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<p>Bank stocks performed tremendously well in 2016, but there could still be more upside in the years ahead. If you're thinking of adding a bank stock or two to your portfolio as we head into 2017, here are three you may want to consider.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Image Source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>The financial sector was one of 2016's best performers, up 20% for the year, which was about double the gain of the S&amp;P 500.</p>
<p><a href="http://ycharts.com/companies/XLF" type="external">XLF</a> data by <a href="http://ycharts.com" type="external">YCharts Opens a New Window.</a></p>
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<p>If you take a closer look at the chart, you'll notice that financial sector underperformed the S&amp;P for most of the year. Most of the gains took place over the last two months -- specifically, after the election.</p>
<p>In a nutshell, the market thinks the election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States, as well as a Republican majority in the House and Senate, could be the magic formula to catapult bank profits higher. Rising interest rates would translate into higher profit margins, deregulation could lower ongoing costs and make it easier for banks to do business, and Trump's job and wage growth plans could produce more demand for banking services.</p>
<p>Although the "Trump rally" in bank stocks has been substantial, we may not be done just yet. Without getting too technical, the bank stocks are currently pricing in the possibility of all the things I mentioned, as well as the possibility that they won't happen. For example, it's entirely possible that economic growth will be much less than expected and the Federal Reserve won't raise interest rates.</p>
<p>The point is that if the positive catalysts the market expects actually happen, there could be another leg up. And, bank profits could stay elevated for years to come.</p>
<p>Having said all of that, I have a positive outlook for bank stocks in general over the next few years at least. There are many great bank stocks to buy, but here are three of my favorites right now.</p>
<p>1. Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) was one of the best performers of 2016, up by more than 30% for the year. And there's good reason the bank was a big beneficiary of the Trump rally -- it stands to benefit from higher interest rates <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/11/22/why-bank-of-america-will-benefit-more-than-other-b.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">more than peers Opens a New Window.</a>. Simply put, the bank has more noninterest-bearing deposits than the rest of the "big four" U.S. banks, which should allow the bank to capitalize on its interest-bearing assets, such as loans, more than peers. In fact, the bank has said that its net interest income would increase by $5.3 billion annually with a 100-basis-point increase in rates. Along with its most recent earnings report, Bank of America announced that even though its share price is higher, it is boosting its buyback plans by more than 70%, which tells me that management still considers the stock to be a bargain.</p>
<p>2. Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSEMKT: XLF) is a great choice if you believe the banking sector will perform well, but don't want to choose individual stocks. The fund has a low 0.14% expense ratio, and is designed to track the performance of the financial sector as a whole. The fund's top holdings are:</p>
<p>Data Source: TD Ameritrade. Information is current as of 12/31/16.</p>
<p>3. BofI Holding (NASDAQ: BOFI) is a more speculative choice, but one that deserves serious consideration. The bank, whose name stands for "Bank of Internet", is the oldest internet-only bank in the U.S. By maintaining an online-based business model, the bank enjoys competitive advantage such as low overhead and the ability to offer better rates on loan and deposit products than peers.</p>
<p>The bank's <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/09/29/investors-are-betting-big-against-bofi-holding-why.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">growth Opens a New Window.</a> has been impressive, especially in recent years. Since 2012, the company has grown its earnings per share at a 34% annualized rate, and has increased its return on equity (ROE) to a staggering 19.4% (the industry standard is 10%). Furthermore, over the past few years, the bank has successfully transitioned away from a time deposit (CD) business model to an asset portfolio dominated by checking and savings accounts. Impressively, the bank has produced its growth while maintaining significantly better asset quality than peers -- BofI's net charge-off rate is less than one-tenth of the average for a bank of its size.</p>
<p>No stock that is capable of the gains these banks generated in 2016 is without risk. There is a lot that could potentially go wrong -- for example, the economy could enter a recession and interest rate growth could grind to a halt. While I believe with a Republican-controlled Congress, President-elect Trump will succeed in lowering taxes and rolling back regulations, it's far from certain at this point.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than Bank of America When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
<p>David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the <a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=db71164b-72c6-415f-aab6-125dd54d8159&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">10 best stocks Opens a New Window.</a> for investors to buy right now... and Bank of America wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.</p>
<p><a href="http://infotron.fool.com/infotrack/click?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fool.com%2Fmms%2Fmark%2Fe-foolcom-sa-bbn-dyn%3Faid%3D8867%26source%3Disaeditxt0010449%26ftm_cam%3Dsa-bbn-evergreen%26ftm_pit%3D6312%26ftm_veh%3Dbbn_article_pitch&amp;impression=db71164b-72c6-415f-aab6-125dd54d8159&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">Click here Opens a New Window.</a> to learn about these picks!</p>
<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of January 4, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/KWMatt82/info.aspx" type="external">Matthew Frankel Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway (B shares), and Goldman Sachs. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway (B shares) and BofI Holding. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3 Bank Stocks I'd Buy Right Now | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/30/3-bank-stocks-id-buy-right-now.html | 2017-01-18 | 0 |
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Monday evening’s drawing of the New Mexico Lottery’s “Pick 3 Evening” game were:</p>
<p>3-1-6</p>
<p>(three, one, six)</p>
<p>¶ Top Prize $500</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Monday evening’s drawing of the New Mexico Lottery’s “Pick 3 Evening” game were:</p>
<p>3-1-6</p>
<p>(three, one, six)</p>
<p>¶ Top Prize $500</p> | Winning numbers drawn in ‘Pick 3 Evening’ game | false | https://apnews.com/33f0680a3b6447ddac3af495bfb76bda | 2018-01-16 | 2 |
<p>FREEMAN TOWNSHIP, Maine (AP) — A Maine man accused of abandoning nine dogs in an unheated garage is facing charges.</p>
<p>Franklin County sheriff's deputies on Friday rescued nine beagles, including three puppies, that were left behind without food. Their water was frozen.</p>
<p>The dogs were taken to the Franklin County Animal Shelter, where a spokeswoman says the dogs are recovering and are in good condition.</p>
<p>Officials say the dog's owner had moved to another location, and left the dogs behind. He's facing misdemeanor animal cruelty charges.</p>
<p>Maine is in the grip of an extended cold snap, with temperatures dipping below zero at night. Officials say the dogs were in an unheated garage with an open door.</p>
<p>FREEMAN TOWNSHIP, Maine (AP) — A Maine man accused of abandoning nine dogs in an unheated garage is facing charges.</p>
<p>Franklin County sheriff's deputies on Friday rescued nine beagles, including three puppies, that were left behind without food. Their water was frozen.</p>
<p>The dogs were taken to the Franklin County Animal Shelter, where a spokeswoman says the dogs are recovering and are in good condition.</p>
<p>Officials say the dog's owner had moved to another location, and left the dogs behind. He's facing misdemeanor animal cruelty charges.</p>
<p>Maine is in the grip of an extended cold snap, with temperatures dipping below zero at night. Officials say the dogs were in an unheated garage with an open door.</p> | Mainer charged after leaving beagles in an unheated garage | false | https://apnews.com/amp/5531c6c7bbd14f6ca4d04b9af2779ca4 | 2017-12-30 | 2 |
<p>I have been thinking for a while now that the Democrats really should sit down and consider changing their mascot from a donkey to a marmot. A rodent really is more emblematic or their provincial habits than a donkey could ever be. Think about it. Just this past weekend antiwar rallies were held across the country and the Democratic leadership was nowhere in sight. They had high-tailed it out there. They hid in their holes and were afraid to be seen.</p>
<p>In all fairness, a few elected Democrats did show face, mainly two: Reps. John Conyers and Cynthia McKinney. But I wouldn’t constitute either as party leaders. The better-known Democrats, like Senators John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, two likely candidates for 2008, were nowhere to be seen. Even more striking were the absences of DNC Chairman Howard Dean, Russell Feingold and Ted Kennedy — all occasional critics of the Iraq war.</p>
<p>Of course the Democrat’s collective criticism only goes so far. They certainly don’t want to be photographed with any militant protestors. By God, that would taint their reputations! They’ve got campaign contributions to worry about here. No, the Democrats aren’t about to take to the streets. They’d rather sit back and project the illusion that they care.</p>
<p>On her way out to Washington, the anti-war movement’s leading lady Cindy Sheehan offered a tepid excuse for Senator Clinton’s refusal to attend the protest, “She knows that the war is a lie, but she is waiting for the right time to say it. You say it and you risk losing your job.”</p>
<p>Well, sorry, but I think the time to speak out against the war is right now and if it means Clinton could lose her job (even though that’s highly unlikely, given that almost half of all Americans, according to a recent Pew research poll, think we should end the occupation and come home), so-be-it.</p>
<p>This isn’t to say that the Democratic grassroots don’t oppose the war. The majority does–but then so do nearly half of all Republicans. So this begs the question: why are anti-war activists so loyal to a Democratic Party that supported Bush’s war and still refuses to oppose it?</p>
<p>Much of the Democrat’s cognitive dissonance has to do with the success of Howard Dean at the DNC. He’s been able to corral anti-war Democrats into the fold, making sure they don’t flee en masse over the war issue even though they should. Many still see Dean as a sign of future hope, where party leadership stays in touch with the grassroots. Plus, Dean’s early criticisms of the Iraq war earned him significant street-cred with party advocates.</p>
<p>It was un-deserved. Dean, like the rest of the Democratic leadership, is pro-war and pro-occupation, and it couldn’t be more damaging for the peace movement to continue putting faith into this futile party. If Democratic activists really want to make some change — the best thing they could do would be to get up and leave their party. Only then will Democratic leaders start to think twice about the monstrous policies they endorse.</p>
<p>JOSHUA FRANK is the author of <a href="http://www.BrickBurner.org/" type="external">Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush</a>, published by Common Courage Press. You can pre-order a copy at discounted rate at <a href="http://www.BrickBurner.org/" type="external">www.BrickBurner.org</a>. Josh can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a>.</p>
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<p>CLARIFICATION</p>
<p>ALEXANDER COCKBURN, JEFFREY ST CLAIR, BECKY GRANT AND THE INSTITUTE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF JOURNALISTIC CLARITY, COUNTERPUNCH</p>
<p>We published an article entitled “A Saudiless Arabia” by Wayne Madsen dated October 22, 2002 (the “Article”), on the website of the Institute for the Advancement of Journalistic Clarity, CounterPunch, www.counterpunch.org (the “Website”).</p>
<p>Although it was not our intention, counsel for Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi has advised us the Article suggests, or could be read as suggesting, that Mr Al Amoudi has funded, supported, or is in some way associated with, the terrorist activities of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorist network.</p>
<p>We do not have any evidence connecting Mr Al Amoudi with terrorism.</p>
<p>As a result of an exchange of communications with Mr Al Amoudi’s lawyers, we have removed the Article from the Website.</p>
<p>We are pleased to clarify the position.</p>
<p>August 17, 2005</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Democrats Flee Peace Protests | true | https://counterpunch.org/2005/09/26/democrats-flee-peace-protests/ | 2005-09-26 | 4 |
<p>Although several polls predicted a tight race, Chavez won easily. The National Electoral Council announced that the president had topped Capriles by nearly 10 percentage points. Capriles quickly accepted the result and congratulated Chavez.</p>
<p>The news sparked celebrations across the country for what was an especially sweet victory for Chavez. The president has been undergoing treatment for cancer and the illness forced him to campaign at half-speed. He also had to win over voters amid rising crime, high inflation and rolling blackouts.</p>
<p>But many Venezuelans opted to stick with Chavez, who has funneled billions of oil profits into social programs that cut poverty in half.</p>
<p>"Many people do love him. It's a fact," said Max Vasquez, a businessman in the western city of San Cristobal.</p>
<p>He said Chavez draws support from many impoverished Venezuelans who view the president as a surrogate father.</p>
<p>"There are a large number of people in Venezuela who don't have the father figure in their homes. So that father figure that everyone needs, many of them found it in Chavez. You know the strong person, who has a strong will and a voice of command," Vasquez said.</p>
<p>In his victory speech, Chavez said he intends to deepen the country's socialist revolution.</p>
<p>"Venezuela will never go back to the neo-liberal economic policies of the past," Chavez told a huge crowd in Caracas. "Venezuela will continue down the path towards 21st century socialism."</p>
<p>In San Cristobal, the prospect of six more years of Chavez has many in the opposition deeply worried.</p>
<p>"We are going to get more of the same medicine," said Cesar Perez, governor of surrounding Tachira state and a fierce Chavez critic. "We will see more authoritarianism, more state intervention in the economy, more human rights violations and more problems for the private sector."</p>
<p>Yet it's unclear whether Chavez will be healthy enough to administer that medicine.</p>
<p>Venezuela's Constitution calls for a new election if a president dies during the first four years of the term. If a president dies during the last two years, the vice president would finish the term. But Chavez has not named a vice president.</p>
<p>Many of the president's supporters refuse to speculate about a Venezuela without Chavez.</p>
<p>Estrella Uribe, who works for the Chavez campaign in San Cristobal, said Chavez's desire to help the people has given the president the will to live. She said the people will stick with him until the very end.</p>
<p>For the opposition, there will be little time to lick the wounds from Sunday's defeat. Over the next six months, Venezuelans will vote for governors and mayors. These elections are important because Chavez loyalists control all branches of the federal government.</p>
<p>Daniel Ceballos, a state lawmaker in Tachira, points out that in past elections, opposition candidates have done well at the state and local level. So, even though Chavez crushed Capriles on Sunday, he said, it's not the end of the world.</p> | Chavez Wins Fourth Term in Venezuela | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-10-08/chavez-wins-fourth-term-venezuela | 2012-10-08 | 3 |
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<p>Bay Area punk duo Street Eaters is touring in support of their album “Blood Muscles Bones.”</p>
<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Johnny Geek and Megan March have been on tour for months. And it’s a good thing.</p>
<p>“The shows have been super awesome,” Geek says during an interview from Gainsville, Fla. “It’s a day off and we’re working on booking a tour in Europe.”</p>
<p>The punk duo Street Eaters, which performs with drums, guitar and vocals, has just released an album called “Blood Muscles Bones.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>March says the album came together while the duo was on its last tour because the touring cycle ran very long on the last album.</p>
<p>“We were gone for so long that we decided to start the album while on the road,” March says. “I think we worked on the album for about a year while doing the smaller tours.”</p>
<p>March says the pair wanted to hone in on their sound and look at the album as a complete body of work.</p>
<p>“We wanted the record to be as full as it could be,” March says. “It was important for us to work each song so it fit together.”</p>
<p>Geek says the band kept the touring schedule focused on the West Coast so that there wasn’t a lot of travel back to their Bay Area home.</p>
<p>He says being in a two-piece band has helped build the working relationship between the two.</p>
<p>“Being that it’s just us two, our communication bleeds over to our personal and day-to-day life,” he says. “It’s an outgrowth of other areas of our lives and it weaves in and out of how we function.”</p>
<p>Geek admits that there is very little compromise when it comes to writing.</p>
<p>“There are only two of us and our philosophies are aligned,” Geek says. “This helps us go into each song as strong as we can. If we do have any problems, our communication is very good and we don’t hold anything back from each other.”</p>
<p /> | Punk duo Street Eaters sees latest album as a complete body of work | false | https://abqjournal.com/438762/albuquerque-punk-2.html | 2 |
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<p>Photo of coal protest by Greenpeace, used with permission.</p>
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<p>In the House debate over climate and energy legislation last summer, coal got a big slice of the pie. A <a href="http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-03-waxman-markey-bill-breakdown/" type="external">$60 billion slice</a> to be exact, in the form of subsidies to develop carbon capture technology (a.k.a. “clean coal”). But much of the coal industry spent millions of dollars in attempts to torpedo the legislation. On Wednesday, a House panel put the leaders of some of the country’s biggest coal companies on the hot seat, grilling them about what exactly they see as the future for their industry in what is almost inevitably going to be a carbon constrained world.</p>
<p>The hearing comes as coal is getting more scrutiny in Washington. There is, of course, the <a href="" type="internal">increased attention</a> to mine safety in the wake of last week’s tragedy in West Virginia. And the Environmental Protection Agency also recently announced <a href="" type="internal">new guidelines</a> governing the controversial practice of mountaintop removal. Meanwhile, the threat of greenhouse gas regulations through either Congress or the EPA looms in the distance, with the Senate expected to take up debate of a bill in the coming weeks.</p>
<p>The panelists before the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming represented the different perspectives in the coal industry on the subject–from complete denial of problems in the industry to embracing the fact that coal faces an uncertain future. At one extreme was the Ohio Coal Association president Michael Carey, who thinks global warming is a fantasy and attempts to regulate greenhouse gases are part of a “war on coal.” Then there was Gregory Boyce, CEO of Peabody Energy Corporation, who admitted that “the science is strong” on climate change, but says that technology to capture and store emissions “should be available before regulation” begins (Steven Leer, CEO of Arch Coal, had a similar take).</p>
<p>And at the other end, you have Rio Tinto, a mining company that is part of the US Climate Action Partnership, the business-environmental coalition key in shaping the House climate bill, which has been working on climate issues since 1998. Preston Chiaro, chief executive for energy and minerals at Rio Tinto, made a clear case for engaging positively on legislation: “We will either shape policy, or we will have policy thrust upon us.”</p>
<p>The panel yielded some colorful exchanges between legislators and the coal executives, as Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) went after Carey’s “war on coal” comment. “We don’t give $60 billion to Al Qaeda,” said Inslee. “That’s a war.”</p>
<p>“If there is a war here, it is a war on our grandkids,” he continued. At at another point in the hearing, young protesters wearing face masks and covered in black soot stormed to the front of the room to deliver lumps of coal to the CEOs.</p>
<p>Rep. Ed Markey, chair of the committee and co-author of the House climate bill, made a similar plea for the industry to look at the billions in support they included in their bill. “I ask that you embrace the provisions of the Waxman-Markey bill that light the way ahead for your industry,” said Markey, adding later, “This legislation we passed in the House is intended on helping the coal industry.”</p>
<p>Wednesday’s panel was more theater than anything else, with House climate advocates attempting to put coal interests on the spot and highlight some of the competing view points on the future. But what these CEOs think about climate and where their businesses are heading is indeed interesting as we look down the road. These are big players in Washington; mining interests <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?lname=E04&amp;year=2009" type="external">spent $26 million</a> on lobbying last year, with Peabody ( <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?lname=Peabody+Energy&amp;year=2009" type="external">$5.8 million</a>) and Arch Coal ( <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?lname=Arch+Coal&amp;year=2009" type="external">$2.7 million</a>) topping the list of spenders. Rio Tinto wasn’t far behind, at $1.1 million. Coal companies have also <a href="" type="internal">spent millions</a> through the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.</p>
<p>Despite the millions they spend on lobbying and PR for so-called “clean coal,” most companies are <a href="" type="internal">investing very little</a> of their own funds in developing the technology. Instead, they keep <a href="http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-17-coal-industry-downplays-ccs-prospects-senate/" type="external">calling for more government support</a>, while most are working hard behind the scenes to defeat the kind of legislation that would give them that support.</p>
<p>Will major coal interests change their tune when the Senate debate heats up? Markey remained optimistic that they could be encouraged to work with Congress on solutions. “I still believe there is … a way of passing legislation with the coal industry in support,” said Markey after the hearing. “That’s my goal, that’s my hope. Whether or not we can realize that remains to be seen.”</p>
<p /> | Coal: Back to the Future? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/04/coal-back-future/ | 2010-04-14 | 4 |
<p>&lt;a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-973951p1.html"&gt;JPC-PROD&lt;/a&gt;/Shutterstock</p>
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<p>On Jan. 1, 2013, the state that has stood out in its <a href="" type="internal">assault on reproductive rights</a> eliminated Planned Parenthood clinics from its Medicaid public family planning program for low-income women. The result? By the end of 2014, fewer claims for contraception were filed, and more low-income Texas women had babies.</p>
<p>According to a study published in the <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1511902" type="external">New England Journal of Medicine</a>, when access to Planned Parenthood was taken away, women didn’t find other options—they simply got less contraceptive care. The University of Texas at Austin study showed that prescriptions for long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs), such as IUDs and birth control implants, dropped by nearly 36 percent, and Depo Provera shots dropped by 31 percent.</p>
<p>Texas’ public family planning program covers single women who earn less than $1,800 per month, or less than $2,426 if they have a child.</p>
<p>The study, which examined all pharmacy and medical claims from Jan. 1, 2011 through Dec. 31, 2014, filed under the public fee-for-service family planning insurance, also found adverse effects in the consistency of contraceptive care. In the <a href="http://fundtexaschoice.org/resources/texas-abortion-clinic-map/" type="external">23</a> of 254 counties in Texas that have a Planned Parenthood-affiliated clinic, there was a nearly 20 percent decrease the number of women who returned to receive another injection of Depo Provera after they had previously relied on it for birth control. (The Depo Provera shot must be administered every three months to be effective.) According to <a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/birth-control-shot-depo-provera" type="external">Planned Parenthood’s website</a>, each individual shot can cost up to $100 without insurance, plus any applicable exam fees. An IUD can <a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/iud" type="external">cost up to $1,000.</a></p>
<p>The study found no significant change for short-term contraception, such as the birth-control pill, in the wake of the coverage change. But it’s important to note that IUD’s and birth control implants <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/UnintendedPregnancy/PDF/Contraceptive_methods_508.pdf" type="external">are much more effective</a> in preventing pregnancy than the pill or condoms, and contraceptive injections are also slightly more effective. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists <a href="http://www.acog.org/About-ACOG/News-Room/News-Releases/2015/ACOG-Strengthens-LARC-Recommendations" type="external">recommend</a> LARCs as the most reliable form of birth control.</p>
<p>The rate of childbirth covered by Medicaid saw a relative increase of 27 percent within 18 months after the exclusion of Planned Parenthood from Medicaid programs in Texas counties with Planned Parenthood affiliates.</p>
<p>“The U.S. continues to have higher rates of unintended pregnancies than most rich nations, and we know that U.S. and Texas women face barriers as they try to access preventative services,” said Amanda Stevenson, lead author of the study. “It’s a public health issue that Texas women struggle to achieve their reproductive goals.”</p>
<p /> | Study Shows Limiting Access to Planned Parenthood Hurts Poor Women Most | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/texas-family-planning-study/ | 2016-02-04 | 4 |
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<p>Let me try to explain to you how he managed to do it; how his assertion that Hillary Clinton supporters Warren Buffett and George Soros did the same thing is almost certainly untrue; and what this tells us about Trump’s leadership.</p>
<p>The major game Trump played, based on the tax returns The New York Times made public and research by my colleagues, tax journalists and me, involves a tax loophole I’ve decided to call the Default Double Dip. This loophole was available only to taxpayers who defaulted on loans or had certain kinds of investments in companies that defaulted on loans.</p>
<p>It’s one of two loopholes, each available only to a handful of players, that Trump has apparently used.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Yes, it’s hard to believe that defaulting on a loan could generate a tax break for the defaulter – but that’s what appears to have happened with Trump.</p>
<p>Here’s a greatly-simplified version of how the DDD loophole worked.</p>
<p>If a loan on property that you own goes bad, you’re generally required to treat the lender’s loss as “cancellation of debt” income. That income offsets most or all of your loss on the property. But in the cases we’re talking about, the defaulted loans didn’t generate cancellation of debt income.</p>
<p>For the gritty details, ask the tax professional of your choice about the 2001 Supreme Court Gitlitz decision.</p>
<p>David Gitlitz’ $1.02 million deduction was blessed in 2001 by an 8-to-1 Supreme Court decision that reversed rulings by lower courts. In 2002, Congress closed that loophole.</p>
<p>We don’t know how big Trump’s Default Double Dip deductions were, but they seem to have been in the nine-digit – and possibly 10-digit – range.</p>
<p>Trump talks about closing loopholes. However, there’s no need to close the Gitlitz loophole, because Congress closed it 14 years ago. And Trump isn’t proposing to close the loophole, opened in 1993 – ironically, during Bill Clinton’s presidency – that he helped push through Congress, and seems to be using now.</p>
<p>That loophole, an amendment to loophole-closing 1986 tax legislation, allows active real estate professionals like Trump (but not passive real estate investors) to use paper losses from real estate to offset other income.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Trump seems to have used that loophole to generate a $15.8 million loss on his 1995 return, which wiped out all of his 1995 income and added more than $6 million to the loss he carried into 1996, boosting it to about $916 million.</p>
<p>Most of this huge sum isn’t the normal kind of corporate tax loss, in which a company doesn’t have to pay tax until it’s earned enough to cover previous losses. It’s an oddball outlier, in which Trump’s lenders got to deduct the losses they took on their loans to him, and he got to deduct their losses, too, on his personal return.</p>
<p>The only loophole he proposes to close is the “carried interest” loophole that allows some hedge fund and private-equity managers to pay relatively low taxes on their share of their investors’ profits. It’s a loophole that I’ve ranted against for years, but that has remained open under both Democratic and Republican administrations.</p>
<p>But closing the carried interest loophole would have no impact on Trump, as far as I can see. I emailed his campaign recently asking about this and also asking whether anything in his tax plan would cost him or his family any money, but got no answer.</p>
<p>Trump isn’t proposing to ban the “cash-rich splitoff” loophole that Buffett and the then-Washington Post Co., which owned The Washington Post at the time, used. I’ve written extensively about that deal and similar transactions that saved billions for shareholders, including me, in Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.</p>
<p>But Buffett has personally let billions of dollars of charitable deductions expire unused. So Buffett has made billions for his investors, but has not availed himself of billions of personal deductions.</p>
<p>I suspect, based on my years of parsing financial filings, that the real reason Trump hasn’t released his returns is that he paid little or no federal income tax for decades. I also think, based on the work of my Post colleague David Farenthold, that Trump’s charitable contributions were minimal, possibly nonexistent.</p>
<p>The bottom line: If Trump really wanted to lead our country in the right direction, he would have released his tax returns, disclosed the loopholes he used, said he would stop using them and proposed to close them. But he hasn’t done that, and he shows no sign of doing it.</p>
<p>Trump’s failure to lead or sacrifice, combined with his boasting about ducking taxes (which sticks us taxpayers with the bill), is the lesson I take from the Trump tax saga. I think it’s the lesson you should take, too. Regardless of your political beliefs. End of story.</p>
<p>sloan</p> | How Trump got a personal tax break by defaulting on loans | false | https://abqjournal.com/864326/how-trump-got-a-personal-tax-break-by-defaulting-on-loans.html | 2 |
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<p>Are Chinese leaders going soft on the foreign media?</p>
<p>The Communist Party has been playing hardball in recent months, refusing to issue visas to journalists from Bloomberg and The New York Times, and blocking access to various foreign media websites.&#160;</p>
<p>All of this was believed to be in retaliation for unflattering reports on Chinese leaders and their wealth.</p>
<p>But in the past couple of weeks, Beijing appears to have had a change of heart. Visas were granted within days of journalists packing their bags and leaving the country.</p>
<p>Over the weekend, web users on the mainland were surprised to find the Chinese-language websites of Reuters and the Wall Street Journal had been unblocked.</p>
<p>Spokespeople for both organizations confirmed the Chinese language versions could now be accessed in China, <a href="http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/235211/wall-street-journal-confirms-china-has-unblocked-its-site/" type="external">Poynter reported.&#160;</a></p>
<p>Does this offer a glimmer of hope for domestic and foreign media in China this year? A quick reading of the tea leaves suggests not.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/131220/china-will-require-its-250000-journalists-pass-marxi" type="external">China will require its 250,000 journalists to pass a 'Marxism test'</a></p>
<p>The websites of The Times and Bloomberg — which irritated the Communist Party leadership by publishing, respectively, an in-depth reporting series on the alleged vast, $2.7 billion family wealth of ex-premier Wen Jiabao, and the alleged $376 million family fortune of the current president, Xi Jinping — remain blocked.</p>
<p>Veteran journalist Paul Mooney, who has spent more than two decades writing on China, was recently denied a visa. Click <a href="http://cpj.org/blog/2013/11/qa-paul-mooney-on-reporting-in-china.php" type="external">here</a> to see Mooney's interview with the Committee to Protect Journalists.&#160;</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/131205/china-expel-new-york-times-bloomberg-journalist" type="external">&#160;China to expel New York Times, Bloomberg journalists: Reports</a></p> | China unblocks websites of Reuters, Wall Street Journal | false | https://pri.org/stories/2014-01-06/china-unblocks-websites-reuters-wall-street-journal | 2014-01-06 | 3 |
<p><a href="http://politicalblindspot.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/drone-victims-pakistan-small.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>A recent&#160;Marine Times&#160;article ran the alarming headline “ <a href="http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2012/12/marine-taliban-kids-120312w" type="external">Some Afghan kids aren’t bystanders</a>” on December 3, reporting on the death of three Muslim children in Afghanistan. They were apparently targeted by a U.S. military drone because they appeared to be digging a hole in a road.</p>
<p>Army Lt. Col. Marion Carrington, quoted in the article, said that “It kind of opens our aperture” that children are being used in the conflict. “In addition to looking for military-age males, it’s looking for children with potential hostile intent.”</p>
<p>Why specify that these are “Muslim” children? Because to the Muslim world, these attacks look like what they are increasingly looking like to activists in the West: a Crusade. The targeting of Muslim children is not incidental. There are no examples of Christian, Jewish, or even Buddhist children being the sole victims of any US war in recent history. The fact that conflict after conflict, war after war, in recent decades, the targets are Muslim – and when they are, there seems to be no focus on reducing the civilian (child) death toll – is anything but incidental to the Muslim world.</p>
<p>Proponents of the Drone Wars, including President Barack Obama, claim that drone strikes are precise and only target terrorists.&#160;A&#160; <a href="http://web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/microsites/human-rights-institute/COLUMBIACountingDronesFinalNotEmbargo.pdf" type="external">study</a>, however, from&#160; <a href="http://web.law.columbia.edu/human-rights-institute/counterterrorism/drone-strikes/counting-drone-strike-deaths" type="external">Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute</a>&#160;finds that the number of Pakistani civilians killed in drone strikes “significantly and consistently underestimated” and that as many as&#160; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17exum.html?_r=2&amp;" type="external">98%</a>&#160;of those killed by drone strikes are civilians.</p>
<p>While it is ultimately impossible to get exact numbers, this means that for every “terrorist” killed by a drone strike, anywhere between 10 and 50 civilians are killed.</p>
<p>Obama has&#160; <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/killing-civilians-obamas-drone-war-in-pakistan/5315661" type="external">authorized</a>&#160;193 drone strikes in Pakistan – four times the amount authorized by George W. Bush. According to&#160;Global Research, over the past 4 years Obama has authorized attacks in Pakistan which have killed more than 800 innocent civilians and just 22 Al-Qaeda officers.</p>
<p>That constitutes at least 36 civilians per target.</p>
<p><a href="http://politicalblindspot.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/tumblr_mf8broeThQ1qap9gno1_500.jpg" type="external" /></p>
<p>How many of those are children? A new&#160; <a href="http://droneswatch.org/2013/01/20/list-of-children-killed-by-drone-strikes-in-pakistan-and-yemen/" type="external">study</a>&#160;puts it in perspective.</p>
<p>List of children killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen</p>
<p>Compiled from&#160; <a href="http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/" type="external">The Bureau of Investigative Journalism</a>&#160;reports</p>
<p>PAKISTAN</p>
<p>Name | Age | Sex</p>
<p>Noor Aziz | 8 | male Abdul Wasit | 17 | male Noor Syed | 8 | male Wajid Noor | 9 | male Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male Ayeesha | 3 | female Qari Alamzeb | 14| male Shoaib | 8 | male Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male Tariq Aziz | 16 | male Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male Maezol Khan | 8 | female Nasir Khan | male Naeem Khan | male Naeemullah | male Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male Azizul Wahab | 15 | male Fazal Wahab | 16 | male Ziauddin | 16 | male Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male Fazal Hakim | 19 | male Ilyas | 13 | male Sohail | 7 | male Asadullah | 9 | male khalilullah | 9 | male Noor Mohammad | 8 | male Khalid | 12 | male Saifullah | 9 | male Mashooq Jan | 15 | male Nawab | 17 | male Sultanat Khan | 16 | male Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male Noor Mohammad | 15 | male Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male Abdullah | 18 | male Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male Shahbuddin | 15 | male Yahya Khan | 16 |male Rahatullah |17 | male Mohammad Salim | 11 | male Shahjehan | 15 | male Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male Bakht Muneer | 14 | male Numair | 14 | male Mashooq Khan | 16 | male Ihsanullah | 16 | male Luqman | 12 | male Jannatullah | 13 | male Ismail | 12 | male Taseel Khan | 18 | male Zaheeruddin | 16 | male Qari Ishaq | 19 | male Jamshed Khan | 14 | male Alam Nabi | 11 | male Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male Rahmatullah | 14 | male Abdus Samad | 17 | male Siraj | 16 | male Saeedullah | 17 | male Abdul Waris | 16 | male Darvesh | 13 | male Ameer Said | 15 | male Shaukat | 14 | male Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male Salman | 12 | male Fazal Wahab | 18 | male Baacha Rahman | 13 | male Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male Iftikhar | 17 | male Inayatullah | 15 | male Mashooq Khan | 16 | male Ihsanullah | 16 | male Luqman | 12 | male Jannatullah | 13 | male Ismail | 12 | male Abdul Waris | 16 | male Darvesh | 13 | male Ameer Said | 15 | male Shaukat | 14 | male Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male Adnan | 16 | male Najibullah | 13 | male Naeemullah | 17 | male Hizbullah | 10 | male Kitab Gul | 12 | male Wilayat Khan | 11 | male Zabihullah | 16 | male Shehzad Gul | 11 | male Shabir | 15 | male Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male Shafiullah | 16 | male Nimatullah | 14 | male Shakirullah | 16 | male Talha | 8 | male</p>
<p>YEMEN</p>
<p>Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male Nasser Salim | 19</p> | A List of Muslim Children Killed by US Drone Strikes | true | http://politicalblindspot.com/a-list-of-muslim-children-killed-by-us-drone-strikes/?fb_source%3Dpubv1 | 2013-07-20 | 4 |
<p>As a police officer, community organizer and youth worker, Rafael Yañez has a broad perspective on the issues of gangs and violence — a perspective he’s now <a href="http://www.voteyanez.com/" type="external">bringing to the race for alderman in the 15th ward</a>.</p>
<p>“As a police officer, I can say from experience that we won’t get rid of crime simply by putting more officers on the streets,” he says — although he says more police are indeed needed. According to Yañez, the problems of crime and gang violence reflect the marginalization of communities — like those in the 15th Ward, which cobbles together parts of Back of the Yards, Brighton Park, West Englewood and Gage Park, with large numbers of low-wage workers and unemployed, mainly Latino and African-American.</p>
<p>These are areas “lacking in vital resources, investments and opportunities for community members,” he says. But that doesn’t mean they are without assets, and as he talks, Yañez repeatedly returns to two ideas — building bridges and identifying community assets.</p>
<p>The best example is the <a href="http://unionimpact.org/" type="external">UNION Impact Center</a>, which Yañez founded in 2007 with the goal of building “a safer and healthier community,” especially for young people.&#160;Entirely grassroots, with no outside funding, it’s nonetheless provided sports, arts and mentoring programs to some 1,500 young people.&#160;Last summer 300 participated in its soccer program.</p>
<p>Yañez’s approach is straightforward: “We utilize the skills that [community residents] have to offer,” he says. “We’re looking for skills and heart and passion.”&#160;If someone can do an art workshop or teach guitar, they start a program.&#160;They’ve also had ESL and computer classes for parents.&#160;The center — which utilizes locations around the community —currently has about 40 volunteers.</p>
<p>The project is also about building bridges.</p>
<p>“The kids are able to play and grow up, knowing each other and respecting each other,” he says.&#160; “So when they get to high school, they’ll remember each other from having a soccer game, not ‘you live east of Western and I live west of Western.’”</p>
<p>Yañez learned early — he recalls being chased out of Harrison Park when he went there to play basketball at the age of 9 — “that our neighborhoods are segregated and divided, even by blocks.&#160;It’s part of the culture of the neighborhood, that this is the line and you stay on your side.”</p>
<p>He also learned early, being constantly stopped and searched, even in front of his family home, that some police officers had “an ‘us versus them’ mindset” which runs counter to “the mindset where I’m here to serve and protect,” he says.</p>
<p>That could explain Yañez’s commitment to community policing, known as CAPS, which he also describes as bridge-building. A Chicago police officer since 2004, Yañez worked on community policing in Englewood, and he recalls a time when “a lot of resources were invested and there was support from the mayor’s office on down.”</p>
<p>Today, however, “I think CAPS has been put on the back burner.&#160;It’s not what it was before. “It should be the backbone of having a strong relationship with the community.&#160; When we talk about trust, when we talk about communities sharing information, when we talk about accountability and follow-up, all that goes together.&#160; [Community policing] should be the center of our philosophy.”</p>
<p>Yañez advocates a citywide commitment to restorative justice programs in schools as a key anti-violence program — current support is piecemeal and inadequate, he says.&#160;He talks about running “peace circles” in Harper High School, and it’s clear that bridge-building is a central aspect there too.</p>
<p>Twenty-five students chosen by the principal, all of them with felony convictions and many members of rival gangs, met in circles with adults including the district commander.</p>
<p>“We would order pizza and just talk about it.&#160;And we were able to identify some of the issues they were facing.”</p>
<p>This led to a summer program where kids got stipends to work together on self-designed projects.&#160;One group formed a music production enterprise with a performance ensemble that came to be known as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnOYjELQFBo&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">Men of Honor</a>. He went on to lead circles bringing together youth from Englewood, Back of the Yards and Brighton Park, “just to get people talking across their boundaries.”</p>
<p>The point was to show that “we can learn from different cultures, we can respect them and understand that [cultural diversity is] not a threat, it’s an asset.”</p>
<p>But a comprehensive approach to violence prevention is going to take a basic change in the city’s priorities —away from projects like the DePaul arena near McCormick Place, Yañez says.</p>
<p>Addressing violence will require prenatal care, early childhood services, early testing for learning disabilities, programs in school and after-school, and crucially, economic development that offers families living wage jobs, he says. Instead, Back of the Yards saw its city mental health clinic closed in 2012. Englewood lost six schools in 2013 and Kelly High School has had its budget cut by $5 million, threatening positions for social workers and counselors.</p>
<p>“Our priorities are upside down,” Yañez says.</p>
<p>There are five other candidates for the open seat in the 15th Ward: former Ward Superintendent <a href="http://www.eddie4alderman.com/" type="external">Eddie Daniels</a>, pastor <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ElectDavis15" type="external">Otis Davis Jr.</a>, public interest lawyer <a href="http://www.mondragon4alderman.com/" type="external">Adolfo Mondragon</a> and Ward Committeeman <a href="http://www.electlopez.com/" type="external">Raymond Lopez</a>, with <a href="http://www.raulreyes2015.com/" type="external">Raul Reyes</a> awaiting a ruling by the Board of Elections on his ballot status.&#160;All of them evince sincerity and a commitment to improving life in the ward.</p>
<p>It seems to me that Rafael Yañez stands out for his experience, his leadership qualities and his vision.&#160;Win or lose, he’s someone to watch, and a voice that needs to be heard.</p> | Anti-gang violence plan key for officer seeking 15th Ward post | false | http://chicagoreporter.com/policeman-eyes-council-seat-to-protect-serve-15th-ward/ | 2015-01-15 | 3 |
<p />
<p>Moments after what foes call “Obamacare” passed in the House this spring, Progressive Caucus cochair Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Ca.) <a href="" type="internal">vowed</a> to bring back the so-called public option. The notion of a government-run insurance program was the biggest rallying point for liberals in the debate, but never made it into the final bill due to a conservative opposition railing against “socialized medicine.” Woolsey has since made good on her promise, introducing a stand-alone public-option bill that has gathered 128 supporters so far, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/21/AR2010072105067.html" type="external">according</a> to the Tribune.</p>
<p>Woolsey and her liberal colleagues admit that there’s dim hope of passage, given the current political climate. And things are likely to be even more difficult in the next Congress, with Democrats predicted to lose upwards of 25 seats—and quite possibly the majority.</p>
<p>But I agree with <a href="http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/76466/the-return-the-public-plan" type="external">Jonathan Chait</a>, who argues that a public option is likely to become more popular, not less so, as the country continues to struggle with the escalating costs of health care. Supporters of the option say it will help contain costs and reduce the deficit; Woolsey has <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/21/AR2010072105067.html" type="external">touted</a> new data from the Congressional Budget Office that suggest it could save the government some $68 billion between 2014 and 2020, partly due to lower administrative costs.</p>
<p>It’s an argument that may only get more compelling with time. The new health care law does contain some <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/opinion/26cohn.html" type="external">major reforms</a> that will help curb rising costs, including electronic health records, a tax on high-end benefits, and an independent board to evaluate Medicare spending. But many reforms got watered down through months of negotiations, and cost-control is still one of the biggest concerns for health-care wonks. While Republicans will likely cast any failure of the new law to make health care more affordable as a sign that the legislation went too far, it could well be that it didn’t go far enough.</p>
<p>A politically feasible moment for the public option may not come until after 2014, when the law’s new health care insurance exchanges kick in. These will be—shh, don’t tell anyone!—government-regulated marketplaces that give small businesses and some individuals the chance to purchase insurance on their own. If all goes smoothly, and it’s clear the sky hasn’t fallen, then the fear factor of “government-run health care” will have worn off. And the public plan Woolsey proposes might just slot right into the exchanges as another option. Struggling to contain costs, employers and insurance companies are already beginning to restrict the pool of doctors available under certain plans—and consumers may well end up demanding another choice, one less subject to the whims of the private marketplace.</p>
<p /> | The Public Option, Redux | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2010/07/public-option-redux/ | 2010-07-23 | 4 |
<p>It’s possible to rule out much of the so-called criticism of large, high-profile design proposals as “internecine” squabbling (professional jealousy and etc), but it is not possible to pass judgement so easily on the increasing public interest in design — especially urban design — and most especially when design includes the now-ubiquitous memorial, monument, or icon gratuitously placed in a prominent “public” space — the Mall in Washington, Hyde Park in London, the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, or the grave and historic open spaces of Florence, Rome, or Venice.</p>
<p>The WW II Memorial, the proposed WTC Memorial, the Princess Diana Memorial, the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, and a new entrance to the Uffizi Galleries in Florence are all cases in point. What they have in common is that everyone is now a critic, and this everyone transcends the usual authorized mouthpieces of design — architects, historians, cultural figures, etc — and includes “the people”.</p>
<p>In the case of the WTC process, this has taken the form of informal and formal “pulse-taking” — viz., ad hoc groups supposedly representing the “will of the people”, leading to a statistical take-down of the first six plans from Beyer Blinder Belle and the LMDC (and Port Authority). In the sense that this statistical “consensus” might actually represent “the public”, there is something useful to extract. In the case of the WWII Memorial (and Senator Dole’s heavy-handed role in premiating the St. Florian proposal) one can only wonder about representative government. With the brouhaha in Florence (lead by Franco Zeffirelli), over the Arata Isozaki proposal for a new loggia/entrance to the Uffizi Galleries, a different set of problems emerge.</p>
<p>Isozaki’s loggia is clearly a bizarre manifestation of post-modernism. It is part neo-rational urban icon and part stage set. Perhaps this makes Zeffirelli an appropriate critic. Isozaki’s estranged urbanism — his hyper-conscious sensitivity to form and to the hegemonic essence within such forms — makes his proposal something to look very closely into. Is it not somehow, bizarrely “appropriate”, in the sense that it appropriates a language that aggrandizes the very thing it is critiquing?</p>
<p>Anyway, it is time for architects to get over the fact that the public now cares about such things. Most of these projects either utilize public monies or public resources (including public space) to merely exist. They quite often are gestures of supposed magnanimity as well. That they are thrust into the public sphere at all tells us a great deal about how the icon or the model (or the monument) literally rules (divides and conquers) the landscape of things (that in most all cases is an amalgam of mostly-mute signs avant la lettre).</p>
<p>RES PUBLICA It may be time to properly “socialize” the public interest in things public versus pay that interest lip service. Sure, let the authorities of culture continue to premiate designs, deliberate, and act through the process of the commission, but, at the end of this process, there may be yet another process long overdue. This follow-on process might be the “referendum” where the statistical pulse may be taken without the preliminary selection of the voting members determined by a pre-selection process or a vainglorious fiddling with demographics in pursuit of fake heterogeneity. This referendum might be the ultimate payback for the authoritarian mode of operation — either the so-called public process, or the flipside, the cultural apparatus of the well-heeled and elite. The fake-populism of certain critics and journalists would in this case be overridden by the very real (and no doubt frightening) prospect that the public might simply vote “None of the Above”.</p>
<p>Gavin Keeney is a landscape architect in New York, New York. and the author of <a href="http://www.geocities.com/ateliermp/birkhauser.html" type="external">On the Nature of Things</a>, a book documenting the travails of contemporary American landscape architecture in the 1990s.</p>
