ravens football game.</p>
<p>At the same time, Washington is quickly learning to love Trump, and he’s loving it back.</p>
<p>“It’s all about power. People in Washington are nice to people with power,” explained John Pitney, a former Republican Party official who’s the author of several books on Washington.</p>
<p>Ryan was effusive after hosting Trump. “Donald Trump had one of the most impressive victories we’ve ever seen,” he said.</p>
<p>Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a strong Trump critic, tweeted that he was “eating crow” after hearing Trump’s election night speech, which Flake termed “gracious and healing.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, had called Trump unworthy of the presidency this summer, and she voted for Ryan for president. On Wednesday, said she hoped Trump would work on issues that united the nation and “I pledge to work with him in that effort.”</p>
<p>Even Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is at the opposite end of the political spectrum from Trump, told the AFL-CIO executive council Thursday she saw an opening.</p>
<p>She criticized Trump for encouraging a “toxic stew of hatred and fear.” But she noted he’d tapped into the frustrations people feel about the economy. “When his goal is to increase the economic security of middle-class families, then count me in,” Warren said. “I will put aside our differences and I will work with him to accomplish that goal.”</p>
<p>Trump and Washington are engaging in a ritual common to the days before a new president takes office. Everyone wants to show they can govern. Lawmakers and lobbyists are wary of being too critical of a president just elected. Hundreds of former and wannabe officeholders see new opportunities to become prominent again. The capital’s roughly 10,000 lobbyists want to maintain their influence.</p>
<p>There are two partners in this tango: the president-elect and the Washington intelligentsia.</p>
<p>Washington’s permanent political class insists it knows the system so well Trump has to come to them. “Every election cycle, we are the bad guys,” said Paul Miller, a lobbyist on health care and transportation issues and founder of the National Institute for Lobbying &amp; Ethics.</p>
<p>“But the reality is the system doesn’t work without us,” he said.</p>
<p>Miller maintains that most congressional offices lack the funds to hire many senior staffers, so lobbyists fill the gap.</p>
<p>And so Trump is filling his own Washington knowledge gap by including the very sorts of lobbyists, consultants and insiders he so recently derided. Steven Mnuchin, for instance, is a former Goldman Sachs banker and hedge fund official. Heading the Trump treasury transition team is David Malpass, former chief economist for Bear Stearns, a failed investment bank.</p>
<p>(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)</p>
<p>Trump also is turning to Washington officials current and past as top advisers. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., are among the transition team’s vice chairs.</p>
<p>“He’d be well advised to get someone who knows what they’re doing,” said former Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, who is providing advice on transportation issues.</p>
<p>Wait a minute, say the dissident voices. Trump, they say, is dangerous. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada warned: “The election of Donald Trump has emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry in America.”</p>
<p>“There’s no other way to say it,” said a statement from Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal activist group. “The election results were a disaster for what we believe in. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. That’s not a new reality TV show tagline. It’s real.”</p>
<p>Bob Mulholland, a veteran California Democratic strategist, sees the Washington unity fading as Trump reverts to being the campaign-style Trump.</p>
<p>“The holidays are coming up. People in Washington are playing nice,” he said. But he noted that Hillary Clinton was winning the popular vote, and the protests would serve to remind people of that.</p>
<p>“We did get the most votes,” Mulholland said.</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>©2016 McClatchy Washington Bureau</p>
<p>Visit the McClatchy Washington Bureau at <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com" type="external">www.mcclatchydc.com</a></p>
<p>Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.</p>
<p>_____</p> | Washington insiders love a winner — even if he’s Donald Trump | false | https://abqjournal.com/888527/washington-insiders-love-a-winner-even-if-hes-donald-trump.html | 2 |
|
<p>For my first year in college, in Darjeeling,&#160;eastern India, I lived in a girls’ hostel on campus. If I remember correctly, our curfew was at 6 pm.</p>
<p>We could stay out late occasionally, but only with prior permission from the hostel warden and a letter from our parents. Such curfews are common in almost every residential facility for girls and women across India. Boys and men’s accommodations though have later curfew and far fewer restrictions.</p>
<p>At the time, my college friends and I never thought to protest against this. As annoying as the rules were, we accepted them because to some extent we must have felt safer locked up indoors than being outdoors after dark.</p>
<p>But now, women here in New Delhi are pushing back. They have started a campaign called “ <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/pinjra-tod-student-campaign-exhorts-women-to-oppose-sexist-hostel-rules/" type="external">Pinjra Tod,” or “Break the Cage</a>,” arguing that keeping women locked up is not the answer to keeping them safe from assaults.</p>
<p>Women around the country have been voicing their concerns about this issue for a few years. But this recent campaign sprung up when the prominent Jamia Millia university here in New Delhi <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/ia-sexist-and-hypocritical-students-slam-new-rules-for-women-residents/" type="external">announced last month</a> that it would no longer allow its women residents to stay out till 10 pm twice a month anymore. (The regular curfew for women at this university is 8 pm.)</p>
<p>Someone started a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pinjra.tod.3?fref=ts" type="external">Facebook page</a> and young women on college and university campuses across the city began sharing their stories and experiences with the curfew, and voicing how restrictive and sexist these rules are. Through social media and word of mouth, the movement gained momentum and now they have <a href="https://www.change.org/p/swati-maliwal-chairperson-delhi-commission-for-women-break-the-hostel-locks-pinjratod-end-discriminatory-restrictions-on-women?rec" type="external">petitioned the Delhi Commission for Women</a>, a government body that&#160;addresses women’s issues, to lift these rules&#160;because they are discriminatory.</p>
<p>Let me explain why. The curfews for women stem from a cultural understanding that women are meant to be protected. When a girl is born, she’s under the protection of her father and brother. When she’s married, she’s protected by her husband. She cannot go anywhere, especially at night without the protection of a male relative. And so people assume&#160;that&#160;when a woman moves to a different place for work or education, she must be protected by the institution where she will live. That can be a residential facility&#160;on a college campus&#160;or a private accommodation&#160;for women. All these places severely restrict a woman’s movements&#160;and they say they do it because they want to protect women from sexual assaults.</p>
<p>However, the vast majority of assaults on women around the world happen in private spaces, including people’s homes, and the perpetrators are often known to the victims. Yet, the public conversation here in India about women’s safety does not take that into account. Educational institutions are still <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/pinjra-tod-student-campaign-exhorts-women-to-oppose-sexist-hostel-rules/" type="external">reluctant to take actions to stop sexual harassment on campus</a>. And when a woman is&#160;attacked, more often that not, the institution and society in general questions the victim rather than the perpetrator. "Why were you there? What were you doing that late? What were you wearing?"&#160;The assumption is that the victim must have "asked for it."</p>
<p>Back in my college days, if a female student ever broke curfew, or if she repeatedly asked for permission to stay out late, not only was she yelled at by the warden, sometimes threatened with expulsion, but the warden would assume she was sleeping around. Why else would a respectable girl want to stay out this late?</p>
<p>Even in Delhi, too, the results of breaking a curfew are similar. And the curfews can be so strict that some wardens don’t even let women inside even if the women&#160;are a few minutes late. I heard stories about women staying out all night, in the open, because they were late by 10 or 15 minutes, which arguably puts her at risk of being attacked.</p>
<p>That’s why the Pinjra Tod women argue that the curfews aren’t really about women’s safety. They're&#160;about moral policing. Shilpa Phadke, who's a media and cultural studies expert at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, agrees. She says the need to keep women locked up behind closed doors&#160;stems also from a cultural anxiety, “not that they will be assaulted, but that they will consent and fall in love with the wrong kind of man.”</p>
<p>This is especially true in northern India, where one hears about honor killings&#160;and families disowning their daughters for falling in love with, or marrying, the "wrong"&#160;kind of man. "Wrong" can mean someone from the wrong religion, wrong region, and especially wrong caste.</p>
<p>Phadke is the author of 2011 book <a href="http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/en/content/why-loiter%3Frate=6gYKWGxFTvBjrzLejqHLSolfu2MJSZIDl483jUgqBf0.html" type="external">Why Loiter</a>, where she argues for the right of women to loiter, to hang out in public spaces. Her book has spurred a grass-roots Why Loiter movement, where women in Mumbai and other cities get together and hang out in public spaces, sometimes even late at night. I accompanied a group in Mumbai on their recent mid-night stroll through the city. You can listen to that radio story <a href="" type="internal">here.</a></p>
<p>Ultimately, the Why Loiter and Pinjra Tod movements are sister movements, fighting for the same thing: women’s right to take risks, and step out more into public spaces. They are fighting for freedom of movement and a life without the fear of sexual assaults, and even more importantly, the fear of victim-blaming.</p> | Indian college women push back against curfews | false | https://pri.org/stories/2015-09-25/indian-college-women-push-back-against-curfews | 2015-09-25 | 3 |
<p>&lt;img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-47531" src="http://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/cowboys.jpg" alt="cowboys" width="1200" height="627" srcset="https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/cowboys.jpg 1200w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/cowboys-300x157.jpg 300w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/cowboys-768x401.jpg 768w, https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/cowboys-1024x535.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /&gt;</p>
<p>This is a teachable moment about not believing every meme you see on Facebook. How many of you shared the alleged quote that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones would fire any player who took a knee?</p>
<p>Because look who took a knee yesterday.</p>
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<p>And got booed for it.</p>
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<p>Here’s where the debate and the overreaction to Trump gets stupid. Less than a month ago? Cowboys QB Dak Prescott <a href="" type="internal">said he was opposed to taking a knee</a>. And remember the Dallas police officers who were assassinated (see&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Dallas Police Chief Perfectly Challenges Protestors: ‘Become the solution…’</a>&#160;and&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Dallas Police Chief: ‘A coward will not change our democracy…’</a>)? The Cowboys wanted to wear a decal on their helmet in memory of them. And were told they couldn’t by the league. Apparently the NFL only supports freedom of expression in certain situations.</p>
<p>The players are no longer taking a knee to speak out on racial justice. They’re only genuflecting before their SJW overlords.</p>
<p>Is this the end of football? Or just the beginning of the eventual end? Sound off in the comments.</p>
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<p /> | Dallas Cowboys – Including Owner – Take a Knee Before Game. Get Booed… | true | https://louderwithcrowder.com/americas-team-cowboys-including-owner-booed-taking-knee/ | 2017-09-26 | 0 |
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<p>⋄&#160; Driving while black.</p>
<p>⋄&#160; Clubbing while LBGTQ.</p>
<p>⋄&#160; Working while immigrant.</p>
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<p>⋄&#160; Protecting and serving while cop.</p>
<p>⋄&#160; Playing baseball while Republican.</p>
<p>And you know the national mood has taken a turn toward the surreal when MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski – who helped make fellow New Yorker Donald Trump the GOP nominee and now constantly ratchet up the hate by insulting, attacking and mocking Trump and his supporters – call on the country to bring down the temperature.</p>
<p>While I consider myself center-right, due largely to an upbringing in the farmland of Central California and the fact that I’m part of a community of Mexican-Americans who are less liberal than you might think, my relationship with the GOP is not good.</p>
<p>When writing about immigration, I hammer Republicans for either being racist, pandering to racists, or tolerating racism in their ranks. I was “Never Trump” before it was cool – in fact, from the moment two years ago this week, when Donald Trump declared his candidacy and then declared people like my Mexican grandfather “rapists” and “criminals” in order to scare up votes from white people. In the last 24 months, I’ve called Trump every name in the book – even if, after he was elected, I caught grief from hardcore lefties for acknowledging reality and calling him “president.”</p>
<p>But my low opinion of the GOP doesn’t prevent me from recognizing evil when it rears its head on the left and condemning the liberals who stoke it.</p>
<p>#RepublicanLivesMatter.</p>
<p>After this week’s ghastly attack on Republican members of Congress while they were practicing for a charity baseball game – a cowardly hate crime that wounded five people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La. – we must hold liberals and Democrats accountable for the times they go too far.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>And, in the era of Trump, they often go too far. It’s as if the lefties feel that Trump supporters are such a subhuman life form that they can be attacked without mercy. Whether these sanctimonious bullies are in Congress, the media, Hollywood or academia, they’re much too comfortable with demonizing conservatives, pandering to those who demonize conservatives, or tolerating those in their ranks who demonize conservatives.</p>
<p>When Ivanka Trump casually said recently that she was shocked at the level of viciousness encountered by her father and her family, the left responded, well, viciously by attacking the first daughter for daring to even raise the issue.</p>
<p>On late-night talk shows or Sunday morning television or star-studded awards ceremonies, this modus operandi has become a shorthand way for condescending liberals and Democrats – many of whom are coastal elites – to show the folks in flyover country, and those of us who were raised on farms and ranches, that they’re better, smarter, more enlightened and sophisticated than we are.</p>
<p>Just like Republicans resist claiming the racists among them, Democrats refuse to take responsibility for a wayward disciple like James T. Hodgkinson. The gunman, who was shot to death by heroic Capitol Police officers assigned to Scalise’s security detail, was a left-wing extremist who volunteered for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, harshly criticized Trump and other Republicans, and parroted Democratic Party talking points. He frequently wrote angry letters to newspapers and posted anti-Republican rants on social media and left behind a paper trail longer and wider than a three-lane-highway.</p>
<p>When asked to contemplate the possibility that their vitriolic rhetoric against Republicans inspired this terrible and bigoted act of violence – in the same way that liberals insisted, in 1995, that conservative talk radio had inspired the Oklahoma City bombing – Democrats parse words and split hairs, make excuses and change the subject. It wasn’t their hate speech that caused this, they say. But guns. Or mental illness.</p>
<p>I even heard a few sickos on Facebook say how poetic it was that Republican members of Congress would find themselves sprayed with bullets, and ducking for cover, given their support for the National Rifle Association.</p>
<p>And let’s not forget the bighearted humanitarian who, after the shooting, sent Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., a threatening email with the charming subject line: “One down, 216 to go.”</p>
<p>This nightmare is not over. Our society is made up of different political views that have been delicately stitched together over many decades. And now it is coming apart at the seams.</p>
<p>E-mail: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>. Copyright, The Washington Post Writers Group.</p>
<p /> | Democrats refuse to see role in extremists’ crimes | false | https://abqjournal.com/1019721/democrats-refuse-to-see-role-in-extremists-crimes.html | 2 |
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<p>Credit Suisse upped the remuneration of Chief Executive Brady Dougan by one third in 2012, likely adding to public and political dismay over the scale of banker pay in a year when the Swiss bank's stock stalled.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Anger at pay levels has already driven Swiss voters to back some of the world's strictest controls on executive pay, forcing public companies to give shareholders a binding vote on compensation.</p>
<p>European officials, emboldened by a victory over banker bonuses, are also expected to propose legislation giving shareholders the right to challenge executive pay amid public anger at Wall Street-style excess in the boardrooms.</p>
<p>Credit Suisse's investment banking rival drew fire last week when it disclosed a near $9 million 2012 payout for CEO Sergio Ermotti and a $26 million welcome package for its new investment bank chief.</p>
<p>UBS was bailed out by the Swiss government nearly five years ago.</p>
<p>Dougan, who sparked a public outcry in 2010 when he received roughly 70 million francs in shares from a 2004 stock-linked bonus plan and was awarded 19 million Swiss francs for 2009, received 7.77 million Swiss francs ($8.2 million) in 2012.</p>
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<p>Credit Suisse chairman Urs Rohner also rose by one third to 5.234 million francs, according to the bank's annual report released on Friday.</p>
<p>The bank's top earner two years running was Robert Shafir, promoted to co-head of the newly merged private bank and asset management unit in November.</p>
<p>His overall pay was 10.59 million francs last year, up from 8.50 million a year before. Shafir is also head of the Americas for Credit Suisse.</p>
<p>Part of Shafir's pay was a 1.87 million franc share in the bank's private equity and hedge funds, meant to tie his interests with those of a wider asset management restructuring.</p>
<p>Shafir, who was already granted a stake in alternative investment funds in 2008, could be set for awards of $10 million if the funds achieve certain returns over their lifetime of up to fifteen years, according to footnotes in the annual report.</p>
<p>The bank's compensation body echoed comments from last year, saying Shafir "successfully repositioned the former asset management division while improving financial results through higher net revenues and lower total operating expenses."</p>
<p>Dougan's pay -- comprising a 500,000 franc unrestricted cash bonus, 2.5 million in base pay as well as short- and long-term stock awards -- rewards him for scaling back the bank's risk in 2012, improving capital, slashing spending and restructuring, the board's pay committee said.</p>
<p>THE BONUS BACKLASH</p>
<p>Credit Suisse's U.S. rival JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) halved the bonus of CEO Jamie Dimon after the bank's board decided he should shoulder blame for $6.2 billion of "London Whale" trading losses. His overall pay was $11.5 million last year.</p>
<p>Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) has not yet disclosed CEO Lloyd Blankfein's compensation, which increased sharply to $16.2 million in 2011 despite a slide in profits and share price.</p>
<p>The head of Barclays' investment bank, Rich Ricci, this week sold more than 17 million pounds in shares he received in a long-term pay deal.</p>