<p>He can be reached at: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p>RELATED DOCUMENTS</p>
<p><a href="http://www.geocities.com/ateliermp/eisenman.html" type="external">Winter and Maybe Spring in Berlin</a> <a href="http://www.geocities.com/ateliermp/wtcburlesque.html" type="external">World Trade Center Burlesque</a></p>
<p>OUTTAKES</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wwiimemorial.com/bodypage.htm" type="external">The WWII Memorial Fiasco</a> – “The National World War II Memorial will be funded almost entirely by private contributions, as specified in Public Law 103-32. Through the generosity of a variety of giving constituencies, the campaign has received more than $186 million in cash and pledges, enough to cover current estimated project costs. Support has come from hundreds of thousands of individual Americans, hundreds of corporations and foundations, veterans groups, dozens of civic, fraternal and professional organizations, states and one territory, and students in 1,200 schools across the country.” (National WWII Memorial)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.savethemall.org/media/newobjections.html" type="external">National Coalition to Save Our Mall</a> “The Fine Arts Commission; however, rejected architect Frederich St. Florian’s original design for the complex because, the commission said, it was too large and imposing. Critics complained that the massive ring of towering columns proposed by St. Florian were reminiscent of the Nazi-era edifices of Adolf Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer.” (The Chicago Tribune, 07/06/00)</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Monument to Diana</a> – “The committee had been unable to choose between Gustafson, known for her glasshouse at the National Botanical Gardens of Wales, and Anish Kapoor, the Turner prize winning British sculptor, who proposed a dome of water. The committee suggested the two designs should be exhibited for the public to decide. That did not happen.” (The Guardian Unlimited, 08/01/02)</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Uffizi Imbroglio</a> – “Florentine film director Franco Zeffirelli, who studied architecture in the city, has labeled the avant-garde design, which won an international competition in 2001, a ‘shameful horror,’ and has appealed to those who love the city to speak up and defend its artistic heritage.” (Wired News, 07/29/02) – <a href="" type="internal">Arata Isozaki &amp;Associates</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.beniculturali.it/uffizi/uffiz_18.htm" type="external">Nuova Uscita su Piazza dei Castellani</a> (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali)</p> | Everyone’s a Critic | true | https://counterpunch.org/2002/08/03/everyone-s-a-critic/ | 2002-08-03 | 4 |
<p>Of the many arguments against comprehensive immigration reform, this from Republican activist <a href="" type="internal">Cathie Adams</a> is one of the strangest.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/13902/former-texas-gop-chair-says-immigration-reform-will-lead-to-end-times" type="external">Speaking to right-wing radio host Rick Wiles last week</a>, Adams decried a measure in the Senate immigration bill that would require biometric scanning for non-citizens at airports. “[O]f course, we know in biblical prophecy that that is the End Times,” Adams said of the initiative. “That is going to be the brand either on our foreheads or on the back of our hands. That is demonic through and through. That is End Times prophecy. There is no question about that.”</p>
<p>Except there is. For the large majority of Christians (and Americans, writ large) <a href="http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations" type="external">who don’t hold fundamentalist eschatological views</a>, this is either incomprehensible, misguided, or—at worst—near-heretical. For our purposes, however, it’s simply important to note that this idiosyncratic religious belief forms the basis for Adams’s opposition to comprehensive immigration reform. She has one other problem, too: that the bill would give “amnesty” to Muslims who don’t have the “best intentions” for the United States, which seems to rely on a distorted and prejudiced view of Islam and its adherents.</p>
<p>If Cathie Adams were just one of the countless activists or provocateurs that dominate conservative politics, this would be worth noting, but not commenting on. But she’s the former chairman of the Texas GOP, from 2009 to 2010, and that’s no small thing.</p>
<p>By size and population, Texas is the second largest state in the Union. It contains four of the country’s largest cities and metropolitan areas, and is a major engine of economic growth for the nation.</p>
<p>Texas Republicans don’t just dominate the state’s political landscape—controlling its legislature, 24 of its 36 congressional districts, both of its Senate seats, and all of its statewide offices—but they’re also a powerful force in national politics, and one of the most important wings of the GOP writ large. Not only is Texas the home state of the party’s most successful political dynasty—the Bush family—but its members play influential roles at all levels of politics, from John Cornyn at the Republican National Committee to Karl Rove at American Crossroads. Leading the state party is a big deal; it allows for significant influence over everything from candidate selection and outreach, to fundraising and platform writing.</p>
<p>In other words, Adams is a Texas GOP elite who reflects other, similar elites. There’s Rep. Louie Gohmert, who once <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/17/louie-gohmert-radical-islamist_n_3100254.html" type="external">warned</a> that “radical Islamists” were “being trained to come in and act Hispanic,” which—for him—was a reason to oppose comprehensive immigration reform. Likewise, there’s Rep. Steve Stockman, who declared immigration reform a Democratic plot to “ <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rep-steve-stockman-immigration-reform-will-destroy-gop-and-obama-will-destroy-america" type="external">destroy America</a>,” and Sen. Ted Cruz, whose vocal <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2013/06/24/ted-cruz-slams-latest-immigration-deal-from-senate/" type="external">opposition</a> reflects right-wing anger over the Gang of Eight proposal.</p>
<p>In fairness, it should be said that there are Texas Republicans who support <a href="" type="internal">immigration reform</a>, and who are working to bring Latinos into the state Republican Party. This summer, chairman Steve Munisteri <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/state-politics/20130604-gop-ramps-up-outreach-to-minorities-young-texans.ece" type="external">announced</a> an effort to hire two dozen new full-time workers, and dedicate them to minority outreach, including Latinos. At the same time, groups like <a href="http://hispanicrepublicansoftx.org" type="external">Hispanic Republicans of Texas</a>—spearheaded by George P. Bush, son of former Florida governor Jeb Bush—have made heavy investments in Latino candidates for public office. Munisteri has been silent on comprehensive immigration reform, but Bush, like his father, is a supporter.</p>
<p>What you can’t escape, however, is that Cathie Adams and her ilk speak for a large number of Republicans—in Texas and nationwide—who oppose immigration reform. And while there is a sensible argument against reform—and the Senate bill in particular—the reality is that the most vocal opponents rely on Adams’s <a href="" type="internal">blend of paranoia and prejudice</a>. Iowa Rep. Steve King, for example, <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/24/rep-steve-king-defends-immigration-comments-amid-outrage/" type="external">argues</a> that a path to citizenship will encourage drug runners to enter the country. “For every [immigrant] who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that, they weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” said King, doing his best to alienate Latino voters.</p>
<p>But even with people like King in the party, if just some House Republicans got behind an immigration bill, it would pass. And indeed, several GOP lawmakers have either dropped their opposition to citizenship, or announced their flexibility on the issue. For instance, in an interview Thursday, Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington state <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/08/08/another-gop-congressman-comes-out-for-citizenship/" type="external">floated citizenship</a> as a fair trade for greater border security. “I want to get to the point where they have to pay a fine, there are some penalties they have to go through, there are some steps they have to go through. I want to hold them accountable, and then they get citizenship,” he said.</p>
<p>The dilemma for the rest of the party is this: Do they want to stand with Cathie Adams and her ilk? Or do they want to join with Republicans like Reichert, who are trying to solve problems? The Adams contingent holds significant sway in the House of Representatives, but they aren’t all-powerful, and if enough Republicans decided on reform as a project worth pursuing, it would happen.</p>
<p>Beyond the narrow issue of a bill, the choice between Adams and Reichert expands into a broader question: What kind of party does the GOP want to be? Does it want to be one that can reflect a more diverse group of constituents, who may share similar interests but come from different perspectives? Or does it want to remain a redoubt for a shrinking minority of older whites? The GOP’s choice on immigration reform won’t answer the question, but it will push them in one direction or another. For the sake of our novel experiment in broad-based multiracial democracy, I hope they reject the Cathie Adamses of their party.</p> | Can the Republicans Get a Handle on Their Bigots? | true | https://thedailybeast.com/can-the-republicans-get-a-handle-on-their-bigots | 2018-10-04 | 4 |
<p>A man and a woman in New Mexico have been charged after they locked an eight-year-old disabled girl in a cage inside their mobile home and then left her alone while the rest of the family went to the movies, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-girl-found-locked-wooden-cage-182152607.html" type="external">the Associated Press reported Tuesday.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://news.sky.com/story/1044745/girl-8-found-in-cage-as-family-go-to-cinema" type="external">Sky News reported</a>&#160;Cindy Patriarchias, 33, has been charged with “negligently causing child abuse,” while her live-in boyfriend, Edmond Gonzales, 37, has been charged with “negligently permitting child abuse.”</p>
<p>Patriarchias and Gonzales had taken the woman’s three children to watch a movie at an elementary school on Friday and left the girl, who has developmental disabilities, in a wooden cage in the corner of a bedroom, <a href="http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_22466552/las-cruces-couple-charged-after-8-year-old?source=most_viewed" type="external">&#160; the Las-Cruces Sun News reported.</a></p>
<p>Patriarchias’ estranged husbanded raised the alarm when he arrived at the school and learned that the eight-year-old girl was at home.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-girl-found-locked-wooden-cage-182152607.html" type="external">The Associated Press said</a> Patriarchias had been trying to adopt the girl, who is now under the care New Mexico’s child-protection agency.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost:&#160; <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/130121/new-mexico-teen-suspected-killing-family-alleged" type="external">New Mexico teen suspected of killing family allegedly planned Walmart massacre</a></p>
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<p>Here is the list of pre-filed bills released Friday ahead of the start of the Alaska legislative session Tuesday in Juneau, Alaska:</p>
<p>House bills:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20267" type="external">HB 267</a> , from House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, D-Dillingham:</p>
<p>— Requiring the release of certain records relating to big game hunters, guided hunts, and guided sport fishing activities to municipalities for verification of taxes.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20268" type="external">HB 268</a> , from Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage:</p>
<p>— Omnibus bill related to several medical practices.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20269" type="external">HB 269</a> , from Rep. Chris Tuck, D-Anchorage:</p>
<p>— Distillery licenses.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20270" type="external">HB 270</a> , from Rep. Dan Saddler, R-Eagle River:</p>
<p>— Relating to aircraft registration and the state department of transportation.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20271" type="external">HB 271</a> , from Rep. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage:</p>
<p>— A bill prohibiting smoking in some places, and establishing local option election in villages to allow smoking in public places.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20272" type="external">HB 272</a> , from Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage:</p>
<p>— Establishing the Tangle Lakes State Game Refuge</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20273" type="external">HB 273</a> , from Rep. Sam Kito III, D-Juneau:</p>
<p>— Extending the termination date of the Marijuana Control Board.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20274" type="external">HB 274</a> , from Kito:</p>
<p>— Extending the termination date of the Board of Psychologist and Psychological Associate Examiners.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20275" type="external">HB 275</a> , from Kito:</p>
<p>— Extending the termination date of the Board of Massage Therapists.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB276" type="external">HB 276</a> , from Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, R-Anchorage:</p>
<p>— A bill related to the investigation of discrimination and harassment in the Legislature, and establishing a personnel office in the Legislative Affairs Agency.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20277" type="external">HB 277</a> , from Rep. Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks:</p>
<p>— A bill requiring Alaska broadband providers to practice net neutrality.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HJR%2027" type="external">House Joint Resolution 27</a> , from Kito:</p>
<p>— A constitutional amendment setting term limits for legislators.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Senate bills:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=SB%20135" type="external">SB 135</a> , from Sen. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna:</p>
<p>— A bill requiring certain setnet fishers to vote whether their entry permits shall be subject to a state buy-back program, among other issues.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=SB%20136" type="external">SB 136</a> , from Sen. Anna MacKinnon, R-Eagle River:</p>
<p>— A bill related to bail, restitution, forfeiture and other crime bill issues.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=SB%20138" type="external">SB 138</a> , from Micciche:</p>
<p>— A bill related to daily allowances collected by lawmakers when in session.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Source: Alaska Legislature</p>
<p>Here is the list of pre-filed bills released Friday ahead of the start of the Alaska legislative session Tuesday in Juneau, Alaska:</p>
<p>House bills:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20267" type="external">HB 267</a> , from House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, D-Dillingham:</p>
<p>— Requiring the release of certain records relating to big game hunters, guided hunts, and guided sport fishing activities to municipalities for verification of taxes.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20268" type="external">HB 268</a> , from Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage:</p>
<p>— Omnibus bill related to several medical practices.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20269" type="external">HB 269</a> , from Rep. Chris Tuck, D-Anchorage:</p>
<p>— Distillery licenses.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20270" type="external">HB 270</a> , from Rep. Dan Saddler, R-Eagle River:</p>
<p>— Relating to aircraft registration and the state department of transportation.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20271" type="external">HB 271</a> , from Rep. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage:</p>
<p>— A bill prohibiting smoking in some places, and establishing local option election in villages to allow smoking in public places.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20272" type="external">HB 272</a> , from Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage:</p>
<p>— Establishing the Tangle Lakes State Game Refuge</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20273" type="external">HB 273</a> , from Rep. Sam Kito III, D-Juneau:</p>
<p>— Extending the termination date of the Marijuana Control Board.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20274" type="external">HB 274</a> , from Kito:</p>
<p>— Extending the termination date of the Board of Psychologist and Psychological Associate Examiners.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20275" type="external">HB 275</a> , from Kito:</p>
<p>— Extending the termination date of the Board of Massage Therapists.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB276" type="external">HB 276</a> , from Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, R-Anchorage:</p>
<p>— A bill related to the investigation of discrimination and harassment in the Legislature, and establishing a personnel office in the Legislative Affairs Agency.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HB%20277" type="external">HB 277</a> , from Rep. Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks:</p>
<p>— A bill requiring Alaska broadband providers to practice net neutrality.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=HJR%2027" type="external">House Joint Resolution 27</a> , from Kito:</p>
<p>— A constitutional amendment setting term limits for legislators.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Senate bills:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=SB%20135" type="external">SB 135</a> , from Sen. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna:</p>
<p>— A bill requiring certain setnet fishers to vote whether their entry permits shall be subject to a state buy-back program, among other issues.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=SB%20136" type="external">SB 136</a> , from Sen. Anna MacKinnon, R-Eagle River:</p>
<p>— A bill related to bail, restitution, forfeiture and other crime bill issues.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p><a href="http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Detail/30?Root=SB%20138" type="external">SB 138</a> , from Micciche:</p>
<p>— A bill related to daily allowances collected by lawmakers when in session.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Source: Alaska Legislature</p> | Pre-filed bills for the Alaska Legislature | false | https://apnews.com/amp/4c61b51d241d42caa1c63a5729dc767e | 2018-01-12 | 2 |
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<p>TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Shawnee County judge has temporarily blocked a new Topeka ordinance that banned tobacco sales to people younger than 21, citing potential conflicts between the ordinance and state law.</p>
<p>Kansas law allows tobacco sales to people 18 and older. In December, the Topeka City Council barred people under 21 from purchasing tobacco products. The ban was scheduled to take effect Thursday.</p>
<p>Two Topeka businesses on Wednesday sued the city over the ordinance.</p>
<p>The Topeka Capital-Journal <a href="http://cjonline.com/news/local/local-government/2018-01-11/judge-grants-temporary-injunction-blocking-implementation" type="external">reports</a> the city is instructing employees not to enforce the ordinance until the legal questions are resolved.</p>
<p>The Kansas Vapers Association, which supported the lawsuit, said the temporary injunction ensures Topeka businesses that sell tobacco won't lose money while the case is in court.</p>
<p>A hearing on the temporary injunction is set for Feb. 1.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal, <a href="http://www.cjonline.com" type="external">http://www.cjonline.com</a></p>
<p>TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Shawnee County judge has temporarily blocked a new Topeka ordinance that banned tobacco sales to people younger than 21, citing potential conflicts between the ordinance and state law.</p>
<p>Kansas law allows tobacco sales to people 18 and older. In December, the Topeka City Council barred people under 21 from purchasing tobacco products. The ban was scheduled to take effect Thursday.</p>
<p>Two Topeka businesses on Wednesday sued the city over the ordinance.</p>
<p>The Topeka Capital-Journal <a href="http://cjonline.com/news/local/local-government/2018-01-11/judge-grants-temporary-injunction-blocking-implementation" type="external">reports</a> the city is instructing employees not to enforce the ordinance until the legal questions are resolved.</p>
<p>The Kansas Vapers Association, which supported the lawsuit, said the temporary injunction ensures Topeka businesses that sell tobacco won't lose money while the case is in court.</p>
<p>A hearing on the temporary injunction is set for Feb. 1.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal, <a href="http://www.cjonline.com" type="external">http://www.cjonline.com</a></p> | Judge temporarily blocks new Topeka tobacco ordinance | false | https://apnews.com/amp/7218d6f194444f18aff8504e0c7696e1 | 2018-01-11 | 2 |
<p>Sabah Alnasseri was born in Basra, Iraq, and earned his doctorate at the Johann-Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. He teaches Middle East politics and economy at the Political Science Department at York University in Toronto, Canada. His publications cover various topics in Marxist political economy, Marxist state theory in the tradition of Gramsci, Poulantzas and Althusser, theory of regulation, and Middle East politics and economy.</p>
<p />
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<p />
<p /> SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore.
<p />
<p />President Putin of Russia, President Rouhani of Iran, and President Obama of the United States have all spoken at the United Nations General Assembly this week, which is currently underway in New York. Common among their addresses was that they all spoke aggressively about their desire to deal with ISIL. Joining us now from Toronto, Canada to discuss their speeches is Sabah Alnasseri. Sabah was born Basra, Iraq, and teaches Middle East politics and economy at the political science department at York University in Toronto. Sabah, great to have you with us.
<p />
<p />SABAH ALNASSERI: Good to be with you, Sharmini.
<p />
<p />PERIES: So let's begin with what all the presidents said at the General Assembly, particularly about the region, of course at the moment Syria, Iraq, and what their contention is with ISIL in the region.
<p />
<p />ALNASSERI: I was surprised with the speech of President Obama, trying to reduce the complexity of the conflict to the person of Bashar al-Assad, as if things were not transformed since 2011. At the beginning we have a peaceful protest against the government of al-Assad. But ever since, this conflict has transformed into a regional and national formation, which is not possible to think of one person or one force as the real cause for the most important roots of conflict and violence in Syria.
<p />
<p />So I think the function of reducing the complexity of the conflict to Bashar al-Assad is a way to attack the forces that support the government of Bashar al-Assad. Which is Russia, Iran, partly Iraq, the Iraqi government, and of course Lebanon and especially Hezbollah. So what surprised me, the contradictory nature of his statement. Because on the one hand President Obama attacked Russia and Iran. On the other suggest that he's willing to work with them to solve the problem in Syria.
<p />
<p />I think to understand the conflictual and contradictory nature of this statement is to look at things on the ground. What we see in the last few days and weeks is a shift in the relation of forces on the ground. Russia now is collaborating not only with Iran and Syria but also with Iraq, with the Iraqi government, at the military and intelligence level. Even Turkey. The last visit of President Erdogan to Russia, Turkey seems to be willing to negotiate a solution in Syria, including the, an Assad government.
<p />
<p />So I think shift--things on the ground shifted a bit to the advantage of the Russians, and to the disadvantage of the United States. So I think the speech of President Obama is the sign of desperate positioning, and the only way out, the only exit option I think for the United States, is I think to collaborate with Russia and Iran and other regional powers to solve the conflict in Syria, and of course in Iraq.
<p />
<p />PERIES: Now Sabah, President Obama actually met with President Putin after their respective speeches. It seems to me rather counterproductive on the part of President Obama to have this sort of isolationist perspective in terms of dealing with Russia, particularly given their role on the ground and that they have a common objective, which is to deal with ISIS.
<p />
<p />ALNASSERI: Yeah, but not only--not only ISIS, Sharmini. You see, there are new offshoots of this conflict. If you look at the last few days and weeks there's huge refugee waves from Iraq, Syria, et cetera, from these countries, coming to Europe. So Europe is feeling the consequences of this [inerventionist] politics of the United States in Iraq and Syria and Libya. Causing a lot of problems for European states besides the already existing economic and political crisis they have. So actually, other countries, [regional] but also in the European context, are feeling the consequences of these [adventurous] politics. And even the Assad government--yes, it's true, the Assad government, is part of the problem. But precisely because of that they should be also part of the solution. You cannot solve the conflict in Syria by claiming al-Assad should go or the government should collapse, because then you create chaos and a political vacuum. And then the Islamic State will be really an Islamic state.
<p />
<p />So I think President Obama on the one hand--and this is part of what we term public performance, appealing to his, whatever constituency, and to the international community with some moral discourse about the U.S. waging their, the good wars, and the others are the bad guys. But in real political terms you can see what President Obama thinks when you listen to what the, what Kerry was saying. That he can imagine that the solution of the conflict in Syria could include President Bashar al-Assad. And his existence or not-existence could be negotiated.
<p />
<p />So I think that is the correct approach. The realist approach to solve the conflict in Syria.
<p />
<p />PERIES: And in terms of President Rouhani's comments at the United Nations. It's interesting that the United Nations is supposed to be the venue in which we are discussing peace, but they're calling each other out at this venue.
<p />
<p />ALNASSERI: Right. And I mean, what again President Obama forgot to mention, the involvement also of the U.S. supporting Syria, Iraq, and Egypt in attacking Yemen. And again, creating chaos there, actually empower al-Qaeda in Yemen just like attacking in Syria and opposing the Assad government empowers the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra and all these extremist groups. So their policies in the region creating what the American would term creative chaos, in Libya and Iraq, in Yemen, in Syria, et cetera.
<p />
<p />The problem is what complicates matters in Iraq and Syria, that you have international or regional power to assume their own agenda. And these agendas are conflictual and contradictory. So it's so difficult to organize some regional, international conference to bring all these players to the negotiating table. I think Russia and the United States are the only forces that are capable of arranging this and convincing their allies to come to the negotiating table. I don't see any other way out, except if there is a popular revolution in Iraq, that could change all sorts of domestic relational forces and include all these marginalized excluded forces in Iraq. That could be another option to push back against the Islamic state in Iraq.
<p />
<p />PERIES: And in terms of how each of the leaders had outlined their strategy to deal with ISIL, your thoughts on that? Because it seems to me that, particularly when it comes to Iraq and Syria, the challenge if they were to combine their resources and then have a common military strategy, that it would be a far more effective one. But I didn't see them leaning in that direction.
<p />
<p />ALNASSERI: Right. I mean, Egypt is a good example, too, where you can see also there's a shift towards Russia. The Egyptian army, they are now much more reconciliatory with the Assad government and the [inaud.]. Because they regard the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra and all of these extremist groups as a threat to them. And we can see that the conflict was extending to the Sinai peninsula and so on. There's a shift also in Egypt to want solving the conflict in a way that stabilizes the Syrian state and the Syrian army, and in a way could operate also with Russia. On the one hand.
<p />
<p />On the other hand, of course, the Egyptian army was dragged into the war in Yemen by the Saudis. And they are in conflict there. What the Saudis consider as a regional conflict of hegemony between Iran and Saudi Arabia, that Iran is supporting the Houthi forces in Yemen whereas Saudi Arabia of course is supporting the government of Yemen, or the displaced government of Yemen, to shift the relation of forces in Yemen to the advantage of Saudi Arabia. So again you can see the extension of the regional conflict of Syria and Iraq into Yemen.
<p />
<p />PERIES: Sabah Alnasseri, Thank you so much for joining us today.
<p />
<p />ALNASSERI: My pleasure, Sharmini. Good to be with you.
<p />
<p />PERIES: Thank you for joining us on the Real News Network.
<p />
<p />End
<p />
<p />DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. | Is Obama Fighting ISIS, Assad or Russia? | true | http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D31%26Itemid%3D74%26jumival%3D14799 | 2015-09-29 | 4 |
<p>Scores of Swedes took the streets of Malmo, a southern city in Sweden, on Monday to protest an epidemic of violence that has taken the lives of far too many young people. The last victim was 16-year-old Ahmed Obaid. He was killed last Thursday after an unidentified gunman unleashed a salvo of bullets.</p>
<p>“Our kids should sleep well, play at play parks, feel safe,” Housam Abbas, the victim’s cousin, said, according to the <a href="https://www.thelocal.se/20170116/i-dont-let-my-little-brother-go-out-at-night-any-more" type="external">Local</a>.</p>
<p>Malmo, this once quiet city, is now overrun with violence. The culture of fear is so palpable that parents are no longer comfortable sending their children out to play.</p>
<p>"You have to look over your shoulder when you go out at night now. I don't let my little brother go out at night any more," said one high school student at Monday’s protest in front of city hall. "I hope that the politicians actually view this as a serious problem and start to solve this in Malmö."</p>
<p>After being handed a list of measures to curb the violence in the city, Justice and Migration Minister Morgan Johansson <a href="https://www.thelocal.se/20170116/i-dont-let-my-little-brother-go-out-at-night-any-more" type="external">stated</a> in a matter-of-fact tone: "We have to get rid of the weapons, we need tighter punishment so that those who are held for serious gun crime can be arrested immediately and not just be released a few days later."</p>
<p>What Johansson failed to mention, however, was the fact that the bulk of the violence stems from one community.</p>
<p>The Muslim immigrant community has a crime problem. It’s a truism that Swedish (and European) politicians have denied in bold-faced lies and assurances to the public.</p>
<p>Malmo, like Molenbeek, its sister city in Belgium, has become a breeding ground for criminals.</p>
<p>Thousands of Muslim immigrants have fled their war-torn homes in the Middle East to settle in quaint European cities filled with naïve and welcoming townspeople.</p>
<p>This has been true in France, England, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden.</p>
<p>Since the great migration into Europe, crime, largely committed by migrants, has gone up manifold, leaving many to reassess their naïveté about hosting duties.</p> | How Muslim Migration Made Malmo, Sweden A Crime Capital | true | https://dailywire.com/news/12466/how-muslim-migration-made-malmo-sweden-crime-michael-qazvini | 2017-01-16 | 0 |
<p>Venezuela is a city at war. We’ve moved beyond the failed state designation. The streets of Caracas have become battlefields where those suffering under the iron-fisted rule of the socialist regime are facing off against loyal pro-government supporters in a fight for the future of the country.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, dozens of pro-government agitators infiltrated the grounds of Venezuela's National Assembly and physically assaulted lawmakers that have been at odds with Nicolas Maduro’s increasingly autocratic governance. The agitators left several lawmakers injured. Some were even left with bloodied faces and bruised bodies as the pro-government crowd, armed with sticks, attacked perceived political enemies and released fireworks near the central gardens of the National Assembly building.</p>
<p>The chaos was witnessed by AFP reporters at the scene.</p>
<p>“The government supporters reached as far as the corridors of the congressional building, striking and injuring at least three lawmakers,” <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/venezuela-govt-backers-attack-lawmakers-congress-165635225.html" type="external">reports</a> AFP. “The attackers ordered journalists to stop filming and taking photographs and leave the premises.”</p>
<p>Fighting for the survival of a socialist regime in its final death throes, pro-government agitators deployed every tactic in the Hugo Chavez-inspired playbook, including using threats of violence to silence and censor the press.</p>
<p>The pro-government agitators specifically targeted voices of political dissent in an effort to counter anti-government protests across the country.</p>
<p>“The opposition-controlled legislature was holding a special session to mark independence day when the government supporters burst in,” notes AFP.</p>
<p>Despite the violent showdown, the pro-government agitators did little to soften the opposition against dictator Maduro. If anything, their desperate tactics underscore the government’s fear over the brewing discontent engulfing the country.</p>
<p>In the last few weeks, tens of thousands of Venezuelans have poured in the streets and demanded serious reform. Many are explicitly calling for a regime change. For Maduro, the writing is already on the wall. It’s not a question of if, but when the government falls and joins the Soviet Union, Chile, and others in the dustbin of history.</p> | Government Supporters In Venezuela Attack Opposition Lawmakers In Bloody Battle | true | https://dailywire.com/news/18324/government-supporters-venezuela-attack-opposition-michael-qazvini | 2017-07-06 | 0 |
<p>In early December, on an unseasonably hot and humid Florida day, I sat under a large tent in a crowd of hundreds at the edge of a man-made canal draining the Everglades. On stage, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, deputy assistant secretary of the Army ‘Rock’ Salt who oversees the Corps of Engineers, Gary Guzy, deputy director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and assorted dignitaries to celebrate the decision by the Obama White House and Congress to invest in the elevation of the roadway—one mile of Tamiami Trail—allowing fresh water to flow and hopefully nourish parts of the Everglades that remain as a pale reminder of spectacular biodiversity. Make no mistake: among serial claims of historic accomplishments for restoring the Everglades, this was a big deal. The first hard dollars for a project to restore water flow into the Everglades.</p>
<p>A few hundred feet away, cars and trucks sped across the highway seemingly oblivious to the proceedings. They might have slowed if it were a car crash, an instant fatality, of passengers and drivers thrown from the cars. But the Everglades is another kind of wreck; happening in slow motion over such a long period of time that the easiest course is to forget. It is easy enough to do, in Florida.</p>
<p>From the highway, one cannot even see the Everglades to the north. It is blocked by limestone spoil dredged from the canal and set back from its edges to nearly twenty feet. Even from the tent and rows of folding plastic chairs—brought in by a caterer for the occasion—to see the Everglades you would have to scramble up the spoil bank. The bank itself is only authorized to public access pending approval of half a dozen law enforcement agencies. For me, standing on that spoil was itself an historic occasion. From that vantage, you could simultaneously grasp the speeches, the travelers beyond encased in cars of steel, aluminum and molded plastic, and the Everglades, dammed, diked, and deformed.</p>
<p>Just like the drive-by motorists who have no inkling of the tent and its meaning, and the fishermen ignoring toxic mercury contamination of the fish caught in the canal, many of the attendees at the event were themselves oblivious —or simply could not hold contradictory images at once—that just a few miles away, the Corps of Engineers is about to permit more destruction of Everglades wetlands for industrial rock mining. These permits for wetlands destruction, to be issued soon at the end of nearly a decade of litigation, will likely rob some of the water meant to flow beneath the raised Tamiami Trail costing more than $100 million.</p>
<p>If they wanted, senior officials of the EPA and White House Council on Environmental Quality could elevate the Lake Belt permits sought by industry from the Corps to a higher review. The way things stand, is that DC defers to the local office of the Corps, that defers to the state, the state defers to local jurisdictions that defer to big contributors to political campaigns from the Growth Machine and the engineering cartel. A 2005 St. Petersburg Times special report detailed how in fifteen year period during which “no net loss of wetlands” was federal policy, 84,000 acres of Florida wetlands simply disappeared. (“Paving Paradise: Florida’s vanishing wetlands” by authors Craig Pittman and Matthew Waite was expanded into one of the most important books of 2009.)</p>
<p>The tent sheltered seasoned veterans in the matter of assembling the puzzle of public policies with odd shapes, ownership of land tracts, and laws intersecting at angles that rarely fit into a coherent piece, strong enough to withstand special interests, polluters, and the voracious need of cities for water supply to fuel more growth. A strange division of labor unites the group. Like supervisors who constructed the pyramids of Egypt in the desert, they are informed by a vision and ideal that this damaged ecosystem can rise like a Phoenix.</p>
<p>Maybe. You could glean the tenuous nature of this prospect of man-made resurrections of man-made damage to the environment from a report that appeared a week after the mash-up in the Everglades. The article in the South Florida Sun Sentinel is titled, “South Florida firm now exports cement”. Here how the story begins, “Loading a ship in Broward with tons of cement made in west Miami-Dade is ‘like filling a swimming pool with a coffee cup and stake that cup 30 miles each way’, said (a spokesman) for cement maker Titan America.</p>
<p>The story manages to avoid, utterly, the key point: that the cement coming 30 miles away is coming from Everglades wetlands. There, a foreign corporation based in Greece, paying no tax to the federal treasury on its profits, is excavating Everglades wetlands to ship lime rock to Panama. Consider: at the same time the Everglades are valued highly enough to collect ministers, top political appointees, congressmen and county commissioners, not to mention environmental leaders from hither and yon, only a few miles away the same Everglades are cheap enough to dynamite, chop and grind and ship to Panama.</p>
<p>The ironies pile up so fast you need a IPhone App to keep track. While District Engineer in South Florida in the 1990’s and director of the Governor’s Commission for A Sustainable South Florida, the Corps’ top political official, Rock Salt, was involved in the rock miners’ permits judged to be illegal. Judge William Hoeveler, in his July 2007 ruling, wrote, “In three decades of federal judicial service, this Court has never seen a federal agency respond so indifferently to clear evidence of significant environmental risks related to the agency’s proposed action”. While it has taken nearly a decade for federal litigation to wind its way toward a victory for environmentalists, the current permits under which miners operate are expiring. The rock miners, one of Florida’s wealthiest and most secretive constituencies, are confidently lining up more permits. Win, but lose.</p>
<p>Back under the tent, the Republican congressman whose district encompasses the Everglades, Mario Diaz Balart, talked enthusiastically about the bipartisan love in the Florida delegation for the Everglades. The theme: “Yes it is hard and we have differences, but we are working together” could have been pulled from any speech for the Everglades by a public official; five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago. The same utterances were available from the speakers podium in Palm Beach County in October 2004 when Governor Jeb Bush announced a multi-billion dollar commitment by the state to accelerate restoration of the Everglades. But the Jeb Bush money was for water supply projects benefiting cities and agriculture first, not the Everglades or only at the back end of the investment, and when a longtime Republican congressman, Clay Shaw, had the temerity to say so he was not only banished from the platform wrapped in red, white and blue bunting, in his next campaign he was targeted by the radical, conservative wing of the G.O.P. that had engorged itself on the fictions of the housing market bubble, of wetlands “mitigation” schemes, and the cartel created from serving highly engineered water supply to new suburbs; a game of leap-frogging infrastructure and other cartwheels of public policies that flourished by ignoring its porous financial underpinnings and fraudulent environmental benefits.</p>
<p>But jobs are jobs. That’s what the Sun Sentinel says. “The story behind the first boatload carrying South Florida cement from Port Everglades to Panama this week proves how much work it takes to shift trade gears and save local factory jobs during the U.S. business slump.”</p>
<p>For decades, the United States had permitted the destruction of Everglades wetlands to provide cheap cement for the overdevelopment of Florida. From this point of view, wetlands destruction in Florida partnered with wealth destruction on Wall Street, to balance an unprecedented boom in Florida real estate on the tip of economic and financial catastrophe. Thousands of millionaires floated on the bubble. They depended on Everglades marshes like characters from Glengarry Glen Ross inflated to the size of Macy Day Parade floats. The biggest include sugar billionaires and rock miners, even more secretive and contained behind barbed wire fencing, security cameras, and massive drag lines.</p>
<p>The rock miners don’t want the wetlands. They scrape them clean. What they want is underneath a scrim of soil covering cap rock. Once the limestone—made from fossilized coral – is dynamited and gobbled up by crushers, exposing the aquifer, it is converted to base material for cement and asphalt. A thousand highways growing like kudzu and shopping malls blooming like bougainvillea and new tracts of farmland or wetlands opened to sprawl: all are derivatives of Florida wetlands.</p>
<p>The rock pits left behind after the wetlands are dug out are also convection routes for pollution (Judge Hoeveler also ruled that the Lake Belt rock mines had put the drinking water wells serving more than 2 million residents of Miami-Dade County at risk of contamination) and political corruption. In Palm Beach County, a 1999 deal to put one rock mine in public ownership—for the purposes of “water storage”—eventually landed three of five Palm Beach county commissioners in federal prison but not before a well-connected Republican campaign contributor grossed $200,000 per acre from the state.</p>
<p>This free market folly rises to nearly the height of new nuclear reactors sought by FPL, the largest utility in the state, at the water’s edge of Biscayne National Park; the cost to be borne by ratepayers, $20 billion, is what is estimated to restore the entire remaining Everglades. An important project feature includes a rock mine– presented by the engineering cartel as a faux restoration feature—for provide enough fill to raise the reactors twenty five feet above sea level.</p>
<p>In the Lake Belt in West Miami-Dade County in 2002, the US Army Corps of Engineers issued ten-year permits to Florida rock miners for 5600 acres of Everglades wetlands destruction. Those permits have been judged to be illegal in federal court. There is time for the Obama administration to fairly balance the costs to the Everglades and the public. The price the rock mining industry pays per ton for its privilege to destroy Everglades wetlands in the Lake Belt Area is 25 cents.</p>
<p>ALAN FARAGO writes on culture, the environment and politics in Coral Gables, FL. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p> | Destroying the Everglades at 25 Cents Per Ton | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/12/21/destroying-the-everglades-at-25-cents-per-ton/ | 2009-12-21 | 4 |
<p>Sen. Bernie Sanders: “agitator” or “spoiler”? (cc photo: Don Shall)</p>
<p>The Washington Post ( <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/more-liberal-populist-movement-emerging-in-democratic-party-ahead-of-2016-elections/2013/11/30/6729a850-53a7-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_print.html" type="external">12/1/13</a>) has&#160; a piece&#160; about what it considers a leftward push inside the Democratic party. This is not the kind of thing that gets a lot of attention in corporate media; when it does, there’s a tendency to portray it as a potential problem. The Post article is no different.</p>
<p>Under the print-edition headline “Democratic Party Feeling Heat From a Revived Left,” reporter <a href="" type="internal">Zachary Goldfarb</a> explains:</p>
<p>As Obama struggles to achieve his second-term domestic agenda, a more liberal and populist voice is emerging within a Democratic Party already looking ahead to the next presidential election. The push from the left represents both a critique of Obama’s tenure and a clear challenge to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the party’s presumptive presidential front-runner, who carries a more centrist banner.</p>
<p>So where are we seeing this populist push? The Post identifies a few examples of this left agenda: protecting Social Security from cuts, a minimum wage increase, narrowing income inequality and “making a case for tougher financial regulations.”</p>
<p>Inevitably, the Post sees danger:</p>
<p>But the push from the left carries political risks for Democrats, who could be accused of being reckless about the national debt or insensitive to the demands of business and economic growth. What’s more, many Americans are uncomfortable with the notion of the government redistributing income far beyond what happens today in order to accomplish basic elements of the populist agenda. Liberal congressional or presidential candidates could pressure more moderate candidates to veer to the left, perhaps reducing their electability.</p>
<p>But those “political risks” are hard to figure, since all of the political issues identified here are broadly popular. The last time a very similar article was written–in the New York Times this past summer–the worry was that these positions would pull Democrats away from “the center.” As Ezra Klein of the Washington Post <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/25/theres-no-such-thing-as-the-center/" type="external">pointed out</a> back then, most of the policy ideas–regulating banks, protecting Social Security and Medicare–were wildly popular with the public.</p>
<p>Raising taxes on the wealthy is <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/polls-show-longtime-support-for-tax-hikes-on-rich/" type="external">similarly popular</a>–as the Washington Post‘s <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/84319.html" type="external">own polling</a> has shown–which makes it unclear why the Post is worried that “many Americans are uncomfortable with the notion of the government redistributing income.” If anything, they’d like to see more of it.</p>
<p>The Post piece includes a reference to a possible presidential campaign by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-Vt.).</p>
<p>Although his chances would be slim at best, he could serve as an agitator who pulled other candidates to the left—or as a potential spoiler if his campaign got off the ground.</p>
<p>&#160;An “agitator” or a “spoiler”–which will it be?</p> | Washington Post: The Problem With Populism | true | http://fair.org/blog/2013/12/02/washington-post-the-problem-with-populism/ | 2013-12-02 | 4 |
<p>By Kara Brandeisky, ProPublicaThis piece originally ran on <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/what-the-proposed-nsa-reforms-wouldnt-do" type="external">ProPublica</a>.</p>
<p>Ten months after Edward Snowden’s first disclosures, three main legislative proposals have emerged for surveillance reform: one <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/27/fact-sheet-administration-s-proposal-ending-section-215-bulk-telephony-m" type="external">from President Obama</a>, one from the <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1098243-fisa-transparency-and-modernization-act.html" type="external">House Intelligence Committee</a>, and one <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1005751-usa-freedom-act.html" type="external">proposal</a> <a href="https://www.aclu.org/support-usa-freedom-act" type="external">favored by civil libertarians</a>.</p>
<p>All the plans purport to end the bulk phone records collection program, but there are big differences – and a lot they don’t do. Here’s a rundown.</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>What it would do: As described, the <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/27/fact-sheet-administration-s-proposal-ending-section-215-bulk-telephony-m" type="external">president’s proposal</a> would prohibit the collection of bulk phone records. Instead, the government would seek individualized court orders every time it wants American phone metadata. The government would get the data from telecoms, which <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/us/obama-to-seek-nsa-curb-on-call-data.html?_r=0" type="external">already keep it</a> for at least 18 months.</p>
<p>The proposal would solidify some changes Obama has already made: For instance, since January, analysts have needed to get court approval before searching the phone records database. Also, NSA analysts have only been able to obtain records from people who are two “hops” away from a surveillance target – a target’s friends’ friends – rather than three “hops” away. Obama’s proposal would make both of those policies law.</p>
<p>What it wouldn’t do: It’s hard to know. The White House hasn’t released the actual text of the legislation, and lawmakers have yet to introduce it in Congress. But privacy advocates do have <a href="http://justsecurity.org/2014/03/25/questions-presidents-phone-records-proposal/" type="external">a lot of questions</a>.</p>
<p>One thing the president hasn’t proposed: ending the bulk phone records program now. He could do that without any vote if he simply stopped asking the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to reauthorize the program, as Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., <a href="http://www.leahy.senate.gov/press/comment-of-senator-patrick-leahy-d-vt_chairman-senate-judiciary-committee-on-the-presidents-proposed-reforms-to-the-bulk-records-collection-program-" type="external">has suggested</a>.</p>
<p>The secret surveillance court’s <a href="http://icontherecord.tumblr.com/post/72206017190/foreign-intelligence-surveillance-court-approves" type="external">last 90-day</a> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order" type="external">order for Verizon phone records</a> <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-27/obama-nsa-plan-requires-court-ok-for-phone-data-access.html" type="external">has expired</a>. President Obama reportedly wants the court to renew the program <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/us/obama-to-seek-nsa-curb-on-call-data.html?_r=0" type="external">at least one more time</a>, to give Congress a chance to pass new legislation. Until Congress acts, the NSA will continue collecting American phone records in bulk.</p>
<p>Of course, if President Obama were to act unilaterally, another president could later reverse his changes. If Congress passes his proposal, his reforms will have the force of law.</p>
<p>The president’s proposal also appears to address only one of the NSA’s many surveillance programs. It doesn’t seem to change the FISA Amendments Act, which allows the NSA to sweep up foreigners’ communications without a warrant. In the process, the NSA “incidentally” collects Americans’ communications.</p>
<p>In January, Obama said he would ask the Justice Department to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/us/politics/obamas-speech-on-nsa-phone-surveillance.html" type="external">limit the government’s authority</a> to use any American communications collected while targeting foreigners. The administration has not offered any details yet. However, even the <a href="http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-udall-issue-statement-on-effectiveness-of-declassified-nsa-programs" type="external">Senate’s biggest NSA critics</a> say the FISA Amendments Act has been an effective counter-terrorism tool, so Congress is unlikely to repeal it.</p>
<p />