<p>While Credit Suisse has vowed to stick with fixed income areas from which UBS is withdrawing, it is shrinking risk-intensive areas.</p>
<p>It has closed its correlation trading desk and shrunk commodities and derivatives, its investment banking co-head Gael de Boissard said in an interview this week.</p>
<p>Credit Suisse also wants to cut 4.4 billion francs in costs by the end of 2015, up from a previous 4 billion target, by folding its asset management unit into its private bank and by moving some jobs offshore. The bank cut 2,300 jobs last year.</p>
<p>The measures took their toll on Credit Suisse's profits.</p> | Credit Suisse CEO Pay jump to fuel banker bonus debate | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/03/22/credit-suisse-ceo-pay-jump-to-fuel-banker-bonus-debate.html | 2016-03-02 | 0 |
<p>Who knows better the detriment illegal immigration has on crime in their communities – law enforcement officials or politicians?</p>
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<p>In the wake of far-left liberals in California turning their state into a ‘sanctuary,’ a group representing the best interests of sheriffs is calling on Congress to stop them.</p>
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<p>“Americas Sheriffs are saddened and disappointed that Governor Brown signed this reckless bill into law,” reads a statement from the&#160;National Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director and CEO. “It is unfortunate that California’s law enforcement has become pawns in this political game, but they will continue to do their jobs diligently to protect their communities.”</p>
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<p>Earlier this week, Governor Jerry Brown signed&#160;11 immigration-related bills into law, including one which effectively makes the Golden State a sanctuary for <a href="" type="internal">law-breaking illegals</a>.</p>
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<p>The NSA, which has a membership of over 20,000 and represents over 3,000 sheriffs nationwide, is disgusted.</p>
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<p>The group is imploring “leaders in Washington to take action and pass sensible legislation that would prevent careless legislation from hamstringing law enforcement and would give them the tools to combat dangerous policies like this.”</p>
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<p>It’s unclear what Congress would be willing to do, as legislative failures have been plentiful since Republicans took power of all three branches of government.</p>
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<p>The <a href="http://freebeacon.com/issues/california-sheriffs-call-congress-stop-sanctuary-state/" type="external">Washington Free Beacon</a> reports that California sheriffs “have repeatedly predicted that the law will open the door to another high-profile tragedy similar to Kathryn ‘Kate’ Steinle’s death in 2015 at the hand of an illegal immigrant who had been deported a total of five times.”</p>
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<p>Brown and California Democrats couldn’t have dishonored the death of Kate Steinle any more had they spit on her grave by taking these actions.</p>
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<p>While Congress may not intervene, ICE recognizes that federal immigration laws trump state sanctuaries.</p>
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<p>Acting ICE Director Tom Homan has already shown he has no intention of respecting ‘sanctuary’ legislation.</p>
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<p>Just last month, teams of ICE enforcement officials detained nearly <a href="" type="internal">500 illegal immigrants</a> from over 40 so-called ‘sanctuary cities.’</p>
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<p>“Sanctuary jurisdictions that do not honor detainers or allow us access to jails and prisons are shielding criminal aliens,” Homan announced.</p>
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<p>“If you’re in a sanctuary city, that’s where we send additional resources,” he said.</p>
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<p>It appears a good portion of those resources should now head to the left coast.</p>
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<p>Should Congress do something about the ‘sanctuary state’ of California? Share your thoughts below!</p>
<p /> | California Sheriffs Want Congress to Stop Their ‘Sanctuary State’ | true | http://thepoliticalinsider.com/california-sheriffs-want-congress-stop-sanctuary-state/ | 2017-10-10 | 0 |
<p>GREEN BAY PACKERS (5-5) AT PITTSBURGH STEELERS (8-2)</p>
<p>KICKOFF: Sunday, 8:30 p.m. ET, Heinz Field. TV: NBC, <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Al_Michaels/" type="external">Al Michaels</a>, Cris Collinsworth, <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Michele-Tafoya/" type="external">Michele Tafoya</a> (field reporter).</p>
<p>SERIES HISTORY: 34th regular-season meeting. Packers lead series, 18-15. The Steelers have won the past four in the series, including a 37-36 victory in 2009, the previous time the Packers visited Heinz Field. The Steelers and Packers have split the 14 meetings in Pittsburgh, but the Steelers have won the past four in the Steel City. The most recent victory for the Packers in Pittsburgh came in 1970. These two teams have met once in the postseason, the Packers winning 31-25 in Super Bowl XLV in Dallas.</p>
<p>KEYS TO THE GAME: Pittsburgh doesn’t have many defensive weaknesses. But Green Bay’s best — and perhaps only hope — might be to milk the ball and clock.</p>
<p>That means a heavy dose of Jamaal Williams and taking the ball out of quarterback Brett Hundley’s hands, after his turnover-plagued day last week killed Green Bay’s offense.</p>
<p>The Steelers had success running the no-huddle offense against the Titans and it helped them reach a season-high 40 points. Expect them to go back to it Sunday night against the Packers, who, like the Titans, have struggled to defend the pass. The Packers are 18th in the NFL against the pass and could be without versatile linebacker <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Clay-Matthews/" type="external">Clay Matthews</a>, who is effective as a rusher and in coverage.</p>
<p>The Steelers didn’t bother trying to establish the running game against the Titans, and it could be a similar game plan against the Packers, who have struggled to generate a consistent pass rush even when Matthews has been healthy.</p>
<p>The Steelers will try to stop the running game and force Hundley into obvious passing situations. They were successful doing that against the Titans as <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Marcus-Mariota/" type="external">Marcus Mariota</a> threw four interceptions. The Packers turned the ball over five times against the Ravens in a 23-0 home loss last week. The Steelers will try to force mistakes again by making the Packers one-dimensional on offense.</p>
<p>MATCHUPS TO WATCH:</p>
<p>–Steelers RB <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/LeVeon-Bell/" type="external">Le’Veon Bell</a> vs. Packers ILBs Jake Ryan and <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Blake-Martinez/" type="external">Blake Martinez</a>. Bell leads the NFL in rushing, but his gap has dwindled in recent weeks as he has struggled to find a rhythm. Bell hasn’t had a 100-yard game since Oct. 22 against Cincinnati. He was held to 46 yards against the Titans last week. Bell has to get back on track against a Packers defense that has been stingy against the run this season. They are 11th in the NFL thanks in large part to the play of Ryan and Martinez. Martinez leads the Packers with 84 tackles.</p>
<p>–Packers LT David Bakhtiari vs. Steelers OLB <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/TJ-Watt/" type="external">T.J. Watt</a>. Pittsburgh has 34 sacks this season and two players have gotten to the quarterback more than Watt. But make no mistake: This game is personal for Watt. The state legend would have loved to play for Green Bay. Instead, Packers general manager <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Ted_Thompson/" type="external">Ted Thompson</a> passed on Watt in April, and now the outside linebacker would like a measure of revenge.</p>
<p>PLAYER SPOTLIGHT: Packers RB Jamaal Williams. He has 38 carries for 124 yards in the last two games. With Green Bay’s top two running backs — Aaron Jones and <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Ty-Montgomery/" type="external">Ty Montgomery</a> — both sidelined, Williams has to run with his opportunity.</p>
<p>FAST FACTS: The Packers lost 23-0 to Baltimore in Week 11, their first shutout at Lambeau Field since 2006. Green Bay is 1-3 since QB Brett Hundley took over for the injured <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Aaron_Rodgers/" type="external">Aaron Rodgers</a>. … Hundley has completed 65.7 percent of his passes for 696 yards in his past three games. He has run for a TD in two of the past four. … WR <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Davante-Adams/" type="external">Davante Adams</a> led Green Bay with eight receptions for 126 yards in Week 11. He has nine TD catches in his past seven road games and has one in five straight games. … LB <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Nick-Perry/" type="external">Nick Perry</a> has 4.5 sacks in his past four games. In his past three road games, he has four sacks. … The Steelers are 15-2 in their last 17 regular-season games — tied with the Patriots for the best record. … QB <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Ben_Roethlisberger/" type="external">Ben Roethlisberger</a> threw four TD passes last week. Since 2007, he has 13 four-TD games, tied for fourth among active QBs. In his only home game vs. Green Bay, he threw for 503 yards and three TDs. … RB LE’VEON BELL leads NFL with 886 rush yards. Had 103 scrimmage yards (57 rec., 46 rush) in Week 11. Aims for 11th in row at home with 90+ scrimmage yards. Has 5,985 scrimmage yards since 2014, most in NFL. … WR <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Antonio_Brown/" type="external">Antonio Brown</a> caught 10 passes for 144 yards and three touchdowns in Week 11. Brown leads the league in receptions (70) and yards (1,026) — he has surpassed 1,000 yards receiving in a team-record five consecutive seasons. He has 702 career catches, reaching 700 in the fewest games (111) in NFL history. … DE Cameron Heyward tallied two sacks last week. He has three sacks in his past two home games. … CB Mike Hilton recorded an interception last week. He is the only cornerback with five tackles for loss and two interceptions.</p>
<p>PREDICTION: Pittsburgh has won five straight, not allowing more than 17 points in each. The Packers were just shut out by Baltimore, which lost to Pittsburgh 26-9 earlier this season. It’s easy math.</p>
<p>OUR PICK: Steelers, 31-10.</p>
<p>— <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Chris-Cluff/" type="external">Chris Cluff</a></p> | Green Bay Packers vs. Pittsburgh Steelers: Prediction, preview, pick to win | false | https://newsline.com/green-bay-packers-vs-pittsburgh-steelers-prediction-preview-pick-to-win/ | 2017-11-23 | 1 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-141199003/stock-photo-spy-is-watching-through-a-hole-in-the-wall.html?src=gw5-h0UbQ3bpO2nsTlSxJw-1-18"&gt;Spiber&lt;/a&gt;/Shutterstock</p>
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<p>On Thursday, the Senate intelligence committee took a step forward toward officially authorizing some of the National Security Agency’s&#160;more controversial surveillance practices, which have recently come to light thanks to leaks from former&#160;NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The panel passed out of committee a bill allowing broad phone surveillance to continue under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Backed by the committee chair, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the FISA Improvements Act leaves untouched the NSA’s internet surveillance dragnet, PRISM, and does little to improve oversight of the government’s surveillance powers. Feinstein’s bill will <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/326177-feinstein-vows-to-kill-leahys-nsa-bill" type="external">face off</a>against <a href="http://sensenbrenner.house.gov/uploadedfiles/usafreedomact.pdf" type="external">legislation</a> introduced earlier this week by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that would significantly curb the government’s ability to sweep up&#160;the private information of Americans.</p>
<p>Privacy experts say that the FISA Improvements Act, which passed 11-4, codifies current surveillance practices&#160;instead of fixing the law to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans: “This was an opportunity for Congress to really recalibrate the statute, and it’s very disappointing that they’ve used this opportunity to cement domestic spying programs instead,” says Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the ACLU.</p>
<p>The primary focus of the bill is <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1861" type="external">Section 215 of FISA</a>. This is the part of the law that&#160;provides the legal justification for&#160;the bulk collection of the telephone metadata of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/27/heres-how-phone-metadata-can-reveal-your-affairs-abortions-and-other-secrets/" type="external">Americans</a>, including phone numbers and the date and duration of calls (but not the&#160;content of those conversations). While the bill’s language amends the statute to prevent the NSA from hoovering up phone metadata en masse, it provides gaping loopholes that could allow the agency to continue with its bulk collection practices as usual, such as if there’s a “reasonable articulable suspicion” that an investigation is related to international terrorism. The legislation also makes it legal for the government to collect and search records that are three “hops” from a target who&#160;is suspected of terrorism—in other words,&#160;a suspect, all of that&#160;suspect’s contacts, and all of their contacts. The bill makes only surface fixes and “absolutely allows for the kind of collection that is already happening right now,” according to Amie Stepanovich, the director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s (EPIC) Domestic Surveillance Project.</p>
<p>Also worrisome to privacy experts is the fact that the bill expands the NSA’s powers, by allowing the agency to track cellphone’s of non-Americans believed to be located abroad for 72 hours after they enter the United States. The bill additionally&#160;levies a penalty of up to 10 years in prison on anyone who&#160;accesses NSA information without authorization, like&#160;Snowden did.</p>
<p>“The call-records program is legal and subject to extensive congressional and judicial oversight, and I believe it contributes to our national security,” Feinstein said in a statement. “But more can and should be done to increase transparency and build public support for privacy protections in place.”</p>
<p>Feinstein’s modest reforms include limiting the amount of time the government can store the information it collects to five years, with the approval of the attorney general&#160;required to search records that are older than three years. And it requires&#160;regular reporting to Congress on all FISA violations. The bill also requires the NSA to disclose to the public annually the number of times the agency&#160;searched its telephone metadata database.&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>Feinstein’s surveillance bill will now go head to head with Sensenbrenner and Leahy’s legislation. They introduced companion bills in the House and Senate that would end the bulk collection of phone metadata and put strict limits on the section of FISA that has been used to justify PRISM (so that if the online information of an Americans is accidentally collected, it cannot be searched). The USA FREEDOM Act has been referred to committee.</p>
<p>Unlike the bills introduced by Sensenbrenner and Leahy, Feinstein’s legislation was only made public after it was passed out of committee. EPIC’s Stepanovich&#160;notes that the secrecy with the which the Feinstein bill was crafted does not bode well for real reform.&#160;“This is the problem with all of these programs,” she says. “You don’t find out about them until it’s far too late, and you have secret collection approved by a secret court, that’s now being reformed by a law that’s kept secret.&#160;It is unclear to what substantive ‘improvements’ the title [of the bill] refers to.”</p>
<p /> | The Battle of the NSA Surveillance Bills | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2013/11/senate-intelligence-committee-passes-nsa-spying-bill/ | 2013-11-01 | 4 |
<p>Lesbian, bi and trans communities face barriers to care.</p>
<p>BETHESDA, Md.&#160; — A new study has found that lesbian, bisexual and queer women and transgender men have unique challenges in accessing cervical cancer screening services and are less likely to get them, the National Institutes of Health <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26859282" type="external">reports</a>.</p>
<p>Data was collected on LBQ women and trans men ages 21-65 through in-depth phone interviews and an online questionnaire. Most were non-Hispanic lesbians who had routine cervical cancer screenings.</p>
<p>The study found that although there are factors that overlap with the general female population, some areas are specific to LBQ women and trans men. Creating welcoming and inclusive health care environments is important to reach this population, researchers said.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">bisexual</a> <a href="" type="internal">cervical cancer</a> <a href="" type="internal">lesbian</a> <a href="" type="internal">National Institutes of Health</a></p> | Queer women less likely to get cancer screenings | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/02/19/queer-women-less-likely-to-get-cancer-screenings/ | 3 |
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<p>There is a fundamental difference between progressives and conservatives.</p>
<p>Progressives believe raising — or “shaping” — children is the job of the state, for the benefit of the collective. That’s why we see them pushing their will on parents in children, particularly in schools.</p>
<p>Conservatives, on the other hand, believe parents know what is best for their kids, whether it comes to school choice or the values being taught at home.</p>
<p>During a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation on Saturday, Hillary Clinton let Americans know in stark — and frankly, scary — terms on which side she stands.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>“When you really think about it,” Clinton told the audience in Washington, DC, “the choice this November is about so much more than Democrats and Republicans.</p>
<p>“As Michelle Obama said at the Democratic convention, it is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four years of their lives.”</p>
<p>Has there been a more frightening statement made during the entire campaign?</p>
<p>And do parents need any more information to make an informed decision?</p> | HILLARY: Election about ‘power to shape our children’ | true | http://theamericanmirror.com/hillary-election-power-shape-children/ | 2016-09-18 | 0 |
<p>FOX Business: The Power to Prosper</p>
<p>The markets took a steep fall on Wednesday amid worries the Federal Reserve is running out of ammunition to combat stubbornly high unemployment and anemic economic growth.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Today's Markets</p>
<p>The <a href="" type="internal">Dow Jones</a> Industrial Average plunged 284 points, or 2.5%, to 11,125, the S&amp;P 500 plummeted 35.3 points, or 2.9%, to 1,167 and the <a href="" type="internal">Nasdaq</a> Composite shed 52.1 points, or 2%, to 2,538. The FOX 50 fell 20.5 points to 850.</p>
<p>The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it shift $400 billion short-term to long-term ones, lengthening the maturity of its balance sheet in its latest bid to stimulate the economy.&#160;The Fed also renewed its call to keep short-term interest rates at exception for until at least the middle of 2013.</p>
<p>The central bank has already exhausted its conventional tools, for example, short-term interest rates&#160;are already at essentially 0%, meaning it has had to make more unusual moves in a bid to spur employment and economic growth. The move is a more indirect stimulus, looking to push long-term interest rates lower.</p>
<p>"The Fed has few options at its disposal, so this move is not surprising," David Joy, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial wrote in a note to clients. "How much of an effect somewhat lower rates will make is questionable. At the very least, it can’t hurt."</p>
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<p>The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury fell markedly after the release, recently hitting 1.88% from it previous close of 1.944%, and 1.937% where it had been sitting before the announcement.</p>
<p>More Banking Woes</p>