<p>What it would do: very little to limit surveillance. <a href="http://intelligence.house.gov/press-release/house-intelligence-leadership-introduces-legislation-end-nsa-bulk-telephone-metadata" type="external">Introduced</a> by House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and ranking member C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-MD, this bill represents the wishes of the NSA’s <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/54117257/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/t/january-dianne-feinstein-mike-rogers-alexis-ohanian-john-wisniewski-rudy-giuliani-robert-gates-newt-gingrich-andrea-mitchell-harold-ford-jr-nia-malika-henderson/#.UzlmUK1dWd-" type="external">biggest defenders in Congress</a>.</p>
<p>The bill nominally <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1098243-fisa-transparency-and-modernization-act.html#document/p2/a151899" type="external">bans the government’s bulk collection of phone records</a>. Like Obama’s plan, telecoms would keep the records, but this in proposal, the government could request the records without a court order.</p>
<p>The bill also says it would prohibit the government from indiscriminate collection of <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1098243-fisa-transparency-and-modernization-act.html#document/p3/a151901" type="external">other kinds of data</a>, including “library circulation records,” “firearm sales records,” and “tax return records.” But the government could still use search terms to get the records it wants.</p>
<p>What else it would do: roll back current protections in the law. The legislation would <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1098243-fisa-transparency-and-modernization-act.html#document/p16/a151902" type="external">no longer require</a> that the government get a court order before obtaining American records. Instead, the secret surveillance court would review the privacy procedures <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1098243-fisa-transparency-and-modernization-act.html#document/p19/a152097" type="external">before</a> the Justice Department collects any records, and the court could also tell the government to stop collecting records <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1098243-fisa-transparency-and-modernization-act.html#document/p26/a152118" type="external">after the fact</a>.</p>
<p>Also, under <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1861" type="external">current law</a>, the government needs to show that records are related to foreign terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities. Rogers’ bill would <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1098243-fisa-transparency-and-modernization-act.html#document/p16/a151902" type="external">change that standard</a>, requiring the government to show that records are for an individual who is associated with a “foreign power” – a <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1801/" type="external">broad term</a> that includes terrorist groups, foreign governments and foreign political groups.</p>
<p>If the bill passes, a lot would depend on how the secret surveillance court interprets it. For instance, what kinds of “selection terms” could the government use to search for records? The broader the search terms, the more likely it is that innocent people will get caught in the dragnet.</p>
<p>Finally, Rogers’ bill would not amend the FISA Amendments Act. “I don’t believe that foreign collection on foreign soil is something that we need to change,” <a href="http://time.com/37336/lawmakers-float-their-own-nsa-reform-bill/" type="external">Rogers said</a>.</p>
<p>This bill has <a href="http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/03/boehner-backs-nsa-reform-but-not-the-one-proposed-by-obama/359645/" type="external">House Speaker John Boehner’s</a> support.</p>
<p />
<p>What it would do: A lot. First, the bill’s authors, Democratic senator Leahy and Patriot Act author Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., say the legislation would end all bulk collection of American records. To do so, they’d narrow the language in the Patriot Act to require that the government only collects records that are ” <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1005751-usa-freedom-act.html#document/p4/a151738" type="external">relevant and material</a>” to an authorized investigation. To qualify, an investigation must be related to foreign terrorism or clandestine activities, and the records must directly “ <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1005751-usa-freedom-act.html#document/p4/a151738" type="external">pertain</a>” to a foreign power.</p>
<p>The proposal would also <a href="http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1005751-usa-freedom-act.html#document/p34/a151739" type="external">close a so-called backdoor loophole</a> that allows the NSA to search its databases for the content of Americans’ communications. Under the new bill, analysts would need an individualized warrant to access any domestic content collected “incidentally.”</p>
<p>In addition, the lawmakers would also tighten oversight of national security letters, a kind of administrative subpoena that lets the FBI obtain records related to “national security” without a court order. The idea is to make sure that the <a href="https://www.leahy.senate.gov/download/usa-freedom-act-two-pager-final" type="external">government can’t use the national security letters law</a> to justify bulk collection of American records in the future.</p>
<p>What it wouldn’t do: The bill covers a lot of bases and has won the support of the <a href="https://www.aclu.org/support-usa-freedom-act" type="external">ACLU</a>, the <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/floor-not-ceiling-supporting-usa-freedom-act-step-towards-less-surveillance" type="external">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a>, <a href="http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3361/cosponsors?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22USA+freedom+act%22%5D%7D" type="external">142 representatives</a> and <a href="http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/1599/cosponsors?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22USA+freedom+act%22%5D%7D" type="external">21 senators</a>.</p>
<p>However, some worry that the bill does not unequivocally ban bulk collection of American records. Again, a lot depends on how the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court interprets the statute. While this bill’s language is narrower than current law, we now know the secret surveillance court <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323873904578571893758853344?mg=reno64-wsj" type="external">has interpreted the Patriot Act very broadly</a>. The EFF has suggested that the bill’s sponsors <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/floor-not-ceiling-supporting-usa-freedom-act-step-towards-less-surveillance" type="external">make their intent more explicit</a>.</p>
<p>This bill has by far the most co-sponsors, but its prospects are uncertain – it was <a href="http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3361/all-actions/?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22USA+freedom+act%22%5D%7D" type="external">introduced in October</a>, and it still hasn’t reached the floor.</p>
<p /> | What the Proposed NSA Reforms Wouldn’t Do | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/what-the-proposed-nsa-reforms-wouldnt-do/ | 2014-04-15 | 4 |
<p>LONDON&#160;– Justin Gatlin ruined Usain Bolt’s farewell party when the 35-year-old American won the world 100 metres title on Saturday, beating the Jamaican superstar into third and sparking a chorus of boos from a London crowd unhappy with his doping past.</p>
<p>What was meant to be a glorious celebration of the departure of the sport’s greatest showman turned into a condemnation of its biggest pantomime villain as Gatlin, twice banned for drug offences, rolled back the years to win a second world title 12 years after his first and 13 after claiming Olympic 100m gold.</p>
<p>As so often before Bolt made a terrible start but for once could not make it up as Christian Coleman, the 21-year-old American who beat him in the semi-finals, looked set for victory.</p>
<p>But Gatlin, who stumbled at the death to lose the 2015 world final to Bolt by a hundredth of a second, on this occasion timed his surge and dip to perfection to win in 9.92 seconds.</p>
<p>Coleman, who has run over 40 races this year but turned professional only a few weeks ago, took silver in 9.94.</p>
<p>Bolt, straining every sinew, fought all the way to the line but the pace and grace that took him to his world record of 9.58 eight years ago has withered with age and perennial injury battles and this time he ran out of track.</p>
<p>“It’s just one of those things,” Bolt said. “My start is killing me. Normally, it gets better during the rounds but it didn’t come together.”</p>
<p>When the results flashed up on the giant screen the crowd immediately began repeating the booing with which Gatlin’s name had been greeted since the heats on Friday.</p>
<p>Perhaps unsurprisingly, his first response was to put his finger to his lips to indicate silence.</p>
<p>The crowd reacted by chanting Bolt’s name and the Jamaican hugged Gatlin and told him he did not deserve the disrespect.</p>
<p>“I tuned it out (the boos) through the rounds and stayed the course. I did what I had to do,” said Gatlin, who served a four-year ban from 2006 for a second doping offence – which he always denied.</p>
<p>“The people who love me are here cheering for me and cheering at home.</p>
<p>“It is Bolt’s last race and he’s the man so it’s not about beating him. I have had many victories and many defeats down the years, he’s pushed and inspired me to be the athlete I am today.</p>
<p>“It’s surreal really to come across the line first – it’s still his night.</p>
<p>“We are rivals on the track but in the warm-down area we joke and have a good time. The first thing he did was congratulate me and say that I didn’t deserve the boos. He is an inspiration.”</p>
<p>As always, the ever-popular Bolt gave generously of his time after the race to fans and media alike, despite the unfamiliarity of finishing third for the first time in a major championship.</p>
<p>The Jamaican had been seeking a fourth 100m world title to go with his four over 200m, four relay golds and eight Olympic crowns and a capacity 56,000 crowd had turned out fully expecting to celebrate it.</p>
<p>“I needed to be in a better place after 30 metres but I just wasn’t in that super-shape I needed to be in,” said Bolt, who turns 31 this month.</p>
<p>“I gave it my best shot but my body’s telling me it’s time to go.”</p>
<p>He still has another chance to add to the medal tally in the 4x100m relay next week – when he will be desperate to avenge Saturday’s defeat in what, if the Americans manage to get the baton round, should be a last-leg showdown with Gatlin.</p>
<p>Also in the U.S. team will be Coleman, who looked set for a remarkable victory running in the lane alongside Bolt until the man 14 years his senior snatched it from lane eight of nine.</p>
<p>Coleman, however, was not about to complain.</p>
<p>“Both of us have done well, I’m really happy for him to get the gold and I’m delighted with silver,” he said.</p>
<p>Of Bolt, he added: “He’s a man who has taken the sport to a whole new level.</p>
<p>“He’s been an icon of mine as I’ve grown up. It’s an honour to toe the line with him.”</p> | Gatlin Stuns Bolt to Win 100m World Title | false | https://newsline.com/gatlin-stuns-bolt-to-win-100m-world-title/ | 2017-08-05 | 1 |
<p>Utah's $1.9 billion claim against the Environmental Protection Agency for a multi-state mine waste spill says Utah's water, soil and wildlife were damaged, but it offers no specifics.</p>
<p>The Utah Attorney General's Office provided a copy of the claim to The Associated Press Wednesday.</p>
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<p>The claim stems from the release of 3 million gallons (11 million liters) of wastewater from the inactive Gold King Mine in southwestern Colorado in August 2015. An EPA-led contractor crew inadvertently triggered the spill.</p>
<p>The spill polluted rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah and turned some waterways an orange-yellow color. Indian lands were also affected.</p>
<p>Farmers and utilities temporarily stopped drawing water from the rivers, and rafting companies had to suspend operations. The EPA said water quality quickly returned to pre-spill levels.</p>
<p>Utah's claim from the spill is believed to be the largest of 144 filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows people to seek government compensation without a lawsuit. The claims seek payment for lost crops, livestock, wages and income and other damages.</p>
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<p>The Navajo Nation filed a claim for $162 million and the state of New Mexico for $130 million. Both have also filed lawsuits against the federal government.</p>
<p>Utah also filed suit, but it named mine owners and EPA contractors as defendants, not the government.</p>
<p>The EPA said January it was prevented by law from paying any of the damages under the Tort Claims Act, angering many. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who took over after President Donald Trump assumed office, has said the agency will reconsider at least some of the claims.</p>
<p>Utah's claim cites damage to the San Juan River and Lake Powell, a vast reservoir on the Colorado River which the San Juan feeds into. It also cites damage to other waterways, underground water, soil, sediment, wildlife and other, unspecified natural resources.</p>
<p>It does not say how state officials arrived at the $1.9 billion figure.</p>
<p>Dan Burton, a spokesman for Attorney General Sean Reyes, said the state's lawyers came up with the number after consulting with Utah Department of Environmental Quality scientists and others.</p>
<p>"We've looked at other environmental claims across the country and throughout history to identify what has happened in those situations and what the costs were," Burton said.</p>
<p>"We can always lower it," he said. "We just can't raise it."</p>
<p>Burton said state officials have been negotiating with the EPA on a settlement but he declined to offer details.</p>
<p>Donna Kemp Spangler, a spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, said the state is still trying to assess the damage from the spill.</p>
<p>"I don't think we know the extent yet," she said.</p>
<p>The state has said previously it detected elevated levels of aluminum and other metals in the San Juan River. Officials have also said they expect river flows to deposit some of the metals from the spill in Lake Powell.</p>
<p>The EPA-led crew was using heavy equipment to excavate the mine opening in preparation for a possible cleanup when a worker breached a debris pile that was holding back wastewater in the shaft. The water flowed into Cement Creek and then the Animas River in Colorado. The Animas joins the San Juan River in New Mexico before the San Juan crosses into Utah.</p>
<p>The EPA estimates that nearly 540 U.S. tons (490 metric tons) of metals reached the Animas, mostly iron and aluminum.</p>
<p>After the spill, the EPA designated the Gold King and 47 other mining sites in the area a Superfund district and is reviewing options for a broad cleanup.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Dan Elliott at http://twitter.com/DanElliottAP. His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/dan%20elliott.</p> | Utah's $1.9 billion claim from mine spill reveals no details | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/08/09/utahs-1-9-billion-claim-from-mine-spill-reveals-no-details.html | 2017-08-09 | 0 |
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dez_Dickerson" type="external">Dez Dickerson</a> knows culture because he's been part of the A&amp;E community as a conservative for over 20 years as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Formerly as Prince's guitarist in his band The Revolution, Dickerson has been on the front lines and knows the importance of influence in entertainment. I spoke with him today about this culture war in which the GOP must engage:</p>
<p /> | Dez Dickerson Talks The Culture War | true | http://danaloeschradio.com/dez-dickerson-talks-the-culture-war/ | 2012-11-08 | 0 |
<p>PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Jay Ajayi is rested, refreshed and ready.</p>
<p>The Philadelphia Eagles can jump aboard the Jay Train when they host Atlanta in an NFC divisional playoff Saturday and try to ride Ajayi to the conference title game.</p>
<p>Ajayi will see his first action in 19 days when he lines up against the Falcons (11-6). He sat out the final game before enjoying his third bye week of the season — one with Miami and two with Philadelphia (13-3).</p>
<p>"I feel really good, like, I feel really good," said Ajayi, who has been bothered by knee issues. "No. 1 seed team with an opportunity to go get a Super Bowl. I'm grateful, I'm blessed, I'm excited for this opportunity because it's all in front of us and if we really take advantage of what we want to do and execute how we can, we can get it done."</p>
<p>Two weeks before he joined the Eagles, Ajayi ran for <a href="http://www.nfl.com/m/share?p=%2Fvideos%2Fnfl-game-highlights%2F0ap3000000861550%2FJay-Ajayi-highlights-Week-6" type="external">130 yards</a> in Miami's 20-17 win over Atlanta on Oct. 15. He hasn't carried the ball as much in Philadelphia, but he might have to be a workhorse this week.</p>
<p>"Same guys. My mentality hasn't changed," Ajayi said. "My mindset is always downhill, attacking, try to punish guys. One-on-one, it's all about not being tackled."</p>
<p>Ajayi was the main man in Miami, averaging 20 carries per game. He had 465 yards rushing, an average of 3.4 yards and no touchdowns. Last year, Ajayi went to the Pro Bowl after running for 1,272 yards, including three 200-yard games.</p>
<p>After coming to Philly, he adjusted to being part of a rotation. Ajayi shared the backfield with LeGarrette Blount and Corey Cement and didn't get more than 15 carries in any game following the trade.</p>
<p>Ajayi finished with 408 yards rushing, <a href="http://www.nfl.com/m/share?p=%2Fvideos%2Fnfl-cant-miss-plays%2F0ap3000000872014%2FCan-t-Miss-Play-Jay-Ajayi-s-first-TD-with-Eagles-is-a-46-yard-jolt" type="external">one touchdown</a> and an average of 5.8 yards per carry in seven games for the Eagles. Blount led the team with 766 yards rushing and Clement had 321.</p>
<p>The offense sputtered in the last two games with Nick Foles at quarterback. Relying on Ajayi's running can help take pressure off Foles.</p>
<p>"I'm excited. I'm already a round further than I've been in my career," said Ajayi, who had 33 yards rushing in a wild-card loss to Pittsburgh last year. "For the guys who've been to the playoffs and lost, those memories of getting bounced should definitely fuel you. You should have that chip, want to get there and want to bring it home and that starts this Saturday."</p>
<p>The Eagles are the first No. 1 seed to be an underdog in their first playoff game. The sixth-seeded Falcons are 3-point favorites.</p>
<p>"It's not insulting. That's the story line right now," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mos6AFgn1BI" type="external">Ajayi said</a> . "Without 11 (Carson Wentz), we're nothing basically. That's what we've been hearing. We're excited to come out Saturday and showcase what we can do."</p>
<p>It's starts with getting aboard the Jay Train. Ajayi loves the nickname that he earned at Boise State. He even wears a gold train pendant on his chain.</p>
<p>"The Jay Train is always out," he said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP NFL website: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Rob Maaddi on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/AP_RobMaaddi" type="external">https://twitter.com/AP_RobMaaddi</a></p>
<p>PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Jay Ajayi is rested, refreshed and ready.</p>
<p>The Philadelphia Eagles can jump aboard the Jay Train when they host Atlanta in an NFC divisional playoff Saturday and try to ride Ajayi to the conference title game.</p>
<p>Ajayi will see his first action in 19 days when he lines up against the Falcons (11-6). He sat out the final game before enjoying his third bye week of the season — one with Miami and two with Philadelphia (13-3).</p>
<p>"I feel really good, like, I feel really good," said Ajayi, who has been bothered by knee issues. "No. 1 seed team with an opportunity to go get a Super Bowl. I'm grateful, I'm blessed, I'm excited for this opportunity because it's all in front of us and if we really take advantage of what we want to do and execute how we can, we can get it done."</p>
<p>Two weeks before he joined the Eagles, Ajayi ran for <a href="http://www.nfl.com/m/share?p=%2Fvideos%2Fnfl-game-highlights%2F0ap3000000861550%2FJay-Ajayi-highlights-Week-6" type="external">130 yards</a> in Miami's 20-17 win over Atlanta on Oct. 15. He hasn't carried the ball as much in Philadelphia, but he might have to be a workhorse this week.</p>
<p>"Same guys. My mentality hasn't changed," Ajayi said. "My mindset is always downhill, attacking, try to punish guys. One-on-one, it's all about not being tackled."</p>
<p>Ajayi was the main man in Miami, averaging 20 carries per game. He had 465 yards rushing, an average of 3.4 yards and no touchdowns. Last year, Ajayi went to the Pro Bowl after running for 1,272 yards, including three 200-yard games.</p>
<p>After coming to Philly, he adjusted to being part of a rotation. Ajayi shared the backfield with LeGarrette Blount and Corey Cement and didn't get more than 15 carries in any game following the trade.</p>
<p>Ajayi finished with 408 yards rushing, <a href="http://www.nfl.com/m/share?p=%2Fvideos%2Fnfl-cant-miss-plays%2F0ap3000000872014%2FCan-t-Miss-Play-Jay-Ajayi-s-first-TD-with-Eagles-is-a-46-yard-jolt" type="external">one touchdown</a> and an average of 5.8 yards per carry in seven games for the Eagles. Blount led the team with 766 yards rushing and Clement had 321.</p>
<p>The offense sputtered in the last two games with Nick Foles at quarterback. Relying on Ajayi's running can help take pressure off Foles.</p>
<p>"I'm excited. I'm already a round further than I've been in my career," said Ajayi, who had 33 yards rushing in a wild-card loss to Pittsburgh last year. "For the guys who've been to the playoffs and lost, those memories of getting bounced should definitely fuel you. You should have that chip, want to get there and want to bring it home and that starts this Saturday."</p>
<p>The Eagles are the first No. 1 seed to be an underdog in their first playoff game. The sixth-seeded Falcons are 3-point favorites.</p>
<p>"It's not insulting. That's the story line right now," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mos6AFgn1BI" type="external">Ajayi said</a> . "Without 11 (Carson Wentz), we're nothing basically. That's what we've been hearing. We're excited to come out Saturday and showcase what we can do."</p>
<p>It's starts with getting aboard the Jay Train. Ajayi loves the nickname that he earned at Boise State. He even wears a gold train pendant on his chain.</p>
<p>"The Jay Train is always out," he said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP NFL website: <a href="http://www.pro32.ap.org" type="external">www.pro32.ap.org</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/AP_NFL" type="external">www.twitter.com/AP_NFL</a></p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Rob Maaddi on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/AP_RobMaaddi" type="external">https://twitter.com/AP_RobMaaddi</a></p> | Ajayi ready to give Eagles a ride on Jay Train vs. Falcons | false | https://apnews.com/amp/e4f88a748fad4fa887076952ec5956d1 | 2018-01-11 | 2 |
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<p>While the minimum wage debate wages on, Moo Cluck Moo is raising starting wages to $15 an hour. Owner Brian Parker says the emphasis in his restaurant’s model is on the food and the crew, which adds up to 70% of cost. Parker says they’re not going into high-rent areas, and are being mindful of utilities and other fixed costs.</p>
<p>Housing, once the bright spot of the economy, is seeing its star fading as mortgage rates rise. John Burns Real Estate Consulting CEO John Burns weighs in on the decline of multiple bids on homes. He says while the housing market is slowing down, there’s no reason to panic.</p>
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<p>Students in the United States are getting out-educated by students abroad, and only 32% of students are proficient in math. ‘Endangering Prosperity’ author Eric Hanushek says our education system will have a big impact on our long-term productivity and prosperity. Hanushek says if we don’t educate our own citizens, we’ll need to bring in talent from overseas, which puts American workers at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>Former TARP Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky says there’s a big profit in being ‘too big to fail,’ and he could absolutely see the financial crisis happening again. He says bailouts incentivize greater risk-taking, and makes the economy more dangerous as a whole.</p> | 4 to Watch: Do Buyers or Sellers Have an Edge in the Housing Market? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/09/17/4-to-watch-do-buyers-or-sellers-have-edge-in-housing-market.html | 2016-06-14 | 0 |
<p><a href="http://variety.com/t/alexander-payne/" type="external">Alexander Payne</a>’s “ <a href="http://variety.com/t/downsizing/" type="external">Downsizing</a>” has curiously registered as one of the most divisive films in Telluride this year. Curious because Payne is a recent favored son. He first attended the fest six years ago with “The Descendants” and has come back frequently, going so far as to serve on the Telluride board.</p>
<p>It’s not that favored sons (or daughters) are guaranteed a warm reception every time they return, and Payne himself noted at the film’s North American premiere Friday afternoon that he doesn’t take selection on the program here as a given. Nevertheless, asking around town as various festival goers catch up with his latest, it’s clear it’s not a slam dunk this awards season.</p>
<p>Some love it, finding it to be a complex juggling act as Payne deals in urgent social concepts with his and co-writer Jim Taylor’s trademark biting wit. Others have felt disengaged with the material, calling it a messy attempt to reconcile these various ideas in a tonally misshapen stew. Furthermore, actress Hong Chau’s performance — which ranges from wildly comedic to intimately emotional — entered problematic territory for many as some have noted that its broad strokes veer into the realm of stereotype. (Prepare for a wave of think pieces on that.)</p>
<p>All in all it’s a very unexpected reaction, particularly on the heels of a Venice opening night bow last week that landed strong critical notices. The position it leaves Paramount in is needing to marshal those yay-sayers and capitalizing on any sort of passion vote that could help the movie register as a serious best picture contender. (On the nominations ballot, films are ranked 1-5, so Paramount will be hoping for as many 1s and 2s as possible). What’s helpful for the studio and its consultants is that “Downsizing” is exposed now, early, giving it time to recover and find the right avenue through the season. It’s scheduled for release on Dec. 22.</p>
<p>And Payne has been here before. “Nebraska” was met with a muted reaction when it screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. It just didn’t play well to the European audience, and it was mainly only there to drum up international exposure anyway. When the film came back around in Telluride later that year, it caught its stride and never looked back.</p>
<p>So “Downsizing” could still get there. There’s just a steeper hill to climb than one might have expected out of Venice. But the reaction does cast a different light on Paramount’s stable; “Downsizing” isn’t the studio’s only player this season. One wonders how Darren Aronofsky’s “Mother!” will land, particularly with a more internationalized Academy. That film is set for a Venice bow as well, and it feels like the kind of movie hugely dependent on that passion vote element. George Clooney’s “Suburbicon,” however, looks to be a non-starter on the circuit, though it has never been pitched as anything more than a commercial play.</p>
<p>It’s clear that Payne’s film is the studio’s major hopeful, but it has also been overshadowed in Telluride. Movies like “Darkest Hour” and fellow Venice premiere “The Shape of Water” have taken audiences by storm and look to be clear cut contenders. Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” is also winning hearts, while Scott Cooper’s “Hostiles” has played profoundly for those who saw it Saturday night and Sunday morning, promising a feeding frenzy on the acquisitions side.</p>
<p>The road is long and windy and no fate is sealed in September. So look for Paramount to regroup while avoiding the Toronto and New York film festivals and come back swinging with a campaign geared toward the social import of a movie that ultimately has something to say about the impact humans are making on the world. Speaking of which, Al Gore is in their quiver, too, remember, here at the fest with a special presentation of “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.” Hmm. Payne and a former Vice President could make for fascinating Oscar season bedfellows indeed.</p> | After Venice Raves, Alexander Payne’s ‘Downsizing’ Divides Telluride Audiences | false | https://newsline.com/after-venice-raves-alexander-paynes-downsizing-divides-telluride-audiences/ | 2017-09-03 | 1 |
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<p>HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — The top officer at U.S. Strategic Command said Saturday an order from President Donald Trump or any of his successors to launch nuclear weapons can be refused if that order is determined to be illegal.</p>
<p>Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of Strategic Command, told a panel at the Halifax International Security Forum on Saturday that he and Trump have had conversations about such a scenario and that he would tell Trump he couldn’t carry out an illegal strike.</p>
<p>“If it’s illegal, guess what’s going to happen. I’m going to say, ‘Mr President, that’s illegal.’ And guess what he’s going to do? He’s going to say, ‘What would be legal?'” Hyten said.</p>
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<p>“And we’ll come up with options with a mix of capabilities to respond to whatever the situation is, and that’s the way it works.”</p>
<p>In the event that Trump decided to launch a nuclear attack, Hyten would provide him with strike options that are legal.</p>
<p>The command would control nuclear forces in a war.</p>
<p>The comments come as the threat of nuclear attack from North Korea remains a serious concern and Trump’s critics question his temperament. Trump’s taunting tweets aimed at Pyongyang have sparked concerns primarily among congressional Democrats that he may be inciting a war with North Korea.</p>
<p>During testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month, retired Gen. Robert Kehler who served as the head of Strategic Command from January 2011 to November 2013, also said the U.S. armed forces are obligated to follow legal orders, not illegal ones.</p>
<p>Hyten said he’s talked it over with Trump.</p>
<p>“I think some people think we’re stupid. We’re not stupid people. We think about these things a lot. When you have this responsibility how do you not think about it?” he said.</p>
<p>He said he would not obey an illegal order.</p>
<p>“You could go to jail for the rest of your life,” he said.</p> | US general says illegal nuclear launch order can be refused | false | https://abqjournal.com/1094922/us-general-says-nuclear-launch-order-can-be-refused.html | 2017-11-18 | 2 |
<p>Around this time last year, I was talking about that controversial condom mandate that shed another light of judgement on the American porn industry. <a href="" type="internal">The post</a> didn’t lack disappointment in the current state of erotic film. Violent images that reinforce a misogynistic male gaze are often in full effect. And, let’s be honest, if you share any of my feminist sentiments, sexism in mainstream porn can be a bit of turn off.&#160;&#160;While female bodies are necessarily in front of the camera for hetero porn, rarely are they uplifted behind the camera. In imaging new directions for porn — films and projects that are more inclusive, more focused on pleasure, more reflective of a broad range of desires, and those that challenge misogyny and the dominant heteronormative male gaze — questioning who is able to produce porn is important.</p>
<p>Enter female erotic film director Erika Lust. She is the creator of <a href="http://xconfessions.com/" type="external">XConfessions</a>, a site that takes women’s desires to a <a href="http://cdn.yourepeat.com/media/gif/000/524/851/cb701a4f2ab67a46369f41aed4c50be6.gif" type="external">whole ‘nother level</a>. Her innovative project is in complete service to creating porn that her viewers, mainly women, want to see. Viewers can confess their fantasies and each month Erika Lust and her will turn two into erotic short films. I was able to ask Erika Lust a few questions about her experiences creating erotic films and here’s what she had to say.</p>
<p>SB: Where are you from, where do you currently live?</p>
<p>EL: I was born in Stockholm, in the cold winter of 1977. I grew up in Sweden before deciding that I needed more sun and a more relaxed lifestyle. So I moved to Barcelona in 2000 to learn Spanish and film direction and decided to stay. I now have two Catalan daughters, my partner Pablo, and a successful company! It has has been an amazing trip!</p>
<p>SB: Erika Lust is such a cool name. How’d you come up with it?</p>
<p>EL My Swedish surname is very difficult to write and pronounce. Plus Lust sounded much better as a name for an erotic film director. But Erika is my real first name!</p>
<p>SB: Have you always been interested in erotica? What sparked that interest?</p>
<p>EL: Growing up in a country like Sweden where sex is a very liberal [openly discussed] subject,&#160;it was hard not too! But my interest was really sparked off when I watched a porn film for the first time at a girlfriend’s sleepover. We were all really excited with the anticipation to uncover the mysteries of sex! But we were disappointed and let down by the lack of imagination, story line, and relatable characters. I realized this again when I was studying Political Science at the University of Lund and decided to watch another film with my then-boyfriend. Then I came across Hardcore,&#160;a book by Berkeley Professor Linda Williams. That was my Eureka moment! I realized that porn is actually a discourse about sexuality and can be used as a tool to continue the sexual liberation of women. So to do this there needed to be more dominate female voices in the industry so we could make GOOD PORN. Porn led by women, representing our values, kinks and pleasures using performers that could portray roles we could relate too.</p>
<p>SB: Can you describe the process of becoming a filmmaker? What barriers did you encounter?</p>
<p>EL: It all began after I made the decision to study filmmaking in Barcelona as this was when I began to seriously think about working within audiovisual erotica. I started reading articles about the little influence women hves in mass media, and then I suddenly understood that I could potentially have more influence as a feminist in TV or cinema rather than in politics.</p>
<p>I made my first short film “The Good Girl” in 2004 for my final year project, which I then released online for free. This gained an incredible response! It was downloaded over two million times within a few short days before going on to receive several awards at specialized film festivals. That kicked it all off for me as I went on to start my own production company, Erika Lust Films. But of course, I was met with criticism and hostility from the male porn world. They thought I was backward and discriminatory to make films just for women. They claimed that it was a waste of time because they were already making porn for everyone.</p>
<p>Starting my own film company was also expensive and time consuming! Fitting this around two young daughters can be tough as well, but luckily my partner helps me out both at work and at home so we have managed to keep things going.</p>
<p>SB: What sets XConfessions apart from other erotic film production?</p>
<p>EL: First and foremost XConfessions isn’t just an erotic film, it’s an audiovisual project. It’s erotica created by the imagination of real people and then put on screen by an all-female production team. So it already stands alone from anything made in the mainstream, boring, chauvinistic, gynecological porn industry.</p>
<p>All the shorts filmed for XConfessions are always conceived with the female perspective in mind. That means with our values, our desires, and our kinks, creating fantasies from a whole wealth of real imaginations in realistic scenarios with relatable characters enjoying REAL arousal. It doesn’t get more contemporary than that, does it?</p>
<p>SB: In your opinion, how does erotica/porn align with feminism?</p>
<p>EL: Porn and feminism have always had a love-hate relationship. But as a feminist I believe that feminism should tackle all corners of cultural and artistic expression, which includes pornography. In Linda Williams’s book Hardcore I learned that porn has the ability to not only inspire passions and lusts we never knew we had, but also educate, allowing women to explore their sexuality, embrace it, enjoy it, and to demand our right to sexual pleasure. So we need to stop being only models, actresses, make up artists, production assistants and wardrobe managers! We need more women in leadership roles, as directors, scriptwriters, producers… Then we can create the porn that we want, instead of leaving the male mainstream to take over, giving a completely one-sided representation on how they see sex and female sexuality, as it’s usually completely wrong. We need to make porn imaginative, smart, and, above all, equal in its representation of female and male pleasure.</p>
<p>SB: What feminists inspire you?</p>
<p>EL: While growing up I was very influenced by Simone de Beauvoir and Swedish author Nina Björk and her book “Under det rosa täcket.”&#160;And later at university, as mentioned before, Linda Williams and her books “Hardcore” &#160;and “Porn Studies”.</p>
<p>Read more about Erika Lust <a href="http://xconfessions.com/erika-lust/" type="external">here</a>. Sign up at XConfessions to watch her short films or submit your own confessions and see it come alive!</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | On making independent porn for women: An Interview with director Erika Lust | true | http://feministing.com/2014/12/05/on-making-independent-porn-for-women-an-interview-with-director-erika-lust/ | 4 |
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<p>Image source: Getty Images.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>What: Shares of Ziopharm Oncology , a clinical-stage drug developer focused on researching first-in-class drugs to treat cancer, plummeted 30% in June, based on data from <a href="https://www.spcapitaliq.com/" type="external">S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence Opens a New Window.</a>. While weak market sentiment from Brexit likely played a role in worsening investor confidence in Ziopharm, an end-of-month press release may have done far more damage.</p>
<p>So what: On June 30, Ziopharm and development partner Intrexon amended their collaboration agreement regarding Ad-RTS-IL-12, a CAR-T-based cancer drug currently being examined by the duo.</p>
<p>Before the amendment, the collaboration was structured as a 50-50 partnership. In other words, the duo would share half the operating revenue and profits should Ad-RTS-IL-12 make it to pharmacy shelves. Under the new terms of the agreement, Intrexon has agreed to drop its portion of profit- and revenue-sharing down to just 20%. In return, Intrexon receives preferred shares in Ziopharm Oncology stock that equate to an initial value of $120 million. Furthermore, these shares yield 1% per month, which is payable in more preferred shares of Ziopharm Oncology stock. This is a fancy way of saying that Ziopharm will be diluting its existing shareholders each and every month.</p>
<p>What's more, as stated in the press release, "Upon the first approval of a product in the United States or upon certain fundamental transactions, such as a change of control of ZIOPHARM, the preferred shares issued to Intrexon will be converted into ZIOPHARM common stock equal to the aggregate stated value divided by the volume weighted average closing price of ZIOPHARM's common stock over the 20 trading days ending on the date that the product approval is announced or such transaction occurs."</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Translation: A massive amount of share price dilution awaits Ziopharm shareholders.</p>
<p>Image source: National Cancer Institute.</p>
<p>Now what: For Intrexon, which brings its RheoSwitch gene control technology to the table in its collaboration with Ziopharm, the deal makes complete sense. Ad-RTS-IL-12 is still very early in its clinical development, and cancer drugs tend to have a high trial failure rate. In effect, it swapped out what is a slim chance at 50% of the profits of a blockbuster drug for 20% and $120 million worth of free Ziopharm Oncology stock.</p>
<p>Ziopharm isn't so lucky. It's essentially bet the house on Ad-RTS-IL-12, and if its CAR-T program doesn't absolutely blow the socks off Wall Street and researchers in midstage studies, it could get creamed, to put it mildly. Even with a veritable army of preclinical work ongoing in myeloid malignancies and graft-versus-host-disease, there just may not be enough in the pipeline to support the dilution Ziopharm could face if its leading drug candidate fails to impress.</p>
<p>With that said, my suggestion is to keep your distance from Ziopharm until we have a better sense for how Ad-RTS-IL-12 performed in its midstage breast cancer study. The results from a larger patient pool should give us some indication of whether Ziopharm's big risk will pay off.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/11/heres-why-ziopharm-oncology-inc-shares-took-a-poun.aspx" type="external">Here's Why Ziopharm Oncology, Inc. Shares Took a Pounding and Lost 30% in June Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFUltraLong/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Sean Williams Opens a New Window.</a>has no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name <a href="http://caps.fool.com/player/tmfultralong.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">TMFUltraLong Opens a New Window.</a>, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/TMFUltraLong" type="external">@TMFUltraLong Opens a New Window.</a>.The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a>makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Here's Why Ziopharm Oncology, Inc. Shares Took a Pounding and Lost 30% in June | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/07/11/here-why-ziopharm-oncology-inc-shares-took-pounding-and-lost-30-in-june.html | 2016-07-11 | 0 |
<p>CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — Miami's season had a little of everything.</p>
<p>Successes, like finally winning the Atlantic Coast Conference Coastal Division title and beating rivals <a href="" type="internal">Florida State</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Notre Dame</a> . Disappointments, like getting blown out by Clemson in the <a href="" type="internal">ACC championship game</a> as part of a three-game slide to end the season. Drama, provided by some <a href="" type="internal">last-second wins</a> and dealing with <a href="" type="internal">Hurricane Irma</a> . And notoriety, from both the <a href="https://twitter.com/i/moments/946779673404542976" type="external">Turnover Chain</a> and the Hurricanes' brief stint as the <a href="" type="internal">No. 2-ranked team</a> in the nation.</p>
<p>So now the annual question — is Miami back? — can now be answered: not quite, but the Hurricanes believe they're getting closer.</p>
<p>"I think we have unfinished business," safety Jaquan Johnson said.</p>
<p>Even after a loss to Wisconsin in the <a href="" type="internal">Orange Bowl</a> , Miami went 10-3 and posted its best record since 2003.</p>
<p>"It didn't end the way we wanted," Miami athletic director Blake James wrote on <a href="https://twitter.com/CanesAllAccess/status/947344506361442304" type="external">Twitter</a> early Sunday. "Very proud of the progress."</p>
<p>Miami goes into the offseason on a dip of what's been quite a roller coaster — the Hurricanes lost four consecutive games midway through 2016, then won 15 in a row, and now take a three-game losing streak into next season's opener against LSU. The Hurricanes were the favorites in the Coastal this season and probably will be again next fall, though there are plenty of issues that await in the interim.</p>
<p>First up: the decisions by cornerback Michael Jackson and defensive tackles R.J. McIntosh and Kendrick Norton about their NFL futures. Some around Miami think all three are gone while others believe it's possible all may stay. If any come back, a defense that was fantastic at times this season will reap the benefits.</p>
<p>"That's the big question," McIntosh said. "I don't know yet."</p>
<p>Running back <a href="" type="internal">Mark Walton</a> got hurt early in the season and is leaving for the NFL, but Travis Homer ran for nearly 1,000 yards. Homer is back next season, and Miami's incoming running back corps has great potential. But there also are some holes to plug on the offensive line, with KC McDermott and Trevor Darling — the left side for the Hurricanes — having graduated.</p>
<p>Solid defensive ends Chad Thomas and Trent Harris are gone as well, meaning Miami's front seven will have at least two new regulars in 2018.</p>
<p>There's also a big question under center.</p>
<p>Malik Rosier accounted for 31 touchdowns this season, the most ever by a Miami quarterback. Rosier had the unenviable task of replacing Brad Kaaya and got the Hurricanes to the ACC title game, though he is not assured of keeping his job. Redshirt N'Kosi Perry will be in the mix to become the starter next spring and summer, and incoming freshman Jarren Williams is highly regarded as well.</p>
<p>"I feel like I'm ready," Perry said.</p>
<p>Rosier threw three interceptions in Miami's 34-24 loss to Wisconsin. He finished the year with 26 touchdown passes and 3,135 yards, plus five rushing scores — but also threw 14 interceptions.</p>
<p>"The season is over with now, and we had a great season," Rosier said. "I love the seniors, love the guys that are around me. But the big thing is putting this season behind us and getting to work."</p>
<p>He will miss two senior receivers in particular.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Braxton Berrios</a> , arguably Miami's most important player in 2017, and Christopher Herndon IV (whose season ended in November after an injury) combined for 95 catches for 1,166 yards. Berrios had a team-best nine touchdown grabs and handled punt-return duties flawlessly; Herndon caught four scoring passes.</p>
<p>"I left it all out there, gave this team and this city everything I had," said Berrios, who graduated with a 3.96 GPA. "I will always cherish these days."</p>
<p>They all should.</p>
<p>Miami was in the Orange Bowl for the first time in 14 seasons, finally got to its first ACC title game, briefly went to No. 2 in the AP Top 25, got national acclaim for the Turnover Chain and spent several weeks as a real contender for the College Football Playoff. At a minimum, the Hurricanes should have at least 15 returning starters in 2018 — and the recruiting class was ranked among the nation's best.</p>
<p>Coach Mark Richt described the season as "very successful in a lot of ways."</p>
<p>"We know we're hungry for more," Richt said. "And I can tell by looking at the eyes of our team that the guys that are coming back are going to be excited about taking it one step further next year."</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="https://twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external">https://twitter.com/AP_Top25</a></p>
<p>CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — Miami's season had a little of everything.</p>
<p>Successes, like finally winning the Atlantic Coast Conference Coastal Division title and beating rivals <a href="" type="internal">Florida State</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Notre Dame</a> . Disappointments, like getting blown out by Clemson in the <a href="" type="internal">ACC championship game</a> as part of a three-game slide to end the season. Drama, provided by some <a href="" type="internal">last-second wins</a> and dealing with <a href="" type="internal">Hurricane Irma</a> . And notoriety, from both the <a href="https://twitter.com/i/moments/946779673404542976" type="external">Turnover Chain</a> and the Hurricanes' brief stint as the <a href="" type="internal">No. 2-ranked team</a> in the nation.</p>
<p>So now the annual question — is Miami back? — can now be answered: not quite, but the Hurricanes believe they're getting closer.</p>
<p>"I think we have unfinished business," safety Jaquan Johnson said.</p>
<p>Even after a loss to Wisconsin in the <a href="" type="internal">Orange Bowl</a> , Miami went 10-3 and posted its best record since 2003.</p>
<p>"It didn't end the way we wanted," Miami athletic director Blake James wrote on <a href="https://twitter.com/CanesAllAccess/status/947344506361442304" type="external">Twitter</a> early Sunday. "Very proud of the progress."</p>
<p>Miami goes into the offseason on a dip of what's been quite a roller coaster — the Hurricanes lost four consecutive games midway through 2016, then won 15 in a row, and now take a three-game losing streak into next season's opener against LSU. The Hurricanes were the favorites in the Coastal this season and probably will be again next fall, though there are plenty of issues that await in the interim.</p>
<p>First up: the decisions by cornerback Michael Jackson and defensive tackles R.J. McIntosh and Kendrick Norton about their NFL futures. Some around Miami think all three are gone while others believe it's possible all may stay. If any come back, a defense that was fantastic at times this season will reap the benefits.</p>
<p>"That's the big question," McIntosh said. "I don't know yet."</p>
<p>Running back <a href="" type="internal">Mark Walton</a> got hurt early in the season and is leaving for the NFL, but Travis Homer ran for nearly 1,000 yards. Homer is back next season, and Miami's incoming running back corps has great potential. But there also are some holes to plug on the offensive line, with KC McDermott and Trevor Darling — the left side for the Hurricanes — having graduated.</p>
<p>Solid defensive ends Chad Thomas and Trent Harris are gone as well, meaning Miami's front seven will have at least two new regulars in 2018.</p>
<p>There's also a big question under center.</p>
<p>Malik Rosier accounted for 31 touchdowns this season, the most ever by a Miami quarterback. Rosier had the unenviable task of replacing Brad Kaaya and got the Hurricanes to the ACC title game, though he is not assured of keeping his job. Redshirt N'Kosi Perry will be in the mix to become the starter next spring and summer, and incoming freshman Jarren Williams is highly regarded as well.</p>
<p>"I feel like I'm ready," Perry said.</p>
<p>Rosier threw three interceptions in Miami's 34-24 loss to Wisconsin. He finished the year with 26 touchdown passes and 3,135 yards, plus five rushing scores — but also threw 14 interceptions.</p>
<p>"The season is over with now, and we had a great season," Rosier said. "I love the seniors, love the guys that are around me. But the big thing is putting this season behind us and getting to work."</p>
<p>He will miss two senior receivers in particular.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Braxton Berrios</a> , arguably Miami's most important player in 2017, and Christopher Herndon IV (whose season ended in November after an injury) combined for 95 catches for 1,166 yards. Berrios had a team-best nine touchdown grabs and handled punt-return duties flawlessly; Herndon caught four scoring passes.</p>
<p>"I left it all out there, gave this team and this city everything I had," said Berrios, who graduated with a 3.96 GPA. "I will always cherish these days."</p>
<p>They all should.</p>
<p>Miami was in the Orange Bowl for the first time in 14 seasons, finally got to its first ACC title game, briefly went to No. 2 in the AP Top 25, got national acclaim for the Turnover Chain and spent several weeks as a real contender for the College Football Playoff. At a minimum, the Hurricanes should have at least 15 returning starters in 2018 — and the recruiting class was ranked among the nation's best.</p>
<p>Coach Mark Richt described the season as "very successful in a lot of ways."</p>
<p>"We know we're hungry for more," Richt said. "And I can tell by looking at the eyes of our team that the guys that are coming back are going to be excited about taking it one step further next year."</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="https://twitter.com/AP_Top25" type="external">https://twitter.com/AP_Top25</a></p> | Miami's 2017: A Coastal title, drama, struggles and a chain | false | https://apnews.com/amp/82911d1fa1fe4f88b8589eb1cc67820c | 2017-12-31 | 2 |
<p>Lawrence, Mass.</p>
<p>One hundred years ago this week, thousands of angry textile workers abandoned their looms and poured into the frigid streets of Lawrence, Massachusetts. &#160;Like Occupy Wall Street in our own gilded age, this unexpected grassroots protest cast a dramatic spotlight on the problem of social and economic inequality. In all of American labor history, there are few better examples of the synergy between radical activism and indigenous militancy.</p>
<p>The work stoppage now celebrated as the “Bread and Roses Strike” was triggered, ironically, by a Progressive-era reform that backfired. &#160;Well-meaning state legislators had just reduced the maximum allowable working hours for women and children from 56 to 54 hours per week. When this reduction went into effect, workers quickly discovered that their pay had been cut proportionately, and their jobs speeded up by the American Woolen Company and other firms.</p>
<p>The strike that started on January 12, 1912 created political tremors far beyond the Merrimack Valley. The shutdown of mills in Lawrence forced a national debate about factory conditions, child labor, the exploitation of immigrants, and the free exercise of First Amendment rights during labor disputes.&#160; The strikers’ appeals for solidarity and financial support also created a stark “Which Side Are You On?” moment for mainstream unions and middle-class reformers, both of whom were nervous about the role played by “outside agitators” in Lawrence.</p>
<p>An Immigrant Uprising</p>
<p>On one side of the class divide in Lawrence were rich, arrogant, and out-of-touch WASP manufacturers. Their “1%” sense of entitlement led them to spurn negotiations with “the offscourings of Southern Europe,” as New England Magazine disdainfully called the strikers.&#160;&#160; Instead, mill owners relied on rough policing by fifty state and local militia units (including a company composed of Harvard students who were <a href="" type="internal" /> offered course credit for their attempted strike breaking). Two workers were shot or bayonetted to death, while many others were clubbed and jailed. Three union organizers were falsely accused of conspiracy to murder and faced the electric chair before their post-strike acquittal.</p>
<p>Arrayed against American Woolen and its heavily armed defenders was a rainbow coalition of recently arrived immigrants—low-paid workers from 30 countries, who spoke 45 different languages. &#160;They were welded together into a militant, disciplined, and largely non-violent force, through their own efforts and the extraordinary organizing skills of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which began recruiting in Lawrence many months before the nine-week walkout.</p>
<p>Unlike, the elitist and conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL), the IWW championed the working poor, both native- and foreign-born. “There is no foreigner here except the capitalists,” thundered IWW leader “Big Bill” Haywood, in a speech to the Lawrence strikers. “Do not let them divide you by sex, color, creed or nationality.”</p>
<p>Many on the picket-lines in Lawrence were teen-agers or women. Their mistreatment at work, miserable living conditions, malnutrition, and other health problems soon became a national scandal. When a delegation of sixteen young strikers appeared before a House Committee hearing in Washington D.C, the wife of Republican President William Howard Taft was among those attending who were shocked by their account of factory life in Lawrence. &#160;These child laborers put a human face on the strikers’ now famous demand for “bread and roses.”&#160; They wanted more than just a living wage; they sought dignity, respect, and opportunities for personal fulfillment denied to those employed in the mills at age 14 or even younger.</p>
<p>IWW vs. AFL</p>
<p>Today, the “Bread and Roses Strike” is feted by all of organized labor. But, at the time, the work stoppage upstaged and embarrassed the American Federation of Labor, because Lawrence workers rallied under the banner of an organizational rival. &#160;IWW members fiercely criticized the AFL for keeping workers divided in different unions, based on occupation. &#160;Women, non-whites, and recent immigrants—particularly those deemed to be “un-skilled”—were largely excluded from the alliance of craft unions derided by the IWW as “the American Separation of Labor.” The AFL, in turn, dismissed the IWW’s quest for “One Big Union”&#160;and worker control of industry as a left-wing fantasy.</p>
<p>AFL President Samuel Gompers was particularly grumpy about the Lawrence strike. Like some of those skeptical of Occupy Wall Street last Fall, Gompers claimed the protest activity was just “a passing event”–the work of people more concerned with promoting a “class conscious industrial revolution” than advancing “the near future interests of the workers.”&#160;When the mill owners finally capitulated, however, strikers won most of their immediate demands—an outcome that vindicated their embrace of the IWW rather than the feeble AFL-affiliated United Textile Workers. The strike settlement, reached in March of 1912, provided wage increases, over-time pay, and amnesty for 20,000 strikers.</p>
<p>On the other hand, as many labor historians have noted, the IWW’s political influence in Lawrence proved to be short-lived. Industrial unionism didn’t gain a firmer footing in the Merrimack Valley until the 1930s and the great wave of Depression-inspired organizing by the Congress of Industrial Organizations.&#160; But even that later labor movement success was eroded over time by mill closings and the relocation of textile manufacturing from New England to the non-union south. The Merrimack Valley entered a period of steady decline.</p>
<p>Lawrence, Then and Now</p>
<p>In recent years, however, Lawrence’s long depressed neighbor to the west, the city of Lowell, has experienced an economic revival, due to public investment in higher education there, a convention center, and other facilities; it’s now widely hailed as a model of mill town re-invention and cultural diversity. Tourists flock to its museum of industrial history, run by the National Park Service.</p>
<p>Lawrence remains a city of the working poor, better known for its sub-standard housing, high unemployment, political corruption, and troublesome street crime. Ninety percent of its public school students are Hispanic and few speak English as a first language. Although not condemned to factory work at an early age, these children struggle to learn under tenement-like conditions. A recent report by the teachers’ union describes “crowded classrooms and physical infrastructure in distress: leaking roofs, poor air quality, persistent mold problems, crumbling walls and rodent infestation.” Demoralized teachers have been working without a new contract for two years; student performance is so dismal that a state take-over the school system has been actively considered.</p>
<p>When worker solidarity prevailed over corporate power in the icy streets of Lawrence a century ago, it made the promise of a better life real for many. The Bread and Roses strike became a consciousness-raising experience, not only for textile workers and their families, but the nation as a whole. Nevertheless, at centennial events in Lawrence over the next several months, (see <a href="http://breadandrosescentennial.org/" type="external">http://breadandrosescentennial.org/</a>), it will be hard not to notice that many immigrant workers there still lack “bread and roses”—in the form of living wage jobs, affordable housing, and better schools.</p>
<p>But that injustice will not be cured until U.S. workers and their allies, in Lawrence and elsewhere, find a way to make history again, not just celebrate it.</p>
<p>STEVE EARLY&#160;is a former national staff member of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) who has been active in labor causes since 1972. He is the author of&#160; <a href="" type="internal">The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor</a>&#160;&#160;(Haymarket Books, 2010, a contributor to the forthcoming, Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights Back, from Monthly Review Press.</p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Cry for “Bread & Roses” Still Resonates | true | https://counterpunch.org/2012/01/11/cry-for-bread-roses-still-resonates/ | 2012-01-11 | 4 |
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<p>Health-care costs are projected to double in seven years, making it more costly than ever to treat chronic illnesses and diseases. Even at current costs, a majority of personal bankruptcies are due to out-of-control medical expenses.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>“We spend all our resources to manage diseases, but our health-care system doesn’t offer prevention,” says Steven Masley, president and medical director of the Masley Optimal Health Center. “Prevention would be an enormous financial benefit to add.”</p>
<p>Wellness plays a major role in the Affordable&#160; Care Act, which mandates coverage for preventative care in the form of cancer screenings, mammograms, and other tests, but experts say more needs to be done.</p>
<p>“There will always be some people who do all the right things and still have poor health outcomes, and others who have poor health habits and don't have bad consequences,” says Cindy Leiffer, a locum tenens nurse practitioner with <a href="http://www.weatherbyhealthcare.com/" type="external">Weatherby Healthcare</a>. “For most people, however, health costs will be higher in the future if they delay or avoid basic preventive actions, such as keeping a healthy diet, getting adequate exercise, following appropriate health screening guidelines and managing acute and chronic illnesses early and consistently.”</p>
<p>Diabetes and hypertension are prime examples: &#160;According to Leiffer, millions of Americans have early stages of the diseases but don’t know it because they are symptomless. If caught early through preventive screenings, the two diseases can often be managed or mitigated through lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise.&#160; Even if medical treatment is necessary, the earlier the regime is started, the less expensive long-term treatment will be, says Leiffer.</p>
<p>Masley says our eating habits as young adults play a larger role in our future medical bills. “What makes a big difference in clinical outcomes for preventing heart disease and cancer is fiber,” says Masley. He says people should swap out high fat, high sugar and processed foods for those that are rich in fiber, like lean proteins, fruits and vegetables.</p>
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<p>He says deficiencies in vitamin D and magnesium are plaguing the country and are leading causes for illnesses like migraine headaches, muscle cramps, high blood pressure and high blood sugar. Short of sitting out in the sun, people can get their vitamin D through a supplement. Magnesium that is found in seeds, nuts, beans and leafy vegetables.</p>
<p>Hand in hand with eating healthy is exercising. More than one-third of U.S. adults (34.9%) are obese, according to the government, and the excess weight is causing serious medical conditions and is taxing the entire health-care system.</p>
<p>If you lose weight, it prevents heart diseases, reverses diabetes, decreases cancer risks and increases bone density,” says Masley. “Getting fit is critical.”</p>
<p>Going from a sedentary life to hitting the gym five days a week isn’t realistic for most people, which is why experts advise making smaller life changes over time toward increased exercise and better eating.</p>
<p>“Don't get too hung up on the numbers on the scale,” says Leiffer. “Find a way to exercise and move that is enjoyable for you.”</p>
<p>The hours logged in bed are just as important as those in the gym, says <a href="http://fao.r.mailjet.com/redirect/dq4ghcvqfktjdtgvy2hf2q/fao.r.mailjet.com/redirect/h5sbt0y7cz7lprdkl65f8w/ov7.r.mailjet.com/redirect/v4qphls069256zkvoxnzhr/fao.r.mailjet.com/redirect/ysc6hklx2d9jm4jgmlztfm/ov7.r.mailjet.com/redirect/f1mwt9ym1g6co1tl4k3v26/fao.r.mailjet.com/redirect/x3qshwq39yk1sqg29jpb7g/fao.r.mailjet.com/redirect/cmq6tld28tmpbtjwjnp3r3/www.jjvirgin.com/" type="external">JJ Virgin</a> author of&#160; <a href="http://fao.r.mailjet.com/redirect/t493tv7f2bjzpc9glgnw2x/www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jj-virgin/the-virgin-diet-cookbook/9781455577798/#desc" type="external">The Virgin Diet Cookbook</a>. She recommends getting seven to nine hours of uninterrupted sleep every night, cutting out as much sugar as possible from a diet and controlling stress levels through deep breathing, motivation, yoga or other calming exercises.</p>
<p>“You can do everything correctly and yet still succumb to cancer, heart disease, or other health complications,” says Virgin.&#160; “But when you take control of your health and make the right choices, you greatly reduce these complications and also enhance your quality of life.”</p> | Tips for Reducing Your Long-Term Medical Costs | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/04/08/tips-for-reducing-your-long-term-medical-costs.html | 2016-06-14 | 0 |
<p>After receiving $45 billion from U.S. taxpayers just two months ago, Citibank's much-maligned parent Citigroup will be no longer, as the financial giant announced in Solomon-style manner Friday that it will split itself into two, dividing the company's traditional banking business - becoming Citicorp - and its riskier investment department - Citi Holdings.</p>
<p>The BBC:</p>
<p>Struggling US banking giant Citigroup has announced plans to split the firm in two, as it reported a quarterly loss of $8.29bn (?5.6bn).</p>
<p>It said it would realign into two new firms, Citicorp and Citi Holdings.</p>
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<p>Citicorp will handle the company's traditional banking work, while Citi Holdings will take on the firm's riskiest investment assets.</p>
<p>Last autumn, Citigroup had to be rescued by the US government in a bail-out deal totalling $45bn.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7833090.stm" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Citigroup Does the Splits | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/citigroup-does-the-splits/ | 2009-01-16 | 4 |
<p>House Democrats had to be shocked after the results from last Tuesday’s election were announced; instead of gaining the 30 seats they had been widely projected to win, they only amassed five seats in their attempt to take back the House.</p>
<p>As a result, a <a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/jasonhopkins/2016/11/14/house-democrats-need-more-time-to-think-about-nancy-pelosi-n2245231?utm_source=thdailypm&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=nl_pm&amp;newsletterad=" type="external">nascent movement</a> to get rid of House minority leader Nancy Pelosi is taking shape. Some House Democrats want to delay their leadership elections and discuss the leadership in the House, and they have written a <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/house-democrats-election-pelosi-231303" type="external">letter</a> asking for a delay.</p>
<p>Reps. Seth Moulton (Mass.), Kathleen Rice (N.Y.), and Ruben Gallego (Ariz.) have signed the letter, addressed to Pelosi. The election is supposed to take place on November 17, with the minority leader, minority whip, assistant minority leader, and Democratic Caucus chair positions up for election, but the naysayers want to wait until December.</p>
<p>The letter states:</p>
<p>It is vital that our Caucus take the time to listen to the American people and learn the lessons of this difficult election in order to put our Caucus in the best position to fight the potentially dangerous agenda of President-elect Donald Trump and to have a realistic chance of taking back the House in 2018.</p>
<p>Therefore, we ask that you postpone leadership elections at least until after the Thanksgiving recess … Only by taking the time to find the hard truths can we formulate a comprehensive path forward, which could include the composition of our caucus leadership and the roles and responsibilities of each leadership position … This type of family conversation will take time, but it is absolutely necessary to put us in the best position to take back control of the House.</p>
<p>"Only by taking the time to find the hard truths can we formulate a comprehensive path forward, which could include the composition of our caucus leadership and the roles and responsibilities of each leadership position ..."</p>
<p>Letter from House Democrats to House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi</p>
<p>Politico stated:</p>
<p>House Democrats returned to Washington Monday searching for answers after their Election Day drubbing — and their longtime leader, Nancy Pelosi, confronted the first real stirring of discontent within the ranks since the last Democratic wipeout six years ago. While Pelosi has years or even decades of accumulated loyalty to fall back on, anger within the Democratic Caucus over what happened last week is palpable. The California Democrat faces a possible long-shot challenge from Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, who hails from the kind of working-class Rust Belt district in which Democrats got trounced.</p>
<p>Pelosi and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) have led the Democratic caucus for over ten years.</p>
<p>No official response from Pelosi has been forthcoming.</p> | Will House Democrats Dump Pelosi? | true | https://dailywire.com/news/10809/will-house-democrats-dump-pelosi-hank-berrien | 2016-11-15 | 0 |
<p>The package removed from the throat of Rashan Charles shortly before he died in police custody contained “a mixture of paracetamol and caffeine wrapped in plastic,” forensic tests have revealed.</p>
<p>Charles, 20, died in Hackney, East London, after being chased and wrestled to the ground in a shop in Dalston on July 22. His death sparked protests, including one which turned violent.</p>
<p>Video of the incident appeared to show him swallowing a package, leading to speculation it contained illegal drugs. Tests have shown it did not.</p>
<p>[embedded content]</p>
<p>“Given the inflammatory nature of some ongoing speculation, [we] will confirm that the package consisted of a mixture of paracetamol and caffeine wrapped in plastic. At this stage we have not been provided with a confirmed cause of death for Rashan and our investigation is ongoing,” Cindy Butts from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said in a statement.</p>
<p>Butts added that no cause of death has been confirmed.</p>
<p>Investigators will examine whether Charles’s death was caused by the plastic wrapping, rather than its contents. They will also consider whether the restraint used by police played a part in the cause of death, and whether the restraint used was warranted.</p>
<p>Supporters of the officer involved said he was trying to save the suspect’s life, not brutalize him.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/uk/398407-rashan-charles-police-death/" type="external" /></p>
<p>“My colleague tried to preserve life and help him, thinking he may have swallowed dangerous drugs,” Ken Marsh, chair of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which is representing the officer, told the Guardian.</p>
<p>“This happened in a fraction of a second; the officer had to make a decision.</p>
<p>“If it was crack [the suspect had swallowed] and the officer was filmed doing nothing, he also would be criticized.”</p>
<p>Last week, the IPCC said the evidence it had seen so far suggested Charles was detained by a Metropolitan Police officer who had followed him on foot into a shop of Kingsland Road after an earlier attempted vehicle stop.</p>
<p>The officer restrained Charles, with the help of a member of the public, and he was handcuffed.</p>
<p>After he was detained, attempts were made to remove an object from his mouth or throat. His condition deteriorated, and the officer called for a police medic, who provided assistance prior to the arrival of paramedics, the IPCC says.</p>
<p>[embedded content]</p>
<p>On Tuesday, figures released for the first time showed Metropolitan Police officers used “force” once every 10 minutes.</p>
<p>Rashan’s family has said the contents of the package swallowed “must not detract” from investigating the conduct of police and the lead-up to his death. They have also urged calm following the spate of anti-police brutality protests since his death.</p> | Rashan Charles swallowed ‘paracetamol & caffeine’ before dying in police custody | false | https://newsline.com/rashan-charles-swallowed-paracetamol-caffeine-before-dying-in-police-custody/ | 2017-08-04 | 1 |
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<p>From Jan. 1 through Wednesday, 135 officers lost their lives. Some died in traffic accidents, but nearly half were shot to death.</p>
<p>That’s a 56 percent increase in shooting deaths over the previous year. Of the 64 who were fatally shot, 21 were killed in ambush attacks often fueled by anger over police use of force involving minorities.</p>
<p>“We’ve never seen a year in my memory when we’ve had an increase of this magnitude in officer shooting deaths,” said Craig Floyd, president and chief executive of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. “These officers were killed simply because of the uniform they wear and the job they do. This is unacceptable to the humane society that we are.”</p>
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<p>In Dallas, a sniper on July 7 attacked at the end of what had been a peaceful rally against police brutality. He killed five law enforcement officers and wounded nine others — the largest death toll among law enforcement from a single event since the 9/11 attacks, which killed 72 officers. Months later, Dallas businesses and residents still display blue ribbons and banners declaring, “We support our Dallas police officers.”</p>
<p>But even amid community support, the police department remains unsettled. Hundreds of officers have retired or left the force over the past six months as the city struggles to find a way to increase pay and save a failing police and fire pension. Former Chief David Brown, who became a national figure in the aftermath, was among those who opted to retire. And interim Dallas Police Association president Frederick Frazier said that morale is “almost nonexistent.”</p>
<p>“A lot of us are going through the motions at work. We’re hoping things will get better with our struggle,” he said. Frazier added that the attack was a “game changer. It changed the perception of law enforcement. It reversed the roll after Ferguson. We were the pursuer and now, we’re being pursued.”</p>
<p>Less than two weeks after the Dallas attack, a lone gunman in Baton Rouge shot and killed three officers and wounded three others outside a convenience store in the weeks after a black man, 37-year-old Alton Sterling, was shot and killed by police during a struggle.</p>
<p>Baton Rouge Police Cpl. Lester Mitchell was partners with Matthew Gerald, one of the three slain officers, and was among the officers who raced to the scene of the shooting that also killed sheriff’s deputy Brad Garafola and officer Montrell Jackson. Mitchell has daily reminders of the deadly shootout, driving past the scene on his way to police headquarters.</p>
<p>“Just passing there, you can’t help but replay it over and over again,” he said.</p>
<p>Mitchell said the shooting has made him more alert and aware of potential dangers on patrol, sometimes in situations that wouldn’t have alarmed him before, like a hand in a pocket. “You learn to cope with it, because if you don’t, you can drive yourself crazy,” he said.</p>
<p>The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund’s Floyd said the impact of this year has been profound on law enforcement. Agencies are struggling to recruit officers to their ranks and those who continue to serve “talk about how their head is now on a swivel.”</p>
<p>“They’re always looking over their shoulder, always worrying about the next attack that could come at any time from any direction,” Floyd said.</p>
<p>That was underscored by the slaying in November of a San Antonio detective who was fatally shot and killed outside police headquarters as he was writing a traffic ticket. The man accused of shooting him said he was angry about a child-custody battle and simply “lashed out at somebody who didn’t deserve it.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press reporters Claudia Lauer in Dallas and Mike Kunzelman in Baton Rouge contributed to this report. Pane reported from Atlanta. She can be followed on Twitter at: <a href="http://twitter.com/lisamariepane" type="external">http://twitter.com/lisamariepane</a> .</p> | Officers killed in the line of duty rose in 2016 | false | https://abqjournal.com/918748/officers-killed-in-the-line-of-duty-rose-in-2016.html | 2016-12-31 | 2 |
<p>During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump made a strong anti-crime case. He argued that high-crime communities needed more police, not fewer, and that murder had jumped dramatically in the wake of Barack Obama’s soft-on-crime policies, Department of Justice targeting of police departments, and administration tolerance for anti-police riots in major cities across the country.</p>
<p>The media critiqued Trump’s <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=3&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjY2o-0jYjRAhUM02MKHdA3BUYQFggnMAI&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.factcheck.org%2F2016%2F10%2Ftrump-wrong-on-murder-rate%2F&amp;usg=AFQjCNExLTcS2H5I9weiUXKKFj2EicUINQ&amp;sig2=I64vF2_TT-g29oswodbupw" type="external">specific claims</a>, claiming that he was exaggerating the rising crime problem in the wake of what Heather MacDonald has called The Ferguson Effect. But Trump’s overall message was right. While the left claimed that the crime rates were doing fine and had been dropping for decades, they neglected that murder rates rose in America’s cities. And <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/crime-2016-updated-analysis" type="external">violent crime rates</a> have risen in America’s 30 biggest cities.</p>
<p>Today, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/homicides-rose-in-most-big-cities-this-year-1482402602?platform=hootsuite" type="external">The Wall Street Journal reports</a>: “Homicides rose in most big American cities in 2016, continuing a worrisome trend for police and criminologists that began last year, even as murder rates in most cities are nowhere near the levels of two years ago.”</p>
<p>Trump took crime seriously during the campaign. During the Republican National Convention, he stated, “Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement.” This was smart strategy, as I said at the time. Clinton, by contrast, ran on the notion that “mass incarceration” was the big problem, that the system was implicitly racist, and that her husband’s plans to lower crime – which were wildly successful – had to be dismantled.</p>
<p>No wonder she lost.</p>
<p>Republicans ought to run on crime regularly across the country – that’s how Republicans get elected in California (Richard Riordan) and New York (Rudy Giuliani). Trump did, and he did well in states that have seen unrest over policing and crime (Wisconsin saw a riot in Milwaukee, Michigan has seen continuing controversy over crime in Detroit, Pennsylvania has seen high rates of crime in Philadelphia).</p>
<p>It’s telling that Trump isn’t talking about one of Republicans’ top legislative priorities before his election: criminal justice reform. That’s good news, given that notions of mass prison release seem ill-founded in light of America’s rising crime problem.</p> | Trump Was Right: Homicides Jumped In America’s Big Cities | true | https://dailywire.com/news/11817/trump-was-right-homicides-jumped-americas-big-ben-shapiro | 2016-12-22 | 0 |
<p>Commentary</p>
<p>Sept. 27, 2012</p>
<p>By Steven Greenhut</p>
<p>Gov. Jerry Brown just signed something good into law. This is so rare that we ought to hold the presses. Brown&#160;today signed legislation that bans public and private universities and employers from demanding social media passwords from potential employees and students. This is an absurdly totalitarian practice, as employers and “educators” try to troll through others’ private Facebook and Twitter accounts looking for bad things that might give them pause from hiring or accepting someone as student.</p>
<p>What’s next? Should we hand the government or nosy private employers our email passwords so that they can search through them to make sure we haven’t said or done anything wrong?</p>
<p>California’s legislators don’t ever fix the real problems facing the state (pension liabilities, budgets, police secrecy and abuse, a hostile regulatory climate, crumbling infrastructure, terrible schools, etc.), but they do spend lots of time proposing silly laws targeted mainly against private individuals — at least when they are not looking for tax increases. For instance, the governor just signed Sen. Ted Lieu’s bill that would, according to <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Jerry-Brown-signs-bill-on-bobcat-bear-hunting-3897179.php#ixzz27hFVLJIt" type="external">the San Francisco Chronicle</a>,&#160;make “it illegal in most cases to use packs of dogs to chase bears and bobcats into trees, where hunters shoot&#160;them.” This is silliness run amok.</p>
<p>I have never used packs of dogs to hunt anything, but it’s hard to believe that this is a pressing problem in California. The key to understanding such bills is to understand the mindset of legislators. Most, such as Lieu, are looking for higher statewide office. Big issues such as those I mentioned above require collaboration and taking on vested interests. So legislators hide behind their caucus on those weighty matters, and the caucus — especially the Democratic caucus in this state — are wholly owned subsidiaries of the unions or other interest groups. So the big stuff doesn’t get done and legislators have ready excuses why it doesn’t happen.</p>
<p>But legislators need to make a name for themselves as they climb the ranks of government, so they scope the state for tiny problems they can fix and then use in campaign ads &#160;in grandiose ways. Hence, bills such as this one that protect bears and bobcats from hunters with packs of dogs. Come on, this isn’t exactly a big issue. Some other ambitious pol will no doubt follow the senator’s lead and sponsor an ASPCA-backed bill that bans people from, say, chasing coyotes in Jeeps and then killing them by dousing them with gasoline. Such a hunting practice would indeed be barbaric, but does it really happen?</p>
<p>But think of the great campaign ads as so-and-so legislator protects the animals!</p>
<p>Then on to some other picayune matter. But, hey, we’re not supposed to be cynical.</p> | Hold the Twitter: Brown signs a good law! | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2012/09/27/hold-your-twitter-gov-brown-signs-a-good-law/ | 2018-09-20 | 3 |
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<p>Before there were streets or sidewalks, my wife and I came out here on a dirt two-track road to find the stakes that marked off our lot. Whenever we weren’t working, we would drive out here and sit. We would look at the Sandia Mountains to the east, the Jemez Mountains to the north and the Rio Grande Valley. We paced the lot for months, plotting exactly how to situate our home so that every juniper tree would remain untouched. There is no question it’s beautiful out here.</p>
<p>My wife and I are not rich by any means. I’m a firefighter and she’s a journalist. It took a lifetime of savings and volunteer labor from our family and friends to make our dream home a reality. We were the first to start building and the first residents to call Mariposa home. There’s no doubt we have a special connection to this place.</p>
<p>Now there’s a pit in my stomach. I can’t sleep. Nearly every waking thought has been centered on my home and this community and my neighbors. There’s a chance my property taxes could skyrocket by 1,000 percent. How can anyone pay that?</p>
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<p>My wife and I have never been late on a single bill. We work hard and pay our mortgage every month. And now, to face what city officials have described as an “untenable situation” that is not of our making seems insane.</p>
<p>Hearing that High Desert Investment Corp. – the investment arm of the Albuquerque Academy, one of the top private college prep schools in the nation – was going to try to sell the development and walk away, I didn’t believe it. No way, I said when my wife called to tell me the news.</p>
<p>We had been told repeatedly, despite the economy, that they would be here for the long haul. I had no reason to doubt them. High Desert and the school had sterling reputations.</p>
<p>They were behind the High Desert community in the foothills and had been involved in the sale of major chunks of land on Albuquerque’s east side. They talked about what Mariposa would look like in 30 years. They had it all plotted out on fancy maps.</p>
<p>Our emotions have ranged from disbelief to anxiety. What happens now? What happens if High Desert can’t find a buyer? What happens if the residents are saddled with the $16 million unpaid bond debt that High Desert is leaving behind?</p>
<p>My neighbors – there’s more than 100 of them – have all the same questions. The problem – and any potential solutions – seem so beyond our control. Will our elected officials help? We hope so.</p>
<p>Some of my neighbors are also worried about sharing their concerns. They’re worried the Albuquerque Academy – an influential institution with such far political, financial and legal reach – could make things even worse for them if they speak out.</p>
<p>Until a buyer is found or officials decide upon an impossible tax increase, we’re in limbo. We just have to sit here and wait. I’d be lying if I said this isn’t nerve-racking.</p>
<p>At times, I have to stop thinking about all this and look out my living room window. That reminds me what’s important, and that is saving my home and my neighborhood. My neighbors tell me they feel the same way. They love it here, too.</p>
<p>You always hear about the nice guy finishing last and the little guy getting trampled. This is potentially a precedent-setting case when it comes to the future of public improvement districts in New Mexico and the willingness of municipalities to use this economic development tool. Let’s get it right. I hope our elected leaders and public officials set a good precedent here as they work to find a solution.</p>
<p>We’re all hopeful this can be fixed – and fixed in such a way that this won’t happen to us again or happen to some other community in New Mexico. Simply asking for a letter of credit or other written personal assurances, which wasn’t done in the case of Mariposa’s public improvement district, could go a long way to protecting other communities.</p>
<p>Like I said, my wife and I love it here and we love our home. This must be fixed.</p> | Don’t Allow Repeat of Mariposa Debacle | false | https://abqjournal.com/114675/dont-allow-repeat-of-mariposa-debacle.html | 2012-06-24 | 2 |
<p>Omitting crucial context surrounding the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/21/us/st-louis-police-shooting/" type="external">fatal shooting</a> of a 25-year-old black man by a white police officer, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey misled the audience of media and technology industry conference about the circumstances of the deadly incident.</p>
<p>Wearing a t-shirt with the message #StayWoke - a phrase popularized by #BlackTwitter and connected to the racial grievance mongering and victimhood of the “Black Lives Matter” movement - Dorsey was somewhat open about his own brand of left-wing politics.</p>
<p>“During the week and a half that I was there was another shooting in the city of St. Louis of a young man who, in protest I believe, stole two things from a convenience store, and, in the middle of the day, was shot 11 times,” said Dorsey.</p>
<p>Compare and contrast Dorsey’s depiction of events with video of what transpired below, showing <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2845846/Devastated-family-black-man-25-shot-dead-St-Louis-days-Michael-Brown-lash-police-dragging-heels-investigation.html" type="external">two white police officers</a> fatally shooting black 25-year-old Kajieme Powell.</p>
<p>Powell is seen in the video placing two cans of some beverage on the a sidewalk following his theft of them from a nearby store, pacing back and and telling bystanders, “get the f*** away from me.”</p>
<p>Police arrive moments after, and Powell approaches them with what was apparently a knife in his hand, loudly stating, “Shoot me! Shoot me now, motherf******!”</p>
<p>Nine shots are heard, and Powell immediately collapses on the sidewalk.</p>
<p>In August of 2014, Dorsey <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-jack-dorsey-twitter-ferguson-20140816-story.html" type="external">joined</a> the fusion of protesters and rioters in St. Louis and Ferguson following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, essentially endorsing the neo-Marxist racial narratives of the “Black Lives Matter” movement.</p>
<p>Dorsey shared his decontextualized and misleading version of events while joined by an informal leader of “Black Lives Matter” - Deray Mckesson, who he described as his friend - during an interview with Peter Kafka of Recode, a technology-oriented subsidiary news site of left-wing Vox Media.</p>
<p>Asked about political biases at Twitter hostile towards conservative points of view, Dorsey presented himself a favoring an atmosphere of freedom and diversity of viewpoints.</p>
<p>“I think a platform is best when it carries every voice,” said Dorsey. “I do believe we need to build a platform that respects and amplifies every voice in a way that the world needs to hear it.”</p>
<p>Mckesson concurred, claiming to be in favor of Twitter adopting a policy of free speech and expression. He also seemed proud to have blocked 19,000 Twitter users, adding that he receives death threats via the social media platform.</p>
<p>“I agree with Jack, I think that it is better when we are exposed to as many ideas as possible, not that I always want to be in proximity to them, right? So I’m not retweeting much of what [Donald Trump] says, or The Blaze, or Breitbart, or National Review,” said Mckesson.</p>
<p>Despite a declared commitment to free speech and expression, Twitter established a <a href="" type="internal">censorship board</a> entitled the Twitter Trust &amp; Safety Council, essentially entirely composed of left-wing organizations. The social media giant has also deployed <a href="" type="internal">inconsistent standards</a> in its application of bans and suspensions.</p>
<p>Watch the entire talk below. See its worst moments <a href="https://youtu.be/sQKc0WJqHyA" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p> | WATCH: Twitter CEO Pushes #BlackLivesMatter Myth | true | https://dailywire.com/news/6228/watch-twitter-ceo-pushes-blacklivesmatter-myth-robert-kraychik | 2016-06-01 | 0 |
<p>Las Vegas, NV — A maintenance worker for Mandalay Bay has come forward to note that he told hotel dispatchers to call the police and report that a gunman had opened fire inside Mandalay Bay — well before Paddock opened fire on the concert.</p>
<p>The maintenance worker, Stephen Schuck&#160; <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/las-vegas-shooting/las-vegas-shooting-hotel-worker-narrowly-escaped-gunman-s-rampage-n809726" type="external">said</a>&#160;he barely escaped unharmed after Paddock opened fire on him in the hotel and he credited a security guard with saving his life.</p>
<p>“When the first shooting started, I was kind of frozen for a second,” Schuck said Wednesday on “TODAY.” “He yelled at me, ‘Take cover! Take cover!’ If he yelled a second too late, I would have been shot.”</p>
<p>Schuck said he came upon security guard Jesus Campos, who was unarmed and injured in his leg, as Paddock fired more than 200 bullets into the hall and nearby rooms at the beginning of his deadly rampage on Oct. 1. “I am incredibly blessed that somehow I came out of there alive,” Schuck added.</p>
<p>His dramatic account, and the release of audio of those initial shots, comes amid a dispute over the timeline of the events and questions as to how quickly Las Vegas police could have learned about the massacre on an outdoor music festival.</p>
<p>Below is the interview in which he lays out these dramatic details.</p>
<p />
<p>To back up the fact that he did call in to report the shooting at least six minutes before Paddock opened fire on the concert, NBC obtained and then released&#160;an audio recording of Schuck’s dispatch call. In the recording, we can clearly hear Paddock’s first shots into the hallway.</p>
<p>This new information casts serious doubt on the official story and raises the question of why police took over an hour—after they were told the exact location of the shooter—to do anything to stop him.</p>
<p>The official story of how and why Stephen Paddock murdered 58 people at a music festival in Las Vegas last week is falling apart. As TFTP <a href="http://thefreethoughtproject.com/official-narrative-dramatically-changes-vegas/" type="external">&#160;reported</a>&#160;this week, police made massive reversals in their narrative which raised a myriad of questions and speculation. Now, we have definitive proof that a call was made warning of the shooter’s presence and his location.</p>
<p>Also, as TFTP reported on Wednesday, according to a report from ABC, we learned that&#160;Paddock had&#160; <a href="http://thefreethoughtproject.com/stephen-paddock-service-elevator/" type="external">access to and used the service elevator</a>&#160;at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in the days leading up to his attack on the country music festival.</p>
<p>Had police actually responded to the numerous reports of gunfire&#160;inside the hotel room, before the massacre began,&#160;perhaps 58 people may still be alive.</p>
<p>What’s more, MGM Resorts, which owns Mandalay Bay, said that while they cannot comment on the ongoing investigation, they have many questions about the timeline since “many facts are still unverified.”</p>
<p>“We cannot be certain about the most recent timeline that has been communicated publically (sic), and we believe what is currently being expressed may not be accurate,”&#160; <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/las-vegas-shooting/las-vegas-shooting-hotel-worker-narrowly-escaped-gunman-s-rampage-n809726" type="external">said</a>&#160;MGM Resorts spokesperson Debra DeShong.</p>
<p>It is entirely possible to accidentally fudge a few details of the events because&#160;of the sheer chaos surrounding the shooting and the subsequent investigation. However, the dramatic shifts in narrative coupled with the new information about how police were warned and that the shooter had access to the service elevator, do not constitute mistakes. They are more closely related to deliberate misinformation and false reports.</p>
<p>While many folks are opposed to asking these questions about the holes in the official story, this new information now shows that, if anything, we are not asking enough questions.</p>
<p>Courtesy of The Free Thought Project</p>
<p>Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project.&#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/MattAgorist" type="external">Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter</a>,&#160; <a href="https://steemit.com/@tftproject" type="external">Steemit</a>,&#160;and now on&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheREALMattAgorist/" type="external">Facebook.</a></p>
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<p /> | BREAKING: Audio Released of Hotel Worker Warning of Shooter BEFORE Vegas Massacre | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2017/10/12/breaking-audio-released-of-hotel-worker-warning-of-shooter-before-vegas-massacre/ | 2017-10-12 | 0 |
<p>Gender expert and psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Stathis has issued a warning about the overdiagnoses of trans youths, claiming many of the children and teens he sees at his Australian-based gender clinic are not actually suffering from gender dysphoria, or transgenderism, but are instead trying to become trans because it's trendy, wishing to gain attention from their peers. One such child <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/minority-of-children-with-gender-issues-diagnosed-with-gender-dysphoria-psychiatrist-says/news-story/2d8a6725d98e5f5bf3f7e5e9eb99d065" type="external">told</a> Stathis that transgenderism "is the new black."</p>
<p>According to the psychiatrist, only a small minority of the youths at Brisbane’s Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital's gender service will actually be <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/minority-of-children-with-gender-issues-diagnosed-with-gender-dysphoria-psychiatrist-says/news-story/2d8a6725d98e5f5bf3f7e5e9eb99d065" type="external">diagnosed</a> with gender dysphoria. By the time most of these struggling youths reach puberty, says Stathis, they will have grown out of their confusion and identify as their biological sex.</p>
<p>Stathis says a lot of those youths are “trying out being transgender” to be different from their peers and gain attention.</p>
<p>“One said to me, ‘Dr Steve ... I want to be transgender, it’s the new black’,” said the doctor.</p>
<p>“You might get a six- or seven-year-old girl wanting to dress as a boy,” <a href="https://heatst.com/culture-wars/gender-expert-teens-are-trying-to-be-transgender-because-its-trendy/" type="external">explained</a> Stathis during a March interview. “She may even say she wants to be a boy. When she hits puberty, she says, ‘No, I’m just a girl who likes to do boy things.”</p>
<p>The psychiatrist also warned that other children and teens may claim to be transgender because of past trauma. For instance, Stathis said he's seen young girls who have been sexually abused turn to transgenderism.</p>
<p>“The girls say, ‘If only I had been a male I wouldn’t have been abused,'" he said.</p>
<p>Being young and transgender has become the new hotness on the Left. The New York Times, for example, recently claimed it would be insane not to offer children suffering from gender confusion hormone therapy.</p>
<p>But this notion that we must pump Tomboys and gender-confused children with hormone blockers and therapies and eventually mutilate their bodies is cruel.</p>
<p>As outlined by Stathis and backed by much data, there is an incredibly high rate of children who aren't actually suffering from transgenderism who believe they are, many of whom simply outgrow normal sex confusion. The transgender push, instead of helping marginalized youths, is actually <a href="https://pjmedia.com/parenting/2016/08/21/real-life-victims-of-the-transgender-cult/" type="external">creating victims</a>.</p> | Gender Expert Says Teens Are Trying To Be Transgender Because It's Cool | true | https://dailywire.com/news/15404/gender-expert-says-teens-are-becoming-transgender-amanda-prestigiacomo | 2017-04-14 | 0 |
<p>President Donald Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, next to Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 10, 2017.Russian Foreign Ministry/AP</p>
<p />
<p>Days after President Donald Trump met with top-level Russian diplomats last week—an Oval Office meeting that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/trump-russia-meeting-american-reporters-blocked.html" type="external">was closed to American media</a>—the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?utm_term=.e66af4fcb3de" type="external">Washington Post reports the president shared “highly classified” information</a> with both the Russian ambassador and foreign minister—allegations based on accounts provided to the Post by anonymous “current and former U.S. officials.”</p>
<p>According to the Post, this sensitive information concerned “elements of a specific plot” by the Islamic State:</p>
<p>The information Trump relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.</p>
<p>The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said that Trump’s decision to do so risks cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency.</p>
<p>“This is code-word information,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”</p>
<p>As the Post notes, the president has broad authority to declassify pieces of information at his choosing, but “for most anyone in government, discussing such matters with an adversary would be illegal.” (The National Security Agency and the CIA declined to provide comment to the Post.)</p>
<p>Two US officials confirmed the Post’s account to BuzzFeed News <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/trump-highly-classified-information-russians?utm_term=.dnjpaLzzlj#.al2JlBQQbA" type="external">late Monday afternoon</a>, with one official adding that “it’s far worse than what has already been reported.”</p>
<p />
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?utm_term=.8645f4a15d4b" type="external">Head to the Washington Post for the full account</a>.</p>
<p /> | Report: Trump Divulged “Highly Classified” Information to Russian Ambassador | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/report-trump-divulged-highly-classified-information-russian-ambassador/ | 2017-05-15 | 4 |
<p>At a Congressional Hispanic Caucus event Thursday night, President Obama told a group of immigration activists that “no force on earth can stop us.” In a speech in which he declared that “America is the striving immigrant," the president decried the low turnout of Hispanics in previous elections and told the activists, “the clearest path to change” was increasing the number of Hispanics who vote. “Si se&#160;puede,&#160;si&#160;votamos!" he said borrowing from Cesar Chavez. "Yes, we can, if we vote!"</p>
<p>Transcript via the <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/fired-obama-immigration-activists-no-force-earth-can-stop-us_808488.html" type="external">Weekly Standard</a>:</p>
<p>“The clearest path to change is to change [the voter turnout] number," said Obama "Si se puede, si&#160;votamos! Yes, we can, if we vote!"</p>
<p>"You know, earlier this year, I had a chance to host a screening of the film&#160;Cesar Chavez&#160;at the White House, and I was reminded that Cesar organized for nearly 20 years before his first major victory. He never saw that time as a failure. Looking back, he said, I remember the families who joined our movement and paid dues long before there was any hope of winning contracts. I remember thinking then that with spirit like that, no force on earth could stop us.</p>
<p>"That's the promise of America then and that's the promise of America now. People who love this country can change it. America isn't Congress. America isn't Washington. America is the striving immigrant who starts a business or the mom who works two low-wage jobs to give her kids a better life. America is the union leader and the CEO who put aside their differences to make the economy stronger. America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in the family to go to college. The citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes. The young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That's what America is about.</p>
<p>"And six years ago, I asked you to believe, and tonight, I ask you to keep believing, not just in my ability to bring about change, but in your ability to bring about change. Because in the end, DREAMer is more than just a title, it's a pretty good description of what it means to be an American.</p>
<p>"Each of us is called on to stand proudly for the values we believe in, and the future we seek. All of us have a chance to reach out and pull this country that we call home a little closer to its founding ideas. That's the spirit that's alive in this room. That's the spirit i saw in Luis and Victor and all the young people here tonight.</p>
<p>"That spirit is alive in America today, and with that spirit, no force on earth can stop us."</p>
<p>Obama's reference to Chavez in a speech promoting immigration is ironic. Obama has paid tribute to Chavez before, formally establishing the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/cech/index.htm" type="external">Cesar E. Chavez Memorial</a> in Delano, California, in 2012. But as CNN contributor and Chavez scholar Ruben Navarrette, Jr., <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/08/opinion/navarrette-chavez-obama/" type="external">wrote</a> after the event, the president had "hit a foul" in honoring the labor leader. Chavez was no friend to immigrants; in fact, he and his union members went out of their way to deport and punish illegals:</p>
<p>Chavez earned many titles in his life, but "champion of immigrants" was not one of them. He was primarily a labor leader who was concerned about illegal immigrants undercutting union members, either by accepting lower wages or crossing picket lines. He never pretended to be anything else, and he resisted attempts by others to widen his agenda. When he pulled workers out of the field during a strike, the last thing he wanted was to see a crew of illegal immigrant workers take away his leverage.</p>
<p>According to many historical accounts, Chavez ordered union members to call the Immigration and Naturalization Service and report illegal immigrants who were working in the fields so that they could be deported. Some UFW officials were also known to picket INS offices to demand a crackdown on illegal immigrants.</p>
<p>In the 70s, the UFW set up a "wet line" to stop undocumented Mexican immigrants from entering the United States.</p>
<p>Under the supervision of Chavez's cousin, Manuel, UFW members tried at first to persuade Mexicans not to cross the border. One time when that didn't work, they physically attacked and beat them up to scare them off, according to reports at the time. The Village Voice said that the UFW was engaged in a "campaign of random terror against anyone hapless enough to fall into its net." A couple of decades later, in their book "The Fight in the Fields," journalists Susan Ferris and Ricardo Sandoval recalled the border violence and wrote that the issue of illegal immigration was "particularly vexing" for Chavez.</p> | Obama to Immigration Activists: We Must Increase the Hispanic Vote | true | http://truthrevolt.org/news/obama-immigration-activists-no-force-earth-can-stop-us | 2018-10-04 | 0 |
<p>July 17 (UPI) — Columbia University has settled a lawsuit filed by a former student accused of rape — over the New York Ivy League school’s handling of the sexual assault allegation.</p>
<p>Student Paul Nungesser claimed the university, which in 2013 cleared him in the case, failed to protect him from a “harassment campaign” by another student, Emma Sulkowicz — who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/nyregion/columbia-settles-with-student-cast-as-a-rapist-in-mattress-art-project.html" type="external">carried a mattress around campus</a> in a “Carry that Weight” campaign to protest the way the university handled the matter.</p>
<p>Nungesser said the sex was consensual.</p>
<p>Andrew Miltenberg, Nungesser’s lawyer, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/16/us/columbia-university-mattress-project-lawsuit/index.html" type="external">told CNN</a> the confidential settlement “gives Paul a chance to go on with his life and recover from the false accusation against him.”</p>
<p>Nungesser, a German national, said the university’s “effective sponsorship” of gender-based harassment and defamation resulted in intimidation and hurt his chances of getting a job in the United States.</p>
<p>“By refusing to protect Paul Nungesser, Columbia University first became a silent bystander and then turned into an active supporter of a fellow student’s harassment campaign by institutionalizing it and heralding it,” a lawsuit filed in 2015 stated.</p>
<p>Sulkowicz <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2015/04/24/Student-accused-of-Carry-that-Weight-rape-sues-Columbia-University/6881429890323/" type="external">drew national attention in September 2014</a> when she began carrying the mattress to protest the university’s decision.</p>
<p>Victims’ rights group End Rape on Campus, which supported Sulkowicz, criticized Columbia following the settlement announcement.</p>
<p>“Broadly speaking, treating perpetrators of sexual assault as victims is not only uneducated, it is irresponsible and harmful,” Annie Clark, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.</p> | Columbia University settles lawsuit with student accused of rape | false | https://newsline.com/columbia-university-settles-lawsuit-with-student-accused-of-rape/ | 2017-07-17 | 1 |
<p>A deputy in South Carolina came upon a dog stuck in a fence and helped set it free.</p>
<p>The rescue was captured on the deputy's body cam.</p>
<p>It took Master Deputy John Boyd with the Greenville County Sheriff's Office several minutes to free the dog.</p>
<p>No one has claimed the dog so it is available for adoption at the Greenville County Animal Care.</p> | A South Carolina Deputy saved a dog caught in a fence | false | https://circa.com/story/2017/10/31/whoa/a-south-carolina-deputy-saved-a-dog-caught-in-a-fence | 2017-11-01 | 1 |