<p>Moody's sliced the long-term credit rating of Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) and Citigroup's (NYSE:C) short-term rating on Wednesday as it sees a lower probability of government support for the banking sector going forward.&#160;Shares of Bank of America, a Dow component, were the hardest hit by the news, but the entire financial sector, including other blue chips like JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) and Traveler's (NYSE:TRV)&#160;fell considerably too.</p>
<p>Heavy-machinery maker Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) was on of the worst-performing blue chips by a significant margin in a sign of the weakness in the industrial sector on the day. &#160;Materials companies like Freeport-McMoRan Copper &amp; Gold (NYSE:FCX) were also deep in the red.</p>
<p>The Nasdaq's losses, however, were tempered by technology stocks like Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) and Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE), which posted strong performance on the heels of better-than-expected earnings reports.</p>
<p>Also on the technology front, a report by Bloomberg that Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) is considering ousting its chief executive as the company struggles to find its way in a quickly-changing technology market sent its shares soaring.</p>
<p>The Troubled Housing Market</p>
<p>Existing home sales jumped 7.7% in August from July to a 5.03 million unit rate, topping the 1.4% gain economists had expected. &#160;The housing industry has struggled as individuals have still had trouble securing financing, uncertainty over whether prices have bottomed out, and high supply in many parts of the country.</p>
<p>While the number of home sales remains depressed, "the lack of further weakness does play into our general thesis that the worst of the housing market decline is certainly behind us and generally speaking, housing improvement, albeit it at a terribly slow pace, [lays] ahead," Daniel Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG, wrote in a note to clients.</p>
<p>Continued Euro Jitters</p>
<p>On the other side of the Atlantic, minutes from the <a href="" type="internal">Bank of England</a> released on Wednesday revealed policymakers believe the case for immediate resumption of so-called quantitative easing is strong in light of the economic malaise and ongoing sovereign debt crisis that has slammed Europe. There have been worries that English banks like Lloyds and Barclays (NYSE:BCS) may have exposure to debt of embattled euro zone countries like Greece.</p>
<p>The Greek situation, which has been a major focus on Wall Street for weeks, continues developing. &#160;Greek finance ministry officials said late Tuesday that progress had been made inspectors in securing the next roughly $11 billion tranche of much-needed rescue aid. European lenders have been pushing the country to take on deeper austerity measures to cut down on its enormous fiscal deficit, but the measures have been deeply unpopular among the public there. The Greek cabinet said it would cut pensions and put tens of thousands of public workers on notice late in Wednesday's session.</p>
<p>The worry for the financial markets has been that if Greece defaults, it could send shockwaves that may endanger other countries, like Italy, Europe's third-largest economy. &#160;Moreover, analysts have suggested, it could endanger the European banking system, which could even spillover into other global financial markets.</p>
<p>In currencies, the euro slid 0.1% against the U.S. dollar, while the greenback rose 0.31% against a basket of world currencies.</p>
<p>Energy markets were slightly higher following the Energy Department's weekly inventory report, but the fell with equity markets after the Fed statement. Oil inventories slipped 7.3 million barrels last week, compared to a forecast of a 700,000 barrel draw. &#160;Meanwhile, gasoline stocks climbed by 3.3 million barrels, a bigger build than the 1.2 million analysts anticipated.</p>
<p>Light, sweet crude dipped $1.00 cents, or 1.2%, to $85.92 a barrel. &#160;Wholesale RBOB gasoline ticked lower by 3 cents, or 1.3%, to $2.67 a gallon.</p>
<p>Gold fell $1.00, or 0.06%, to $1,808 a troy ounce.</p>
<p>Corporate News</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Oracle</a> (NASDAQ:ORCL) posted quarterly earnings of 48 cents a share after the bell on Tuesday, topping expectations of 46 cents.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Adobe</a> (NASDAQ:ADBE) posted quarterly profits that beat Wall Street's expectations after the closing bell on Tuesday, and said it expects to have a stronger fourth quarter than analysts anticipated, which sent the shares jumping.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Microsoft</a> (NASDAQ:MSFT) boosted its dividend by 25% to 20 cents a share late on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Foreign Markets</p>
<p>The English FTSE 100 dipped 2% to 5,288 and the German DAX sunk 1.4% to 5,288.</p>
<p>In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 rose 0.23% to 8,741 and the Chinese Hang Seng fell 1% to 18,824.</p> | Wall Street Pans Fed's Latest Move; Dow Plummets 284 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/09/21/wall-street-pans-feds-latest-move-dow-plummets-284.html | 2016-03-07 | 0 |
<p>PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Although Baker Mayfield had the ball in his hands a few times with chances to win the Rose Bowl for Oklahoma, the Heisman Trophy winner couldn't convert those opportunities.</p>
<p>Plenty of Sooners fans wished Mayfield had been given a whole lot more chances to conjure his usual magic during Georgia's epic 54-48, double-overtime win Monday night.</p>
<p>Mayfield went 23 of 35 for 287 yards and two touchdowns in his final college football game, but the swashbuckling senior ended the night with his hands on his knees, staring down at the turf in Arroyo Seco while the Bulldogs celebrated Sony Michel's winning TD run.</p>
<p>"Can't believe it's over," Mayfield said afterward in a strikingly hoarse voice, his eyes tearing up. "It's been a wild ride."</p>
<p>The Sooners were already lamenting the plays that Mayfield never even got a chance to make on a wild night at the College Football Playoff semifinal.</p>
<p>The most exciting quarterback in the sport threw only 17 passes after halftime, including a single shovel pass in the first overtime, while running the plays called by rookie head coach Lincoln Riley.</p>
<p>Mayfield showed no obvious effects from the illness that dogged him throughout the week of preparation before the game, aside from that scratchy throat. Yet Riley's play-calling didn't give Mayfield every chance to shine, and the coach acknowledged he might not have been aggressive enough.</p>
<p>"Sure, I'll look back at it, and there will be calls that I wish I would have done different," Riley said. "You do the very best you can in that moment. I called the plays at that time that I thought were the very best. Will there be ones that I want to have back? Yeah."</p>
<p>Mayfield passed for only 87 yards after halftime, making only a handful of game-altering throws.</p>
<p>Mayfield stayed firmly behind Riley, calling the rookie boss "the best coach in the country."</p>
<p>"There's a reason I'm sitting here today," Mayfield added. "There's a reason we've won three Big 12 titles in a row, and that I've put myself in a good position going forward in the future. There's a reason our team is in the playoffs this year. Words can't describe what he's meant to me."</p>
<p>The third quarter was mostly miserable for Mayfield: He was sacked three times and ran the ball three more times, going just 2 for 4 through the air. He went 5 of 9 for 57 yards in the fourth quarter, but most of those yards came on one 36-yard throw to CeeDee Lamb.</p>
<p>Mayfield also threw his only interception to Dominick Sanders on the first snap of the fourth quarter. Sanders returned it to the Oklahoma 4, and the Bulldogs punched in a go-ahead touchdown.</p>
<p>Mayfield responded by leading a tying 88-yard touchdown drive in just six plays ending with 8:47 left in regulation, but the Oklahoma offense didn't reach the end zone again.</p>
<p>And whenever there was a late chance for Mayfield to add another moment to his incredible season, the Sooners couldn't find a winning formula.</p>
<p>Oklahoma attempted only that single shovel pass during its first overtime possession, which resulted in a field goal. With the Bulldogs already leading by three points, Riley decided to kick on fourth and 1 from the Georgia 16 instead of putting the game in Mayfield's hands.</p>
<p>"I don't know," Riley said. "My gut said to kick it, and we did."</p>
<p>Mayfield then threw an incompletion and an interception that was wiped out by a penalty on the second drive. Two short completions on conservative plays only got the Sooners in position for a field goal that was blocked by Georgia's Lorenzo Carter.</p>
<p>Mayfield went 34-6 while spending three seasons as the Sooners' starter, but the former walk-on couldn't push them to the championship game in Atlanta next week.</p>
<p>After the game ended and Mayfield rose from his agonized crouch, he sought out Georgia freshman quarterback Jake Fromm to congratulate him.</p>
<p>"Baker, he's a special name in college football," Oklahoma safety Steven Parker said. "He's always going to be remembered. A lot of people always say Johnny Manziel, or maybe a nice running back like Eddie George, but he's going to be a person that is always going to be remembered in college football forever and I don't think anyone can take his place."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP college football: <a href="http://www.collegefootball.ap.org" type="external">www.collegefootball.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_Top25</a></p>
<p>PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Although Baker Mayfield had the ball in his hands a few times with chances to win the Rose Bowl for Oklahoma, the Heisman Trophy winner couldn't convert those opportunities.</p>
<p>Plenty of Sooners fans wished Mayfield had been given a whole lot more chances to conjure his usual magic during Georgia's epic 54-48, double-overtime win Monday night.</p>
<p>Mayfield went 23 of 35 for 287 yards and two touchdowns in his final college football game, but the swashbuckling senior ended the night with his hands on his knees, staring down at the turf in Arroyo Seco while the Bulldogs celebrated Sony Michel's winning TD run.</p>
<p>"Can't believe it's over," Mayfield said afterward in a strikingly hoarse voice, his eyes tearing up. "It's been a wild ride."</p>
<p>The Sooners were already lamenting the plays that Mayfield never even got a chance to make on a wild night at the College Football Playoff semifinal.</p>
<p>The most exciting quarterback in the sport threw only 17 passes after halftime, including a single shovel pass in the first overtime, while running the plays called by rookie head coach Lincoln Riley.</p>
<p>Mayfield showed no obvious effects from the illness that dogged him throughout the week of preparation before the game, aside from that scratchy throat. Yet Riley's play-calling didn't give Mayfield every chance to shine, and the coach acknowledged he might not have been aggressive enough.</p>
<p>"Sure, I'll look back at it, and there will be calls that I wish I would have done different," Riley said. "You do the very best you can in that moment. I called the plays at that time that I thought were the very best. Will there be ones that I want to have back? Yeah."</p>
<p>Mayfield passed for only 87 yards after halftime, making only a handful of game-altering throws.</p>
<p>Mayfield stayed firmly behind Riley, calling the rookie boss "the best coach in the country."</p>
<p>"There's a reason I'm sitting here today," Mayfield added. "There's a reason we've won three Big 12 titles in a row, and that I've put myself in a good position going forward in the future. There's a reason our team is in the playoffs this year. Words can't describe what he's meant to me."</p>
<p>The third quarter was mostly miserable for Mayfield: He was sacked three times and ran the ball three more times, going just 2 for 4 through the air. He went 5 of 9 for 57 yards in the fourth quarter, but most of those yards came on one 36-yard throw to CeeDee Lamb.</p>
<p>Mayfield also threw his only interception to Dominick Sanders on the first snap of the fourth quarter. Sanders returned it to the Oklahoma 4, and the Bulldogs punched in a go-ahead touchdown.</p>
<p>Mayfield responded by leading a tying 88-yard touchdown drive in just six plays ending with 8:47 left in regulation, but the Oklahoma offense didn't reach the end zone again.</p>
<p>And whenever there was a late chance for Mayfield to add another moment to his incredible season, the Sooners couldn't find a winning formula.</p>
<p>Oklahoma attempted only that single shovel pass during its first overtime possession, which resulted in a field goal. With the Bulldogs already leading by three points, Riley decided to kick on fourth and 1 from the Georgia 16 instead of putting the game in Mayfield's hands.</p>
<p>"I don't know," Riley said. "My gut said to kick it, and we did."</p>
<p>Mayfield then threw an incompletion and an interception that was wiped out by a penalty on the second drive. Two short completions on conservative plays only got the Sooners in position for a field goal that was blocked by Georgia's Lorenzo Carter.</p>
<p>Mayfield went 34-6 while spending three seasons as the Sooners' starter, but the former walk-on couldn't push them to the championship game in Atlanta next week.</p>
<p>After the game ended and Mayfield rose from his agonized crouch, he sought out Georgia freshman quarterback Jake Fromm to congratulate him.</p>
<p>"Baker, he's a special name in college football," Oklahoma safety Steven Parker said. "He's always going to be remembered. A lot of people always say Johnny Manziel, or maybe a nice running back like Eddie George, but he's going to be a person that is always going to be remembered in college football forever and I don't think anyone can take his place."</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>More AP college football: <a href="http://www.collegefootball.ap.org" type="external">www.collegefootball.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_Top25</a></p> | Mayfield can't propel Oklahoma to win in wild Rose Bowl | false | https://apnews.com/amp/3168b91200f246c089864a7c44282abb | 2018-01-02 | 2 |
<p>Curtis Means/ZUMA</p>
<p />
<p>Back in September, Donald Trump put forth a tax plan that pledged to help middle-class Americans and take aim at the “hedge fund guys.” That four-page proposal was criticized for being vague on the details. It also raised eyebrows with its promise to be revenue-neutral.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, <a href="http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=2000560" type="external">an independent think tank</a> weighed in and called bullshit on Trump’s populist guise.</p>
<p>The analysis, released by the Tax Policy Center, found that the Republican frontrunner’s proposal would largely benefit only the wealthiest Americans by giving the top 0.1 percent an average of $1.3 million a year in tax cuts. Middle class Americans would see their taxes reduced by just $2,700 annually.</p>
<p>The plan would also wipe out revenue by a staggering $9.5 trillion over the next decade, according to the TPC.</p>
<p>“The revenue losses from this plan are really enormous,” Len Burman, director of the TPC, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/22/analysis-of-donald-trump-tax-plan-sees-a-boon-for-wealthy-and-trillions-in-debt/?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=first-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news" type="external">said.</a> “Basically it would negate all the economic benefits if we were running deficits anywhere near as large as we’re projecting here.”</p>
<p>This latest analysis proves, once again, Trump’s tax plan and his insistence that it would cost billionaires like him a “fortune” is, as our Kevin Drum noted, the <a href="" type="internal">Lie of the Year.</a></p>
<p /> | Surprise! Donald Trump’s Tax Plan Helps Donald Trump | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/donald-trump-tax-plan/ | 2015-12-22 | 4 |
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<p>BARRYMORE: First child born June 2012</p>
<p>LOS ANGELES – Drew Barrymore is expanding her brood.</p>
<p>A spokesman for the 38-year-old entertainer says Barrymore and her husband, Will Kopelman, are expecting their second child.</p>
<p>Publicist Chris Miller offered no other details Monday.</p>
<p>Barrymore and Kopelman, who were married in June 2012, are the parents of a 13-month-old daughter, Olive.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Barrymore recently launched her own beauty brand, Flower. Kopelman, the son of former Chanel CEO Arie Kopelman, is an art consultant.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Barrymore, husband are expecting again | false | https://abqjournal.com/295099/barrymore-husband-are-expecting-again.html | 2013-11-06 | 2 |
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<p>Ethan Coen, left and Joel Cohen are returning to New Mexico to film the miniseries “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>The rumors are true.</p>
<p>The Coen Brothers are coming back to New Mexico.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>According to a casting call from Elizabeth Gabel, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” will hold an open casting call from 1-5 p.m. Sunday, May 21, at Far Horizon Studio, 304 Washington SE in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” will shoot in the Santa Fe Area, is an anthology western following six different story lines.</p>
<p>And Westerns aren’t foreign for the duo. They return to the Land of Enchantment where they filmed the Oscar nominated “True Grit” and the Oscar winner “No Country for Old Men.”</p>
<p>This is the duo’s crossover into television.</p>
<p>According to Gabel, the production is looking for New Mexico talent to play frontiersmen, prairie folk, pioneers, horse riders (especially Native American riders).</p>
<p>It is also searching for men with beards and facial hair of all kinds, women with long hair (not obviously dyed hair, no highlights), and children of all ages.</p>
<p>These are paid positions, Gabel said.</p>
<p>Interested people can come any time between 1-5 p.m. to get a photo taken and meet with the extras casting director.</p>
<p>“We encourage those who are interested to begin growing hair and facial hair now,” the release said.</p>
<p>The project begins shooting in July.</p>
<p>If you cannot make the casting call, register at egcasting.com or send a recent photo with height, weight and phone number to [email protected].</p>
<p>Gabel, from such projects as “Logan,” “Lone Survivor,” “The Lone Ranger,” “Hell or High Water” and “Sicario” will conduct the casting call.</p> | Casting call for Coen Brothers’ ‘Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ set for May 21 | false | https://abqjournal.com/1000307/casting-call-for-coen-brothers-ballad-of-buster-scruggs-set-for-may-21.html | 2 |
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<p>QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Ecuador has chosen a new vice president to replace Jorge Glas, who was sentenced to 6 years in jail for his role in a bribery scheme involving the Brazilian company at the center of Latin America's biggest corruption scandal.</p>
<p>Lawmakers selected Maria Alejandra Vicuna in a vote Saturday. The 40-year-old psychologist previously served as interim vice president and minister of urban development and housing.</p>
<p>Glas was convicted in December, becoming one of the highest-ranking leaders in the region to lose his post as a result of the Odebrecht scandal. The construction company has admitted to paying $800 million to politicians, their campaigns and political parties in order to secure lucrative public works contracts.</p>
<p>QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Ecuador has chosen a new vice president to replace Jorge Glas, who was sentenced to 6 years in jail for his role in a bribery scheme involving the Brazilian company at the center of Latin America's biggest corruption scandal.</p>
<p>Lawmakers selected Maria Alejandra Vicuna in a vote Saturday. The 40-year-old psychologist previously served as interim vice president and minister of urban development and housing.</p>
<p>Glas was convicted in December, becoming one of the highest-ranking leaders in the region to lose his post as a result of the Odebrecht scandal. The construction company has admitted to paying $800 million to politicians, their campaigns and political parties in order to secure lucrative public works contracts.</p> | Ecuador selects new VP after Odebrecht scandal conviction | false | https://apnews.com/4cff28249d11412e8829e203bd9df1cf | 2018-01-07 | 2 |
<p>MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A photographer who has covered the Minnesota Twins accused Miguel Sano of assault, posting on Twitter that the All-Star third baseman forcibly attempted to kiss her following an autograph session at a mall in 2015.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/bitzybetsy" type="external">Betsy Bissen tweeted Thursday</a> that she screamed and resisted Sano until he gave up “after a solid 10 minutes of fighting.” Bissen, who has worked for publications including the popular fan blog <a href="http://twinsdaily.com/" type="external">Twins Daily</a> , said in her tweet that she long feared that telling her story would cost her access to photograph Twins games.</p>
<p>Sano said he “unequivocally” denies the allegation.</p>
<p>“It never happened. I have the utmost respect for women, especially those working in professional sports, and I deeply sympathize with anyone who has experienced sexual harassment. There is no place for it in our society,” Sano said in a statement issued by his agent, Kyle Thousand.</p>
<p>Major League Baseball has begun an investigation, said MLB spokesman Pat Courtney. The Twins said they learned of the allegation only Thursday. Their statement said the team and MLB “take these allegations very seriously” but had no further comment.</p>
<p>In 2015, MLB and its players union unveiled a new <a href="https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-mlbpa-agree-on-domestic-violence-policy/c-144508842" type="external">policy covering domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse</a> . Commissioner Rob Manfred has the power to levy discipline, with no minimum or maximum penalty, following an investigation.</p>
<p>Bissen didn’t respond to an interview request from The Associated Press. She told her story on her Twitter account, writing that Sano was participating in an autograph signing at a store while she worked as a volunteer and photographed him interacting with fans during the event.</p>
<p>Bissen said Sano remarked that he had noticed her during games. She said he tried to flirt with her and, after the signing, grabbed her wrist and “made me go with” a small group that included Sano’s previous agent, Rob Plummer, to another store. She said she complied only to avoid causing a scene.</p>
<p>As the group left the mall about a half hour later, Bissen wrote, Sano said he needed to use the restroom. She pointed him to the door, and she said Sano “took that as a signal that I wanted him to grab me and try to take me back through that door.” She said she pulled back as he held on.</p>
<p>“It hurt, how badly he was grasping at my wrist, but he wouldn’t let go. I wasn’t going to give up my fight though. He then leaned down and tried to kiss me, more than once. Every time he did, I said no and kept pulling back,” Bissen wrote.</p>
<p>Plummer, who was fired by Sano two years ago, <a href="http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/21903348/miguel-sano-minnesota-twins-denies-assault-allegations-mlb-looking-matter" type="external">told ESPN</a> that he didn’t witness the alleged assault.</p>
<p>“I was outside next to the car, waiting for him to come out on the other side of the loading bay dock, so I don’t know what happened inside,” Plummer told the network.</p>
<p>Bissen, who shared her tweet with the #metoo hashtag, said in a follow-up post that she wanted to “feel free of this burden I’ve carried with me since 2015.”</p>
<p>Sano is listed by the Twins at 6-foot-4 and 260 pounds, though he’s often played at a weight much heavier than that. Sano made the American League All-Star team in 2017, his third major league season. He batted .264 with 28 homers and 77 RBIs, despite missing the last six weeks of the season.</p>
<p>“Every time I have to hear about how great people think Miguel Sano is, I’m reminded of how awful he actually is and how he hurt me,” Bissen wrote.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/trevmay65" type="external">Twins pitcher Trevor May tweeted</a> “I’m sorry, Betsy,” in reply to Bissen’s post. <a href="https://twitter.com/trevorplouffe" type="external">Former Twins third baseman Trevor Plouffe</a> also chimed in on Twitter with sympathy: “I’m so sorry about this. I understand why you didn’t, but I wish you would have come to me.”</p>
<p>MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A photographer who has covered the Minnesota Twins accused Miguel Sano of assault, posting on Twitter that the All-Star third baseman forcibly attempted to kiss her following an autograph session at a mall in 2015.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/bitzybetsy" type="external">Betsy Bissen tweeted Thursday</a> that she screamed and resisted Sano until he gave up “after a solid 10 minutes of fighting.” Bissen, who has worked for publications including the popular fan blog <a href="http://twinsdaily.com/" type="external">Twins Daily</a> , said in her tweet that she long feared that telling her story would cost her access to photograph Twins games.</p>
<p>Sano said he “unequivocally” denies the allegation.</p>
<p>“It never happened. I have the utmost respect for women, especially those working in professional sports, and I deeply sympathize with anyone who has experienced sexual harassment. There is no place for it in our society,” Sano said in a statement issued by his agent, Kyle Thousand.</p>
<p>Major League Baseball has begun an investigation, said MLB spokesman Pat Courtney. The Twins said they learned of the allegation only Thursday. Their statement said the team and MLB “take these allegations very seriously” but had no further comment.</p>
<p>In 2015, MLB and its players union unveiled a new <a href="https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-mlbpa-agree-on-domestic-violence-policy/c-144508842" type="external">policy covering domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse</a> . Commissioner Rob Manfred has the power to levy discipline, with no minimum or maximum penalty, following an investigation.</p>
<p>Bissen didn’t respond to an interview request from The Associated Press. She told her story on her Twitter account, writing that Sano was participating in an autograph signing at a store while she worked as a volunteer and photographed him interacting with fans during the event.</p>
<p>Bissen said Sano remarked that he had noticed her during games. She said he tried to flirt with her and, after the signing, grabbed her wrist and “made me go with” a small group that included Sano’s previous agent, Rob Plummer, to another store. She said she complied only to avoid causing a scene.</p>
<p>As the group left the mall about a half hour later, Bissen wrote, Sano said he needed to use the restroom. She pointed him to the door, and she said Sano “took that as a signal that I wanted him to grab me and try to take me back through that door.” She said she pulled back as he held on.</p>
<p>“It hurt, how badly he was grasping at my wrist, but he wouldn’t let go. I wasn’t going to give up my fight though. He then leaned down and tried to kiss me, more than once. Every time he did, I said no and kept pulling back,” Bissen wrote.</p>
<p>Plummer, who was fired by Sano two years ago, <a href="http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/21903348/miguel-sano-minnesota-twins-denies-assault-allegations-mlb-looking-matter" type="external">told ESPN</a> that he didn’t witness the alleged assault.</p>
<p>“I was outside next to the car, waiting for him to come out on the other side of the loading bay dock, so I don’t know what happened inside,” Plummer told the network.</p>
<p>Bissen, who shared her tweet with the #metoo hashtag, said in a follow-up post that she wanted to “feel free of this burden I’ve carried with me since 2015.”</p>
<p>Sano is listed by the Twins at 6-foot-4 and 260 pounds, though he’s often played at a weight much heavier than that. Sano made the American League All-Star team in 2017, his third major league season. He batted .264 with 28 homers and 77 RBIs, despite missing the last six weeks of the season.</p>
<p>“Every time I have to hear about how great people think Miguel Sano is, I’m reminded of how awful he actually is and how he hurt me,” Bissen wrote.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/trevmay65" type="external">Twins pitcher Trevor May tweeted</a> “I’m sorry, Betsy,” in reply to Bissen’s post. <a href="https://twitter.com/trevorplouffe" type="external">Former Twins third baseman Trevor Plouffe</a> also chimed in on Twitter with sympathy: “I’m so sorry about this. I understand why you didn’t, but I wish you would have come to me.”</p> | Photographer: Twins’ Sano grabbed, tried to kiss her in 2015 | false | https://apnews.com/9ef0067376894249a9a4fd1cb123e894 | 2017-12-28 | 2 |
<p>Hope Builders/Christian Women Job Corps will offer Level 1 training for site coordinators on March 14-17 at CrossRoads Camp &amp; Conference Center.</p>
<p>Hope Builders, a ministry of Woman's Missionary Union of Virginia, seeks to treat women the way Jesus did—with love, respect and compassion. The ministry's premise is that when Christians rise to the challenge of empowering women to move from feeling of worthlessness to self-worth through Christ, God is glorified.</p>
<p>Two women in Virginia, Barbara Cottrell and Margaret Allen, are among those making a difference through Hope Builders.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Cottrell</p>
<p>“Site coordinators and those who volunteer as mentors extend themselves to great lengths to help women in need, “says Cottrell, site coordinator for Shiloh Baptist Church in Reedville. “I can remember an incident in which a mentor and I were exposed to grave danger in trying to locate a woman in our program. The mentor called me to say that this individual had been missing for three days but that she had learned where she was located. The mentor and I met and proceeded to her last known location. When we arrived, there were a lot of people around the house. We expressed our concern to her that she had not been home and no one in her family had heard from her; she was surprised to know that we cared enough to come looking for her. She thanked us and we left. On that very night she returned home to her family.</p>
<p>“We sensed danger when we were at the location but we did not learn until later that we had been at a crack house. Thanks be to God for his hand of protection and the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we minister to our at-risk mentees.”</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Allen</p>
<p>“As a new group of women began our program this year, I was dreading the start-up of Hope Builders,” says Allen, site coordinator for the Richmond area Hope Builders. “I felt it would be very demanding and stressful. I also felt that it would require so much of my energy to reach the ladies and to get them to participate in sharing during discussion time. However, the ladies who make up this session are just the opposite. They are open and involved in researching ways to better themselves. They are helping each other to resolve problems by sharing resources.</p>
<p>“I am blessed by these women. Instead of feeling stressed and drained, these ladies are actually encouraging me and giving me hope to continue in this ministry. This ministry has blessed my life as a site coordinator. To God be the glory for the moving of his Spirit in the lives of women who are involved in the Hope Builders site in Richmond.</p>
<p>For more information on the Level 1 training for site coordinators, contact Sheila Smith, Hope Builders/CWJC Consultant at (540) 825-6282 or [email protected].</p> | Hope Builders to offer training for coordinators | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/hopebuilderstooffertrainingforcoordinators/ | 3 |
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<p>Apple Inc reported quarterly revenue that met Wall Street expectations even as iPad sales were disappointing.</p>
<p>The stock was halted from trade.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Apple said its fiscal fourth quarter revenue rose to $35.96 billion, roughly matching the average analyst estimate of 35.8 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.</p>
<p>(This story corrects second paragraph to show shares were halted, instead of up in after-market trading)</p>
<p>(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Richard Chang)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Apple revenue meets forecasts, shares halted | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2012/10/25/apple-revenue-meets-forecasts-shares-halted.html | 2016-01-29 | 0 |
<p>Shenzhen and ChiNext benchmarks dive nearly 3%</p>
<p>More new regulations and investors' preference for larger-cap companies whacked Chinese stocks, while activity was muted elsewhere in Asia. Thursday is a holiday in Japan and the U.S.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The Shenzhen Composite closed down 2.9% and the startup-heavy ChiNext gauge slid 2.8% as Beijing took steps to halt the proliferation of small online lenders, days after saying it plans to streamline oversight of asset-management products sold by financial institutions. The Shanghai Composite Index finished 2.3% lower.</p>
<p>Weak starts -- often attributed at least in part to regulatory concerns -- followed by quick recoveries has become something of a habit in Chinese markets of late. But Thursday's action was marked by not just a poor open, but also an ugly finish.</p>
<p>Some investors are rotating away from smaller-cap companies, which dominate the Shenzhen stock market, into large caps, more prevalent in Shanghai, said Caroline Yu Maurer, head of greater China equities at BNP Paribas Asset Management. "People are willing to pay for quality," she added.</p>
<p>The Shenzhen Composite, home to manufacturing and tech companies, has dropped into negative territory for 2017, a sharp contrast to the double-digit gains and multiyear or record highs achieved by many Asia markets.</p>
<p>On Thursday, selling in some so-called white-horse stocks--local jargon for blue chips--also weighed on sentiment, said David Millhouse, head of China research at Forsyth Barr Asia.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>They have been under pressure for the past week, since the state-run Xinhua News Agency expressed concern about Kweichow Moutai (600519.SH) , which frenzied investors had turned into the world's most valuable liquor company. Shares in the maker of the traditional Chinese spirit baijiu fell nearly 3%, putting its week-to-date skid at about 8%.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Hong Kong's Hang Seng finished down 1%, ending back under 30,000 just a day after closing above that mark for the first time in a decade.</p>
<p>Shane Chanel, an equities and derivatives adviser at ASR Wealth Advisers, said he is on watch for profit-taking after the recent gains in many Asian stock markets. He cautioned that markets could take a hit if U.S. tax-overhaul efforts are derailed.</p>
<p>"Any hiccups to the implementation of Trump's tax reforms...will mean the Grinch will be visiting us this Christmas," he said.</p>
<p>In Australia, the S&amp;P/ASX 200 was essentially flat, as higher commodity stocks helped cushion weakness in banking stocks. The former got a boost from the U.S. dollar's worst session in eight months on Wednesday, which lifted commodities prices.</p>
<p>Oil futures were down modestly in Asian trading after the U.S. benchmark hit a 2 1/2 -year high on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Korea's Kospi was little changed even as tourist-related stocks like Lotte Tour and Amorepacific erased this week's declines. Investors there continue to assess the impact of fresh sanctions against North Korea. The Kospi finished down 0.1%.</p>
<p>The Japanese stock market closed Thursday for Thanksgiving, as will U.S. markets.</p>
<p>If the yen holds on to its overnight gains, Tokyo stocks are likely to slip when trading resumes Friday, as a stronger yen hurts Japan's export-oriented companies. The yen hit a two-month high against the dollar , which was recently around Yen111.24, versus Yen112.20 when Japan equities trading ended Wednesday.</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>November 23, 2017 05:43 ET (10:43 GMT)</p> | ASIA MARKETS: Chinese Stocks Fall Sharply, Hit By Regulatory Concerns | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/11/23/asia-markets-chinese-stocks-fall-sharply-hit-by-regulatory-concerns1.html | 2017-11-23 | 0 |
<p>Originally Published June, 1999</p>
<p>On February 28, 1993 the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms launched its disastrous and lethal raid on the Branch Dividian compound outside Waco, Texas. Even before the raid, members of the US Armed Forces, many of them in civilian dress, were around the compound.</p>
<p>In the wake of the Feb 28 debacle Texas governor Anne Richards asked to consult with knowledgeable military personnel. Her request went to the US Army base at Fort Hood, where the commanding officer of the US Army’s III corps referred her to the Cavalry Division of the III Corps, whose commander at the time was Wesley Clark. Subsequent congressional enquiry records that Richards met with Wesley Clark’s number two, the assistant division commander, who advised her on military equipment that might be used in a subsequent raid. Clark’s man, at Richard’s request, also met with the head of the Texas National Guard.</p>
<p>Two senior Army officers subsequently travelled to a crucial April 14 meeting in Washington, D.C. with Attorney General Janet Reno and Justice Department and FBI officials in which the impending April 19 attack on the compound was reviewed. The 186-page “Investigation into the Activities of Federal Law Enforcement Agencies Towards the Branch Davidians”, prepared by the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight and lodged in 1996 (CR 104 749) does not name these two officers and at deadline CounterPunch has so far been unable to unearth them. One of these officers had reconnoitered the Branch Davidian compound a day earlier, on April 13. During the Justice Dept. meeting one of the officers told Reno that if the military had been called in to end a barricade situation as part of a military operation in a foreign country, it would focus its efforts on “taking out” the leader of the operation.</p>
<p>Ultimately tanks from Fort Hood were used in the final catastrophic assault on the Branch Davidian compound on April 19. Certainly the Waco onslaught bears characteristics typical of Gen. Wesley Clark: the eagerness to take out the leader (viz., the Clark-ordered bombing of Milosevich’s private residence); the utter disregard for the lives of innocent men, women and children; the arrogant miscalculations about the effects of force; disregard for law, whether of the Posse Comitatus Act governing military actions within the United States or, abroad, the purview of the Nuremberg laws on war crimes and attacks on civilians.</p>
<p>Waco Update: The Delta Force Was There</p>
<p>Amid Nato military supremo Wesley Clark’s onslaught on the civilians of Serbia the question arose: did Clark hone his civilian-killing skills at Waco, where the FBI oversaw the largest single spasm of slaughter of civilians by law enforcement in US history, when nearly a hundred Branch Davidians died amid an assault by tanks, flame-throwers and snipers.</p>
<p>The tanks were from Fort Hood, where Wesley Clark was, in early 1993, commander of the Cavalry Division of the US Army’s III Corps. In our last issue we cited a congressional report commissioned in the aftermath of Waco which described how Texas governor Anne Richards had consulted with Clark’s number two at Fort Hood. Then, on April 14, there was a summit at the Justice Department in Washington, where Attorney General Janet Reno, top Justice Department and FBI officials and two unnamed senior Army officers reviewed the final assault plan scheduled for April 19.</p>
<p>The two Army officers at the Justice Department that day were Colonel Gerald Boykin, and his superior, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the head of Special Forces at Fort Bragg. Though Clark (who had served with Schoomaker) was not directly involved in the onslaught on the Branch Davidians, the role of the US Army in that affair throws into harsh relief the way prohibitions against the use of the US military for civilian law enforcement can be swiftly by-passed.</p>
<p>Boykin and Schoomacher were present because the Army’s Fort Bragg-based Combat Applications Group-popularly known as the Delta Force-had been enlisted as part of the assault team on the Branch Davidian Compound. It appears that President Clinton had signed a waiver of the Posse Comitatus Act, with the precedent being Ronald Reagan’s revocation of the Act in 1987, allowing the Delta Force to be involved in suppressing the Atlanta prison riot.</p>
<p>The role of the Delta Force, the identity of the two Army officers, the revocation of Posse Comitatus all form part of the disclosures of a forthcoming documentary film, Waco: A New Revelation, put together by part of the team that produced an earlier, excellent film, Waco: Rules of Engagement. Following our questions about Wesley Clark’s possible involvement at Waco, producer/researcher Mike McNulty called us with some details of his new documentary-directed by Jason van Fleet and due to be released in July.</p>
<p>After energetic use of Freedom of Information Act enquiries, plus research in three repositories in Texas holding evidence from the Waco inferno, plus other extensive investigations, McNulty and his team have put together an explosive file:</p>
<p>. 28 video tapes from the repositories show that in the final onslaught on the Waco compound were members of the US military in special assault gear and with name tags obscured. As noted above, Clinton’s revocation of the Posse Comitatus Act made this presence legal. McNulty isolates Vince Foster as the White House point man for the Waco operation.</p>
<p>McNulty cites Foster’s widow as saying that the depression that prompted the White House lawyer’s death was fueled by horror at the carnage at Waco for which the White House had given the ultimate green light. Foster was writing a Waco report when he died. McNulty says that some documents about Foster and Waco were among those removed from his office after his death, later to surface in a White house store room sheltering archives of the First Lady.</p>