<p>Missouri Governor Jay Nixon (D) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/us/missouri-governor-says-hes-prepared-to-use-national-guard-in-ferguson-again.html?_r=0" type="external">said</a> on Tuesday that the National Guard is part of the state's "multiforce contingency plan" to handle possible violence after the grand jury delivers its findings in the Brown shooting.</p>
<p>“The Guard will be available when we determine it is necessary to support local law enforcement,” Mr. Nixon announced in a news conference at a state highway patrol headquarters here, standing beside law enforcement leaders from the St. Louis area. “Quite simply, we must and will be fully prepared.”</p>
<p>Nixon was "unapologetic" about plans to control the violence. “As governor, the most important part of my job is keeping the people of Missouri safe,”</p>
<p>"In the days immediately following Michael Brown’s death, peaceful protests were marred by senseless acts of violence and destruction,” he said. “Vandals smashed the windows of small businesses. Criminals looted and set fire to stores. Gunshots and Molotov cocktails endangered citizens exercising their First Amendment rights and law enforcement attempting to maintain peace. That ugliness was not representative of Missouri, and it cannot be repeated.”</p>
<p>The grand jury findings are expected to be released some time this month. Nixon said the state will follow two principles, "keeping the public safe while allowing people to speak."</p>
<p>“This is America,” Mr. Nixon said. “People have a right to express their views and grievances. But they do not have the right to put their fellow citizens or their property at risk.”</p> | MO Gov. Nixon Prepared to Use National Guard in Ferguson | true | http://truthrevolt.org/news/mo-gov-nixon-prepared-use-national-guard-ferguson | 2018-10-02 | 0 |
<p>What is fair in a society?</p>
<p>John Stuart Mill, proud of his logic, gave liberalism’s 1859 answer, maybe the answer of Britain’s Liberal Democrats today. He gave it in his principle of state intervention in his essay On Liberty. The principle was that the state is to intervene in the lives of citizens not to help them, but only to prevent them from causing harm to one another. Then Mill didn’t say what harm is, say whether bankers can do it. Nor did he say in his essay Utilitarianism, where vagueness about unhappiness and happiness went with an obscure paean to individualism. The vagueness and obscurity helped conceal the fact evident in clearer utilitarianisms, such as Jeremy Bentham’s, that they justify having a slave class in a society if that does in fact produce the greatest total of happiness or satisfaction for the society.</p>
<p>John Rawls of Harvard gave us liberalism’s 1972 answer to the question of what is fair in a society. What is fair is what is in accordance with the social contract we would make if we didn’t know where we would were going to turn out to be personally in a society to come — and if we believed what are deceptively called general facts, say about the benefits of what is called liberty in a society. We, with those all-American beliefs, so innocent and so manufactured, would choose a society where a kind of liberty trumps any equality. That liberty makes of little worth the recommendation of a vaunted principle of equality to the effect that inequalities are all right so long as they can be pretended to be in the interest of the badly off. All of which stuff is oblivious of the truth that fundamental liberty is one thing with equality, oblivious of the illustrative fact that if you and I are in conflict, and unequal in that I have a gun, your liberty reduces to zero.</p>
<p>Liberalism, you can therefore kindly think, as I myself maybe still do, is indeterminate and irresolute. It is at best decent moral impulses, a little conscience, at odds with self-concern, the latter being visibly to the fore in a pinch, say the forming of a coalition government, and less visibly before then. Maybe that is too tolerant a view of liberalism, too kind. It looks that way in England just now.</p>
<p>What is the tradition of conservatism’s answer to the question of what is fair in a society? Its answers abound. Resisting change, being for so-called reforms, being against mere theory, respecting human nature, being for self-serving freedoms, less democratic government, the organic society, being against equality — and for the pretence of indubitable economics, wholly spurious necessities.</p>
<p>None of those ideas and no bundle of them, examined in itself or considered in terms of the history of conservatism, is in sight of being an articulable and consistent candidate for a general principle of fairness. No book on conservatism since Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France comes near to doing anything to improve on the vacuity which Burke fills only with social condescension to barbers and with pomp in support of his ‘natural aristocracy’.</p>
<p>No Conservative thinking, to take a step against the cant of this moment, and to name the actual subject in hand, has offered a general principle of what is right in society that is worth attention. There are only pieces of public relations. Mill’s verdict on conservatism as the stupid party or perhaps the stupidest party was not merely abuse but comprehensible.</p>
<p>Conservatism, to come to my own view of it, is not overwhelmingly more self-interested than any other political tradition. Conservatism, as one or two Americans have admitted, is unique in something else. It is the political tradition that has no general principle at all to defend its self-interest. It therefore has nothing to save it from self-interest and in particular from the self-deception in which it lives and breathes.</p>
<p>But there is an answer to the question of what is fair in a society. An answer exists. You believe it, I think. It is a kind of common decency. You can suppose it has been the principle of the Left in politics when the Left has not been confused or worse.</p>
<p>It is that we should take all rational means to a certain end — means that actually serve the end and will not be self-defeating. The end is the clearly definable one of getting and keeping people out of bad lives. Those are lives of deprivation with respect to the great human goods, the great desires of human nature. They are, in my list, longer lives, bodily well-being, freedom and power, respect and self-respect, relationships, and the goods of culture. There is none of the tripe of metaphor here. Nothing of the spuriousness and smell of David Cameron’s ‘big society’. Note too that the aim is not equality but good lives, whatever goes with them.</p>
<p>This fairness, which can have the name of being the Principle of Humanity, is more arguable than anything else going. It is in operation whenever our lower or vicious selves are not in an ascendancy. It is what we have most confident recourse to in defending our own self-interest in our own lives. It flows from our great desires and the basic rationality of our natures that is our having reasons, these necessarily being general.</p>
<p>The principle’s commitment to means-end rationality with respect to its end issues in, among other things, an abhorrence of the revolution and terrorism whose irrationality is not reduced by taking into account that that irrationality is owed mainly to the anticipation of culpable resistance to the revolution or terror. If the principle’s various possible consequences, what follows from it in terms of policy and action, are more difficult to judge than the moral greatness of the principle itself, they are entirely clearer than whatever passes for a summation of the mere ideologies of liberalism and conservatism.</p>
<p>Think now of the conservative and liberal coalition government which governs Britain now. It happens to be a three-part coalition, made up of conservatism, liberalism, and the petty careerism and the level of moral intelligence that has since 1979 or 1997 has defined our entire political class, certainly its membership in the New Labour Party. Perhaps Mr Miliband will lead our politics back towards a clarity and decency, by way of the Labour Party as distinct from the New Labour Party. Perhaps he can do something with our merely hierarchic democracy.</p>
<p>The coalition government is true to its inherited natures, the natures of liberalism and conservativism. To these it adds the spirits of dim and pushy boys and of an economist, an economist from Shell still holding up his head, all led by a public relations man. The coalition says and says again and again that it is fair. Its policies are fair, fair, fair. Repetition is truth.</p>
<p>It is in fact already committed to, and will produce despite tactical qualifications anticipated from the beginning, one thing. It will produce a farce of fairness.</p>
<p>The inanity of thinking or hoping that what is in prospect is not a farce of fairness, of contemplating that possibility for half a minute, should not survive the reading any day of what has a right to the name of being a newspaper of intelligence, one of the two or three in England. What you have from The Guardian today is a confirmation of any clear thinking on the traditions of conservatism and liberalism.</p>
<p>We hear, in this time of economic emergency, of still increasing executive pay. Some boss of something called Reckitt-Benckiser, ‘a global force in household, health and personal care’, notably air-fresheners and hair-removers, is now paid £92,596,160 a year.</p>
<p>There is more information in the newspaper on the victimized end of English society too — of the ‘social cleansing’ of London by reducing the welfare benefits of the poor and disabled, excused by way of vicious redescriptions of them and mindless comparisons.</p>
<p>The Principle of Humanity calls right now for the most effective forms of speech and argument against this farce of fairness. That question of effective expression, a question for me and for you, is not easy. It arises, of course, well before there is any question of incitement. What is rational with respect to the place and use of feeling in speech and argument, of condemnation, against what is vile from the point of view of the Principle of Humanity, from the point of view of a humanity? Other things are clearer.</p>
<p>It is clearer that the Principle of Humanity now calls for strikes. It calls for strikes in defence of homes. It calls for strikes in defence of schools and universities. It calls for strikes in defence of local government. It calls, even, for strikes in defence of what institution of justice we have. It calls, no doubt, for a general strike.</p>
<p>It calls too for a political economics worth the name. That would tell us what is certainly possible, the extent to which the political power and influence of the top decile of population in terms of wealth and income is more than a thousand times that of the bottom decile. This economics, too, so far from the economics of Shell, would bring public and private income, public and private expenditure, public and private waste, into sharp definition and comparison. It would also measure who benefits from all the institutions of society, say the institution of justice for a start. What deciles, for a start.</p>
<p>The Principle of Humanity calls too, as importantly, for civil disobedience, and mass civil disobedience.</p>
<p>It calls in particular for gestures of civil disobedience, of course non-violent and including what Rawls was keen on, acceptance of the penalty for the disobedience. Maybe a gesture in Parliament Square now by a British army colonel who remembers the holy words of a predecessor, Colonel Rainborough, in the English Civil War. ‘Really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he.’ Our colonel could park his tank there in the Parliament Square for a while, until the television cameras turn up, before going back to barracks to accept the penalty for his civil and other disobedience.</p>
<p>TED HONDERICH is Grote Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at University College London and Visiting Professor at the University of Bath. His relevant books are <a href="" type="internal">After The Terror</a> (Edinburgh University Press, 2002), <a href="" type="internal">On Political Means and Social Ends</a> (Edinburgh University Press, 2003), <a href="" type="internal">Humanity, Terrorism, Terrorist War</a> (UK: Continuum Publishing / US: Seven Stories Press, 2006), <a href="" type="internal">Punishment: The Supposed Justifications Revisited</a> (Pluto, 2006); <a href="" type="internal">Philosopher: A Kind of Life</a> (Routledge, 2001) and <a href="" type="internal">Conservatism: Burke, Nozick, Bush, Blair?</a>.</p>
<p />
<p /> | The Farce of Fairness | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/11/01/the-farce-of-fairness/ | 2010-11-01 | 4 |
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<p>The intensity and the extent of popular anger against the tyranny and incompetency of Hosni Mubarak regime in Egypt have undoubtedly taken the whole world by surprise. The U.S. government has been sending mixed messages to its close ally and its angry population alike. With rhetoric swinging between realism and idealism, the Obama administration has expressed willingness to help the regime implement necessary reforms, urged all parties to refrain from violence, and acknowledged the "universal" rights of the people.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">&lt;img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-8652" style="margin: 5px;" title="mubarak-1" src="https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/mubarak-1-300x200.jpg" alt="Hosni Mubarak" width="300" height="200" /&gt;</a>The real story is that the United States and the European Union are keen to see social, economic, and political reforms initiated by the existing regime, and, given the circumstances, this is the right policy to be pursued. In other words, Hosni Mubarak's ability to retain his power until the September's Presidential elections offers the best prospect for instillation of democracy and preservation of stability in Egypt.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, now that the status-quo is shaking, there have been countless expressions of amazement that the U.S. government made its bed with such a dictatorial regime for so long. The Obama administration has been criticized for its lack of support for pro-democracy advocates and failure to uphold the principles of American exceptionalism; namely, respect for human rights and promotion of democratic norms and values. Some have gone even further arguing that America ought to utilize its leverage to force Mubarak to stand down. Sadly, such views are at best inconsistent with realities on the ground and at worst na've.</p>
<p>The stakes are sky high and that Western preference for an "orderly transition" to democracy should not be hard to understand.</p>
<p>First of all, Mubarak's regime, in spite of all the passion on the street, could survive and would remember well any wavering of U.S. support. Mubarak's NDP is the most powerful force in Egypt thanks to its composition which is a coalition of business and political elites who have a vested interest to preserve the status-quo. In addition, the military is highly likely to remain loyal to the President because it has been enjoying an unprecedented fiscal autonomy under Mubarak's rule. The military has its own companies that produce consumer products, pharmaceuticals, and manufactured goods. The officer corps also benefit from higher salaries, better housing, and high-quality health care. This is of paramount importance because how the Egyptian army behaves will play a pivotal role in determining the course of the revolt.</p>
<p>Secondly, other regimes in the region might become disenchanted if the U.S. fails to back its long-time ally, especially given that a spill-over effect is no longer a probability but a strong possibility. And if large-scale demonstrations spread to Jordan and Saudi Arabia, regional catastrophe would become inevitable.</p>
<p>Finally, any sudden change in composition of power in Egypt could potentially empower a popular movement that is less supportive on US foreign policy, thereby endangering U.S. policies such as the blockade of Gaza. However, this is not merely an "Ikhwanophobia". There are concerns with continuation of U.S. naval access to the Suez Canal as well as the U.S. - Egyptian intelligence cooperation. The U.S. Navy, which sends a dozen of ships through the Suez Canal per month, receives expedited processing for nuclear warships to pass through the Canal, a valued service that can normally take weeks for other foreign navies. Egypt also provides over-flight rights to U.S. aircraft, and it also assembles the "Abrams" M-1 tank at a government facility near Cairo. Egypt is now in possession of some highly advanced American artilleries and that U.S. and its western allies are concerned with the possibility of all that weaponry, or technology behind it, falling into the hands of hostile forces.</p>
<p>As such, Washington must get off the fence and publicly explain where it stands. This does not and should not require it to be either with the Egyptian public or against them. At this point, almost any outcome is possible, and thus the U.S. needs to make policy with an eye on its long-term interests.</p>
<p>Egypt does not need a revolution but a series of radical reforms. As the Iranian experience illustrates, revolutions are inherently unpredictable and may inspire a hard liner with a well-established constituency to seek power thereby, elevating himself into a position of political authority that he is later reluctant to relinquish. Obviously, Iran and Egypt are different, but revolutions are not.</p>
<p>A sudden end to Mubarak's tenure is highly unlikely to lead to establishment of an inclusive social, economic, and political system. The Obama administration should hence seek to help Mubarak to calm the society without resorting to violent means, freeze its foreign-aid package to Egypt until after elections, refrain from endorsing any particular candidate or party, and use the time span between now and September to help foster civic activities. The Egyptian nation must understand that it needs to do more than rejecting the ways of the past, and try to truly grasp the ideas of liberty and responsible governance if it is serious about democracy.</p>
<p>Political actors, in turn, need to define what their strategies are and how they are going to address Egypt's socio-economic ills so Egyptians can make well-informed decisions on the voting day. This is important, given that current contesters have offered rhetoric as opposed to policy prescriptions, and experience shows that democracy requires more than vague slogans such as "Islam is the solution" or "change is coming".</p>
<p>It is critical that September elections will be held in a free and fair manner and western governments recognize the winner whoever that may be. If the regime tries to cancel, postpone, or rig the elections, this would put an end to any claim the United States has of promoting democracy and reform. As a result, the Obama administration ought to be credited for making it clear to Mubarak that it cannot be business asusual and that it is the retirement time for the 82 year old incumbent. However, foreign governments can do more by encouraging opposition leaders to take part in the government-backed dialogue in order to help defusing the ongoing unrest. After all, creating a pluralistic order will have to entail a measure of goodwill and pragmatism from all parties involved.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the U.S. government itself should rethink its grand strategy in the Middle East. The U.S. must reconsider its military aid policy with an eye on linking it to domestic performance of its allies. More importantly though, as recent events in the region illustrate, the U.S. might have to deal with Islamic parties on a more regular basis because they are a part of the region-wide democratic movements and might gain power through elections. Regional political landscape is changing and that Israel's uncompromising stance on a number of issues is likely to turn it into a strategic burden. This requires the administration to critically evaluate the extent to which its unconditional security commitments towards Israel can negatively affect U.S. flexibility in its regional encounters.</p> | Egypt Needs Mubarak for the Sake of Democracy | false | http://foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/02/04/egypt-needs-mubarak-for-the-sake-of-democracy/ | 2011-02-04 | 1 |
<p>Mattel, Inc. (MAT) will report its next earnings on Oct 26 AMC. The company reported the earnings of $0.09/Share in the last quarter where the estimated EPS by analysts was $0.57/share. The difference between the expected and actual EPS was $-0.48/share, which represents an Earnings surprise of -84.2%.</p>
<p>Many analysts are providing their Estimated Earnings analysis for Mattel, Inc. and for the current quarter 12 analysts have projected that the stock could give an Average Earnings estimate of $0.43/share. These analysts have also projected a Low Estimate of $0.35/share and a High Estimate of $0.5/share.</p>
<p>In case of Revenue Estimates, 10 analysts have provided their consensus Average Revenue Estimates for Mattel, Inc. as 1.78 Billion. According to these analysts, the Low Revenue Estimate for Mattel, Inc. is 1.67 Billion and the High Revenue Estimate is 1.85 Billion. The company had Year Ago Sales of 1.83 Billion.</p>
<p>These analysts also forecasted Growth Estimates for the Current Quarter for MAT to be -17.3%. They are projecting Next Quarter growth of 12.5%. For the next 5 years, Mattel, Inc. is expecting Growth of 9.87% per annum, whereas in the past 5 years the growth was -11.29% per annum.</p>
<p>Some buy side analysts are also providing their Analysis on Mattel, Inc., where 0 analysts have rated the stock as Strong buy, 1 analysts have given a Buy signal, 2 said it’s a HOLD, and 0 analysts rated the stock as Sell. (These Recommendations are for the Current Month Only reported by Yahoo Finance.)</p>
<p>When it comes to the Analysis of a Stock, Price Target plays a vital role. Analysts reported that the Price Target for Mattel, Inc. might touch $26 high while the Average Price Target and Low price Target is $16.65 and $11 respectively.</p>
<p>The Relative Volume of the company is 0.81 and Average Volume (3 months) is 11.92 million.</p>
<p>The company shows its Return on Assets (ROA) value of -9.7%. The Return on Equity (ROE) value stands at -29.4%. While it’s Return on Investment (ROI) value is 9%.</p>
<p>While looking at the Stock’s Performance, Mattel, Inc. currently shows a Weekly Performance of -6.75%, where Monthly Performance is 27.38%, Quarterly performance is 4.73%, 6 Months performance is -24.3% and yearly performance percentage is -43.2%. Year to Date performance value (YTD perf) value is -37.35%. The Stock currently has a Weekly Volatility of 3.18% and Monthly Volatility of 4.23%.</p> | Price Target Analysis Mattel, Inc. (MAT) | false | https://newsline.com/price-target-analysis-mattel-inc-mat/ | 2017-12-04 | 1 |
<p>Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Barbara Francis</a>. This page will be updated weekly.</p>
<p>Brent Bowden, to First Baptist Church, Rochester, N.Y., as pastor.</p>
<p>Bob Dale, to Center for Healthy Churches, located in Clemmons, N.C., as leadership coach.</p>
<p>Dan Edwards, to First Baptist Church, White Hall, Ill., as pastor.</p>
<p>Priscilla Eppinger, to the American Baptist Historical Society, as executive director, effective Aug. 15. She comes from the Historical Society of Graceland University Community of Christ Seminary in Lamoni, Iowa, where she has been professor of religion since 2002.</p>
<p>Benjamin Harlan, to University Baptist Church, Baton Rouge, La., as minister of music.</p>
<p>Laura Heise, now serving as lead pastor at First Baptist Church, Midland, Mich. She previously served as its pastor of preaching and teaching.</p>
<p>Shannon Kiser, to Salem Baptist Church, Sparta, Va., as minister of youth, children and family discipleship.</p>
<p>Sean and Sarah Lee, to Calvary Baptist Church, Towson, Md., as co-pastors, effective in late summer.</p>
<p>Justin R. Lester, to Congdon Street Baptist Church, Providence, R.I., as pastor.</p>
<p>Robin Lunn and K. Shayla Appel, to First Baptist Church, Jaffrey, N.H., as co-pastors. Lunn is the former executive director of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists.</p>
<p>Kevin Maples, to First Baptist Church, Madisonville, Ky., as pastor.</p>
<p>Griff Martin, to First Baptist Church, Austin, Texas, as senior pastor. He comes from the pastorate of University Baptist Church, Baton Rouge, La.</p>
<p>Larry Mason, to Old Stonington (Ill.) Baptist Church, as pastor. Most recently he was interim executive minister for American Baptist Churches of the Great Rivers Region.</p>
<p>Rory A. Naeve, to First Baptist Church, Oak Ridge, Tenn., as senior pastor, effective July 1. He comes from First Baptist Church, Claxton, Ga., where he served as senior pastor.</p>
<p>Bruce Queen, to First Baptist Church, Front Royal, Va., as intentional interim pastor.</p>
<p>Adam Smith, to First Baptist Church, Shepherdsville, Ky., as pastor.</p>
<p>Randy and Betty Rains, concluding their tenure as co-pastors of Oakland Baptist Church, Gum Spring, Va.</p>
<p>Betsy Sowers, now serving as minister for earth justice at Old Cambridge Baptist Church, Cambridge, Mass.</p>
<p>Kristie Stokes, now serving as missions and community outreach pastor at First Baptist Church, Jonesboro, Ark. She had been serving as its children’s minister.</p>
<p>Robert S. Turner, to University Baptist Church, Columbus, Ohio, as pastor.</p>
<p>Charles Warger, to First Baptist Church, Ottawa, Ill., as pastor.</p>
<p>Colby Whittaker, to Wyatt Park Baptist Church, St. Joseph, Mo., as minister of youth and education.</p>
<p>Elijah R. Zehyoue, to the New Baptist Covenant, as director of programs and communication. He most recently served on staff at Calvary Baptist Church, Washington, D.C.&#160;</p>
<p>Gary Fenton, retiring after 25 years as senior pastor of Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, Birmingham, Ala., effective Aug. 28.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Joe Crumpler</a>, 89, died June 10 in Cincinnati, Ohio He was pastor of Mount Carmel Baptist Church, Cincinnati, Ohio, for 30 years. He served as president of the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio, vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Pastor’s Conference and trustee of the Baptist Sunday School Board (now LifeWay Christian Resources) before helping found the North Carolina affiliate of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and serving as its moderator. He is predeceased by his wife of 27 years, Eleanor; and by his wife of 25 years, Carolyn, who served as executive director of the SBC’s Woman’s Missionary Union. He is survived by three children and four grandchildren.</p>
<p>Roger Fredrickson, 95, died June 16 in Sioux Falls, S.D. He was pastor of First Baptist Church, Sioux Falls, from 1959-1975. He then became pastor of First Baptist Church, Wichita, Kansas, where he remained until his retirement in 1988. He served as president of America Baptist Churches USA and authored several books. He is preceded in death by his wife, Ruth. &#160;&#160;</p>
<p>Cornerstone Baptist Church, Warrenton, Va.; 20 years; June 26.</p>
<p>First Baptist Church, Wood River, Ill.; 100 years; June 12.</p>
<p>Lois Baltzer, 20 years as organist at Lexington Avenue Baptist Church, Danville, Ky.</p>
<p>Darren DeMent, 20 years as minister to students at Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas.</p>
<p>Janet Henley, 25 years as minister of education at Clifton Park Baptist Church, Silver Spring, Md.</p>
<p>Rick Mixon, 10 years as pastor of First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, Calif.</p>
<p>Kevin Payne, 10 years as pastor of First Baptist Church, Independence, Mo.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Transitions for the week of 06.17.16</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Transitions for the week of 06.10.16</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Transitions for the week of 06.03.16</a></p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Transitions for the week of 05.27.16</a></p> | Transitions for the week of 07.01.16 | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/transitions-for-the-week-of-07-01-16/ | 3 |
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<p>By Todd Rosenbluth,&#160;CFRA With approximately $135 billion of net inflows in the first quarter, it is easy to miss that not all ETFs faced the same demand. For an asset manager, diversification of index provider relationships and product offerings helps to counterbalance the inevitable winners and losers of assets within a period of time, according… <a href="https://www.etftrends.com/2017/04/not-all-large-etfs-gathered-assets-in-2017/" type="external">Click to read more at ETFtrends.com. Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Not All Large ETFs Gathered Assets in 2017 | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/19/not-all-large-etfs-gathered-assets-in-2017.html | 2017-04-19 | 0 |
<p>FBN’s Gerri Willis on a former IRS worker convicted of fraud and identity theft.</p>
<p>An IRS employee who worked in the agency’s St. Louis, MO., office pled guilty this week to charges of tax fraud. Demetria Brown netted $326,000 in a fraud in which she stole taxpayer identities and created fake tax returns to steal refunds. Her plea was made the same week that <a href="http://www.irs.gov/uac/Written-Testimony-of-Commissioner-Koskinen-on-Unauthorized-Attempts-to-Access-Taxpayer-Data-before-Senate-Finance-Committee" type="external">IRS Commissioner John Koskinen Opens a New Window.</a> told Congress Russian criminals were behind the hacking of the agency’s website that resulted in the identity theft of more than 100,000 individuals.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Brown was able to create the fake tax returns using names, Social Security numbers and dates of births for victims without their consent. It’s not known whether the information came from IRS files. She requested refunds be direct deposited to one of six bank accounts in five different states. The scheme lasted seven years from 2008 to 2001. Brown faces up to 42 years behind bars and $750,000 in fines. Sentencing is not expected for months.</p>
<p>The case raises even more questions about the safety of taxpayer identities after last week’s news that criminals had used an application on the IRS website called “Get Transcript” to obtain copies of legitimate taxpayer tax filings from previous years and then file new ones to steal refunds. IRS officials say sophisticated international criminals were responsible for the breach. Today’s case, though, shows that the problems are also closer to home.</p>
<p>Koskinen is also fielding questions about why the tax agency is still using 13-year-old Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) XP software, a year after the tech company stopped supporting the product with security patches and software updates. The lapse further exposes taxpayers to security problems.&#160;&#160;*Update: The scheme lasted seven years from 2008 to 2001. An earlier version incorrectly stated four years and has been corrected.</p> | IRS Employee Steals $326,000 By Using Taxpayer's Identities | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2015/06/03/irs-employee-steals-325000-by-using-taxpayer-identities.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p>FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — The man accused of abducting a University of Virginia student who was found dead last month pleaded not guilty Friday in a Fairfax County courtroom on an unrelated sexual assault charge.</p>
<p>Jesse Matthew, 32, made his first in-person court appearance in Fairfax on Friday morning. He’s charged there with attempted capital murder and other counts stemming from a September 2005 attack on a 26-year-old woman in Fairfax City.</p>
<p>The hearing lasted less than 10 minutes, and Matthew, dressed in a green jail jumpsuit, said nothing other than entering his not guilty pleas.</p>
<p>Matthew was arrested and charged in September with abducting 18-year-old Hannah Graham, whose remains were found near Charlottesville after a monthlong search. Authorities say DNA evidence links him to the 2005 assault in Fairfax as well as the 2009 disappearance and death of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington.</p>
<p>After Matthew entered his not guilty plea, the judge set a March 9 trial date. The chief judge, Dennis Smith, appointed Circuit Judge David Schell to preside over the trial.</p>
<p>After Friday’s hearing, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the victim in the Fairfax attack now lives in India, but will come back to the U.S. to testify at Matthew’s trial.</p>
<p>“It’s fair to say she looks forward to a final resolution,” Morrogh said. “I am grateful to her for her continued cooperation.”</p>
<p>On Friday, Albemarle County Sheriff Chip Harding said Graham’s death could have been avoided if Virginia would collect DNA for misdemeanor convictions as well as felonies. Harding said that had authorities collected DNA from Matthew following a 2010 misdemeanor trespassing conviction, it would have generated a hit that would have linked him to the Fairfax case and the Harrington case years before Graham was killed.</p>
<p>Morrogh said Friday that he agrees about the benefits of expanding DNA collection.</p>
<p>DNA “is no different than a fingerprint,” Morrogh said. “We’re talking about saving lives here.”</p>
<p>Matthew was shuttled up from a jail in the Charlottesville area for Friday’s hearing. At his initial appearance two weeks ago, Matthew remained in Charlottesville and appeared through a video hookup.</p>
<p>Going forward, Smith said he’d prefer that Matthew be jailed in Fairfax, though he will be sent back to Charlottesville ahead of a pretrial appearance he has down there scheduled for next month.</p>
<p>FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — The man accused of abducting a University of Virginia student who was found dead last month pleaded not guilty Friday in a Fairfax County courtroom on an unrelated sexual assault charge.</p>
<p>Jesse Matthew, 32, made his first in-person court appearance in Fairfax on Friday morning. He’s charged there with attempted capital murder and other counts stemming from a September 2005 attack on a 26-year-old woman in Fairfax City.</p>
<p>The hearing lasted less than 10 minutes, and Matthew, dressed in a green jail jumpsuit, said nothing other than entering his not guilty pleas.</p>
<p>Matthew was arrested and charged in September with abducting 18-year-old Hannah Graham, whose remains were found near Charlottesville after a monthlong search. Authorities say DNA evidence links him to the 2005 assault in Fairfax as well as the 2009 disappearance and death of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington.</p>
<p>After Matthew entered his not guilty plea, the judge set a March 9 trial date. The chief judge, Dennis Smith, appointed Circuit Judge David Schell to preside over the trial.</p>
<p>After Friday’s hearing, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the victim in the Fairfax attack now lives in India, but will come back to the U.S. to testify at Matthew’s trial.</p>
<p>“It’s fair to say she looks forward to a final resolution,” Morrogh said. “I am grateful to her for her continued cooperation.”</p>
<p>On Friday, Albemarle County Sheriff Chip Harding said Graham’s death could have been avoided if Virginia would collect DNA for misdemeanor convictions as well as felonies. Harding said that had authorities collected DNA from Matthew following a 2010 misdemeanor trespassing conviction, it would have generated a hit that would have linked him to the Fairfax case and the Harrington case years before Graham was killed.</p>
<p>Morrogh said Friday that he agrees about the benefits of expanding DNA collection.</p>
<p>DNA “is no different than a fingerprint,” Morrogh said. “We’re talking about saving lives here.”</p>
<p>Matthew was shuttled up from a jail in the Charlottesville area for Friday’s hearing. At his initial appearance two weeks ago, Matthew remained in Charlottesville and appeared through a video hookup.</p>
<p>Going forward, Smith said he’d prefer that Matthew be jailed in Fairfax, though he will be sent back to Charlottesville ahead of a pretrial appearance he has down there scheduled for next month.</p> | Suspect in student kidnapping pleads not guilty | false | https://apnews.com/2d9c92f241144258beaabf2bbd34728f | 2014-11-14 | 2 |
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<p>TUCSON, Ariz. — A federal judge in Arizona has ruled the federal government must reconsider endangered species protection for the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl.</p>
<p>Wednesday’s decision came in response to a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife over a 2011 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that denied endangered species protection for the reddish-brown owl that burrows in Sonoran Desert cactuses and trees.</p>
<p>There reportedly are fewer than 50 of the small birds in Arizona.</p>
<p>Environmentalists say the owl is threatened by urban sprawl, invasive species, fire, drought and other factors across the Sonoran Desert.</p>
<p>The species was listed as endangered from 1997 to 2006 before that protection was removed following a lawsuit by developers.</p>
<p>Wildlife groups again petitioned in 2007 to protect the owl.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Judge overturns denial of protected status for pygmy owl | false | https://abqjournal.com/979479/judge-overturns-denial-of-protected-status-for-pygmy-owl.html | 2 |
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<p>Officers within&#160;the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department believe that there was more than one shooter during the horrific mass shooting that killed 58 people and that officials are engaging in a coverup to hide this shocking information, according to a video report by investigative reporter&#160;Jake Morphonios.</p>
<p>The video, posted on the “End Times News Report”&#160; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsnG5Ld5iYFIyAaW5oifzgQ" type="external">YouTube channel</a>, details an interview&#160;Morphonios claims he conducted with a police officer who told him that it was the “sentiment” of many police that there was more than one shooter involved.</p>
<p>“I asked, is the metro PD investigating the possibility of multiple shooters, and was told, officially, no. Everything is focused in on the one gunman theory,” Morphonios detailed.</p>
<p>“However I was told that it was the sentiment of many police officers that there was more than one shooter involved, I pressed for details and wasn’t given any.”</p>
<p />
<p>Morphonios continued, “This officer was very forthcoming, told me a lot of stuff, but when I asked about the story of the glass being shot out of the Bellagio hotel the officer said no comment. Had been very forthcoming throughout the entire interview but when I got to that he said sorry I cannot talk about that.”</p>
<p>The officer also reportedly told the journalist that “no sense of normalcy had returned to Vegas at this point” and that due to the mass chaos&#160;the night of the shooting, police believe the attackers used diversions to lead police around the strip as they conducted their attack.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the FBI is running the entire investigation and thus has the ability to release whatever disinformation they wish, knowing the mainstream press will immediately report it as fact.</p>
<p>The above report is by no means the only evidence that there was more than one shooter, in fact there are at least six different eyewitness reports that detail or prove multiple shooters even as the authorities and media desperately try to convince the American people that one old man conducted the largest mass shooting in the countries history.</p>
<p>As&#160; <a href="http://www.thedailysheeple.com/las-vegas-mass-shooting-eyewitness-there-were-four-to-five-shooters-attacking-multiple-hotels_102017" type="external">I recently reported</a>, one of the shocking eyewitness reports came from a man named Gio Rios who posted what he saw before deleting it amid seemingly coordinated personal attacks.</p>
<p>“Facebook user and&#160; <a href="https://kek.gg/i/FJYyk.png" type="external">eyewitness Gio Rios</a>&#160;has sent shockwaves throughout the internet after he not only confirmed he was present during the attack, he presented a variety of details that are were either unpublished or have been denied by authorities and the mainstream media.”</p>
<p>“There was more than one shooter, I believe there were 4-5 shooters and I saw/heard 4 of them,” Rios claimed. “There was one of their men down in the concert who lit firecrackers either to distract people…. or to decoy the Mandalay Bay shooter breaking the windows out of the hotel without being noticed right away.”</p>
<p>Other evidence includes&#160; <a href="http://www.thedailysheeple.com/video-automatic-gunfire-heard-at-ground-level-during-las-vegas-mass-shooting-as-cover-up-continues-to-unravel_102017" type="external">video footage</a>&#160;that clearly shows gunfire at the ground level as well as various other eyewitness accounts that have already been seen by millions.</p>
<p>No doubt about it, we are clearly seeing some sort of large-scale coverup in action.</p>
<p>Alex Thomas is a staff writer and reporter for <a href="http://www.thedailysheeple.com/report-police-believe-there-was-more-than-one-shooter-during-las-vegas-massacre_102017" type="external">The Daily Sheeple</a>. Wake the flock up – follow Alex’s work at our&#160; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thedailysheeple/" type="external">Facebook</a>&#160;or&#160; <a href="https://twitter.com/TheDailySheeple" type="external">Twitter.</a></p>
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<p /> | Report: Police Believe There Was More Than One Shooter During Las Vegas Massacre | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2017/10/13/report-police-believe-there-was-more-than-one-shooter-during-las-vegas-massacre/ | 2017-10-13 | 0 |
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<p>Distillery 365 has signed a lease to open a tasting room at the distinctive development, joining a tenant mix that will include Santa Fe Brewing Co., Epiphany Espresso, a host of local food vendors, and even a boutique gym.</p>
<p>The young Albuquerque distillery will occupy 320 square feet at the center, which is currently being constructed with recycled shipping containers.</p>
<p>Matt Simonds, who this year founded <a href="" type="internal">Distillery 365</a> with Matt Bishop, said they had no immediate plans to add an additional location - the flagship only opened in May - but Green Jeans developer Roy Solomon pitched them on the idea, and they liked it.</p>
<p>"It's such a high-visibility location," Simonds said of the site at Interstate 40 and Carlisle. "And really what struck me the most is just the environment Roy Solomon is building over there is so cool (with) the cooperative-type arrangements and just cool tenants and cool concepts."</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Distillery 365, headquartered at 2921 Stanford NE, currently offers its Horsethief Rum and Holy Ghost Vodka and recently received the necessary federal approval to make a new pecan rum, Simonds said.</p>
<p>He said business has been good so far, noting "I can't make (the vodka) fast enough."</p>
<p>Distillery 365 aims to open at Green Jeans by year's end.</p>
<p>The development is now 90 percent leased. For more on the lineup, see <a href="" type="internal">this story.</a></p> | Green Jeans shipping container project lands Distillery 365 | false | https://abqjournal.com/639654/green-jeans-shipping-container-project-lands-distillery-365.html | 2 |
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<p>FILE – In this Nov. 6, 2014 file photo, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. speaks in Columbia, Tenn. Democratic senators are intent on changing a bill that would give Congress a say in an emerging nuclear deal with Iran, tweaks that could make it more palatable to President Barack Obama, who called Corker and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., on April 8, to lobby against undermining diplomatic efforts to end a standoff with Tehran.(AP Photo/Erik Schelzig, File)</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — Democratic senators are intent on changing a bill that would give Congress a say in an emerging nuclear deal with Iran — tweaks that could make it more palatable to President Barack Obama, who called two key senators on Wednesday to lobby against undermining diplomatic efforts to end a standoff with Tehran.</p>
<p>The president’s calls to Republican Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, were the latest consultations in the White House’s full-court press to convince Congress that an international framework agreement reached last week is the best way to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon.</p>
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<p>“I am trying to bridge the differences here — not that I feel I’ll be able to get the president as a cheerleader to the bill but try to deal with some legitimate concerns,” Cardin said in an interview.</p>
<p>Cardin, who spoke with the president for about 15 minutes, said he hopes an amended bill can carry out two purposes: provide Congress with an orderly way to review any final agreement reached with Iran and mandate periodic reports on compliance so Congress can take action if Iran violates a final deal — if it can be reached.</p>
<p>Obama has threatened to veto the bill, which was introduced by Corker of Tennessee and Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.</p>
<p>Standing by the president, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday expressed her opposition to the bill, saying it undermines the international negotiators’ ability to reach a final agreement with Iran and “represents an unnecessary hurdle to achieving a strong, final agreement.”</p>
<p>Whether the measure could garner a two-thirds majority in the full Senate to override a presidential veto is not known, but it’s clear there is bipartisan support for finding a way for Congress to weigh in on any deal, regardless of whether the White House wants it to or not.</p>
<p>“I would hope that if we get it done the way I’m hoping to get it done that the concerns that the president has raised” will be addressed, said Cardin, who is proposing more than a handful of amendments. “Now, the president may feel compelled because of separation of powers to veto it. I understand that.”</p>
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<p>White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama’s conversation with Corker was not an opportunity for the two men to negotiate the terms of legislation, but rather a chance for the president to speak directly to the chairman to “underscore his view about the opportunity that now exists.”</p>
<p>“The mode that we’re in right now is helping members of Congress understand exactly what’s included in the commitments that Iran has made thus far,” Earnest said. “And our principle concern is to make sure that the U.S. officials who are responsible for negotiating the details of this agreement have the time and space that they need to complete this agreement by the end of June.”</p>
<p>On Capitol Hill, the focus is on the committee, which is scheduled to vote on the bill Tuesday.</p>
<p>As it’s written, the Corker-Menendez bill would require Obama to submit any final agreement reached with Iran to Congress within five days. It would require Obama to send a report that explains the extent to which the secretary of state will be able to verify that Iran is complying with the deal. The bill also would require the White House to certify that the agreement does not jeopardize U.S. national security, including preventing Iran from pursuing nuclear-related military activities.</p>
<p>In implementing any final deal, Obama could lift sanctions imposed through presidential action, but the bill would prohibit him — for 60 days — from suspending, waiving or otherwise easing any sanctions that Congress imposed on Iran. During that 60-day period, Congress could hold hearings and approve, disapprove or take no action on any final nuclear agreement with Iran.</p>
<p>If Congress passed a joint resolution approving a final deal — or took no action — Obama could move ahead to ease sanctions levied by Congress. But if Congress passed a joint resolution disapproving it, Obama would be blocked from implementing any relief of congressional sanctions.</p>
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<p>After the 60-day congressional review period, the bill requires the president to assess Iran’s compliance with the agreement at three-month intervals. If the president cannot certify Iran’s compliance, or if he determines there has been a breach of the deal, the bill says Congress could quickly vote to restore sanctions that had been waived or suspended.</p>
<p>There’s one provision of Corker-Menendez that has especially irked the White House. The bill calls on the Obama administration to certify that Iran has not directly supported or carried out an act of terrorism against the United States or an American anywhere in the world.</p>
<p>The White House is opposed to hinging any deal to U.S. concerns about Iranian support of terrorist groups. Administration officials insist they are only negotiating an agreement to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. An amendment proposed by Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., would strip that provision from the bill.</p>
<p>Another Democratic member of the committee, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, has introduced her own Iran congressional oversight bill. It seeks to ensure that Congress has a central role in overseeing any nuclear deal with Iran, requires the Obama administration to report to Congress about Iran’s compliance and sets up an expedited process for Congress to reinstate sanctions if Tehran violates the deal.</p>
<p>Boxer intends to file her bill as an amendment to the Corker bill, and might file additional amendments before Tuesday’s vote.</p>
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<p>Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.</p> | Obama lobbies Congress on Iran; Dems seek changes to bill | false | https://abqjournal.com/566564/obama-lobbies-congress-on-iran-dems-seek-changes-to-bill.html | 2 |
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<p>Teed up</p>
<p>President Obama made news overnight (East Coast time) when he said in his news conference in Tokyo that new sanctions against Russia are “teed up,” with technical issues that still need to be worked out. “We have been consistently preparing for the possibility that” Russia wouldn’t deliver on its promise from Geneva to de-escalate tensions in Eastern Ukraine. “And so what that means is that we have been preparing for the prospect that we’re going to have to engage in further sanctions. Those are teed up.” He added, “It requires some technical work and it also requires coordination with other countries. So the fact that I haven’t announced them yet doesn’t mean that they haven’t been prepared and teed up.” More Obama: “I think it’s important to emphasize that throughout this process, our goal has been to change Mr. Putin’s calculus; that our preference is to resolve this issue diplomatically; that sanctions hurt Russia more than anybody else but they’re disruptive to the global economy and they’re unnecessary if, in fact, Russia would recognize that the government in Kiev is prepared to have serious negotiations that preserve the rights of all Ukrainians.” Bottom line: It was a very skeptical and pessimistic president regarding whether Russia will deal diplomatically.</p>
<p>Caroline Kennedy on Hillary and 2016</p>
<p>In an interview with one of us, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Carolina Kennedy talked about her decision to accept the job; the importance of learning the balance between respecting local customs while pushing American values when appropriate, something she waded into a few months back regarding dolphin hunting. Some other highlights included learning Japanese on the job: “I knew not a lot before I came and I still know not a lot. And there’s a lot to learn; it’s a complicated language, but I think it gives you great insight into their culture.” On Hillary Clinton and 2016: "I would like to see her run if that's what she wants to do. I think she would be great." And on if Kennedy herself would try again for office: “Well, first of all, I wouldn’t consider running in Japan,” she joked. “I doubt that I would ever run in the United States, either.” In general, one can’t help but conclude she is not as interested about getting involved in campaign politics in 2016 as she was in 2008. In fact, it sounds like someone who didn’t have a positive experience running (briefly) for U.S. senator in 2009.</p>
<p>NRA gathers on Friday in Indianapolis</p>
<p>Tomorrow, the National Rifle Association’s annual gathering takes place in Indianapolis, and the <a href="http://www.nraam.org/special-events/nra-ila-leadership-forum.aspx" type="external">confirmed speakers include</a> Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sens. Marco Rubio and Dan Coats, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, and 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum. What do these folks all have in common? They’re all Republicans. That fact might not be surprising given the recent politics of gun control. But it is striking when you consider the NRA’s past bipartisan support (there was a time, after all, when the NRA handed out A-ratings to Democrats). Politically, the NRA has been on a roll since the 2012 election -- it defeated the background-check legislation sponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), and it even has appeared to stop President Obama’s nominee to be surgeon general. But there is a downside to being viewed as a partisan (and not bipartisan) organization: Political power comes and goes, and when an organization has fewer and fewer friends in one political party, there’s usually payback when that party has sole control over the government. Just ask organized labor. For years, labor made an effort to endorse Republicans, seek Republican support for their own initiatives and for a time it paid off. Labor had real substantial long term power. Now? After going more all in with Democrats than ever before, they are viewed as an influential with a smaller ad smaller constituency inside one party.</p>
<p>Kentucky Senate -- the cycle’s most unique race</p>