<p>The film, McNulty says, discloses how the federal assault team placed explosives on top of a compound bunker whither the feds believed the Branch Davidian leaders might flee. Material evidence collected by McNulty shows that the FBI/Delta assault force bombarded the compound with pyrophoric–i.e. fire-causing–projectiles.</p>
<p>Erosion of Posse Comitatus Act prohibitions on the involvement of the US military in law enforcement here is particularly sinister. The congressional report on Waco showed that some Army officers were extremely disturbed at requests for military assistance by the FBI, and there were some acrimonious exchanges at the time. The drug war, needless to say, has been a prime solvent in this process of erosion. One factor is the malign cross-fertilization occurring when these so-called “elite units”–the Army’s Combat Application Group, the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, the Navy’s SEALs–all train together, along with SWAT teams from police forces across the country. Thousands of law enforcement officers have now cut their teeth on the homicidal commando techniques most flagrantly displayed by the killers assembled in the British SAS, members of which were also present at the Waco siege. The Rambo mindset now saturates law enforcement, and even the rangers in Fish and Game Departments now pack heat. Both CounterPunch editors have had the experience of being asked to down their fly rods and produce ID, by young Fish and Game rangers with semi-automatics on their hips.</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Wesley Clark and Waco | true | https://counterpunch.org/2003/09/17/wesley-clark-and-waco/ | 2003-09-17 | 4 |
<p>Things internationally are so dispiriting there’s nothing left to do but fantasize. I picture Turkey, as a member of NATO, demanding that the alliance come to its defense after being attacked by Israel. Under Article 5 of the NATO charter an armed attack on one member is deemed to constitute an armed attack on all members. That is the ostensible reason NATO is fighting in Afghanistan — the attack against the United States on September 11, 2001 is regarded as an attack on all NATO members (disregarding the awkward fact that Afghanistan as a country had nothing to do with the attack). The Israeli attack on a Turkish-flagged ship, operated by a Turkish humanitarian organization, killing nine Turkish nationals and wounding many more can certainly constitute an attack upon a NATO member.</p>
<p>So, after the United States, the UK, Germany, France and other leading NATO members offer their ridiculous non-sequitur excuses why they can’t … umm … er … invoke Article 5, and the international media swallows it all without any indigestion, Turkey demands that Israel should at least lose its formal association with NATO as a member of the Mediterranean Dialogue. This too is dismissed with scorn by the eminent NATO world powers on the grounds that it would constitute a victory for terrorism. And anti-Semitism of course.</p>
<p>Turkey then withdraws from NATO. Azerbaijan and five other Central Asian members of NATO’s Partnership for Peace with Turkic constituencies do the same. NATO falls into a crisis. Remaining member countries begin to question the organization’s policies as never before … like please tell us again why our young men are killing and dying in Afghanistan, and why we send them to Kosovo and Iraq and other places the Americans deem essential to their endlessly-threatened national security.</p>
<p>When Vice President Biden tells the eminent conservative-in-liberal-clothing pseudo-intellectual Charlie Rose on TV that “We have put as much pressure and as much cajoling on Israel as we can to allow them [Gaza] to get building materials in,” 1Rose for once rises to the occasion and acts like a real journalist, asking Biden: “Have you threatened Israel with ending all military and economic aid? … Have you put the names of Israeli officials on your list of foreigners who can not enter the United States and whose bank accounts in the US are frozen, as you’ve done with numerous foreign officials who were not supporters of the empire? … Since Israel has committed both crimes against the peace and crimes against humanity, and since these are crimes that have international jurisdiction, certain Israeli political and military personnel can be named in trials held in any country of the world. Will you be instructing the Attorney General to proceed with such an indictment? Or if some other country which is a member of the International Criminal Court calls upon the ICC to prosecute these individuals, will the United States try to block the move? … Why hasn’t the United States itself delivered building materials to Gaza?”</p>
<p>When Israel justifies its murders on the grounds of “self-defense”, late-night TV comedians Jay Leno and David Letterman find great humor in this, pointing out that a new memoir by China’s premier at the time of the 1989 Tiananmen Square violent suppression defends the military action by saying that soldiers acted in “self-defense” when they fired on the democracy activists. (2)</p>
<p>When Israel labels as “terrorists” the ship passengers who offered some resistance to the Israeli invaders, the New York Times points out that the passengers who resisted the 9-11 highjackers on the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania are called “heroes”. (As an aside, it’s worth noting that the United States uses 9-11 as Israel uses the Holocaust — as excuse and justification for all manner of illegal and violent international behavior.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Washington Post reminds its readers that in 2009 Israel attacked a boat on international waters carrying medical aid to Gaza with former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney aboard; and that in 1967 Israel attacked an American ship, the USS Liberty, killing 34 and wounding about 173, and that President Johnson did then just what President Obama is doing now and would have done then — nothing.</p>
<p>And finally, Secretary of State Clinton declares that she’s had a revelation. She realizes that what she recently said about North Korea when it was accused of having torpedoed a South Korean warship applies as well to Israel. Mrs. Clinton had demanded that Pyongyang “stop its provocative behavior, halt its policy of threats of belligerence towards its neighbors, and take irreversible steps to fulfill its denuclearization commitments and comply with international law.” (3) She adds that the North Korean guilt is by no means conclusive, while Israel doesn’t deny its attack on the ship at all; moreover, it’s not known for sure if North Korea actually possesses nuclear weapons, whereas there’s no uncertainty about Israel’s large stockpile.</p>
<p>So there you have it. Hypocrisy reigns. Despite my best fantasizing. Is hypocrisy a moral failing or a failure of the intellect? When President Obama says, as he has often, “No one is above the law” and in his next breath makes it clear that his administration will not seek to indict Bush or Cheney for any crimes, does he think that no one will notice the contradiction, the hypocrisy? That’s a callous disregard for public opinion and/or a dumbness worthy of his predecessor.</p>
<p>And when he declares: “The future does not belong to those who gather armies on a field of battle or bury missiles in the ground”, (4) does it not occur to him at all that he’s predicting a bleak outlook for the United States? Or that his conscious, deliberate policy is to increase the size of America’s army and its stockpile of missiles?</p>
<p>Comrades, can the hypocrisy and the lies reach such a magnitude that enough American true believers begin to question their cherished faith, so that their number reaches a critical mass and explodes? Well, it’s already happened with countless Americans, but it’s an awfully formidable task keeping pace with what is turned out by the mass media and education factories. They’re awfully good at what they do. Too bad. But don’t forsake the struggle. What better way is there to live this life? And remember, just because the world has been taken over by lying, hypocritical, mass-murdering madmen doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time.</p>
<p>Notes.</p>
<p>1. Charlie Rose Live, June 2, 2010 program</p>
<p>2. Associated Press, June 4, 2010</p>
<p>3. State Department press conference, May 24, 2010</p>
<p>4. Talk given in Moscow, July 7, 2009, text released by the White House</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://greentags.bigcartel.com/" type="external">WORDS THAT STICK</a></p>
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<p /> | Hypocrisy Reigns | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/06/11/hypocrisy-reigns/ | 2010-06-11 | 4 |
<p>Published time: 2 Aug, 2017 14:17</p>
<p>Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has slammed Kim Jong-un as a “fool” and a “son of a b**ch” who is “playing with dangerous toys.” It comes just days before a meeting of 27 foreign ministers which will likely address the North Korean standoff.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/viral/381571-duterte-quotes-insults-critics/" type="external" /></p>
<p>“This Kim Jong-un, a fool…he is playing with dangerous toys, that fool,” Duterte told tax officials in a Wednesday speech, as quoted by Reuters.</p>
<p>“That chubby face that looks kind. That son of a b**ch. If he commits a mistake, the Far East will become an arid land. It must be stopped, this nuclear war.</p>
<p>“A limited confrontation and it blows up here, I will tell you, the fallout can deplete the soil, the resources and I don’t know what will happen to us.”</p>
<p>His comments come just days before the Philippines is set to host the South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum, which will bring together the foreign ministers of 27 countries – including the US, North Korea and South Korea. The meeting is almost certain to include discussions on the North Korean standoff.</p>
<p>The Wednesday remarks are not the first time that Duterte – known for his outspoken and often controversial rhetoric – has slammed Kim over his nuclear ambitions.</p>
<p>In April, Duterte questioned the North Korean leader’s sanity, urging the US to show restraint and not become riled over a man who “wants to end the world.”</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/397330-duterte-speech-drug-hell/" type="external" /></p>
<p>The comments come after North Korea claimed to have launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in recent weeks.</p>
<p>The Pentagon has backed Pyongyang’s claims that the missiles were indeed ICBMs, although Russia says they were likely medium-range ballistic missiles.</p>
<p>Duterte – who is most known for his controversial war on drugs which has led to the deaths of more than 8,000 people – has consistently made headlines for his no-holds-barred opinions. His most recent statements include <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/397728-duterte-oxford-stupid-people/" type="external">calling</a> Britain’s Oxford University a “school for stupid people”&#160;and <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/397116-duterte-lousy-america-sins/" type="external">calling</a> the US a “lousy” country.&#160;</p>
<p>Last month, he <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/395396-duterte-eat-liver-terrorists/" type="external">warned</a> Islamist militants fighting in the country that he would “eat their livers” in front of them, after seasoning them with salt and vinegar.&#160;</p>
<p>Duterte’s other outbursts include calling former US President Barack Obama a “son of a b**ch/whore,” accusing the Catholic Church of being “full of s**t,” and threatening to “burn down the United Nations.”</p> | Duterte calls ‘chubby-faced’ Kim Jong-un a ‘fool who plays with dangerous toys’ | false | https://newsline.com/duterte-calls-chubby-faced-kim-jong-un-a-fool-who-plays-with-dangerous-toys/ | 2017-08-02 | 1 |
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<p />
<p>The Blumhouse-produced and Universal Pictures-distributed film cost an estimated $4.5 million to make. While it was expected to perform well against its budget, few people foresaw a debut this big — especially with a relatively unknown star in Daniel Kaluuya leading the film.</p>
<p>Part of the reason is positive reviews. “Get Out” has a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is extremely rare for a thriller and only added to the excitement going into the weekend, said Universal President of Domestic Theatrical Distribution Nick Carpou.</p>
<p>“Jordan Peele is an absolute talent,” he said. “As we got closer and closer to opening, it’s amazing how many people were rooting for it.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Peele, who most audiences know for his sketch comedy work on the series “Key &amp; Peele,” wrote and directed the film about a black man who travels upstate to meet his white girlfriend’s family.</p>
<p>Even without Peele in the film, audiences turned out in droves to experience the high concept horror pic. According to exit polls, African Americans comprised an estimated 39 percent of the opening weekend audiences, while Caucasians made up 36 percent, and a whopping 49 percent were under the age of 25.</p>
<p>ComScore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian predicts the film will also have staying power in the marketplace. “Social media is going to keep this movie front and center,” Dergarabedian said.</p>
<p>“Get Out” effectively pushed “The Lego Batman Movie” into second place. The animated family picture added $19 million this weekend and is now up to $133 million after only three weeks in theaters.</p>
<p>“John Wick: Chapter Two” took third place with $9 million, while the Matt Damon-starrer “The Great Wall” took fourth with $8.7 million — down 53 percent from its opening last week.</p>
<p>“Fifty Shades Darker” rounded out the top five with $7.7 million, pushing the erotic drama over the $100 million mark in its third weekend.</p>
<p>Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.</p>
<p>1. “Get Out,” $30.5 million.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>2.”The Lego Batman Movie,” $19 million ($12.9 million international).</p>
<p>3.”John Wick: Chapter Two,” $9 million ($13.1 million international).</p>
<p>4.”The Great Wall,” $8.7 million ($14.6 million international).</p>
<p>5.”Fifty Shades Darker,” $7.7 million ($19.8 million international).</p>
<p>6.”Fist Fight,” $6.4 million ($1.3 million international).</p>
<p>7.”Hidden Figures,” $5.9 million ($5.7 million international).</p>
<p>8.”La La Land,” $4.6 million ($14.4 million international).</p>
<p>9.”Split,” $4.1 million ($17.3 million international).</p>
<p>10.”Lion,” $3.8 million ($6.8 million international).</p>
<p>——</p>
<p>Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by 21st Century Fox; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter at: <a href="http://twitter.com/ldbahr" type="external">http://twitter.com/ldbahr</a></p> | Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’ scares up big $30.5 million debut | false | https://abqjournal.com/957523/jordan-peeles-get-out-scares-up-big-30-5-million-debut.html | 2017-02-26 | 2 |
<p>Splunk Inc.&#160;(NASDAQ: SPLK)&#160;released impressive fiscal second-quarter 2018 results on Aug. 24 after the market closed, highlighting hundreds of new customers across various disparate industries. This also marks the 11th time in as many reports that the operational-intelligence platform specialist has beaten expectations.</p>
<p>Let's have a closer look at what Splunk accomplished over the past few months.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Splunk CEO Doug Merritt stated:</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>For the fiscal third quarter of 2018, Splunk expects revenue to be between $307 million and $309 million -- above the $306.9 million investors were anticipating -- with adjusted operating margin of 8%.</p>
<p>As a result, Splunk once again increased its full fiscal-year 2018 guidance to call for billings of $1.450 billion, up from $1.425 billion previously, and revenue of between $1.210 billion and $1.215 billion, up from $1.195 billion previously. Splunk also reiterated its expectation for full fiscal-year adjusted operating margin of roughly 8%.</p>
<p>All things considered -- and though it shouldn't be terribly surprising, given Splunk's propensity for under-promising and over-delivering -- there was nothing not to like about this report from an investor's perspective. Customers from a wide variety of industries continue to adopt Splunk's solutions in droves. And the company is translating that adoption to stellar revenue growth as its GAAP losses continue to narrow. With shares of Splunk down around 9% over the past three months in spite of its <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/05/26/splunk-beats-expectations-again.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=f5b4aeba-8906-11e7-a563-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">quarterly beat and raise Opens a New Window.</a> in May, it was hard to blame the market for bidding up the stock after hours following the earnings release.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than SplunkWhen 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-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=de01f264-6c91-490f-9a5d-23399122a55a&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=f5b4aeba-8906-11e7-a563-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Splunk 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-static%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=de01f264-6c91-490f-9a5d-23399122a55a&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=f5b4aeba-8906-11e7-a563-0050569d4be0&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 August 1, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSymington/info.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;uuid=f5b4aeba-8906-11e7-a563-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Steve Symington Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Splunk and Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool recommends Athenahealth and Carnival. 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;uuid=f5b4aeba-8906-11e7-a563-0050569d4be0&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Splunk Has Exceeded Guidance for 11 Straight Quarters | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/08/24/splunk-has-exceeded-guidance-for-11-straight-quarters.html | 2017-08-24 | 0 |
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<p>Oksana Chernysheva, shown on June 5 in Moscow, is a first-year journalism student in Moscow who believes Russia can benefit from projecting its power, the way the Soviet Union once did. (Brendan Hoffman/Prime for The Washington Post)</p>
<p>MOSCOW – Oksana Chernysheva, a first-year journalism student at the International University of Moscow, shares the view of her president, Vladimir Putin: The collapse of the Soviet Union was a disaster.</p>
<p>The Soviet Union used to command respect on the international stage. It stood toe-to-toe with the United States. It wielded its influence in the far corners of the globe.</p>
<p>“We used to be huge and strong, and then it collapsed,” she said.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>But what for the 61-year-old Putin amounts to an acute sense of lost glory is for Chernysheva, a baby-faced 18-year-old, a dirge based almost entirely on wistful tales handed down by nostalgic parents.</p>
<p>Chernysheva was born five years after the Soviet Union fell apart.</p>
<p>Putin’s moves this year to annex Crimea from Ukraine, and support pro-Russian opposition movements in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, appear to have resonated powerfully with a younger generation that has no memory of the Soviet Union but yearns for its historic power.</p>
<p>According to the Levada-Centre, an independent polling organization in Moscow, Putin’s high approval rating among youths tops even that of an older generation that remembers the days of empire, and views Crimea – and even Ukraine – as essentially Russian.</p>
<p>Eighteen- to 24-year-olds – the youngest group of 1,600 people surveyed in late May – backed Putin more than any other age bracket, at 86 percent, said Karina Pipiya, a spokesperson for the polling center. Eighty-two percent of Russians ages 40 to 54 said they supported Putin, she said.</p>
<p>Like countless other Russian millennials, Chernysheva has listened to her parents, a bakery manager and a factory worker, describe a time when life was more orderly, “the food was tasty and the ice cream was cheap.”</p>
<p>But the image of a vast former military power that commanded global respect was particularly appealing to her, she said.</p>
<p>“I believe that the world should be afraid of us,” Chernysheva said, sipping a hot chocolate in a cafe near her university. “To be afraid means to respect.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Across town, in the sleek headquarters of the Young Guard for a United Russia, the youth wing of Putin’s political party, Maksim Rudnev, 26, said he doesn’t remember the collapse of the Soviet Union either – nor does he know Chernysheva.</p>