<p>If there's a second-day story to the New York Times/Kaiser poll from yesterday, it's how unique a race the Kentucky Senate contest is going to be. Think about it: You have a Democratic governor, Steve Beshear, who proudly supports the health-care law, who has implemented it well, and has a 55% approval rating in the state. Yet at the same time, President Obama has just a TK% approval rating there. It all adds up to make the general election -- assuming Mitch McConnell wins his primary next month -- a bit different than we're going to see in Arkansas, Louisiana, and North Carolina. And it’s possible that the individual (McConnell) could trump the overall national environment, even though Republicans are going to do everything they can to make the environment the No. 1 issue. The point is: When talking about the national landscape and the national political environment, folks should leave Kentucky out of the equation; this Senate race is on its own island, with national politics having less of an impact than in the other races. Of course, McConnell wants the national environment to matter. But right now, it sure looks like it’s not.</p>
<p>Q-poll: Udall and Gardner are running neck and neck in Colorado</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a <a href="http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/colorado/release-detail?ReleaseID=2034" type="external">new Quinnipiac poll</a> is a reminder that while the Southern Democrats are holding their own, Republicans have expanded the map. Per the survey, Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) and challenger Rep. Cory Gardner are locked in a tight race -- Udall at 45% and Gardner at 44%. Interestingly, Dem Gov. John Hickenlooper appears to be in a much stronger position than Udall is. As <a href="http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/colorado/release-detail?ReleaseID=2033" type="external">Quinnipiac revealed yesterday</a>, Hickenlooper’s job approval is above 50%, and he has significant leads over his potential GOP rivals.</p>
<p>Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Sarah Palin uniting behind T.W. Shannon</p>
<p>Our colleague Perry Bacon reports that today in Tulsa, OK Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and Sarah Palin are holding a joint campaign event with T.W. Shannon, the former speaker of the Oklahoma House who is now running to replace Tom Coburn in the U.S. Senate. He is in a primary battle against Rep. James Lankford, which takes place on June 24. Bacon adds that this event is significant because it's the latest illustration of how the Republican Party really does want to embrace black candidates who are conservative. And Bacon observes that it's not an accident that Sen. Tim Scott is running virtually unopposed in South Carolina, while Lindsey Graham is having to ward off a long list of challengers. Come 2015, there’s the real possibility that, in a country where 90%-plus African Americans are Democratic voters, there will be two black GOP senators (Scott, Shannon) and one black Democratic senator (Cory Booker).</p>
<p>GOP group targets Democratic billionaire</p>
<p>By now, you’ve probably seen the Democratic TV ads ( <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3GnGr-CjTs&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">here</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXSpPmDPO6Y" type="external">here</a>) hitting the conservative Koch Brothers for the millions of dollars they’ve been pouring into key Senate contests. But chances are that you might not know that Republicans are now targeting Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer. In the past month, a GOP-leaning group called American Commitment has run online ads on Facebook and YouTube (at a buy of about $90,000) singling out Steyer as the reason why the Obama administration has delayed a decision on the Keystone pipeline. Here’s the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl2clV9uGpM&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">new ad</a> American Commitment is running in Colorado against Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO): “California billionaire Tom Steyer is bankrolling Colorado Sen. Mark Udall’s campaign,” the narrator states. “A pipeline delay is a victory for Tom Steyer, but a cold slap in the face of American workers. Call Mark Udall -- tell him to put Colorado ahead of his billionaire backer and support the Keystone pipeline.” And <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScCejJBRO24&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">here’s the other one</a> it began running last month. Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment, tells First Read that the ad campaign is intended to “shame” Democrats and get Keystone approved.</p>
<p><a href="http://is.gd/ccxyrR" type="external">Click here to sign up for First Read emails.</a> Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone. Check us out on <a href="http://is.gd/TzuR1b" type="external">Facebook</a>and also on <a href="http://is.gd/hkhSDT" type="external">Twitter</a>. Follow us @ <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/chucktodd" type="external">chucktodd</a>, @ <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/mmurraypolitics" type="external">mmurraypolitics</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/carrienbcnews" type="external">@carrienbcnews</a></p> | Obama Inches Closer to More Russia Sanctions | false | http://nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/obama-inches-closer-more-russia-sanctions-n88546 | 2014-04-24 | 3 |
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<p>A late rebound in energy shares helped U.S. stocks end a choppy session a tad higher on Thursday ahead of the U.S. monthly jobs report.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The day marked the eight-year anniversary of the current bull market, the second-longest ever. Some strategists expect it to continue with the help of stronger earnings, lower taxes and a corporate-friendly administration in Washington.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500's slight gain came after three straight days of losses. A frenetic post-election rally on bets of reduced regulation and tax cuts under President Donald Trump has been losing steam as investors fret over valuations and the possibility of the Federal Reserve raising rates more aggressively.</p>
<p>The market is going through a “healthy consolidation” following the recent streak of record highs, said Lindsey Bell, investment strategist at CFRA Research in New York.</p>
<p>"Consolidation after reaching a new high is not a bad thing,” she said. “The market is waiting on the employment number (Friday) and the FOMC meeting next week."</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 energy index rose 0.6 percent, snapping two days of big losses, even as crude prices slid nearly 2 percent.</p>
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<p>Helping the market early in the day was a report that showed the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose to 243,000 last week, but remained below 300,000 for the 105th week.</p>
<p>Friday's nonfarm payrolls report is expected to show 190,000 jobs were added in the U.S. private and public sectors in February.</p>
<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 2.46 points, or 0.01 percent, to 20,858.19, the S&amp;P 500 gained 1.89 points, or 0.08 percent, to 2,364.87 and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.26 points, or 0.02 percent, to 5,838.81.</p>
<p>Stronger economic data has prompted hawkish rhetoric from several Fed officials, leading traders to price in a near 90-percent chance of a quarter-point rate increase next week.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 financial index, which had boosted the market earlier in the day, cut gains in afternoon trading and ended up 0.3 percent.</p>
<p>Asked whether Trump still backs his campaign pledge to restore the Glass-Steagall Act, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that he did. The law, which separated commercial and investment banking, was repealed in 1999 and, if reinstated, would mainly apply to larger banks.</p>
<p>"Financials have been a massive leadership group, and a lot of it has been built on deregulation" promises, said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut.</p>
<p>"Maybe the sector has gotten ahead of itself," he said, adding that more details are needed from the new administration.</p>
<p>The European Central Bank stood firm on its stimulus program but said there was no longer a sense of urgency in taking further action to counter deflation.</p>
<p>Johnson &amp; Johnson was up 1.5 percent after Jefferies raised its price target on the healthcare conglomerate's stock.</p>
<p>About 7 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, roughly matching the daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.</p>
<p>NYSE declining issues outnumbered advancing ones by a 2.40-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.41-to-1 ratio favored decliners.</p>
<p>The S&amp;P 500 posted 24 new 52-week highs and 14 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 64 new highs and 58 new lows.</p>
<p>(By Caroline Valetkevitch; Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos in New York and Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Nick Zieminski)</p> | Wall St Ends Up Slightly; Energy Shares Rebound | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/03/09/wall-st-ends-up-slightly-energy-shares-rebound.html | 2017-03-09 | 0 |
<p>Congressman&#160;Devin Nunes (R-California) just gave an ominous warning to&#160;journalists to stop looking into Jeff Sessions? Russian ties.</p>
<p>In a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Rep. Nunes - who chairs the House Intelligence Committee - threatened reporters with prosecution if they continued to ask questions about Attorney General Jeff Sessions' multiple meetings with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the election.</p>
<p>In one exchange with a journalist asking about the FBI's progress in investigating the Trump administration's contact with Russian government officials during the election, Rep. Nunes suggested that, as chair of the committee with oversight over U.S. intelligence agencies, journalists should "be careful" when&#160;reporting on Russia's influence over the Trump administration:</p>
<p>REPORTER: What are the reasons that the FBI can't be as forthcoming as you might like?</p>
<p>REP. DEVIN NUNES: It's not a matter of them not being forthcoming, it's a matter of them providing us timely information when they can get it to us.</p>
<p>REPORTER: Why can't they?</p>
<p>REP. NUNES: I would assume that it's quite complicated as it relates to, if, for example, you were on the phone with the Russian ambassador, and somehow your phone call got recorded, would you want them turning over that phone call and that transcript to the committee?</p>
<p>REPORTER: Well, isn't there a difference though between a public person and a private person?</p>
<p>REP. NUNES: Well, that's the point here. General [Michael] Flynn was a private American citizen. So, look, I'm sure some of you are in contact with the Russian embassy, so be careful what you ask here, because if we get, if we start getting transcripts of any of you or other Americans talking to the press, then do you want us &#160;to conduct an investigation on you or other Americans because you were talking to the Russian embassy?</p>
<p>Watch the video of Rep. Nunes' press conference below, courtesy of The Raw Story:</p>
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<p>Jamie Green is a contributor for the Resistance Report covering the Trump administration, and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.</p> | Republican intelligence chairman threatens to 'investigate' journalists for asking about Sessions | true | http://resistancereport.com/politics/republican-investigate-journalists/ | 2017-03-02 | 4 |
<p>When I was down in Guantánamo a few months ago, a veteran German journalist let it slip that she didn’t much care for the place. “This,” she confided in me, and many of the other journalists there as well, “is the worst place I have ever visited in my entire career.”</p>
<p>It’s not hard to see why my superlative-loving friend felt this way: we were covering the case of Omar Khadr, a 15-year-old Canadian captured after a firefight with U.S. forces outside Kabul in July 2002, tortured and interrogated for a few months at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, then transported to Guantánamo. He just reached a plea agreement that will avoid a trial before a military commission at Gitmo for five “war crimes.” Four of them, freshly invented for the occasion, are not recognized as war crimes in any other court on the planet. (Khadr pled guilty to all charges and will get at least one year more at Gitmo — in solitary — then perhaps be transferred to Canada for a remaining seven years.)</p>
<p>Aside from Khadr and about 130 other prisoners who may one day see a trial, Guantánamo also holds 47 more War on Terror prisoners who are expected to be “detained” indefinitely without being tried at all. This was one of the radical policies of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney that is now cheerfully defended by the human rights grandees in Barack Obama’s State Department.</p>
<p>Gitmo and all other places without habeas corpus rights are indeed dismal places — and there is certainly something disgusting about the first conviction of a child soldier since World War II. All the same, I couldn’t help but wonder if my vehement Kollegin had ever visited a homegrown federal prison like the one in Terre Haute, Indiana (whose maximum security wing was copied down to the smallest detail at Gitmo’s Camp 5), or even your run-of-the-mill overcrowded state lock-up, the kind you pass on the highway without even noticing that you’ve done so, or one of the crumbling youth detention facilities in New York State which, as we lawyers who have represented youth offenders know, are hellish.</p>
<p>Such prisons may lack the exotic setting of Gitmo’s Camp Delta, but they should not be forgotten. At the risk of sounding boosterish, it so happens that a great many of America’s unsung domestic prisons also routinely abuse inmates, Guantánamo-style, are unable or unwilling to prevent inmate rape, employ long-term, sustained solitary confinement (which gives waterboarding a run for its money), and in actual practice are often beyond the rule of law. Confessions, true or false, obtained through violence and threats, aren’t restricted to Guantánamo either. They are not all that hard to find in our contiguous 48 states. And for the rest of our prison system, where are the outraged German journalists? Why are no British “law lords” calling the federal supermax in Florence, Colorado, a “legal black hole” as law lord Johan Steyn termed Guantánamo?</p>
<p>Alas, in so many ways Guantánamo is not the exception but far closer to the rule of our criminal justice system, and the case of Omar Khadr, rather than being an anomaly of the War on Terror, is in all too many ways positively all-American. To be sure, taking a child soldier you’ve captured in a foreign land, whose interrogation entailed stringing him up half-naked in a five-foot-square cell with wrists chained to the bars at eye level and a hood clamped tightly over his face, then prosecuting him for “murder” because he allegedly tossed a grenade on a foreign battlefield, does present some legal issues that don’t ordinarily come up in Spokane or Chillicothe.</p>
<p>But Gitmo, a “betrayal of American values”? Would that it were! Alas, for nearly every grisly tabloid feature of the Khadr case, you can find an easy analog in our everyday criminal justice system. In a sense, much of our War on Terror has proven a slightly spicier version of our “normal” way of doing criminal justice. Using the case of Omar Khadr, let’s take this step by step.</p>
<p>Child Soldiers and Juvenile Offenders</p>
<p>The Khadr case should have been a bit queasy-making for us Americanos. Hasn’t there been a surge of concern for child soldiers in book clubs and church groups across the land? Turns out, however, that this long-distance compassion goes up in smoke at closer range. The second a child soldier points his gun at an American, not another African, it’s adiós victimized child,hello hardened terrorist.</p>
<p>The hypocrisy in all this is less flaming than it may appear. After all, clemency for youth offenders, be they child soldiers or just local kids, runs against the American grain these days. If we routinely prosecute children even younger than 15 as adults — and we do — why should a foreign child soldier be any different?</p>
<p>In fact the U.S. even has a few dozen inmates doing life without parole for acts committed when they were 13 or 14, and most of these sentences were mandatory rather than the prerogative of a particularly nasty judge. (Some small progress: last May in Graham v. Florida the Supreme Court decided that juveniles can get life without parole only if there’s homicide involved.) Overall, the U.S. has in recent years had precious little mercy for its children, or anyone else’s.</p>
<p>Coercive Interrogation of Minors</p>
<p>Back in May, the Gitmo press corps gasped when Khadr’s “Interrogator Number One,” Joshua Claus, described the veiled threats of rape he wielded at Bagram Prison to try to break the young prisoner. If Khadr should fail to cooperate, Claus told him, he would meet the same fate as another young (and imaginary) Afghan detainee who was supposedly sent to a U.S. penitentiary and raped to death in a shower room by “neo-Nazis, and four big black guys.” Claus, a court-martialed detainee abuser, had been the leader of the final interrogation of a mistakenly imprisoned Afghan taxi driver who was beaten to death by American guards at Bagram in 2002. Before receiving a rather light sentence in the case, Claus pledged his full cooperation with the Khadr prosecution, and he kept his part of the bargain with visible enthusiasm.</p>
<p>As it happens, Claus’s veiled threats of rape and violence to a minor would not have been that uncommon in domestic interrogation rooms. “From the stories I’m familiar with, threats like that are a pretty garden-variety police interrogation tactic,” says Locke Bowman, legal director of the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University.</p>
<p>With youths, it’s not that much of a challenge to get a false confession, even without the threat of or actual physical violence being brought to bear, as the case of Marty Tankleff in Long Island shows, not to mention the seven and eight year-old boys from the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago who, in the summer of 1998, “confessed” to murdering a girl for her bicycle. Even after DNA evidence from semen found on the corpse was matched to an adult serial sex offender, the Chicago Police Superintendent at first refused to exonerate them. The State’s Attorney might well have prosecuted the boys, too, if the entire South Side of Chicago hadn’t threatened to explode.</p>
<p>Torture</p>
<p>Okay, but what about torture? We bemoan with great feeling that America has “become” a state that uses torture. Alas, this, too, is not so new, nor has it ever been limited to foreign insurgents (be they Comanche, Filipino, or Vietnamese) or suspected terrorists. Take, for example, the former high-ranking Chicago police detective Jon Burge who, over a 20-year career, enhanced his interrogations with mock executions, suffocation, electroshocks, pistol-whipping, and yes, a form of waterboarding. All this was uncovered in 2002 in an epic special investigation which led to the reexamination of more than 100 cases, several overturned convictions, multiple Governor’s pardons and the usual massive lawsuits against the Chicago Police Department. Because the statute of limitations for Burge’s crimes had run out, the disgraced police officer was convicted this past June for perjury and obstruction of justice. He currently awaits sentencing.</p>
<p>Routinized Prison Abuse</p>
<p>As for routinized prison abuse, Bagram and Abu Ghraib have regularly been described as one-off aberrations, but the origins of such brutality are not hard to spot in our treatment of prisoners at home. This continuity is personified by Charles Graner, the ringleader of the Abu Ghraib torture. He had fittingly been a guard at maximum-security State Correctional Institute-Greene in southwestern Pennsylvania, itself subject to a major prisoner-abuse scandal in the late 1990s which got several guards fired, though not Graner.</p>
<p>Fact is, the abuse and/or torture of prisoners, though far from systematic, is not all that uncommon in many American prisons. What came out in the Abu Ghraib photos is, according to the (increasingly busy) United States program of Human Rights Watch, not so different from the abuse and brutality of many of our own stateside lock-ups.</p>
<p>In New York, for instance, a state task force convened by Governor David Paterson in 2008 deemed the entire youth detention system “broken.” The official report found that guards throughout the system regularly used “excessive force” on youth inmates, sometimes breaking bones and shattering teeth.</p>
<p>Prison abuse here at home can be just as fatal as at Bagram. In New York, an emotionally disturbed 15-year-old died in 2006 after corrections officers pinned him face down on the ground. (Remember, at Bagram the interrogators tried to make young Khadr talk by threatening to send him to an American prison, which they apparently considered at least as threatening as anything Afghanistan had to offer.)</p>
<p>This is not lost on lawyers representing Gitmo detainees. “I might well advise a client to take ten years in the communal wing of Guantánamo over three years in solitary at the supermax in Florence,” says Shayana Kadidal, senior managing attorney at the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Attorney Joshua Dratel, who took part in the very successful defense of Gitmo detainee David Hicks, told me recently that he thought the worst American-run prison is not Guantánamo’s Camp Delta, but rather the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan. And yet, somewhat mysteriously, New Yorkers are more likely to know about the brutality of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib than the fatal abuse and abysmal prison conditions in their own state.</p>
<p>To be sure, in significant ways Gitmo and the CIA’s various global “black sites” were significantly worse. First, the use of torture has been far more widespread at Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and the other secret prisons established in the Bush years than at home. In addition, the government has also made the decision to imprison some detainees without trial for the duration of what has often been described as a “multigenerational” global war on terror. Even those prisoners with habeas rights have had trouble getting release orders granted by the judiciary enforced. Half a dozen Guantánamo prosecutors — prosecutors, mind you, not defense lawyers — have quit in disgust with the whole process, offering harsh words about the structural flaws which tilt the system towards securing convictions at the expense of impartial justice.</p>
<p>In important ways, however, our domestic justice system is no better. Darrell Vandeveld is a former Guantánamo prosecutor. He resigned in a crisis of conscience in 2009. He was also once a public defender in San Diego wherehe found that many defendants were able to get only a semblance of justice. “Most of the defendants’ rights were honored only in the breach. It’s an overburdened system that has only become worse. Comparable to Gitmo? No doubt.” Vandeveld, who now heads the public defender office in Erie, Pennsylvania, stresses that, while the outrages are not identical, they are comparable.</p>
<p>Legal Black Holes, At Home and Abroad</p>
<p>Gazing into Gitmo’s black hole can also easily provoke disturbing reflections on the rule of law in wartime America. As another lawyer remarked 2,000 years ago while his republic was degenerating into empire, “Inter armas silent leges” (in time of war, the laws fall silent).</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the Global War on Terror — a name the Obama administration has demurely dropped without dropping the war that went with it — is by no means the only war deforming our justice system. For the past three decades, the War on Crime and the War on Drugs have been in full fury, becoming ever less metaphorical as budgets for police and prisons skyrocket, and then skyrocket some more. These domestic crackdowns have come with much martial rhetoric and political manipulation of fear and anger, clearing a wide path for the excesses of that Global War on Terror. By overburdening the criminal courts and prison system to a hitherto unimaginable degree, these “wars” also created legal black holes where the rule of law is notional at best.</p>
<p>Take the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which made it nearly impossible for inmates to sue prison authorities, and has put thousands of Americans beyond the reach of any kind of juridical authority. According toBryan Stevenson, a peerless capital-defense litigator and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama:</p>
<p>“U.S. prison officials have obtained greater and greater discretion to send someone to solitary confinement for years; to force people into their cells naked, without meals; to inflict punitive measures without any possibility of outside intervention. It’s often a closed system whose managers have all the authority, especially at our supermax facilities. They function in many ways like Guantánamo.”</p>
<p>Gitmo and Bagram were well within our capabilities before 9/11. Yes, it’s true that Bush administration officials and pundits told us with excitement about how, in our counterattack on al-Qaeda, “the gloves were coming off.” For a great many Americans already in U.S. prisons, however, those gloves had never gone on to begin with. This raises some vexing questions about how we budget our indignation. It is not at all clear why violent interrogations, abuse, and torture should be more scandalous when they happen overseas than in Chicago.</p>
<p>What explains this collective Jellybyism? Is it because so many of our domestic inmates, especially in the regions where national opinion is produced, are African American and Latino, whereas most of our professional social reformers in the nonprofit sector are white and Asian? Is it because most of our elite public-interest lawyers and white-shoe pro bono advocates come out of a top half-dozen law schools where they most likely got a nice taste of well-tended federal courts, but little if any exposure to our overburdened state criminal courts? Is it just too depressing to think about our crumbling, overstrained criminal justice system in Guantánamo-like terms? Does compassion fatigue for those atrocities closest at hand always set in first, and hardest? Whatever the reasons, the gaping legal black holes in our domestic justice and penal system have acquired the seamless invisibility of an open secret.</p>
<p>It is no coincidence that most of the American intellectuals who have pointed out these domestic precursors to the Global War on Terror — journalists likeMargaret Kimberley and Bob Herbert, and law professor James Forman, Jr. — are African American. Black Americans, whose overall incarceration rate today is probably higher than that of Soviet citizens at the peak of the gulag, have had ample reasons over the centuries, and now as much as ever, to doubt the fundamental fairness of American justice. When advocates compare the military tribunals unfavorably to “the Cadillac version of justice” that U.S. citizens supposedly get (which was how one Gitmo defense attorney described America’s domestic courts), it is simply baffling to those aware of how our system actually works.</p>
<p>In fact, the ho-hum familiarity of much of the War on Terror’s nastiness may help explain why so many Americans view what’s gone on at Gitmo with a shrug, and often respond to the liberal shock and horror with exasperation. This has been going on right here for decades, where have you been?</p>
<p>Prosecuting a 15-year-old for “murder” with the help of a little torture and some threats of rape may not be the kind of thing we want show German journalists. They’ll just get upset. They lack the context. But we Americans really have no right to claim that we’re shocked, shocked. We got used to this kind of thing a long time ago. The prosecution of former child soldier Omar Khadr has been nothing, in other words, if not all-American.</p>
<p>This piece first appeared at <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/" type="external">TomDispatch</a>.</p>
<p>CHASE MADAR, a civil-rights lawyer in New York, writes for Le Monde diplomatique, the London Review of Books and the American Conservative. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:[email protected]" type="external">[email protected]</a></p>
<p />
<p /> | Guantánamo: Exception or Rule? | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/11/04/guant-aacute-namo-exception-or-rule/ | 2010-11-04 | 4 |
<p>COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The fugitive ex-president of Spain’s Catalonia region left his self-exile in Belgium and visited Denmark unimpeded Monday after a Spanish judge refused to ask Danish authorities to arrest him.</p>
<p>Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena rejected a petition from Spain’s top prosecutor to issue a European arrest warrant for Carles Puigdemont, saying the former Catalan leader was trying to “provoke his arrest overseas” with his planned trip to Copenhagen.</p>
<p>Puigdemont’s journey, which included attending a university debate and meeting Danish lawmakers, came nearly three months after he was removed from office and fled to Belgium. A warrant for his arrest remains open in Spain.</p>
<p>Spanish authorities are investigating him and other Catalan officials for possible rebellion and sedition charges related to regional parliament’s Oct. 27 declaration of independence.</p>
<p>Shortly after Puigdemont arrived in Denmark, Catalonia’s parliamentary speaker proposed him as candidate to form a new government, despite his status as a fugitive.</p>
<p>Llarena, the Spain Supreme Court judge, said he suspected Puigdemont planned the trip to Denmark with its attendant risk of arrest so he could blame Spain for missing an upcoming vote in the regional Parliament to elect a new leader.</p>
<p>“Facing the legal impossibility to be elected without being present at the Parliament, provoking his arrest overseas seeks to equip him with a justification that his absence is not a free decision as a fugitive, but the consequence of a situation that has been imposed on him,” Llarena wrote in his decision rejecting the prosecutor’s request to re-activate a European arrest warrant for Puigdemont.</p>
<p>The Catalan parliament has not set a date for the investiture vote, but the deadline is Jan. 31st.</p>
<p>Spanish courts initially sought Puigdemont’s extradition from Belgium but canceled that petition amid concerns that Belgium might send him back but restrict the crimes with which he could be charged.</p>
<p>The push for independence by the Catalan government, while Puigdemont was regional president, triggered Spain’s most serious political crisis in decades. Spain ousted Puigdemont’s Cabinet, dissolved the regional parliament and called a December regional election as part of special powers invoked following the independence declaration.</p>
<p>He and his 13 former Cabinet members face possible charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement, which carry jail sentences of up to 30 years under Spanish law.</p>
<p>Despite Puigdemont’s legal situation, Catalan parliamentary speaker Roger Torrent said Monday that the former president was the only candidate with enough backing following last month’s election to attempt to form a new government.</p>
<p>Puigdemont faces immediate arrest if he returns to Spain and, if he remains abroad, central authorities in Madrid said they will block any attempt he might make to be Catalonia’s president.</p>
<p>Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has even threatened to maintain special constitutional powers to keep direct control of the region.</p>
<p>Torrent said he asked Rajoy for a meeting to talk about the “abnormal situation” in Catalonia.</p>
<p>But a government official close to Rajoy who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said that the central government had no intention of discussing judicial affairs with the Catalan speaker.</p>
<p>Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis had said the issue of how to proceed with Puigdemont was for judges, and not the government, to decide.</p>
<p>“Mr. Puigdemont is subject to a process in Spain. Outside, for the moment, his movements are free within the European Union, but we’ll see,” Dastis said earlier on Monday in Brussels.</p>
<p>Puigdemont refused to comment on the judge’s decision not to seek his arrest. Speaking to a crowded auditorium at the University of Copenhagen, he said that he sought to regain his old job as Catalonia’s president because supporters of secession had won the most seats in the recent election.</p>
<p>“If Catalans can’t change their laws and leaders, that means there is no democracy in Catalonia,” he said, adding that Catalans “will not surrender to authoritarianism.”</p>
<p>He also talked about an April 25 constitutional referendum in the Faeroe Islands, a Danish territory. Together with Greenland, the Faeroes have long sought further autonomy while allowing Denmark to handle their foreign affairs and defense.</p>
<p>A Faeroese lawmaker invited Puigdemont to the Danish Parliament on Tuesday. Leading members of the government and opposition have declined to meet with him.</p>
<p>____</p>
<p>Parra and Associated Press writer Ciaran Giles reported from Madrid.</p>
<p>COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The fugitive ex-president of Spain’s Catalonia region left his self-exile in Belgium and visited Denmark unimpeded Monday after a Spanish judge refused to ask Danish authorities to arrest him.</p>
<p>Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena rejected a petition from Spain’s top prosecutor to issue a European arrest warrant for Carles Puigdemont, saying the former Catalan leader was trying to “provoke his arrest overseas” with his planned trip to Copenhagen.</p>
<p>Puigdemont’s journey, which included attending a university debate and meeting Danish lawmakers, came nearly three months after he was removed from office and fled to Belgium. A warrant for his arrest remains open in Spain.</p>
<p>Spanish authorities are investigating him and other Catalan officials for possible rebellion and sedition charges related to regional parliament’s Oct. 27 declaration of independence.</p>
<p>Shortly after Puigdemont arrived in Denmark, Catalonia’s parliamentary speaker proposed him as candidate to form a new government, despite his status as a fugitive.</p>
<p>Llarena, the Spain Supreme Court judge, said he suspected Puigdemont planned the trip to Denmark with its attendant risk of arrest so he could blame Spain for missing an upcoming vote in the regional Parliament to elect a new leader.</p>
<p>“Facing the legal impossibility to be elected without being present at the Parliament, provoking his arrest overseas seeks to equip him with a justification that his absence is not a free decision as a fugitive, but the consequence of a situation that has been imposed on him,” Llarena wrote in his decision rejecting the prosecutor’s request to re-activate a European arrest warrant for Puigdemont.</p>
<p>The Catalan parliament has not set a date for the investiture vote, but the deadline is Jan. 31st.</p>
<p>Spanish courts initially sought Puigdemont’s extradition from Belgium but canceled that petition amid concerns that Belgium might send him back but restrict the crimes with which he could be charged.</p>
<p>The push for independence by the Catalan government, while Puigdemont was regional president, triggered Spain’s most serious political crisis in decades. Spain ousted Puigdemont’s Cabinet, dissolved the regional parliament and called a December regional election as part of special powers invoked following the independence declaration.</p>
<p>He and his 13 former Cabinet members face possible charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement, which carry jail sentences of up to 30 years under Spanish law.</p>
<p>Despite Puigdemont’s legal situation, Catalan parliamentary speaker Roger Torrent said Monday that the former president was the only candidate with enough backing following last month’s election to attempt to form a new government.</p>
<p>Puigdemont faces immediate arrest if he returns to Spain and, if he remains abroad, central authorities in Madrid said they will block any attempt he might make to be Catalonia’s president.</p>
<p>Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has even threatened to maintain special constitutional powers to keep direct control of the region.</p>
<p>Torrent said he asked Rajoy for a meeting to talk about the “abnormal situation” in Catalonia.</p>
<p>But a government official close to Rajoy who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said that the central government had no intention of discussing judicial affairs with the Catalan speaker.</p>
<p>Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis had said the issue of how to proceed with Puigdemont was for judges, and not the government, to decide.</p>
<p>“Mr. Puigdemont is subject to a process in Spain. Outside, for the moment, his movements are free within the European Union, but we’ll see,” Dastis said earlier on Monday in Brussels.</p>
<p>Puigdemont refused to comment on the judge’s decision not to seek his arrest. Speaking to a crowded auditorium at the University of Copenhagen, he said that he sought to regain his old job as Catalonia’s president because supporters of secession had won the most seats in the recent election.</p>
<p>“If Catalans can’t change their laws and leaders, that means there is no democracy in Catalonia,” he said, adding that Catalans “will not surrender to authoritarianism.”</p>
<p>He also talked about an April 25 constitutional referendum in the Faeroe Islands, a Danish territory. Together with Greenland, the Faeroes have long sought further autonomy while allowing Denmark to handle their foreign affairs and defense.</p>
<p>A Faeroese lawmaker invited Puigdemont to the Danish Parliament on Tuesday. Leading members of the government and opposition have declined to meet with him.</p>
<p>____</p>
<p>Parra and Associated Press writer Ciaran Giles reported from Madrid.</p> | Ex-Catalan leader makes trip after Spain judge nixes arrest | false | https://apnews.com/e55efc37895640ffbb60d0e251e2f544 | 2018-01-22 | 2 |
<p>Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 89 years old today – an age where had he lived, I can imagine his singularly powerful voice still contributing to the betterment of American democracy. Can you imagine what he would have to say in these troubled times?</p>
<p>I strongly support we celebrate his birthday as a national holiday. And yet I fear that the elevation of Dr. King to the pantheon of great Americans who have national birthday celebrations has come at a subtle cost. These days no public official dares speak ill of Dr. King. For most, it would be political suicide. However, I worry that this universal acclaim has deadened the radicalism of Dr. King’s message. We must remember that he was a deeply contentious person at the time of his death. The clarity of the morality of his message about racial prejudice and social justice was not welcome in many corridors of power. He not only preached powerfully about the necessity of racial healing and integration. He also issued stirring rhetoric from his pulpit on the need for economic fairness across racial lines.</p>
<p>To re-listen to his speeches in today’s political climate is to reconnect with the hard truths he eloquently hurled at the American establishment. If he had survived the assassin’s bullet and continued on his life path, I am convinced that he would have remained a divisive figure. I fear that many who now pay homage to his legacy with florid paeans would be singing different tunes if he was still actively rallying civil disobedience toward the twin causes of racial and economic fairness for the marginal and dispossessed.</p>
<p>I had the supreme fortune of covering Dr. King in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. There weren’t many reporters around him in those days, and he understood the power of the press as a megaphone for his message, particularly the images that television could transmit. He was always cordial, but never overly familiar. He knew we had a job to do and so did he. He would be the first to admit that he was not a perfect man. That made him more interesting, and the power of his message all the more difficult to ignore.</p>
<p>So today, please don’t revere Dr. King the American saint. Please engage with Dr. King as the unique vessel for a message America was long overdue to hear. And please reflect on how that message, with all its fervor, is still one of great urgency.</p>
<p>(Parts of this post first appeared on Facebook in 2016 and 2017)</p> | Dr. King’s Message Is Still One Of Great Urgency | false | https://newsandguts.com/dr-kings-message-still-one-great-urgency/ | 2018-01-15 | 3 |
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<p>Wholesale prices rose 0.8 percent in June compared with May, when prices had risen 0.5 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday. It was the biggest gain since a 1 percent jump in September and was driven by a 7.2 percent surge in gasoline prices.</p>
<p>Outside of the volatile energy and food sectors, core inflation was up just 0.2 percent in June.</p>
<p>Core prices have risen 1.7 percent over the past 12 months. Aside from sharp swings in gas prices, inflation has increased very slowly over the past year, giving the Federal Reserve the room to keep interest rates low to boost the economy.</p>
<p>The government’s Producer Price Index measures inflation before it reaches the consumer. Consumer prices have been rising at a modest rate as well.</p>
<p>Over the 12 months ending in May, consumer prices outside of food and energy were up just 1.7 percent. That’s below the Fed’s 2 percent target for inflation.</p>
<p>For June, energy prices at the wholesale level were up 2.9 percent, reflecting the big jump in gas prices. It was the biggest increase since February.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>In New Mexico, the statewide average for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $3.44 Friday, compared with $3.51 a month ago, according to the AAA New Mexico. Average prices around the state were: $3.35 in Albuquerque, $3.32 in Las Cruces and $3.39 in the Santa Fe area.</p>
<p>Food costs rose 0.2 percent in June, a moderation after a larger 0.6 percent May increase that had been driven in part by a surge in the price of eggs. For June, egg prices retreated, falling 26.8 percent, the biggest one-month drop in seven years.</p>
<p>The wholesale price of passenger cars rose 0.8 percent in June, the biggest increase since November 2011, but most other categories showed moderation. Furniture prices were up 0.3 percent.</p>
<p>Total wholesale prices were up 2.5 percent in June compared to a year ago.</p>
<p>Journal staff contributed to this report.</p> | Gas-price surge fuels wholesale inflation | false | https://abqjournal.com/220587/gasprice-surge-fuels-wholesale-inflation.html | 2013-07-13 | 2 |
<p>By Nelson Bocanegra and Helen Murphy</p>
<p>VILLAVICENCIO/BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) – Thousands of victims of Colombia’s five-decade war will seek blessings, guidance and a path to forgiveness from Pope Francis on Friday, during his visit to a region that for years has been known as an epicenter of violence.</p>
<p>The Argentine pope has received a rapturous welcome in Colombia, a majority Roman Catholic nation, bringing with him a message of peace and unity as he seeks to strengthen faith and heal the scars of civil war.</p>
<p>In the city of Villavicencio, Francis will hold a prayer meeting with 6,000 survivors of a brutal conflict that has left millions scarred by kidnappings, massacres, rape, land mines and displacement.</p>
<p>He will also bless the Cross of Reconciliation, a plain white memorial to the victims, and hear personal testimonies of those who have suffered.</p>
<p>“There has been too much hatred and vengeance. The solitude of always being at loggerheads has been familiar for decades, and its smell has lingered for a hundred years,” the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics said on Thursday.</p>
<p>“We do not want any type of violence whatsoever to restrict or destroy one more life,” added the pontiff, who delayed visiting Colombia until a peace deal between the government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels was in effect.</p>
<p>Colombians have suffered from war between right-wing paramilitaries, Marxist rebels, and government forces since 1964. More than 220,000 have been killed and millions more displaced as the war spilled into towns and rural communities.</p>
<p>“SO EMOTIONAL”</p>
<p>The 80-year-old Francis will also beatify two victims as martyrs.</p>
<p>He will take the first step to make saints of Pedro Maria Ramirez, a priest who was killed in 1948 during the period of political violence known as “La Violencia,” and Bishop Jesus Emilio Jaramillo, killed in 1989 by the National Liberation Army (ELN) for suspected collaboration with the military.</p>
<p>The pontiff wants his message of reconciliation to resonate with the war victims and he urged his Church to help spread the message. “You are not bureaucrats, nor politicians, you are pastors,” he said, addressing bishops in Bogota.</p>
<p>In Villavicencio – the capital of central Meta province, a vast cattle ranching area which has been a hotbed of paramilitary and rebel violence – Francis will see a destroyed statue of Christ brought from western Choco province for his visit.</p>
<p>The effigy was recovered from a church attacked by the FARC in 2002 in the rain forest village of Bojaya. About 80 people were killed as they sought refuge from rebel bombings inside the humble church.</p>
<p>The plaster figure, without arms or legs, has become an enduring symbol of the bloody war.</p>
<p>Forgiveness is pivotal if Colombia is to forge lasting peace, break cycles of revenge and rebuild once-hostile communities.</p>
<p>But Colombians are deeply polarized as they prepare to receive 7,000 former fighters of the FARC into society and aim to repair divisions from the war.</p>
<p>Many are furious that under last year’s peace deal, FARC leaders accused of kidnapping, displacements and murder will avoid jail sentences and instead may receive seats in congress as members of a civilian political party.</p>
<p>But at least during the pope’s visit, people seem willing to forgive.</p>
<p>“I’ll be up at 3 a.m. to queue. It’s so emotional, just to see him on television makes me tearful,” said Francis Alvarez, a 59-year-old housewife, who hopes to attend the Mass in Villavicencio. “It will consolidate peace in this region that’s been so forgotten.”</p> | Pope Francis to bless Colombia's war victims | false | https://newsline.com/pope-francis-to-bless-colombia039s-war-victims/ | 2017-09-08 | 1 |
<p>Sin Soracco is a unique voice among crime novelists. She doesn’t write about private eyes and her stories are not plot-driven, but she does pull the reader into the off-kilter lives of women and men living outside mainstream society. Having spent time in California jails and prisons, Soracco is intimately acquainted with milieus like the ones her convict and ex-convict characters inhabit. They are far from the mostly lily-white preserves of too much U.S. literary fiction, and far more interesting.</p>
<p>Sorraco’s first book, <a href="" type="internal">Low Bite</a> (1989), dealt with goings on among a wild mix of inmates in a California women’s prison. Her second, <a href="" type="internal">Edge City</a> (1992), follows the adventures of an ex-con who takes a job in a belly dancing bar and tries to keep herself out of jail. Both books have been reprinted in recent years by The Green Arcade in collaboration with PM Press. <a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Soracco’s new book <a href="" type="internal">Come to Me</a> has just been released as a “joint noir” of The Green Arcade Press and Ithuriel’s Spear Press. Like her first two novels, Come to Me is filled with people living on the fringes of society with little in the way of material possessions but plenty of mother wit and keenly-honed survival instincts. They are often at the end of their ropes, but mostly still managing to maintain commendably caustic senses of humor.</p>
<p>Soracco’s wildly original prose style, full of the argot of career criminals and veteran opiate enthusiasts, and packed with zippy one liners, makes her books a treat for readers looking for an alternative to conventional crime writing. It is no surprise that Hubert Selby, Jr., that great surveyor of the American underbelly, was a fan. Come to Me offers the added incentive of an insider’s view of Santeria, the religion brought to the western hemisphere by African slaves. Much of the action in the novel takes place in a rooming house populated by women who engage in that practice, following the lead of Oleander, who runs the botanica and and curio shop below the rooming house.</p>
<p>Just released from prison, Gina comes into this mix looking for her friend Frankie. She encounters more than she bargained for: “Gina knew a lot about crime, she wasn’t afraid of crime, she had a graduate degree in crime, she understood crime from motivation to modus op; but whatever was going on here – ah, this loopy street corner hoodoo stuff – not so much.”</p>
<p>The ensuing action, involving overlapping stories with multiple characters, moves into dark and sometimes deadly goings on, much of it involving a cursed statue. The players in this narrative are vividly, often hilariously, rendered, and even the sleazier male characters are full of surprises that keep the pages turning.</p>
<p>At a recent San Francisco book launch for Come to Me, Soracco was introduced by Bay Area poet and novelist Jim Nisbet. Nisbet said he felt Soracco’s writing was at the same level as Celine’s, which Soracco clearly appreciated. Nisbet, himself author of an impressive body of wildly idiosyncratic crime fiction, described how an employee of City Lights Bookstore steered Soracco toward submitting Low Bite to Barry Gifford’s Black Lizard Press. Gifford, who Nisbet described as the author of “the best book about Kerouac” (Jack’s Book) has had a long career as a writer of fiction and poetry. In the 1980s he acted as editor and publisher of Black Lizard, where he brought classic crime novelists, Jim Thompson and Charles Willeford among them, back into print. Gifford also published some original novels, including several Nisbet books. The line was notably thin on women writers, which Nisbet had been bugging Gifford about, so Low Bite was a more than welcome addition to the imprint.</p>
<p>At the book launch I overheard Soracco saying that she had no idea what “noir” was when she was first told that Low Bite fell into that genre. She is in good company: many of the directors and writers responsible for film noir classics never heard that term until younger intellectuals used it to describe those films. But unlike the doomed protagonists of those movies, Sorraco’s characters tend not to give in to the daunting challenges of their circumstances. Her heroines find reserves of strength that help them to persevere with their wits and humor intact while continuing to rebel against the status quo. This makes her work, as dark as it at first appears, life affirming without ever being close to cloying.</p>
<p>Special note should be made of Come to Me‘s beautiful cover art by Gent Sturgeon. Sturgeon also did the covers for The Green Arcade/PM Press editions of Low Bite and Edge City.</p>
<p>Another perk: all three books conclude with different interviews with Soracco which are fun and informative, a wonderful alternative to the standard approach of beginning a book with a ponderous, spoiler-packed introduction.</p> | Noir From the Fringe of American Society | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/09/07/noir-from-the-fringe-of-american-society/ | 2016-09-07 | 4 |
<p>Major American news outlets are mostly ignoring one of the biggest international stories of the year climaxing this week: Thursday’s scheduled UK referendum deciding whether to leave or remain within the European Union superstate.</p>
<p>Where marginal coverage was provided, it either leans in favor of or openly supports the left-wing “Remain” campaign, promoting erosion of national sovereignty and greater centralization of continental power in Brussels.</p>
<p>See screenshots below.</p>
<p>1. CNN</p>
<p />
<p>Virtually ignoring the referendum on its homepage aside from a peripheral plug, left-wing CNN casts the Brexit movement on its world news page - shown above - as a "Donald Trump moment." Given the network's regular derision of the presumptive nominee as a racist, misogynist, and generalized bigot, the implicit denigration of those wishing to restore national sovereignty via linkage to Trump is clear.</p>
<p>2. NBC</p>
<p />
<p>Left-wing NBC's homepage makes several plugged references to the Remain/Leave referendum, while its world news page - shown above - makes the event secondary to the firing of guns in Beirut parties and debris from a missing airplane.</p>
<p>3. ABC</p>
<p />
<p>Left-wing ABC's homepage makes no mention of the UK referendum. It's world news page, shown above, makes a marginal reference to it via an ostensibly explanatory guide from the Associated Press.</p>
<p>4. THE DAILY BEAST</p>
<p />
<p>The Daily Beast integrates it varying sections onto its homepage, with its world news subsection - shows above - calling for the Queen Elizabeth II to support UK subservience to the EU.</p>
<p>5. THE HUFFINGTON POST</p>
<p />
<p>Open about its left-wing disposition, The Huffington Post's US edition homepage gives significantly more attention to the Leave/Remain question than its like-minded media counterpart. Its UK and world editions also centrally feature the issue as their top stories.</p>
<p>6. THE NEW YORK TIMES</p>
<p />
<p>The self-declared paper of record virtually ignored the Leave/Remain issue on its homepage, save for a peripheral plug outside the scope of zoomed out screenshot. The left-wing newspaper did, however, have three articles on the matter on its international page.</p>
<p>7. THE WASHINGTON POST</p>
<p />
<p>The Washington Post has several peripherally plugged stories on its homepage, unseen in the zoomed out screenshot shown above. One of the plugged articles links the Brexit campaign to Trump, describing it as "xenophobic."</p>
<p>Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k" type="external">Twitter</a>.</p> | See How Left-Wing Media Covers - Or Ignores - Brexit | true | https://dailywire.com/news/6818/see-how-left-wing-media-covers-or-ignores-brexit-robert-kraychik | 2016-06-22 | 0 |
<p>And that’s just for this round between the two TV talkers — but who’s counting? Once again, Jon Stewart set his comic act aside for a more serious debate with Fox News’ leading loofah enthusiast Bill O’Reilly, this time over the White House’s shocking inclusion of rapper Common in a recent poetry appreciation event. If nothing else, this whole incident confirms that rap and hip-hop remain inscrutable art forms to O’Reilly and his cohorts. –KA</p>