<p>Maksim Rudnev, 26, shown on June 2 in Moscow, is a top ranking member of the Young Guard for a United Russia, the youth wing of Vladimir Putin’s political party. He and some other young people in Russia want Russia to be stronger internationally, the way they believe the Soviet Union once was. (Vladimir Alexandrov/For The Washington Post)</p>
<p>Rudnev was one of several Russian youths interviewed separately for this article.</p>
<p>But like his peers, Rudnev remembers being a child during the brutal 1990s, when thousands lost their jobs and pensions, as the country staggered forward into a strange and unfair capitalism.</p>
<p>Rudnev’s father, a former serviceman in the Russian military, had to spend his weekends in the 1990s picking apricots to support the family, Rudnev said.</p>
<p>Now his father owns a small business, and Rudnev has climbed to the upper ranks of Putin’s Young Guard – a status that he says promises opportunities in politics and power.</p>
<p>“The fact that our generation supports the president is because we remember very well how it was before, and how it became after him,” he said.</p>
<p>Putin’s approval ratings have soared among all ages in Russia over the past several months, currently topping 83 percent nationwide, according to the Levada-Centre.</p>
<p>But the president’s critics say that he has left little room for alternatives. In recent months, the state has tightened its grip on the Internet and free expression, and the country’s foremost opposition figure languishes under house arrest.</p>
<p>In the main textbook used by high school seniors, “Putin’s name is mentioned 26 times in just six pages,” said Igor Dolutsky, a Putin critic and renowned Moscow history teacher whose own textbook was swiftly banned several years ago for referring to Putin’s government as an “authoritarian dictatorship.”</p>
<p>The introduction of a new textbook next year even further reinforces a “falsified” version of Russian history, Dolutsky said.</p>
<p>On school campuses, anti-Putin students and faculty are not only outnumbered, but they face the prospect of being harassed or sidelined for their opposition views, they said.</p>
<p>“It’s so easy to go to jail in Russia,” said Chernysheva’s friend, Anton Kusakin, 20, who worked for opposition leader Alexei Navalny last year before his house arrest and who vehemently disagrees with his pro-Putin friends at school.</p>
<p>Putin’s annexation of Crimea “spoiled everything,” he said. But on-campus activism is almost nonexistent in the current climate, he and Chernysheva agreed.</p>
<p>State media consistently peddle the image of a never-ending Cold War against a West bent on keeping Russia down, analysts said.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Russian millennials are coming of age in an environment of skyrocketing prices and rampant corruption, while abroad they encounter growing international hostility to Russia’s foreign policies.</p>
<p>Anna Gasak, a well-to-do 20-year-old international relations student, put it this way: “Now the national idea is a bit vague and we don’t know what to follow, who to follow or what to do.”</p>
<p>Gasak, who has spent time in Europe and who described Putin’s foreign policy as a positive show of strength, said that in Soviet times, “We used to be more united.”</p>
<p>These days, her peers increasingly seek out “a better life” in Europe or the United States – if they can afford it, she said. But those who travel have also grown fiercely defensive of a Russia that is becoming increasingly isolated on the international stage.</p>
<p>Putin is “a strong leader,” Gasak said, sitting in a Starbucks in Moscow’s fashionable city center. “But I don’t know why he can’t do these things that he does in foreign policy in terms of domestic policy,” she added, expressing her frustration with Russia’s struggling economy and endemic corruption.</p>
<p>Still, the Russian president, who likes sports and animals and appears shirtless on T-shirts and mugs at stores all over Moscow, is a major role model for young people grasping for a leader, college students and teachers said.</p>
<p>In interviews, Moscow youths repeatedly praised Putin’s successful execution of the Olympic Games in Sochi and his “independence” in international politics. He is a man who stands up for Russia, they said.</p>
<p>Chernysheva, whose girly smile, bangs and bookish glasses seemed to suggest a gentler world view, said she is tired of Russia being a nation that the West looks “at like a third world country.”</p>
<p>But Putin, she believes, has her country on the right track. “Maybe the world is starting to be afraid again now,” she said.</p>
<p /> | Putin’s drive to regain Russian clout resonates with youth | false | https://abqjournal.com/419120/putins-drive-to-regain-russian-clout-resonates-with-youth.html | 2 |
|
<p>TAMPA, Fla. - As former presidential candidate and rejected Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum delivered his standard stump speech Tuesday night, I found my attention wandering.</p>
<p>I had heard it all many times before.</p>
<p>In a nutshell, it boils down to "traditional values will save you, and President Barack Obama is ruining the world."</p>
<p>"Graduate from high school, work hard, and get married before you have children and the chance you will ever be in poverty is just two percent," said Santorum. "The fact is that marriage is disappearing in places where government dependency is highest - if America is going to succeed, we must stop the assault on marriage and the family."</p>
<p>The response in the hall was muted, something that was apparent to my fellow journalists in the peanut gallery.</p>
<p>"Not even these people are buying it," muttered a scribe from Philadelphia.</p>
<p>Only one moment lit up the crowd - when Santorum touched on abortion: "I thank God that America still has one party that reaches out their hands in love to lift up all of God's children - born and unborn," he said, to thunderous applause.</p>
<p>But as Santorum wound down his speech, a commotion could be heard in the upper reaches of the cavernous hall. A young woman was screaming at the top of her lungs, although her words were indistinguishable to many down below.</p>
<p>It was Alli McCracken, coordinator for the Washington, D.C. office of CODEPINK, a women's organization dedicated to "working to end the war in Iraq, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into health care, education and other life-affirming activities."</p>
<p>McCracken, just 23, created quite a commotion.</p>
<p>"I got to speak for three or four minutes before they escorted me out," she said.</p>
<p>Her message was simple: If you claim to be pro-life, then do things that strengthen life. Stop the wars, help women get access to quality health care. Make education affordable.</p>
<p>"I don't think Rick Santorum is any worse than the rest of them," said McCracken. "They are all egregiously offensive in their own way."</p>
<p>McCracken was dressed quite conservatively for the occasion - sadly, she was minus the bright pink vagina costume in which she has been roaming Tampa's streets for the past few days.</p>
<p>She was also cagey about how she got into the Tampa Bay Times Forum, a tightly secured area to which only credentialed delegates, guests and media have access.</p>
<p>"I had credentials," is all she would say.</p>
<p>But she was not at all reticent about her mission and her message.</p>
<p>"I want the GOP to stop this war on women," she said.</p>
<p>McCracken was taken out of hall by the security personnel, who, she says, were "super nice" to her.</p>
<p>"One of them took me right to the perimeter, and I told him about what we were doing," she said. "We made friends, and he told me I was really brave."</p>
<p>On Wednesday afternoon, McCracken and her cohorts were marching in a Planned Parenthood rally in Tampa, this time decked out in their usual gear.</p>
<p>"There are pink flags and banners all around and we feel right at home," she said.</p>
<p>Asked whether she or other CODEPINK activists would be on hand for Paul Ryan's speech or other activities at the Tampa Bay Times Forum Wednesday evening, she just laughed.</p>
<p>"I can neither confirm nor deny," she said.</p> | CODEPINK up against the Republican red | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-08-29/codepink-against-republican-red | 2012-08-29 | 3 |
<p>DEC. 31, 2010</p>
<p>By WAYNE LUSVARDI and RICH McKONE</p>
<p>We have all seen the TV videos of the <a href="" type="external">overcrowded conditions in California’s prisons</a>. But, do these visuals reflect reality or are they highly managed Hollywood stage sets?</p>
<p>If I told you the Golden State Freeway (I-5) was congested but I didn’t tell you that closing two of the lanes all the way through Los Angeles County was politically contrived it would be pretty obvious I wasn’t telling you the whole story. All you would have to do is turn on the TV news showing a video from a TV news chopper.</p>
<p>If I told you that there was a drought requiring higher water rates in Los Angeles due to water conservation required as a result of a court shutting off water to farms and cities to protect a tiny fish, I wouldn’t be telling you the whole story. If the court was hoodwinked by bogus science and later rescinded its water shut-down order, and water agencies no longer enforced their water conservation ordinances but did not repeal their water rate hikes, you might think that something was fishy. &#160;As they say in the public water business: “Water flows up hill toward money.”</p>
<p>If I showed you photos of overcrowded state prisons it would be difficult, however, to figure out what caused it (e.g., crime wave, lack of prison building, mismanagement, etc.).&#160; Freeways are transparent but the prison and jail systems are sociologically opaque and hard to understand.</p>
<p>Enter stage right Rich McKone, executive officer, <a href="www.rebuildcorrections.lincal.com" type="external">California Coalition on Corrections</a>; Parole Agent III, Retired, DC&amp;R, former criminal justice planner, California Council on Criminal Justice &amp; California Youth Authority.&#160; Rich relentlessly patrols the Internet with a mission to correct all the journalistic disinformation out there about prison overcrowding.</p>
<p>McKone writes that like freeways and rivers, the corrections system in California has a flow to it.&#160; The historical direction that inmates flow in the state corrections system is from the state to the counties. But like the proverbial river that flows in reverse towards money, the state has been withholding its flow of inmates to the county jails. Writes McKone:</p>
<p>The prison system budget has been immune to budget scrutiny for so long that it could be reduced by over a billion dollars a year without releasing one inmate early. Just shift the minor offenders who used to be at the county level back to the counties with the state reimbursing counties. If counties put the offenders in correctional contract facilities, each contract bed would save about $22,500 annually compared to a prison bed.</p>
<p>McKone says if the state contracted with counties to take these minor offender prisoners, as do other states, that large savings could be realized without jeopardizing public safety:</p>
<p>Minnesota and Oregon have contracted with counties for parole supervision since the early 1970s. Those parole systems work!</p>
<p>Increasing contract beds from 4 percent of capacity to 9 percent like Texas would save about $310 million annually and avoid spending over $4 billion for prison construction.</p>
<p />
<p>Instead, the state is closing contract facilities. Billions could be cut from the prison system budget without any impact on public safety or releasing any inmates early. It only requires the political leadership to resist correctional employee influence, a rare commodity in Sacramento.</p>
<p>According to McKone, overcrowding is not due to a rise in crime:</p>
<p>It should be noted that overcrowding has nothing to do with inmates serving long terms for major crimes. There is plenty of room for all such offenders — none will ever be released due to overcrowding. The prison bed shortage exists only because thousands of less serious offenders (often referred to as wobblers) and parole violators, serving terms of less than a year, have been diverted to prison due to the long-term, severe county jail bed shortage. Basic correctional policy dictates that short-term offenders, absent other factors — usually security, serve their terms in county jail (at far less cost) not prison. These short-term offenders occupy about 30,000 to 40,000 prison beds, causing overcrowding.</p>
<p />
<p>McKone writes how a large share of the state structural budget deficit could be fixed by getting the prisoner flows correct:</p>
<p>It’s good news and bad news regarding the budget! It’s bad news that Brown has not even mentioned cuts to the prison system budget. Prison union influence has shielded prison budgets from scrutiny for decades. The good news is that the state can now cut the bloated prison budget by about $7.4 billion without releasing one inmate early! That is now very good news for the UC regents!</p>
<p />
<p>The 65,000 county jail bed shortage caused the shift of a third of the jail population to prison where they occupy almost 50,000 expensive beds. Returning these short-term offenders to county operated facilities would reduce annual prison operating costs by $1 billion and avoid $6 billion in prison construction costs. (California has only 3 percent of its inmates in contract facilities compared to 17 percent in the federal prison system.)</p>
<p />
<p>The $6 billion in AB900 prison construction bonds could be applied to the deficit.</p>
<p />
<p>California’s 35 percent parole violation rate would return to the national average, 20 percent, if parole were transferred to counties saving another $410 million to annual prison operating costs. Brown just needs to be willing to offend an influential political supporter!”</p>
<p>McKone points out the winners and losers in the state prison system:</p>
<p>There are several winners and, of course, taxpayers are the chronic losers. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association has controlled prison system policy and operations for decades. The CCPOA&#160;provides both money and political support to any politician who supports their agenda. They control some victim groups that attack politicians who are foolish enough to not support their agenda or even oppose it. It is by far the smartest and most effective public employee union in California.</p>
<p />
<p>The politicians funded AB900 providing $6.5 billion for prison construction (and $900 million for jail construction) without any review or analysis. In addition to the CCPOA being a winner, there is probably at least one prison construction corporation enjoying sole source construction contracts. The original planning estimates were based on $100,000 per bed for construction but apparently at least some of the new beds are running about $300,000 per bed for construction according to the Legislative Analyst (LAO). Incidentally, the LAO reported that AB900 would result in a 32,000-prison bed surplus when fully implemented.</p>
<p />
<p>The main issue is that the actual correctional bed shortage is at the county level not in prison.</p>
<p>So the next time you watch one of those TV newscasts where they show you crowded state prisons you will have to understand that prisoners flow upstream toward money.</p> | Crime Hikes Don't Cause Prison Crowds | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2010/12/30/crime-hikes-dont-cause-prison-crowds/ | 2018-12-20 | 3 |
<p>Newly-approved FDA changes:</p>
<p>1). For adults with Chronic Idiopathic Mucus (Mucosusnimium)</p>
<p>Ask your doctor about getting relief with prescription FLEMNOMO.</p>
<p>FLEMNOMO is the only prescription medicine approved to treat Chronic Idiopathic Mucus, often refereed to as excessive saliva because of full mouth resulting in constant expectoration. The cause of the mucus is unknown and not due to hydration or swimmer’s elbow.</p>
<p>FLEMNOMO AT A GLANCE</p>
<p>While individual results may vary, here are the basics about FLEMNOMO:</p>
<p>On the day before taking FLEMNOMO, the majority of people had two bowel movements and thirty-four incidents of expectoration.</p>
<p>In studies, people taking FLEMNOMO had an average of 5.4 bowel movements and 138 episodes of expectoration per week.</p>
<p>FLEMNOMO helps reduce the incidents of expectoration, including tooth decay, tooth discoloration, watery tongue, gagging, and the sensation of drowning.</p>
<p>FLEMNOMO works in a unique way by forcing fluids down the throat and into the stomach, helping urine to pass normally.</p>
<p>FLEMNOMO has a proven, long-term safety profile, in some people for as long as three months, in others four.</p>
<p>Ask your doctor if Flemnomo (an FDA-approved prescription) for Chronic idiopathic mucus is right for you.</p>
<p>Important safety information:</p>
<p>Women who are pregnant should not take FLEMNOMO.</p>
<p>Women who are thinking about becoming pregnant should not take FLEMNOMO.</p>
<p>Women who have ever been pregnant should not take FLEMNOMO. Men who have ever impregnated a woman should not take FLEMNOMO.</p>
<p>FLEMNOMO may remove the enamel from your teeth, though these incidents are rare.</p>
<p>FLEMNOMO may increase the gaps between your teeth, though these incidents have been observed only by residents of Mississippi.</p>
<p>FLEMNOMO may lead to increased urination, though those incidents are generally short-lived and can be treated by DETROL LA.</p>
<p>In rare instances, FLEMNOMO may result in trench mouth, lockjaw, hoof-in-mouth disease, incontinence, hot flashes, and death.</p>
<p>Make certain your doctor knows about all the medications you are taking before starting FLEMNOMO tablets, including aspirin and H2O.</p>
<p>2). For men with Restless Penis Syndrome (RPS)</p>
<p>Ask your physician about RELAXDIK. (ropeindong HCI)</p>
<p>Are you having trouble keeping it down at night?</p>
<p>Do you have trouble staying asleep because of strange sensations in your penis? Do you dread going to movies, riding on trains or airplanes, or attending long boring meetings because your mind wanders?</p>
<p>If these activities sound familiar, you may have Restless Penis Syndrome (RPS), a common medical condition typified by the uncontrollable urge to release chronic tension caused by overwork, stress, or imagination. In its mild form, RPS affects approximately one out of every two adults living in the United States. (Results may be different in other countries).</p>
<p>If you believe you are experiencing the symptoms of RPS, call your doctor, hound your doctor, until he prescribes Relaxdik for you.</p>
<p>Important safety information:</p>
<p>Relaxdik is not for everyone—especially women. Relaxdik tablets may cause you to experience mild forms of ED, especially while skiing or in the grocery store; or you black out, feel depressed, nauseated, or sweaty when you stand up. Tell your doctor if you experience new or increased interests in stamp collecting, conservatism, or becoming a Republican.</p>
<p>Make certain that your doctor is aware of all the other medications you may be taking before taking Relaxdik tablets, including frolic acid and L-dopa.</p>
<p>3). For adults with high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, heartburn, gingivitis, amnesia, tunnel vision, allergies, osteoporosis, bed-wetting, narcolepsy, insecurity, arthritis, kleptomania, low cholesterol, irritable bowel syndrome, greed, tennis elbow, rhinitis, chronic dry eye, baldness, depression, sleeplessness, ED, gall stones, broken heart, dermatitis, weightlessness, chronic bronchitis and emphysema, ADHD, constipation, beriberi, glaucoma, lechery, incontinence, poverty, hernia, narcolepsy, jock itch, incompetence, mononucleosis, spite, athlete’s foot, idiosyncrasy, syphilis, RPS, and chronic idiopathic mucus.</p>
<p>Ask your doctor if a transplant is right for you.</p>
<p>Ask your doctor if a heart transplant will be right for you.</p>
<p>Ask you doctor if the Jarvik Artificial Heart is right for you.</p>
<p>Ask your doctor for a free sample.</p>
<p>CHARLES R. LARSON is Professor of Literature at American University in Washington, D.C. His books include <a href="" type="internal">Under African Skies,</a> <a href="" type="internal">Worlds of Fiction</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1856499316/counterpunchmaga" type="external">The Ordeal of the African Writer</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Academia Nuts</a>. He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p /> | Ask Your Doctor for a Free Sample | true | https://counterpunch.org/2008/11/11/ask-your-doctor-for-a-free-sample/ | 2008-11-11 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Hang around the places that ranchers frequent these days and you might not hear the grumbling normally associated with farming.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p />
<p>Beef prices are pretty darn strong and farmers are pretty darn happy.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/01/29/news/local/news02.txt" type="external">The</a> <a href="http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/01/29/news/local/news02.txt" type="external">Rapid City</a> <a href="http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/01/29/news/local/news02.txt" type="external">(S.D.)</a> <a href="http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/01/29/news/local/news02.txt" type="external">Journal</a> reports:</p>
<p>Cary and Codi Reese and Cary's mother, Colleen Popham, went home happy from the Jan. 19 sale at the <a href="http://bellefourchelivestock.com/" type="external">Belle Fourche Livestock Exchange</a>.</p>
<p>The Upton, Wyo.-area ranch family had sold 50 older butcher cows for an average of 65 cents a pound, about double similar types of cows were bringing three or four years ago."I've been ranching 50 years," Popham said. "These are the highest prices I've ever seen."The higher prices mean more profits to spend.Dean Strong, owner of Belle Fourche Livestock, said calf and cattle prices have been at record levels over the past year. Last fall, calves were generally selling from $1.25 to $1.50 a pound on the hoof, depending on weight and other factors. "That amounted to $30 to $40 more a head than last year, and last year was pretty good," Strong said.</p>
<p>The improved market has been a welcome turnaround from the low prices that had persisted for the previous 15 years or so. Three or four years ago, calves were bringing 70 to 80 cents a pound.For a 600-pound calf, at even $1.25 a pound today, that's a difference of $300. If a rancher sells 100 calves in the fall, that's a $30,000 bigger paycheck.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>Half of Iraqis Favor Attacks on American Troops</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/13750080.htm" type="external">Knight Ridder Newspapers reports</a> a sobering poll result. A poll, conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, says that half of Iraqis favor attacks on American troops. The poll was published on PIPA's Web site, <a href="http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/" type="external">WorldPublicOpinion.org.</a></p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/about.php?nid=&amp;id=" type="external">Web site says</a>:</p>
<p>According to the poll, 80 percent of Iraqis think the U.S. is planning to keep a permanent base there. You can find PIPA's <a href="http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/165.php?nid=&amp;id=&amp;pnt=165&amp;lb=hmpg1" type="external">summary</a> and the <a href="http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/jan06/Iraq_Jan06_rpt.pdf" type="external">full report</a> [PDF], along with the <a href="http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/jan06/Iraq_Jan06_quaire.pdf" type="external">questionnaire and methodology</a> [PDF], <a href="http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/" type="external">here</a>. The poll was conducted on Jan. 2 to Jan. 5, among a sample of 1,150 Iraqis. (Keep in mind that, according to the <a href="http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html" type="external">CIA World Factbook's</a> most recent estimate, the <a href="http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html#People" type="external">population of Iraq</a> as of July 2005 was 26,074,906.)&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>The Commerce Department <a href="http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1314227" type="external">says that, last year</a>, Americans actually had a "negative" savings rate -- meaning that not only did we not save money, but we spent more than we had.</p>
<p>Why Do High Schools Fail So Many?</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-dropout29jan29,0,6750397.story" type="external">The</a> <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-dropout29jan29,0,6750397.story" type="external">Los Angeles Times</a> is running a blockbuster <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dropouts-series,0,2033004.special" type="external">series</a> on the many thousands of high school students who fail out of classes and drop by the wayside.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-dropout30jan30,0,3211437.story" type="external">The newspaper tells the story of thousands of students who can't pass algebra</a>, so they do not get a diploma. They take the test over and over, they still get Fs.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>In some school systems, if you can't pass algebra, you can't graduate. The paper even has an online algebra quiz to test your skills, in addition to a number of other interactive and multimedia features.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>One of the stories in the series includes <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-dropout30jan30,0,3211437.story" type="external">this passage</a>:</p>
<p>In the fall of 2004, 48,000 ninth-graders took beginning algebra; 44 percent flunked, nearly twice the failure rate as in English. Seventeen percent finished with Ds.In all, the district that semester handed out Ds and Fs to 29,000 beginning algebra students -- enough to fill eight high schools the size of Birmingham.Among those who repeated the class in the spring, nearly three-quarters flunked again.</p>
<p>Five States Consider Bans on Funeral Protests</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/29/AR2006012900927.html" type="external">The Washington Post</a> reports:</p>
<p>At least five Midwestern states are considering legislation to ban protests at funerals in response to demonstrations by the Rev. Fred Phelps and members of his Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church, who have been protesting at funerals of Iraq war casualties because they say the deaths are God's punishment for U.S. tolerance toward gays.</p>
<p>Though the soldiers were not gay, the protesters say the deaths, as well as Hurricane Katrina, recent mining disasters and other tragedies are God's signs of displeasure. They also protested at the memorial service for the 12 West Virginia miners who died in the Sago Mine.</p>
<p>"The families weren't able to bury their loved ones in peace," said Kansas state Sen. Jean Schodorf, who has proposed legislation. "We felt pretty strongly that we needed to do something about it."</p>
<p>Kansas already has a law banning demonstrations at funerals, but Schodorf said the existing law is vague and hard to enforce. The proposed bill would keep protesters 300 feet away from any funeral or memorial service and ban demonstrations within one hour before or two hours after a service.</p>
<p>Legislators in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Oklahoma are looking at similar bills. Proposed legislation in Indiana would keep protesters 500 feet from funerals, and make a violation a felony punishable by a three-year prison term and a $10,000 fine.</p>
<p>State Sen. Anita Bowser said she thinks the demonstrators are hoping to provoke a physical attack so they can file a lawsuit.</p>
<p>Fee Frenzy</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/jan06/388418.asp" type="external">The</a> <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/jan06/388418.asp" type="external">Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</a> found that cities, trying to avoid tax hikes, have resorted to hiking every imaginable fee instead. The net affect is the same, people are paying more to their government for the same services. The fees range from snow- and ice-removal fees to fire-hydrant maintainance fees. The paper reports:</p>
<p>Statewide, communities levied a collective $8.3 billion in property taxes for 2006, just 2 percent more than a year ago. But tax bills don't include service fees, a small but fast-growing way for local taxing districts to pay for rising service-related costs while holding down property tax increases.</p>
<p>Nobody's got a current count on fees, but the <a href="http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lab/" type="external">Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau</a> estimated the fees at $2.6 billion in 2001.</p>
<p>"The entire nation is experiencing a tsunami of new fees at the state and local level," said William Ahern, communications director of the <a href="http://www.taxfoundation.org/" type="external">Tax Foundation</a> in Washington, D.C. "It's hard to track down; a lot isn't characterized as tax revenue. But if spending is way up, that money has to be coming from somewhere."</p> | Wednesday Edition: Strong Beef Prices | false | https://poynter.org/news/wednesday-edition-strong-beef-prices | 2006-01-31 | 2 |
<p>A Montana man who is charged in killing a German exchange student allegedly pointed a shotgun at a lawn care worker days before the fatal shooting.</p>
<p>Michael McMillan testified Friday that he arrived at Markus Kaarma’s home in Missoula to spray for insects back in April when he saw Kaarma, furious, come to the door naked and point a shotgun at him, asking what he was doing there, according to the <a href="http://www.seattlepi.com/news/crime/article/Testimony-Montana-man-on-edge-before-shooting-5939437.php" type="external">Associated Press</a>.</p>
<p>McMillan said he was “scared, frozen,” and that Kaarma’s girlfriend apologized and said he hadn’t gotten much sleep because of some recent burglaries. Just four days later, police say Kaarma shot and killed 17-year-old foreign exchange student Diren Dede after a motion detector in his garage alerted him to someone’s presence. Defense attorneys are arguing that he acted in self-defense, invoking Montana’s “stand your ground” law, which allows people to use deadly force if people believe they are going to be threatened with harm.</p>
<p>Kaarma, 30, said he had no idea who the intruder was or whether the person was armed, and felt anxious for the safety of his girlfriend and his infant son since their home had been burglarized twice recently.</p>
<p>On the same day of Kaarma’s encounter with the lawn care worker, Kaarma went to get a haircut and people at the shop testified they heard him talk about waiting to shoot an intruder. College student Louis Richman also said he overheard Kaarma discuss shooting burglars and said he believed him to be watching porn on his phone as they waited for haircuts. However, he said he didn’t think he would actually shoot someone.</p>
<p>In the 911 call played for jurors, Kaarma’s girlfriend said Dede was lying face down and “barely breathing” after the shooting, and Kaarma did not try to help. He died shortly after at the hospital.</p>
<p>Kaarma is charged with baiting the victim into sneaking into the garage and then shooting him four times with a shotgun. Kaarma allegedly admitted to police officers who arrived on scene that he had been the shooter.</p>
<p>Kaarma’s grilfriend allegedly told police afterward that Dede had pleaded for his life before the shooting.</p>
<p>The trial is set to continue through Dec. 19.</p>
<p /> | Testimony: Montana man pointed shotgun at lawn care worker days before fatal shooting | false | http://natmonitor.com/2014/12/06/testimony-montana-man-pointed-shotgun-at-lawn-care-worker-days-before-fatal-shooting/ | 2014-12-06 | 3 |
<p>The German national character is risk-averse: stability, prosperity and security tend to be the things Germans would vote for. And if Merkel is perceived to deliver them, she will remain in power, says former MI5 intelligence officer Annie Machon.</p>
<p>While Germans are casting their votes for members of parliament, who will occupy at least 598 seats in the Bundestag for the next four years, Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ruling Christian Democrat/Christian Social Union alliance are favored to win the German parliamentary elections.</p>
<p>RT spoke to former UK intelligence officer Machon to discuss this issue.&#160;&#160;&#160;</p>
<p>RT: There was much scare-mongering about possible Russian meddling in the German election, of which not a trace has been detected. Why was this made a big issue?</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/404091-alt-right-influence-german-election/" type="external" /></p>
<p>Annie Machon: I am not at all surprised that Russia is being accused yet again of trying to hack or interfere in an election in a Western country. It seems to be a sort of fashion of this year and last year. I think it is interesting, though, every time the elites of whichever country feels that there might be some sort of populist revolt or vote against what the elites think they should be voting for, they almost pro-actively say, ‘There must be Russia interfering in these elections’ because they might get the result they don’t want. But it is crazy because we have seen time and again, there is no evidence of Russian hacking. There were assertions about Brexit, there were assertions in France. Emmanuel Macron during the election said, ‘We’ve been hacked.’ And then the French intelligence agencies went off to investigate and said, ‘There is no evidence of hacking.’ Similarly, we’ve seen Merkel in the run-up to the federal election saying, ‘They are going to hack German elections, too.’ So, she sent off the BND and BFV to investigate and they came back saying, ‘There is absolutely no evidence of Russian hacking.’ Merkel wanted a different result and told them to go and find different information. This is how crazy it is getting. As soon as any powers in any Western country think, ‘Actually, we might not get a result we want, let’s blame the Russians.’ And they are doing that preemptively now as well. It is ridiculous.</p>
<p>RT: Merkel is on the way to securing her fourth term despite the migrant crisis and Germany’s spate of terrorist attacks. What makes her so resilient?</p>
<p>AM: I would put that down to the case of German national character being fairly risk-averse. Some of the vox pops that I heard seem to indicate that actually ‘change is a risk’ and it would be ‘good not to have change.’ Stability, prosperity and security tend to be the things they would vote for, and if she is perceived to deliver them, then she will remain in power.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/404354-german-elections-2017-updates/" type="external" /></p>
<p>I would suggest that security is a slightly tricky issue for her at the moment. Because not only have we had a whole range of increased and diverse terrorist-type attacks in Germany over the last couple of years, but also don’t forget, only four years ago, we had the Snowden disclosures, which, on the opposite side of security showed how the German intelligence agencies were complicit with breaking the German constitution in order to support and aid the American intelligence agencies, which caused a massive scandal back then. And I think that is going to feed into some support for other fringe parties, most notably the Pirate Party, which advocates privacy and internet freedoms.</p>
<p>RT: Merkel’s main rival is Martin Schulz, whose party has also been the CDU’s junior partner, which seems to tie his hands in terms of his ability to criticize her. Has he managed to present himself as a clear alternative?</p>
<p>AM: I don’t think there is a clear divide between the two of them. He was obviously the favorite contender when he put his hat into the ring to succeed Merkel, to have a chance of toppling her. But I don’t think he will at this stage. &#160;</p>
<p>I think the position of Germany will not change a lot, unfortunately. All the other Europeans are waiting for the change, are expecting something new. I don’t expect any revolution from this election. I think it will go on with the same thing, the same ideas. Change can be brought by the increase of the AfD (Alternative for Germany). I am sure they will probably reach 12-15 percent. In that sense, it is a change. But the main politics will not change because if you see the campaign – you have the same parties, you have the same ideas, you have the same people as usual. And these people will stay after the elections as the usual leaders of Germany. Even if the AfD is growing, it will not be able to change the balance of the German political powers. – Guy Mettan, executive director of Swiss press club</p>
<p>RT: The main intrigue is which party will finish third; the polls are giving the AfD high chances. Do you think they could go as far as getting double digits?</p>
<p>AM: I think the polls are indicating they have a very good chance. And also, when you are doing polling on those sorts of parties, you tend to get the sort of shy voter not really disclosing that they intend to vote for a party that is seen to be slightly unacceptable socially. I think they may well end up with more votes than is currently being polled. And this is a knee-jerk reaction to the immigration issue. Most people would applaud the humanitarian reason behind Merkel’s intervention and inviting all the immigrants in, as well as her pragmatic approach in saying: ‘We are an aging population, we need some new young workers coming into our country.’ It has caused discontent, it has caused resentment. Most notably in what used to be Eastern Germany. Because whether it is true or not, there have been a number of commentaries and a number of headlines saying that East Germans, the Ostees, felt that they weren’t integrated successfully when Germany was reunified 27 years ago. They feel resentment that actually so much effort is being put into integrating the new immigrants. Whether that is true or not, or it is just a perception, it could be very damaging to Merkel.</p> | German elites prepare Russian hacking claim in case elections don't go their way – ex-MI5 officer | false | https://newsline.com/german-elites-prepare-russian-hacking-claim-in-case-elections-don039t-go-their-way-ex-mi5-officer/ | 2017-09-24 | 1 |
<p>TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — The Arizona Cardinals’ once robust running game has all but vanished in recent weeks. Now the team has to try to rediscover it while facing the punishing defense of the Carolina Panthers.</p>
<p>In last Saturday’s 26-20 overtime victory over Green Bay, the Cardinals managed just 40 yards rushing in 19 attempts, an anemic average of 2.1 yards per carry.</p>
<p>David Johnson gained 35 yards in 15 tries, an average of 2.3 per attempt. Arizona’s longest running play of the game was eight yards.</p>
<p>“I think they had a good scheme against us from the two weeks before that when we played them, they were ready for us,” Johnson said Tuesday after the Cardinals’ walk-through practice.</p>
<p>Arizona coach Bruce Arians placed the blame squarely on the offensive line and not on his rookie running back.</p>
<p>“Getting their (behind) kicked up front,” Arians said. “It’s not anything David is doing. There’s just not a lot of holes there and we have to do a better job. It’s a tough challenge this week.”</p>
<p>When the Cardinals face Carolina in the NFC championship game on Sunday, they will go against a defense that ranked fourth against the run in the regular season, allowing 88.4 yards per game.</p>
<p>Arians said Star Lotulelei and Kawann Short are the best pair of defensive tackles Arizona has seen all season.</p>
<p>“The linebackers are great,” Arians said, “but they (the tackles) help make them great.”</p>
<p>Lotulelei and Short are great players, Cardinals left guard Mike Iupati said. “They’re big, fast, strong.”</p>
<p>And they help make linebacker Luke Kuechly the great player he is.</p>
<p>Kuechly, Arians said, has “got great instincts.”</p>
<p>“He’s really fast,” the coach said. “What he really is, he’s a great pass defender. People see all the tackles, but they do a great job of keeping him clean to make the tackles,”</p>
<p>The absence of defensive end Jared Allen, who is doubtful for the game due to a broken foot, won’t have that much impact, the Cardinals coach said.</p>
<p>“They’ve got good depth,” Arians said. “Mario Addison gave us problems last year and I’m not sure there’s a drop off there.”</p>
<p>Rest assured that the Arizona offensive linemen will hear a lot this week about their run blocking from Arians and offensive coordinator Harold Goodwin, who specializes in coaching those positions.</p>
<p>Iupati, named to the Pro Bowl for the fourth time in his six NFL seasons, is considered one of the best run blockers in the league.</p>
<p>“We’ve got to execute better,” he said. “We’ve got to block better, block longer, extend your guys. It’s no secret. ... Us O-line guys, we know what we’ve got to do. We’ve just got to go out there and open holes for David or whoever’s in the backfield and protect the quarterback.”</p>
<p>Most of the season, the Cardinals’ ground game has been humming along nicely, with Chris Johnson the featured back until he went down with a season-ending injury in Arizona’s 19-13 win at San Francisco on Nov. 29. David Johnson stepped in and, if anything, the running game got better.</p>
<p>He gained 99 yards in his first start (at St. Louis), 92 in his second (against Minnesota) and a breakout 187 yards in 29 carries at Philadelphia.</p>
<p>But he had only 39 yards, 25 yards and 35 yards in the three games since.</p>
<p>Johnson, a third-round draft pick out of Northern Iowa, knows that the running game has been crucial to the success of the Cardinals, who had the No. 1 ranked offense in the NFL in the regular season.</p>
<p>“When we’re able to run the ball, it keeps our offense on the field and it just overall helps our whole team,” Johnson said.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p>
<p>TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — The Arizona Cardinals’ once robust running game has all but vanished in recent weeks. Now the team has to try to rediscover it while facing the punishing defense of the Carolina Panthers.</p>
<p>In last Saturday’s 26-20 overtime victory over Green Bay, the Cardinals managed just 40 yards rushing in 19 attempts, an anemic average of 2.1 yards per carry.</p>
<p>David Johnson gained 35 yards in 15 tries, an average of 2.3 per attempt. Arizona’s longest running play of the game was eight yards.</p>