<p>“O’Reilly Factor” via Hulu:</p> | Stewart Schools O'Reilly on Common | true | http://truthdig.com/avbooth/item/stewart_1_oreilly_0_20110517/ | 2011-05-17 | 4 |
<p />
<p>White House/Pete Souza</p>
<p>How often will President Obama come to House Speaker John Boehner’s rescue even when Republican leaders aren’t willing to give much in return? And does the president want to preside over a split in his party?</p>
<p>These are among the questions raised by the dramatic budget battle that came close to breaching the deadline for a government shutdown.</p>
<p />
<p>It was a remarkable moment because something quite unexpected happened.</p>
<p>Progressives and many moderates were outraged over many parts of the bill, two in particular. One undercut the financial reforms of the Dodd-Frank law by loosening its restrictions on the ability of banks to use taxpayer-insured funds from depositors for some potentially risky transactions involving derivatives.</p>
<p>Former Rep. Barney Frank, one of the architects of the 2010 law, warned that tossing such a provision into a must-pass bill would provide “a road map for the stealth unwinding of financial reform.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called it “the worst of government for the rich and powerful.”</p>
<p>The other tore apart campaign finance laws by allowing big donors to contribute up to $1,555,200 to a political party committee over a two-year election cycle, and a couple to give up to $3,110,400. This empowers only the wealthiest among us.</p>
<p>Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., nicely captured the government-for-sale message sent by the two components. “You’ve got the quid and the quo in one bill,” he said.</p>
<p>Typically, Democrats are more anxious to avoid government shutdowns and thus give a lot of ground to Republicans in budget fights. But negotiating in this way rewards those who use shutdown threats as a form of hostage-taking. If the reasonable side regularly makes concessions to unreason, the extremists win.</p>
<p>This time, Boehner was operating from a position of weakness because he could not pass the bill with Republican votes alone. His tea party members wanted to pick a fight with the president over his executive order on immigration, while Boehner wanted to kick that battle down the road. On the final roll call late Thursday night, Boehner lost 67 members of his own party.</p>
<p>The banking and campaign finance issues set off a rebellion among House Democrats that nearly scuttled the bill. Yet before they had any chance of seeing if they could use their newfound leverage to improve the measure, the White House issued a statement calling for its passage. It criticized the provisions in question. But the administration felt this was a better deal than it could get in the next Congress and went to work rounding up up Democratic votes for Boehner.</p>
<p>House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, one of Obama’s most loyal allies, expressed her unhappiness over this oh-so-eager Boehner rescue operation. “I’m enormously disappointed that the White House feels that the only way they can get a bill is to go along with this,” she said on the House floor.</p>
<p>In the end, it passed 219-206. Democrats split 57 in favor, 139 against.</p>
<p>There are several dynamics here that will prove important in the coming year. One is that Senate Democratic negotiators were out of sync with many of their House colleagues. The campaign finance and derivatives sections came out of the Senate, and the potential for further splits between Democrats in the two houses is substantial.</p>
<p>Moreover, Obama will not always be able to count on the Senate to block Republican bills he objects to. To sustain his vetoes, he will depend on House loyalists, the very people the administration’s performance disappointed this time.</p>
<p>Pelosi played down the problems in an interview on Friday and said the differences with the White House were largely over short-term tactics. In trying to get a budget through, she said, the president and his lieutenants understandably wanted to “clear the decks” so the administration and Congress could start fresh next year.</p>
<p>“I am very confident in the White House and how we move forward,” she said, adding that the resistance of so many Democrats sent a signal to Boehner that there are limits on what she and her colleagues will accept, particularly when it comes to undercutting financial reform.</p>
<p>It’s true that Boehner will reflect on this close call and Senate Democratic leaders, facing minority status, may have learned that they will have to take their House colleagues and their own progressive wing more seriously. But this should also be a wake-up call for the president who, in his last two years, needs to be far more attentive to how he deals with Congress, and especially with his allies.</p>
<p>E.J. Dionne’s email address is [email protected]. Twitter: @EJDionne.</p>
<p>© 2014, Washington Post Writers Group</p> | Obama's Boehner Bailout | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/obamas-boehner-bailout/ | 2014-12-16 | 4 |
<p>An unanticipated consequence of the Reagan administration's foreign and defense postures may well be the creation of a massive West European peace movement. This movement has spread throughout the NATO alliance. Not having a unified direction, it shows great local variety in emphasis, popularity, and impact on governments and opposition parties. More skeptical about the Soviet Union than previous antinuclear and peace movements, this current movement nevertheless is directed at the NATO alliance and the "special relationship" to the United States. Thus, thanks to the new Administration in Washington, an increasingly independent Western Europe is emerging as a force with autonomous needs and priorities vis - vis the superpower confrontation.</p>
<p /> | The Rebellion of Europe | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/the-rebellion-of-europe | 4 |
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<p>JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi education officials said Monday that a recently disclosed data breach by a testing vendor has exposed information from 663 students in Tupelo and Jefferson County.</p>
<p>State Superintendent Carey Wright said that Questar Assessment believes an unauthorized user gained access to records from 2016 tests for 490 students at Tupelo Middle School, 72 at Tupelo High School and 101 at Jefferson County Junior High on Dec. 31 or Jan. 1.</p>
<p>The Mississippi Department of Education plans to send letters to every student affected.</p>
<p>The unit of New Jersey-based Educational Testing Service has told New York officials that 52 students there had data exposed, in a data breach that happened at about the same time.</p>
<p>The Minnesota-based company administers Mississippi's standardized tests in English language arts and math. Mississippi's data breach was first disclosed Friday.</p>
<p>Questar hasn't responded to an email and phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.</p>
<p>Wright said she's spoken to Questar's president demanding an outside security audit, a corrective plan by Jan. 29 and the reset of passwords. After Questar revealed the similar breach of New York state data, it closed accounts of former employees and hired the outside auditor.</p>
<p>Among the items exposed were student names, state identification numbers, grade levels, teacher names and test results. Mississippi officials say they don't share addresses or Social Security numbers with Questar.</p>
<p>"We are holding Questar accountable to ensure this never happens again," Wright said in a statement.</p>
<p>Tupelo Superintendent Gearl Loden told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal that he was grateful no Social Security number or addresses were released.</p>
<p>"I hate that we've had a breach, but I am thankful, though, that it isn't any harmful data based on the information I received," Loden said.</p>
<p>JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi education officials said Monday that a recently disclosed data breach by a testing vendor has exposed information from 663 students in Tupelo and Jefferson County.</p>
<p>State Superintendent Carey Wright said that Questar Assessment believes an unauthorized user gained access to records from 2016 tests for 490 students at Tupelo Middle School, 72 at Tupelo High School and 101 at Jefferson County Junior High on Dec. 31 or Jan. 1.</p>
<p>The Mississippi Department of Education plans to send letters to every student affected.</p>
<p>The unit of New Jersey-based Educational Testing Service has told New York officials that 52 students there had data exposed, in a data breach that happened at about the same time.</p>
<p>The Minnesota-based company administers Mississippi's standardized tests in English language arts and math. Mississippi's data breach was first disclosed Friday.</p>
<p>Questar hasn't responded to an email and phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.</p>
<p>Wright said she's spoken to Questar's president demanding an outside security audit, a corrective plan by Jan. 29 and the reset of passwords. After Questar revealed the similar breach of New York state data, it closed accounts of former employees and hired the outside auditor.</p>
<p>Among the items exposed were student names, state identification numbers, grade levels, teacher names and test results. Mississippi officials say they don't share addresses or Social Security numbers with Questar.</p>
<p>"We are holding Questar accountable to ensure this never happens again," Wright said in a statement.</p>
<p>Tupelo Superintendent Gearl Loden told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal that he was grateful no Social Security number or addresses were released.</p>
<p>"I hate that we've had a breach, but I am thankful, though, that it isn't any harmful data based on the information I received," Loden said.</p> | Mississippi: Testing breach exposed data from 663 students | false | https://apnews.com/amp/4a9cdd2a5ce8433781da54d55c4715c8 | 2018-01-23 | 2 |
<p>Oil company BP says it has agreed to buy the fuel business of Australian supermarket chain Woolworths Ltd for $1.3 billion as part of its efforts to rebuild itself.</p>
<p>The deal includes 527 fuel convenience sites and 16 other development sites across Australia. That adds to the 350 BP-owned gas stations in the country, and some 1,000 other BP-branded outlets owned by independent business partners.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The deal, announced Wednesday, is subject to approval from Australian authorities and is expected to complete over the next year.</p>
<p>BP, based in London, has been trying to rebuild its operations after having to sell assets to pay for the costs of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster.</p> | BP buys Woolworths fuel business in Australia for $1.3 bln | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/28/bp-buys-woolworths-fuel-business-in-australia-for-13-bln.html | 2016-12-28 | 0 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Public Service Company of New Mexico will hold an assistance fair, where income-qualified Albuquerque metro customers can apply for help with their electric bills through the PNM Good Neighbor Fund.</p>
<p>The fair will be from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at the John Marshall Health &amp; Social Services Center, 1500 Walter SE, in Albuquerque.</p>
<p>Applicants should bring a current PNM bill, proof of all household income, ID for all adults and children in the home and proof of LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) assistance.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | PNM to host assistance fair | false | https://abqjournal.com/560091/pnm-to-host-assistance-fair.html | 2 |
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<p>The terrorists find all sorts of reasons to hate us. On Tuesday came word that the deadliest biological assault on the United States may be linked to the rejection of the terror suspect by a Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sister decades ago. That is offered as an explanation of why the accused U.S. Army bio-warfare scientist allegedly drove seven hours from his home to mail anthrax-laced letters from a mailbox near the sorority’s Princeton University office, according to the Associated Press.</p>
<p>What we learned last week, after the suicide of Bruce E. Ivins, was disquieting enough without the twisted love angle. If you can believe the recent leaks from the FBI on its most important unsolved crime — which killed five and sickened 17, immobilized the federal government and traumatized the nation — it was a clean-shaven, white, God-fearing Catholic guy who done it. Despite a government anxious to find yet another example of Islamic terrorism in the wake of 9/11, it quickly became clear to experts that the anthrax used in the only WMD attack on our nation was a sophisticated product traceable to our own biological weapons labs. This is not surprising, because the United States has long been a leader in this field.</p>
<p>Our ostensible reason for developing the world’s most sophisticated arsenal of deadly biological weapons is that the United States needs to learn how to prevent such attacks from deranged outsiders. Now we have yet another reminder that the enemy may be us, and that at least some of the folks who develop weapons like to find occasions to use them. In this case, the terrorist the FBI was about to charge with homicide was a nut case who nonetheless received the highest security clearance to work on the most dangerous of weapons deep within our own military-industrial complex.</p>
<p>This is yet another disappointment for those writing the basic Bush administration narrative in which the terrorist is always some Islamo-fascist guy. That’s the assigned role that Saddam Hussein failed at so miserably. Remember when New York Times reporter Judith Miller was breathlessly reporting every sighting of a rusting Iraqi RV as one of Hussein’s biological weapons labs to justify the invasion of a country that had nothing to do with 9/11? Gosh, how the military-industrial complex must miss the Soviet Union, which could be trusted to match us in the high-tech game of dispensing mass death.</p>
<p />
<p>Of course, our government, which has never disowned the right to build and use nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, has long insisted that we alone are to be trusted with the creation of those devilish devices. Others are judged either too irrational, evil or merely incompetent to be allowed WMD, whereas we alone, with the unique experience of having killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, pose no threat. That others might not see it our way, particularly after recent incidents, such as the missing nukes that crossed the United States on that errant B-52 flight, or the anthrax attack allegedly conducted by one of our top bio-weapons scientists, is understandable.</p>
<p>The larger problem is that we no longer take the threat of WMD as seriously as we should. We focused on the nonexistent WMD in Iraq while ignoring the spread of nuclear technology from Pakistan to North Korea, Iran and Libya under the guidance of A.Q. Khan, father of Pakistan’s popularly revered “Islamic bomb.” As former CIA Director George Tenet wrote in his memoir, the Bush administration seized upon the WMD issue in Iraq only because it was convenient: “The United States did not go to war in Iraq solely because of WMD. In my view, I doubt it was even the principal cause. Yet it was the public face that was put on it.”</p>
<p>The public face of terrorism was a bearded Muslim armed with WMD. No wonder we were caught off guard when the only person to ever attack us with WMD turns out to be, apparently, an active congregant at St. John the Evangelist Church in Frederick, Md., and a highly trusted employee of the U.S. military.</p>
<p>Not that our sleuths weren’t forewarned. As Ivins’ therapist, social worker Jean Duley, reported to the Maryland District Court last month in a hearing to obtain a restraining order: “As far back as the year 2000, the respondent has actually attempted to murder several other people … he is a revenge killer when he feels that he’s been slighted …especially towards women. … He has been forensically diagnosed by several top psychiatrists as a sociopathic, homicidal killer.”</p>
<p>In any case, he was one of us.</p>
<p>Robert Scheer is author of a new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0446505277?tag=truthdig20-20&amp;camp=14573&amp;creative=327641&amp;linkCode=as1&amp;creativeASIN=0446505277&amp;adid=0EGD2D64MHHRC8BX8TWM&amp;" type="external">“The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America.”</a></p> | Terror From the Inside | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/terror-from-the-inside/ | 2008-08-06 | 4 |
<p>Amidst the hoopla of the primary race is the giant elephant in the room that is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's email scandal. The number of FBI agents investigating the matter is stunningly high.</p>
<p>Buried within a lengthy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-clintons-email-scandal-took-root/2016/03/27/ee301168-e162-11e5-846c-10191d1fc4ec_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_clintonemail_430pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory" type="external">Washington Post</a> piece providing a timeline on the scandal is the massive number of FBI agents investigating Clinton:</p>
<p>One hundred forty-seven FBI agents have been deployed to run down leads, according to a lawmaker briefed by FBI Director James B. Comey. The FBI has accelerated the investigation because officials want to avoid the possibility of announcing any action too close to the election.</p>
<p>One hundred forty-seven FBI agents are investigating Clinton, which certainly suggests that the FBI is seriously looking into the issue and considers it to be of the utmost importance.</p>
<p>To <a href="" type="internal">recap</a>, the email scandal involves Clinton using her private Blackberry and personal, unapproved, unsecured email server to conduct her business as Secretary of State. Clinton and her aides stripped the classified label off of her emails to forward it to her private server. Over 1,340 classified emails housed on her server have been discovered, some of which were highly sensitive information that included the <a href="https://nypost.com/2016/02/01/hillary-clinton-voters-dont-care-about-my-emails/" type="external">names of CIA operatives</a> and details on <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/1/hillary-clinton-emails-contained-spy-satellite-dat/?page=all" type="external">North Korea's nuclear program</a>. Because her server was unsecured, it is likely that the classified information was exposed to the country's enemies. It is crystal clear that Clinton is in violation of the Espionage Act.</p>
<p>It appears the FBI investigation will be coming to a close soon, as <a href="https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/03/28/prosecutors-set-up-meetings-showing-clinton-email-inquiry-near-completion/" type="external">prosecutors will be interviewing</a> Clinton's close aides and plan on interviewing Clinton herself.</p>
<p>"The interviews are critical to understand the volume of information they have accumulated," James McJunkin, former head of the FBI’s Washington field office, told <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/28/report-hillary-clinton-to-be-interviewed-by-fbi-over-emails/" type="external">The Los Angeles Times.</a> "They are likely nearing the end of the investigation and the agents need to interview these people to put the information in context. They will then spend time aligning these statements with other information, emails, classified documents, etc., to determine whether there is a prosecutable case."</p>
<p>Whether or not Clinton is indicted by Obama's politicized Justice Department, the email scandal will continue to be an albatross around her neck as the election unfolds.</p> | How Many FBI Agents Are Investigating Hillary's Email Scandal? The Number Will Shock You | true | https://dailywire.com/news/4441/how-many-fbi-agents-are-investigating-hillarys-aaron-bandler | 2016-03-28 | 0 |
<p>Matt Slocum/AP</p>
<p>A report released&#160;last&#160;week&#160;reveals bias&#160;against LGBT employees of color who are working in the nonprofit sector, even&#160;in&#160;organizations&#160;that specifically serve&#160;the LGBT community.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.buildingmovement.org/info/27" type="external">Building Movement Project,&#160;</a>which provides research and training tools to help nonprofits better connect with the communities they serve,&#160;set out to examine attitudes and practices around sexuality and race in the nonprofit sector. They were interested in understanding how race affects the career opportunities of minorities and how sexuality also affects professional advancement. They then present possible solutions that could reduce the gaps between white and nonwhite advancement at both LGBT and non-LGBT oriented nonprofits.</p>
<p>Their report,&#160; <a href="http://racetolead.org/lgbtq.html" type="external">Working at the Intersections: LGBTQ Nonprofit Staff and the Racial Leadership Gap&#160;</a>finds that when it comes to professional advancement, even within explicitly LGBT-focused organizations,&#160;LGBT people of color face more challenges&#160;compared to&#160;their white counterparts or&#160;straight people of color.&#160;</p>
<p>“In today’s political climate, nonprofits and philanthropic organizations are increasingly serving as agents of change on social issues affecting our country and the LGBTQ community,”&#160;Sean Thomas-Breitfeld, co-director of the Building Movement Project and a co-author of the report, <a href="http://lgbtweekly.com/2017/07/11/new-report-cites-racial-discrimination-as-primary-barrier-for-lgbtq-people-of-color-in-nonprofits/" type="external">told</a> the San Diego LGBT Weekly. “That’s why the sector as a whole needs to recognize and address its own racial biases in a way that acknowledges LGBTQ people of color’s multi-faceted identities.”</p>
<p>In 2016, the Building Movement Project sent out its “Nonprofits, Leadership, and Race” online&#160;survey, which asked nonprofit staff and board members about their own organizations, their personal and professional backgrounds and career plans, “and their perceptions on leadership and race in the nonprofit sector.” Approximately 4,385 people—representing nonprofit organizations ranging from those that provide human services to advocacy groups—responded to the survey, the results of which were first included in a&#160;2017&#160; <a href="http://racetolead.org/" type="external">report</a>that&#160;focused on the barriers people of color face when seeking career advancement at nonprofits.&#160;Of that group, the 921 respondents who self-identified as LGBT in their responses were then asked to answer an additional set of questions on their opinions of LGBT organizations, and the state of the broader movement.&#160;</p>
<p>Those responses revealed that in addition to the racial barriers faced by LGBT people of color, roughly 21% of LGBT&#160;respondents&#160;said that their sexual orientation had negatively affected their career advancement. They pointed to great disparities in&#160;LGBT non-discrimination laws in states across the country and reported levels of fear and frustration about the way&#160;anti-LGBT attitudes have&#160;affected their careers. The report noted the “intensity of the write-in responses…&#160;reflected a real problem with biases against LGBTQ people in too many nonprofits.”&#160;</p>
<p>The nonprofit industry is often regarded as generally&#160;more progressive than the private sector, so&#160;“it was a little disappointing to have the nonprofit sector not be any better,” when it comes to the experiences of LGBT people, Thomas-Breitfeld, the report’s author,&#160;tells&#160;Mother Jones, adding that&#160;many of the findings are supported by broader polls of the LGBT people in the workforce conducted by other organizations.</p>
<p>The authors offer a number of solutions and point out that addressing racial disparities is a crucial step in increasing diversity at nonprofits and helping LGBT people of color. However, because many LGBT respondents working at non-LGBT organizations reported discrimination, the authors also note that the nonprofit sector must also work to reduce anti-LGBT bias.</p>
<p>Finally, the report found that&#160;many LGBT organizations involved in the fight for marriage equality benefitted from increased funding. But&#160;groups that focus&#160;on other issues, some&#160;of which&#160;have affected&#160;LGBT people of color, often&#160;failed to receive as much attention.&#160;</p>
<p>“Mainstream LGBTQ nonprofits may have well-intentioned racial equity or diversity values on paper but often do not have funding or resources to make formal organizational commitments to align those values with their organizational practices and structures,” the report notes.&#160;Thomas-Breitfeld suggests that with same-sex marriage now affirmed by the Supreme Court, more funding could&#160;be used to advance causes that affect LGBT communities of color and support minority-led organizations.</p>
<p>Moving forward, nonprofit groups must recognize that increasing opportunities for LGBT people of color is a difficult process, says Clarence Patton, the executive director of the Pipeline Project, a group that works to increase diversity and inclusion of people of color in LGBT organizations, and someone who reviewed&#160;the Working at the Intersections report. “There isn’t going to be a day when boom, they’re done,” he says. “One of the reasons that the institution is not [already] diverse and inclusive is because movement towards this is not one of comfort.&#160;If it were comfortable, they would have done it already.”</p> | LGBT People of Color Cannot Escape Workplace Discrimination—No Matter Where They Work | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/lgbt-people-of-color-cannot-escape-workplace-discrimination-no-matter-where-they-work/ | 2017-07-19 | 4 |
<p>Once the Socialist Francois Mitterrand assumed power, the catchword "transformation" swept France. The term is rather apt, for since Mitterrand's victory there has been a wave of reforms. The new Socialist cabinet has been tackling several important tasks at once. It has nationalized a number of the nation's largest companies, including virtually all banks and savings and loan associations. (These nationalizations have met stiff resistance from the conservative right and the Constitutional Council, which has forced the government to modify its aims somewhat. According to the right, the cabinet has passed legislation to give a share in the management of industrial enterprises to workers and their trade unions. The 39-hour work week has replaced the 40-hour week, and a 35-hour week is planned for 1985; and a law imposing heavy taxes on large fortunes and aiming at a more equitable income tax structure has been adopted by Parliament.</p>
<p /> | The Changing Face of France | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/the-changing-face-of-france | 2018-10-05 | 4 |
<p>CSX Corp. on Wednesday lowered some of its financial targets for the year after a summer of railway congestion and service woes as new CEO Hunter Harrison implements his precision railroading strategy.</p>
<p>The railroad said due to various operating challenges in July and August, it now expects its operating ratio, a closely watched metric, "around the high end of the mid-60s" percentage range, instead of being squarely in the mid-60s. Operating ratio is the percentage of revenue consumed by operating costs, so a decline represents an improvement.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>CSX also scaled back its per-share profit growth to between 20% and 25% this year, instead of being in the higher end of that range.</p>
<p>Shares of the company fell 2.5% to $47.75 in premarket trading. The stock was trading around $35 before Mr. Harrison disclosed he was joining an activist investor's campaign to run the railroad but the shares have has retreated from recent highs around $55.</p>
<p>Mr. Harrison took over in March and promised to run the company's 21,000-mile network more efficiently by idling excess equipment, closing some freight yards and running trains on a tighter schedule. However, the changes have caused congestion, delays and erratic service, according to customers, some of whom have complained to rail regulators.</p>
<p>In statement Wednesday, Mr. Harrison said that the bulk of the service challenges are behind CSX, and that key metrics, including train velocity and car dwell, are improving. The company's chief financial officer is scheduled to speak at an industry conference on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Write to Paul Ziobro at [email protected]</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>CSX Corp. on Wednesday lowered some of its financial targets for the year after a summer of railway congestion and service woes as new CEO Hunter Harrison implements his precision railroading strategy.</p>
<p>The railroad said due to various operating challenges in July and August, it now expects its operating ratio, a closely watched metric, "around the high end of the mid-60s" percentage range, instead of being squarely in the mid-60s. Operating ratio is the percentage of revenue consumed by operating costs, so a decline represents an improvement.</p>
<p>CSX also scaled back its per-share profit growth to between 20% and 25% this year, instead of being in the higher end of that range.</p>
<p>Shares of the company, which fell in premarket trading, advanced 4% to $51.04 Wednesday morning after executives stressed that the problems were being resolved. The stock was trading around $35 before Mr. Harrison disclosed he was joining an activist investor's campaign to run the railroad but the shares have has retreated from recent highs around $55.</p>
<p>Mr. Harrison took over in March and promised to run the company's 21,000-mile network more efficiently by idling excess equipment, closing some freight yards and running trains on a tighter schedule. However, the changes have caused congestion, delays and erratic service, according to customers, some of whom have complained to rail regulators.</p>
<p>In statement Wednesday, Mr. Harrison said that the bulk of the service challenges are behind CSX, and that key metrics, including train velocity and car dwell, are improving.</p>
<p>At an industry conference Wednesday, CSX Chief Financial Officer Frank Lonegro said the railway has implemented more than 1,300 changes to train schedules since March, with major revisions occurring in early July. The pace of change has moderated in recent weeks, however, which has allowed CSX to recover somewhat from the shock to the network.</p>
<p>Mr. Lonegro added that the railway will likely soon win back freight volume it lost to either trucks or other railroads after working through the disruption caused during the summer.</p>
<p>"These are temporal challenges, they are transitional challenges," Mr. Lonegro said. "You can see we're coming back and we're coming back pretty strong."</p>
<p>He added: "If Hunter were here, he'd say something like, 'We're back. Watch out. Here we come.'"</p>
<p>CSX executives next week are scheduled to appear at a Surface Transportation Board hearing about the railway's service issues. Several shippers have already filed notice to present details of the problems over the summer.</p>
<p>Mr. Lonegro said the regulator is "doing their job" in addressing shipper complaints. And CSX executives plan to demonstrate they are recovering from early problems. "When the customer raises their hand and says, 'Hey, I'm having a challenge with my service,' the STB does the right thing and asks questions of us," Mr. Lonegro said.</p>
<p>Write to Paul Ziobro at [email protected]</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
<p>September 06, 2017 10:48 ET (14:48 GMT)</p> | CSX Cuts Financial Targets After Summer Service Woes -- Update | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/06/csx-cuts-financial-targets-after-summer-service-woes-update.html | 2017-09-06 | 0 |
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<p>Goldman Sachs. Again with Goldman Sachs! Always Goldman Sachs. An alien race could invade Earth, create an economy based on quasars and dark matter, and our new six-eyed overlord would still hire someone from Goldman Sachs.</p>
<p>The investment bank gave George W. Bush one of his treasury secretaries, and Bill Clinton one of his before that. It was the largest private donor to Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. Throughout 2016, Donald Trump hammered Hillary Clinton for giving paid, closed-door speeches to Goldman Sachs, and he spat its name like it was the embodiment of evil. Goldman Sachs has “total control” over Clinton, he charged again and again.</p>
<p>And now? Trump has plucked his treasury secretary from Goldman. Trump’s senior adviser is a former Goldman guy. On Monday, Trump officially named his choice for director of the National Economic Council: the president of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn.</p>
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<p>What gives? Why does this white-shoe investment firm always turn up, a tuxedoed stowaway, in the White House?</p>
<p>The Goldman mystique has been honed over 147 years, since the day a German immigrant named Marcus Goldman left the tailoring business to trade debts, via slips of paper he stacked under his silk top hat. Goldman’s first office was a block from Wall Street, in a basement, by a coal chute.</p>
<p>Now it’s a publicly traded behemoth with deep roots in Washington and branches reaching into economies all around the world.</p>
<p>“We’ve got Goldman Sachs people in every major market,” Cohn said in an in-house podcast recorded Monday after his departure for Washington was announced. “You know, you look at the size of our capital, you look at the size of our balance sheet, you look at the size of our people – it’s just enormous.”</p>
<p>Goldman’s omnipresence inspires anxiety in both regulators and conspiracy theorists. It makes it easy to imagine the type of rigged system that both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump campaigned against.</p>
<p>“Next year, four of the 12 presidents at the regional Federal Reserve Banks will be former executives from one firm: Goldman Sachs,” Sanders tweeted a year ago.</p>
<p>Goldman has been a dark punchline as far back as the 1930s, when vaudeville superstar Eddie Cantor – who lost a fortune in a Goldman shell game on the cusp of the Great Depression – worked the firm into his act.</p>
<p>“They told me to buy stock for my old age, and it worked perfectly – within six months, I felt like a very old man,” Cantor joked onstage, according to Charles D. Ellis’s Goldman history “The Partnership.”</p>
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<p>Cut to 2008, when Goldman made money off the economic collapse by shorting the housing market. The firm was charged with fraud in 2010.</p>
<p>“When you’ve had a financial calamity like we’d experienced [in 2008], symbolism and symbols become very important – and Goldman is the perfect cultural touchstone of greed and avarice,” says author and former Wall Street banker William D. Cohan, who wrote “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World.”</p>
<p>In 2012, internal Goldman emails were leaked that suggested its traders referred to clueless investors as “muppets,” an unflattering bit of British slang. The comedy site Funny or Die retaliated with a skit featuring three irate “Sesame Street”-style Muppets who crash a meeting of conniving Goldman executives.</p>
<p>“Sure we advise them against their own best interests to make us richer, but does that make us bad guys?” asks the actor Kyle MacLachlan, playing a pinstriped executive.</p>
<p>“Yes!” says a Muppet.</p>
<p>Its occasionally dodgy reputation among the public, though, is outweighed by the deference it commands in circles of power. “That’s why Trump is going to these Goldman people,” Cohan says. “Because it’s so easy to claim instant financial respectability by tapping into the Goldman network.”</p>
<p>The network.The platinum Rolodex. Rich people who help powerful people get rich, and powerful people who make rich people powerful. It all stems from a culture of backbreaking work and breathtaking exclusivity, to which Goldman recruits are exposed as soon as they walk in the door.</p>
<p>“Those candidates who do not evince a scorching ambition, total commitment, and an inclination for teamwork are quickly weeded out,” wrote former Goldman trader Lisa Endlich in her book “Goldman Sachs: The Culture of Success.”</p>
<p>Everything – individuality, ego, feelings – is subordinate to the firm. “If you say ‘I,’ you are being abrasive,” a veteran partner told Endlich. And yet: “The firm is special, and you are special or you would not be here,” she quotes a former vice president as saying.</p>
<p>The legend of Goldman Sachs is such that business blogs chatter obsessively about what it’s like to work there: Having a tan means you’re not working hard enough . . . Only partners can wear Ferragamo loafers . . . Women are conditioned to avoid makeup and keep their hair pulled back.</p>
<p>“Partners were always looking to see whether an intern had the makings of a ‘culture carrier,’ Goldman-speak for someone who is able to deal with clients and colleagues in a way that preserves the firm’s reputation – one that has made it an incubator for senators, treasury secretaries and central bank governors,” wrote Greg Smith, a former executive director, in “Why I Left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story.”</p>
<p>The reason Trump is stocking his White House with Goldman Sachs is because it’s tradition. And who started that tradition?</p>
<p>A 5-foot-4 clerk named Sidney Weinberg, who in 1909 lugged an eight-foot flagpole onto the New York subway.</p>
<p>Weinberg – “a dumb, uneducated kid from Brooklyn,” he would later call himself – accompanied the pole from Wall Street to the 138th Street home of Paul Sachs, a partner in the firm who wanted it installed there. As the industrious clerk raised the American flag, Sachs told him he should go to night school and perhaps advance from a gopher to something grander.</p>
<p>A gifted networker, Weinberg rocketed up the Goldman ladder and made friends with New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt. When his pal moved into the White House, Weinberg helped create the Business Advisory Council, a conduit for corporate execs to nudge and sway the policymakers in the capital.</p>
<p>As a Goldman partner, Weinberg helped ramp up private industry for the war effort during both World War II and the Korean War. He raised money for Dwight D. Eisenhower’s campaign and then handpicked his treasury secretary – cementing the notion that our government had much to learn and gain from our financial titans.</p>
<p>“The people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry.”</p>
<p>That was Hillary Clinton, some 60 years later, at Goldman’s headquarters in New York, where she reassured financial titans of this special relationship in one of those pricey speeches that would later give her such grief.</p>
<p>Goldman in mergers (RCA and GE). Goldman in acquisitions (one of the world’s largest coffee-bean suppliers). Around 1900, Goldman imported and exported gold across the Atlantic. In the 1950s, it took the Ford Motor Co. public. It has recently invested in Spotify and Uber.</p>
<p>Currently, Goldman alumni are:</p>
<p>– At the top of the New York Fed (President William Dudley).</p>
<p>– In the studios of CNN (anchor Erin Burnett).</p>
<p>– Married to once and future presidential candidates (Heidi Cruz).</p>
<p>– Running entire nations (Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull).</p>
<p>The firm has expanded its philanthropy in recent years to rehabilitate its image and is considered by some insiders to be one of the more ethical Wall Street firms. Goldman sees the number of top staffers it has sent to Washington as a feather in its cap.</p>
<p>“Throughout its 147-year history, Goldman Sachs has encouraged its employees to give back to the community while they are working here and after they leave,” says Jake Siewert, the firm’s communications director – and former top aide in the Clinton and Obama administrations, as it happens. “We are proud that many have gone on to serve their country and their communities after they have left.”</p>
<p>Turn your gaze up the street from the White House: Weinberg’s Business Advisory Council still exists after all these years, under a slightly different name, in a seventh-floor office on Pennsylvania Avenue. Current Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein is a member, along with other captains of industry and finance – including ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state. (The council’s outgoing chairman is Jeffrey P. Bezos, the found of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post.) In his first year in office, Obama invited the council to the East Room. Early next year, the council will meet in Washington for at least two off-the-record schmooze sessions with lawmakers. President Donald J. Trump will be at the top of the invitation list.</p>
<p>Despite favoring Clinton, Blankfein is optimistic about Trump.</p>
<p>“He’s a very smart guy, a businessman,” Blankfein told German newspaper Handelsbatt recently. If his policies “are more stimulative, our fortunes rise along with that.”</p>
<p>Starting next year, Blankfein’s former Goldman colleague, Steven Mnuchin, will be running the Treasury. Blankfein’s current deputy, Cohn, will be Trump’s economy whisperer. And once again, that Goldman Rolodex could come in handy.</p>
<p>“You think about, Who is [Apple CEO] Tim Cook going to call in this administration if he has a problem? I think his first thought would be Gary Cohn,” says a former Treasury official who’s familiar with Cohn’s leadership style (and requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the topic). “Who else on that [Trump] team could tell you: How’s the Bank of Japan going to react to some announcement you’re going to make? At this point, I think he’s your only game in town.”</p>
<p>In both towns, really. New York and Washington. Since Election Day, stock in Goldman Sachs is up more than 30 percent.</p>
<p>goldman</p> | The eternal mystique of Goldman Sachs | false | https://abqjournal.com/909484/the-eternal-mystique-of-goldman-sachs.html | 2016-12-15 | 2 |
<p><a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/was-las-vegas-shooter-stephen-craig-paddock-an-anti-trump-activist-with-ties-to-antifa/stephen-paddock" type="external" />The mainstream media is trying to tell us that they have no idea why Stephen Craig Paddock fired “thousands of rounds of ammunition” into a crowd at a country music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday.&#160; According to the latest reports, 58 people have died and more than 500 were injured in the attack, and somehow we are supposed to believe that this guy had no motive for doing this whatsoever.&#160; I am not buying that, and I am sure you are not buying that either.&#160; Could it be possible that the mainstream media is covering up the truth because it does not fit their narrative?</p>
<p>As you will see below, there appears to be evidence that Stephen Craig Paddock was at an anti-Trump rally in Reno, Nevada in August.&#160; And it is also being reported that Antifa literature was discovered in his hotel room by authorities.&#160; In&#160; <a href="http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/was-the-las-vegas-shooting-a-preview-of-the-violent-chaos-that-antifa-plans-to-unleash-starting-on-november-4th" type="external">part 2</a>&#160;of this report, I will be discussing the very disturbing things that Antifa has planned for the month of November.&#160; Could it be possible that Stephen Craig Paddock has just given us a preview of coming attractions?</p>
<p>I don’t know if I have the words to appropriately describe what happened in Las Vegas on Sunday.&#160; It was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, and we need to be praying for all of those that were affected.&#160; The following comes from&#160; <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4939872/Active-shooter-reported-Las-Vegas-Mandalay-Bay-Resort.html" type="external">the Daily Mail</a>…</p>
<p>At least 58 people are dead and 515 injured after a 72-minute shooting by a lone-wolf gunman who unleashed thousands of rounds of ammunition onto a Las Vegas music festival from a hotel room 1,200 feet away – and more details are still coming out.</p>
<p>Police say 64-year-old Stephen Craig Paddock used automatic weapons to rain down gunfire on a crowd of 22,000 people attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival Sunday night, from his room across the street in the Mandalay Bay hotel.</p>
<p>The mainstream media appears to be completely dropping the ball on this story, and so once again it is up to the alternative media to do the detective work.</p>
<p>Shortly after the attack, someone mentioned remembering seeing Paddock at an anti-Trump protest in Reno, Nevada back in August.&#160; So people began digging around, and they found&#160; <a href="https://streamable.com/adjlq" type="external">this video</a>&#160;of the rally, and a man wearing a pink shirt and a pink hat does appear to bear a resemblance to Paddock.&#160; But because of the resolution of the video it is impossible to tell for sure.</p>
<p>Later, other videos also surfaced thanks to the sleuths&#160; <a href="http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message3652201/pg1" type="external">on one popular forum</a>.&#160; You can view the man with the pink shirt and the pink hat&#160; <a href="http://www.ktvn.com/story/36203418/president-trump-supporters-and-protesters-gather-in-reno" type="external">in this KTVN video</a>&#160;at 0:56, and you can also see him in&#160; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=189&amp;v=_FsKm2dRvfk" type="external">this YouTube video</a>&#160;at 3:09.</p>
<p>I don’t think that we can come to any definitive conclusions about these videos just yet, and hopefully more evidence will continue to emerge.</p>
<p>Meanwhile,&#160; <a href="https://www.infowars.com/fbi-source-vegas-shooter-found-with-antifa-literature-photos-taken-in-middle-east/" type="external">Infowars is reporting</a>&#160;that “a source linked to the team” that stormed Paddock’s hotel room says that Antifa literature was found in his possession…</p>
<p>The Las Vegas shooter didn’t commit suicide as the mainstream media is reporting, but was killed by a FBI hostage rescue team who also found Antifa literature in his hotel room, according to a source linked to the team.</p>
<p>The FBI team took the suspect out after he opened fired on them, according to the source, and afterwards the team found photos taken in the Middle East of a woman linked to the suspect, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock.</p>
<p>If true, this would change everything.</p>
<p>Could it be possible that Paddock specifically targeted a country music festival because he figured it would be a way for him to take out as many Trump supporters as possible?&#160; That is what the inside source that spoke to Infowars&#160; <a href="https://www.infowars.com/fbi-source-vegas-shooter-found-with-antifa-literature-photos-taken-in-middle-east/" type="external">seems to think</a>…</p>
<p>But, this was clearly a pre-planned attack and the group [the target] was specifically chosen.</p>
<p>The target was a concert of the group that represents traditional America.</p>
<p>These were patriotic, God-fearing Americans. This group is pro-Second amendment, pro-Constitution and anti-NWO.</p>
<p>In addition to this clearly being “a pre-planned attack”, there is also evidence that Paddock was not acting alone.</p>
<p>In fact, it is being widely reported that 45 minutes prior to the shooting a woman was ominously warning people at the concert&#160; <a href="http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/what-we-know-about-the-las-vegas-shooter-and-why-what-we-dont-know-matters_10022017" type="external">that they were about to die</a>…</p>
<p>Perhaps the most worrisome issue with this incident happened before the shooting took place. &#160;According to&#160; <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/861252/Las-Vegas-shooting-latest-news-Mandalay-Bay-Route-91-Marilou-Danley" type="external">multiple reports</a>, approximately 45 minutes before the shooting, a woman described as “Hispanic,” accompanied by a man, had been heard telling concert attendees, “They’re all around… You’re all going to f***ing die today.”&#160; <a href="http://allnewspipeline.com/Vegas_Death_Toll_Rises.php" type="external">Witness Breanna&#160;Hendricks,</a>&#160;who was in Vegas celebrating her 21st birthday, said, “There was a&#160; <a href="http://www.thedailysheeple.com/las-vegas-mass-shooting-eyewitness-crazy-women-warned-concert-goers-that-everyone-was-going-to-die-45-minutes-before-shooting_102017" type="external">lady who came running up behind</a>&#160;us in the concert and she started to play with people’s hair acting crazy and she told us that we’re all going to f***ing die.”</p>
<p>If Paddock was indeed a “lone wolf”, then how do we explain that?</p>
<p>And as&#160; <a href="https://www.infowars.com/questions-swirl-in-the-las-vegas-mass-shooting/" type="external">Jon Rappoport</a>&#160;has pointed out, there are a whole lot of other questions that we need answers to as well…</p>
<p>At least ten weapons were found in the shooter’s hotel room. He had checked into the Mandalay Resort Hotel several days earlier. How did he bring in all the weapons? Disassembled? Did he have prior experience with weapons?</p>
<p>In an interview, Paddock’s brother said he was absolutely shocked, and his brother, Stephen, was “just a guy.” No motive, no reason to go on a rampage. True? False? What turned him into a killer? Had he ever been under psychiatric care? Had he been prescribed, for example, SSRI antidepressants, which are known to push people over the edge, into homicidal violence? If he was “just a guy,” did that include significant experience handling weapons? Was he capable of bringing all or some of the weapons into the hotel in pieces and then assembling them?</p>
<p>I don’t know if we will get the answers to all of these questions any time soon, but they are definitely worth asking.</p>
<p>And in particular, we need to try to get some definitive answers about Paddock’s involvement with radical leftist groups.&#160; Are violent leftists now going to start specifically targeting events like country music festivals where large numbers of conservatives are gathered?</p>
<p>In&#160; <a href="http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/was-the-las-vegas-shooting-a-preview-of-the-violent-chaos-that-antifa-plans-to-unleash-starting-on-november-4th" type="external">part 2</a>&#160;of this report, I am going to discuss the “revolution” that Antifa plans to start next month on November 4th.&#160; Antifa has repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to use violence, and we should all be deeply concerned about their intent to take things to the next level.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.michaelsnyderforcongress.com/" type="external">Michael Snyder</a>&#160;is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his&#160; <a href="https://www.michaelsnyderforcongress.com/contribute.html" type="external">official website</a>. His new book entitled&#160; <a href="http://amzn.to/2t5bx4A" type="external">“Living A Life That Really Matters”</a>&#160;is available in paperback and for the Kindle on&#160; <a href="http://amzn.to/2t5bx4A" type="external">Amazon.com</a>.</p>
<p>Courtesy of <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/was-las-vegas-shooter-stephen-craig-paddock-an-anti-trump-activist-with-ties-to-antifa" type="external">The Economic Collapse Blog</a></p>
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<p /> | Was Las Vegas Shooter Stephen Craig Paddock An Anti-Trump Activist With Ties To Antifa? | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2017/10/03/was-las-vegas-shooter-stephen-craig-paddock-an-anti-trump-activist-with-ties-to-antifa/ | 2017-10-03 | 0 |
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<p>It’s been 35 years since Ann Riffin, a New Jersey native, disappeared in a remote corner of New Mexico. Her car was found parked off a lonely stretch of highway near Mora. (Journal file)</p>
<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — It’s been 35 years since Ann Riffin, a New Jersey native, disappeared in a remote corner of New Mexico.</p>
<p>Her parents suspected the 33-year-old might have run off to join a cult or maybe even a convent or commune.</p>
<p>Where else could she have gone?</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>There are still many unanswered questions decades after police found her car parked off a lonely stretch of highway near Mora.</p>
<p>Law enforcement officials have yet to find her body or any sign of her, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported earlier this month.</p>
<p>Riffin’s family described Riffin as an introvert who didn’t have a sense of where she was heading in life.</p>
<p>“She was a troubled girl,” her sister, Jane Susswein, said recently.</p>
<p>Riffin had been living in Ruidoso, a village in south central New Mexico, when she disappeared.</p>
<p>Before moving to Ruidoso, Riffin had bounced around from job to job and city to city.</p>
<p>At one point, she converted from Judaism to Christianity and worked at a school run by an evangelical sect.</p>
<p>Riffin was last seen on September 1982 heading to Colorado Springs, Colorado to visit relatives, according to police reports.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>But she never made it.</p>
<p>Police found her car — complete with all of her belongings minus her purse — in an area known as Holman Hill.</p>
<p>The location of Riffin’s car only adds more confusion in the case, said Herman Silva, a former state police patrolman in an interview last month.</p>
<p>“If (the car) broke down, you would pull it over to the side of the road,” Silva said. “Where she left it, unless you were from around there, you wouldn’t even know that place was there.”</p>
<p>It was also on a less than ideal route to get to Colorado Springs.</p>
<p>“That’s what was so strange,” Silva said.</p>
<p>Police searched for Riffin in hospitals, rehabilitation centers, women’s shelters and a nearby commune, but had no luck.</p>
<p>A few years ago, a skull turned up in southern Colorado that investigators believed might have been Riffin’s.</p>
<p>Investigators took a sample of DNA from Riffin’s sister, Jane Susswein, but it was not a match.</p>
<p>A few years after Riffin’s disappearance, Susswein had the opportunity to visit the location where her sister’s car was found decades ago.</p>
<p>Her visit gave her an idea of the vastness of the place where her sister never returned from.</p>