<p>“I think they had a good scheme against us from the two weeks before that when we played them, they were ready for us,” Johnson said Tuesday after the Cardinals’ walk-through practice.</p>
<p>Arizona coach Bruce Arians placed the blame squarely on the offensive line and not on his rookie running back.</p>
<p>“Getting their (behind) kicked up front,” Arians said. “It’s not anything David is doing. There’s just not a lot of holes there and we have to do a better job. It’s a tough challenge this week.”</p>
<p>When the Cardinals face Carolina in the NFC championship game on Sunday, they will go against a defense that ranked fourth against the run in the regular season, allowing 88.4 yards per game.</p>
<p>Arians said Star Lotulelei and Kawann Short are the best pair of defensive tackles Arizona has seen all season.</p>
<p>“The linebackers are great,” Arians said, “but they (the tackles) help make them great.”</p>
<p>Lotulelei and Short are great players, Cardinals left guard Mike Iupati said. “They’re big, fast, strong.”</p>
<p>And they help make linebacker Luke Kuechly the great player he is.</p>
<p>Kuechly, Arians said, has “got great instincts.”</p>
<p>“He’s really fast,” the coach said. “What he really is, he’s a great pass defender. People see all the tackles, but they do a great job of keeping him clean to make the tackles,”</p>
<p>The absence of defensive end Jared Allen, who is doubtful for the game due to a broken foot, won’t have that much impact, the Cardinals coach said.</p>
<p>“They’ve got good depth,” Arians said. “Mario Addison gave us problems last year and I’m not sure there’s a drop off there.”</p>
<p>Rest assured that the Arizona offensive linemen will hear a lot this week about their run blocking from Arians and offensive coordinator Harold Goodwin, who specializes in coaching those positions.</p>
<p>Iupati, named to the Pro Bowl for the fourth time in his six NFL seasons, is considered one of the best run blockers in the league.</p>
<p>“We’ve got to execute better,” he said. “We’ve got to block better, block longer, extend your guys. It’s no secret. ... Us O-line guys, we know what we’ve got to do. We’ve just got to go out there and open holes for David or whoever’s in the backfield and protect the quarterback.”</p>
<p>Most of the season, the Cardinals’ ground game has been humming along nicely, with Chris Johnson the featured back until he went down with a season-ending injury in Arizona’s 19-13 win at San Francisco on Nov. 29. David Johnson stepped in and, if anything, the running game got better.</p>
<p>He gained 99 yards in his first start (at St. Louis), 92 in his second (against Minnesota) and a breakout 187 yards in 29 carries at Philadelphia.</p>
<p>But he had only 39 yards, 25 yards and 35 yards in the three games since.</p>
<p>Johnson, a third-round draft pick out of Northern Iowa, knows that the running game has been crucial to the success of the Cardinals, who had the No. 1 ranked offense in the NFL in the regular season.</p>
<p>“When we’re able to run the ball, it keeps our offense on the field and it just overall helps our whole team,” Johnson said.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</p> | Cardinals running game sputtering heading into NFC showdown | false | https://apnews.com/916ff2fcf4b04f5a91fc849b10b16b24 | 2016-01-19 | 2 |
<p>Chuck Todd, NBC’s Political Director, Chief White House Correspondent, and host of&#160;The Daily Rundown&#160;on MSNBC did his best to deflect from the IRS scandal by&#160;wondering if “there are any actual real victims’ of the IRS targeting of conservative groups.”</p>
<p>Appearing on MSNBC's The Daily Rundown on Wednesday morning, Todd insisted that “the question at hand is whether explicitly political organizations should be filing as tax exempt social welfare groups under the tax code”&#160;and suggested that such groups weren’t deserving of such tax exempt status at all.&#160;</p>
<p />
<p>Todd began by arguing that the scandal surrounding the IRS ignores the larger problem at hand:</p>
<p>The controversy surrounding IRS may be more than a year old but of course we're still talking about it. On Monday the IRS Commissioner testified before Congress. A week after the IRS told Senate investigators that two years of e-mails disappeared in a computer crash back in 2011. While this certainly doesn't make the Obama administration nor the IRS look very good, it's important to remember what this actual story is about because it's gotten lost.&#160;</p>
<p>The MSNBC host continued to question whether social welfare groups should even have tax exempt status:&#160;</p>
<p>Why should primarily political organizations get a taxpayer exemption, basically get a handout from the tax code?&#160;Both sides are in an uproar because they couldn't take advantage of a borderline shady way to raise money for political purposes or launder money for political purposes. So while the IRS is certainly not a good guy here they have been terrible about being forthcoming.</p>
<p>The NBC Political Director concluded his “Takeaway” segment by suggesting that not only no “real victims” exist in the IRS scandal but that these social welfare groups are to blame:&#160;</p>
<p>Folks, this scandal is not black and white since frankly two wrongs don't make a right. We know what really is working here for Republicans. Beating up the IRS, good for the base. Good politics there makes for great fundraising e-mails. But let's remember what the controversy itself is about. &#160;&#160;</p>
<p>See relevant transcript below.</p>
<p>MSNBC's The Daily Rundown</p>
<p>June 25, 2014</p>
<p>9:56 a.m. Eastern&#160;</p>
<p>CHUCK TODD: Time now for my “Takeaway.” The controversy surrounding IRS may be more than a year old but of course we're still talking about it. On Monday, the IRS Commissioner testified before Congress. A week after the IRS told Senate investigators that two years of e-mails disappeared in a computer crash back in 2011. While this certainly doesn't make the Obama administration nor the IRS look very good, it's important to remember what this actual story is about because it's gotten lost.</p>
<p>The question at hand is whether explicitly political organizations should be filing as tax exempt social welfare groups under the tax code and both political parties are pointing blame. Republicans say that just conservative-sounding groups were targeted by the IRS. That's why they want to see the e-mails. Democrats have responded by claiming, hey, liberal groups were targeted, too. But here is the story many are missing. Why should primarily political organizations get a taxpayer exemption, basically get a handout from the tax code? Both sides are in an uproar because they couldn't take advantage of a borderline shady way to raise money for political purposes or launder money for political purposes.</p>
<p>So while the IRS is certainly not a good guy here they have been terrible about being forthcoming. Are there any actual real victims? Folks, this scandal is not black and white since frankly two wrongs don't make a right. We know what really is working here for Republicans. Beating up the IRS, good for the base. Good politics there makes for great fundraising e-mails. But let's remember what the controversy itself is about.</p>
<p>— Jeffrey Meyer is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center. <a href="http://www.twitter.com/JeffreyPMeyer" type="external">Follow Jeffrey Meyer on Twitter.</a></p> | Chuck Todd Mocks IRS Scandal: ‘Are There Any Actual Real Victims?’ | true | http://mrc.org/biasalerts/chuck-todd-mocks-irs-scandal-are-there-any-actual-real-victims?utm_source%3DFacebook%26utm_medium%3DMarketing%26utm_term%3DFacebook%26utm_content%3DFacebook%26utm_campaign%3DTodd-IRS-Scandal | 2014-06-25 | 0 |
<p>Jan. 19 (UPI) — U.S. President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Donald_Trump/" type="external">Donald Trump</a> signed a six-year extension to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Friday.</p>
<p>The legislation allows continued warrantless searches of foreigners by the National Security Agency through Section 702 of FISA.</p>
<p>“Intelligence produced under this authority is vital to keeping the nation safe. As shown by the recent attacks in New York City and elsewhere around the globe, we face a constant threat from foreign terrorist networks and other foreign actors who would do us harm,” a statement from Trump said.</p>
<p>The Senate <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/01/18/Senate-sends-FISA-surveillance-bill-to-Trump/8321516302633/" type="external">passed the bill</a> Friday after Senate Republican leader <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Mitch_McConnell/" type="external">Mitch McConnell</a>, who said the bill “remains one the most important tools that our national security professionals use to combat terrorism and to keep Americans safe,” patched together Republicans and centrist Democrats to pass the legislation.</p>
<p>Twenty-one of 49 Democrats supported the bill and seven Republicans opposed it. Sen. <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/John_McCain/" type="external">John McCain</a>, R-Ariz., was absent.</p>
<p>Last week, Trump sent <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/01/11/House-renews-surveillance-law-after-Trump-posts-differing-tweets/3401515687186/" type="external">conflicting views</a> on the bill on Twitter before the House vote. He first criticized the program after comments on Fox and Friends and then tweeted his support of the measure.</p>
<p>In March 2017, Trump claimed that then-President <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Barack_Obama/" type="external">Barack Obama</a> had spied on Trump Tower. His view has not been substantiated and curbs to 702 programs aren’t directly related.</p>
<p>In a tweet Friday, Trump said the bill he signed was different from the previous FISA law.</p>
<p>“Just signed 702 Bill to reauthorize foreign intelligence collection. This is NOT the same FISA law that was so wrongly abused during the election. I will always do the right thing for our country and put the safety of the American people first!” <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/954456754137501697" type="external">he said</a>.</p>
<p>But as the bill made its way to Trump’s desk Friday, House Intelligence Committee Republicans produced a four-page memo that had some saying it was evidence the FBI obtained a FISA warrant to spy on Trump during the campaign. They say it may be evidence of wrongdoing, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/369813-trump-signs-renewal-of-surveillance-powers-amid-uproar-over-memo" type="external">The Hill reported</a>.</p>
<p>The American Civil Liberties Union said the memo should have been made public before the FISA Section 702 vote and had called on Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/954410376711598080" type="external">to veto it</a>. The ACLU said Trump’s tweet saying the law he signed was different from the one “so wrongly abused” before was not accurate.</p>
<p>“This is either a lie or @realDonaldTrump is confused again. The bill he just signed allows the government to violate Americans’ rights and makes the law worse in several ways,” the ACLU <a href="https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/954463156478332928" type="external">said in a tweet</a>.</p>
<p>The final bill requires the FBI to seek a warrant to view the actual contents of communications. Officials from agencies can still check the massive database for information on Americans without a warrant.</p>
<p>Allen Cone contributed to this report.</p> | Trump signs FISA law amid speculation over intelligence memo | false | https://newsline.com/trump-signs-fisa-law-amid-speculation-over-intelligence-memo/ | 2018-01-20 | 1 |
<p>.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........</p>
<p />
<p>Jobs are a key measure of how well the economy is ticking along, but they have become a partisan battleground.</p>
<p>The elites of Silicon Valley, sensing a backlash against a system in which no-wage robots toil 24 hours a day without complaint, have suggested a universal income to provide those displaced by technology with a small, guaranteed stipend for basics like food, housing and health care.</p>
<p>Though initial research suggests that such a universal income wouldn’t lead to laziness – and might even increase productivity by leading people to take creative and entrepreneurial risks – it’s not an idea that has caught fire.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Douglas Rushkoff, the author of the magnificent book “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus,” recently noted that the instinct for some to jump on the bandwagon for a universal income is self-serving: “(Leaders at Silicon Valley tech firms) understand the basic math undermining their long-term business plans: If they automate all the jobs, who will be left to buy their services? Even the data that companies such as Google mine from our otherwise free online activities would be worthless if we had no money to spend. The penniless have no consumer behavior to exploit.”</p>
<p>On the other extreme, the Trump administration ignored its own lamentation that mid-skill jobs have left for China when it issued guidance for “state efforts to test incentives that make participation in work or other community engagement a requirement for continued Medicaid eligibility” for able-bodied adults.</p>
<p>If it’s 100 percent true, as some research suggests, that employment is beneficial for physical and general mental health, then this would likely make Medicaid recipients less reliant on welfare in the future. It still leaves open the question of where the jobs are going to come from.</p>
<p>However, it’s not inevitable that automation will result in mass job loss, despite the scary statistics. And they are scary: According to a recent report by Bloomberg and the think tank New America, nearly one-quarter of the workforce is projected to be 55 or older by 2024, and we’re smack dab in the middle of a decades-long fall in the rates at which Americans start businesses, switch jobs or move for a new job.</p>
<p>Those who look on the sunny side of automation love to cite the economist David Autor’s observation that the introduction of the ATM increased, rather than decreased, the number of bank teller jobs that require more creativity and problem-solving than just counting money and making deposits.</p>
<p>The real problem underlying this tension is that it’s not anyone’s priority to figure out how U.S. corporations, societies and governments can work together to ensure the future holds meaningful jobs.</p>
<p>For their joint study, Bloomberg and New America convened a commission of more than 100 leaders in business, technology policy and academia. The resulting report, “Shift,” underscored these points about American labor:</p>
<p>• The central role of employers in society has eroded, and we don’t know what will replace them – but we need “networks of small businesses, modern guilds, worker associations, and entrepreneurship training, while at the same time facilitating new ways to administer worker benefits.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>• “The future of work fails to align neatly with traditional political coalitions,” and “for the first time, automated systems could affect prospects for people in every demographic and skill level.”</p>
<p>• We worry about millennials’ ability to forge careers, but “the fastest-growing segment of the workforce … continues to be – and will be for the foreseeable future – older workers.”</p>
<p>• The richest cities aren’t reflective of the rest of the country: “Commission members from noncoastal areas and smaller towns pointed to discrepancies in education, technology, access to capital and networking opportunities. Long-distance moves are on the decline.”</p>
<p>While it’s fantastic that a group of thoughtful experts came together to establish ideas for ensuring that the remainder of this century offers meaningful, decently paid work, it’s long past time that tomorrow’s jobs become a national priority.</p>
<p>One thing is for sure: We can’t let Silicon Valley and multinational corporations determine the future of our work for us.</p>
<p>E-mail: [email protected]. Copyright, Washington Post Writers Group.</p>
<p />
<p /> | Who will determine the future of our work? | false | https://abqjournal.com/1120685/who-will-determine-the-future-of-our-work.html | 2 |
|
<p>June 11, 2013</p>
<p>By Katy Grimes</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Following the June 5 FBI raid on his Capitol offices, Sen. Ron Calderon,&#160;D-Montebello, made a really brief appearance before the Senate convened for session.</p>
<p>However, Calderon revealed nothing about the raids, part of an ongoing corruption investigation, according to the FBI. Calderon instead referred all questions of substance to his attorney Mark Geragos, famous for his representation of Scott Peterson,&#160;now on death row,&#160;convicted of murdering his wife, Laci, and their unborn baby.</p>
<p>“My family and I have gone through a lot in the last several days,” Calderon said.&#160;“It’s been very stressful. It’s been very hard on all of us. We’re all very anxious to put this behind us and to carry on normal life.”</p>
<p>Calderon spoke for about 60 seconds.</p>
<p>“I have a lot of my own questions,” Calderon said.&#160;“My intention at this point is to do my job I was elected to do, attend my hearings, get my bills passed out of committee to the floor and do the work of the state.”</p>
<p>More details of the cases have been revealed. In April, the FBI also searched Pacific Hospital of Long Beach and Industrial Pharmacy Management in Long Beach, which&#160;had hired Calderon’s brother Thomas Calderon as a consultant. Thomas Calderon is a former Assemblyman.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Additionally, another consulting client, the Central Basin Water District, paid Thomas Calderon $10,000 a month as a consultant and another $140,000 per year as a consultant to a subcontractor, according to the Los Angeles Times.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.centralbasin.org/serviceArea.html" type="external">Central Basin Water District</a> has its own troubles. The water district&#160;is made up of 44 cities and water utilities in southeast L.A. County. The cities have been in a dispute with the Central Basin Water District over management issues which allegedly impact water rates.</p>
<p>Last year, Downey Mayor Mario Guerra testified before the <a href="http://legaudit.assembly.ca.gov" type="external">Joint Legislative Audit Committee</a>about the mismanagement. But the committee, led by then-Assemblyman Ricardo Lara, D- Bell Gardens, turned the tables on Guerra and ordered an audit of Downey’s Department of Public Works.</p>
<p>Lara is now in the Senate and rumored to also have been subpoenaed in the FBI case.</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Calif., pushed for an investigation and audit of the Central Basin Water District in 2009, the LA Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/political/la-me-pc-ron-calderon-fbi-central-basin-water-district-tom-calderon-water-20130605,0,2842227.story" type="external">reported</a>. &#160;Napolitano&#160; <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/05/local/la-me-ff-calderon-fbi-20130606" type="external">said</a> she has heard complaints for more than a decade from cities she represents about the agency’s lack of transparency and questionable spending of public funds,” <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/05/local/la-me-ff-calderon-fbi-20130606" type="external">according</a> to the LA Times.</p>
<p>“In particular, Napolitano questioned how the district spent $5.6 million in federal funds she helped secure to build infrastructure for a regional system to recycle water.”</p>
<p>But the audit did not happen, and Napolitano blamed Sen. Calderon for thwarting efforts to make it happen.</p>
<p>And there have been charges of corruption of board members. “Central Basin Municipal Water District Board Director Leticia Vasquez is using her newfound -and possibly illegal – majority voting bloc status to benefit longtime personal associates including Maurice Chenier, the law office partner of her fiancé Ronald N. Wilson and another close personal associate Jasmyne Cannick,” the Los Cerritos News <a href="http://www.loscerritosnews.net/2013/04/04/dirty-water-pay-to-play-culture-trickling-out-at-central-basin/" type="external">reported</a>.</p>
<p>“CBMWD Director Phil Hawkins was even more outspoken telling LCCN, ‘The very first board meeting, after she was elected, I said her whole plan was basically to hire all her (Vasquez) campaign team, friends, and relatives and put them on staff so they would be ready for her next campaign, and it is all coming true now.’”</p>
<p>Sen. Calderon has carried legislation that would benefit the water district.</p>
<p>Calderon is also well-known in Sacramento for accepting gifts, tickets to sporting events, and exotic trips from lobbyists, including first class accommodations in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and the AT&amp;T Pro Am in Pebble Beach. Some estimates of the gifts from special interests are between $45,000 and $60,000, since 2000, significantly more than any other legislator.</p> | Sen. Ron Calderon speaks; FBI investigation continues | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2013/06/11/sen-ron-calderon-speaks-fbi-investigation-continues/ | 2018-06-20 | 3 |
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