<p>“There’s no comparison with the desolation, the remoteness of the country,” she said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican, <a href="http://www.sfnewmexican.com" type="external">http://www.sfnewmexican.com</a></p> | Woman last seen in New Mexico still missing after 35 years | false | https://abqjournal.com/1108638/woman-last-seen-in-new-mexico-still-missing-after-35-years.html | 2 |
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<p>The Alberta government is tossing around more taxpayer cash to sell their bad ideas. This time, it's $600,000 for "scientifically based" climate change education in the classroom.</p>
<p />
<p>The government has already blown through <a href="" type="internal">$9M to annoy adult Albertans</a> with endless Climate Leadership ads in a desperate and futile attempt to sell <a href="" type="internal">their carbon tax</a>, and it hasn't worked.</p>
<p>Go figure. Two thirds of Albertans still don't want the NDP tax on everything.</p>
<p>Now the government has a new plan. They're by-passing the <a href="" type="internal">grown-ups</a> to sell their carbon tax and <a href="" type="internal">scare monger</a> to a more receptive and captive audience: our children at school.</p>
<p>This isn't $600K to fund science education. Who could be against science education?</p>
<p>This is the opposite. It's ideology education.</p>
<p>It's $600,000 to create future NDP voters in spite of the wishes of Alberta parents.</p> | Notley NDP targeting kids with $600K for 'scientifically based' climate change education | true | http://therebel.media/notley_ndp_targeting_kids_with_600k_for_scientifically_based_climate_change_education | 2017-02-07 | 0 |
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<p>BERLIN — Industrial conglomerate Siemens has announced plans to cut about 6,900 jobs worldwide at its power, gas and drives divisions, half of them in Germany.</p>
<p>Munich-based Siemens said Thursday that it plans to cut the jobs “over a period of several years.” The company had said when it presented its quarterly earnings last week that profit at its power and gas unit had declined sharply and it expected “painful cuts” in that business.</p>
<p>Siemens board member Lisa Davis said that “the power generation industry is experiencing disruption of unprecedented scope and speed,” with renewable energy sources placing “increasing pressure” on other forms of electricity generation.</p>
<p>Siemens had about 372,000 employees worldwide at the end of September.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Germany’s Siemens to cut 6,900 jobs at power, drives units | false | https://abqjournal.com/1093649/germanys-siemens-to-cut-6900-jobs-at-power-drives-units.html | 2 |
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<p>Here's one for the better late than never file: Answers from the spokesman for the Delhi Metro Corporation.... &#160;For the original article on how the train tamed Delhi's rude commuters, and is starting to erase the city's rock hard class barrier, see <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/india/110518/delhi-metro-india-infrastructure-development" type="external">here</a>.</p>
<p>(Answers from the DMRC's Anuj Dayal:)</p>
<p>Q: As per your internal reviews/ any external studies, how has the Metro affected traffic flows and conjestion so far?</p>
<p>Ans: The Delhi Metro has played a major role in providing a world class public transport system to the people of Delhi. Apart from reducing traffic congestion, Delhi Metro has also tremendously helped in reducing the pollution levels in the city. In fact, according to projections made by the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) in 2009, the Delhi Metro is expected to help in removing about 1.5 lakh vehicles from the streets of the city by the end of 2011. Today we are carrying over 1.5 million passengers everyday on seven operational lines spanning over 184 kilometres. It is due to the expansion of Delhi Metro that, today people are commuting easily from Gurgaon in Haryana to NOIDA in Uttar Pradesh. We, in fact, intend to take the Metro within 500 metres of every household in the city. (table omitted)</p>
<p>Q: Everyone is amazed that the project has met its deadlines and stayed on budget. What is the secret?</p>
<p>Ans: Two very important decisions were taken before starting the construction work of Delhi Metro. The first step was that, the project was equally divided into a few parts and separate teams of engineers were allocated to execute the work. Therefore, there were separate chief project managers for each stretch and deputy chief engineers for sections within those stretches. This decision ensured that the work continued simultaneously on all the under construction corridors. In many infrastructure projects in India, work remains incomplete in some places while some other areas see better progress. In order to finish the project on time, we wanted to avoid such situations.</p>
<p>Another major step was to introduce a competent and transparent management system, which was not susceptible to red tape, so very typical of other government agencies. Rather than relying on excessive paper work, the Managing Director stressed on meeting the officers regularly and take decisions on the spot. Even today, we have a weekly meeting of all heads of the departments, where we take many major decisions. By doing so, we have succeeded to cut short the time taken by unnecessary paper work. That apart, efforts are made to ensure that the contractors are paid their dues on time so that they do not haul up work for the want of funds. Countdown clocks detailing the number of days left for the commissioning of the projects are put up at the site offices which keep reminding the employees about the requirement of executing their work on time.</p>
<p>Q: How did you create such a different work culture from other government entities?</p>
<p>Ans: A vibrant work culture is created by a committed workforce and our employees are our biggest assets. Whatever success DMRC has achieved today is all because of their continuous commitment and hard work. Therefore, we try to ensure that they are in the best possible frame of mind to work. DMRC lays a lot of importance on stress management of the employees. Therefore, every employee is trained in yoga and meditation when he joins the organization. The Human Resource department keeps organizing competency building workshops for both executives and non executives where a lot of importance is given on skill development of the employees. The employees are also regularly sent outside to participate in workshops and seminars for greater exposure. We encourage the employees to read the Bhagawad Gita regularly. It is believed within the organization that the Gita has answers to all the modern day stress related issues. It is not a religious book but a tremendous management manual.</p>
<p>Q: What have the Metro's biggest challenges so far?</p>
<p>Ans: Constructing such a humungous infrastructure in the heart of a congested city like Delhi was not easy at all. In the developed world, the transportation infrastructure like roads, Metro etc are created first and then human settlements follow. However, here it was the other way round. There were a plenty of other challenges such as carrying on with construction without causing inconvenience to the people, providing adequate road diversions so that traffic was not hampered, liaison with other agencies for getting various clearances, resisting pressures from various quarters related to the fixing of Metro alignments.</p>
<p>Q: After Phase 4, the Metro will be bigger than the London Underground, correct? What will that mean for Delhi?</p>
<p>Ans: After the completion of Phase 4 in 2021, Delhi Metro proposes to have a total network of about 420 kilometres, which will indeed be more than that of the current network of the London tube.</p>
<p>With such a massive network, we plan to take the Metro within 500 metres of each and every household of the city. Today, Delhi has more vehicles than the combined number of vehicles in the other three Metropolises of Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. A Metro network of over 400 kilometres will cut across the length and breadth of the entire national capital region and help a lot in reducing the rapid increase in private vehicles. Apart from reducing traffic congestion on the roads, the network will also help in controlling pollution and providing a comfortable air conditioned mode of travel to the people. Any infrastructural landmark also provides a boost to the economy of the area. Such a big network will mean that more areas will now become accessible due to which both industrialization and the real estate sector will get benefitted. &#160;</p> | ...And now a word from our spokesman | false | https://pri.org/stories/2011-05-24/and-now-word-our-spokesman | 2011-05-24 | 3 |
<p>JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — After a tumultuous few months that saw numerous lawmakers accused of sexual misconduct, a majority of state legislatures across the country are considering strengthening sexual harassment policies that have gone unheeded or unchanged for years.</p>
<p>A 50-state review by The Associated Press found that almost all legislative chambers now have at least some type of written sexual harassment policy, though they vary widely, and many are placing a greater emphasis on preventing and punishing sexual misconduct as they convene for their 2018 sessions.</p>
<p>This week alone, lawmakers in Arizona, Idaho, Tennessee and Rhode Island underwent detailed training about sexual harassment, some for the first time. And a Florida Senate panel voted to mandate an hour-long course.</p>
<p>Yet about a third of all legislative chambers do not require lawmakers to receive training about what constitutes sexual harassment, how to report it and what consequences it carries, the AP's review found.</p>
<p>The AP also found that only a minority of legislative bodies conduct external investigations into complaints, with most others entrusting lawmakers or staff to look into allegations against colleagues. That has contributed to a culture in some capitols in which the targets of sexual harassment have been reluctant to come forward with complaints — until recently.</p>
<p>Lawmakers around the country have said it's now time to take concrete steps to change that culture.</p>
<p>"Let's treat all women — regardless of their background, their age, their political affiliation, their role in the process — as ladies, as we would like anybody to treat our wives, our daughters, mothers, sisters," said J.D. Mesnard, the Republican who heads the Arizona state House, where lawmakers took part in mandated sexual harassment training this week.</p>
<p>A wave of sexual misconduct claims against prominent figures in entertainment, media and politics gained momentum last fall after a multitude of women made allegations against movie producer Harvey Weinstein.</p>
<p>In the past year, at least 14 legislators in 10 states have resigned from office following accusations of sexual harassment or misconduct, according to the AP's review. At least 16 others in more than a dozen states have faced other repercussions, such as the voluntary or forced removal from legislative leadership positions. Some others remain defiant in the face of ongoing investigations into sexual harassment complaints.</p>
<p>The AP found that more than three-fourths of the states have at least one legislative chamber that has updated its sexual harassment policy during the past several months, developed specific proposals to do so or undertaken a review of whether changes are needed.</p>
<p>The Arizona House had no written sexual harassment policy until November, when Mesnard issued one after a female lawmaker accused a male colleague of sexually harassing her. In the weeks that followed, several other women came forward with stories of crude behavior by state Rep. Don Shooter.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, at the start of mandatory sexual harassment training, Shooter stood before colleagues and apologized for conduct he called "jarring, insensitive and demeaning." But he denied the most serious complaint — that he tried to pressure Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita into a sexual relationship.</p>
<p>Ugenti-Rita was sitting just three rows in front of Shooter and appeared shaken at times as he spoke.</p>
<p>Shooter, a Republican, has been removed as head of the appropriations committee as an investigation into his conduct continues.</p>
<p>In Kentucky, the acting House speaker has appointed a committee to devise a formal system to address workplace complaints. That comes after former Speaker Jeff Hoover resigned his leadership post following revelations that he had paid to keep a sexual harassment settlement secret. Three other lawmakers who signed the secret settlement were removed as chairmen of various committees.</p>
<p>"If people felt like they had to be accountable and responsible for their behavior and there were strict guidelines for what they had to follow, sometimes that's all people need is a list of duties or a list of dos and don'ts," said Kentucky Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, who has been pushing for a formal House policy.</p>
<p>Legislative chambers in Alaska, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada and Ohio are among the states considering improved policies on sexual harassment — in each case as sexual harassment claims were brought to light.</p>
<p>In Washington state, more than 40 lawmakers joined scores of other women in a letter last November calling for a change in the capitol culture. They wrote it has "too often functioned to serve and support harassers' power and privilege over protection of those who work for them."</p>
<p>A Senate panel subsequently approved annual training for senators and staff, and both chambers now are reviewing their policies.</p>
<p>Among states that require sexual harassment training for lawmakers, the frequency varies greatly. Some offer it annually or every other year, while others require it only once, when a lawmaker is first elected.</p>
<p>The New Mexico House and Senate last provided sexual harassment training to lawmakers in 2004, but will hold mandatory training next week.</p>
<p>Experts say more frequent training is best, but they emphasize that its effectiveness also depends on how it is conducted.</p>
<p>Providing only generic definitions of sexual harassment or relying solely on online and video training can be unproductive, said Jennifer Drobac, a law professor at Indiana University who focuses on sexual harassment law. A better approach uses in-person training with real-life scenarios about what constitutes harassment and what to do about it, she said.</p>
<p>Debbie S. Dougherty, a communications professor at the University of Missouri who researches sexual harassment policies, recommends that such policies include more emotional language — referring to harassers as predators, for example — to emphasize the seriousness of the issue. They also should be tailored to the unique work culture of a legislature, where the people with the most influence are elected rather than hired.</p>
<p>Experts say external investigations also are important for people to feel comfortable in reporting sexual harassment allegations. Yet the AP's review found that only about a dozen House chambers and slightly more Senate chambers conduct external investigations, with several additional chambers offering it as an option.</p>
<p>Among those is the Texas House, which until December had a written policy encouraging accusers who wanted to pursue an external complaint to call a phone number that didn't work at a state commission that was defunct. The revised House policy explains the internal complaint process in greater detail, offers an external review on a situational basis and gives accusers options for filing complaints through an external agency.</p>
<p>The Missouri House updated its policies after former Speaker John Diehl Jr. resigned in 2015 while admitting to sending sexually suggestive text messages to a House intern. Among other things, the new policy requires a private attorney to be hired to investigate any sexual harassment allegations involving lawmakers.</p>
<p>House Speaker Todd Richardson said the chamber continues to review its procedures.</p>
<p>"As I said from the day we implemented that policy, it was going to be an ongoing effort to make sure that we got it right," he said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press data editor Meghan Hoyer in Washington, D.C., and AP writers Adam Beam in Frankfort, Kentucky, Bob Christie in Phoenix and Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Washington, contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow David A. Lieb at: <a href="http://twitter.com/DavidALieb" type="external">http://twitter.com/DavidALieb</a></p>
<p>JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — After a tumultuous few months that saw numerous lawmakers accused of sexual misconduct, a majority of state legislatures across the country are considering strengthening sexual harassment policies that have gone unheeded or unchanged for years.</p>
<p>A 50-state review by The Associated Press found that almost all legislative chambers now have at least some type of written sexual harassment policy, though they vary widely, and many are placing a greater emphasis on preventing and punishing sexual misconduct as they convene for their 2018 sessions.</p>
<p>This week alone, lawmakers in Arizona, Idaho, Tennessee and Rhode Island underwent detailed training about sexual harassment, some for the first time. And a Florida Senate panel voted to mandate an hour-long course.</p>
<p>Yet about a third of all legislative chambers do not require lawmakers to receive training about what constitutes sexual harassment, how to report it and what consequences it carries, the AP's review found.</p>
<p>The AP also found that only a minority of legislative bodies conduct external investigations into complaints, with most others entrusting lawmakers or staff to look into allegations against colleagues. That has contributed to a culture in some capitols in which the targets of sexual harassment have been reluctant to come forward with complaints — until recently.</p>
<p>Lawmakers around the country have said it's now time to take concrete steps to change that culture.</p>
<p>"Let's treat all women — regardless of their background, their age, their political affiliation, their role in the process — as ladies, as we would like anybody to treat our wives, our daughters, mothers, sisters," said J.D. Mesnard, the Republican who heads the Arizona state House, where lawmakers took part in mandated sexual harassment training this week.</p>
<p>A wave of sexual misconduct claims against prominent figures in entertainment, media and politics gained momentum last fall after a multitude of women made allegations against movie producer Harvey Weinstein.</p>
<p>In the past year, at least 14 legislators in 10 states have resigned from office following accusations of sexual harassment or misconduct, according to the AP's review. At least 16 others in more than a dozen states have faced other repercussions, such as the voluntary or forced removal from legislative leadership positions. Some others remain defiant in the face of ongoing investigations into sexual harassment complaints.</p>
<p>The AP found that more than three-fourths of the states have at least one legislative chamber that has updated its sexual harassment policy during the past several months, developed specific proposals to do so or undertaken a review of whether changes are needed.</p>
<p>The Arizona House had no written sexual harassment policy until November, when Mesnard issued one after a female lawmaker accused a male colleague of sexually harassing her. In the weeks that followed, several other women came forward with stories of crude behavior by state Rep. Don Shooter.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, at the start of mandatory sexual harassment training, Shooter stood before colleagues and apologized for conduct he called "jarring, insensitive and demeaning." But he denied the most serious complaint — that he tried to pressure Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita into a sexual relationship.</p>
<p>Ugenti-Rita was sitting just three rows in front of Shooter and appeared shaken at times as he spoke.</p>
<p>Shooter, a Republican, has been removed as head of the appropriations committee as an investigation into his conduct continues.</p>
<p>In Kentucky, the acting House speaker has appointed a committee to devise a formal system to address workplace complaints. That comes after former Speaker Jeff Hoover resigned his leadership post following revelations that he had paid to keep a sexual harassment settlement secret. Three other lawmakers who signed the secret settlement were removed as chairmen of various committees.</p>
<p>"If people felt like they had to be accountable and responsible for their behavior and there were strict guidelines for what they had to follow, sometimes that's all people need is a list of duties or a list of dos and don'ts," said Kentucky Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, who has been pushing for a formal House policy.</p>
<p>Legislative chambers in Alaska, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada and Ohio are among the states considering improved policies on sexual harassment — in each case as sexual harassment claims were brought to light.</p>
<p>In Washington state, more than 40 lawmakers joined scores of other women in a letter last November calling for a change in the capitol culture. They wrote it has "too often functioned to serve and support harassers' power and privilege over protection of those who work for them."</p>
<p>A Senate panel subsequently approved annual training for senators and staff, and both chambers now are reviewing their policies.</p>
<p>Among states that require sexual harassment training for lawmakers, the frequency varies greatly. Some offer it annually or every other year, while others require it only once, when a lawmaker is first elected.</p>
<p>The New Mexico House and Senate last provided sexual harassment training to lawmakers in 2004, but will hold mandatory training next week.</p>
<p>Experts say more frequent training is best, but they emphasize that its effectiveness also depends on how it is conducted.</p>
<p>Providing only generic definitions of sexual harassment or relying solely on online and video training can be unproductive, said Jennifer Drobac, a law professor at Indiana University who focuses on sexual harassment law. A better approach uses in-person training with real-life scenarios about what constitutes harassment and what to do about it, she said.</p>
<p>Debbie S. Dougherty, a communications professor at the University of Missouri who researches sexual harassment policies, recommends that such policies include more emotional language — referring to harassers as predators, for example — to emphasize the seriousness of the issue. They also should be tailored to the unique work culture of a legislature, where the people with the most influence are elected rather than hired.</p>
<p>Experts say external investigations also are important for people to feel comfortable in reporting sexual harassment allegations. Yet the AP's review found that only about a dozen House chambers and slightly more Senate chambers conduct external investigations, with several additional chambers offering it as an option.</p>
<p>Among those is the Texas House, which until December had a written policy encouraging accusers who wanted to pursue an external complaint to call a phone number that didn't work at a state commission that was defunct. The revised House policy explains the internal complaint process in greater detail, offers an external review on a situational basis and gives accusers options for filing complaints through an external agency.</p>
<p>The Missouri House updated its policies after former Speaker John Diehl Jr. resigned in 2015 while admitting to sending sexually suggestive text messages to a House intern. Among other things, the new policy requires a private attorney to be hired to investigate any sexual harassment allegations involving lawmakers.</p>
<p>House Speaker Todd Richardson said the chamber continues to review its procedures.</p>
<p>"As I said from the day we implemented that policy, it was going to be an ongoing effort to make sure that we got it right," he said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Associated Press data editor Meghan Hoyer in Washington, D.C., and AP writers Adam Beam in Frankfort, Kentucky, Bob Christie in Phoenix and Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Washington, contributed to this report.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow David A. Lieb at: <a href="http://twitter.com/DavidALieb" type="external">http://twitter.com/DavidALieb</a></p> | States tackling shortcomings in sexual misconduct policies | false | https://apnews.com/amp/6c62ed3e420f4e4092ce5f6066f1ed7b | 2018-01-11 | 2 |
<p>Ha’aretz correspondent Gideon Levy described the situation in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun in a searing article on Sunday. He proposed, half seriously, that the Israeli colonies removed last year as part of Israel’s so-called “disengagement” from Gaza should be returned because they would serve “as the last human shield for a million and a half residents who now comprise one of the most helpless populations in the world. Incarcerated, without any assistance, they are liable to starve to death. Exposed, without any protection, they fall prey to the Israel Defense Force’s operations of vengeance.”</p>
<p>How can we Americans ignore this? How can we bear it? How can we bear to continue paying for Israel’s atrocities? How can we possibly allow this inhumanity to be perpetrated in our name without crying out in horror, without bringing down our own government that sits by doling out the money and the weapons to keep this horror going, without severing altogether any ties with Israel’s Nazi government?</p>
<p>“Burying its 350 dead since the summer,” Levy goes on,</p>
<p>“Gaza threatens to become Chechnya. There are thousands of wounded, disabled and shell-shocked people in Gaza, unable to receive any treatment. Those on respirators are liable to die due to the frequent power outages since Israel bombed the power plant. Tens of thousands of children suffer from existential anxiety, while their parents are unable to provide help. They are witnesses to sights that even Gaza’s old-timers have never seen before.”</p>
<p>The horrors are unspeakable; I’m not making this up. Nor is Levy.</p>
<p>“Anyone who does not believe this can travel to Beit Hanoun, an hour from Tel Aviv. The trauma is only intensifying there, in a town that lost nearly 80 of its sons and daughters within a week [in early November]. The shadows of human beings roam the ruins. Last week, I met people there who are terrified, depressed, injured, humiliated, bereaved and bewildered. What can one say to them? That they should stop firing Qassams? But the vast majority of them are not involved in this at all. That they should return Gilad Shalit? What do they have to do with him? They only know the IDF will return and they know what this will mean for them: more imprisonment in their homes for weeks, more death and destruction in monstrous proportions, without them being guilty of a thing. In Israel’s dark southern backyard, a large-scale humanitarian tragedy is unfolding. Israel and the world, including the Arab states, are covering their eyes and the last resort, as absurd as it sounds, might be to long for the settlements. The situation is that desperate.”</p>
<p>How can we possibly allow this to go on, blithely ignoring it, blithely affirming Israel’s “right to defend itself,” ignoring the absence of any actual threat to Israel, blithely assuming that it is right and proper to murder, starve, imprison, deny medical treatment, deny water to an entire people simply because they are not Jews and are resisting Israel’s domination?</p>
<p>“Brutal and dizzy ideas compete against each other,” Levy continues, “the defense minister suggests liquidations and the agriculture minister proposes tougher action; one advocates ‘an eye for an eye,’ the second wants to ‘erase Beit Hanoun’ and the third ‘to pulverize Beit Lahiya.’ And no one pauses for a moment to think about what they are saying. What exactly does it mean to ‘erase Beit Hanoun’? What does this chilling combination of words mean? A town of 30,000 people, most of them children, whose measure of grief and suffering has long reached breaking point, unemployed and hungry, without a present and without a future, with no protection against Israel’s violent military responses, which have lost all human proportionality.</p>
<p>“Proportionality is also needed when examining the extent of suffering in the neighboring town, Sderot [the Israeli town frequently hit by Palestinian Qassam rockets]. It should be stated honestly: Sderot’s suffering, as heart-rending and difficult as it is, amounts to nothing when compared to the suffering of its neighbor. Sderot is now mourning one fatality, while Beit Hanoun is mourning nearly 80 dead. . . . Did the futile killing of the people in Beit Hanoun contribute anything to the security of Sderot’s residents? The events of the past days clearly demonstrate that the answer is no. . . .</p>
<p>“Soon Gaza will look like Darfur, but while the world is giving some sort of assistance to Darfur, it still dares to play tough with Gaza. Instead of boycotting the one who is abusing the residents of Gaza, the world is boycotting the victim, blocking assistance that it so desperately needs. Tens of thousands of workers who are not receiving their meager wages because of the boycott are the world’s gift to Gaza, while Israel is not only killing them, but also stealing their money, locking them in from all sides and not allowing them any chance to extricate themselves.”</p>
<p>How can we allow this to go on? C-SPAN is asking this week for one-minute video-taped statements, which it will begin airing on Thanksgiving, answering the question “what does being an American mean to you?” I have no video camera and no intention of submitting a tape, but the invitation got me thinking. Does being an American mean that I must sit back and quietly allow my government to starve the entire Palestinian people, in the name of some kind of dedication to a flag and a bill of rights that applies only to white people? Does it mean that I must approve, or even merely accept, the subhuman behavior of my government’s closest ally, Israel?</p>
<p>Or does being an American mean that I must do something — at least speak out, scream out — to stop the bleeding inflicted on innocents by America and Israel? And does not being an American mean that I must challenge my fellow Americans to speak out as well? Here is the challenge: any Jew anywhere who allows Israel to commit these acts and pursue these policies in the name of all Jews — for Israel does claim to act in the name of Jews everywhere — without speaking out against Israel, without screaming protests, must be ashamed. Any American who allows the United States to support Israel — to support it militarily with infusions of arms in the billions of dollars every year and to sustain it morally and psychologically — without loud protest should be ashamed. The time has come to stand up and be counted as Americans truly interested in justice and human rights and humanity.</p>
<p>Can we not match Gideon Levy’s courage in speaking the truth? Palestine is the conscience of us all.</p>
<p>KATHLEEN CHRISTISON is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Perceptions of Palestine</a> and <a href="" type="internal">The Wound of Dispossession</a>.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Massacre at Beit Hanoun | true | https://counterpunch.org/2006/11/22/the-massacre-at-beit-hanoun/ | 2006-11-22 | 4 |
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<p>NEW YORK — Federal regulators aim to maintain the ban on in-flight cellular calls.</p>
<p>The Federal Communications Commission is looking to kill an effort it started in 2013 to give airlines the option of installing on-board cellular equipment for calls and other services.</p>
<p>FCC Chairman Ajit Pai appears to have enough votes to axe that plan, which he considers “ill-conceived.” Pei says keeping the cellular ban “will be a victory for Americans across the country who, like me, value a moment of quiet at 30,000 feet.”</p>
<p>Though telecom industry groups have supported lifting the ban, polls have shown that many passengers, particularly frequent fliers, oppose allowing cellphone calls by passengers.</p>
<p>The move wouldn’t affect current rules that let passengers use their gadgets during flights, though with cellular connections turned off.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | US regulators aim to keep the ban on in-flight phone calls | false | https://abqjournal.com/987832/us-regulators-aim-to-keep-the-ban-on-in-flight-phone-calls.html | 2017-04-14 | 2 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />Did President Barack Obama find a way to vote twice in the 2012 elections? I honestly have no idea but we do have some incredible new evidence that raises serious questions. First let’s start with what we know about Barack Obama. Let’s go back to a November 6th article on <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/11/where_does_obama_vote_shouldn_t_the_president_vote_in_washington_rather.html" type="external">Slate.com</a>:</p>
<p>President Obama will be able to&#160;spend as much time campaigning on Election Day as he wants to because he&#160; <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/264105-obama-voting-early-in-ill-as-campaigns-spar-over-early-voting-advantage" type="external">voted</a>&#160;in Illinois on Oct. 25. An Explainer reader points out that the Obama family resides more than 700 miles from Chicago, at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW in Washington, D.C. Why is the president eligible to vote in Illinois?</p>
<p>Because he’s serving the people. Illinois allows anyone who has “ <a href="http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?DocName=001000050HArt.+3&amp;ActID=170&amp;ChapterID=3&amp;SeqStart=10200000&amp;SeqEnd=11000000" type="external">resided in this State</a>&#160;and in the election district 30 days” before the election to cast a vote. According to judicial interpretation, residence requires both&#160; <a href="http://www.brennancenter.org/pages/student_voting_guide_illinois" type="external">physical presence</a>&#160;and an intent to make the residence a “permanent abode.” People who own houses in different states can choose to make any of them their official residency for voter registration purposes, as long as they can plausibly argue it’s their legitimate home. That would be a close call for the Obamas, who have spent most of the past four years in Washington, D.C., where their children attend school. An article in&#160;Chicago&#160;magazine noted that a couple who moved into the house next door to the Obamas’ Chicago home in September 2011&#160; <a href="http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/April-2012/Barack-Obama-Next-Door-Neighbor/" type="external">didn’t meet the Obamas</a>&#160;until January 2012. Fortunately for the president, the Illinois voter-eligibility statute contains an exception for residents who are absent from the state “on business of the United States.”</p>
<p>This has no real significance in and of itself. Presidents choosing to vote in their home state is common. And upon checking Washington D.C. voter registration records, Barack Obama does not appear to be registered. But, guess who is registered? Barry Soetoro and he is registered with a White House address.</p>
<p>Below is a screenshot courtesy of <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/07/19/barry-soetoro-has-registered-to-vote-at-white-house-address/" type="external">PJ Media</a>.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>You can verify this completely (unless they pull the records) by going to <a href="https://www.dcboee.org/voter_info/reg_status/index.asp" type="external">The District of Columbia Board of Elections.</a>&#160;You will need a first name, last name, birthdate and zip code. Barack Obama’s birthdate is August 4, 1961 which is also the date that Soetoro used to register. The zip code to use is 20500.</p>
<p>If you use the same info for both Barry Soetoro and Barack Obama you will find that Soetoro is a registered Washington D.C. voter and Barack Obama is not.</p>
<p>So the obvious question is the significance. Did someone find a way to register Barry Soetoro knowing that it would eventually come out and make Obama look bad?</p>
<p>Or is it possible that our President is so arrogant that he actually registered and may have voted twice?</p>
<p>If Barack Obama voted twice or even registered twice I would say it might qualify as a scandal for the ages. Get this in the face of as many people as possible. The more this info gets out, the more chance we have of it falling into the hands of someone who can run with this story and get the truth.</p>
<p>My gut feeling is that Barack Obama is arrogant enough that he might have actually tried to pull this off. We all know that voter fraud controversies are not foreign to him. But would he actually be so stupid as to try to vote twice? I don’t know.</p>
<p>I actually slept on this one because I wanted to make sure I really believed it. Why would anyone be that stupid? Well we have no proof that Obama went there but we do know he has a big ego.</p>
<p>People with large egos do things just to see if they can sometimes. It’s like a god-complex. They feel like they write the rules.</p>
<p>For this reason I am not positive that it was not Barack Obama trying to register twice. Yes, it could have been someone who was having fun or looking to do damage. And it also could have been Obama trying to see if he could get by with it.</p>
<p>A voter registration card was likely sent to the White House. Whoever was in receipt of that card did nothing to fix a fraudulent registration if that’s what it is.</p>
<p>For whatever reason the system didn’t not throw a red flag on this registration. With today’s technology I would think that if someone tries to register to vote with a White House address it might at least throw up an alert.</p>
<p>I am not going to get to the truth this morning but we have enough information to raise a serious question.</p>
<p>Even if he did not vote twice and we can prove that he was knowingly registered twice you will have one of the greatest presidential scandals of all time and that’s a fact.</p>
<p>Hold on folks it is liable to get stranger with this POS.</p>
<p />
<p /> | BOMBSHELL… Barry Soetoro is Registered to Vote in Washington D.C. and Barack Obama Still Votes in Illinois | true | http://dcclothesline.com/2013/07/20/bombshell-barry-soetoro-is-registered-to-vote-in-washington-d-c-and-barack-obama-still-votes-in-illinois/?fb_source%3Dpubv1 | 2013-07-20 | 0 |
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<p>From left, Bill Murray, Dimitri Leonidas, George Clooney and Bob Balaban star in "The Monuments Men."</p>
<p>It's the "Nerdy Dozen."</p>
<p>Well, half-dozen plus one, to be exact, but George Clooney directs himself and his six main co-stars in "The Monuments Men" as if he had watched "The Dirty Dozen" on a continuous loop for a week before rolling the cameras on this engaging, shamelessly corny and entertaining World War II adventure inspired by true events.</p>
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<p>Even though there's some PG-13 violence and bloodshed, and a few chilling reminders of Hitler's reign of terror and the soul-curdling goals of the Nazis, this is still one of the most old-fashioned and at times almost breezy WWII films in recent memory.</p>
<p>Co-writer/director/star Clooney tells the admittedly fascinating and mostly forgotten story of an unlikely band of middle-aged art curators given the seemingly impossible task of recovering literally thousands of pieces of stolen art from the Nazis. It's presented as "the greatest treasure hunt of all time," with Clooney embellishing some details while creating an "Oceans 11"-type caper with a heavy layering of unabashed sentimentality.</p>
<p />
<p>The adventure begins deep into the war, when Clooney's Frank Stokes convinces FDR to send a group of young art experts to Europe to retrieve paintings, murals, sculptures and other irreplaceable treasures from the Nazis and return them to their rightful owners, whether those owners be churches, museums or private collectors.</p>
<p>When FDR points out all the young art scholars are already over there fighting, the task is left to Frank and a half-dozen of his personally recruited pals - who range in age from about 40 to bona fide grandpa status - to don uniforms, undergo something resembling basic training and get to work.</p>
<p>Playing characters inspired by real-life figures (with the names changed), we have Matt Damon as James Granger from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; John Goodman as sculptor Walter Garfield, who is stunned to learn those weren't blanks flying over his head in basic training; Bill Murray as droll architect Richard Campbell; and the constantly fuming Bob Balaban as Richard's comic foil, Preston Savitz. Hugh Bonneville from "Downton Abbey" joins the team as the Brit Donald Jeffries, an alcoholic hoping this mission will be his redemption; Jean Dujardin is the ever-optimistic French soldier Jean Claude Clermont; and Cate Blanchett is the mysterious Frenchwoman Claire Simone, who knows where some of the greatest treasures are buried, but has been so battered by the war experience she doesn't trust anyone.</p>
<p>Quite a cast there, and everyone has a scene or two to shine. There's at least one too many scenes of the Monuments Men just getting lucky, and two too many scenes in which a character arrives on to find a manipulatively heart-tugging symbol waiting for him.</p>
<p>Clooney knows he's facing an uphill struggle. He knows today's moviegoer is going to learn the plot and think: Even the most precious artwork isn't worth the lives of American soldiers.</p>
<p>Everyone in the cast is wonderful, though the great Cate Blanchett doesn't seem fully committed to her French accent and seems almost embarrassed to be reciting some of her cheesier lines. This is a solid albeit slow-building film with few dull moments.</p>
<p /> | Entertaining & adventurous: An all-star cast takes part in a 'treasure hunt' during WWII | false | https://abqjournal.com/349119/entertaining-adventurous-an-all-star-cast-takes-part-in-a-treasure-hunt-during-wwii.html | 2 |
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<p>Republican presidential candidate and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/bobby-jindal-wants-all-to-pay-some-income-tax-1444172400" type="external">release a tax plan</a> on Wednesday that would eliminate corporate taxes while hiking them on the lowest-income Americans, making his proposal the most extreme to be released by a 2016 candidate thus far.</p>
<p>His proposal would completely eliminate corporate taxes. That goes much further than other candidates, who have all so far <a href="" type="internal">proposed</a> simply lowering the corporate tax rate. It’s currently 35 percent on paper, although corporations already use a variety of loopholes, breaks, and accounting mechanisms to pay an effective rate <a href="" type="internal">under 20 percent</a>.</p>
<p>He would also eliminate the estate tax, something proposed by other candidates, which is only paid by the <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&amp;id=2655" type="external">richest 0.14 percent</a> of Americans. Yet it is still a very <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/research/ten-facts-you-should-know-about-the-federal-estate-tax?fa=view&amp;id=2655" type="external">progressive and significant</a> source of government revenue, since it would generate $246 billion over the next decade from those who can most afford to pay it.</p>
<p>At the same time, a big goal of Jindal’s tax plan is ensuring that all citizens pay at least some federal income tax. About <a href="http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/2015/10/06/new-estimates-of-how-many-households-pay-no-federal-income-tax/" type="external">45 percent</a> of Americans owe no income tax — although they still often pay payroll taxes to Social Security and Medicare and will also pay state and local sales taxes — and about half of those households simply don’t make enough money. The others usually qualify for credits and deductions that bring their tax burdens down to zero. While Jindal would keep the Earned Income Tax Credit, a key way many low-income households end up owing no taxes, it’s unclear if they would still have to pay.</p>
<p>“We simply must require that every American has some skin in this game,” Jindal said of his plan <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/bobby-jindal-wants-all-to-pay-some-income-tax-1444172400" type="external">in a statement</a> to the Wall Street Journal. “If we have generations of Americans who never pay any taxes, it will be very easy for them to turn a blind eye to absurd government spending and to continue to allow our government to bankrupt our nation.”</p>
<p>That part of his plan also differs sharply from those released by other candidates. While both plans from <a href="" type="internal">Jeb Bush</a> and <a href="" type="internal">Donald Trump</a> would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, they still include proposals that would actually increase the number of Americans who don’t owe income tax.</p> | Bobby Jindal’s New Tax Plan Is A Right-Wing Nightmare | true | http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/10/07/3710071/jindal-tax-plan/ | 2015-10-07 | 4 |
<p>Two years ago, PJ Crowley resigned as State Department spokesman after criticizing the way Army Private Bradley Manning was being treated while in detention.</p>
<p>Today Manning, a 25-year-old former intelligence analyst was acquitted of the most serious charge against him – but he was convicted of most of the others.</p>
<p>Crowley calls the decision "the right verdict" for Manning.</p>
<p>"He obviously will send a considerable length of time in prison. But I thought the charge of aiding the enemy was prosecutorial overreach and it was appropirate for the judge to reject it," Crowley says.</p> | Former State Department Spokesman: 'Manning Acquittal of Aiding the Enemy Right Verdict' | false | https://pri.org/stories/2013-07-30/former-state-department-spokesman-manning-acquittal-aiding-enemy-right-verdict | 2013-07-30 | 3 |
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<p>BERLIN — Germany’s national minimum wage is to rise by 4 percent in January, the first increase in the base pay level that was introduced at the insistence of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-left coalition partners.</p>
<p>Merkel’s Cabinet approved Wednesday lifting the minimum wage to 8.84 euros ($9.62) per hour effective Jan. 1. It’s stood at 8.50 euros since it was introduced in January 2015.</p>
<p>The increase was recommended by a committee that will review the minimum wage every two years. It considers, among other factors, the results of industrial pay negotiations.</p>
<p>Germany was long one of few major Western industrial nations with no government-mandated national minimum wage. Merkel’s conservatives opposed it but the center-left Social Democrats insisted on it as part of the price for entering her government after a 2013 election.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Germany approves 4 percent rise in national minimum wage | false | https://abqjournal.com/875162/germany-approves-4-percent-rise-in-national-minimum-wage.html | 2 |
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<p>NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City pizzeria is rolling out a specialty pizza dish created in response to the dangerous internet trend of people eating laundry detergent pods.</p>
<p>The “Tide Pods challenge” is an internet trend showing people putting small laundry detergent pods in their mouths and posting videos eating them, often resulting in hospitalizations. Brooklyn’s Vinnie’s Pizzeria is offering a safer alternative with the pizzeria’s new “Pied Pods.”</p>
<p>The Pied Pods are rolls stuffed with cheese and pepperoni and topped with dyed cheese made to look like a detergent pod.</p>
<p>The pizzeria said the Pied Pods have the “bright, alluring colors that youths crave,” but are not poison.</p>
<p>Proctor and Gamble, which owns Tide, recently launched a campaign to warn people away from eating detergent pods.</p>
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City pizzeria is rolling out a specialty pizza dish created in response to the dangerous internet trend of people eating laundry detergent pods.</p>
<p>The “Tide Pods challenge” is an internet trend showing people putting small laundry detergent pods in their mouths and posting videos eating them, often resulting in hospitalizations. Brooklyn’s Vinnie’s Pizzeria is offering a safer alternative with the pizzeria’s new “Pied Pods.”</p>
<p>The Pied Pods are rolls stuffed with cheese and pepperoni and topped with dyed cheese made to look like a detergent pod.</p>
<p>The pizzeria said the Pied Pods have the “bright, alluring colors that youths crave,” but are not poison.</p>
<p>Proctor and Gamble, which owns Tide, recently launched a campaign to warn people away from eating detergent pods.</p> | Brooklyn pizzeria parodies laundry pod trend with new pizza | false | https://apnews.com/ed863295c63b4744ba4b3c8f75f66ce9 | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
<p />
<p>Investing can often seem more complicated than it needs to be. With a financial services industry worth billions of dollars, that may be by design, but investors new and old can find success with a few basic rules. The most important of those is compound interest. Thanks to this simple piece of math, returns will accelerate over time as your holdings increase in value.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Beginning investors should be bear in mind that even experts can't beat the market consistently. After all, the market is endlessly complex, with thousands of stock prices, moving every second. There's more information than any single investor can take in, but while the market is complex, making money doesn't have to be.</p>
<p>The fact that it's so hard to beat the market should give solace to investors satisfied to make average returns the easy way. Here are three simple strategies that even the newest investor can learn to build savings for a happy retirement.</p>
<p>There's no need to pick individual stock when index funds are available. Index funds offer an easy way to invest your money into the market by allocating it into an exchange-traded fund that tracks theS&amp;P 500or another index for a low annual fee. For investors looking to get into stocks, and you should be, considering the historical average annual return is near 10%, this is one of the safest ways to do it.</p>
<p>Among the index funds worth considering are theVanguard 500 Index Fund, which is the lowest-cost index fund, with an expense ratio of just 0.05% -- in other words, an annual fee of just $0.05 per $100 invested.Those with more than $10,000 to invest may want to choose the Vanguard 500 Index Fund Admiral Class , which unlike the above index fund does not require transaction fees to buy shares. If you're planning to add money to your fund regularly, this may be a better option.</p>
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<p>For an index fund of small-cap stocks, you could choose theVanguard Russell 2000 Index Fund, which has an expense ratio of just 0.08%.</p>
<p>Even the great oracle Warren Buffett recommends that 90% of his estate be put in a low-cost S&amp;P 500 index fund.</p>
<p>Dividends should be a part of any investor's long-term strategy. Not only have dividend stocks been shown to outperform non-dividend payers, but the income can give you extra spending money or even better, accelerate your returns through a dividend reinvestment plan (Drip).Hundreds of stocks allow shareholders to enroll in DRIP plans directly, and for the ones that don't, most major brokerages will set you up to reinvest dividend income. Once enrolled, the process is entirely automated, requiring basically no attention.</p>
<p>How powerful is dividend reinvesting? Over the last ten years, the S&amp;P's annualized total return is just 4.9%, but with dividends reinvested its 7.1%. Over the 10-year span, reinvesting dividends would increase your return 61.3% to 98.1%.</p>
<p>Over the last 20 years, the difference in total gains is 214% vs. 351%, and that's with the S&amp;P 500, which pays a modest dividend yield of just 2% now. With high dividend stocks, the difference is much greater.</p>
<p>What could be a simpler investing strategy than buying a stock and holding it for most of the rest of your life? Buying and holding is a favorite investing technique of Buffett and plenty of other investing gurus. Not only is the strategy a simple one, but it is also productive. Holding stocks for a longer period of time helps counteract volatility and prevents panic selling. For example, from 1926-2011, the one-year return on the S&amp;P 500 ranged from -43% to 64%, but a 20-year annualized return over the same period was between 3.1% and 17.9%. While the midpoint of the two is roughly the same, the risk is much is lower in the 20-year return. In fact, there has been no point in the last 90 years at least when holding stocks did not generate a positive return. Market timing, the opposite of buy and hold, could lead to outsize returns but also steep losses.</p>
<p>Another benefit of buy-and-hold investing is that it acts like a tax shelter. If you're investing outside of a retirement account like a 401 (k) or an IRA, you'll get hit with a capital gains tax every time you sell and an even stiffer tax if your holding period is less than a year. Similarly, by avoiding frequent trading, you also escape the brokerage fees and commissions that come with trading stocks.</p>
<p>For dividend investors, the strategy provides an added benefit for growing dividend stocks -- the yield improves every time the dividend goes up since your actual yield is determined by your cost basis.</p>
<p>For the ultimate simple investing strategy, consider combing the three tactics above. It's easy to build your nest egg by keeping your money in an index fund for the long term and reinvesting the dividends. Thanks to the magic of compound interest, investing just $5,000 a year will turn into $1 million after 30 years, assuming a 10% annual return. That's the power of simple investing.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/05/31/3-simple-investing-strategies-for-a-happy-retireme.aspx" type="external">3 Simple Investing Strategies for a Happy Retirement Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFHobo/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Jeremy Bowman Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | 3 Simple Investing Strategies for a Happy Retirement | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/05/31/3-simple-investing-strategies-for-happy-retirement.html | 2016-05-31 | 0 |
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